No choir = Easy living

So, CVE was canceled both yesterday and today. Despite the fact that I feel bad for our conductor who is out with the stomach flu, I have been free to relax and do errands and such... starting as early as 11am instead of 4pm! What a difference an extra 5 hours makes! Woohoo!

So, more free time this week. Excellent. Not only that, but I've been really good about getting into bed early (except this past Sunday night, but once I was in bed, I was out like a light). I've been getting about 7-8 hours of sleep per night pretty consistently, which leaves me feeling great, avoiding the bugs going around, and hopefully ready to absorb as much information about singing as possible.

As far as the information about singing regarding teaching...well, that's a different story. Susan was so excited today about getting back into teaching. It was wonderful to hear her smiling through the telephone, feeling joyful because she has the opportunity to share all the things she knows with someone who has much to learn. A great symbiotic relationship, and one that Susan obviously excels at. I, however, do not feel that I excel at the teaching end of a teacher-student relationship (I can only hope that Ms. Wise feels I excel at the student part of one). I just don't think I have the drive and teachery-sensibilities to teach singing. Maybe part of me just wants to see instant results, and a lot of times I'm just not really sure as to what to say. I know what has worked for me, but the other person having a completely different body and being a completely different person will take the way I say something and most probably interpret it as something else completely. How can I be encouraging enough while still being critical enough to really teach something? Will I be doing a poor job if I (over)realize that it takes a good bit of time to learn things which require a change in muscle coordination and memory? I mean, of course it requires time, but I wish I could feel like I'm helping! Maybe once an accompanist is able to come to the lessons I can really focus purely on the person as a whole without a percentage of my brain working out what my hands are doing on the keyboard.

Akk! So, as you can tell, Lowa went a ranting-and-a-raving there. It's because I have my first in-class lesson tomorrow. It's just 5-6 minutes of warm-up routine with my student...in front of my whole class of peers, and my vocal ped teacher who has been singing and teaching voice and teaching vocal ped for decades. Hmm. Mentioning all this isn't helping the way I feel about it. I guess that as long as I'm not first I should be ok. I mean, even if I stink at teaching, as long as I try my best for the purpose of this class, I'm doing my best. I'd certainly feel badly for my student if she didn't get anything out of our lessons, but I just need to work at it and focus on helping her sing through her voice. Yes, that's the lesson for this evening, folks. I'm hopping into bed before I have to worry about it anymore. Wow, makes thinking about my audition on Thursday feel like a cakewalk. :)

Nighty nighty night.