This stuff is hard.

At the risk of someone important reading this I do want to divulge into what happened last night at the little kid's SMA demo. I just implore all music educators in this world to really think about the benefits music will have on their students. Also, children who are four do not have the same cognitive experience that a ten year old will have.

Needless to say, it was the roughest teaching experience of my life. Thank God for Liz Ames to back me up when I felt stuck.

"Oh... well... can you just sing something?"

Also, if you are going to host a guest instructor, the environment you provide for the children will certainly effect how responsive the children will be to what the guest instructor is teaching.

Friday night might not be a good night to "Be Our Guest."

After rehearsal last night I had a very nice conversation with some fellow opera singers about the importance of safe singing. I rely on that crutch to this day. I am starting to wonder if perhaps I am playing things too safe... and I am also noticing a ton of bad habits still creeping into my own "safe" singing. I guess it's time to woodshed again. Even the professionals get bad habits and inevitably get back on track if they have friends helping them out.

I am not one for opera but I'm currently watching Butterfly ... some British film version of it. Not sure of the singers... Pinkerton is hard hard hard music to sing. Very dramatic. It's a shame I'll never sing it.

Last night I was on the phone for two hours. Not bad.

Paul, Judge and I bought spices from an Indian shop after rehearsal today.

Like Pinkerton sings,

"La vita ei non appaga
se non fa suo tesor
i fiori d'ogni plaga."