maybe mezzo

  NIPPING WEDDING DAY NERVES IN THE BUD Wedding nerves - we all get them. Mostly because we are aware of the importance of this life changing moment which is being witnessed by so many people we care about. If you  are not used to being the centre of attention (and in truth, even if you are), this can be quite unsettling.  Once you get to the day itself there is a 'no turning back' air to it. The ball has been set in motion and the day can feel as if it is running away from you. So how can we turn those nerves into excitement and help us move forward on such grand occasions? As a professional performer I have had many high pressure occasions to deal with, but nothing prepared me for feeling nervous on my own wedding day! I did, however, have strategies I could use, so here are my 5 top tips for calming nerves on the day. 1. Although you may be centre of attention, you are going to feel fabulous in your outfit. You have chosen something that suits you and yo...

What qualities can you think of that a Celebrant needs to bring to the table? Although initially the role of a wedding celebrant seems markedly different from that of a funeral celebrant, I would suggest that some qualities are universal. The first thing that always comes to mind, and this is more a way of being, is a love of people . A fascination for how we all interact. What is the spark that enables us to connect with one another? To engage with that in your everyday life is certainly a prime quality for Celebrancy. If you automatically enjoy the different ways of communicating, you will notice reactions and reach out to others. A desire to help others and make a difference is going to be a key asset. In either situation, you will be the main protagonist in the moment and everybody will look to you to lead the way - through the structure of the ceremony and the way it is conducted. And here is a big difference between other ceremonies and a Celebrant led one - the a...

  How can I cope with my nerves on the day? This is such a common worry for many people. I mean how often do you really have to be on show so evidently and speak clearly in front of a whole room of people when you are feeling emotional? Your wedding day is one such occasion and can cause sleepless nights leading up to the event. First of all, use a resource you have available to you constantly - that of breath. It seems such a little thing to do, but focussing on your breath is a brilliant way to calm yourself. I'll let you into a secret - for all my high level performing experience, on my wedding day, I too was nervous as I walked down the aisle! So, actively breathe differently, and the first thing is to breathe out and expel some of that excess air you will have taken in! Then breathe for specific counts - in for 5 out for 10; increase that if necessary in for 8 out for 20 for example. you can  make up your own numbers, but the out breath needs to be lon...

  The first puzzle for many people is what exactly is a celebrant?! The word cropped up recently at the funeral of Captain Tom Moore when he had a celebrant led funeral, fantastically realised by Lucy Silous. Traditionally, a celebrant used to be the alternative to a religious ceremony and 30 years ago that tended to be a Humanist ceremony. The legacy of this remains and when I said I was training to be a celebrant, the word 'humanist' cropped up every time. So let's clear this up. An independent celebrant is free from traditional religion, is not a Humanist and is not the same as a Registrar, which is the other confusion. If a couple choose to marry with a celebrant present, they must understand that a celebrant can not yet legally marry a couple, so this has to be done through the registrar, maybe a day  or two before the main day takes place. This can be literally the signing of the document and saying 'yes' to questions. The vows and the ring exchange are not le...

  There seems to be an slow underlying message as we navigate through this crisis which is built on the old adage of 'carry on regardless' and 'best foot forward' which on the surface seems to be the only way to go. In my job as a singing teacher however, this is proving to be a serious challenge and one for which I am not sure I am best equipped.  One day in March, like every other teacher, I was working in a school, preparing my students for their high level singing grade exams (due the next day as it happened); the next day all that was cancelled and I was plunged into the world of online teaching and the now extremely well known Zoom platform. In the spirit mentioned above, I embraced the technology and immediately understood there was a serious adaptation to be made due to latency or time lag. Again, I adapted and found ways around dealing with this along with a seemingly endless round of creating backing tracks, sending pdf music scores, organising timetables and ...

In huggier times, funnily enough in Durham! I have noticed that when major events happen in my life, currently the Coronavirus epidemic, my first reaction is to stop and be still. I wait quietly and try and hear something. It's as if I am listening for a signal. When I look back in my life, I have always done it. I do it even more when surrounded by noise. When Princess Diana died I was in London the day after and I walked to Buckingham Palace where although there were crowds of people, there was an eerie silence; everybody lost in their own thoughts. And that's a phrase we use isn't it?  We are all silenced by events that are devastating - think 9/11 - and then the noise comes as we try and make sense of it.  Is that inner quiet space the sound of us meeting ourselves? It must be the moment where we try and process the enormity of the impact and work out how we proceed, if it is safe to do so, what the cost might be. It is probably textbook psychology. The current crisis h...

I asked AOTOS member Anne-Marie Czajkowski  to share her expertise on mindfulness for us here as many of us work out how to move our teaching forward or whether to bother and work out the implications.  Mindfulness for Singers I’ve recently completed my PhD studying the effects of mindfulness on singers. I’ve run several studies teaching mindfulness to singing students which complement their normal singing tuition and the results have been overwhelmingly positive. Participants found doing 10 mins mindfulness before singing lessons, practice and performances helped them to learn singing technique more deeply, develop more efficient and effective practice, helped them with performance anxiety, and brought them into the present moment on stage allowing them to be more creative and responsive.  Anyone who has seen my FB posts knows that I’ve found teaching online really tough over the past week. I’ve felt quite stressed that I wouldn’t be good enou...

When a colleague dies This week I was faced with the sudden and unexpected death of a fellow professional from my workplace and it has been very thought provoking for many of us.  The death of professional colleague has all the feelings of the death of a family member, yet it is almost as if you haven't earned the right to grieve. You see this person on a regular basis, have chats, laugh about family or work situations; talk about home life; ask them for their advice and vice versa and gradually build up a relationship with them that is unique. Yet, you may not be a close friend, you may not know their partners or children, you may not go for a drink with them after work. The working colleague relationship is built on respect, often common goals working in the same situation and similar attitudes, hopefully alongside a shared sense of humour. In so many ways they inhabit your working day, so it feels like a huge difference when they are no longer there. As in this case,...

Having been at dinner over at Eton College the other night, it was interesting to see the responce as we all came around the corridor to be confronted by this painting of the brothers and to reflect on the recent news.   It seems to me that Harry was looking for a way out and Meghan became his ticket to do so. I always said that as an independent woman, already in her mid 30s, so very used to leading her own life, she was never going to find it easy to curtail her freedom either physically or metaphorically. I watched her style in clothing change and there was one moment when I looked at her outfit and said she had been 'royal-fied' - it was never going to look awful because she is a beautiful woman, but it didn't suit her and she looked rather trussed up. Being told what you can't do all the time must be stultifying and suffocating. However much she might have been going to modernise the royal family, it was never going to be enough for a 21st century fashionable woma...

I think I would have fared better as a teenager today, despite the social media pressures, than I did in the 1970s. Back then, parent power ruled and you needed to be quite 'hard' to rebel. I wasn't yet made of rebellious material. I look back at what ought to have been a time of blossoming and realise how stunted I was in so many ways. I gave the impression of being confident but it was my act of swimming rather than drowning. I had to be that way in our house. A strong mother who was living out her wishes through her daughter and a weak father who did anything for a quiet life. They kind of waited to see what each day had to bring instead of steering the day to suit them. That is of course easy to say from this distance and with the knowledge I have now, and maybe that was how everybody lived. But goodness me, the 60s were still ringing in their ears! And we were on Merseyside where it really was happening!  Oh how I would have loved the Internet then to get inspira...