Vocal Session Again

I've been accompanying Miss Katie Fong's students in their vocal sessions. They're preparing for their vocal exam in late November or early December. Funny. I never knew they had exams ^^; Weird thing is they jump straight into the Grade 4 exam. So weird huh. If like that might as well label the Grade 4 exam the Grade 1 exam right?

Hmm. Well, musicians are weird people. Not me though. I'm normal. Haha. Or should I say har-har? There's a difference, you know.

Anyway, I really love working with Miss Fong. She's so professional, and there's never a time when I go for her sessions and get away being labelled perfect. That's what makes me so nervous about going for her sessions sometimes, but that's also what keeps me going. My skills go up a level every time I play for her heheh.

I posted this on my friendster blog also, but didn't really go into detail cuz her students, Camie and Katrina, have friendster also =P So anyway, here are the songs:

Camie (MMU - Law Foundation - 18 years old)
Camie's more of an Alto. So you can imagine the trouble she has to go through to sing Sop songs. She has rebonded hair which she dyed brown partly. She looks really lovely when she ties her hair up, and she's super slim ^^ She drives me to the sessions :)

Snowbells
Language: German (I think)
The title speaks volumes about the song. I'm supposed to play it and create a Narnia atmosphere. You know, the pure white landscape that gives one a feeling of completeness, purity and gentleness that only snow can bring, yet there is a sensation of the nearness of spring? I can almost do it at home with my own piano, but at Miss Fong's place, the electronic piano makes things a little difficult. It's operating on the Touch feature, you see. Touch is the feature that enables the dynamics of the keys. If the feature is disabled, all the keys would sound with the same loudness.
One of the reasons why I can't play properly is the foreignness (is there such a word?) of the language...


Nel cor piu non mi sento?
Language: Italian
This one is actually an opera classical, where this lady has 3 suitors chasing after her, and she's like "Why is love not what it usually is? Why am I feeling like this?". It's something like she's actually happy about being so attactive, but she's going all "oh noes" about it la. So there's one part where she goes "pieta, pieta, pieta", supposedly pitying herself but with a dramatic turn in her voice and actions. This is a difficult one for both Camie and me. For one, it's incredibly high-pitched. In addition to that hurdle, I'm supposed to play it andantino (faster or slower than andante - in laymen's term, either slower than slow or faster than slow haha), while keeping it upbeat and dramatic at the same time. To make things worse, I found it online, but the lady who sang it was.. sigh.. operatic? Horrendous. Ken was like, "is that a song???"


Feed the Birds
Language: Good ol' English!
This is without a doubt, my favourite piece!!!

1. It's in English, my first language!
2. I heard it sung by Mary Poppins, and it was lovely...
3. Both Kat and Camie are doing it, so it makes practice much easier
4. Katie told me I can add my own stuff to it cuz the accompaniment is way too simple, so I "have a say" in playing it!

It's really a beautiful song. I can just lose myself in it and imagine Mary Poppins all over again. Katie told the vocalists that they have to remember that sometimes they're the narrator, and sometimes they're the old birdwoman herself.

Tell the story, lose yourself in the song. You're singing "Come, feed my birds"!

The song takes on an interesting thingy when it says, "while overhead, her birds fill the sky". Awesome. Tuppence a bag!

Katrina (STSD - Secondary 4?)
Kat has a beautiful voice. She's a Sop, so she has less trouble singing the songs. She has really good voice control, and is a better singer than Camie, I must say. She's nice, and has a really nice slang. She has mixed blood, I think. So she has these curls all over her head.

Where the Bee Sucks
Language: English
Unfortunately, I still have trouble with this song, although it's in English.

1. I haven't heard it before, so I have trouble connecting
2. It's an upbeat song, and my upbeaty stuff is just terrible
3. The notes jump about and take on staccatoes at the most difficult places
4. Lots of ritardandos (slowing down), hard for me to work with Kat on slowing down and going a tempo at the same time

I have to work on this one. Katie says I keep doing these rubato stuff (getting faster) and my playing sounds like I'm rushing to get the notes right (which is true T_T).

Minnelied
Language: German (I think)
It means "Love Song", and it's by Franz Schubert. Great guy. I love his Polannaise in A. This one ar? I can't really gauge my performance cuz we didn't go through this one the last session. I think it's ok in terms of note playing, but the emotions aren't there la. Perhaps cuz it's in a foreign language (again).

Feed the Birds

Terms for the Layman
Andantino - slower or faster than andante
Andante - slow
Rubato - getting faster
Staccato - short notes (sort of like jumping beans?)
Ritardando - slow down
A tempo - resume original speed