A Great Change of Range

This morning I returned to my voice teacher with a couple more songs under my belt - but my first order of business was figuring out a good selection to sing for an Open Mic that I just learned about yesterday called, "The Broadway Bullet." I learned about it from an email I received from the New York Musical Theater Festival. Right now I am loving their mailing list. The event sounds like it could be a lot of fun: surprise guests, featured artists, and an Open Mic to top it off!

They are inviting people to bring original material, but unfortutately I don't have the sheet music to any of my songs as of yet. I was hoping that my voice teacher would be able to help me in that arena, but there just wasn't enough time. Instead he suggested that I sing one of my old cabaret standards, "Leather" by Tori Amos. It seems to me that the musical theater community is just as in smitten with Tori as they are with Sondheim, so why not? It's a great, sexy song and I enjoy singing it.

Once we settle on my "Bullet" selection, I wanted to get back to what I had been working on over the past couple of weeks, namely "A Way Back To Then." I had been practicing the non-belty belt exercise all week until I finally got the hang of it. The proof was in the pudding - when I got to that section of the song, it came out just right. My teacher was even more encouraged by this development. "That's where the money is," he said. I sure hope he's right. I could use some extra cash right about now. Wouldn't it be great if cold hard cash just came spilling out of my mouth every time I opened it to sing? That would be something special, however until such miracles occur, I'm going to have to find other more realistic ways of amping up my cash flow.

I felt great after my lesson and came away with a few more pieces of music. I really want to expand my repetoire, and if I keep this up, I should be able to expand my range as well.

Later this evening I tried to apply what I had learned in the Made-Up Musical. Despite the below-freezing temperatures outside, we had a nice house and we managed to heat up the place with song!

As soon as the stage lights went out, my boyfriend and I headed straight up town for a birthday party that a couple of old New Jersey Shakespeare Festival friends of mine were having. I have kept in touch with several of the people that I've met through the festival over the years, and it was great to reconnect with a few of whom I hadn't seem in a while. I'm doing my best to check off my New Years resolution to reconnect with old friends. Especially those in the theater community. After all, there's no people like show people...