And oh yes, I forgot!

[annathepiper]

+7: Something good appears to have happened to my singing voice, post-thyroid-recovery. For one thing, I actually seem to have gotten it back, which pleases me in general; for another, unless I'm totally on crack, I seem to have an easier time with breathing in my singing than I'd had before. This may well be just because I no longer have a lemon-sized lump pressing against my airpipe! Whatever's going on, though, makes me happy; what little I've caught of my own higher notes sounds better to me than it used to, and most importantly, I'm getting back the ability to belt out GBS ditties properly. Yay!

Comments

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

That is good news. Yippee!

[annathepiper]

I'm almost but not entirely certain it's making a few of my lowest notes easier as well--"John Barbour" in the past has been tough for me to sing, at least if I'm trying to sing along with the recording, because the lowest notes are just past my range's lower end. But whatever's going on with my voice is futzing with that, some.

Plus, it's just incredibly satisfying to belt out "AND I PLOW THE RAGIN' SEA" along with Séan. :D Now I just have to work on holding out that last note as long as he does!

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

I have the range for John Barbour and the breath control (comes from a misspent youth trying to keep up with Celine Dion. Tacky as she is, she can go forever!), but not the ability to stay on key :p (I'm usually lucky if I have right lock ;) )

Improved range on both ends is always a good thing, m'dear.

[annathepiper]

I will grant that ability to sustain a note to Ms. Dion, yeah. :) Me, I have a habit of sounding like Elvis Presley's unknown other daughter when I sing, just because of growing up on a hefty diet of Mr. Presley!

And indeed, I am grooving. I'm not sure if my upper range has increased so much as steadied--I was playing around with singing along with Mr. Presley's take of "Bridge Over Troubled Water", and got rather higher than I expected I could. But I don't have any power on my high notes.

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

Ah - see, my low notes are all quiet. Can't do them loud to save my life. When I go loud on a higher note, I have a tendency to sound like a lounge-singer ;)

I'd rather sound like Mr. Presley than Celine. I don't thump my chest enough to be Celine, but I can twist my hips like nobody's business :)

(I didn't know Elvis did "Bridge Over Troubled Water"!)

[annathepiper]

He did! A lovely take of it can be found on the album That's the Way It Is. It's one of his very earliest 70's-flavored albums, but it's before he really started to fall apart physically, and while his voice was still strong and clear. (From about 1968 to about 1970 is the period I mean. :) After that, you can tell he's starting to fall apart because it's impacting his voice.)

I can't really get loud on my lower notes, either, but I'm comfier with them than I am on the highest ones, where I sound really thin. Right dead in the center, though, I'm all over it!

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

Wow. That song is my mother's favourite (when we can get her to admit to one - she's not someone who listens to music, more of a "it's background noise" sort of person) - I wonder if she knows that?

[annathepiper]

Is she an Elvis fan? It's one of his obscurer albums, so folks don't tend to be aware of it unless they're big Elvis fans like me, who have collected all of his albums and/or who were introduced to them by parents who were fans. :)

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

My mother cannot be described as a 'fan' in any sense of the word, unless it's of Dave Bronstedder (sp), who hosts the morning weather reports on CBC in our area. Quite sad, really. She owned one record as a college student, and that was because someone gave it to her. She didn't have anything to play it on.

Dad, on the other hand, still has what would be a four-foot stack of LPs, over a hundred cassettes, and many many cds.

[annathepiper]

Not having a device for playing musical recordings does tend to have an impact on one's desire to buy 'em, yeah!

Your dad sounds kind of like mine in terms of collection size, though. :) That is one of the biggest memories I have of my daddy--the huge size of his record collection. He's really the major reason I'm an Elvis fan; I have very early memories of listening to Elvis concert records on Dad's quadrophonic stereo system. And us both listening to music on two different pairs of headphones plugged into the same jack! He had to give up a lot of his collection, though; when he passed away in 2001, it was much reduced.

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

In Mum's case, it was not having a player because of lack of desire for records, not lack of desire for records because of lack of player. *mourns*

Dad is my music foundation. He taught me to play chess with Led Zeppelin blaring. (We only ever played when Mum and my sister weren't home).

Item of interest: at one point in the film version of 2010, there is a stereo system installed in the wall. It's my dad's stereo system! (Well, the same model, back when stereos had 'decks' for real as opposed to just for terminology)

[annathepiper]

Oh cool. I never did see that movie, though. Read the book, and thought the big astronomical event at the end was Pretty Cool, but that's mostly all I remember about it.

Let's hear it for musical fathers. :) He's definitely the source of the Music Gene in me--not only the listening-to of music, but also the playing of it. He used to be a sax player!

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

Dad plays the clarinet :) When he was a kid, he sang lead treble in the first ever English translation of the Carmina Buranah.

Kickass :)

I seem to have inherited the enthusiasm, but not the talent. I picked up clarinet for the same reason he did - we've both got really stubby fingers, anc clarinets are made for stubby-fingered people!

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

Did he start to fall apart, or was that when he switched identities with the impersonator before he fell off the stage and wound up in the rest home where the Egyptian zombie came after him?

[annathepiper]

Bwahahahaha... hee, yes, that's also a viable theory! ;)

[shikyrie.livejournal.com]

weee... i'd hate it if I couldn't sing... I sing on the way to work, on the way from work, and in the shower and tub... i get a lot of weird looks from people because I don't sing what they'd consider music, but Miss Fish and crew deserve to be recognized as well as evanescence, phil collins, and (gag) eminem, and the like... Glad you got your voice back :)

[annathepiper]

Thanks! :)

[annathepiper]

Cool! I have handled a clarinet in the past, but only passingly. I futzed with it just enough to get the idea that the fingerings were not entirely alien to my flute-playing self (and same notation for the one or two times I've handled a sax, for that matter), but the reed always gave me fits. :)

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

Reeds are easy :) You can tell you've got it right by the way your lower lip tingles. Now, flutes, on the other hand ;) Can't make them make a sound to save my life, and not for lack of trying when I've got access to them. My friend played the flue in high school, and kept trying to teach me.
"No, no, like this, see? You've got to sort of curl your lips."
"I thought I was!"

My cousin is learning how to play the trumpet. But then, she's lucky - her school does music. I had two years in high-school in a woefully underfunded department which folded halfway through the second year.

[annathepiper]

I always have a bit of a hard time thinking of how to explain to someone how to play a flute. I learned in fourth grade, and damned if I can remember how it was explained to me. The closest I've ever been able to come is comparing it to blowing across the top of a soda bottle.

Glad your cousin does have a stable music department. :) I still miss not being able to finish out band in all my years of high school--and I'd still like to go back to school and get that music degree someday. Ah well!