Up and running!

Thanks, Alison. I'm in the middle of listening to it right now. Although I'm not a big opera fan, it is an interesting program. I'm interested in the comments about the 60+ year-old audience--where is the future if the audience is old. I don't know the numbers for classical music audiences in general and can only respond anecdotally. The orchestra that I play in now has massively larger audiences that 10 years ago, mostly due to the increased quality. Also, when I was in my late 20s playing in another community orchestra, we would bemoan the gray-haired audiences. What was our future. Now that my hair is graying, I see the same gray-haired audience. Perhaps classical music is an art form that appeals to the more mature person. I think a lot of people come to it later in life nowadays.

A new program on PBS that may appeal to you guys. I'm looking forward to it.

Broadway or Bust
[youtube]
www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdLGsrsTRxU&feature=youtube_gdata_player[/youtube]

All of them had different things going for them. Vocally I'd say you can't go wrong with London #3, some songs might have been better at different shows but overall I'd go with that.

(Bringing this over from the daily thread for archive purposes)

re: dry feed. It has been explained on the thread already, but here is Adam talking about wanting his mic to be "wetter". He goes on at some length about how it can be different kinds of "wet" but it shouldn't be "dry."



However, it IS interesting to hear Adam "dry." One of the wonderful things about his voice is how much natural resonance he has. A well trained singer learns how to focus the sound of his voice towards the resonant chambers in his body; his chest and his head. Particularly in the front part of his face, called the "mask" (facial bones and sinuses.) Done correctly, it gives the voice a natural ring and almost reverb. In the dry feed of TP, listen to Adam's voice, and you will still hear that ring, that brightness, that warmth, even tho he has no "help" from the sound system. It is Adam's trademark; it takes a lot of technique to do as consistently up and down his range as Adam does; and it is one of the things that makes his voice so milk chocolate yummy.

You can also really hear it clearly in the duet of WWFM. It becomes more noticeable when singing with someone else who has less natural resonance (or none, a la KA singing We Are the Champions next to Adam). Even when Adam adds a little rasp or grit to his voice as he does in WWFM, the ring is still evident.

The other thing about these techniques is that it makes the voice sound "effortless," even when Adam sings with full power. Untrained singers often tense their vocal cords tightly and then forcefully push air thru them to belt out notes, especially high ones. You can hear that in the voice and often see it in their strained muscles in their neck and contorted, even red face. Adam, with his masterful technique, does almost the opposite. he expands his chest and torso for full resonance, relaxes his throat and mouth, focuses the sound and sings with great power, but no "push." The reviewer who described Adam's voice as "angels on ice skates" sort of had it right. When you sing correctly and tap into your body's resonance, it is like skimming across a smooth surface with no friction, instead of slogging thru thick snow. Effortless? Yes. Easy? No way. We are hearing years and years of training and practice.

ILHSFM