I am writing something that has not emerged yet- maybe a bit of stream of consciousness because I have stopped keeping up with this on a daily basis and am determined to pick my momentum back up. So much going on.

I had a skype session with my teacher Silvia Nakkach a few days ago and have committed myself to practicing sargam a minimum of 21 minutes a day. It was kind of an amazing session. I have had an issue with my breath ever since I was sick with a terrible respiratory infection in 2009. I have felt that I could not get the strength in my voice back, so I finally decided to get a one on one session with Silvia. It was so great and helpful. There were two issues- one with my breath and two with the actual pitch. Every note that she sang, when I sang it back to her I was down a half step. She showed me the simplest way of changing the shape of my mouth and lips that lifted the tone right away to the proper pitch- a revelation!

On a different note (pun intended), tonight my sister Jenny and I went to see the new movie, Mr. Holmes, about an aging Sherlock Holmes with Ian McKellan. In it was someone playing the glass harmonica, an instrument invented by Benjamin Franklin in 1761. How they managed to weave that into the movie is beyond me but it was very exciting to see and to hear! I have seen videos of it before but it was wonderful to see an instrument so unusual and relatively obscure in a movie. I love when unusual these sounds and frequencies that I am constantly searching for and researching are brought to the forefront in mainstream media.