Let's try this one more time...

So...

It has been, how long now? since I wrote my last blog update.
Well, I have definitely neglected my duty as a "blogger"(not much of one to begin with).

I would like to resurrect my position as much as possible from now on.

Much has changed in my life, yet again, for the past year.

Last place you have seen me was in sunny Florida.
Well folks, I am now back in my home land...
Where I was born 35 years ago...
The land of the rising Sun.

Yes, I am in Japan. Back in Tokyo and I am actually living with my folks for the first time since I left for high school.

I hope to write in both English and Japanese.
Perhaps it will be confusing, mainly for me, at first but hope y'all will enjoy as the time goes.
Then again, I'm sure no one is reading this anymore so I don't really have to worry about what I am writing about.

Some new and exciting things are happening from now till end of the year.
I am involved in a show that is taken from an ancient Japanese mythology called "Kojiki"(Ancient Tales) is completely brand new(we are creating everything from scratch as we speak!).
We will be performing in Miyazaki, where the story is originally from, in November.

Also, I will be doing a Christmas dinner show in Karuizawa, December 14th.

And one or two more events are in planning.

I'll try and update as much and often as I can!



To be continued...

The "Arctic Express" has left Southern Florida...

The title came from Weather Channel's headline last week when we were experiencing a rather freezing weather here in the Southern Florida. Yeah, it was pretty damn cold since I've been enjoying the 70s, 80s and even a few 90 degrees weather until about couple weeks ago. Of course, I have lived in Kent, CT., Cleveland, OH., and Chicago, IL., where it gets disgustingly cold at winter that I thought 30s and some 20s weather would be nothing. Well, folks, I was wrong! I come to realize that my apartment has no heat, or not even an insulation to retain heat inside the room. This with my floor being stone tile and no carpet made my life here for the past week and a half a living hell.

I got many comments of "you are a wuss" or "stop being a baby! it's negative 10 here in Chicago!" etc., etc. I'm sure you get the point. But let me tell you something. It's still cold when the temp drops about 30 degrees over night!!!

Of course, I thought about going out and buying a space heater when this whole cold spell started but at first, I tried to "tough it out". Silly me, I slept with three layers of clothes and two blankets for about 5 nights. By the time I caved and decided to go seek out a space heater it was ALL SOLD OUT!!! Of course, in a place like Florida, any store won't carry that many space heaters so as soon as this cold weather came about, every one went out to get one like gang busters.

Needless to say, I missed my chance...

I ordered a space heater on Saturday from Bestbuy online. Well, guess what? I got it yesterday, I got to use it last night and it worked so well that I didn't have to wear my fleece sweater to bed. Hooray! Of course, starting today the temp will go up and the cold weather is over but you know what? I know with my luck, we're gonna be getting another cold front soon. When that comes, I'll be totally prepared.

New year, new beginning...

So it has been since 2007 since I last posted or even thought about looking at my own blog site until today. After watching "Julie and Julia"(Yeah, yeah, I know... I love food and cooking so sue me), I decided to find the blog Julie Powell did with the whole Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child. Well, I am really enjoying the whole thing and that lead me(sort of...) to get back on the blog horse and update my life to whoever that is still out there that wanna read it.

So here goes...

Since my last post, I have been busy somewhat with opera gigs here and there but I have come to hit a wall vocally and was struggling. No huge problems but at the same time, I was being haunted by the possibility of "what if there is a problem with my singing..." and decided to do something about it. This thought started at the end of 2008. Well, this came full circle when I met my current teacher in June of 2009. Long story short, he has changed my life. I put this in bold because that is the exact words my friend Chuck S. said when he told me about this said teacher. See, Chuck and I have known eachother for about 10 years now. Since my conservatory days in Cleveland, we got to know eachother, sang few shows together, drank many booze together, and of course, sang many arias after the said drinking of booze at his house. He has always been one of my few friends I can go completely "singer geek" with whether sober or not. So when it came to singing he was always searching for the "technique". Well, after his comment of "he has changed my life", I realized that he has found that technique.

Now of course, for those singers out there, I know that everyone has their own opinions of what works and what doesn't. I agree, just like religions. I got no objections to your God as long as you believe in them. Yes, yes, I got a little theological but singing technique for us singers is like a bible to the christians/catholics. And technique really make or break your belief and the confidence as a singer. So, I had to see for myself what this teacher is all about.

So I feel that up to last year June, I knew a lot about singing. I've been learning, hearing other singers, and worked with other singers to understand the art of singing. Well, I guess I was wrong since within my first 20 minutes of the lesson, Maestro F was very clear(more towards blunt) that I did not know how to sing because I had no technique to speak of. Pretty devastating since I felt like I have wasted the past 8 years of conservatory work studying.

The first lesson pretty much did it for me because after that initial 20 minutes, he completely changed my vocal production. I sounded completely different. Not different in a way that I didn't sound like me, but more like I am actually singing fully without forcing or trying too hard. I was convinced, he changed my life.

I am taking out a lot of the other crap here since it gets pretty boring with the pedagogy lingo and I want to avoid that unless it's necessary. Anyhow, after having three lessons in five days, I decided that summer while I was doing Bonzo and Yamadori with Music by the Lake's "Madam Butterfly" that I am moving to Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

So...

That being said, I dropped everything I had going in Chicago and relocated myself to sunny Southern Florida(not so much today but I'll get into that later) September 2009.

A lot has changed, needless to say

One being that I have ended a 4 and a half year relationship with my then-girlfriend(which did not end very well, but it really was for the best I promise you), left my friends, my favorite restaurants, my teacher and coaches, my little gigs, and my little studio apartment in the beautiful Gold Coast. Haul everything in the U-Haul trailer that was attached to my Wrangler and drove my ass down to Florida.

It was and still is a huge change. But I needed the frest perspective in life. I was unhappy with my singing and something was definitely wrong and lacking from it. I needed to do something. When I am unhappy with my singing, I am unhappy. I needed to change that. So with fresh mind, new technique, and new location I decided to make the big move.

I got many "what? You're moving to Florida???", "Are there any work down there???", or my favorite "What are you doing there?" from my friends up north. I told them, "I found an amazing teacher, so I decided that I am going take a step back and go back to learning the basics". It didn't go with few people but hey, afterall, it's my life. If the result brings me singing and for a long, long time then who fucking cares???

I never driven down that far in my life by myself so of course the person most worried about this trip was my mother. She thought that I will either: get lost OR fall asleep on the road and get in an accident... Thanks mother, I got here safe and sound 3 months ago.

It was fun though. I made a little 5-day vacation out of it by visiting few friends I have not seen in years. One being my Chamorro bro Paul S., who lives in Indianapolis. I used these friends also to make a mark point in my trip to get free night stay also. Hey that's what friends are for right? It was nice to hang with him for a day, in fact I could've used an another day at each locations. Because after that, I went and got a hotel outside of Chattanooga(no friends there...), then went into Atlanta to see my friends Wade T. and Magda W. I stayed with Wade which was nice since I have not seen any of these people for quite sometime(except Magda, I see her occasionally). Again, I wish I could spend another day in Atlanta but I had to get my ass in Florida. Once I left Georgia, the next person I was going to see(and crash at the house) was my old voice teacher from Cleveland, Beverley R. She "retired" outside of Orlando area and enjoying teaching and singing. Well, I have somewhat miscalculated my distance and my own endurance from driving that sadly, I never made it to her house. I found myself a Holiday Inn Express(here we go little blog name dropping/product placement. And it was very nice when I had to stay outside of Chattanooga. Thanks to my parents for paying the hotels...) to spend the night and decided to meet up with Bev in a morning for a breakfast.

After the fun filled 5 days drive to Ft. Lauderdale, I have finally arrived. Stayed at a friend's house who is also in the studio Phil A. and his girlfriend Caitie G. They were kind enough to let me live there(I paid rent) for month and a half. But any of you who know me, I have not lived with a roommate since I was sophomore in college. I needed to find myself an apartment. Living with other people, as nice and lovely as they are, really started to drive me crazy. Also there was the whole "I don't got a visa to get me a day job" situation so I was at home ALL THE FUCKING TIME! Unless I had a lesson, a choir rehearsal, a grocery shopping to do, or an occasional outing with few friends that I have here, I never really left home...

So thanks to them for giving me roof over my head but at the same time, THANK GOD I have my own place. I'm sure they feel the same way.

It's been 3 months now since I moved here and things are going very, very well on the singing end. Maestro and I have come to a huge discovery before Christmas and made some huge break throughs on my singing. At first he thought I was actually a tenor. Then it became, "well, you are either tenor or baritone". But after one lesson of break through, it became "You are either tenor or bass"

...

What???

Tenor or BASS???

It made no sense but he is my teacher and he knows what the hell he's talking about so I pretty much listened and did what he asked me to do. I had two more lessons after that and now it has been confirmed that I am actually a bass. This really brings me full circle since when I started singing I was a bass.

He even gave me a first aria to learn! Not that I was unhappy with vocalizing and vocalizing only. Yeah, I did get to sing Angelotti in Tosca but really, no arias??? But I had to be patient. If I didn't know how to sing then what's the point of learning a song or an aria???

So I am learning Gremin's aria from Eugene Onegin. We are doing a Tchaikovsky concert in March. And if I am doing well and not fucking up or going crazy, he may give me another aria to learn for another concert. If ALL of these things go well along with my lessons, I will be singing Sparafucile in the upcoming summer production of Rigoletto. Pretty exciting.

But for now, more vocalizing...


I am mainly writing about singing and sorry to say, I can't help it since this is what I do. But I will be writing other mundane shit that happens in my day here in sunny... Wait, not sunny, it's gloomy and FREEZING Fort Lauderdale.

I mentioned earlier and just now that it's been freezing here. Now, I've already gotten some angry messages and Facebook posts from few of my northern friends that I am a pussy. I know, I know... It's only 54 degrees but it's 54 fucking degrees outside AND inside!!! I have no heat(because we're in Florida and I live in a nice but crappy old apartment with no insulation) and all the space heaters are sold out in, what I came to find out, 10 mile radius from my apartment. I called everywhere and everyone is out. I guess I was a bit late on the uptake with "oh, I should get a space heater for my freezing cold apartment with stone tile floor". Don't worry, I ordered one online it will be coming next week. Although by then, I'm sure that the weather will look on the brighter( and warmer) side. According to the forecast, it will stay cold for a while. I hope it was worth spending the money to buy the heater...

I don't know who's out there reading this but hopefully it's somewhat enjoyable to read this.

Demo CD!

For those who actually do come by and occasionally check out this blog, I would like to share my demo cd that I recently made for audition purpose. I do have few tracks that are multiple and still trying to figure out which track I am going to use. If you happen to have the time to listen to them and want to leave me some comments, I would very much appreciate it!

It's summer time

The summer has begun here in Chicago, actually it has been summer for a while here in Chicago... Sadly, I've been sitting at home working on some music, trying to look for a part time job teaching voice, but most of the time, I do a lot of sitting around at home.

It has been quite nice though, last week has been a bit cooler, which I like. I went to NYC for an audition almost a month ago and it was chilly! Such a weird weather we have been having so far this year and also this past year.

So, I got to experience my first "Taste of Chicago" a week ago. I have been here for almost three years and I have yet to experience the culinary extravaganza. It was a zoo! There were so many people(of course going on Sunday didn't help...), a lot of food from many different vendors. Actually, it was great to try out these places since some of the places are not so easily accessible, or just plain expensive to just go there to have some food. But of course with any outdoor festival-like situation(like Rib fest), it is bit of a costly business to hang out for the afternoon. I did have the turkey leg! It was HUGE!!! Too bad, I was a little too full to finish the leg since I have already tried many other restaurants on the way... All in all it was a great afternoon of culinary adventure.

I love the summer but at the same time, I wish I was working... Oh well, the time will come, soon. As I tell myself quite often nowadays.

Skype-tastic!

I have recently joined Skype. Feels as if I am a bit behind the technology today. I am totally hooked on this. I can't believe I didn't jump on this sooner. The fact that I can talk to someone for free, or at a very low rate, anywhere in the world! In fact, I just had a conversation with my old choir director's wife who is also on Skype. We got to catch up on few things before she had to go on an errand. It was so convenient to make a call as well. Although I have been trying to get a hold of my parents this way, they have not answered... It is definitely cheaper to call this way than using my phone card through my cell.

I say, once this catches on, maybe we won't need a land line. Almost everyone that I know has high speed internet nowadays. Hell, even my girlfriend's parents have one, and they live in a more rural area. It's free to join with an option of paying $30 yearly fee to have a phone number attach to your account to have unlimited calling out and receiving calls in US and Canada. The international rate is quite low as well. Before I start to sound like a commercial, everyone should check this thing out. All you need is a microphone and your computer speaker to talk to someone, anywhere in the world!

I give two thumbs up for Skype!

Summer is beginning!

So I have finished my run of Don Giovanni and it has gone well. Well, it went well in a musical way... As I mentioned in a post earlier that we have been having a problem in the set department. Well, we still had the said problem on our opening night. But the show must go on. We did the show without the complete set. Actually I felt better doing the show that way. We had to not deal with the extravagant scene changes that we were suppose to have if we did have the set completed. Even the set not being finished the show went quite well. We had a first rate cast. Even the review that came out after the opening night mentioned that the show was carried on by the music. Yeah, the set was not completed but who cares, we sang the show like we meant it. By the second and the last show we have finished the set, which became more problem than we expected. Having all the stuff we were suppose to have created such complication that the show got delayed every scene changes we faced. Anyhow, at the end we finished the run of Don Giovanni on a high note.

Since I have finished my first production of 2007, I now face the bitter fact of unemployment... Sadly, the few auditions I sang for this past fall came up quite unfruitful. So now, I go through the bitter life of jobless singer. Which brought this thought to my mind. How about getting a job!? Well, I have been having this thought for quite a while and finally decided that I will go seek a teaching job in this area. Now, of course the teaching thing have been on my mind for a while. But I was reluctant to go through with it. I just don't feel confident enough to teach someone else how to sing when I am still learning. Now, I know people will say that one can learn so much from teaching others. I have a feeling that I can teach someone what I know already(little bit that I have learned so far). Yet, I still feel the fear of teaching. I think everyone goes through this. I was talking to a good friend of mine who teaches and does the singing thing for a living. He told me his first experience of teaching. He was so clueless, he didn't know what to do in the middle of his lesson! Of course, this does not make me feel better to face teaching voice. It has so much more commitment. Someone is actually going to rely on my knowledge to learn something. That's given that I will find somewhere to teach. I will figure this out throughout this summer. But the time is always against me, and I must prepare for another season of audition in the fall, not to mention perspective job offers that might come my way. Needless to say, things will be interesting...

Other than that, I am getting ready for couple auditions in the next few weeks. First, I have couple auditions here in Chicago for the local companies. Hopefully I can get some gigs through them. Second, I am flying out to New York City for Hawaii Opera audition. Now how awesome would it be to get out to Hawaii to work! I am quite excited to have an opportunity to sing for them. So cross your fingers for those auditions for me!

I recently sang for a competition. It was my first one for a major international competition. It was just a preliminary but they are expecting about 1000 singers to hear during the preliminary round. The main part of the competition takes place in Germany late October. So far I am on a wait list but as you can tell there will be quite a few singers I will have to beat out to get into the 40 chosen for the main rounds of the competition.

Life wise, outside of singing, my life is quite dull. I look at music to see what other repertoire I should look at. Deal with some e-mail stuff, keeping in touch with my friends. Of course spending time with my girlfriend is in that as well. Looking closely to my life, most of my time really rely on what I am doing with my singing. Let me tell you, it gets quite boring to know that I have one thing to look forward to, and that is when I am working. I realized that as I was in a production. It is refreshing to hear that other colleagues of mine have day jobs and keeps "normal" life. From other's point of view, I am one of the few special people who does not have to deal with a "day" job. Again, going back to the whole teaching thing. If I can get a "day" job, I would love to do it. But due to my visa status, I must seek a job in my field: Singing.

Hopefully over the summer I can find myself a "day" job where I will get some financial support. It is great to have a huge support from my parents but now being 29, I should be able to support myself somehow. I know full well that I will not be able to make a living teaching or by singing, yet. But it will definitely help, and also show my parents that I am making the best out of the situation I am in. Let's see how things will be in the very near future.