It’s a small thing to most, I know, but on Easter Monday I finally achieved my ambition of singing a solo aria with my choir in a concert. The work in question was Vivaldi’s Gloria, and I sang the Domine Deus as well as the Laudamus te in a duet with Karen.

I’d practised the two pieces for just over a month in weekly lessons and, to accommodate my nerve-induced breathing issues, we’d stuck extra safety breaths into the runs. Over the course of this month of practice, I learned via this piece, that isn’t hugely demanding after all, to shape my vowels better and use visualisation and changes to my posture to help with breathing and tonality. It was such an excellent way to learn.

Though Karen’s voice and mine are quite different we blended pretty well and it was a fun team effort.

On the day, though freezing cold and nervous, I managed to sing the pieces quite well, with only a minor hiccup in one bar when my mind blanked on the words I was supposed to be singing. They were right in front of me but somehow my out-of-body experience questioned what I saw. Even though that error felt like it lasted five minutes, few seemed to notice and many seemed pleased.

Last week in my Skype lesson with Andrew I sang the piece again but we tweaked my technique and understanding and removed the safety breaths. At the end of my lesson I sang the piece possibly better than ever, which made me wish that I’d had more time to practise it like that in the first place. Oh well. Next time I sing it, it will be brilliant, I suppose.