Singing Teaching in Paradise: My Ship by Kurt Weill and a wonderfully emerging voice !

Another week starts and suddenly is whizzing by......where does the time go ! I had my lovely young J yesterday and boy her voice is growing more and more from child to teen every time I teach her. She is opening up like petals unfolding and her voice is matching every move ! I love seeing the surprise on her face when she sings a scale a little higher than a few weeks ago, and the sound rings around the room, and in her head, her eyes light up and the smile whooshes across her pixie face !

I gave her the delightful Kurt Weill 'My Ship' a couple of weeks ago, a grown up song with a grown up melody, and she is roaring through it like a little steam train. J has always been A little shy of performing solo - in the shows and concerts she is such a tremendous asset, she never stops acting and knows every note and lyric in the entire performance, including the soloist's music. She will, I think, come naturally to the self confidence required to go it alone unworried and with excitement, so to speak, and I am willing to wait as long as it takes because there is such a talent inside this lovely but slightly retiring personality !

'My Ship' was set as the girls under 13 solo song at Hong Kong festival this year. It is not a piece I have taught much because it requires some degree of real vocal technique and a solid ear so that the singer can ride over the intricate accompaniment and changing harmonies. In HK it was sung at all levels of attainment, from scintillating and technical down to quite poor. It has that slightly free style of a ballad which is tough for youngsters to achieve, and although the words are easily understandable there is the final twist of the love element - again, very tricky for a pre teen.

With J, we concentrate of the beautiful almost Disney images of pearls, silks, rubies etc and the mental picture is a gorgeous fantasy vessel sailing over a perfectly calm and azure blue sea.

Thanks Disney ! You gave them all the pictures which I turn into a visual for the song !