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Who can ever forget famous names like Giuseppe di Stefano and many others singing “live” operatic arias. One then realises how voice is “manipulated” to make perfect but unnatural recordings, These arias were later transferred to miniature cassettes and then again to MP3 in my PC, thus sadly losing their true value. I also bought many music sheets with tenor arias and in a few years I had learned about 60 tenor arias, mixed with a few baritone ones including a couple of bass arias, not to mention learning but not singing the female arias also. When I sang at home, I also acted the part in front of a full-length mirror. My favourites for acting were Manon Lescaut “Guardate pazzo son”, Rigoletto “Cortigiani vil razza”, Pagliacci “Vesti la giubba”, Trovatore “Di quella pira” etc
The popular songs were never abandoned of course.
Family competition
When a younger brother by 9 yrs reached his late teens we started competing on who could reach the highest note and arguing about falsetto, chest voice, head voice etc. We still argue about it!
He joined a local youth choir but I declined the invitation as I was then more intesested in playing Billiards.
Eventually, that choir grew in stature to sing famous Oratorios using their own soloists.
Actually I joined them much later so that the choir could keep going because couples started marrying off and leaving, . My brother shifted to the baritone/base section to keep a respectable SATB balance..
Singing Excursion
For the first time in my life, in 1954 I was sent abroad by the Admiralty for a specialised electronics course at Collingwood, Portsmouth and during those 4 months I took the opportunity to visit London a few times plus many other places
This gave me a crave to see more thus a year later I joined an excursion to Italy and Austria. This is where I spent hours on the microphone singing songs in various languages during otherwise tedious coach trips.
For every trip, my table was rewarded by a bottle of “Chianti” for this and I shared it with four friends.
At Grinzing gardens in Vienna, I was plied with wine, so that when the accordeonist stopped for a breather, I immediately stood up and started singing Granada, ”à la Lanza”.. Forgive me if I mention that the other tourists gave me a standing ovation at the end.
I’m sure the wine helped I must admit and I drank more than my share unknowingly!.
This concludes the singing part of my care-free days
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