Singing Along

Inspired in no small part by the opera course I took, I started taking bel canto lessons from Gary (http://www.zellermusic.com/) last June.

It's been tremendous fun. I have a slightly better than two octave tenor range, really good breath control, and lousy pronunciation. It's not actually that bad, but it's something that needs to be learned. What I do have trouble with is timing. I have incredibly good imitative skills, but I can't read music very well, so while I know that on paper that note is a whole note or a sixteenth, singing it is a different matter altogether.

Gary, like me, is German, and so we work way too hard when we're together! We complement each other very nicely and get along extremely well, and most importantly we have a lot of fun. We often run over our allotted hour as the time just flies by.

One thing I appreciate about Gary's teaching style is he has no interest in teaching me many songs, but rather in teaching me to sing correctly. So far, my repertoire (so to speak) includes Caro mio ben, Sebben crudele, and most of Amarilli mia bella; we've set that one aside for the time being to start on "O Holy Night" in time for Christmas.

My wife has often despaired of me and Christmas, as I can be quite curmudgeonly about the season (mostly because I tend to completely ignore it until after my birthday, which is almost mid-December); now she gets to enjoy me releasing my inner tenor. I'll try not to drown out the rest of the singalong party we'll have this year.

O Holy Night was originally composed in French, but Gary only has it in English. That and he wants to get me singing in English as a change of pace from the so far exclusively Italian that we've been doing.

English is really a horrible language to sing in. Italian is wonderful, French and German are both good, but English... bah!

Gary has a nice future list of fun songs that will be added to my repertoire in time - the aria from Martha, the Volga Lied, the flower song from Carmen, die Forelle, and others. As long as I'm having fun, I'll keep taking lessons.