Practice Update

Since I may have alarmed folks by writing about my vocal burnout at Tuesday's lesson, I should write something about today's practice.

Today was a "working at home" day, meaning I had some copyediting to do. The great thing about working at home is I can wear pjs, eat food from my fridge (both things save money), and sing!!! during break times.

So I followed my teacher's suggestion about how to work on "Chi ti salva" etc. Not too bad. I sang that one section through several times (the only screech happened when I forgot to start on an E flat and started on an E natural instead) and then sang the whole piece from the beginning. I think things will be ok if I take advantage of the breaks and keep my larynx down by singing "Aw".

Then I picked up the Water Duet from Gioconda which I haven't sung since The Mentor Who Will Not be Discussed and I sang it at the Water Communion service at the Unitarian Church. Since it's just a xerox (I long since disposed of the score I had when I sang the role in 1980) it's full of his red pencil markings. Don't get me wrong. He was a very good voice teacher! And he worked in the Dalcroze method simultaneously to working with me on vocal technique. I just really didn't need all the gratuitous lascivious comments or the snark. Singing the opening of this I could hear how my voice has grown.

Since it's almost Gay Pride Sunday I will insert a few remarks that were part of a longer piece of writing I did about being a Lonely Lesbian singing opera in 1980. Since singing Laura was both the high point and the end of my earlier singing "career" (if you can call singing with the Opera Underground a "career") I feel like reposting them here.

While I enjoyed being the only Lesbian (to my knowledge) at work – I had to be there after all; I couldn’t cut and run because of all the straight people – being the only Lesbian in a small opera company made me question what I was doing there. Luckily, as a mezzo, I could be another kind of token – a shoo in for pants parts. This was rather ironic since in the context of being a Lesbian I was strictly a femme, but compared to the (mostly quite zaftig and often older) straight women I played against, I looked quite boyish. There were lots of giggles and lots of “I was only kidding” casual flirting. And no one had to tell me how to walk. All I had to do was imitate all the butches I knew, which was easier than trying to imitate a man and, ok, who are we kidding? Cherubino was really a little butch anyhow.

It got harder when a plum role came my way – Laura in La Gioconda. This was a dream role – a glamorous lady who got to run off with the hero at the end. Not everyday fare for mezzos. And such glorious music. The stumbling block was I had to kiss a guy.

Something that quite shocked me when I officially came out, was the extent to which many Lesbians, my partner included, really hated and feared men. I didn’t and I really didn’t understand this. I thought they were lousy lovers and mostly a bore, but a species to fear? No. But when I told my partner I was playing a real honest to God love scene that involved a little snogging with a man (never mind that he was in his 60s – ah the days when ageism in opera was unknown – and shorter than I was) she hit the ceiling. It was only permissible if I kept my disgust obvious, which of course made me appear a lousy actress. I didn’t know any Lesbian opera singers, so there was no one for me to check in with about how to handle this quandary. I really felt all alone.

Getting back to the present, I then ran through the duet with Alvise, which I will be singing with my bass friend in October. I sang this with him in another concert so I was rather shocked that I was having trouble remembering the notes. So I'd better put the recording on the next time I'm cleaning (I don't listen to music when I'm working). It's one of my favorite operas anyhow.

Everyday Rapture

Yes, yes, I'm supposed to be copyediting, but before I start I wanted to make a post about Sherie Renee Scott's Everyday Rapture

Overall it was a fun afternoon at the theater, and I think she's a major talent, but there were a few issues.

In The Plus Column

One of the most moving themes in the show was her talking about her gay cousin, and how he gave her the confidence to perform, then eventually died of AIDS after being shunned by the Mennonite community in which they grew up. It's obvious that his ghost is with her always, for both good and ill.

There were also some great, memorable lines, including

"I always felt I was growing up inside a song."

and the priceless

"I always wanted to build a closer relationship to God with everyone clapping!" (Doesn't every church soloist? I must find a way to recycle that line.)

And her ending, about the rapture to be found in everyday life, was very moving.

In the Minus Column

I wanted to hear her sing "My Strongest Suit"!! What we got instead was snippets of the song intertwined with a bit about how a teenage boy (gay, no doubt) had a correspondence with her on the Internet and didn't believe it was really her. That's a great song. And of course since I'm totally immersed in Amneris right now I was dying to hear it.


There was a (IMHO) rather tasteless rendition of "You Made Me Love You" supposedly directed at Jesus. As we're listening to it, different images of Jesus flash on a screen. It's interesting. Since I've been singing at this (very left-wing and serious) Lutheran church I just don't find things like that funny any more than I would find something funny if it was racist or homophobic.


A More Serious Thought

Why do ex-fundies have all the good stories? In a way it's almost a chiche: growing up fundy and naive, peripherally meeting gay people, dreaming about performing, coming to New York filled with awe, and falling in love with this sophisticated world because it's new.

What kind of story do I have as the child of commies? I grew up here and had seen everything by the time I was 10. I mean since it was only 1960 I wasn't smarmily precocious the way kids are now (although I certainly had met many couples who "lived in sin" - they called it "not wanting the capitalist state to put a stamp on their relationship" - as well as plenty of gay couples) but I had heard discussions about people going to jail for being communists, modern art, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, and the song about Rape from The Fantasticks.

So there's really no arc there. When everything's been talked about around the family dinner table what do you really have to talk about?

I suppose that's why I fell in love with all things old fashioned: Victorian novels, Nineteenth Century Italian opera, the English countryside...

There really isn't a story there, though.

Two Steps Forward and One Step Back

Well, after writing about how well I sang through both parts of Amneris's Judgment Scene (actually, to be literal, it's Radames's Judgment Scene)I just totally conked out at my lesson. My teacher wasn't worried, so I guess I shouldn't be.

Here's how things progressed.

We always start with warmups, and this time I sang a number of scale progressions up to a full voiced High C. I've been able to do that now both at lessons and at home for several months now, which is a huge accomplishment. In the past, sometimes I would have that note, sometimes not, and even if I had it, it would just be a little squeak.

I know from reading my favorite mezzo blogs that there are mezzos out there who vocalize regularly up to a High D, but I ain't one of them.

In any event, after some strenuous warmups we sang through the second half of the scene because that's what I'm going to be singing sooner (at the concert with my bass friend). I am singing it very well and I probably sang the ending the best I've sung it (I sang it about three times this afternoon). Then we decided to dive into the Amneris/Radames duet. My teacher loves singing this and it will be a definite yes for our Spring concert. Well, after fumbling a bit through the introductory recits, and singing a bit carelessly (read light and skimming the surface) through her glorious "Ah, tu dei vivere", I just totally ran out of energy and couldn't make it through "Chi ti salva sciagurato" and that first high B flat was a hideous bloodcurdling scream.

My teacher said the problem was I wasn't thinking about what I was doing but I also felt just completely drained, like all the "juice" had been wrung out of me. (Juice. That's what I should have brought with me, I now realize.) All was not lost, and after a brief pep talk from my teacher we went through the reprise (which is much easier for me of course because there's less to sing) and I nailed the note. And then we went through it (the reprise) again and I nailed it again and sounded really great, so we decided to quit while we're ahead. My teacher told me to isolate that ascending scale and sing it on "aw" (not "ah", which can get spread) and then go back and try to sing the section again from "Chi ti salva".

I just am really upset that I get so tired. I got enough sleep last night and have been eating healthy (and then some, in fact I'm at my maximum weight for being this short - there have been times when I weighed more but I was three inches taller) so why the fatigue? Yes, I've had among the most stressful weeks of my entire life but I sounded great yesterday. Maybe it was the heat? In any event, I just really hate that I'm such a weakling.

In other news, after my lesson we talked about repertoire for the Spring concert and decided we'll probably do the Water Duet from Gioconda (with the option of doing the two arias) and then maybe the last act of Carmen. I have never sung that so it should be interesting to learn it.

So that means I'll shelve Werther for a while. Charlotte is a role I keep meaning to learn but somehow I never get to her. The opera has a few nice moments but I have to say I'm not crazy about it.

Tomorrow I won't be singing because I'm taking my partner out for her birthday. We are going to see Sherie Renee Scott in Everyday Rapture
Rather ironically, Scott first came to attention playing Amneris in the Disney version of Aida. I haven't heard the whole thing, but never cease to be amused at how the erotically charged "Deh vieni, vieni amor mio m'innebria" morphed into "There's a buck naked princess in bed, waiting for you". Ah, pop culture!

A Real Verdi Mezzo

Tonight I played hooky from my job counseling program. That's ok. I have had three weeks of Hell with my mother being hospitalized once and my partner being hospitalized twice, once after the two of us spent six hours in the emergency room. During those three weeks I was also going to school, taking my first course toward my certificate in Training.

Amazingly, I still found time to practice, and have continued to sing well, better than I ever have in my whole life.

Tonight since I had a whole evening (after spending the morning at Pilates and the afternoon at a Caregivers Support Group) I decided that before I dove into a pile of copyediting that I've been blessed by (income!) I was going to sing through Amneris's big scene.

It never ceases to amaze me how easy this is to sing. What happened?? I have been working my tail off with this teacher now since Christmas of 2005. I would get inklings of this sound from time to time, a high A here, a low B there, but nothing like this and I certainly never had this much stamina.

I think part of it is now that I'm not working in an office any more and being sleep deprived 6 days a week; eating healthy meals instead of cheese, crackers, and fruit on the run; and not squeezing my upper register to try to blend in with the choir sopranos (we now have a real coloratura soprano fresh from a conservatory so I can just be a mezzo now) my real, God-given, big, dark voice has been allowed to flourish. It's sort of hard to believe. I mean I'm going to be 60 next month. Many singers retire in their 50s and those who don't often scale down. But I'm just beginning to scale up!!!

Can it really be that Verdi is my niche?

I know when I sang Laura in La Gioconda at the age of 30 I felt like I was "home" and my voice was about half the size it is now and I was still obsessed with crash dieting. And the Principessa's aria from Adriana Lecouvreur really rocks despite some residual fear from bad memories of getting tired and not being able to nail that ending.

So maybe I really can sing both parts of that Judgment Scene back to back (actually it's unlikely I'll be doing that soon, since I'm singing one concert with a bass in October - no big deal, it's just in a nursing home - and then the concert with my teacher as a tenor next year). But it's sure great to be able to sail through that whole scene in my bathroom even when I've had a tiring three days.

I just wish I were 30, or even 40, so I could feel all this "matters"!

Foundations of Training I - To Discuss or Not to Discuss?

I was very interested in Brookfield's analysis of the architecture of a discussion. He indicated that exploring various points of view and debating them is an important skill to learn. This is something I have mixed feelings about, possibly because I grew up with parents immersed in the Marxist culture of the 1930s where "discussion" was used as a weapon (I was born in 1950, but they were still living in that culture, the only difference being that the locus of these discussions - thanks to Senator McCarthy - had shifted from meeting halls to dinner parties.) I definitely believe that my parents and their friends abused the whole concept of discussing. They would try to entrap people into saying something "stupid" and then skewer them with an argument. My mother carried her love of this sort of discussion into stores, restaurants, the back seats of taxis, anywhere where someone would listen. I learned early on that most conversations between people are exactly that. Conversations. If someone says they liked a movie that's really all they're saying. They don't expect to be grilled about it. It's just pleasant afternoon chatter.

I spent most of my life trying to avoid controversial topics. I have political points of view but rarely talk about them. I'd rather talk about opera, pets, or fashion.

So getting back to Brookfield, I wonder if knowing how to engage in these sorts of discussions is a skill everyone really needs. Certainly if you're going to be a lawyer or if you're going to teach a subject like history or political science. But to work in most corporate environments I would say getting into this mode could be a liability. Usually people want you to agree with them, or if you're going to present an opposing point of view, to sneak it in somehow so they don't notice. And unless you're the CEO, it's also a good idea to know when to cede victory.

So my question is: Do you think it's essential for students to engage in these kinds of (heated) discussions, or should the environment in the classroom be more live and let live?

Foundations of Training 1 - Prioritizing Learning

I don't know whether or not we had to do a post this week (I've been immersed in writing my paper on Peter Senge and "Organizational Learning") but this learning-related topic has been screaming for a post so here it is.

I see my primary task in Foundations of Training I as learning some theories of adult education and understanding how to put them into practice in a training setting.

That's why our big assignment is not only to write a paper, but to teach the content using techniques we've learned.

I was all excited about this because I think it will be fun (the presentation part, anyhow), but when I heard that we might have to use Power Point my blood ran cold. I have never created a presentation in Power Point, in fact I don't even think I have it on this shiny new laptop I bought at a discount before I left my last full time job.

When I worked at my last job I did a number of presentations that had Power Point as a backup but I provided the content and someone else provided the Power Point version. Yes, I knew enough to make a few changes (not much different from working in Word) but that was it. And as I discussed my subject matter and fielded questions, someone from the IT Department operated the computer so that people could see the slides.

Out of the corner of my ear I also heard people talk about "saving it to a Memory Stick". To be honest, although I have a vague idea what a "Memory Stick" is, I doubt if I'd know one end from the other let alone where to insert it (oh my, sounds risque, doesn't it?). Yes, yes, I know this is probably a skill I should acquire along the way, but not now, please. I need to concentrate on my presentation.

Luckily, we were told in class that Power Point was not a must. Thank goodness. I mean people have been doing charismatic and memorable presentations where some good solid learning occurred eons before Power Point or even computers had been invented.

So right now I have my priorities in order.

There's been a lot of talk about how technology "frees" people, and certainly I think web 2.0 does, obviously, since I love blogging, Facebook, email, and surfing the net. But a lot of the nuts and boltsy types of things just seem awfully onerous. I mean when I started working as a Secretary my hallowed boss didn't even know how to type, but was "freed" to deal with the content of what she was creating.

So my question is: do you agree that there are certain things that it's just not worth learning right now, so you can learn other things?

We Interrupt the Detour for Some Regular Programming

Since I now have had the chutzpah to make this blog's link part of my "signature" on The Forum (which, BTW, no longer intimidates me so much since I'm being taken semi-seriously at auditions and group coachings) I thought I'd do another regular singing post.

Something I'm really excited about, is that my wonderful voice teacher (I'm not comfortable posting his name here without his permission) said he would do a concert of duets with me in the Spring.

We met 34 years ago when we were both singing with the "Opera Underground" (a facetious name for the no-pay opera groups that were around in the 1970s that predominately but not exclusively featured avocational singers of all ages who were not conservatory graduates, many of whom had gorgeous voices, some of whom had flawed voices, and most of whom did not sight read or stray too far from the standard opera rep). He was transitioning from baritone to tenor and I was a hooty contralto who had been singing with a Gilbert & Sullivan company and smoking like a chimney. I had recently quit smoking and needed some help learning how to use my head voice (when I smoked I not only had no high notes to speak of - I could barely scream out Katisha's high G at the end of Act I of The Mikado- I also could neither hum nor scream, only squawk). When I found out that this young singer (we were the same age) was a teacher, and would only charge me $10 a lesson to learn what his teacher was teaching him (mostly techniques for lightening the voice) I jumped at the chance and have never regretted it.

When I first began singing again at 54 I studied with The Mentor Who Shall Not Be Discussed but after we had irreconcilable differences I returned to my original teacher, who was still around. At that time he was singing tenor, but switched to baritone again. Now, at 60, he is back to singing tenor and we both think a concert of duets would be a great thing to do.

As I said in a response to a comment on The Forum about whether or not there are any skinny opera singers with big voices, I mentioned that when I returned to singing I was about 10 pounds heavier, had stopped starvation dieting, and was much better able to support my voice, which has turned out to be much bigger than I had thought it was way back when. In fact my teacher has me learning Amneris (an aria-less role that is none the less the Holy Grail for dramatic mezzos) and it is one of the most comfortable roles I have ever sung in my entire life!!!.

I had already been working on the Judgement Scene which is a mezzo/bass duet, for a concert I will be doing with my bass friend (another older avocational singer) and now have made a start on the duet immediately previous. It has two High B Flats in it, which don't scare me at all since they're part of an upwardly progressing scale, which makes singing them really just like vocalizing. And she has to sing big, but she gets lots of breaks.

I have always thought of this role as out of bounds since I don't know if I have the C flat for the Triumphal Scene (how mean could a composer get? making a mezzo sing out of her range in a context where she could just as easily be singing an octave lower since all the chorus sopranos are singing up there) but there's nothing to stop me from keeping those two last scenes in my concert rep.

So maybe I'm a moving from "Baby Dramatic" to the real deal?

Foundations of Training I - Wisdom: Can it be Taught?

R.J. Sternberg is quoted as saying "...the wise person has a certain sagacity that is not necessarily found in the intelligent person. He or she listens to others, knows how to weigh advice, and can deal with different kinds of people."

Merriam's quoting of Sternberg here caught my attention because my main goal, if I set myself up as a training consultant, is to teach in groups what I did for years as a one on one mentor of new managers: how to hire, supervise, develop, and evaluate staff.

To do this a person needs wisdom, which I also would define as insight used intelligently and without getting in one's own way.

Unfortunately, many companies promote people into management positions because they are experts in a subject area, whether it is computer programming, indexing, book design, or whatever. This does not mean that the person has any understanding of how to hire, say, an indexer, or what to do with that person's talent once they are on board. Many new managers can't leave a person alone to do their job, for example, which not only annoys and stifles the employee, but also makes excess unnecessary work for the manager. Or they will hire someone who "looks good on paper" but without listening with the third ear to see if that person will really enjoy the job and as a result be productive and dedicated.

Also, many managers from older generations, or even from my own, grew up in an authoritarian environment, so even if intellectually they know that this is not the right way to supervise people, they simply can't let go, with disastrous results (and since these are often the people in the highest positions in an organization, nothing can be done about this).

So my question is: Do you think "wisdom" can be taught and if so, how?

Foundations of Training 1 - First Post

Welcome new readers!

I started this blog last month, and see no reason not to piggyback my Learning Blog assignments onto it. Since this is a blog about my returning to serious study of classical singing in my mid-fifties, it is a blog about learning. I probably won't make my class blog assignments about singing, so if my regular readers who are interested in my singing posts want to skip the Learning Blog posts, they can feel free.



I found the handout from Tuesday's class very evocative of my past work situation in that it referred to the Scientific Management concept of Frederick Taylor, stating that "his goal was to reduce the skill needs of workers to as close to zero as possible", and then went on to analyze the sequelae of Taylor's work. First Frank and Lillian Gilbreths built on it with their time and motion studies which identified and eliminated "elements (usually human tendencies) that blocked the process" and then their successors continued the process of turning workers into a part of the machines they were using.

In the twenty-first century, much of what has happened with technological advances is that tasks that used to involve interpersonal interactions such as conversation, or written notes, now can be done via spreadsheets and databases that collect metrics, but don't necessarily tell a manager anything about the thought processes of their staff, or how their staff are learning.

When I started working at my last position in the mid-90s I was supposed to be running an indexing department. For people who don't know, indexing is similar to library cataloging and much of it is about reading comprehension and use of language. When I started there we wrote on paper printouts (data was eventually entered via keystrokes by data entry clerks) which probably wasn't the most efficient way of doing things, but seeing handwritten notes from staff (I could always tell who had done what because I recognized their handwriting) helped me, when I reviewed their work, to understand how each person was processing information. The data entry clerks did not need to have indexing ability, but they needed to have a familiarity with certain coded fields and with how we used capitalization, acronyms, and punctuation, and they had to pass a proofreading test.

At a certain point in 2006 or thereabouts, there was a shift, and work was sent to the Phillippines for scanning, after which computer programming would "clean things up". So instead of teaching data entry clerks about our house style, I was now thinking up programming strings that would prevent or fix error patterns. So my job was no longer primarily about language but more about programming.

Indexers still worked their craft, of course, and probably worked more quickly without the intermediate step of using paper, but it was now much harder for me to identify whose work was whose in certain situations and staff were less likely to leave notes about how they had done their research, so it was harder for me to understand the thought processes they were having that led to making certain mistakes.

And the primary focus became on collecting metrics (a harkback to Taylor) on how fast each person was working rather than on who had really learned the nuances of indexing.

Question: What are your thoughts on how technology affects on the job training. What do you see as the pros and cons?

Audition Update, and Explanation of a Detour

I had three auditions this past weekend. One of the places I auditioned has offered me a small role in Dialogues of the Carmelites. It is a smaller role than the one they originally wanted to hear me sing, but it is a role. This will be my first time ever singing an opera role with an orchestra, and the first time I have been cast in someone else's opera production in 30 years. I will get my picture on their web site. This is a very well-respected outfit, so I am looking forward to it. Maybe this will be the first of many opportunities.

The Handel audition went well, I thought (I mean I sang the aria well and it is not easy to sing). I was rather surprised that the form I was given to fill out asked me for my age. I left it blank and they did not ask me about it. I found that rather shocking. I mean for casting purposes, I am as old as I look, no? This was not a competition where they award prize money and there is an age limit. I doubt if I will get cast in this production but who knows? A well-respected coach that I worked on the material with said "you sing this stuff really well" which was an objective statement. She has played for big competitions and moves in very high level circles. So she was speaking objectively, not just of my personal best singing.

As for the detour mentioned in the title of this post, I am currently taking some courses in adult education, possibly as a way of getting credentialed to be a freelance corporate trainer.

This is not a blog about the ways I have earned money, but as a point of information I spent over 30 years as manager/director in the publishing business, and left my last position with an "early retirement buyout" which allows me to stay on the company's health insurance rolls for life. I don't have a pension, which means I need a full income, but I am hoping never again to have to clock into a large bureaucracy and work someone else's hours. Right now I am primarily doing freelance editorial work, but I thought training would be fun - a way to be paid for being fabulous in front of an audience, which seems to be the aspect of singing that I love best.

Yesterday was our first class and one of our assignments is to start a "Learning Blog" and our first post is supposed to be about some aspect of learning. I don't see any reason why I shouldn't piggyback these assignments onto this blog since in a way this blog is about learning - it's about my returning to serious rigorous vocal study in late middle age, and about my daily practice, overcoming obstacles, sometimes about my lessons, and a way of chronicling whether or not it is possible for me to continue to achieve and excel as an opera singer at an age past when many of the greats have retired.