Voice lessons

With some amount of trepidation, I am going to start taking voice lessons this Thurs. after work. Other than one summer of lessons close to ten years ago, I have not had voice lessons since I graduated from college with a B. Mus. in voice, in 1980.

My experience in college was pretty dismal. My teacher was intimidating, and he was probably in his mid-60's and had not sung in public in many years. Any singing that he would demonstrate bore no resemblance to how anyone would want to sound. He thought this shouldn't matter, since I was supposed to learn a particular TECHNIQUE, and not imitate a kind of sound. Well, it did not work for me, and I now can identify what he was teaching as the old-school German technique, which was not good for me, but it wasn't until he got really angry with me at the end of junior year and threw me out that I even thought of studying with someone else. Senior year I studied with a mezzo-soprano who did still sing, and that went fairly well, but it was too late to salvage enough to get into grad school in voice. I didn't think I'd ever sing classical again, and I pretty much gave it up and sang pop and bluegrass music for many years.

Once I got into a classical group (auditioning on a dare), I was really impressed with the singing of one of the members, and he taught voice, so I took a summer's worth of lessons. I did learn some things, but he insisted that the piece I work on all summer would be Mahler's Kindertotenlieder, because he imagined that my voice would be perfect for those. And in fact it is, but I hated them -- I don't like Mahler in general, and these, "Songs on the deaths of children", were definitely not what I had in mind for summer singing. He insisted, so I did sing them, but I didn't enjoy it, and I am sure I will never sing them again. He also did not "believe" in registers in the female voice and told me I only "thought" I had a register break. I definitely do have a very obvious break, and I play around with it a lot in my singing and it is pretty critical to what I consider my success in singing, so to try to deny that it was there didn't seem very helpful. I did get some benefit from the lessons, in part just by working on classical singing again, but the whole situation didn't help our friendship, and I quit when the "block" of lessons I had paid for was over.

So why now? I'm singing in a women's group that is directed by a male soprano. He calls himself that, rather than countertenor, and I must say he sounds more like a female soprano than any guy I've ever heard. I want to sound like HIM, more or less. At least a few of his high notes would be very nice to have. He has taught voice at Indiana U., where I didn't even get in as a student, and I'm impressed with how he works on vocal technique with the group. I also think he won't stay in Cincinnati permanently, so why not take advantage of this opportunity? I think I am less uptight now about singing and technique than I was in college -- though it really did take almost 30 years to undo some of that experience. This person I think can relate -- he studied as a tenor through undergrad, but then decided that tenor was not "working" for him, so he became a soprano. You don't find that happening every day, and you must admit it would take quite a bit of nerve to audition for grad school as a male soprano.

Because I sing in some semi-professional groups, I know a lot of voice teachers, and several have offered or suggested I study with them. I am reluctant to study with a friend, since that didn't go well before, and I would not study with someone whose singing didn't impress me, in part because of that old situation with my college teacher's singing. The couple of friends who would be the most likely both live over a 30 min. drive away, so that isn't that convenient anyway, and I think we are more likely to remain friends and singing buddies if I don't try to become one of their students. My very favorite singing friend, who knows who she is if she is reading it, is just too important as a friend to risk ruining that because I am such a lousy and anxious student, and that might ruin our singing of "Sull'aria" together.

I've also had a variety of people ask me if I TEACH voice, or to help them with singing, but I almost never do -- I'd rather refer them to one of my friends who does teach. Singing is a little too personal to teach to friends, in my opinion. I've taught banjo and guitar, but then I'm not commenting on the actual PERSON -- and since in voice, you ARE the instrument, comments can seem hurtful even when they are not meant to be. And some people just should NOT sing, period, and you who are reading this KNOW who you are! Dad, in particular. I also don't know all that much about how I physically make the sound that I do. My voice was always fairly similar to what it is now, even before any training. Plus, most voice teachers have a lot of criticism about my technique, so I wouldn't want to teach whatever it is to someone else. I do lots of "bad" things -- imitate other singers, play around with the break, change the sound sometimes to make an "effect", and on top of that I do a lot of bad "vocal hygiene" things, like belt out shapenote, sing without warming up, and switch between tenor and soprano in the same rehearsal. None of which I could recommend to others.

My voice is very unusual -- I know this because the first time a trained singer hears me, they generally say, "Wow, your voice is very unusual!" I am probably a true contralto, not a mezzo, but contralto has been out of fashion since the 1950's, so we call ourselves mezzos just to get some respect. Eula Beal and Marian Anderson were contraltos. So what works for my voice might not work for most. I refuse to try to force my voice up. The one time I did teach someone, it was an old friend who happily sang in local productions -- UNTIL he took some voice lessons, and then he suddenly got so uptight that he could hardly sing at all. I had him bring the songs he was working on, and I immediately told him they were WAY too high for his voice. He said he could never hit the high notes at his lessons, but the teacher had insisted on those keys because she thought he "should" be a tenor, even though he had always sung baritone up until that point. Fortunately he wasn't taking lessons any more, so we got him some songs in a lower key for baritone and suddenly he could sing again. Duh.

In the past 2 years or so, I have added a good minor third in range to the top of my voice, rather unusual for someone "my age." Why didn't I do this earlier? The reason is really stupid -- I was sure I knew what I would have to change in terms of vocal technique in order to get any decent high notes, and I was not willing to do it. So I never really tried at all, not even at home. I did eventually notice, though, that in shapenote I was hitting quite a number of those higher notes, and it didn't require nearly as much effort or change as I had expected. Then in the Bach group, when the sopranos were repeatedly not hitting the 3 high notes in the "Wachet auf" chorale and the director was getting upset, for some reason I thought, "I feel like I can sing that part." I told the tenors that I was going to switch to soprano on the chorale, since I sing tenor in this group and they generally follow whatever I do (that would have been interesting). I did hit the notes, the director seemed OK with it, and from then on I sang soprano on that chorale. So when I got into a women's group as a 2nd alto, I would occasionally help out the sopranos when the altos were not singing. I have to be careful because I still sound like an alto, so blending is a bit of a challenge, but I'm learning how to do it. But for the most part, all I had to do was have a different feeling about my ability to hit the notes! How would that be for advice during a lesson -- try to feel better about the notes. You would probably say, "for this, I'm paying money?" It is pretty pathetic now to think about it -- that I never really tested out my theory of what I would have to do in order to hit any higher notes. And on those days I can't have the right feeling about the notes, I cannot sing them.

So that brings me to now, and wanting to have some better high notes, and thinking that someone who switched from tenor to soprano might be a good person to help me with that. I'm a little concerned about no air conditioning there -- hoping I do not pass out during the lesson. Progress report to follow after I've had a few lessons.