i used to study opera. now i'm an automotive engineering student.
i am 24 now, and spent roughly 12 of those years studying classical voice. as a classical vocalist, you're supposed to do your own translations, study the poetic idea of a song to really get the feeling, etc. some of the books i studied out of were printed by a publisher named alfred, and those books made everything easier. on the page before each song, it gave the translation, the poetic idea, and the history of the song. nice source of information, saves time and much pawing through books and dictionaries, etc.

what this all leads up to is i was giving a recital after a particularly stressful season, so i trimmed down my program to only do three songs each in italian, german, and french. my voice teacher decided it would be a nice idea, to fill some of the time that would have been taken up by other songs, if i shared the poetic idea of each song before i sang, as my friends and family and most of my public didn't speak a work of any of the languages i was to be singing in. i looked down at the page before my first piece and hissed at her 'i can't read this!' she hissed back 'yes you can, go ahead!' she sat at the piano, waiting for me. i couldn't very well start the piece with no accompaniment.

so, i told my audience (including my lovely mum) that my first piece was titled 'An Chloe', and it was about the moment when the two lovers, slicked with sweat, feverishly climax together and cry out in ecstacy. i've never been so embarrassed in my life. i looked back at my voice teacher and she had paled, considerably. she had NO idea what it was about. a bunch of the people in this audience also helped determine my scholarships, whether or not i got more performances hosted in the concert hall, etc. needless to say there were a few scandalized faces.

Another time, i had been selected to attend a solo vocal artist workshop at princeton university, culminating in each student performing one piece from their repetoire at a large recital at the end of the workshop. since i'm short and a bit square, i wanted to appear much taller (since i was only going to be onstage for one song, comfort wasn't an issue) so i wore this RIDICULOUS pair of platforms that brought me up to about 5'4 from my usual 4'11. as i walked on stage, the corner of the carpet under the grand piano was turned up. i caught my heel and stumbled, and the concert hall of 400 people gasped. i caught myself without falling, which i thought was pretty rockstar, so i threw the audience the horns. whoops. so much for stage poise and elegance. (i kicked ass on the piece i sang though, so awesome.)

apologies for most everything.
(Sarahfax, Fri 2 Dec 2005, 18:46, Reply)