Group 1

Bryan Sable Singing a Chopin nocturne is a tall order! You make more time for high points and lilts - very Chopinian. ?$%#!!! moment made me laugh. Good continuity in spite of that. Next step can be showing different rubato moments in the repeated main themes and attuning your voice to Chopin's specific chromaticisms and playing bass as chords while singing along in a poetic way - you've got most of the notes in your system quickly enough to start thinking about poetic singing. Since you're experienced with choir directing, try listening to it on a recording (Pires, Rubinstein) and conducting it as if choir parts were entering / overlapping / finishing, etc.

Cliff Pleatman Great job! You picked a really tricky piece to sing.

Gail Starr 

Thx Gail-but you must have something better to do than hear me sing...had to keep flipping register......

Cliff Pleatman I admit....I was also folding laundry, LOL! 

BUT, I did notice that you flipped the register and I am having to do that as I am TRYING to learn how to do assignment #2.

Gail Starr 

Gail Starr 

You're off the hook.  In my Mazurka am I supposed to sing 3 beats/bar or just the first note? Are you connected to TB or just an avid enthusiast?

Cliff Pleatman Not connected, just enjoying the TWI. That is a great question:  in the assignment video it seems like we're encouraged to play the base note of each chord in the measure, so I guess that would mean all 3 beats.  (That's what I'm attempting to do as I practice.)

Cliff Pleatman do both - just the first note to hear the roots of each bar and then all three bass notes to hear different moving lines (in Op. 30 nr. 2 there are many slight changes on beats 2 and 3). It's especially interesting to pick out the middle voice of a three-voice chord and find internal polymelody

Cliff Pleatman Listened to your video - your colour changes on couplets are natural and well-suited to the first phrase. Listen to triplets in your voice, they're all currently accenting first note, whereas it can be more effective to vary the emphasis to the second or third note of the triplet (mazurka pattern strikes again) - this can have profound impact on the melody and direction. The kujawiak in A major is a coo-coo bird (kukueczka - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=op1HmPUnrUQ), think of this when you play it.

Jarred Dunn 

Singing those chromatic inner lines on the 2nd and 3rd beats in the left hand is tricky along with voice range issues.  I may practice that in the privacy of my home but upload the final result minus my singing later. .  Thx!  And planning to upload portions of Debussy Reflections in the other course…..

Gail Starr 

yep.  Jarred clarified…..thx!

Adriana López Hi Adriana!  I clicked on your link and it says "private".  Maybe you can post it again?  I'd love to hear you.

Adriana López welcome - happy to have you! Your video is set to private and I can't view it! Could you change the link setting to "unlisted" or "public"?

 Gail Starr thank you for telling me, didn't notice it before.

Jarred Dunn thank you for the welcoming! :D My video can be seen now. My apologies.

Thank you!

Bryan Sable Hey Bryan,  you clearly have the vocal expertise to shine here.  Thank you for such a lovely video!

Gail Starr you are incredibly kind! I have tried to get a decent take of the nocturne three times today. There’s just some thing about recording that makes my head stop mid-phrase and I always end up making silly little mistakes. What’s the quote from Horowitz-something about if I hit 80% of the notes in a recital, it’s been a success? Am I just making that up? 

Bryan Sable Great singing! Your soulful bass really complements the melody.

Vidhya Bashyam between you and Gail, I feel like I have a built-in cheering section. So kind of you, thank you!