So usually I have my voice lessons on Tuesdays, but this week due to illness/allergies/a generally tired voice (from all of the work I did last week preparing for the choir concert I was in on Sunday) I had it on Wednesday instead.

My voice was pretty tired even so, and maybe I was pushing it a little bit because I was all phlegmy still and some of my upper notes were not coming easily. So, I skipped the two Rossini arias I’ve been working on and instead applied myself to Jazzier pursuits—namely George Gershwin’s “Summertime” and Billy Hill’s “The Glory of Love”, both of which are arranged in a key that approaches the very bottom of my range and therefore feel much easier to sing with my phlegmy, tired voice.

Beginning work on these two pieces was probably overdue actually, considering I’m supposed to be singing with the Community Jazz Band in two weeks (June 1^st I think?). So it was good to get a move-on on that. Because I’m hoping to manage to avoid making a fool of myself, and stuff. (Unlike like last time, when I forgot the words and missed entrances galore in all but one of the three songs I sang.  <.< Granted it was the first time I’d really sung with a microphone, or really sung jazz at all, and I was hella nervous but paltry excuses aside, it was not a good feeling.)

Luckily I already know “Summertime” fairly well so mostly I’ll just be working on getting the style and getting into the character a little bit. “The Glory of Love” however I had never heard of until a little over a week ago, so that will require a a bit more work. I had a heck of a time finding any non-awful versions of it on YouTube. The best ones I found either were a little too improvisational or were incomplete, so I ended up just downloading it on iTunes. Anyways though, so far I think this time around with the Jazz band is shaping up to be much better than last time.

Here is one of the incomplete (but still awesome) recordings I found of “Glory of Love”:

Hopefully I’ll be able to find a way to record the actual concert so I can share that later on!