The Groomed Singer vs the Seat of the Pants One

The title of this post is inspired by the fact that yesterday I did two things: had a voice lesson and heard the senior recital of a young woman who is going places.

One thing I noticed when I went to a lot of those meetups was that the younger singers, the ones who attracted mentoring when I didn't, had something in common. (I am speaking here of the mezzos, simply because I believe that sopranos, particularly high sopranos, have differently constructed voices with different issues to contend with.) They had voices like a perfect string of pearls, with each note exactly the same size and weight. This was true whether their voices had a light or dark timbre, or even whether or not their voices had a pleasant timbre. If they had a vocal "issue" at all, it was a breathy sound, particularly in the middle register. My voice is not like that. It is like a V on a small pedestal. The weakest note in my range is probably the E or E flat above middle C and my voice just keeps getting stronger (and louder) as it goes up the scale culminating in a high A that will break the windows. (I can vocalize solidly up to a B flat and B natural, which sound a bit narrower, but the C is just a scream on pitch - if I'm lucky - and then that's it folks). Below the lower passagio E flat I can go into chest, which is solid down to a B flat and then it weakens on the A and A flat and below that I can hum down to a low F but nothing lower. I don't know if this is the result of my training or lack thereof (I am speaking of the lack of early training "by the book") or if it's physiological. In any event, when you listen to the biggest name singers, like Dolora Zajick, Stephanie Blythe,or Olga Borodina, not to mention all of the great Italian mezzos from the 1960s and 1970s, you don't hear "string of pearls", you hear something a little more exciting. Although of course the technique is there.

This young mezzo I heard last night has what I would call "string of pearls" plus. She has a perfectly even voice, but with a dark timbre and the potential to be exciting when she lets it rip (hard to do in the repertoire that she had to sing for a graduation recital). And she is a superb actress and stunning to look at. Of course she started out with all the advantages: her mother is a pianist and is, in fact, my coach. This young mezzo began singing at conservatory programs for youngsters when she was probably 12 or 13. She has never wanted to be anything but a singer. I think she is going places.

I have never been a big fan of art songs (particularly the German ones) but I am trying to educate myself. It always seemed odd (and pointless) that to graduate from a conservatory you have to sing art songs in different languages and that the focus is so heavily weighted toward this when most people's singing "bread and butter" (for pay or not) will probably be opera, church music, and even, perhaps, some musical theater. But maybe this kind of training and grooming does something. I know young people in these vocal programs are constantly getting up in front of juries and classmates and presenting songs (easier in the beginning than presenting difficult arias) and they are taught what to do with their facial expressions, body, arms, clothing, etc. I think, in fact, that this young woman had probably even been taught how to take a bow.

Getting back to me....my training was more "seat of the pants". I mean I began with the kind of exercises that teach you how to sing on the breath, but once I was able to do that, whatever I had to sing that week, month, year, led the training. So first it was Katisha, then Maddalena and Suzuki, then (after my voice lightened from being away from cigarettes for six months) Cherubino, and finally (Heaven help us!) Giovanna Seymour. One of the blog-writing, online commenting mezzos I admire said that she had taken up photography (quite seriously) and that she found that the difference between learning about singing and learning about photography was that with the latter she didn't get a "foundation", she just decided what kind of things she wanted to know and then learned those things.

I think that was more how my vocal training progressed. If I had trouble with the murderous tessitura of Seymour, well then, my teacher gave me exercises to sing on the "edges of my vocal cords" which I practiced at every lesson. (In the performance I was not able to sustain that B at the end of her last aria but the fact that I got through the role at all was quite amazing.)

I mean there are famous singers who were seat-of-the-pants trained:Franco Corelli and Birgit Nilsson , from what I've read, so it is not totally wrong, just different.

As for my own vocal progress, I did a new exercise at yesterday's lesson: singing all the exercises on "oo" with a smile instead of puckering my lips, which my teacher says was sounding "hooty". This has made my higher notes (G, A flat, A natural, even B flat) feel easier when I sing them later although it didn't do much for the C, which is still a blood curdling scream. "Liber Scriptus" is going very well. As is "Lux Aeterna". I heard a renowned mezzo refer to it as having a "high tessitura", which I do not really find. It only goes up to a G and basically requires the same skills I use to sing soprano in the choir.

But hearing that young mezzo made me realize how much polishing I am not getting (who has time to study languages, movement, and solfege when I have to earn a living and just keep up with my practicing to keep my instrument in shape and learn the music I will be singing?). A little here and there, but it's not the same. I read somewhere that it takes three generations to make a career. I would say at least two. Which is why everyone says I'm the best copyeditor they ever hired, for what it's worth. Thanks Mom.