DST is just painful today... it hurts more than usual to lose an hour since I wasn't home at all yesterday and wasn't much on Friday night either.
It's been an interesting weekend so far though
( mostly because of yoga and ) that BCAE voice and speech class I signed up for a few weeks ago. It'll have to get its own post because I have notes to type up. But I will say it was interesting. Overall I probably had less vocal trouble than anyone else in the room, which was an interesting 'perhaps I don't suck with the force of 1000 Hoovers' kind of reality check. One of the weirdest things in voyeuristic terms was the volume exercise we did. We tried the following:
Say "one" as if to someone 0-2 feet away from you (i.e. very softly).
Say "two" as if to someone across a table.
Say "three" as if to someone across the road.
Say "four" as if to someone across a football field.
Repeat "three", then "two", then "one" as before.
Everyone but the teacher had some trouble with "four", but a couple of the Asian women were finally (and only) attaining normal conversational volume levels at around "three" and "four". And they honestly thought they were being loud!* I felt bad for them since that's obviously a psychologically difficult thing to do, and probably almost impossible to make a habit of without further coaching or vocal training. The good news was that when they did speak at those levels, their accents became much more understandable.
I walked from Arlington (T stop) to Central Square for dinner with HLM, buying a skirt along the way, and then T'd back to Arlington for a chamber music concert. It was at the First and Second Church, which is Unitarian, has amazingly neat & contemporary architecture and happened to be selling some wonderful modern art, presumably toward some worthy cause. I doubt I will ever in my life feel the urge to go to church again, but if I do, I'll try that one.
*How these women could ever actually call to a friend across the street would be an open question if not for the existence of cell phones.
It's been an interesting weekend so far though
Say "one" as if to someone 0-2 feet away from you (i.e. very softly).
Say "two" as if to someone across a table.
Say "three" as if to someone across the road.
Say "four" as if to someone across a football field.
Repeat "three", then "two", then "one" as before.
Everyone but the teacher had some trouble with "four", but a couple of the Asian women were finally (and only) attaining normal conversational volume levels at around "three" and "four". And they honestly thought they were being loud!* I felt bad for them since that's obviously a psychologically difficult thing to do, and probably almost impossible to make a habit of without further coaching or vocal training. The good news was that when they did speak at those levels, their accents became much more understandable.
I walked from Arlington (T stop) to Central Square for dinner with HLM, buying a skirt along the way, and then T'd back to Arlington for a chamber music concert. It was at the First and Second Church, which is Unitarian, has amazingly neat & contemporary architecture and happened to be selling some wonderful modern art, presumably toward some worthy cause. I doubt I will ever in my life feel the urge to go to church again, but if I do, I'll try that one.
*How these women could ever actually call to a friend across the street would be an open question if not for the existence of cell phones.