Posts made by Vorpal

When my boss decides to surprise me on Friday by leaving my favorite coffee drink on my desk with a note thanking me for everything I do. And the fact that this finally arrived this morning in the mail and is now at my desk:

@Misadventure said in RL Anger:

Now if we can get @silentsophia to share pics of her knitting and such ...

I second this motion.

@Misadventure said in RL Anger:

Enjoyable reading, though.

Thank you- I have a bad habit of geeking out on 'shop talk'...

Well... a wobble is a very slow vibration in the voice. Like, almost siren-like, it is so slow. That’s usually indicative of bad technique that has basically abused your voice for years. Think of your vocal cords as coming together an incredible amount of times per second as air passes between them… healthy vocal cords do so at a certain rate- 6 to 6.5 cycles per second. If you abuse your voice, ‘push’ and scream as substitutes for good technique, the muscles and cartilages involved start to lose their flexibility (in fact, in some cases, they become ‘bowed’ after years of pressure) – which results in 4 or less cycles per second. The voice is also robbed of its natural beauty after years of being savaged.

It’s not a pretty sound, and outside of potential recurring health issues being the cause, it can indicate a bad singer with a very bad and unhealthy technique.

As for “Heldentenor”- we know that there are seven voice types: tenor and soprano (high male and female voices), bassos and altos (low male and female voices) and mezzosopranos, baritones and countertenors (mid-range female voices, mid-range male voices, and men whose falsetto is so strong that they sing in the mezzosoprano range.)

Each voice type also has sub-types. Think of the sub-types as being like weight designations in Boxing, from lightweight to heavyweight. The roles written for each sub-type are written with what that voice sub-type can and can’t do: huge voices (dramatic sopranos, heldentenors, Verdian/Wagnerian baritones and sopranos, etc) are very large, very powerful, not very agile and they usually sing over very large orchestras and can cut through them like a knife through butter.

Middle-strength voices are usually called ‘lyric’ and they usually strike a balance between power and beauty- they sing over smaller orchestras and have moderate agility. They’re usually the romantic leads. The light voices are incredibly agile though not very powerful and so they often sing over much smaller orchestras.

A larger voice trying to sing repertoire meant for a smaller voice is possible. Singing the role of a –much—smaller voice can be incredibly awkward and not very good for your vocal health. However, a smaller voice trying to sing the repertoire of a much larger voice will kill it. To sing over an orchestra size that is twice (or more) the size that is meant for your voice means you will either a) not be heard at all if you’re trying to sing with your usual size or b) you are going to push like hell and that’s going to damage your voice over the long term.

The damage can range from nodules, bowed cords (and wobble), to vocal hemorrhage and worse.

In the end, operatic singing is a fine-motor athletic endeavor on par with the kind of stress and coordination required of Olympic athletics for other parts of the body. And doing it wrong, just like training other parts of your body, is going to fuck you up. And if you’ve done it wrong for too long, then you’ll get fucked up in irreversible ways.
--- so, long story short

… someone who does that is the last person you want vocal technical advice from.

Sorry. It's a very slow day at work today.

@TNP said in RL Anger:

@Vorpal said in RL Anger:

This will totally be the last production I do with this company. What a hot mess.

I hope you intend to let them know exactly how fucked up they are once the performance is over and why you'd rather have spikes shoved into your eyes than work with him again.

I suppose that might get around to other companies? But hell, this is opera. They're used to divas so it shouldn't reflect poorly on you, especially if this guy has a bad rep already.

I definitely intend to let them know why I’m not coming back.

The guy is basically a failed tenor who is a pain to listen to- he’s a proponent of the Can Belto school, so most of his ‘performances’ is him screaming in pitch with an enormous wobble and calling himself a ‘heldentenor.’ Until a few years ago he kept getting work as a tenor because he has cast iron pecs and it looks like he’s smuggling small cantaloupes in his arms, but the voice got far too horrifying for people to pay for him to sing in main roles nowadays. Now he does character baritone roles because he screams less in the baritone register, but he keeps trying to do roles that showcase the fact that no, he’s a natural-born tenor with the typical low tenor register (that is, nothing audible below the tenor’s low C).

This is his first production as a ‘stage director’- depending on the reviews, it might be his last. I certainly hope so. What irked me the most about working with him is that he kept trying to give the singers vocal tips and musical interpretation tips… when that is the province of (respectively) their voice teachers and the music director, who is in charge of who does what musically.

I’m sorry, but when your head wobbles like a goddamned POP Vinyl toy when you sing because you’ve got enough sub-glottal pressure that your larynx could be used as a cannon that could launch a morbidly obese squirrel across a football field, you don’t need to be giving any technical tips to anyone.

So… please bear with me, but more production bitching.

Mr. Genius Stage Director has known from day one that, due to the configuration of the two theaters we’re singing in (there’s no pit, apparently), the orchestra has to be on stage. And stage left. And yet this goddamned m*@$&@#*er still staged the damned thing without taking that into consideration. The result is that 80% of the cast can’t, at one point or another, establish direct eye contact with the conductor.

Last night was the first (and only) rehearsal in the space with the orchestra before opening night (because this company can’t get its shit together.) During the mask trio- which we had been performing perfectly in rehearsals so far- things fell apart in a completely spectacular fashion.

I want you to picture this: for the trio, we’re laid out in a triangle and staring straight ahead, and the orchestra and conductor is to our left. I am at the leftmost point of the triangle and therefore the only member of the trio who can actually see maestro. Meanwhile my poor Donna Anna is on the opposite end of the triangle. She is also, at this point, getting eyefucked by a lighting tree that is blasting her face with intense light to the point that she can’t see a goddamned thing- much less the conductor. Donna Elvira, on the other hand, can’t see the conductor because of where I’m standing, which we didn’t know until today and she had no way of communicating this to me because we’re, essentially, too far away from each other.

Now, when the orchestra is in the front, before the singers, most of the singers get the same (more or less) delay… in this configuration, I’m the one getting the immediate feedback, whereas Donna Anna is the last one to hear. As a result of not being able to see shit, my poor Donna Anna was two measures behind as the trio got on. Donna Elvira was a measure ahead because she’s behind the orchestra and, again, can’t even see the conductor.

Any trio, but particularly a Mozart trio, is a clockwork affair. Few things can fall apart as spectacularly as a Mozart trio- with Verismo you can sort of get back on the horse, there’s a lot more fluidity and leeway allowed before the audience realizes that, oh shit, it’s falling apart! Mozart? Not so much.

That was just one of the issues….aaaaand this was the only rehearsal with the orchestra in the space before opening night on Friday. And bonus points: on Saturday, we’re singing at a completely different theater that we won’t get to rehearse in.

This will totally be the last production I do with this company. What a hot mess.
It’s a drag, because the singers they rounded up for this are pretty damned impressive.

@Coin said in Doctor Strange:

@Vorpal said in Doctor Strange:

I've always thought that was the consistent take on the Doctor- he takes care of the mystical intrusions… Elder Gods, monstrosities from beyond the edge of reality, that Doomsday Spell that a crazy cult in Kansas is trying to cast. He takes care of the issues that could end reality as we know it and leaves the non-mystical threats to the kids in spandex… unless he has no choice. And that’s the potential hook to integrate him, I think.

Precisely. fucking Thanos wielding the Infinity Gauntlet seems like the sort of thing Doctor Strange would be like, "oh, well, I should probably show up for that one, huh?"

Pretty much. After all, you can't be Earth's first line of defense against mystical intrusions if there's no Earth left

I've always thought that was the consistent take on the Doctor- he takes care of the mystical intrusions… Elder Gods, monstrosities from beyond the edge of reality, that Doomsday Spell that a crazy cult in Kansas is trying to cast. He takes care of the issues that could end reality as we know it and leaves the non-mystical threats to the kids in spandex… unless he has no choice. And that’s the potential hook to integrate him, I think.

@justanothername said in Tangent's Playlist:

Hey Vorpal! I remember you too! I miss playing Tim sometimes--those were the days~

.... he's still open.

Nudge nudge

Rule of the day: Never be rude to the person on whom you depend to reach other people in the company.

Me: (Name of the company), this is Vorpal, how can I help you?
Them: says name of our CEO in a rough, ‘why am I speaking to you Peon’ tone, and nothing else. It's also muffled, so I repeat myself just in case the call has gotten cut off:
Me: ...I'm sorry?
Them: Repeats the name of the CEO, like it is some sort of magical word. And nothing else
Me: .... whom shall I say is calling?
Them: She says name and an acronym. And nothing else
Me: Alright. Please hold.
sends them to his voicemail instead

This has happened twice today. When you learn how to say "Please" and "Hello, could I talk to..." like a human being, you'll get to talk to the CEO directly. Until then, suck voicemail. B)

His Damian spits on everyone. Like, seriously, he's ruined some of my best uniforms.

And hey, I remember your Tim!

@Sammi said:

@Vorpal said:

For a while I was part of the classical music community and performed several live concerts, but I haven’t done that in a while. I still attend concerts by friends in both popular and classical music fields- one of the staple duos there being Jaycatt and Frogg, two old friends of mine.

I'm glad they're still doing stuff. I went to a few of their concerts many seasons ago, and I liked it.

They're very cool people, and very very sweet.

When you're RPing with a group of people who are all comfortable with throwing story twists and features without powergaming, and suddenly the scene you started turns into this unpredictable collaborative storytelling and you have no idea what's going to happen next.

That is awesome.

At the end of the day, Second Life is first and foremost all about used-created content. That can be sex dungeons in the adult sims, clothing and fashion stores for avatars… Avatar stores so you can look however you want to look- art galleries, chats, forums, concerts, roleplaying sims, social gatherings, etcetera. There’s an entire collection of sims known as “Caledon”, for example, where people dress and live the Steampunk aesthetic. There’s fantasy sims, star wars sims, star trek- it really can be a very interesting experience. The sophistication of some of these roleplaying sims can be quite impressive- many have custom-made combat systems (like the Final Fantasy VII combat system, for which I created the spell effects: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=su3ctmZN7AE )

The tricky part is navigating it or finding what you want, which is why you look for destination guides or look for blogs that specialize in covering locations in Second Life.

For a while I was part of the classical music community and performed several live concerts, but I haven’t done that in a while. I still attend concerts by friends in both popular and classical music fields- one of the staple duos there being Jaycatt and Frogg, two old friends of mine. There are a lot of very talented musicians, popular and classical, who do regular concerts.

It is a very interesting place with a great deal of freedom- which means you can find anything. And the downside is that you can find anything.

Aaaaand we just got hit with the .locky virus at work. Wheee!

So glad I'm not part of the IT team.

Inviting the queen for tea is a major faux pas. They don't do too well with dainty teacups.

There's also a good chunk of roleplaying 'sims' in Second Life, many of which have a rather active population. The Final Fantasy VII sim has been an RP staple for about seven or eight years now and it shows no sign of stopping.

@Misadventure eat crow and apologize like a grown-up It's why I try not to raise a stink unless evidence itself tells me that it's not just me. A few tiffs with a staffer or a player in particular might mean that our personalities are incompatible or that we get on each other's nerves. A fail-conga of that same staffer with a large number of players, on the other hand, means there's something rotten in Denmark...

There is, of course, the strict religious harassment: The comments that you will go to hell because you don't accept Jeebus squarely qualify as religious persecution and harassment, whether or not she's going for the gay angle.

@Kanye-Qwest I don't know about Derp's staffing, myself, but generally speaking, people aren't...

And then there's Brave New World. My god.

That being said, and getting back to the topic at hand- on the whole, staffers do deserve their fair share of gratitude. While I have been tempted to help out at a MU* here and there when they were understaffed, I know myself far too well. I have a very dramatic temperament (just ask @silentsophia ) and can be very cutting. I'm also not afraid of being confrontational when I smell BS as opposed to taking the more diplomatic approach. None of those things make for an ideal staffer- so I admire people who can take the position and be good at it.