~Your Hand Feels So Grand In Mine
2005-01-24 - 2:42 p.m.

Wheeeee ahahaha. I just bought the best ever Disco album (sic) and I'm going to teaching my Performing Arts kids the hustle for the Performing Arts Festival! It's going to be so funny - but good. Now all I have to do is learn the hustle! *grins* Actually, I got the idea because I discovered this record that we acquired somewhere along the line called "Disco Dancin' For Kids" and has a big book of easy and intermediate disco dances, including the hustle, of course.

I can also use the book for extra dance move ideas, because having kids just doing the hustle for a whole song would be boring. Wheee it's gonna be fun.

I also bought a pair of flat black trouser shoes, which is exciting - not because they are anything special to look at, but because they are "Kumfs" brand, which means they're made for orthotics - yay!! I've been stuck with wearing only runners with my orthotics, and occasionally my boots or heels or something if I'm going out and aren't going to be standing too much. For work or shopping and the like, however, I'm stuck with my runners. This is not very neat or professional (although they're fine for school), and I'd love to wear more sophisticated things more often, but runners don't really lend themselves to that.

There's just one catch: a biig $203 catch.

Ooo, ooh and I've found my singing voice again!!

You see, I'm not a very fantastic singer, but I've got a leetle bit of talent. My singing has really suffered since I stopped lessons and then choir. I'd never really mastered the proper way of singing, with good breath control and support, but I could sometimes get a somewhat decent sound. Nothing I'm really proud of except as one voice within a group or singing around an empty house.

This last year, however, I haven't really managed to get that more classical, floating style of singing really working for me. I simply seemed to push the sound without any support and then go husky. I still go husky, because I don't know how to sing properly, but I'm singing much closer to the proper way, so it doesn't happen to my singing voice for a long time.

I finally kind of got it back just before the start of carols, much to my delight, but something happened in the week after the first rehearsal. It's not a vocal thing, it's a mental thing. So much of singing well is mental, with a chunk of exercise and control, it's not really about how good your voice is on its own. Since then I've been singing worse than ever. I just haven't been able to get over any of my notes, to really get a clear, effortless, lilting sound to them at all.

But watching Phantom somehow clicked my head back into place and I drove home in the car from the cinemas singing songs from Phantom a capella. Today I put my Phantom tape in the car and sang along. I'm still nowhere near good enough to sing much of Christine past about a high C - and certainly not all of her stuff around high G! - but I could quite happily sing Meg and Raoul's parts, just like I always used to. Right now nobody's home (although I expect Dad at any moment) and I could again roam around the house singing and feel like I actually was singing. *hugs self* I've missed my singing voice! Don't ever leave me again!!