I can't believe I've actually gone and done it, but I've booked a trial voice lesson for next week.

I've always wanted to do this, but never had the nerve/opportunity (choose which you want to believe - I suppose truthfully it's a bit of both!), but some strange thing tonight made my fingers pick up the phone and dial the nice lady's number! (Perhaps something to do with me still being bitter about having to surrender my cello because I couldn't afford to buy it, and desperately missing my violin lessons over the LONG school summer holiday).

What is a first voice lesson likely to be like? I think I'm a bit scared that either I'll be so nervous I'll end up squeaking rather than singing, or that I'll give what I think is my best effort, but the teacher will think I'm hopeless! Or that I'll do what I did in that five minute lesson I got at school: take a big breath in from my diaphragm and promptly faint...

Well done I'm sure you will enjoy yourself. Don't forget the teacher will understand your a bit nervous so just go with the flow-it doesn't matter if you squeak or go off pitch etc. I make the most hideous noises now when doing some new things such as belting etc but my teacher expects it.

As it's your first lesson you'll probably jsut do some small exercises so she can see what your tone and range islike and probably sing a song you know-she will have plenty. Then you can see how the lesson works and just relax into it and decide whether you like it.

Good luck and let us know how you get on.

Well done FH. I am sure that you'll have a lot of fun with the right teacher. I expect that he or she will have a bit of a chat first to put you at your ease and then you'll probably do some really simple work on posture and breathing with some humming exercises thrown in too. Don't worry about it at all. All teachers are well used to nervous first time students. I expect that you will leave with a very proud grin on your face too.

Good for you, FH. I'm sure you'll enjoy it!

Well done!

Found it! There was a useful thread on this a while ago.

Here it is:

http://www.abrsm.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=30686

You posted a link a moment or so ago, Ratty, and now you've removed it....

You're not editing something you said therein, are you?

Not altering anything of mine, no but it wasn't the correct one.

OK!

Congratulations ! You'll have a great time. The teacher will be well used to nervousness, do don't worry about it. Just try to relax and enjoy yourself.

Some teachers like to hear you sing something at the first lesson, so perhaps you could prepare a short song too? Something you enjoy singing.

I don't think it's silly at all, false harmonic. I think you've just got over the biggest hurdle in the journey of finding out what your voice can do

Go and have fun, and don't worry. Any teacher worth their salt will know that squeaks happen, and certainly won't call you useless.

Well done on the first step. It really doesn't matter how you perform - it's the teacher's role to help those who can't not those who can. My first lesson revealed that we had much to work on. I'm still battling against very little natural talent - but with a good teacher and a lot of effort anything's possible.

Well, on the phone last night the lady asked me about my "singing background" and I explained I hadn't done any solo stuff, just sung in the school choir and also done a lot of Gaelic-choir singing while at school. So she asked me if I was interested in learning classical singing, and I realised I had possibly misled her a bit as it's not traditional stuff I'm interested in now (and wasn't really at the time either - I wanted to join a choir, and my mum was in the Gaelic choir. I also wanted to learn to speak Gaelic - haha, failed miserably there!). I said I'd really like to learn Opera, although I absolutely understood that one can't do Opera straight away, but that that was my ultimate goal. So she said that she'd "have to see" as not everyone is suited to Opera, but that she'd try me on some German Leider as that was really good for developing the voice (I didn't admit that I had no idea what Leider was, I just looked it up on YouTube when I got off the phone, and the stuff I found sounded really nice, so I'm quite happy about the idea of learning that).

She also asked me if I had studied any languages (French, a very little bit of German) and asked me how old I was (24, I think she thought I was younger from my mentioning school and also I think I sound quite young on the phone).

So I'm rather impatient as the lesson isn't for a week yet, and I REALLY hope she decides that my voice will eventually have the potential for Opera, however long it might take, I'd be gutted if not.

And I have to put the sounds of Teresa Berganza out of my head. Must remember that not being able to sing like completely awesome singer does not mean I sound like a squawking seagull!

You might well be amazed, FH !

I'd actually disagree with your new teacher about not every voice being able to produce an operatic sound - that's been disproven - but I'd agree with her caution at the start and putting you on Lieder is a great way to get you singing classical lit in a slightly lighter, less demanding way (much less to remember too!). Even if you never sing anything other than Lieder, Oratorio etc - you can still really enjoy and love classical singing.

Don't panic about well known singers and their sound either - your teacher will work with you to make you sound classical, but keep your own vocal personality - so you'll not have to rivalise, you'll have your own unique sound!

Enjoy yourself very much and report back to us once you've had your first lesson to let us know how it goes, won't you?

Allan

(just always keep in mind that there is nothing physiologically stopping you from making an operatic sound!)

Oh I didn't mean trying to copy well-known singers. It's the fluidity, clarity and purity of delivery that impresses me. Sorry, I'm not terribly good at expressing myself.

I will of course let you know how I get on. One problem I'm anticipating is that I'm not very fit and don't have great lung capacity. When I did Duke of Edinburgh the expedition supervisor said I breathed very shallowly...

I got a handful (maybe 4 or 5) of 5 minute singing lessons at school, (the teacher was too busy and should probably never have offered to give me lessons in the first place, and consequently mostly didn't turn up or occassionally turned up five minutes before the end of the allotted time). The one song I was given to sing was "He Shall Feed His Flock" from Handel's Messiah. Is that Oratorio?

I knew what you meant FH - I think it was I who didn't express properly! I meant don't be intimidated or think that your voice has to sound like that in order to sing opera - your own voice will be perfectly suitable!

As for the lung capacity, if you're doing it right, high intensity singing (opera and such) uses very little air indeed - so you shouldn't have a problem there!

Okay, had my first lesson tonight, and it was awesome!

It was only supposed to be 45 minutes long, but ended up lasting for an hour and a half (mostly because we spent a long time at the start just chatting - she asked me about my singing background again, if I could read music, what sort of repetoire I liked, who my favourite singers were, etc, etc).

It turns out we have the same favourite singers, strangely enough! And when I explained why I liked them (in my non-technical language) she agreed with me, and explained something about singing technique that I was surprised I had picked up on without any knowledge.

I asked her what she was, and she said she was a dramatic soprano, and she asked me what I was, and I said I'd always sung soprano in choir, but thought I was probably more of a mezzo. She said (before even hearing me sing!) that she suspected I was probably right.

Anyway, she said she would take me through some exercises just to see if she could work with me, and I was a bit scared at that point because I thought "this is the point where she's going to tell me I'm a lost cause", and I told her so, but she said I had lovely bone structure with high cheekbones and spoke well, so she wasn't too worried!

So first she taught me how to breathe with my diaphragm; I found it quite hard to coordinate breathing in while pushing out and vice versa, but got it eventually. Then we did some exercises, and she told me within about five seconds "yep, definitely a mezzo"! Then we sung a German piece: Schubert's An die Musik, which was fine when I was singing it to sounds, but I really struggled with the words because erm...they were too small and I couldn't read them!

Didn't make too many weird sounds, I don't think, but did spend about two minutes giggling before I managed to start singing!

But she said I had loads of potential (though lots of work to do!) and she's thrilled to be working with me, and that I obviously adore singing and she's given me half a book of exercises to practise for next week as well as the Schubert, and Elgar's "Where Corals Lie". And (providing I practise hard this week!) she said next week we'd try Dido's Lament (recit and aria). She's a really lovely teacher (though she says she gets scary when people don't practise!) and I came out of the lessson on cloud 9 and quite literally skipped/danced/bounded all the way to the bus stop!

Glad you had a great lesson false_harmonic

And Dido's Lament =

I know!

Glad you had a good lesson false_harmonic.

That sounds really good fun, FH. Well done for plucking up the courage to go. It sounds as though you have managed to aquire some good basic techniques from your choir days. Do keep posting about your progress.

Glad it went well.

We were never taught technique at choir, all we were ever told was "if you can hear yourself singing you're singing too loud" and that we shouldn't all breathe at the same time because a huge big collective breath would sound bad. I have spent the last ten years assuming that diaphragm breathing merely meant sucking in one's stomach rather than pushing up the shoulders.

I've just always been able to sing in tune, that's all!

Well, second lesson tonight. Don't worry, am not going to provide run down every week!

Started with exercises, and teacher said had definitely improved on my breathing since last week, so that was good. Have discovered "ee" is a difficult sound to sing! I hadn't really practised singing exercises, only looked at them a little because the book I ordered only arrived last night, so had just practised breathing!

Sang An Die Musik, struggled a little bit as I had only managed to memorise the tune - hadn't managed to memorise the words, pity as had memorised Where Corals Lie and we didn't sing that! Also tried Dido's Lament. Unfortunately, it seems that at the moment a G is the absolute top of my range...so found that HARD, just couldn't get a pure sound on it. Teacher said I could reach it, but was scared of it, so was stopping and tensing on the D before I went for the G! Must work on that...!

But she also said A Very Nice Thing about my singing, which she'd hinted at last week but actually said bluntly this week and it made me very happy. I don't normally get told I'm good at things...

You keep posting! I am enjoying the weekly update!

Can a very strenuous lesson (well, was strenuous for me trying to hit those Gs as I'm new to it!) give a singer a stiff neck? I've spent all day today with a tightness in my neck (NOT my throat) sort of running down from my jaw down either side of my throat (I think where the glands are, but I've never studied biology so I'm not sure if I'm placing glands correctly!) not quite the side of my neck, more to the front than that, but almost.

It's probably purely coincidental, I probably gave myself a crick in my neck by eyeing that nasty bluebottle that was on my ceiling when I got home last night and trying to coax it out the window, but just wondering if it could be caused by singing?

Also, if I'm a mezzo, what sort of range can I expect to develop? At the moment I can manage a G below middle C, but tend to start giggling out of nervousness when asked to go below middle C, and can get an F two above middle C, and can do a G but find it a bit scary too! Is a high C realistic, or is that me just being in denial about the fact I'm not a soprano? I've been very surprised to discover just how high a G actually is! It doesn't seem very high when I'm playing my violin, I can play it with a second finger in first position!

It's interesting that when I started school the thinking was that children had high voices. Hymns and songs in general were set higher than today, with high F being fairly common and middle C being quite low.

Then suddenly we were told that the old setting of hymns were far too high, and people began setting hymns much lower. At the same time, children stopped being expected to sing high notes and female pop singers developed lower voices. Since then, people have been surprised by how high the soprano range is.

I joined a choir a year ago after a long break, and a lady who joined with me who hadn't done much singing was surprised to find that top A is fairly common for sopranos. Despite initially thinking she would never reach such a high note, it wasn't long before she discovered she could sing it. I'm sure that once you get used to singing, you will manage top A fairly easily. Top C isn't really in the mezzo range, but you may find you can sing it - it just won't feel as comfortable.

every fully trained operatic mezzo has at least a safe high b (needed in carmen for example), and i personally know none, including myself, who cannot at least vocalise up to high d/e. if high b/c isn't in your range after years (!) of training, you are either not a true mezzo or your technique isn't good. you'll also be expected to have a safe low g.

so as a mezzo, high c WILL be within your reach at some point (and it will be expected to be in the professional world), it is just your comfort zone that will be lower than that of a soprano. just be patient - when i started singing, i was mortified of everything higher than d/e on top of the stave.

the high g in dido's lament is uncomfortable to sing - not because it is a high g, but because it gets repeated on uncomfortable vowels with the consonant m in between. i don't find it particularly easy to sing, so a beginner is certainly allowed to have problems with it. i am almost sure that you constrict while singing "remember me" - everyone does it at the start. your teacher should be able to show you how to release though, it's probably not just a question of being scared. feeling anxious about singing a high note usually comes from the fact that we don't know HOW to sing it properly. just repeating it and trying harder only makes it worse - you have to know HOW first.

if it doesn't work under good technical supervision yet, it might simply be a bit early for arias like that - they are not easy repertoire, so be patient with yourself ...

I agree with Mezzo that Dido's Lament isn't easy repertoire - I did it for my grade 8 back in 1970, so it isn't the sort of thing I'd expect you to be starting on. It requires good tone production, breath control, and technique.

On the other hand, it's quite fun to sing through some more difficult stuff at the beginning, as then when you've had a few lessons you should see a big improvement.

Was getting a bit better with the piece this lesson! Got a bit nervous when teacher started playing the accompaniment rather than the tune in a "what? You mean you expect me to sing it without you playing along?!" sort of way! Although I was actually fine with it, I just didn't think I knew it, though I actually did!!! Need to work on the breathing though, because I'm running out of breath at the end of some of the phrases. It's just such a beautiful piece though.

Was doing this weird exercise, involving putting my tongue at the back of my teeth and keeping it there while singing. I found it hard not to laugh, but it really did actually help in terms of feeling what I was supposed to be doing.

Also had a look at the Stanislavski questions and had a very random chat that I was tenuously linking to the questions. So I have been told, as my homework for next week to apply to the questions to Dido's Lament.

Teacher was mooting music, she wants me to (in a while) try Mozart, Puccini and Rossini as she says she thinks I'd suit them. I'm angling after Bizet, but anyway...

In the meantime I've been told to get the Les Mis songbook, and also the Marguerite one, and at my request, we're also going to look at "Think of Me"!

Is this normal? Okay, I realise I have only just started, and teacher said it would take months, maybe even a year before I was properly comfortable with using my voice, but, I am finding after the few lessons I've had, that rather than feeling like I'm improving, I am just becoming very aware of how bad a singer I actually am!

Don't get me wrong, I am really enjoying the lessons, and my teacher is ace, and explains what I need to be doing (exercises and breathing and phrasing and posture and all that) and corrects me (though very nicely!) and I'm not complaining. It's just, when I sung at home before, it was just a case of "cool, I can sing in tune and it's not a really breathy sound either", and now there's so much to think about and what I was perfectly happy with before (though shy to let other people hear me) sounds horrid. My voice sounds very harsh to me now particularly in the higher registers, and I never noticed that before. Is it normal to just become more aware and critical of your own sound before you start noticing real improvements?

As for the lesson, we sang through "I Dreamed a Dream" and "On My Own" (and had a very good chat about them, about what the songs meant, how tragic they were, and I practically ended up in tears thinking about poor young Fantine and that nasty Felix Tholomyes). Then we also looked at "Think of Me" and had another discussion about how we didn't like Raoul very much. (I'm taking the Stanislavski questions VERY seriously!) and I was told to analyse "All I Ask of You" for next week. (And yes, I have already written four pages of notes).

My phrasing is appaling, I just can't sustain phrases and end up breathing in inappropriate places, but Teacher was very pleased with "On My Own" and said it was the perfect tessitura for me and that I had real warmth singing it. I was a bit confused by this as I'd always thought of it as being rather low, but I had to admit I wasn't struggling with the notes...I really need to reconcile myself with the notion of being a mezzo!

yes, many of the things you describe are normal, no need to worry ...

are you singing new pieces (and even more than one) every lesson? maybe it's just me, but changing the songs constantly and singing opera in one lesson just to sing musical theatre the next and never really "arriving" in one song and work on it a bit more would actually confuse me a bit ...

anyway, one general advice: the fact that you are able to sing one song reasonably well and still struggle with another really says nothing about your voicetype in the early stages of voicetraining, and, to say it quite frankly: it doesn't matter. enjoy what you are singing, don't start building up boundaries in your head. as one of my singing teachers always said:

don't think - sing!

I think this is probably normal, false-harmonic. It's certainly what I'm like with the flute.

I think we're just trying out things at the moment to try and get a feel for what I like. My lessons are LONG too - they're only meant to be 45 minutes, but I always seem to end up staying for a minimum of an hour and a half (partly because I chatter away so much, I suppose!) The musical theatre stuff I've known off by heart since I was 8 years old, so I'm not having to learn it (ie words and tune). So I think Teacher just wanted to hear how I coped/sounded with that sort of stuff, stuff that I didn't need to think quite so much about and could concentrate on technique. (And I think we would have looked at the Musical Theatre stuff before, but I've only just managed to get the books). I think we'll settle on certain things very soon, but we're just trying stuff out at the moment, and she did actually apologise that we didn't look at last week's stuff.

Yes and it doesn't go away. Maybe it does eventually, but it hasn't for me, and I've had lessons for seven years. What about the more advanced people?

The thing is, you will be aware of how you're improving, but as with anything, if you're properly trained, you know what you're supposed to do, and you should notice when you don't do it. Like, if you know how to breathe properly, you notice when on a long phrase you gasp a breath, your shoulders go up, and you have no support. If you'd never been taught, then you wouldn't notice you'd done anything wrong, you'd think you'd sung that bit perfectly well.

At least I think that's what it is... Or maybe it's just because I'm a perfectionist.

Glad you're enjoying it. (I like Raoul though, I think Christine makes the right choice there! The choice between a noble, maybe slightly pompous and over-protective guy, and a psychopathic killer?! I do feel sorry for the phantom but...)

Yes, point taken, the fact that one becomes more critical of oneself, is a sign that one is improving!




Oh, clearly she can't end up with Eric, but why does she have to end up with either of them? Raoul, first of all dismisses her fears and thinks those fears stem from her being incapable of telling the difference between real life and dreams, and then, when he realises the truth, he sells Christine out. He persuades her to entrap the Phantom, despite the very real danger that in agreeing to do so Christine is very probably risking her life or at the very least her freedom. Okay, so he apologises in the end, but that apology would have counted for nothing if Christine had ended up dead!

(Sorry!)

Hmm, I suppose Raoul probably shouldn't sell out the love of his life and all, but I kind of like the fact that he doesn't see her just as a helpless maiden to be kept safely out of the way of anything important... I mean, I don't have that much patience with her - if she really feels uncomfortable with it, she should simply refuse. I do disagree pretty strongly with the emotional manipulation he uses to persuade her into such a dangerous scheme though...

This is so so, how's the practising going?

So...lesson today. We have now established that I can sing in head voice down to A flat below middle C. I can then sing a G and an F in chest voice, but haven't attempted anything lower! (Was a bit baffled when presented with music with an F in it; as a violinist I'd never even seen an F in printed music - it looked frighteningly low, but I'm perfectly capable of it!).

Was shown spinto technique. I did manage it, but it takes me about 5 seconds to think about it, coordinate my breathing and then do it, so could only manage it when there was a bar's rest before the appropriate section in the music! Teacher got me to sing the last few bars of habanera, just to test the technique out, (because she knows I know it. Sadly we're not working on the aria yet - one day!) and I couldn't believe the difference it made when I actually got it right, but there was me very chuffed with what I perceived to be a loud and comfortable sound, and teacher was pleased and said "see?!" but then she without warning sang the notes herself, and I had to cover my ears! The sound was utterly fabulous, but HUGE!!!! I've never heard an opera singer up close (obviously in the audience at the theatre one is a certain distance away).

G two above middle C is still a bogey note. I managed to hit it properly a couple of times at home, but can't do it consistently. I can happily, easily do an F...! I will get the G eventually though and she said my other high notes were much improved.

Was asking about exams. I don't want to do exams, but just out of curiosity I asked if I were to do an exam, what I would be put in for, and she said, next session (as in March as opposed to November), Grade 7. That made me awfully happy for the rest of the day!

Um, if you've never seen an F in printed music, then I assume you haven't got grade 5 theory? So you'd have to take that in November - and be entered next month - in order to take grade 7 in March!
Glad you're enjoying your lessons.

Sat it, failed it by a couple of marks due to panicking and making idiotic mistakes I realised about as soon as I'd handed my paper in(VERY annoying!), resitting in November. Stupid theory holding me back from Grage 8 violin! Don't recall seeing an F in any of the past papers though. The papers seemed to keep to nice sensible, violin friendly notes - you know, nothing lower than a G - two lines below the stave! Of course, that is not to say that there wasn't an F in the past papers, it could mean that I wasn't paying attention, which might explain why I failed! (Oh, also, my discovery of the F was not today - it was a few weeks ago! Obviously I understand the concept of notes below G, but I have never played piano, and never really paid attention to looking at piano music properly, so I've never really noticed a printed F).

Have no intention of sitting singing exams though, that would take all the fun out of it! I was just chuffed that teacher said that I could, if I wanted to!

I've been having lessons for 6 months or so which I am loving. I know I've made loads of progress but I can definitely relate to how you're feeling. Sometimes, especially just after a lesson, I feel great and like I'm doing really well. Other times when I'm trying to practice I get very cross with myself and feel like I'm completely rubbish! I definitely think Lucky is right about becoming more critical of yourself. I'm sure that there are things I do now that I would've been thrilled with 6 months ago but I now find fault with. Perhaps that's happening with you as well? My teacher was talking to me about consistency which I think is really important. My voice isn't consistent at the moment-some days good, some days not! Some parts of the song go really well, others don't. This is all part of learning and hopefully at some point it will become more consistently good! I think this is probably similar to what you're experiencing and what everyone experiences while they're learning. If they don't, they're probably not challenging themselves very much! I guess it should be hard or we wouldn't need lessons!!!
Good luck with it all!

What on earth have I just agreed to? Teacher suggested a while back (I think about my second or third lesson!) that I should do some singing in public around Christmas (my reaction was to look...erm...doubtful). So, violin teacher a couple of weeks ago was telling me about the local music festival in February/March time, and looking at the syllabus I noticed there were a lot of singing categories, so I told singing teacher about it, and she was very enthusiastic. And at today's lesson I think I may have agreed to enter some of the categories...I am wondering what on earth possessed me to agree to this? Knowing my luck the adult competition will be full of people from conservatoire!

On a positive note, I can actually now sing a G comfortably...progress!

Today we were back working on Dido - so being able to cope with the G was very helpful!!! (We've been doing Sea Pictures for the last few weeks - I love Sea Pictures!). We also tried "Una voce poco fa". I was given it two weeks ago to use bits of it as an exercise, but we actually sang through it today. Apart from the small problem that I don't speak Italian and couldn't read the words anyway as they were so small (this is a problem generally when music is on the piano!), it was really fun, though I did end up just giggling on the fastest bits because trying to fit unreadable words to semiquavers was a little bit much!

Well done!

It sounds like you're having great fun in your lessons and making nice progress.

You'll probably really enjoy the festival too, once you get past the legs-to-jelly fear thing and it will be a great opportunity to put the things you're learning to test in front of an audience.

Have fun!

I, too, absolutely love Dido's lament - beautiful. I love singing it but also love listening to it by Emma Kirkby.

Ditto!!

I'm sure you'll be fine singing at the festival. Having heard you at Leeds, I think you have a gorgeous voice

That's very nice of you to say that Claudia!

Actually, does anyone have any repertoire suggestions?

We've decided I'm going to enter three categories - Lieder, Song (can't remember category title - it's two contrasting songs, one in English) and Operatic Aria.

Lieder and Opera categories are sorted, but...

The song category has a time limit of 7 minutes, and we were going to do Sea Pictures, and Quilter's "Now sleeps the crimson petal", but the only Sea Pictures that (in my opinion) provides a suitable contrast to Quilter is "The Swimmer", which is over 6 minutes long! (And wildly difficult, though gorgeous!). So we're probably going to be doing "Where Corals Lie", but I need a contrasting piece of around 3 minutes, ideally in English, though I'd be willing to try French too!

I don't really have any suggestions, but I love "Where Corals Lie". Good Luck!

If you like Quilter, you could consider one of his Shakespeare Songs. I used to love "Blow, blow, thou winter wind", though the accompaniment is a bit tricky (OK if you have a good pianist lined up).

Have really noticed improvements over the past couple of months, I'm managing dynamics much better (was really struggling with them!) and my breath control is getting much better too, I can sustain things for much longer, which I'm really chuffed about, and my posture is getting better too! Things not being going well the past fortnight though as I've had a sore throat and a horrible cough and also been really congested, so not really been practising as even breathing exercises were just making me cough! But had a lesson yesterday after cancelling my previous lesson, and could feel myself opening up again, though things still weren't quite back to normal. Winter is not my friend!

Back on the topic of the festival repertoire, not sure whether I'm looking for suggestions/advice or just reassurance...

We've decided to do Saint-Saen's Mon Coeur S'Ouvre A Ta Voix for one festival. I utterly adore it, and the notes are all in a nice comfortable range, though am finding the "acting" side a bit difficult - I don't feel mature enough to be Dalila!!!

For the other festival I'm singing Where Corals Lie and Purcell's "I Attempt From Love's Sickness To Fly" - a piece I'm having lots of fun with! for the song category.

For the lieder I'm doing Schumann's Widmung, and Richard Strauss's "Du Meines Herzen Kroenelein". I love Widmung, and am very proud of myself for managing to learn my first German song off by heart so quickly. However, the Strauss I am REALLY struggling with. I'm just finding it so difficult learning the tune, the words, singing the notes - everything! I just think it's too hard - I'm only a beginner! Teacher says it's perfectly within my capabilities, I just need a bit more confidence, (she caught me singing the first two lines a cappella when I thought she wasn't paying attention) and she says it'll impress the adjudicator at the festival. I don't really want to give up on something, and I realise I'll get a real sense of achievement if I can learn the Strauss, but I'm wondering if I should ask if we can have a back up plan of something easier (I don't need to submit my pieces till the end of January).