Repertoire is Dessert

There is great danger in having inculcated a little technique.

You can do more this week than you could last week, so get excited and change the equation: you start singing (or would that be seducing?) lots of repertoire. Then you show up for your next online lesson wondering why things aren’t working too well.

It’s really simple, dear reader. You’ve stopped working on your technique. You are way, way, way ahead of yourself and now lost in the forest.

The progression of the old school is very simple. If followed to the letter, it will produce the desired results. What is that progression in its simplest form?

Breathing, pure vowels, vocalization, songs with words.

Skip a step and you will get in trouble.

The teacher must show you how to breath; must show you how to hold your body and instrument; must demonstrate pure vowels and show you how to obtain them throughout a two-octave range. It’s an apprenticeship to be sure. But once you have the basics down, it’s a matter of work, work, work.

If you know what to do and how to do it, a main course of 4-5 ten-minute practice sessions focused on technique will take you were you want to go.

Repertoire is dessert.