First Lesson

Had my first singing lesson today… Didn’t get off to a good start, as basically I have the beginnings of a cold and a bit of a sore throat. So – bad decision even to turn up and try singing!

Anyway, after a talk on how to look after the voice, Matthew got me learning to do some warm-up exercises. he was also testing my music knowledge along the way I think. I realise I have a lot to learn about music theory, but that’s why I’m here!

To finish up with, we went through Matthew and Andrew’s top 5 of my songs. Of the 13 I gave them, they like:

• The Nonsense Song
• Get Out of This
• Watching the Rain
• Golden Mean
• Daytime

Quite a surprise to me, as there was only one present of the initial five I submitted. Along with that, they want me to cut Daytime down to 3-4 minutes, as it is currently 6m 13s, and much too long to be commercial. As it’s a story (and a very deliberately heavy and laboured one, a murder story), I can’t see how I can succeed with such a drastic cut. I asked if they had picked a ‘reserve’, as I’m not sure I want to cut it down by that much.

However, reading between the lines here, I have come away from this session already feeling that a great many of my songs are too long. Many are approaching 5 minutes or even over this, and many have long intros. To make them more suitable commercially I’m going to have to edit them down.