Oh, he'll have a great time with the voice teacher. The three years that I took voice lessons taught me so much more than I could ever have learned just by singing in choirs and on my own. Singing is such an internal skill -- it's just you and your body, no external instrument to manipulate -- that voice lessons are slightly different from other instrument lessons. Voice teachers tend to be much more personally involved with their students, just because they ask about, need to know about, and occasionally need to manipulate the student's torso. They do become rather concerned with the health of their students, since a cold (which Elves don't get, but still) alters vocal production, and emotional upsets also alter the functioning of the instrument.
My voice lessons dramatically expanded my self-confidence at a time when I desperately needed it. I think it was the sensation of producing music all on my own, with nothing other than my own body to stand between me and the audience, that opened me up. That and the fact that my voice teacher was one of the most cheerful, optimistic people I knew. He was also something of a friendly perv (flamingly gay, too, which made it even funnier) who really taught me that the difference between a good dirty joke and sexual harassment was all in the timing. I still giggle about a couple of things he told me.
The University is a state school, and the state has, for a while, been making noises about contracting all campus food service out to a certain provider. People then point out that this would prevent the University from selling its own, freshly made, campus-local, highly addictive ice cream. The state legislators, who have themselves been known to stop off at the Union for fudge ripple, then put the measure on the back burner. And then the food contractor brings it up again. And so the cycle goes.
You know, something just occurred to me: societies with lots of street vendors, such as the Romans or the Teleri, tend to have a very low rate of home cooking. Rome, I think, was concerned about house fires spreading and limited the amount of cooking that could be done indoors. That led to the rise of a culture of street vendors selling fresh, hot, cheap food on every corner. If the Teleri have so many vendors, it might say something about their home cooking skills as compared to the Noldor, who you've already described as being very involved gourmet cooks. Just a little cultural difference that might crop up between Macalaurë and Vingarië later on.
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rosecarmine
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-17 10:56 pm (UTC)My voice lessons dramatically expanded my self-confidence at a time when I desperately needed it. I think it was the sensation of producing music all on my own, with nothing other than my own body to stand between me and the audience, that opened me up. That and the fact that my voice teacher was one of the most cheerful, optimistic people I knew. He was also something of a friendly perv (flamingly gay, too, which made it even funnier) who really taught me that the difference between a good dirty joke and sexual harassment was all in the timing. I still giggle about a couple of things he told me.
The University is a state school, and the state has, for a while, been making noises about contracting all campus food service out to a certain provider. People then point out that this would prevent the University from selling its own, freshly made, campus-local, highly addictive ice cream. The state legislators, who have themselves been known to stop off at the Union for fudge ripple, then put the measure on the back burner. And then the food contractor brings it up again. And so the cycle goes.
You know, something just occurred to me: societies with lots of street vendors, such as the Romans or the Teleri, tend to have a very low rate of home cooking. Rome, I think, was concerned about house fires spreading and limited the amount of cooking that could be done indoors. That led to the rise of a culture of street vendors selling fresh, hot, cheap food on every corner. If the Teleri have so many vendors, it might say something about their home cooking skills as compared to the Noldor, who you've already described as being very involved gourmet cooks. Just a little cultural difference that might crop up between Macalaurë and Vingarië later on.