02/05/2008 The Songs & Many Mumbling Mice...

Boston, MA. 1ºC

We start the second class a little bit early in order to give songs to the people that sang last week. Pam came up with two options for each one of us. That is really great. That's a lot of thinking for 20 people! Thanks Pam.

My two options right now are "I'm Not Afraid Of Anything" from Songs For A New World by Jason Robert Brown and "The Wizard And I" from Wicked by Stephen Schwartz. I'm excited about both of them but we decided to start working on "The Wizard and I" since it's going to be a bigger challenge for me. The goal is to work on not dropping the lower notes of the song that feel comfortable so I can reach later on the higher ones. It's all about working out the middle voice range! "I'm Not Afraid Of Anything" is not out of the game. I'll work on it as well but not as intensively right now.

We start the warm up with some exercises and I need to remark a special one that will always have a place in my heart and my warm ups now that I found out what am I supposed to be singing... The exercise is a tongue twister (specially for me!) that helps to awake all muscles in our mouth specially the tongue. It took me two classes to be able to sing it. If you want to join, sing along with me...

MANY MUMBLING MICE ARE MAKING MIDNIGHT MUSIC IN THE MOONLIGHT. MIGHTY NICE!

If you could make it at the third try... congratulations! That's much much better than what I did... and I do! :)

Today we could listen the rest of our classmates. Here's a little bit more of information about them:

• Alison sang "Soon It's Gonna Rain" from The Fantastics. She wants to sing "When I'm Not Near The Girl I Love" from Finian's Rainbow. She said; " I don't look for deep emotional songs."
• Heather sang "I'm Not That Girl" from Wicked. She showed us how scary she can be with her low E when she sings the last "I'm not that GIRL..."
• Biela sang "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" from Showboat. She took opera and musical theater lessons. She is up for anything. She likes dramatic or romantic songs.
• Damian sang "Maria" from West Side Story from the past semester. He wants to sing more fun songs. Who knows? maybe a little dancing...
• Brenda sang "Just One Of Those Things" from Lullaby of Broadway by C. Porter. She also wants to sing something fun.
• Trecia sang "Someone To Watch Over Me" from Oh!Kay by G.Gershwin. "I want from the class a song that I can audition with and work on my middle voice rage."
• Simone sang "A Stranger In A Car" a Capella. She stop singing for a while and she wants to go back and sing again.
  
• Steve sang a song that he didn't introduce... I'll ask him next week about it. He started to introduce himself like this: " I'm not much of a vocalist." Steve is studying performing arts and last semester was the first time that he got into the experience of singing.
  

One or two people are left to sing in front of the class. I guess next week will be the time for that. Some people (including me) volunteered to sing in front of the class next week with our new songs. So this week at home, I'll be practicing "The Wizard And I" annoying a little bit my neighbors.

WICKED AWESOME!

Rrrrraquel

01/29/2008 First Class

Boston, MA. 17ºC

Excitement all over! I enter the class and I could rapidly recognize several familiar faces from the first Cabaret class and from las semester Theory and Practice of American Musical Theater (What a long name!)

We started the class with a presentation exercise. We are supposed to pair each other with someone that we don't know. Interview them, find something in common and introduce this person to the class. Josh, was my partner. He is 24 and he is finishing his undergrad.

After that, we did a quick warm up and we started signing one by one in front of the class as our "voice presentation". A good way to get to know our classmates and their voices and a the same time a way to break down the tension of... Oh, my god! At some point I'll sing in front of the class. We did it the first day so we are ready for whatever comes!

More than half of the class had the chance to sing. Here's a little info from my classmates:

• Bob: sang "Sara Lee". He described himself as a "Pam Junkie". "It's been two weeks since the last class..."
• Ren: sang "Show Me" from My Fair Lady. She wants to work less on character songs and focus more in soul-kind ones.
• Mindy: sang "No Time At All" from Pippin. She answered to a classmate that asked her if she gets nervous before signing: "Getting nervous? Life is too short for that."
• Michael: sang "Maria" a sassy adapted version from The Sound Of Music. He wants to work on something more Poppy. Leave for a while musical theater songs. He has already worked on it before and wants a new challenge.
• Marianne: sang "You Can Always Count On Me" from City of Angels. After signing her song she said: This sounded better in the shower"
• Joan: sang "They Say It's Wonderful" from Annie get Your Gun. She performed long time ago and she wants to get back to it. After singing: "I was so scared! I could feel my legs shaking."
• Me/Rrraquel: sang "Come To Your Senses" from Tick,Tick...Boom! "Everyone is nervous but the important thing is to step up and sing. I just want to sing till I die!"
• Sarah: sang "I Get a Kick Out Of You" from Anything Goes. she performed a "maniac" version of it.
• Ryan: sang "There are Giants In The Sky" from Into The Woods. "Hi! I came for my dose of Pam." And after singing a special part of his piece and not being so convinced about it he said: "Wait, wait. This is Pam's favorite part of the song so let me do it again."
• Carole: sang "People Will Say We Are In Love" from Oklahoma. She sings in a choir and loves musical theater.
• Robert: sang "Marry Me A Little" from Company. He puts himself on Pam's hands for choosing a song.
• Sabrina: sang " Buddy On A Night Shift" from One Shine Follies. " I want to experiment more with the acting part of the songs and forget about singing."
• Josh: sang and played with his guitar his song.
  

Some people are left in the class that will sing next week. in the mean time we are supposed to look for "story-telling" songs and Pam will also send us some ideas just in case.

Rrrrrrraquel, for some reason my name is hard to pronounce here. He, he!