EasterCakes

Alright, alright! I know I haven't been blogging of late, but don't blame me! I went home last weekend to spend a "quiet, peaceful" Easter weekend with the family and the ChuckAnn. PSYCH! Not a peaceful, restful, quiet weekend at all! But it wasn't all bad... Chuck and I spent lots of quality time together (some of it with the amazing Hana!), we studied a bit, and I got to see the boyfrann every day!

I'm not blogging today to tell you about my Easter break. No, my intention is to SHOW you my Easter break! Check it out:



A family of bunnies for the boyfrann!



Curly-Q bunny with ears made of leftover chocolate

Demented Jack-a-Lope. They really exist, folks!



One lonely turtle, also for the boyfrann.



A wonderful pack of turtles, all nicely arranged on a doily.

EASTER CHICKENS!!

A flock of EASTER CHICKENS!!

How to make delicious looking BunnyCakes and EASTER CHICKENS:

1) Make your cupcakes. I am a super-fan of Pillsbury's Fun-Fetti cake mix. Seriously, LOVE

2) While your cupcakes are getting cooked in the oven, melt yourself some brown/orange almond bark, depending on your cupcake-creature of choice, and put it in a pastry bag and prepare to decorate!

3) Pipe yourself some orange beaks and feat/brown bunny ears onto a cookie sheet covered in wax paper. Then stick 'em in the fridge to solidify for a few minutes.

4) Once your cupcakes are good and cooked, let them cool and then take them out of the wrappers, flip 'em upside-down and chop off the muffin-top! Slim those suckers down :P

5) Nom down on leftover muffin-tops!

6) Take 3 blocks of almond bark and using a cheese grater, grate them to look like Parmesan cheese.

7) Take your muffin-topless cakes and cover 'em up with frosting. All over. WARNING: this part gets really messy. Be prepared for lots of finger-licking!

8) Dump your frosted cake into the shredded almond bark to give it some feathers/fur. I apologize for how blurry this picture is. My model (CHUCKANN) kept moving.

9) Let the icing set, add eyes, beak, and feet (or ears, eyes, nose and mouth for a bunny) annnnnd...

10) Viola! You have yourself a super-cute EASTER CHICKEN! Or BunnyCake. Either one.

 Keep it Klassy, Easter Bunnies!

Cough, Cough

Due to an untimely sinus explosion, I haven't been doing much singing this week. So, feast your eyes and ears on what I have been doing this week!

Pretty much the most amazing thing ever. We listened to this in French Diction last week, and that's when I decided that Joan Sutherland (despite her lack-luster Italian Diction) was DA BOMB.

Keep it classy and healty y'all.

Awesome...

If you care to know how epically awesome my life is, wrap your mind around this:

I had an alright lesson on Friday. Nothing to terribly bad, but Prof. Cho found a whole bunch of spots in my music that I have been singing incorrectly all semester and I just got really frustrated with myself and such. But, I did have a fair amount of break-throughs as far as my technique goes. All lesson, all I could think about was how excited I was to get my CD and listen to it over breakfast on Saturday morning (today). After my lesson, when I went to take my CD out of Cho's CD recording-device-thingie, I saw "00:00" on the little screen that shows how much time has elapsed on the recording.

I had forgotten to press "PLAY" after I hit the "RECORD" button.

So now I feel really, really dumb. And I don't have a lesson to listen to. Epic fail on my part. But, there is a glimmer of hope in such a desperate situation. I tend to take pretty stellar notes on my practice log during my lessons, so I was able to still retain my theme for the week.

Just so you know, each week when I'm practicing I give myself a "theme." This theme can range anywhere from not gasping for air to making sure my body is properly aligned while I'm singing. By just giving myself one general theme a week, I've discovered that my mind gets less cluttered while I'm singing and that I get less frustrated with myself because my "theme" is generally something that is highly attainable. I guess you could say that I take one baby step a week (sometimes two if I'm doing really well) and by the end of the semester I've progressed a lot and I feel happier with myself. Seriously, y'all should try it out sometime.

Anyway, my illustrious theme for this week is:  *drum roll please*

Put more speaking voice into the singing voice!

So enlightening, I know. But, as I discovered on Friday, if I think about speaking rather than singing, the core of my sound is so much more present, there is no air in my tone, and my vowels are so much better. It was a pretty rad discovery (thanks Pro. Cho!). This is going to be a week of serious butt-busting on my part; juries are only 3 weeks away!!!

I was also told this week to sing like a cannon? Much more violent than it's Frisbee counterpart...

Happy... Tuesday?

So, today has been a totally fabulous day! Strange to think that such an occurrence could take place on such a mediocre day, but, Alas! Here I am, celebrating what should be known as the most hum-drum day to man.

Why exactly do I find Tuesdays so unexciting?

• Tuesday is not Monday (the beginning of a long week) or Wednesday (the middle of the long week), so it is very difficult to complain about Tuesday. It's just that random day sandwiched between the two most complained-about days of the work week. It's really an awkward day.
• In Greek culture, Tuesday is known as an unlucky day. This is because Constantinople fell on a Tuesday and everyone is still very bitter about the whole ordeal. Seriously, Greeks? It was over 800 years ago, GET OVER IT!
• How many people celebrate Tuesday for no reason? All sorts of people hold special events on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Wednesday (church night!!), Thursday (NBC Comedy Night), and even Monday (let'sdrinkuntilweforgetaboutthefirstdayback-night!). What happens on Tuesdays? Civilizations get wiped off the map, stock markets crash, Microsoft updates it's software, and on the rare occasion: government elections. It's like we have to create a reason for Tuesday to even exist.
• Studio Class. Enough said.
• Tuesday is originally named after the planet Mars. May I point out here that Mars is second only to Mercury as the smallest planet in our solar system (sorry Pluto), and Mercury was already being used as the name for element 80, the dude naming the days had to settle for the second best (and second smallest), Mars. Super impressive, right?? Not.
• Tuesday is nowhere near the end of the week, so there's not much to look forward to.
• Vocal Music Hour. See: Studio Class.

But.... Today was probably the best Tuesday in recorded history. Everything today went my way (Oh what a beautiful moooornin', oh what a beautiful daaaaaaaay, I got a beautiful feeeeeelin...)

First, I had to wake up super-duper-extra early to register for classes. Which in all reality should have been terrible, but I got into the French class that I wanted and am going to have an awesome teacher next year!! After registering I went to the SLC and had a wonderful workout. You know it's going to be a great day when you have an awesome workout under your belt before the sun has even risen.

Breakfast: delicious breakfast burrito with egg and potatoes and salsa and pico. YUMMERS! And, to my absolute delight, Penland had hazelnut coffee for the first time in weeks! Whoooopie! So, I was worked out, well fed, and caffeinated!

The rest of my school day went rather well, and we even got out of choir early, so I actually got to enjoy a delicious lunch with my ladies before Musicianship. Studio Class didn't seem to last very long today, and everyone sang so well! Afterward, I realized that I didn't have any homework and I took my time eating with some of my favorite folks. Did I mention that Memo had fresh cookies AND strawberry cheesecake ice cream????? ForTheWiiiiiiinn!

And now I am in my jammies, writing this blog about my epic Tuesday, texting the b-fran and enjoying the quiet. God always provides peace when I need it most!

Keep that class coming out the.... Face. Out of your FACE.

P.S. I'll talk about my divine revelations as pertain to singing soon. I've been super-dried out of late and haven't had much success in the practice room. Darn you Waco allergies!

Rise, You Dead People!!

Alright. I am fully aware that it is not October 31, and that dead people (either real or fake) will not be rising out of the ground anytime soon, but yes, the title of this post is calling the musty, moth-eaten bodies up from six-feet under. Why, you ask? Great question. When poorly-timed music puns and awkward lyrics come out to play, there can only be one logical explanation:

CHOIR CONCERT

Today was the day of the Spring Semester Concert for the Women's Choir at this fab university I attend. We performed this great little piece by this guy you may have heard of. Which one? Oh, you know, that "Place of the Blest" by that chap Randall Thompson. NoBigDeal. We just invited the Campus Orchestra to come and join us up on stage (they took up far more than their fair share of it...) and to revel in our glory. The Baylor Bronze hand bell choir and Bella Voces select women's chorus also made guest appearances, performing this nifty little duo Vivos Vocos, English: Rise Living! Really an awesome, awesome piece. If I can find a recording of us singing it, I will be sure to post it on here for all of you to enjoy, though I doubt an audio or video recording can do it much justice (WARNING! Music Major Moment Ahead!!!) the overtone sequence throughout the work is just stellar, something only the most advanced recording technology could pick up, probably. As those old geezers no one ever listens to say: ain't nothing like the real thing!

...well maybe that's just me. Congratulations, we've just affirmed that I am, in fact, a grandma. Moving on...

So it was a great concert, both of my ensembles performed (no, I'm not biased!) and it was a fun time had by all. Sort of. Really, I hate concerts of the choral variety. Not because I hate choir, but because I always get stuck next to the people who find it necessary to sway and undulate to the music. Now, I honestly have no earthly idea why they feel the need to do this. Honestly, the notes and diction won't get better if you throw your body every which-way while singing. All that's going to do is distract the audience and make the poor girl next to you (me) have to dodge your every move. Doesn't exactly make for a pleasant afternoon of singing, does it?



Here's a loverly photo of my choral friends to send you off with. Aren't we puuurty?



In other news: today was the best frannnnn's birthday! No, I did not make her a cake. Yes, I did post a picture of cat ladies on her Facebook and spent the rest of the day cracking really lame old person/cat lady jokes. Love you, hanaaaaa!

Keep it klassy, kiddoes!

Sing Like a Frisbee

Yesterday, I came to a profound realization, and I hope you don't mind if I share it with you. Well, if you do mind, why on earth are you reading my blog??? Anyway, I realized that the title of my blog is "When the Solange Sings." Great sleuthing, Solange, any half-wit with eyes could have told you that! Well, by the title, yes. But yesterday I realized that I had totally forgotten my purpose for even writing a blog; my goal was to share with the unsuspecting public my journey through music (and a bit of my trip through the craziness of the collegiate world). So as of today, I will try to limit the randomness that occurs here on "When the Solange Sings" and speak more about the music-ness that's going on here. Don't worry! I didn't say my sassy commentary on the rest of the world would cease entirely! You're more than welcome to have your cake, and eat it too, but I feel like I need to better document my journey as a singer rather than documenting my crazy sassiness and creative ideas all the time. Kapeesh?

So, it begins here.

Obviously, today is Saturday. Now, that can only mean either one of two things: I'm either sleeping or I'm at Starbucks nomming down on a Cranberry Orange Scone and an Iced Coffee with sooooy while at the same time attempting to study for religion, French, and any of those other silly classes I'm required to take. Guess which one I'm attempting right now?? And now guess what I am successfully failing at...

It is really going to be quite a beautiful Saturday today, quite the perfect day to play Frisbee. Shame I'll be stuck inside all day studying and practicing. Speaking of Frisbee... During my lesson yesterday, Soon Cho and I realized that the way to get my breath support just right, I have to think about throwing a Frisbee off into the distance of the clear, blue, beautiful sky. Really, I just made that last little bit about the sky up, but it is literally amazing what thinking about something as random as Frisbee can do to one's tone quality. On a happier note, I finally mastered the stupid I mean wonderful French in "Beau Soir." Ridiculous, I know, but I've been working on it like crazy for almost 4 weeks!! So much, in fact, that I've neglected to work on any of my other pieces for my final jury, which, by the way, is my Level I, so I absolutely HAVE to do well in order to go on to the onety-fourth grade. (Sophomore in college for those of you who have never seen an episode of "The Beverly Hillbillies." Which, if you haven't, go watch one NOW. You won't regret it!)

Annnnnd this is the part of the post where I realize that I've literally spent two hours working on this blog/goofing around on Etsy/creeping on Facebook and that I should probably feast my eyes on some Thomas Grubb (his book, his book!!! Not him, he's gross...) and learn a little bit more about singing in French. Blech YAY!!!!! My favorite!!