Revisiting Repertoire

This week I decided to revisit some repertoire as part of my morning vocal warmup each day. Initially I was going to pick randomly, but decided I would focus on the “Italian Hits”. Now, I haven’t sung all the songs in the 24 Italian Art Songs & Arias, but I’ve sung many of them. For the one’s I haven’t sung I’ve at least heard someone else sing. There may be a handful that I haven’t heard and would legitimately need to learn.

I decided to revisit this repertoire for a few reasons. First of all, I haven’t sung through any of this repertoire since I was a young singer. Some songs I haven’t looked at in almost 20 years. That is absolutely crazy for me to think about. My freshman year of college doesn’t feel all that long ago, however, it was actually almost 20 years ago (wow!). Imagine how much my voice has changed in that time. Instantly I found that what I thought was challenging when I was a young singer is no longer a hang up. However, there is still plenty for me to work on and fine tune. Phrasing, intention, and even diction still need work even if the actual intervals are no longer a struggle. The 24 “Italian Hits'“ are assigned to young singers/voice students to help develop the voice and provide technical work. They are also a great way to build the habits necessary to successfully learn a piece of vocal music. Still, revisiting these beginner appropriate works are still beneficial for more experienced singers to revisit. Either as a warm up or as repertoire for a performance.

Another reason I wanted to revisit this repertoire is because I am certain I didn’t learn it correctly. Either some of the notes and rhythms or the diction. Being some of the first solo vocal music in my repertoire, I was bound to have memories some big mistakes. Sure enough, I was correct in this assumption. Singer’s need to be ok with re-doing the groundwork on memorized repertoire. Never assume you have everything learned and memorized perfectly. It can always be improved.

Finally, I decided that if I’m going to continue to be the best voice teacher I can be, that means making sure I know common repertoire well enough to teach it to new students. How can I help someone master this repertoire if I myself am not a master? By revisiting this music I am not able to recognize the nuances each piece brings so when a student is needs guidance I know what options to present to them. This goes beyond just the accuracy of the music and diction and delves into the musicality necessary to bring each piece of music to life.

I hope to continue this process for the foreseeable future. There is plenty of other repertoire that needs to be revisited and putting them in my daily warmup practices is a really fun start to my day.

-Laura