Practice Smarter, Not Harder: My Recital Update

Since my last blog post, I have learned a lot about my progress for the recital, and I’m excited to share my story about it. 

Honestly, things were going okay, not great, but okay. I was not confident at all. I haven’t sung in front of anyone physically for almost a year. I had my rehearsal with my accompanist for the first time, and I was sooooo nervous. My voice did not want to project and I found myself not singing the way I have been practicing. My bad habits were kicking in, and my body was tense. My accompanist is super friendly and cool, and she helped me get my voice out throughout our rehearsal. After the rehearsal, my focus was to build confidence in myself. However, when we had our next rehearsal a few weeks later, I was still nervous. I knew the music and was almost off-book on my set of songs. But for some reason, I felt stuck. 

I had to change the way I practiced. 

I usually do my warm-ups, review my music, and follow along with the weekly recordings of my lesson with my vocal teacher. In my mind, I thought I just needed to practice more. True - there were days when I was not practicing enough. 

After discussing with my accompanist, we realized that it would be best if I became more specific with my practices. I knew the music, but there were certain areas of each song that I had trouble singing, whether it’s the lyrics, rhythm, or notes. And so, she helped me create a goal-setting list that I can write daily as a practice journal. It consists of goals like “Top 3 Things,” “Daily Checklist,” and “One Song to Run with Confidence.”

Simple, right?... BUT IT WORKS! I like to plan and schedule my entire day, so adding a checklist and top goals for my practice has helped me. It’s tangible to keep myself accountable, and I found myself practicing more, too. After a week of just being specific on areas I need to work on, the songs became solid and I sang without needing to look at my sheet music. I stopped worrying because I truly felt that I was off-book. 

This past Friday, I had a rehearsal and was invited to my accompanist’s place to perform. Everyone else was music students, preparing for their recital, and so we were all there to perform to get our nerves out. Again, I haven’t performed in front of a group for a while, and so I was dreading my turn to sing, hahaha. (But also, I was the only person singing, so that did take a bit of pressure off of me.) 

Soon it became my turn. The room became quiet…and I took a deep breath and sang. I kept my head up and stayed in character, singing a set of love songs in Italian. I can only hear the piano and myself, and after a few minutes, I was beginning to feel comfortable with the room. And I just kept singing. My voice didn’t feel stuck at all. Finally, the second it was over, my mind and my body felt relieved…I did it. I was internally screaming and smiling because I f**king did it. Now I am even more motivated. I can feel myself crawling out of my shell…YEAHHH!

Sometimes I forget that I need to take steps and trust the process in order to achieve my goals. I only have a month and a half until my recital… there are more songs that I need to work on, but now I’m understanding how I should approach my daily practices. 

I’m seeing the result of my progress, and hopefully, this was somewhat insightful. Thanks for reading! :)