Friday, May 9, 2014

The MYAF experience

Well, the first day I got here was completely nerve wracking. I spent my whole drive to campus worrying about the memorization tests and everything I was going to miss at school while I was gone. Once I got here and found my room (which was a pain) I met one of my roommates. Her name is Aubrey and she sings alto 1.

After that we went to rehearsal. The first hour or so was spent testing everyone. I was somewhere in the middle thankfully and passed my test. They actually sent some people home today because they failed the retest and its scary to think it could've been me. Then from about 1ish to like 5 we just sang and sang and SANG. It was a very long day.

Today wasnt much different. Except rehearsal was a total of 7 hours. They expect us to go to all these events after rehearsal as well but because of my social anxiety I dont exactly want to go. I feel bad, but i would rather not have an anxiety attack in front of a bunch of people i dont know. It didn't help that my dinner wasnt sitting well tonight. I ended up staying in my dorm for the night because of it. Thankfully we were released earlt from rehearsal.

Tomorrow we were given an extra hour before rehearsal because of how hard we worked and how we need vocal rest. Im still nervous about the concert, but also excited to hear it all come together in front of a crowd. Hopefully I can get some videos of it to post.

Wish me luck for tomorrow. Hopefully I wont need it.

Saturday, May 3, 2014

The King Shall Rejoice!- G.F. Handel


Background: This is the last out of the five songs I've been working on. This is the only video I could find of the version I am doing. Most others have a very long intro that was edited out of this version for time purposes. Not to mention it is for a full orchestra and we only have a pianist. Anyways, this is the first movement of three for the Coronation of King George II in 1727 written by Handel.

Progress on the song: This song is very typical for its time period which makes it very formulaic. That means it's so predictable it's not very hard to learn at all. My only problem is trying to remember the runs and what goes where. The lyrics are only "the king shall rejoice, the king shall rejoice in thy strength o Lord". That's it. So trying to remember which "rejoice" has what run is slightly difficult. Other than that, I haven't worked on it much because of how easy it is.