Well, today was a whirlwind day for sure! We started with a breathing warm-up that will come in handy once we start singing, and then moved into a quick talk about the idea of perspectives. The idea is that as the student write songs, they will use their imaginations and place themselves in the shoes of the characters that are singing. We talked too about the possible places for songs in opera: to introduce a character, to introduce a conflict or problem, to narrate the story or to provide the audience with a character’s point of view. We also listened to some examples of these uses for song from The Magic Flute. I gave the teachers Cds with some opera and Broadway excerpts on them, so the students can do some listening to opera from ages past as the next few weeks go by.

Next, the students split off into 6 groups, and each came up with the premise for a song: who would be singing, what they would be singing about, and what their perspectives on the situation might be. From there, each group wrote an opening line, and then worked on finishing the song in the same rhythm pattern as their opening line. Each class will have six songs, but I’ll use fewer melodies (probably three) to fit the songs, so there isn’t an overwhelming amount of music to learn. Some of the students were already humming melodies to go with their songs, so I’ll try to catch those tunes next time and use them.

Today's class was difficult for everyone....lots of new concepts to get the hang of, lots to discuss and lots to get done. Everyone did beautifully, and I was really excited and inspired by the focus and interest the students had...well done all! I understand that the topics we covered were complex and so if there are any questions, please let me know and I'll try to address them over the blog in the next week.

I'm looking forward to seeing your songs!