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Training Singing, Practicing Strength

August 30, 2022 By Ian Sidden Leave a Comment

In the past few years, I’ve begun viewing my singing work in a similar manner to my weight training. And vice versa.

The two share obvious similarities. We use time and effort to get better:

  • We want more power.
  • We want more endurance.
  • We want more agility.
  • We want to be more durable.
  • We want to recover more quickly.

Here a couple cross over ideas between the two.

Technical Work

An argument against scales and other such technical exercises is that they aren’t musical. “Why not just learn a piece that incorporates these challenges?” Before you scoff, I have encountered passionate arguments in favor of that view. And I believe it’s a fair question, and I’ve found that bringing in my weight training experience helps answer it.

My philosophy is being shaped by a series of rhetorical questions:

  • Would we make the same argument for strength training?
  • As in, would we tell someone that the best way to get strong is, for example, to help people move their furniture since that’s a real world “functional” use of strength akin to a composition being more “musical” than scales?
  • Were we to follow that path, how would we deal with the inevitable imbalances and sub-optimal movement patterns that would occur?
  • How would we deal with the higher risk of injury?

It’s clearly safer to get strong by doing reps in a gym and slowly raising the intensity over time. Once trained, we can use that movement in the real world more safely and with more skill than if we just began with the real world application. I think everyone can see that.

When I pick up a heavy box now, I pick it up with the same movements I practice in the gym. I’m much more aware of what I can safely do. I’m better at the real world activity because of the training.

Likewise when I sing repertoire, I use the skills developed from training scales and arpeggios. When I train scales, I’m doing my “reps” because it’s safer, and it’s easier to fix a poorly performed scale than to unlearn bad habits in a repertoire piece. I can then transfer that skill to a piece of music. The transferability makes the technical work worth it.

In fact, I honestly should be doing more technical work than I am. I like doing it, but I could probably increase the rigor with which I approach it. With my classical guitar practice, my abilities go up noticeably when I reliably do rigorous technical work.

Beating Ourselves Up

Let’s reverse directions to help our fitness mindset.

There’s a masochistic aspect to fitness culture. Training harder, longer, or to failure gives us the sense that we’re accomplishing something: “Man, that workout kicked my ass,” or “I’m so wrecked from yesterday’s workout,” or “I’m still sore from last week’s leg day,” are the kinds of things we might say. Another rhetorical question though:

Would we ever deliberately sing “until failure”?

If we did, I don’t think we’d feel proud of it. I think we’d be worried.

We practice singing and experience growth without this masochistic instinct, so maybe we can beat ourselves up a lot less in the gym and still improve. In fact, if you search for “sub maximal training”, you’ll find a lot of resources around that concept. Check out “squat every day” too, which we could easily swap with “sing every day”. The basic idea is that we grow even without pushing to extremes. That’s obvious when we sing, but for some reason, in the fitness world we’ve decided that we have to suffer to grow.

If I think of my workouts as a kind of practice rather than a workout, it’s easier to let go of the “until failure” grindset. I’m practicing movements and making them harder when they become too easy. Just like how I’ll occasionally sing at max volume, I will occasionally test my strength limits but not with the goal of beating myself up. We can push ourselves but perhaps not to the absolute edge.

Cross Pollination of Ideas

My summary takeaway is that I’m viewing parts of my singing practice as training, and my strength training as practice. This framework lets me use concepts from one realm to help guide decisions in the other, and I’m sure that you could make other helpful connections that I didn’t spell out here.

Likewise, I’m sure that you have areas of your life aside from singing or weight training that can provide helpful lessons for your singing life. And vice versa.

Filed Under: Craft Tagged With: arpeggio, cross pollination, practice, Scales, strength, technique, weight training

Premiere: Fernand Cortez

April 7, 2022 By Ian Sidden 2 Comments

Tonight we premiere our production of Gaspare Spontini’s Fernand Cortez, ou La conquête du Mexique at Opernhaus Dortmund. This is after a two year delay; originally we were to have premiered this in 2020, but history intervened.

There are many versions of this opera floating around, and we are doing a version that has – until today – never been performed in the original French. If you look for a synopsis, you will likely find one that does not describe our version accurately, except in bits and pieces.

I am performing the second prisoner, and I sing as part of a trio of prisoners headed by the tenor Alvar (Sungho Kim). Our music is, frankly, gorgeous stuff and a pleasure to sing. The piece sits in a period of transition; it’s definitely within the definition of “Classical”, but one can hear the traits of Romantic-era opera as well.

I wish my colleagues and the creative team a hearty toi toi toi. Participating in this has been an immense pleasure.

More Information:
https://www.theaterdo.de/produktionen/detail/fernand-cortez-oder-die-eroberung-von-mexiko/

Google Translate Deutsche Übersetzung

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Premiere: Frédégonde

November 20, 2021 By Ian Sidden

Here’s one I’ve been looking forward to for awhile. Tonight at Opernhaus Dortmund, we’re premiering Frédegonde for the first time in Germany. It’s a work inspired from the early history of the Merovingians in what is now France and the ongoing feud between two of the queens, Brunhild and Frédegonde. The work was composed by Ernest Guiraud and, following Guiraud’s death, Camille Saint-Saëns and Paul Dukas.

The work has rarely been done since its original premiere, and it’s too bad. I’ve genuinely enjoyed singing it, and it’s one of my favorite chorus operas I’ve been a part of. The work is definitely of its time in a good way; anyone familiar with opera of that time will hear the Wagnerian influences – especially in the first three acts, which were composed by Guiraud – but also French mélodies. In the early rousing chorus numbers, you can hear the attempt to establish a particularly medieval sound, which leads to surprising twists and harmonies. The orchestration is lush.

Our production features a silent film that does the primary story telling. We filmed it last spring and summer at the beautiful Schloss Bodelschwingh here in Dortmund. The reason is obvious: due to the shifting nature of the coronavirus pandemic, it made sense to find a story telling medium that didn’t require close proximity to one another on the day of the premiere. This process added an extra exciting element for us.

You’ll see and hear me briefly as Brunhild’s and Merovig’s servant, and those are my hands playing chess in the silent film scene titles. But besides my small solo work here, I’m very proud of the work we did in the chorus for this, and I hope our audience enjoys it.

More Information:

https://www.theaterdo.de/produktionen/detail/fredegonde/

Livestream Here:

https://www.takt1.de/video/stream/theater-dortmund-fredegonde

Google Translate This Page:

https://iansidden-com.translate.goog/2021/11/premiere-fredegonde/?_x_tr_sl=en&_x_tr_tl=de&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=nui

Filed Under: Uncategorized

“Ständchen” by Schubert, Guitar and Voice Arrangement

October 12, 2021 By Ian Sidden

Before I ran off to the US this summer, I shared a YouTube video of me playing Franz Schubert’s “Ständchen”. I’ve loved this troubled love song for years, and when I was first experimenting with self-accompanied art song, this was the first place I looked.

It has a clear guitar-like accompaniment, and in terms of the harmonies, most of the chords are perfectly playable on guitar. Indeed, there are various arrangements floating around, and I wish I’d looked there first; my arrangement has many similarities to the guitar-only arrangement by Mertz (minus the melody in the guitar). Had I just looked there first, I could have saved myself a lot of time.

Of course, part of the time was just learning the technique to play it in the first place. I hope to do many more of these, and with each piece I have to stretch my classical guitar abilities further.

I’ll try and share these more quickly here in the future. Please enjoy.

Filed Under: About the Music Tagged With: Franz Schubert, guitar, Performances, video, youtube

PREMIERE: Tosca

September 11, 2021 By Ian Sidden

Tonight at Opernhaus Dortmund, we’re premiering our Tosca at 19:30. Although there were a smattering of productions last season for reduced cast, orchestra, and audience size, this is the first premiere the opera chorus will be participating in since our March 13, 2020 Geisterpremiere of La Muette de Portici, which marked the last time we performed on our own stage.

Since then, we’ve been part of a handful of projects that were mostly streamed online, but we’re ready to be in front of an audience and singing live in a big house again. And this production is the right way to start moving back towards normality. I believe that our audience will be thrilled with what they see and hear tonight, and I’m thrilled to be a part of it.

PS: Look for me looking mean in a costume akin to a S.W.A.T. uniform.

More Information:
https://www.theaterdo.de/produktionen/detail/tosca/

Google Translate

Filed Under: My News Tagged With: Premiere, Theater Dortmund

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About Ian

Ian Sidden is currently a bass member of the Theater Dortmund Opera chorus. Read More…

Latest Posts

Training Singing, Practicing Strength

In the past few years, I’ve begun viewing my singing work in a similar manner to my weight training. And vice versa. The two share obvious similarities. We use time and effort to get better: We want more power. We want more endurance. We want more agility. We want to be more durable. We want […]

Premiere: Fernand Cortez

Tonight we premiere our production of Gaspare Spontini’s Fernand Cortez, ou La conquête du Mexique at Opernhaus Dortmund. This is after a two year delay; originally we were to have premiered this in 2020, but history intervened. There are many versions of this opera floating around, and we are doing a version that has – […]

Premiere: Frédégonde

Here’s one I’ve been looking forward to for awhile. Tonight at Opernhaus Dortmund, we’re premiering Frédegonde for the first time in Germany. It’s a work inspired from the early history of the Merovingians in what is now France and the ongoing feud between two of the queens, Brunhild and Frédegonde. The work was composed by […]

“Ständchen” by Schubert, Guitar and Voice Arrangement

Here is a performance of my self accompanied guitar arrangement of Franz Schubert’s “Ständchen”.

PREMIERE: Tosca

Tonight at Opernhaus Dortmund, we’re premiering our “Tosca”, which is the first premiere including the chorus since March 13, 2020.

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