Habits

I have a comment stuck in my head from someone I’ve known for 3 years who said ‘for as long as I’ve known you, you’ve never followed through on any of your goals.’  I really, really want to be a person who follows through.   Ok, so I’m still working on Nobody’s Idol but at least this time I’m actually working on it instead of saying that I am or not even mentioning it.  And I do so follow through!  Is it really my fault if the things I do follow through on don’t go exactly as planned and leave me saying ‘well at least I can say I tried’. (I’m referring to my improv producing resume which has no relevance to this blog).

Anyways these are the ways I am trying to follow through on my 2 main goals of finishing Nobody’s Idol and doing this one woman show.  For the first one, I’ve scheduled 6 hours of writing time a week to specifically work on Nobody’s Idol – so blog writing doesn’t count.  I also thought for 2 seconds I could teach myself to write songs in a month.  That still could happen if only I weren’t so busy all of a sudden.  I had a song-writing lesson with Brooke Harris at Big Voice Studios.  I didn’t really know what to expect but in the end we came to the conclusion that I need to learn some music theory before I can actuall write songs or take piano lessons and/or guitar.  I was at least taught some basic chords and I should buy or rent a keyboard.  If I’m serious about following through on actually writing a musical.  I have the staged play reading coming up the first week in June.  I’ve asked a couple of people to read for certain parts but I worry about asking too many too soon because I only have 15 minutes (which may be plenty of time) but I need to think about what I actually want to do in that 15 minutes.  Most likely, 5 minute scenes devoted to each of the 6 main characters ‘pivotal’ scenes.  Amber/Derek, Francis/Annie/Jay-B, and Chantelle/Mandy Paul or Pheobe/Fame.  I realize that means nothing without further explanation.  It seems as though I am thinking about this story and the characters are ‘with me’ (figuratively) everywhere I go.  But basically for the music for this musical I’m at square one and probably need to seek out a composer which is the next thing on my to do list for this project.

The things I have been doing to make good on my goal to write and perform in this one woman show.  I fear this one for now is taking a back seat to Nobody’s Idol which is fine as long as I finish something this year.  But I’m still working on myself as a performer.  I’ve met with Deb Joy today and did some voice work.  It reminded me of the voice classes at Brock which I never paid any real attention too before.  I did feel silly but this time around, I think I’ll actually do the homework.  I’m promising myself that every day I will do the following things to make my voice better:

• lie on the floor with my full back on the floor and my feet up on a chair, knees apart, inhale/exhale 3 seconds each way, eyes in front on a focal point — for 3 minutes
• then make these sounds: ‘s’; ‘f’; hum without the ‘h’ sound and no glotal whatever that thing is….Do-ra-do;do-me-do;do-so-do
• nurse/take care of my jaw by massaging in and up; jaw goes towards ears instead of whichever way it was going before
• tongue exercises (not the kissing kind) – stick out tongue and hum or something  and this should be in front of the mirror (so that instead of just feeling like an idiot, I can be sure to look like one too)
• stretching and yawning
• and stand for half an hour with a pillow in between my knees and be aware that I’m not locking the knees
• plug nose and sing ‘ye-ya-yah-yo-you’

So apparently if I do all these things every day I’ll be perfect well, for singing and performing.  Ok, I’m going to try it out.  Voice exercises here’s your chance to prove me wrong; me and every theatre student who ever sneered or doubted and professed you to be a waste of time and money.   Prove me wrong – oh and make me perfect, too.  Well vocally.

I also met with Adrian Marchuk.  I think he’ll be helpful with learning songs since we never did get to that part in the lesson today.  We worked on ‘Ring Them Bells’ and ‘In My Own Little Corner’.  And regular warm up type stuff.  I’d really like to work on specific numbers to do at comedy shows or open mic nights since my one woman show probably won’t be ready soon enough.  But the upside is by the time I finish Nobody’s Idol I’ll be seasoned songwriter and/or have met a composer to help me with those original songs I plan to write.

If I can swing it financially (but apparently to the lifeclass teachers if I tell the story that I can than I can), I’d like to take this music theory thing at Humber, the voice lessons with Deb and then the singing actual songs lessons. All alternating weeks.  But I gotta sit down and really figure out what’s reasonable.