Wow, I even managed to take a Sock selfie before the show, the first time there's been time for that in the frantic 15 minute handover all week.
After the miserable diatribe yesterday, this is just a quick post to say I have cheered up. It was the cold, the common cold that is, that was making me excessively depressed and casting a shadow over my view of the world.
My shows have been hard to do with the croaky, and almost nonexistent, voice caused by the cold. It’s been:
Weds (Day 1) - fine and fab
Thurs (Day 2) - fine, but starting to feel burning around throat
Friday (Day 3) - swollen throat, hard to swallow. Groggy with cold, lots of sleeps. Performed fine
Sat - Class during day, strained voice. Voiceless at 7.30, nursed voice carefully, it held out through show beautifully
Sun - Voiceless through day, again nursed voice carefully, meaning less flyering, show went perfectly
Mon - Thought voice would be okay, as it had come back during the day. But by night the falsetto was still “split” and reedy. This was the hardest show to do, almost inaudible at times. I was very drained and depressed afterwards.
Tues - thought voice was okay, started fine, but got weaker as show progressed, croaking by the end
So I’m grateful in part for these two days off to go and see Mum, as it will serve the secondary purpose of letting my voice recover. And can I say a special thanks to the act I hand over to after my show, Grant Buse, who has introduced me to a fantastic thing called Singer Spray. I've only had a couple of scooshes of it, administered by Grant before my shows, but it was what enabled me (and the Socks) to hold out for half of Tuesday night's show. He's been in Avenue Q, so he knows a bit about preserving a falsetto voice. Thanks Grant.
If anybody saw the problem shows from Saturday to Tuesday, and thank god I didn’t record any of them, you might have spotted that the cold affects certain parts of my falsetto range. So on Saturday and Sunday, though I was able to articulate words clearly, there were bits of songs that I had to change the key of or speak.
For example in the Avengers Reel, a medley of seven different songs all in different keys (a version of which you can see here*) the Socks have to reach some quite low notes (low for them, normal for a regular voice) and those are the notes that the cold choked off most. Come the second halves of Monday & Tuesdays shows, most singing notes had become pretty feeble.
When we return on Saturday, I aim to be in full voice. And, you never know, we might capture something on camera.
The Award Winning* Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre are Superheroes at The Gilded Balloon at the Edinburgh Fringe from August 1st to 26th (not 8 & 9)
*Winners of the Bath Comedy Festival Lovehoney Best Joke Award 2018
* The keys have all been changed since this version, and a verse dropped, cos too much was unsingable even under normal circumstances.
* The keys have all been changed since this version, and a verse dropped, cos too much was unsingable even under normal circumstances.
You may be being too harsh on yourself, not because you're naturally pessimistic, but because you're on the wrong side of the curtain. I was in the audience on Monday night, and though it was obvious that you were struggling, I don't think it impacted our enjoyment. As a matter of fact, I think we were willing you on to get through, and the laughs were as loud as I've heard them.
ReplyDeleteSo yup, no feeling at all that we weren't getting our money's worth, and I thought the new show was very well put together (of course, I'm a comics nerd, but my partner isn't and she had a great time).
Thanks a million Michael
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