Art! Maybe.

If you believe music is art, which I do. Patrick got some updated recording software and we set up a sort of miniature recording studio in our living room. This sounds like it's terribly unwieldy, but actually it's mostly out of the way. The idea is to use it to record me and then either layer me on top of myself first (me singing the main line over me singing the harmony) or just have me singing on a solo track with backing music.

I am of two minds about this. It sounds really cool, but it's also a wee bit terrifying if you're like me and you loathe listening to recordings of yourself. I always stay in a state of pre-cringing listening to myself. It's like watching Olympic figure skaters. I'm always like please don't fall, please don't fall... Sigh. I guess I'm just waiting for something to sound awful.

I told Patrick it would probably sound like mating goats, followed up with a "Baaaaaaa!" noise to illustrate my point. He was having none of it and told me it would be fine. We shall see.

First on the list is actually a piece from a video game. It's called the Lament of the Highborne, and it's from Warcraft. It's sung by the queen of the undead, Sylvanas, and a choir of banshees. It's all in this fake language that Blizzard made up, but it's still haunting and I've always found it very pretty. My Aussie best friend sent me the music when he came up with the recording idea, so I will suck it up and get over my nerves for that reason.

It will probably be a little different than the original, since I don't think I really want to sing it four times (the choir is three parts, plus the solo). We'll probably do a synth choir for the backing stuff, orchestral instrumentation in the background instead of the piano suggested on the sheet music, and then me singing the solo on top of it all. The synth choir is a good idea for another reason: there's something called an obligato that appears twice in the backing vocals, and both times it ends on a high B-flat. For people who are not sopranos, this can be a difficult note to sustain. I've held a C before, but it's only happened once and I'm not prepared to kill myself trying to achieve this note. Thus, yay for technology! The solo itself only goes up to an E, so that's easy.

It's always a mental thing, you know? Even if you've sung notes far above whatever you're currently staring down, but you've convinced yourself that a certain note is The Highest Note In The Piece, EEEEK!, you'll have problems with it. This is why it helps to drink a bit.

I'm not kidding.

When I was trying to learn the Habanera (L'amour est un oiseaux rebelle) from Carmen, I had serious issues with getting some of the higher notes at first. Then I decided that it was all mental and I needed to get past my mental block. I had a couple glasses of wine and then gave it a try when I was feeling more relaxed. Bingo! Immediate success.  I went to my lesson the next week and sang it, whereupon my teacher asked what on earth I'd done, because it sounded so good. I told her I got drunk and tried it and she was like okay, whatever works for you.

I don't think they like it when it turns out the secret to success is booze instead of practice...