Yeah, I used to do that

Today's pointless photo is not, in fact, pointless. Weird mood, I guess.

A friend of mine decided a while ago to start taking piano lessons again. She already plays, but she wanted to sharpen her skills a bit. We were talking the other day as we were stuffing envelopes (remember paper cut day a couple of posts ago?), and she mentioned that she was thinking of maybe doing a Broadway piece next. I have a bunch of that stuff around from when I used to teach singing, so I told her I'd have a look and see if any of the arrangements suited piano without vocalist.

I've barely started going through music yet, but inevitably it's reminded me a lot of past performances. Performances of some of my students, yes, but mostly my own. I've moved away from it at the moment, but I used to perform quite a bit; both as a child and an adult. I was in choirs and competitions when I was a kid, and later went back to competing as an adult. Don't get me wrong -- this wasn't the big time. Small town stuff, not the Met. Still, when you become known as a singer in a small town, you tend to get asked to do a fair number of events. So, in the spirit of we haven't had a link-filled post for a while and courtesy of what I could find on YouKnow here's a few of the things I've warbled for pay. And, of course, not-pay, which is far more frequent. None of these clips are of me, naturally, but if any of my two fans actually want to get a handle on what I might sound like (and if so, why?), I'll tell you that I'm a lyric mezzo. Oh, and while I'm definitely no Ella Fitzgerald, I'm also not one of those people who sounds like an opera singer when she sings jazz. It's not too hard for me to drop the training (so to speak) if I want to. Ok, here goes:

Oiseaux, si tous les ans. Not too much to say about this one, except that Mozart's art songs are more singable than people usually expect them to be. This is a nice little concert piece.

Willow 'tit-Willow. One of the choirs I belonged to as a kid occasionally put on Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. These were somewhat abridged versions for kids, but most of the music was still there. Sadly, the shortage of boys in choirs being what it often is, I ended up playing a male character every single time. The one time I was supposed to have a female role (Ruth, in Pirates of Penzance) we had to cancel that year's performance. Figures. Anyway, in the Mikado I was playing KoKo the Lord High Executioner, and sang the song you see here. We ended up performing this as part of a youth drama festival at one point, and after we were done I hurried backstage to change and take off my make-up so I could watch the next group. As I sat down the woman next to me turned and stared rather rudely. I thought maybe I'd missed some of the make-up or something, when I heard her turn to her companion and say, "my god. It was a girl." Yay for my acting skills, I guess, but kind of depressing for a teenager's low self-esteem. I should add at this point that I'm pretty short and by no stretch of anyone's imagination look much like a boy...

The Saga of Jenny. Man, this is a fun song to perform. I'm linking to Gertrude Lawrence here because she originated the part on Broadway, but I sing it a little lower so I don't sound too shrieky.

Ständchen. A nice bit of Schubert, and obviously pretty well known so I don't need to add my two cents about it. It's what's pictured in today's not-pointless photo, by the way. And if you happen to click on the photo and notice some weird handwriting, that's my scribble and my IPA transcription, yep. I don't have even the slightest bit of German, so I tend to need the help. And yes, smarty pants here did take a linguistics course in university and can really read that odd-looking script. Or could. I probably could stand a review at this point.

I'm Beginning to See the Light. A couple of years after I finished my degree I got a call from my old singing teacher, who needed some help with (read: was looking for someone to take over, but I didn't know that at the time) her choir. She also got me back into solo work, and somehow or other managed to talk me into a return to the local music festival I'd grown up competing in. The festival had recently decided to adopt the Provincial music syllabus to make it easier for local winners to go on to Provincials if they wanted to, and that meant that there were way more competition categories than there used to be. I took advantage of it and sang jazz instead of classical. Complete with a partial verse of scat, I might add, which was something when you consider that no one had ever sung jazz at that festival before. From my vantage point on stage that night, it was kind of funny. There were my mother and one of my former accompanists looking like they were really enjoying it, the adjudicator and secretary looking as happy as their positions allowed them, and the rest of the audience... looking confused. What? This isn't Brahms. This isn't a hymn. What on earth is this music doing here?

I won, by the way. First time I'd ever won a solo competition. Thanks, Duke.

And finally, by way of celebrating the season:

Rise Up, Shepherd, and Follow. Sort of an odd thing to link to the King's Singers here since the arrangement I use is much more loose and jazzy, but whatever. It gives you the tune if nothing else.

Anyway. There you have it. And if you're looking for a singer for your next Christmas party, call my non-existent agent... who would tell you that I'm still doing my best to lay off the singing at the moment until my throat can recover from the world's longest cold (seriously. It's been nearly a month now, and that's how it's been for everyone else around here as well. At least I know it's not just me, I guess).

Next week maybe we'll talk carols, if I can mange that without becoming too much of a nerd. Honestly, I'm weird about carols.





Of course, it's not like I'm not weird about other things too.