Wachenheim

Today I rode my bike 10 km to a town named Wachenheim. It rained, blew like the dickens and was ultimately rewarding. It is quite funny though, the beautiful little European towns....with huge farming vehicles hulking through the streets.

The dog who bit me and a new home

I am free! Free of that cursed application! I just hope I make it to the interviews….

I had a truly German cultural experience yesterday. I went to Ikea. While strolling the vast warehouse of housery, with Ricky Iglesias playing over the speakers, I had a epiphany. I was in one of those dreams where everything is the same, but you can’t understand a word anyone is saying. Really though, I have had a surprisingly good time the last few days doing terribly ordinary things with my host family. It is a really cool experience and very different from anywhere else I have lived in Germany. My host family lives in a little town called Fußgönheim. It is about 15 km out of Mannheim, 50 minutes by S-Bahn, and you can walk from one end of the town to the other. The family lives across the street from the one church in Fußgönheim, making it remarkably easy to find, as the point of the steeple is the highest point in the town.

My host mother teaches guitar and my host father works at a chemical factory which seems to be one of the largest employers in the area. My room is comfortable and thank the lord I have internet (it is sad how dependent I am, but in my defense, enrolling in a school in a foreign country requires particular access to information).

My newly made American friends are now dispersed throughout Germany, though a decent sized contingency is in Heidelberg, 25 km from my flat in Mannheim.

Speaking of new friends, my new roommates seem really cool. They threw me a birthday party and are so cool that I was sad to move out for the three week home stay. Fortunately, My guest family is really nice as I have already said.

Today, I also had my second lesson with Piernay….man….stressful…but good. Then I got bit by a dog (several times in fact...not bad....just a split knuckle), ate spaghetti, and went to bed. Im allgemeinen, it was a pretty good day.

Marvelous Mannheim

I have reached Mannheim and once again have a working computer with internet, at least for the next two days untill I start my homestay. I believe I am going tom Mannheim tomorrow for a festival, and then having a party at our flat for my birthday. I have already met several more cool people here, and it looks to be an awesome year. Everyone says Piernay is a good teacher as well, in fact one of them joked about calling me sie instead of du when he heard I was studying with him.

All in all, I am exhausted from a bonfire in the woods last night and a day of travelling. But very content. The bonfire was pretty funny. Two eagle scouts, a Cameroonian Medical Student and I all huddled around a pile of damp wood, trying for hald an hour to start a fire...It went eventually. Sorry...german translation. Ghislain turned out to be our best German friend in Marburg and it seems we made quite an impression on him as well. Really is encouraging when we are able to see how we have promoted intercultural understanding and making potentially lifelong friendships. The picture is of him.

Mannheim looks to b pretty relaxed, though riding a bicycle is rather hairy at times. Joes bike (the fellow whose room I am renting) is a touch to big for me, but functions none the less. I jut feel like I am riding a horse when I am on it.

Deutsch is going well, though my pace of comprehension is still a little slow. Still, I can enjoy listening to a conversation and contribute when asked directly.

I am sleepy...yes....

I miss my Marburg buddies already though. What a great group of people. Just meeting all of them was a once in a lifetime experience.

Dead Computers

I have been forced to take a break from blogging by a dead computer. Today I move to Mannheim, I will really miss all of the Fulbrighters here, but it will be nice to start really singing again. I sang at a little concert the fulbright musicians gave last night and it was nice to bea ble to integrate the things I have been working on with the little bit of singing I have been able to do here.

Will write more when settled into Mannheim.

Effortless F's

Well....It is has been 4 days since my first lesson with Mr. Piernay, and I am singing effortless resonant F's and even rather easy F #'s and we didn't even work on my high range. I think that taking a break this summer was a good idea. My instrument grew a lot. Now having had some time to step back as well as develop some more of the physical goods, I think I am ready to start fixing some of my vocal "tricks" as I would call them. Finally free up my larynx and tongue and really start using my breath. It is wonderful, I think all my lessons, coachings and Alexander Technique lessons have really prepared me to embark on a journey in more technically correct singing. Already many of the concepts explaine while at Pepperdine are becoming clearer and I am finding how to utilize them. So far this year looks to be exactly what I wanted: A time when I didn't have to worry about singing an E or F in performance next week and can truly explore, discover and free my voice.

I definitely have been artificially darkening my sound and in the wrong way. I was manufacturing my sound so much in my throat and with so much subglottal pressure that I was never able to truly utilize my breath. Hence, when I would try to use my breath support or increase my breath intensity, I would end up doing 1 of two things: 1. Continue to use my throat to Control the sound sabotaging my breath and use subglottal pressure and muscular manipulation to overly rotate or 2. increase my rate of breath expulsion hence pushing too much air between my strained chords resulting in a very unpleasant and I believe unhealthy sensation.

I now am finding (I believe) a true application for the inhibition of the Alexander Technique which is allowing me to utilize what Dr. Price always taught me. That coupled with my new attention to overtones and resonance (thanks largely to Dr. Lofquist) is enabling me to explore and appraise new methods of singing which are free and definitely utilize my breath.

In my lesson with Piernay, we spent most of the short amount of time singing exercises doing one the same exercise Dr. Price started with. Establishing the independance of the tongue from the jaw singing ia ia ia. Man Alexander Technique is helping with that. It is gonna be really good for me to start at square one again and hopefully this time avoid the traps I fell into over the last four years in spite of my teachers warnings.

I wonder if I may get into the baritone range? That would be unexpected but fun :-D

Intense...

So....I have met Mr. Piernay! I am afraid he was just what I was hoping for, and now I hope that I can take it. He is in many ways, very German. Very to the point and exact. I think I will grow a lot this year, but I think I will also truly be tested. I just have to believe that if he is willing to work with me he thinks I have real potential. Now he is a bass...haha...speaking of which, I very well may be a bass-baritone...time will tell.

Turns out he had heard my CD. Nice thing was I managed to sing a darn effortless F in the first few minute in Vi Ravviso though I was quite nervous. Next lesson is October 1st. Long ways away, but at least he is willing to see me when he gets back...haha.

In other lighter news...I met the folks I will be living with! What a blessing! I think this will be a really good year. Communal food and chores...and a bike! yes! that saves me so much hastle and money. My room is totally furnished and then some. This housing arrangement literally fell in my lap and it looks to be one of the best parts of this grant. I actually started thinking in German today...and after 3 hours auf Deutsch...it feels easier...haha. yes! They all speak English, but are totally patient with my German, which has improved soooooo much in three weeks.

All in all my excursion to Mannheim today was a bit terrifying, definitely mixed things up (like my insides and my pride), but all in all quite successful.

Oh yeah, the Mannheim Music School is right next door to the theatre some of us tried to see X-men at...so wierd that I could walk by something that would become rather important in my life 2 years later and never know.

The hardships of the Fulbright life

It is sometimes hard to believe that two governments are paying us to do this. This weekend we made a trip Saalburg, an ancient Roman outpost on the Northwester border of Roman Empire. Wile there we shot bows and arrows as well as threw spears for about an hour. Granted, 6 hours of German Every weekday is a bit tiring, but still!

In other news I have finally found a room to practice after hiking 20 minutes into the woods to the to an enclosed forest grove to practice as before. It is interesting to see the loggin practices in a foreign country. all along the trails deeper in the woods here there are evenly space gaps with deep tire treads and all of the trees remove in a column the width of a logging truck I found up there as well. It makes me think of Fern Gully.

Logistics are working themselves out as I now have a bank account, have gotten in touch with Mr. Piernay again and have my room pretty much squared away. It is funny what a triumph even a seemingly trivial task can be, such as mailing a letter, when you are in a foreign country. Especially when you utilize you newly learned vocabulary and grammar and people clearly understand you more easily. German Diction sure has paid off as well. I have been told several times I speak good German (even when I sometimes am guessing!).

All in all, this has and continues to be a great blessing.