Sounds like you're doing really well false_harmonic ! Keep at it.

And congratulations on having impeccable taste in songs - I LOOOOOOOVE the Saint-Saens piece you're singing.

Glad you're enjoying it and feeling more positive again!

Sorry...me again! First public performance (Eeeeek!) is only two weeks away now. So today we were recording my voice for the first time, teacher picked Widmung because it's the one I like best! So first of all I just sang at the piano and it went really well, then teacher set up the recording equipment...and it all went very, very wrong...

Suddenly I found myself singing one of the big long notes flat for the first time EVER, I was singing in my throat in other places and had the most massive wobble in my voice. When we listened back I was absolutely HORRIFIED! Basically I had taken one look at the microphone and just crumbled. Teacher was pointing out the good bits and trying to get me to focus on those, but really...there were very few! Teacher said it was fine for a first attempt and I could hardly expect to sound like a professional - I've only been singing for six months and it was my first time ever trying this; but as I explained, I was not expecting to sound like a professional, but I was expecting to be able to sound like I had at the piano and if I couldn't sing in front of just a microphone, how was I supposed to sing in front of an audience? So we tried again. By the third attempt teacher said it was much more accurate, but all the joy had gone out of my singing. It took till attempt five before I got a recording I was reasonably happy with, though the start was rubbish and I only got through it by singing with my eyes closed!

Oh gosh I am going to have to get rid of these NERVES!!!

Don't be so hard on yourself, FH - hearing yourself recorded for the first time is quite a shock and I'm sure there were many more good bits than you heard (friends put my cd on sometimes at parties and it makes me want to run from the room - whereas they all love it - we are always our own worst critic!)

Furthermore, you know, the microphone gets even seasoned pros - when you have it in front of you, you become aware of the fact that you're about to set something in stone - that a snapshot of your voice at that moment will be taken and that you will be judged by it. It's harrowing for most people and particularly harrowing for those who do it for the first time.

I'll let you in on a secret too - in a recording studio nothing is EVER done in one take. Five takes is relatively few - many top recording studios will allocate one or more days per track with the musicians just doing it over and over again, with the best being kept from each.

You can be perfectly proud that as a beginner, you only took five takes to get something reasonable to come out. Well done.

On and up!

Alan's quite right (he usually is!) about this. For our recent CD we aimed to record no more than 3 songs per session - and that was really hard work!

Keep at it, and keep enjoying it.