Concert, Masterclass, Viva Mexico ca…
Hi there! This week in Mexico City was fun, met friends, went to a concert and gave some Masterclasses, plus it was 15th of September, big celebration in the country, our independence day.
The concert was a concert played by my friend and pianist Sergio Vazquez. He did a great job, however, the singers who are professional and have some career in Mexico, did not sang well and all was pushed or off the voice, so, or it was loud or piano but with air and not supported. I was pretty dissapointed because, it is young students who see them singing as an example and they believe that is how they are supposed to sound like. But what it made more impact to me was, that , I heard them many years ago and they sing now worse than when they were younger. I saw a lack of detail to their singing like just singing with Passion but without disciplined singing, without structure, without refinement. That made me sad because they sang better in the past and I see they want to do music but their lack of technique did not allow them to sing beautifully. Except one of them was really good, a baritone, who could be easily singing here in Europe. He sang musically, beautiful voice, lots of dynamics, sometimes too loud unnecessarily but still very good, smart musician.
Later on the week I gave some Masterclasses at Escuela Superior de Musica. I am always surprised with the talent in Mexico, the voices are really good even without technique, the instruments are great. I have to say this time however, the singers are too timid and afraid of singning with their real voice, they lack courage and security and just to be brave. But what surprised me the most is that they do not mean what they sing, they have a vague idea of the text but they do not convey what they are singing, not the text or the emotion of the character they are interpreting. They need more blood on their singing, with passion, with feeling, with anything but not just making sounds, they need to sing!
Nevertheless it was a very nice experience and it humbles me to be able to give my opinion and advice to them, to help them musically, with the text, expression, feeling, right tone production, and with intelligence. Of course 45 minutes of class is not much, but some I can share to make them think and re organized their thought process. The most important is to awake on them the ability of auto critic. To really help them to recognize what is a nice tone and what is not. In other words to help them to sharpen their ears so they can recognize when they are singing wrong. For some was easier than for others but I do hope at least I grew some curiosity on them and to be more disciplined with how they sing. It was overall a great experience for me, I gave all my energy to each individual and each voice, they were so different from each other and needed different things on that moment on time. It is difficult to decide what to work on when you have such limited amount of time but over the years of teaching I am more able to quickly recognize what to work on. But it is never an easy task, cause every person responds different and has different way of understanding a concept or idea, that is as well our work as teachers, to recognize and understand how the mind behind the voice works.
Today we celebrated our Mexican Independence that started on this date but back in 1810. We celebrated it at my uncle's house. It was really cozy, we were around 12 people. We ate a lot of Mexican Dishes cooked by the members of the family, and had such belly after eating so much. I enjoyed it a lot, specially being with family. As you know I have besides my Akiho, no family in Europe, so it is always nice to have family around me because I do not experience that often. I thank you family members for being there and sharing time with me, I really appreciate it.
I keep doing my exercise routine (4 times a week) and my daily reading (Holiday, Tolstoi).
I hope you are well and see you here next week. Take care.
