One aspect of hopping from one concert hall to another is adjusting to each acoustic once we arrive. While the technique of sound production remains the same, the sensation of singing can differ vastly between venues. What I love about sound check rehearsals is that, in addition to being a chance to feel out the sonic space, it's also a chance for us to tweak things a bit in between performances. Performance always brings out new things that can't occur in the rehearsal room - sound checks allow us to revisit things and see which new things from each performance worked, and which new things didn't. It keeps things fresh and alive, and it's a chance for the team to reconnect, regroup, and refocus.
Sound checks are also an opportunity for me to play with my camera...here are some shots from both Bucharest and Torino...
Our noble Ariodante for this tour, Ann Hallenberg
Ginevra - Roberta Mameli
Dmitry Sinkovsky - Il Complesso Barocco's fearless leader
Dalinda (who is quite mean to me in the opera...) - Ana Quintans (who is incredibly sweet to me in real life!)
4 comments:
newbie question... Are you adjusting anything with your singing based on the sonic quirks of the new space or are you doing everything exactly the same but just getting used to how it will sound in that room?
Ideally, the only adjustment I make to each acoustic is to make sure that I am singing exactly the same way I always do. In certain dry acoustics (and at times in overly live ones), I am tempted to push the voice a bit, and I try to use sound checks to make sure that I don't do that, and just let my voice fly out into the hall as freely and unforced as possible.
Do you mind if I pass your question on to Jennifer Rivera (http://jenniferrivera.squarespace.com)? She is a our musical advice giver at Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago's blog, Collaborative Musings - her column is called Music Therapy. Check it out at: http://www.caichicago.org/1/post/2011/08/music-therapy-how-can-i-be-crazy.html
I think it would be a great question to pose to her, as well.
Thanks for your question!
That makes sense. I had experience like that singing with sound systems where your monitoring is hindered by the room acoustics (or a bad engineer) and you have to be careful not to over-sing. Of course that was in my pre classical singing days when I thought I knew how to sing lol
Yes, by all means please do forward the question, I'd love to hear what Jennifer can share on the subject and thanks for taking the time to help a new guy :)
That makes sense. I had that experience when singing with sound systems where the monitoring is hindered by bad acoustics or bad engineer and you have to be careful not to over-sing. That was in my pre classical singing days when I thought I knew how to sing lol
Yes, please do forward the question to Jennifer. I would love to hear what she can share on the subject. Thanks for taking the time to help out the new guy :)
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