Wednesday, October 1

MOVEMENT
We were told really early on in the semester by both our movement and voice professors that we are no longer allowed to do sit-ups or crunches. Apparently, those exercises strengthen muscles that we're trying to learn how to release in order to have better vocal production and freer movement.

Today we started attempting to learn a new thing called "psoas sit-ups". Do you know where your psoas muscles (pronounced like "SO-az") muscles are?



Don't try to touch it with your hands, because it's not possible. They're inside your body. Basically, they start in the front of your body near your groin, and extend to the "floating" ribs (the lowest ribs at the back of your rib cage... the ribs that don't extend to the front). Trying to use those muscles that you never knew you had? REALLY HARD. I can't feel them at all. And my professor wants us to relax our rectus abdominus, which I'm pretty sure is impossible.

Today we were trying to learn HALF of the psoas sit-up. Just the roll-down part. This is how it works: You lie on the floor on your back, with your feet on the ground and your knees pointed toward the ceiling. Then you do the first part of a sit-up, so that your upper-body is up by your knees. You put your hands on your stomach and begin to sort of jiggle your stomach in an effort to not let your abs engage. And then, while doing that, you try to lay back down, only using your soaz muscles. I can't move 6 inches towards the floor without my abs kicking in. I don't know how I'm going to learn this. *sigh*


VOICE
We're trying to improve our "final z" sounds in pluralized words. This is hard for me, as I have a tendency to use "s" sounds when "z" sounds are appropriate. Think you know the difference? Say these words aloud and see which final consonants you think are "z" and which are "s":

1. boys
2. asks
3. owns
4. caps
5. pushes
6. fits
7. cries
8. laughs
9. oils
10. hunts
11. ices
12. bats

Did you do it? The correct answers are as follows: All the odd numbers are "z" and the even numbers are "s". Apparently, plurals should only sound like an "s" when the final sound of the word is a consonant (not a vowel) that is not sibilant ("s", "z", "sh", "zh", "ch", and "j") and not voiced (non-sibilant voiced = "v", "g", "b", and "d"). That means the sounds "f", "k", "p", and "t".

I use "s" sounds where I shouldn't. See all the examples above? I use "s" for all of them right now (or, in the case of "cries", it's sort of an "s/z" blend, which is also incorrect). Lots of work ahead!


VOICE TUTORIAL
Killer and I finally had our meeting with our voice professor on our overly-sibilant "s" sounds. With most people, over-sibilance is caused by having a tongue that is too flat in the mouth, but that doesn't seem to be my problem. I put my tongue too far back on my alveolar ridge (the ridge in the roof of your mouth). So my tongue is closer to where you make the "sh" sound than the "t" or "n" sound (which is where it's supposed to be). Also, I put way too much breath behind my "s" sounds, and make them too long. The effect? My "s" sounds turn out really hissy, like a snake.* Our professor gave us some lists of words with "s" and "z" sounds at the beginnings, middles, and ends of words so that we can practice on our own. It's a long road ahead, but gosh darn it, we're going to make it!

*(Confession: part of me sort of thinks this is awesome. Maybe I could talk to snakes in Parseltongue like in Harry Potter. But I'll correct it, because I'd rather be an actor than a Slytherin witch.) < /geekdom >

ACTING
The rest of us did our memory of physical action exercises.

Iceman: cleaning up a broken bottle
Me: making a peanut butter and banana sandwich
Two-Shots-Up: doing laundry by hand
The Pro: preparing for a dinner party
D-Train: preparing to grill
Thrill: lifting weights

People gave me a lot of really great criticism that I'm excited to work on. Some things were little, like that I unscrewed the cap of the milk jug in the wrong direction. Some were big, like that my imaginary plate changed heights frequently. We get to all do our exercises for one last trial run tomorrow, and then our exam performance is Friday.

MUSICAL THEATRE TUTORIAL
The 1st and 2nd years have a musical theatre workshop later in the year with this really awesome music director from New York, and we all have to choose songs and get to work on them before he gets down here. We have 2 half-hour lessons before then. Most people seem to use their first lesson to decide on a song (a lot of us have gone in with multiple song options), and the second to really learn how the accompaniment and the vocal part work together.

I went in with like a thousand songs, because I really didn't know what to go for. Randy (who is coaching us before the workshop) called me something today that no one has ever, EVER called me: a soprano.

I have only ever sung Alto II in choirs. I have a good low-range (I can sing down to the F below middle C without being warmed up. Warmed up, I can usually hit the C. I have, in the past, hit the A below that), so that's where I always get placed. Besides, I'm a good musician, so having me on harmonies works out fine. But Randy says I have a three-octave range. He says I should change my résumé to say mezzo-soprano, because it reflects better potential than the label "alto". Awesome.

I ended up singing parts of 6 songs for him (which seems excessive, but he wanted to try them all). We've narrowed it down to three, and he says any of them would work out well.

- "Stranger to the Rain" from Children of Eden (which I think I'm leaning towards at the moment)
- "One Hundred Easy Ways (to Lose a Man)" from Wonderful Town
- "Here I Am" from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

If you have any opinions on these, feel free to vote in the poll underneath the music player, and leave other notes in the comments section.


Now I'm off to read A Doll House, do some tremoring, practice my "s" sounds, and try to find my psoas muscles. Ciao!

~A~