Singing Lesson #2

Lesson #2 and I hadn’t done my homework! Not only that but I couldn’t remember what it was, but I did remember to pick a song to sing a cappella: “Black Is The Colour“, a lovely traditional song of Scottish origin that I hoped get through without killing it.

The weather was appalling but this time I arrived in plenty of time, the first to arrive actually. The start time passed and I was still on my own but we gave it a few more minutes and thankfully a couple of my classmates arrived and the class started. We went through a lengthy warm-up session before revising last week’s songs and before moving onto some more complex songs.

It wasn’t long before it was time to sing our own songs. For some reason I was volunteered to sing first (note to self: never sit at the front). I stood up in front of the class, took a deep breath and promptly forgot the tune… I desperately tried to hum the chorus but nothing came to mind. I apologised and asked if anyone in the class knew the tune. Luckily someone did and very kindly hummed the tune to get me going. I’m not sure how it went, I was so nervous and focused so completely on the words in front of me that when I sang I didn’t really hear myself.

As I rounded off the last note I quickly made for my seat to kind applause. My classmates stood up in turn and performed their chosen pieces, each one was as nervous as me but very impressive; there’s a lot of talent in that room!

Tonight’s new tunes:

• Caro mio ben… a scary Italian number.
• Scales; majors & minors.

Tonight’s takeaways:

• Rests; minim rests, crotchet rests, etc.
• Breathing… sounds obvious but not unlike swimming, if you do it at the wrong time you could be lining yourself up for a comedy moment.
• Always do your homework.