The Professional Choral Institute: Day 11

Wednesday, June 1

Taliah and I tried to do some laundry this morning. We didn’t have very many quarters so we thought we would just let our clothes air dry. Guess what? It is pretty much impossible to air dry clothes in Florida. Fail.
RANDOM FUNNY FACT: Dr. Bass loves Brahms, right? His dissertation was on Brahms. But he loves Mahler even more than that. In fact, he even has a Mahler tattoo. Yes. That is how much he loves Mahler. Love that man.
ANYWAY...
We started the recording process today! We were all a little nervous. Everyone was telling us how intense it was going to be!
Taliah and I got there early so that we could warm ourselves up beforehand. Thankfully PCI got together before the recording session and stretched and warmed up together. It helped us unify a little.
Brett Karlin gives the best shoulder rubs ever. So whenever we stood in a circle for shoulder rubs, he always made sure to stand by me and I always made sure to stand by him. Perfect arrangement. :]
When we started recording we were all really tense. Especially the PCI Singers. I think we were just all so nervous. But after one run through...it started going well! We started the recording session with the fourth movement. We spent a little over an hour on the fourth movement--but that's was my favorite to sing, so that works for me! Patrick said, “Okay, now everything else has to take about half that amount of time.” So then we recorded movement 5--it was so awesome. Tess is an incredible singer if you ask me. She is a remarkable musician. I loved the way she sang that piece. When I was first learning the fifth movement, it wasn’t my favorite. I didn’t like the solo or the choral part behind it. I thought it was “EH”. But no longer. Tess performs it amazingly. Wow. It is absolutely beautiful. I can't wait for all of you to hear her sing it.
Then we started recording the first part of movement two. Holler-fest!
So that thing about being absolutely silent during the recording session...YEAH. You can hear everything in there. It was raining and we could hear it all the way outside. We could hear if someone was walking around from three rooms away. There was a random light humming that you never would have been able to hear...but we could hear it. The slightest breath, an ankle cracking...anything. The silence was practically deafening.
It kind of looked like a beach party on stage--everyone was in comfy clothes, they had towels to stand on, socked feet. How fun is that? We just kind of chill in the ground in between slates.

We were much relieved for our break because we could kind of get some of our wiggles out. I talked to Ruthie about USF as a Grad School. She said that Dr. Diamond is a fantastic teacher and you can’t beat the facilities. TRUE. I don't know if I could live in the Florida heat? Eh?
The second recording session was awesome. I was on such an adrenaline high that I just really loved every minute of it. I left feeling so excited and everyone knew that we were ROCKING. Patrick said, “We are kicking this Requiem’s TRASH.” WOOHOO. We were singing the heck out of those pieces and they were beautiful. We recorded movements 2, 4, 5, AND 6! All in one day! Isn’t that awesome?! Yeah buddy.
(Okay, I actually edited what he said. I liked what he said better, but I didn't think I should post it...)

On a different note: Professor Guttenberg has always talked to me about her friend Suzanne who is a vocal pedagogue. I have talked to Suzanne on the phone and heard all about her and Professor Guttenberg has talked to her about my singing and such. Little did I know that the Suzanne was IN Seraphic Fire! So I finally got to actually meet her. She's real! She’s practically been my co-teacher for the past 3 years. Professor Guttenberg encouraged that I should have a voice lesson with her. SQUAWK. So we might have a little vocal coaching session when this week is out....awesome.
One more recording day to go...