This has been an exciting year, filled with lots of opportunities and development for both my students and myself. Things that I’ve done for the studio this year: June 2018: Attended the NATS Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada and learned a ton of stuff! June 2018: Bought an iPad Pro and downloaded ForScore to betterContinue reading “A Year in Review (I know, it’s only June)”
Author Archives: Mezzoid Voice Studio
Performance Success Profile, Take Two
After cleaning out files the other day, I discovered a performance success survey that I took in 2002. This was a bad time for me, performance-wise. Although I should’ve been at the top of my game, vocally, I was having a lot of performance anxiety that was really holding me back. And my scores onContinue reading “Performance Success Profile, Take Two”
What If You Were Your Own Teacher….
I just read the phrase, “as if they were their own teacher” on a FB page of independent teachers, in regards to how a student would do self-evaluation, including: Finding three things they did well Finding a couple of things they’d like to fix Figuring out how to fix them This was based on theContinue reading “What If You Were Your Own Teacher….”
Going through my files, Part 2: Personal Qualities that Affect Performance
In my performance anxiety folder, mentioned in my previous article, I also found an artist’s profile. Apparently, I completed a questionnaire that was associated with a book called Performance Success by performance psychologist Don Greene, who has worked with artists all over the world, including at the Juilliard School, LA Opera, and the Olympic Training Center.Continue reading “Going through my files, Part 2: Personal Qualities that Affect Performance”
Going Through My Files, Part 1: Golden Rules for Conquering Performance Anxiety
Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, I found myself grappling with performance anxiety that really impacted both how I auditioned and how I performed. I found that I didn’t have too much trouble if I were performing a role, but I did auditioning for one (which made it hard to get the role), andContinue reading “Going Through My Files, Part 1: Golden Rules for Conquering Performance Anxiety”
Mission Statement about Curiously Strong Singing
I just tightened up my website a bit (www.mezzoid.com) and am moving some text from there to here because I don’t want to lose it. It’s my raison d’etre, my mission statement, my philosophy, whatever you want to call it. I am a firm believer that singing is the coordination of natural functions in aContinue reading “Mission Statement about Curiously Strong Singing”
Golden age musicals – why you should bother
I hear this way too often from people: “Why should I sing golden age music? It’s so old-fashioned! I don’t know any of it.” Technique. Today’s musicals tend to be very text-driven, and aren’t necessarily vehicles for mastering things like legato and breath management. (And that doesn’t make them less than, just different.) Revivals areContinue reading “Golden age musicals – why you should bother”
We GOT this! (Showcase Recap)
Just wanted to dash off a few words about the recital (reworded from emails I sent out yesterday to the studio). I like to call the final recital of the year a studio showcase rather than a recital because recitals imply prim and proper stand-in-one-place and sing and that sounds boring to me. (In opera,Continue reading “We GOT this! (Showcase Recap)”
My take on studio recitals (subtitle: Hi, ho! Come to the Fair/Recital!)
I recently took a course on organizing my studio (not that I haven’t been running my own studio for 20 years, but hey, you can always do things better). One of the exercises that I did was to identify my strengths. This popped up when I was looking for past studio recital programs to useContinue reading “My take on studio recitals (subtitle: Hi, ho! Come to the Fair/Recital!)”
Stages of Grief (5? 7?) and Interpreting a Sad Song
I find that a lot of my students, both past and present, love to sing sad, heart-breaking songs of woe and loss. It goes with the emo-ness of youth, I think. Personally, I gravitate toward funny (some might say nigh-ridiculous) songs, especially in programming. People say comedy is hard. I think tragedy is hard. AtContinue reading “Stages of Grief (5? 7?) and Interpreting a Sad Song”