Satisfying Progress

I had a few enjoyable moments in the last few days. The first is that I sent my final -...maybe - version of my first piano piece to my vocal coach. She really seemed to like the initial versions but was far more excited for my most recent revision. She brought it up during our session yesterday and kept saying how much she loved the melody. More excitingly, she said how if she came across anyone at work (she's a professional song writer as I believe I've mentioned) needing a moody melody, she'd totally pitch my piece to them. Which is pretty freakin' cool. I don't expect anything to come of that but it was a nice confidence boost.

Secondly, I managed to climb my way (slightly) both up and down the piano with my voice more than I ever have before, which I didn't expect having thought I'd hit my absolute limit prior to this. As of now it's looking like my range will officially land around 3 octaves or perhaps a step more. Here is what I was able to eek out yesterday.

Compared to my previous record:

I actually managed to land the B just below my lowest C but not reliably and it was a real struggle, requiring me to attempt it again and again until I just barely managed. So I'm not going to count that one.

Next goal: don't screw up my recital in a few weeks. I did a few runs through it on the grand piano at the vocal studio and found some parts that needed tweaking, mostly pedal work. I've discovered being a little lax with the pedal at home on my electric piano is a lot different than being lax on a real piano. The sounds muddle FAR more on the piano and I'm going to have to make sure I'm more diligent about the pedal in the future.

Woo #2

To go along with my previous post, I have nearly finished up my first ever song, aside from the lyrics. Though at this point I might just make it an instrumental...maybe. It's an ever changing situation and my mind switches every few minutes.
After I had settled on most of the melodies and chorus, I recorded it and sent it to my vocal instructor - who is a professional song writer - for her opinion. Her response was:
"Whoa!! That is sooo cool!! You have a real ear for melody lines - no joke - I could totally picture that in a movie - wow!!!"

Which naturally pleased me. Granted, she could have been trying to encourage me with positive reinforcement but I feel like she tends to be very straight-forward so I'm going to take the comment as stated and allow myself to feel pretty excited about it.

Now that I've finally started the ball rolling and allowed the fear of being terrible to subside, I'm really enjoying the progress of creating a song. Of creating at all, really. It feels like far too long since I said down and made something that was my own.
I don't know if my writing method is ideal, but I recorded the basic chord progression onto my phone and listened to it on a loop over and over (which may have driven me slightly insane) while humming melody progressions in my head. After a while, I started to hear where I wanted the song to go in my a measure ahead of time and I would build it from there. It sort of felt like those cartoons where a character starts to off a cliff and builds a bridge ahead of themselves to run on while they are in midair.

I always assumed the first song I ever wrote would be terrible - and it MAY be for all I know - and that I would hate it. But the fact that I not only don't hate it, but actually like it makes me feel pretty good.

There are still many hurdles and a long way yet to go, but I'm glad to finally have making the journey.

Woo

I was playing recital piece for my piano teacher last week and she commented on how my play style had evolved from being stiff and mechanical to more loose and how I seemed to play with more feeling of late and how she felt I'd become a real musician. And that  just made my whole day.

I, of course, don't feel that way but it's nice hearing it from someone else.