Life is a Cabaret

Well, I took a small hiatus from blogging about my Cabaret experience, because honestly I took a small hiatus from working on much.   After classes ended and we had our final performance, I just chilled with Family and my Husband.

After the small Holiday break, I did start looking for new music, looking at old music, and brainstorming some ideas for my Cabaret show because last week I started CabLab with Lennie Watts and Steven Ray Watkins.    This class is going to be geared toward each of us working on our own Cabaret shows.

This is it folks, I’m really doing this thing - I’m actually creating a theme for my show, starting to pick out and work on music, working with Lennie (my director) and Steven (my musical director), writing patter - the whole nine yards!  I’m so excited and nervous and scared and thrilled - it’s going to be a fun ride.

So, we’ve had two classes so far and we’re a small bunch, but so amazing - each of us is doing our own thing, but we’re all willing to encourage and help the others.    And watching others go through a smiliar process (although, everyone is different, and each show will be SOOOO different) helps me realize how normal the things I’m thinking about or worrying about actually is.

For me personally, right now, I’m just trying to concentrate on finding music that encompasses the “theme” that we’ve chosen — it’s not really a theme, in the sense that it’s about a certain time period or a certain composer, but we did choose a starting point using a song - Unwritten (sung by Natasha Beddingfield).    That’s our starting point.  Unwritten.   How I came to New York with a dream, a goal, and how different my life is today…some bad things have happened, some amazing things have happened, there were highs and lows and shifts and changes, but I’m not done yet - my life story is not finished yet and how exciting that can be.

Last night’s class I started working on some new songs that Lennie recommended and we discussed a few other songs that I was thinking about.   I worked on “Dogs in the Yard” from the movie Fame and “You Can Be a New Yorker, too” from the musical Mayor.   They are both great songs and this weekend I will be memorizing and rehearsing them.     The other songs that I”m thinking about are “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters” by Elton John and “Dreams” from Fleetwood Mac.     I’ll also be thinking about patter, stories I want to tell, stories that I want to tell through song (stuff that I want to express, but maybe not explicitly talk about), and I want to think about a medley of some sort (although, right now, I’m leaning toward a fun medley of TV theme songs — I love theme songs, I wish I had a theme song some days). 

So, I’ll be back, talking about my music choices, where I find music (for example - I used pandora.com, typed in Unwritten and up popped Mandy Moore’s version of “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters” which really caught my attention), what happens during class, and other things that pop up during the whole fun, crazy, process.

I attended The Singer Symposium this past Saturday, and although it was a long day (and the break-out rooms were extremely warm) I had a good time overall and came away with about 10 pages worth of handwritten notes - this is the condensed version.

First, my over-all general notes:   I enjoyed the day, and even though I wrote down pages and pages and pages of notes, once I got home and reviewed, I realized that over half of it was stuff I already knew.   I didn’t talk to too many people - one because I was still feeling icky and two not too many people were alone like I was.  I picked up a few things from the exhibitors, but not too much - the most interesting were The Alexander Technique teacher and Singers Express (an online database for singers and producers).  I will be delving more into their websites to learn more about them and their services.    I’m not sure if I would attend again - the break-out sessions would have to be really specific (something really exciting or something I really wanted to learn about) for me to go back next year as I just felt a bit “on the outside” the whole day.

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Class last night was fun - we had our whole crew there (6 people in all) this week and the class is going to be great - the diversity of song choices and vocal types is amazing.

I went first (what’s up with that?  I’m always getting picked to go first - maybe I should just pony up and volunteer next time huh?) and I worked on three songs:  1)  We’re All alone  2) Good Morning Baltimore and 3) Let me Grow Old - which I haven’t sung in months.   The lyrics had totally escaped my brain and the tune was shortly behind it.  Ugh!

For starters, it took awhile for me to warm up - not sure why, except that I’m having major insomnia issues again and haven’t slept well in a few weeks (I need to call my acupuncturist like yesterday) and I’m tired, all the time.  But after the first five minutes, my voice was good and “juicy” (don’t take that in a bad way - that’s just a good way of saying warmed up and in a good placement - that’s all).    I was also having some problem finding the floor - meaning I was wavering in and out without a Base of Support, so to speak, under my voice.   And I wasn’t letting the larynx be flexible - basically I was worried too much about how pretty my sound was instead of just singing the song — forgetting the #1 rule — singing does not have to be hard work.    Egads!

Patrick also gave us a homework assignment:   Find the singer(s) that really rocks your world!

We have to either burn a CD of our faves (or just fave) or send him mp3s and then we’ll start discussing them in class.   I haven’t given much thought yet, but the first two names that spring to mind are Judy Garland and Sting.  I’ll need to flip through my iTunes and see if anyone else catches my eye.   But I have to ask you - my readers - who are the singers that rock your world?