Hello! I am sorry if the post I linked is annoyingly long but hope it offers something of interest to you. I hope it is okay I posted this. Please inform me if it isn't.
I didn't realize you were musician undercover. I majored with piano a year, did organ. I am a most skilled singer. I, too, took advantage of choir as my singing outlet. Musical theater was another privilege or not that came into my life.. I mean, it was competitive even in choir. I could have been a singer just like you, performing every day on end. It would have been fun. I feel old and decrepit. We moved to Orlando, and it's hard here for everyone. I had more freedom as I was out of high school and into my 2nd year of college. I had finished 1 year thusfar. So, I got on psych meds, which tho interesting seems bad altogether.. ..so, it seems to make me tired and sorta curl over. Still, I am supposed to make a CD says the voice teacher I got. I ain't had much private vocal training. She is also a producer. Well, she was a Mus Ed major like me then changed to Performance/Opera. Now, she's like a powerful and creative producer/teacher. She teaches classical and Broadway. So, what I'm saying is maybe I'm just psyched over psych pills.. kinda got in trouble today, if anyone out there is reading this, wanting off my pills tho moved to a diet think it gave me diabetes. I feel I will wither away and die from looking at myself. I'm sure I don't need psych pills. So, because I lived here I got back on those pills that seem to make me too lethargic to sing easily, like when I was "younger." Most of what I learned in music seemed to be accompanying on the piano easy parts for musicals and chords at church in the end. I knew the plays well that I accompanied. I've had dreams and desires of being in instrumental groups, but I was a pianist who started at 9 1/2. I don't know what made it easy enough to accomplish so then to the degree I did starting out. I could play Clair de Lune, even, in the end. My piano teacher gave it to me. My love was in church music. When I was young, maybe about 6, possibly it was 7, I would memorize the songs and go home and try to sing them, so that gave my brain an exercise. So, I got used to the church hymns. Choir was also very fun, usually cuz I was in love with the director. I was a quiet favorite. In high school, I chose to do non-Talented classes in art, Talented Music which was laid back, and Talented Theater, the real gem! I remember a boy from the city being in the high school choir and singing a solo of Titanic and sitting in Talented Theater before I got in and being with him in drama and PE. I don't know why his friend died and he went there, but it was the best times of my life, my 1st year of high school. He left. I should have exchanged e-mail. I know where he is online. I never got a big role in a musical, but it was fun. I guess another dreamy thing in and of itself is the church. It's so romantic like and dreamy and it's like being an angel to be in choir there when you're young. I feel I talk a lot about these things. I was almost offered a position accompanying here, but I changed my mind so I wouldn't waste my time anymore, for I was a school accomplisher. It's like I was trained to be a pro, comfortable in music. I could have studied more at an arts school in the city if I could use transportation. They had Saturday classes, too. I shoulda done Musical Theater, I see. I don't think opera - well, I had a knack for it and was young and attractive, sad to see me lose it. I feel I've lost all my ideas in classical singing and now am a classical crossover person, which should be the standard, some classical music some theatrical music.. Something that makes me funny .. or wanna LOL is Josh Groban's wit and Jersey Boys's musical accompaniments being so on the ball, so-to-speak, LOL!
Chris Mann, I respect you so much as a person for being such a dazzling performer!