I've been practicing singing for a fair part of the late afternoon and evening (yes, at work, but hey there has to be an advantage to being your own boss ;). If you've never tried singing, and I mean for "real" (ie when you really put your breath pattern to it, pay attention to which muscles move, etc.) you have no idea how exhausting it is. The only thing I can think of that's more entirely exhausting is sex.
And now, I don't even sing well (so don't expect anything at OSCon ;). It's just an awfully pleasant activity. I hope that this year I'll have time to take a few lessons, just enough to validate the technique that I've been playing with and grab a few tricks here and there. Otherwise when I release my stuff people are going to suffer unduly ;-)
But anyway, I really recommend taking a few hours off and using them to sing. It beats any other sport (except of course from the previously mentionned one) and is far more pleasant than running around your district. Now if only I had weight to lose I guess I'd have an excuse for doing that daily, with other people present...
I don't know if you're going the instructional route, but if you are, the book I got that tidbit from was the apparently aptly titled How To Sing. I say apparently because I personally only got through some of the breathing exercises.
Re:Forgive An Amateur
darobin on 2002-02-09T17:40:32
Exactly, the breath control is what allows one to sing for a given time without exhaustion (it also allows lots of other things). However managing to have perfect or near perfect breath control is very difficult, especially when like me you only practice every so often (these times it's a bit less than once a week). After three-four hours, the muscular strain still does become strong enough that I feel exhausted.
Re:Forgive An Amateur
pudge on 2002-02-10T03:52:36
I only really have a problem with getting tired when I try to sing outside my comfortable range, and there's little that breath control can do to help that. It makes the muscles quite sore.
