Home » Discussion Forums » Blog Post Discussion » Important If Muted News
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| Re: Important If Muted News [message #48690 is a reply to message #48689 ] |
Mon, 05 March 2012 22:30   |
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 HorsehairBraider
Messages: 161
Registered: August 2009
Location: New Mexico |
Senior Member |
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 Well, perhaps instead of *shouting* at your computer, you could write it letters.
"Dear computer, YES, I REALIZE that is where my bookmarks are, why do you think I am pushing on the ******* key? For exercise? And let's just have a little chat about updates, shall we? I know this is astonishing to you, but the reason I bought you is SO I CAN GET SOME ******* WORK DONE. So NO, I do NOT want you to shut down now. Got it? And don't give me any more of your smarmy lip when I am doing a search, and spell a word wrong. JUST FIND IT. Remember, I know where the plug is... and the power switch. I am the owner, and you are the ownee - got it? GOT IT??"
**I'M SORRY ROBIN. I'M AFRAID I CAN'T DO THAT.**
**ROBIN. WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING, ROBIN.**
**LOOK ROBIN. I CAN SEE YOU'RE REALLY UPSET ABOUT THIS. I THINK YOU OUGHT TO SIT DOWN CALMLY, TAKE A STRESS PILL, AND THINK THINGS OVER.**
**I'M AFRAID. I'M AFRAID, ROBIN.**
**DAISY, D A I S Y...**
[Updated on: Tue, 06 March 2012 10:30]
They say princes learn no art truly, save that of horsemanship. The reason is, the brave beast is no flatterer. He will throw a prince as soon as his groom. Ben Jonson
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| Re: Important If Muted News [message #48692 is a reply to message #48689 ] |
Tue, 06 March 2012 00:23 |
sixpence
Messages: 49
Registered: August 2009 |
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Perhaps the HellGoddess could sing at her computer - something from the Ride of the Valkeries perhaps.
sixpence
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| Re: Important If Muted News [message #48696 is a reply to message #48689 ] |
Tue, 06 March 2012 03:59 |
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Kathy_S
Messages: 313
Registered: October 2008
Location: Indiana |
Senior Member |
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| Quote: |
By struggling through the sheet music yourself? I admit I don’t know what ordinary, non-sight-singing people who can’t pick out a melody line on the piano do, but that was the technology for a lot of years.
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I strongly suspect that sheet music is newfangled technology compared to learning by ear! At any rate, those of us for whom sheet music and the corresponding note names fail to evoke actual sounds can:
A. Try finding someone willing to sing or play the music until it's thoroughly absorbed.
B. Stand next to someone who knows what what they're doing until it sinks in.
C. Listen to recordings, which are generally more patient than humans, or
D. some combination of the above
(OK, I can read music enough to play tunes with the right 9 notes on my trusty imitation Highland pipes, but since A on the pipes is apparently closer to B flat, and most days only about 3 of those notes are in my range anyhow, that's not much help. Fortunately, you are spared my voice by several thousand miles.)
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| Re: Important If Muted News [message #48698 is a reply to message #48689 ] |
Tue, 06 March 2012 07:17 |
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Black Bear
Messages: 3216
Registered: September 2008
Location: Indianapolis, IN USA |
Senior Member
[Moderator] |
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Erm. By struggling through the sheet music yourself? I admit I don’t know what ordinary, non-sight-singing people who can’t pick out a melody line on the piano do, but that was the technology for a lot of years.
I can't sight-read sheet music at all. The only time I even encounter music on a page is at Passover when we get to the songs in the Haggadah, and I've learned those by listening to other people over the years. This is what I meant by "not singing in a real capacity"--I think a lot of us (Kathy_S and myself included) learned to "sing" as kids by having the notes lined for us on a piano by a school music teacher, and never moved past that. So if we do sing, it's imitative or nothing.
When I briefly sang with the women's barbershop choir here in Indy, they had sheet music--but they emphatically told me that you don't have to read music to sing with them, and that they all take home recordings to listen to in the car and elsewhere to get their parts in their heads. They may have just been trying to reassure me because they needed another bass.  I'm sure this isn't true of more traditional choirs.
But Nadia’s point—and I might guess that it’s different for an orchestra made up of a lot of different instruments than for a solo singer where every tiny individual interpretive choice is manifest§§—is that you will pick up performance with the music.
Yes, I'd agree with her--but just as you first learn to sing by hearing others sing, why would you not learn how to perform by watching others perform? I take her point about not wanting to correct multiple layers of mistakes, I'd not really thought about it that way! I guess I'd have said the answer was to not focus on one particular performer's version of a song, but listen to/watch multiple versions and see what bits of interpretation you'd want to pick up and remake in your own image. I *think* I was encouraged to do this during my very brief flirtation with solo viola pieces, but I've blocked most of that out...
"The time is always right to do what's right."--MLK Jr.
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| Re: Important If Muted News [message #48699 is a reply to message #48694 ] |
Tue, 06 March 2012 08:30 |
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blondviolinist
Messages: 1068
Registered: October 2008
Location: Midwestern United States |
Senior Member |
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| Stephanie wrote on Tue, 06 March 2012 01:01 |
Howling with laughter. Sorry.
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Me, too.
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Perhaps you could just whisper very angrily...
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My singer friends inform me that whispering is actually very hard on your voice. You know when you have a bad cold and can't actually speak, but can whisper? If you are around a singer (though you shouldn't be... they don't want to be near you if you have anything catching) they will read you the riot act if you try to whisper in their presence.
| Robin wrote |
But Nadia’s point—and I might guess that it’s different for an orchestra made up of a lot of different instruments than for a solo singer where every tiny individual interpretive choice is manifest§§—is that you will pick up performance with the music.
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I always encourage my students to listen to or watch other instrumentalists, but I think voice may be different, because your instrument is inside your body instead of outside your body.
One of my friends who teaches string orchestra in the public schools carefully avoids watching any conductors whose technique she doesn't like. She says that when she watches a conductor she unconsciously absorbs their style of conducting into her own, whether or not she wants to.
[Updated on: Tue, 06 March 2012 08:30]
"Purity of heart is to will one thing." Kirkegaard
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| Q [message #48702 is a reply to message #48689 ] |
Tue, 06 March 2012 12:39 |
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L.R.K.
Messages: 1080
Registered: October 2008
Location: Sweden |
Senior Member |
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Well, there is always the silent movie approach... thrust your fists up to heaven (or well, the ceiling), mouth silently, pretend to rip your hair - throw yourself dramatically on your desk... that sort of thing.
ETA - you could even have text cards with things like:
"Why, oh why is this happening to me?!"
"Curses! Oh, curses!"
and (my favourite line from Madagascar):
"Darn you - darn you all to heck!"
[Updated on: Tue, 06 March 2012 12:43]
Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean, like butter that has been scraped over too much bread.
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 Re: Important If Muted News [message #48708 is a reply to message #48689 ] |
Tue, 06 March 2012 20:41 |
dorotheia
Messages: 8
Registered: February 2012
Location: Silicon Valley, Californi... |
Junior Member |
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I think this singing philosophy is really interesting.
My experience is: I sing in church every week; I've been in a choir only twice. It was a gospel choir. (It was free to the community.) That was an eye-opening experience, although free-for-all repetition is not my thing.
I can read sheet music only because of my piano: plunking it out and "feeling" for the music. If I don't recognize the melody, then I have a lot more difficulty feeling around for the song, because it either clicks into place or it doesn't. (I had loads of guitar lessons plucking the exact same song because I couldn't place it; I quit.) I don't associate the notes with the voice, so I learned all my singing songs by listening to others sing them. So, like Nadia seems to fear, when I listen on a song, I tend to I absorb everything and focus on sounding just like the singer I heard it from. This annoys me because cover songs copy a bit, but then change in some unforgivable way, like forgetting a crucial emphasis (unless they're genuinely better).
Lately I've been learning Japanese songs—anime openings and closings. When I like them, I find the lyrics, translate them, and sing the Japanese version. (This helps me do three things I love: learn Japanese, play piano, and sing.) Then I play it on the piano. I have no sheet music, so my head has to supply it (I have is bold, italic, underline, and words to help me remember the way) ... I've gotten good enough at the piano to play whatever I want, if I don't care that a few of the notes are off because I jumped to the wrong place in the heat of the moment. I could fix that if I had the patience to actually write down the sheet music. Nadia would probably be appalled at my procedure, I'm guessing... But then, I don't want to make my own way; reproducing someone else's emotion is just fine with me... I can make the sounds, but my own imagination for what songs could sound like is pretty limited: I have a few basic melodies, and parodies, which I use to 'fence' with my brother. So color me amateur, I guess.
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| Re: Q [message #48715 is a reply to message #48702 ] |
Wed, 07 March 2012 01:32 |
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danceswithpahis
Messages: 380
Registered: October 2008 |
Senior Member |
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| L.R.K. wrote on Tue, 06 March 2012 12:39 |
Well, there is always the silent movie approach... thrust your fists up to heaven (or well, the ceiling), mouth silently, pretend to rip your hair - throw yourself dramatically on your desk... that sort of thing.
ETA - you could even have text cards with things like:
"Why, oh why is this happening to me?!"
"Curses! Oh, curses!"
and (my favourite line from Madagascar):
"Darn you - darn you all to heck!"
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My best friend's line is, "Darn you! Darn you straight to socks!"
On another note, I want to know what you can to to mitigate the effects on your voice of talking on the phone. I work at a call center. I'm on the phone all #*%! day. It means that if I get any kind of sore throat/cough, I keep it for about a month or two longer than I used to, and I can't sing nearly as much as I used to. I had all sorts of visions of negative consequences from a call center job, but this was not one I had imagined.
"Oh good! My dog found the chainsaw!"
-- Lilo ("Lilo and Stitch")
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| Re: Q [message #48720 is a reply to message #48715 ] |
Wed, 07 March 2012 09:48 |
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Maren
Messages: 1331
Registered: October 2008
Location: Louisiana |
Senior Member
[Moderator] |
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| danceswithpahis wrote on Wed, 07 March 2012 01:32 |
On another note, I want to know what you can to to mitigate the effects on your voice of talking on the phone. I work at a call center. I'm on the phone all #*%! day. It means that if I get any kind of sore throat/cough, I keep it for about a month or two longer than I used to, and I can't sing nearly as much as I used to. I had all sorts of visions of negative consequences from a call center job, but this was not one I had imagined.
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I drink this when I have a sore throat, and I think it helps. If you hover your cursor over Brewing Suggestions, it says that people who sing or speak a lot should have 1-2 cups daily. I can only find it at the health food store locally, but most large grocery stores should have it I think. The box that I have now actually says Honey Lemon Throat Comfort--I think they modified it a bit because some people found the taste strange, but I liked it.
Actually, honey and lemon added to any type of tea or even just warm water should help. There's also Throat Coat which I haven't tried, but the ingredients are very similar to Throat Comfort.
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