Category: Blogging

Posted on

Venetian Vixen – Chapters 1 & 2 (NSFW)

What with these Indie Ink writing challenges and all, I feel like people are actually reading my blog, so I figure I should provide some more content. Below is a backstage romance “novel” that I wrote on Facebook last fall while I was in production for Otello at the Opera Company of Philadelphia. A friend of mine was taking photos backstage, and one of her pictures looked so much like a smutty romance novel cover that I couldn’t resist Photoshopping it into this:

And then I couldn’t stop myself from writing a faux romance novel based on these two characters. I called it Venetian Vixen. We had a lot of down time backstage.

Originally, I didn’t post it on this site because it’s pretty racy, and, well, most of my stuff here has been PG (after all, my dad reads this blog!). But I’ve been inspired by all the great writing from the folks over at Indie Ink (some of whom have pretty racy blogs!), so I thought, “What the hell?”

Anyway, that’s a roundabout way of saying that you shouldn’t be reading this in your cubicle or while operating heavy machinery. And under no circumstances should you read this aloud to small children or individuals with heart problems.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, here it is, in all its glory. Oh, and I hope you don’t take any of this seriously.

CHAPTER 1
Orror!

Those were the words uttered by almost everyone in the great hall as noble and servant alike fled the wrath of the Moor. Pandemonium in the halls led to a crush of bodies, and Lady Benedetta Albinoni, third cousin to Catherine de Medici, found herself without her maidservant or a bodyguard, dangerously close to having her hem trampled upon by the masses during the exodus.

Someone jostled her, and she lost her footing on the marble halls, stumbling into a wall.

The wall sprouted arms and righted her. “My apologies, signorina,” said the wall.

Slowly, Benedetta lifted her gaze and realized the “wall” she had hit was the massive chest of the most handsome specimen of manly manliness she had ever seen. Her heartbeat quickened as she looked at his chiseled features and mused fleetingly what it would be like to be kissed by those strong lips.

****

CHAPTER 2

Guillermo di Montenegro looked down at the blushing woman in his arms. He knew he was holding her much longer than was proper for a woman of her rank, but he couldn’t seem to release her. The mysterious lady’s sultry eyes were mesmerizing, and Guillermo lost himself in their depths.

“Unhand me, signor.” Those beautiful, dark eyes were now flashing with contempt, but her heaving breasts belied her true feelings.

He smiled lazily and tightened his hold on her. “Oh no, signorina. It is not nearly safe enough for you to be walking about by yourself.”

She pushed at his muscle-hardened chest, but he held her fast. Drawing herself up as tall as she could, she shot him her haughtiest gaze. “Signor, do you know who I am?”

“No,” he murmured, “but I would certainly like to find out.” His chestnut locks fell across his brow as he lowered his head to steal a kiss.

Benedetta gasped in protest, and he took the opportunity to plunder her mouth with his tongue. Her protests turned to sighs of ecstasy as she returned his kiss hungrily.

The crowd around them surged forward, and she was pushed out of his arms. Shocked back to reality, Benedetta was suddenly acutely aware of her surroundings, and with only one glance back to the stranger who had awakened such frightening feelings in her, she fled into the crowd.

(to be continued…)

Posted on

The Practice of Practicing

I’ve threatened to write a post about how I practice for a while, and I think now is the time. I’m preparing right now for a performance of György Ligeti’s Clocks and Clouds with the New York Philharmonic, and I thankfully was able to get my hands on the music before rehearsals have begun. I flipped through the score and my eyes bugged out when I saw this:

Ligeti-1

I’m not a fan of reading manuscript, especially in the age of digital music. Even though the score was published by Schott, who normally prints lovely, legible music, I have a feeling there hasn’t exactly been enough demand since its premiere in 1973, for them to go through the trouble of republishing a proper, printed version.

That being said, I think I should be able to at least read what I have to sing. That squiggly line you see going through the staves? That’s the bar line. And with everything so squished together, it’s essentially impossible to see what beat goes where. This is a sight-reader’s nightmare.

After I posted this picture onto Facebook, several of my friends suggested that I transcribe it into Finale to make it more legible. With over 200 measures of 12 staves each, I wasn’t too keen on transcribing the whole thing, but it would certainly help me learn the music if I transcribed some of the harder bits.

Here is the same passage, only legible (click on image to enlarge):

Ligeti-2

Now that you can actually see it, you may notice that each part only sings two notes: G# and F#. The trick, therefore, is not trying to find the notes themselves, but making sure you sing those notes at the right time. This is what all the parts sound like together:

[audio: http://www.supermaren.com/Music/Clocks_Clouds_excerpt_piano.mp3]

It’s not so easy to tell which part is yours, is it? In situations like this, I like to use a feature on Finale that changes the instrument a particular staff is playing. Since I’m singing Alto 2, I’ve switched my part to “Oboe,” and all the other parts to “Choir Aahs” (very cheesy MIDI sounds, I know, but they do the trick). This is what the same passage sounds like, only with my part pulled out of the texture:

[audio: http://www.supermaren.com/Music/Clocks_Clouds_excerpt_oboe.mp3]

I practice like this all the time when I’m at my computer, especially with difficult passages like this. I can also turn on a click track to remind me where the beats are, and I can play different passages at different speeds, depending on what I want to target during my practice session.

I don’t only use this technique with difficult-to-read music; I am also a terrible pianist, and I can’t afford to pay a coach every single time I want to rehearse something with accompaniment, so I use Finale to practice my regular rep as well (I’ve written about my accompaniment tracks here).

I do happen to have several very useful skills in the singing world: 1) I’m a good sight-reader, and 2) I have perfect pitch. That means that most of the time, I can show up to the first rehearsal, pick up the music, and sing what’s on the page without very many mistakes the first time around. But I’m certainly not perfect, and when I can get prepare my part ahead of time, it makes the entire rehearsal process go more smoothly.

So, that’s my “process,” such as it is. Feel free to ask questions in the comments section. And if you’re just starting out and need some advice: learn how to sight-read. That one skill will make you ten times more marketable than any other tool in your vocal toolbox.

Posted on

Link Love

I want to encourage anyone and everyone who makes it over to this blog to check out this week’s Indie Ink writing challenges. There is some seriously good writing going on here, and I don’t want anyone to miss it!

UPDATE: This list has also been published on the Indie Ink website!

Posted on

Dark Highway

Well, the Indie Ink Challenge is here again, folks. I have to say, I’m having a great time reading all of the responses to the challenge, and these new ideas are doing a great job pushing me out of the rut I’ve been in.

This time, my challenger was Jason Avant. His challenge to me was:

You’re driving alone, on a dark highway, in the middle of nowhere. Music? Or silence? And why?

It took me a little while to get my mind wrapped around this question. I tend to take things very literally in real life, so my first thought was to tell a story about me driving home from a gig in the middle of the night. But then I reread the challenge and realized that I’m in the middle of nowhere. Nowhere. Nowhere? I think this challenge just got harder.

I hate driving at night.

I’m a morning person. I’d rather take a nap until 3 AM and drive in the wee hours of the morning than stay up all night driving. There’s not enough coffee in the world that can keep me up that late, even when I’m wired from a gig or angry from an argument or excited about something new. Nighttime is not my friend.

I sigh and examine at the inky expanse in front of me. A two-lane highway, stretching off into the dark, with nothing on either side to stimulate my mind. Well, nothing except grass. And cows. Okay, I can’t see the cows, but I can smell them. I know they’re there, lurking.

Do cows lurk?

I check the speedometer. 70 mph: a little bit over the speed limit, but not quite enough that I’ll get pulled over. I could probably go 95 or 100 on this road; there is nobody in front of me, nothing in my way. But if I do go that fast, Murphy’s Law will inevitably be invoked, and the next thing I’ll see will be flashing lights in my rear view mirror. No, best to stay at 70. I set my cruise control and shift a little bit in my seat.

I yawn.

Oh crap, that’s the first sign of sleepiness. I reach for the coffee in my cupholder and start to drink. It’s warm and sweet and tastes like morning. I love mornings. Morning is the point in time where yesterday meets tomorrow, where all the plans for today are laid out, and everything is fresh with no mistakes in it yet.

Not like nighttime. In the night, the darkness confuses things. The day is done, all your mistakes have been made, and all you have left to do is fall asleep and dream of how to fix those mistakes and build things anew. Falling asleep and dreaming of a cow standing in the middle of the road.

A COW IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD????!!!

I slam on the brakes. Before I come to a halt, I realize that there is no cow, only road, and I’m still driving.

Goddammit.

I get my speed back up to 70, set the cruise control again, and open the window. The sound of the wind rushing through the window is a bit like white noise, and although I know cold air is supposed to keep you awake, all it’s doing is making me shiver. So now I’m sleepy and cold.

The smell of cows is fading, but it’s now been replaced with the much more pungent smell of skunk. I quickly roll up the windows.

Nothing, there is nothing on this road. And it’s so straight! Not even a curve to keep me on my toes. I turn on the radio. Nothing but static. I search through the stations, but this late at night all I’m getting is country music and smooth jazz, neither of which are to my liking. I sing along to the tail end of “Dude Looks Like A Lady” on a hard rock station, but I then drive out of range. I can get snippets of BBC World News, but the signal is messed up, and from what little I can hear, the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Ugh, how depressing. I can handle depressing news in the morning, but not at night. Not when it feels like the darkness is closing in on you and you’re the only one alive and aware in the world. Not when you’re not sure you’re going to make it until morning.

My phone buzzes in my purse. My phone! Oh thank goodness, I can talk to someone, anyone, so that I can get through this ride, get through the night.

I search through and pull it out. Glancing at it, I see someone has left me a message. I plug in my earbud and listen to the voicemail: “Hey, it’s me. I thought I’d try to catch you because I’m driving home and I need someone to talk to. Give me a call when you get a chance.”

I quickly redial the number, but I go straight to voicemail. “It’s me. I just got your message. I’m driving too, so give me a call.”

After I hang up, I wait for a few minutes, excited and waiting for the phone to ring.

More minutes pass. I dial a few more numbers, leave a few more messages. I wait.

Nobody is going to call back, are they?

Fog starts closing in, making it difficult to drive so quickly. I slow down to about 45, but the fog is getting even thicker. The light from my high beams is bouncing brightly off the particles of water, and I have to switch to the low beams. I can see only about 20 feet in front of me now. The road is beginning to curve now, and I am regretting wishing for something other than straight road, because it is so difficult to concentrate when my mind is this fatigued. I am trying not to hallucinate, trying not to see those mystical forms taking shape in the fog. Slow down into a curve, I remind myself. Accelerate out of a curve. And whatever happens, don’t fall asleep.

Don’t fall.

Asleep.

Posted on

Calla Lily

Responding to a tweet last week from my friend MightyHunter, I joined a writing challenge from Indie Ink. I’ve been experiencing some writer’s block recently (not a great thing when all I do is write grants all day), and I figured this might help loosen me up and help me write a little better.

Of course, when my husband found out about the challenge, his first reaction was, “Like you don’t have enough shit to do?”

And he was right.

I’ve already read some of the challenge responses here and here and especially here (my challenger), all of which make this challenge seem more daunting to me. Never mind the fact that I am more comfortable writing fiction, but I decided to answer my challenge with a non-fiction piece.

Nevertheless, I know that if I keep self-judging, I’ll only get in my own way, so here goes…hopefully I’ll get better with the next few challenges…

My challenge from Christine:
Get a piece of paper and a pen. Close your eyes and put the pen to the paper. Keep your eyes closed and draw for 30 seconds. Write a piece, fiction or non about your drawing. The piece should include the words “diffuse” “clarity” and “depth”. Take a photo of your drawing and include it with the piece.

Sure, I guess I have a fairly decent hand at drawing, which I developed over the many years in my childhood when my mother dragged me to her rehearsals and stuck me in a corner with a sketchbook. But then, as now, I have been very particular with my figures, preferring the clarity of realism to an abstract subject.

Having only 30 seconds to draw wouldn’t have been so bad either, if it weren’t for the fact that I had to keep my eyes closed. So in order to keep things simple, I decided to think of a straightforward image, something with clean lines and very little depth.

Remembering a high school art class where I had drawn a still life of calla lilies, I kept the image of a single calla lily in my mind and started following the curves of the flower in my head as I put the pen to paper. Once I lifted my pen up, however, I realized the image was beginning to become diffuse in my mind’s eye; not only could I not remember what I was drawing, but I didn’t know where my pen was in relation to the paper.

I had to let go. I doodled some signature scrollwork (just check any of my college notes and you’ll find the same curls in the margins) and offset it on the other side with some decisive diagonal lines. My 30 seconds were up, and I opened my eyes.

My first reaction was to start over again. I wasn’t pleased because it didn’t really look like anything; certainly not at all a calla lily. A second look revealed to me a pseudo-cubist view of an eighth note on a staff (leave it to a singer to see music in anything). But it wasn’t until I started writing this piece that I realized that my picture doesn’t have to be anything.

I spend so much of my life trying to make things perfect, trying to follow all the rules and stay within the lines that I often forget that sometimes there are things that don’t fit neatly in little boxes. And it’s nice to be able to relax and let things just be.

So, what does it look like to you?

Posted on

The Diva is in the Details

This afternoon, I had a very productive conference call with two friends who had decided to join me in my quest for self-improvement. Abigail and Amy are helping to keep me on track (while I keep them on track as well). In addition to giving each other encouragement and ideas, we’re considering creating a podcast to talk about our experiences in the biz (don’t go looking for it on iTunes yet, though!). But the three of us left the meeting energized and looking forward to our next meeting, at a “Boost Your Acting Career” workshop by Dallas Travers in New York next month.

Posted on

Winter Blunderland

This blog post comes to you from the Department of Snow-Related Complaints. Be forewarned that much whining and gnashing of teeth will follow.

Having grown up in San Francisco, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to snow. I do like the way it looks when I’m inside and I don’t have to go anywhere, but I am not a fan of driving in the stuff. My cute little Honda Fit doesn’t have four-wheel drive, and it’s not especially heavy, so it doesn’t do well in slippery, icy conditions.

When it snows, the street that I live on is usually the one of the last in my township to be plowed, and my next-door neighbor has a tendency to park his van on the street even though there is an ordinance requiring all cars to be moved out of the street when there is a snowstorm. As a result, when the plow finally makes it to our street, they have to plow around my stupid neighbor’s van, and the portion of the street in front of our driveway doesn’t get cleared.

This morning, before it began to snow, I took a picture of our neighbor’s van to see if it would be in the same place tonight.

When I got home tonight, I found that not only was the next-door neighbor still parked illegally…

…but the neighbors on the other side of the house were just as inconsiderate.

ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted on

New Year’s Resolutions

I jokingly posted this tweet on New Year’s Eve, and unfortunately (but not surprisingly) I didn’t win the lottery.

In lieu of a windfall, I didn’t have many other resolutions to offer myself come midnight. Yes, I’ve got to continue with my weight-loss goal. Yes, I need to continue singing more. But are these really resolutions? They’re more like continuations.

Last night, I spoke with my friend Abby, who reiterated to me what I had been saying to myself for a while: I need to audition more. So does she, she said, and we decided we should keep each other on track and accountable in a sort of blogger’s pledge.

So, here we go: starting next Monday, I pledge to make at least 5 new contacts to the singing industry per month. Contacts can include an audition or sending out materials. I’m not exactly sure how to keep track of this on this blog (I’d prefer to keep the contacts confidential, for obvious reasons), but maybe Abby and I can write about what happens as a result of these contacts?

Any suggestions as to how we can keep each other accountable?

Posted on

Podcasting

Many years ago, when I still lived in New York, I took a voiceover class. I really enjoyed it, and I even made a demo CD at the end of it all. Nothing ever came of it, however; the voiceover market is incredibly competitive, and I was busy (still am!) putting myself out there as a singer.

Until this summer.

That’s when Mike Bolton (no, not that one) from the Opera Company of Philadelphia asked me to co-host In Tune, the podcast for OCP’s upcoming productions.

So I sat down in the studio and recorded podcasts for the operas in the 2010-11 season: Otello, Romeo & Juliet, Tosca, The Cunning Little Vixen, and Phaedra.

What fun I had! Mike and I were very comfortable around each other, and we managed to get everything recorded in two sessions.


Anyway, if you are interested in listening to the podcasts, go to the OCP website and download the sound files. I guarantee you’ll learn some cool things about opera!

[audio: http://www.operaphila.org/community/otello-podcast.mp3]
Posted on

And now, a post from the Shameless Plug Department

So I got a comment the other day on my last post from someone who said she wants to read more about my process while learning new music. I’ve actually thought about this a lot, especially since I’ve spent the last couple of weeks rehearsing for a concert of all new music. to be performed this Sunday (Ack! That’s tomorrow! It might even be today — or yesterday — depending on when you’re reading this).

The reason I haven’t written about my learning process is that I’ve been too busy learning to write about it! However, I have been taking some mental notes, and I have a few ideas for some posts in the near future. It might be a little too late for me to expound on the difficulties of this particular concert, but I still have two more concerts’ worth of music to learn before the end of this festival.

In the meantime, if you’re interested in the process of creating music, watch these videos…they are interviews with Pulitzer Prize-winner David Lang as he talks about his own process writing the piece that The Crossing commissioned for tomorrow’s concert.

Crossing Chronicle #1

The Levine Project: an interview with David Lang from Jeffrey Dinsmore on Vimeo.

Crossing Chronicle #2

Crossing Chronicle Vol. 2 – David Lang on writing his new choral work “Statement to the Court” from Jeffrey Dinsmore on Vimeo.

The Crossing: Month of Moderns I
Sunday, June 27, 2010 at 4:00 p.m.

Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill
8855 Germantown Ave
Philadelphia, PA 19118

Included on tomorrow’s concert:
Bo Holten: Tallis Variations (1977)
Benjamin CS Boyle: Cantata: To One in Paradise (2005)
Arvo Pärt: Pilgrim’s Song – Psalm 121 (2001)
John Tavener: The Bridegroom (1999)
David Lang: Commissioned World Premiere: Statement to the Court – The Levine Project

Honestly, if you’re in Philadelphia and you like music, you shouldn’t miss it. Bring an extra pair of socks, because the ones on your feet will be knocked off.