Tech Talk 2

I had a very interesting lesson today.  I really think I have gotten off this plateau that was so frustrating over the past 8 or 9 months.  What I have been trying to do is listen to all the things my teacher tells me, as well as incorporating a few other things.

I asked him about the list of warmups from Dr. Lee.  He said he found the article interesting, but that he always has issues if a teacher says, in essence, here is a list of things that every student must do.  He said some of the nonsinging warmups work for some people in some situations.  He said they work for singers who are performing regularly and need a quickie way of getting the voice in shape before a performance that doesn't involve singing.  He agrees, for example, that the r rolls and sirens are good for me to do, for example, between services if I need to get my voice in shape and can't go off somewhere and vocalize.  He said in general things like lip trills and r rolls are not good for heavier voices if used excessively because they involve forcing a lot of air into the chords.

He then told me something I hadn't realized, that I found reassuring.  That he uses different sequences of exercises for different students.  He always has me do progressions on "oo" because the weakest muscles in my vocal apparatus are the ones that connect with the head resonance.  He said I have an unusually strong chest register (which is distinct from a belt and also distinct from having a very low extension) because I speak in a low chest register.  Is that generational? When I was in prep school as a "tweener" I remember being told to speak in a "social baritone" - that high-pitched speaking voices, particularly if nasality crept into them, were unladylike.  I've noticed that women who are Gen X or younger speak in very high voices, which sound almost childlike and sound very strange to me.  In any event, my teacher said that the "oo" exercises are what he feels work best for me, as warmups, not necessarily for everyone.  (The Mentor apparently thought that too, because I always did a lot of "oo"ing at the beginning of my lessons.)

Speaking of head register, this is where I feel I have made a breakthrough.  I only hope it sticks.  Something we had been working on was getting rid of that "muddy" sound in my upper passagio.  To do that in addition to thinking about the low larynx/support connection, he had been telling me to "make space".  As soon as I really got the hang of that I saw that my high notes were freer, and today, I felt the space in my cheekbones, as if my face were getting wider.  The thing I always disliked about my voice was it didn't have that "shimmer" that many women's voices have, that comes from a lot of head resonance.  Even some women with lower voices have it, and some sopranos don't have it.  Well, today I had it and today I was able to sing arpeggios up to a full voiced high C that didn't feel like I was screaming.  So maybe I finally have found an "aha"  moment?  I am leery of these because sometimes I'll stumble upon something and it will help those intractable top notes for a while, and then will stop working.  But I can hope.  I will try it out tomorrow.

Something he also said was that if I am focusing on the Requiem, as there is nothing vocally very challenging other than the climax of  "Liber Scriptus" (I have said before that I don't find "Lux Aeterna" difficult because singing it is  just like singing soprano in the choir) I need to "challenge myself" by ending my practice session with a difficult section of an aria.  So today at my lesson we sang through the second half of "Condotta", which I had not touched since the October concert.  It was easy sailing.  I still didn't have the nerve to hit the B flat head on, but even sliding up from the A, I was able to make it soar and spin, something I don't think I ever did before.  So fingers crossed.

On a less positive note, I had an insight about what I mean when I say I don't feel like a "real" singer.  I don't mean that I am not paid to sing.  I mean that singers are not interested in me (this manifests itself all the time in that when I participate in online conversations about singing unless I ask a direct question and even sometimes when I do, people talk around me in a very aggressive way, or it feels aggressive, as in "the silence was deafening"). Or it is so obvious to me that when I am in a group (as in those get up and sing things) no one is interested in me.  I don't even mean no one offers me a gig, I mean no one even really notices I am there or cares. And my nonsinging friends are just so totally not into this aspect of my life.  So I sometimes wonder if I'm real.

Tech Talk and Other Things

I haven't written much here lately....I suppose I have been too busy with The Artists Way. Also I have had a conversation offline with Zachary.

One thing I began brooding over was this post by Dr. Brian Lee, particularly the sections on warmups and cooldowns. These are not things I do regularly nor did anyone ever tell me to.  Could this be the source of all my trouble with high notes?  I certainly do plenty to get the voice going and I know when things feel "off" (for me) and (usually) how to get things back on track, certainly in my comfortable range, which may simply be low A to high A for life (according to an article for Wikipedia, that is the range for a mezzo anyhow and anything else is "gravy").  I had asked my teacher about the lip trill, which I seemed to have trouble with, and he said it was not helpful for heavier voices (I wrote once to Dr. Lee about this and he didn't disagree).  My teacher said to roll an R instead.  But we don't do this at every lesson nor do I do it with every practice.  Mostly these things are for when I need a warmup if I have to sing and am too far away from my last practice at home session, or if my voice feels off track even after doing progressions on "oo" (what both my current teacher and The Mentor - who was a good voice teacher, her just brought too much nonsense, both sexualized and just plain "New Age silly" into the lessons - have had me do at the beginning of each practice session).   In any event, I emailed my teacher the link to Dr. Lee's article.  I haven't heard back from him, but he may think it's ok to discuss it at my lesson.  I can't imagine that he would be annoyed;  one of the many things I like about him is he seems to be receptive to any idea I want to discuss. If he disagrees, he will tell me why.

In other news, yesterday was the last choir practice of the year (if we sing in the summer we just show up on Sunday morning early) so I gave the choir director some of my aria books to look through.  I might do an aria from Handel's Theodora called "Lord to Thee Each Night and Day."  Going with the words alone it is very generic and seasonless, but I looked on You Tube and found a version sung by Lorraine Hunt Lieberson which is very sad. Perhaps in context the aria is sad? We also looked at some arias by Raff, a composer I had never heard of but the choir director had, from an oratorio called The World's End. The choir director said Raff was a friend of Brahms'. Last, we looked at "Panus Angelicus". Neither version I have is in an ideal key, one has the highest note (which is repeated a great deal) as only a D, and the other has it as an F sharp. Probably the higher key is better, as long as I sing my supported pianissimo, which I can do. (I have sung the Faure "Pie Jesu" several times at the church.) I also may audition for some Christmas concerts. I have no idea if there is money involved, but it doesn't matter, as long as I am cast as a soloist. Other than my church choir, I would not sing in a chorus for no money. These concerts are being managed by the woman in whose living room I sang the "Judgment Scene" from Aida several years ago (with a bass colleague).  I thought it was some of my best singing but I did not make the cut for a recital she was giving.  However she seemed genuinely happy to hear from me (we had become reacquainted on Facebook) and said she would tell me when the callbacks were (I didn't need to come to the first round of auditions because she had already heard me.)  So as one of my "Artists Way" artist dates I looked through my book of Christmas solos and reviewed a variety of them.

Voice Teachers

This post is partly for Zachary, because his comment brought many questions and comments to mind, but it was something I was going to write anyway.

Over the years, I worked with four voice teachers. I mentioned two of my earliest ones in this post. Then there was my current teacher, whom I met in 1976 and worked with through 1980, and then in 2003 I met "The Mentor" whom I studied with for two years, before going back to my current teacher whom I will call "M".

I was never able to sing comfortably above a high A, not matter what I did or what teacher I studied with.  That was just an intractable problem.  The last year I sang as a young person (in 1980) I had more or less gotten a handle on the B flat, and once or twice could sorta kinda squeak up to a C sharp but that was a rare occasion and certainly the highest note I ever felt I "owned" was the A.

I don't know if ranges are a physiologically fixed thing.  I know that study can increase a person's range, but only by so much.  What my teacher tells me is that I might have been able to stretch it up by a note or two if I had been continuously studying in my prime (if I had continued on at 30, when I finally was beginning to feel that I was singing well, and then gave it up) but not necessarily by much.  What he has said is that study can make the sound better and the facility greater in the range that I have.

I also don't know to what extent smoking damaged my voice.  I think one reason I sounded so much better at 54 than I did at 30 (although without, at first, the stamina) was that it had been almost 30 years since I had smoked.  I know that I have no residual respiratory weaknesses (I get colds, etc. much less frequently than anyone I know) but vocal cords are delicate.  So it's one thing to have so much damage that it's obvious in one's speaking voice, and another to have minute damage that would only manifest itself when trying to sing at the outer limits of one's range.

But getting back to the subject of teachers.  Here is what I think has happened with this teacher.  I think I made a lot of progress up to a point and then hit a plateau.  I became aware of the plateau around last Fall, which was when I was preparing for the concert.  My middle voice had gotten richer and fuller, and I started finding it harder to sing at the top, even an A, which for me was always "my crowning glory".  My teacher explained that this was because the top of my voice needed to "catch up" with the rest of my voice.  He said when I sang well, those notes were actually better than they had been, but that it now took more support to sing up there.  Recently, I have noticed a breakthrough and I seem to be having less trouble.

So the issue with this teacher is, I think, not that he's telling me anything wrong (for example I always sing better at a lesson than at home, and if I do what he tells me I sing better than when I forget to do it), it's that there may be additional things that are right that he is not telling me.  (I would leave in a heartbeat if he ever had me doing anything that felt uncomfortable, which is an experience that I have had, if you read my above-referenced post about "Mr. B.")

But at this point I am loathe to make a change.  Particularly after yesterday's lesson, at which I sang especially well and felt more freedom than I had felt in a long time.

I know I am very resistant to change.  My first impulse if I am having a problem is to work with what I have rather than looking elsewhere.  Particularly in the case of this teacher with whom I have such a bond (a healthy one, not an unhealthy one like I had with The Mentor).  I now consider him a friend, as well as a colleague (I could tell from remarks he made at yesterday's lesson that he takes this Verdi Requiem project seriously because he made a few tentative concert commitments and checked his calendar first to make sure they didn't conflict with the Requiem date.)

Of course if an opportunity to get a second opinion fell into my lap I would take it.  I think I was put off by the tenor soloist's wife approaching me because I found it intrusive.  But, for example, a few years ago a renowned teacher and coach posted something on a message board stating that she was giving "pay what you can" consultations,so I went to one and got some feedback.  She thought most of my problems with high notes (the ones I actually have - I sang "Acerba Volutta" for her) had to do with not maintaining a good energy balance and creating a lot of tension around the "setup" for the top notes.  But she told me I had the basics of a good technique.

In any event, maybe I will give it a few months and see.  I want to go ahead with the Requiem at the very least, before making a change, and that is not difficult to sing.  In fact I find "Lux Aeterna" easier than many mezzos do because I use the same skills I use to sing soprano in the choir.

I did speak to my teacher about vocal problems yesterday, saying that I had been approached by the wife of a colleague about a teacher, and that I knew I still had problems and did he know why, as I had been studying a long time.  He said a lot of it had to do with not focusing when I was singing.  That I had to focus on particularly trying to keep the right pharyngeal space.  That not doing that caused my upper passagio to sound muddy and made it harder to go higher. He must be right about that because when I did what he told me the top notes were easier and freer. He also said that bigger voices require more support (and more time to put together) and that I had gone for over two decades without singing at all. That I only took a lesson every two weeks (that is all I can afford).  He also said that singing with the choir and trying to "blend" may undo some of what I am learning at lessons.  I think that used to be true, but that I have now learned how to use a supported pianissimo not a falsetto.  I don't want to give up the choir, though, because it means so much to me, not just musically but also spiritually.  I get solo opportunities (I don't care if they are unpaid), and my musicianship has improved astronomically as a result of singing difficult music in a small group.  If I hadn't been singing with the choir all these years I wouldn't be learning the mezzo solo parts of the Requiem as quickly as I'm learning them because musically it is a difficult ensemble piece.  Also this choir director is very nice and supportive.  As are the other people in the choir.  I have made a nice group of friends my own age there and I desperately need that kind of connection.  I spend most of my time working at home, and the rest of it with someone elderly and disagreeable, no matter how much I love her.  In addition to singing in the choir we go to concerts together and on outings, along with other people our age at the church.

So that's it, I guess.

I will just play it by ear at choir practice tonight.  If the tenor comes up to me and gives me the number of his voice teacher, hey.  I'll take it, and then just see.

The Post I Don't Want to Make

I was debating for several days whether to write about this, but I decided now that I will.  Just when I was feeling at an all time low (not about my singing, which I really feel has improved lately, but about how my life has conspired, for the past five years really, to make it more and more difficult for me to follow my "bliss" in any way at all, regarding singing or otherwise), I had the kind of upsetting experience I never thought I'd have.

When I was on line Sunday after the church service (we sang a rousing anthem in 8 parts and I sang the bottom soprano part - full voice, because there was another part above me and the ending was marked "forte") the wife of our star tenor soloist (who also sometimes leads the choir rehearsals when our director is away) came up to me and said "I know a voice teacher who would love to get her hands on you".  So this was like, huh??  She's not a singer, so why is she telling me about a voice teacher.  Then it got worse as she went on.  First she raved about my spectacular instrument, then she talked about how this teacher had helped her husband when his voice was "in tatters".  (I know her husband had the beginnings of a major career which was derailed because he had respiratory problems, so he went on to another profession but kept singing.)  So does my voice sound like it's "in tatters"?  I would hardly think so.  I mean, I think there are issues I need to fix and I don't always know why some of them are resistant, but changing teachers is not the first solution that springs to mind.  I have an unusually big voice (everyone has said that) so as soon as I stop "crooning" (my teacher's word) I have to deal with the issue of how to support it and "manage" it.  This takes time and the decks are stacked against me because I didn't do the right things when my voice was growing, I started really studying seriously (by which I mean not sabotaging myself) at the age of 54, or in any event, I started studying again at the age of 54, which would be hard enough.

So there are two issues here.  Yes, I've often thought it would be interesting to get a second opinion, which actually I did once, with a respected teacher and coach, who told me basically that I had a good technique, I just had to map out how I was going to "present" an aria so I husbanded my strength and not panic and do so much "preparation" for a high note.  I had often also thought that maybe some of the problems I've had with top notes are the result of my teacher teaching me to approach them the way he does (on the other hand, the reason I began studying with him in the 70s  was that I was impressed by his wife's singing and she was a spinto soprano with pianissimi worthy of Leontyne Price) so I had thought it might be good to get a second (particularly a female) perspective on how to lighten my voice at the top.  (And if my teacher died or moved away, there is a woman I would contact, because I have always liked the way her students sound.)

But to have someone throw down the gauntlet that way in a peculiar context?

I remember Zachary who has commented on this blog, saying that when a person says something like that they want to make trouble.  But why would this woman want to make trouble?  (Actually I spoke to my partner about this incident, and she was surprisingly sympathetic and said that maybe this woman was trying to be helpful.  She also said maybe the husband put her put to it but I would doubt that - as he sometimes leads the choir I think he would feel free to speak to me if he wanted to but the way to do that is to say "you seem to be having trouble with that phrase, have you thought of trying [fillintheblank]?" not to flog a particular teacher.)

In any event, I'm not sure how I feel about this.  I am not really insulted but I feel put on the spot. And of course I am doubting myself.  Why do I keep having this big voice that sounds undisciplined?  (On the other hand, some people have told me I have a good technique.)

I have a lesson today and thought I would ask my teacher if he has heard of the teacher that was mentioned, but I tried looking her up online and couldn't find any information, which is odd.  I can find information about my current teacher, even though he has no academic credentials, if I google him I get hits mentioning concerts and operas he has sung in.  (I also got plenty of hits about this tenor and his wife who is a college professor in another field.)

So I think I will just go to my lesson.  I may mention this conversation just by way of asking him what he thinks of it.

Then tomorrow, unfortunately, this tenor is leading the choir rehearsal.  I say "unfortunately" because I feel now I will have to deal with this issue because even though he didn't participate in the conversation I was having with his wife he certainly overheard it.  Actually, I have always liked when he leads the rehearsals because he knows about voices and always makes good suggestions to the group.

I think the thing I find hard to deal with about certain kinds of criticism (constructive or otherwise) isn't just that criticism can sting (or it can be helpful) it's that I see it as pushing me in a position of having to do something: take a suggestion (whether I want to or not), argue why I don't want to take a suggestion, or something.


Mostly I just feel embarrassed.

A Timeline You Won't See on Facebook

Maybe it's The Artist's Way or maybe it's that my therapist is on a three-week vacation, but yesterday, suddenly, a lightbulb went off in my head about why, even after 8 years of therapy, I feel just as stuck as I ever did, albeit in a slightly different locale.

I had made a lot of changes.  I started seeing this therapist in the summer of 2004, when I was suicidal over the Mentor, my relationship with my partner, my dreary apartment, my wardrobe that made me look totally sexless, you name it.  By 2007 I had begun "dating", had a spot as a volunteer soloist at a Lutheran church, had one operatic concert under my belt, had gotten away from the Mentor, but had allowed his influence to linger inasmuch as I now had red walls, red sheets, and some new clothes that fit my curvy figure attractively.  And I had plans for the future.  I was going to produce a concert version of Samson et Dalila the following spring, and my play was going to be produced in Texas that fall.

Since then, here is what has happened:

September 2007: My partner, with whom I had not been speaking other than to be the recipient of nuisance threatening phone calls and hate mail, had a hip replacement.  Whatever she felt about me, I determined to not only be there for her the day of the operation, but also, when I came back from Texas and she was out of the hospital, to spend Sundays "doing for" her.  I considered it would have been inhumane not to.  It did not make us a "couple" again.

March 2008: Our best friend "DJ" died.  She was a huge support system to my partner, in that she called every day and helped my partner (who was beginning already to show signs of mental disorganization) "orient" herself.  She was also a friend to me, in that she helped me tread the fine line between being "humane" to my partner and taking care of my own life.  And she was the only person who could keep us from fighting.

May 2008: The day before my concert of Samson et Dalila, some unpleasantness surfaced at work, which was to haunt and torment me for the remainder of my time there, which thankfully was only another 18 months.  I was not allowed one nanosecond to savor my turn as Dalila.  Not one!  This unpleasantness was front and center on everyone's radar screen.  I don't even think anyone asked me how it went.

May 2009: My 93 year old mother fell down the stairs of her Brooklyn (rent controlled) walkup apartment, due to landlord negligence.  I now had to spend two weekends a month "doing for" her. She had a cleaning lady, but would not, for example, trust her to use the ATM.

October 2009:  I was blessedly liberated from the job I loathed, with a "retirement package" including health insurance for life and a year of career counseling.  No sooner was I in a state of jubilation over a chance at a second career than my mother was diagnosed with bladder cancer.

November 2009-October 2010:  While trying to have some "me" space to reinvent myself with the career coach, I was taking my mother (whom I didn't even particularly like, God forgive me) to a medical facility in Washington Heights, which meant getting up at 6 and picking her up in Brooklyn, and often not getting home until after 11.  I now spent one weekday "doing for" her in addition to spending part of the weekend "doing for" my partner.  During this period my partner was hospitalized for sinus surgery and upon returning home had a hemorrhage necessitating a repeat hospital visit via the emergency room.  In late September 2010 my mother took a turn for the worse and the Visiting Nurse Service set up a hospice in her apartment.  She died on October 10, with my holding her hand and telling her I loved her.  Whether I really did or not is not relevant.  I wanted to make sure those were the last words she heard.

I could see that there would be no exciting "encore career" for me.  I was lucky to have health insurance and be able to work at home as a freelance editor, squeezing paid work in the nooks and crannies between caregiving.  Other than my daily practice, my biweekly voice lessons, and my occasional choir solo, I really had no time for singing at all, except for a brief concert in a nursing home.

November 2010:  I had been cast in a tiny role in an opera production with an orchestra (for which I paid $450).  Despite coming there perfectly prepared to sing three pages of music that was not difficult, and having perfect French pronunciation, I was torn to shreds in front of a group of singers most of whom were less than half my age, for no reason that I could fathom.  People were sympathetic - they had no idea what was going on either, but it left such a bad taste in my mouth that I have not really "ventured forth" to do anything I don't plan myself since.

Spring 2011:  In addition to handling my mother's estate business, I now had to deal with my partner's huge decline.  I was actively working with three or four social service agencies to try to get her help, preferably a place to live that was cheaper and where she could have help. The latter came to nothing but she did get food stamps, meals on wheels, a free life alert system, and a free air conditioner. She is now better, but it was hardly an environment in which I felt free to pursue my bliss and let the chips fall where they may.

So there you have it.  Is it really a surprise that I've had no energy to milk my muse?  I speak about having little time and little money, but I see that I also have very little energy and I'm speaking here about emotional energy.  I just feel drained.  I can't put singing first, or even second after my editing commitments. It's just way down the list.  (When I speak of singing, I don't mean the act of singing I mean chasing and creating opportunities.)  All I have energy for some evenings is snuggling with my cat and watching reruns of Downton Abbey.


It's on days like this that I wish I still had the pseudonymous blog, but I am just going to post this and turn it over to the universe.

No wonder I was musing about whether singers as a group (certainly the ones under 40 who write about nothing but their gowns, their onstage flirtations, and their latest headshots) are self-involved. They are, and I wish I could be too.

Mr. B.

Once again, I should be working, but one of the exercises in The Artist's Way involved making lists of people who discouraged you, and people who encouraged you, so....

God knows I have wasted enough "ink" on the former, so why not write about the latter?

I know I blame other people (and social trends) for my failure to nurture my own singing talent until the age of 54, when it was well past the 11th hour, but much of the blame lies with me.  (But knowing that, where do I go from here?)

I say that I started singing the first time when I was 26, but that is not true.  That was the first time I studied and sang after I had quit smoking.  I don't really count the earlier forays into classical singing but maybe I should.

There were the casual lessons I took at 15, with a former Metropolitan opera soprano, where I learned nothing, and in fact my singing got worse and worse the more I smoked and went on unhealthy crash diets.

Then I stopped altogether to wallow in drugs and rock and roll (any sex I wallowed in was incidental and not really relevant one way or another in terms of my singing) and started again at 22 when I was singing with a Gilbert and Sullivan company in the chorus and as a cover for the lead contralto.

After years of abuse, my voice had dropped about a fifth from where it had been at 15, but it must have had something because one of the men in the cast (who had come to G&S via a minor opera career) told me I sounded "like the old fashioned Italian mezzos, particularly Ebe Stignani." He told me that my performance as Katisha was "astounding".  I didn't have a teacher at the time, but found one via one of the tenors in the company.

I will call this man "Mr. B."  I have always said that he went a good way to "ruining" my voice but maybe some of the problem lay with me and my smoking (and intermittent drinking).  Mr. B. taught a specific technique (I don't know what it's called) that emphasized singing in a raw chest voice.  The theory was that if you could isolate your chest voice you could also isolate your head voice and have better high notes, but with me that never happened, although it had with the tenor in question, who previously to studying with Mr. B. had only been able to sing high notes falsetto.  And lest you think it was a man's game only, Mr. B.'s daughter was singing Mimi at 18 and now, at 50 is a famous Wagnerian soprano.  One of the things that technique is based on is enormous physical strength.  In addition to singing, Mr. B, had me doing sit-ups, walking two miles a day, and drinking milk with every meal.  Actually, in the beginning I did sound a lot like Ebe Stignani and even managed to sing through "O Don Fatale" but that was short lived.  Was the fault with Mr. B., my smoking, or my singing 7 shows a week with the G&S outfit? In any event, my upper register pretty much disappeared and I lived in mortal terror of "Mikado week" when at any moment I might be called upon to sub as Katisha and have to sing a high A flat at the end of Act 1.  Otherwise, I had a rich full voice up to the F or F sharp at the top of the staff and that was it.

But suppose I had stuck with Mr. B. and just been a student?  Suppose I had been nunlike and given up smoking and drinking and partying?  Even given up the G&S company?  They weren't paying me anything unless I sang a children's matinee. (I earned my living during the day by grooming dogs and had a flexible schedule.)  Mr. B. gave a discount to students who came every day ($10 a lesson in 1972) and I remember I did do that in the beginning (hence my surprising performance of "O Don Fatale"?)

When I say I made all the wrong choices, I don't just mean with smoking, drinking, starving myself (actually I had stopped doing that for a while at the G&S company - I had to share costumes with a woman the size of Deborah Voigt pre-surgery and pinning them down to a size 12 was hard enough) but also the gruelling schedule I was performing at that company.  It was "fun".  That was why I did it.  I knew a few people who were going to a conservatory and they were deconstructing art songs in different languages while I was having "fun".  Of course the people who put in the work of that kind when they're 21 have the lives I would give my eye teeth for at 40, but how could I have known that then?

So the question is: what am I going to do with this information that I am getting from The Artist's Way?


What I long for is to find something special, that only I can do, or that I can do better than most of the people in my immediate environment, that will interest someone. No matter how well I can sing "Acerba Volutta" there will be not ten, but probably 50 people who can sing it as well, or better, who are younger and better educated, and who have "connections", even insignificant ones.

I don't think it's likely that I will move out of my rent regulated apartment in the armpit of Lincoln Center any time soon, but boy, there are days when I wish I were singing the National Anthem at a Little League game in "East Eggshell, Iowa" and signing autographs afterwards.

The Artist's Way

Finding myself totally at a loss how to become "unstuck", I decided to revisit a suggestion the therapist made several years ago - to do the exercises in the book The Artist's Way.

I had thumbed through it several years ago, but that was when I was working in an office.  One of the mandatory exercises is to write three pages of longhand when you wake up, which seemed prohibitively onerous if I would have had to cram this into an already stressed and overcrowded morning.  Now that I am a freelancer and almost never have to set the alarm (except on Sundays), this is very doable.

So I will start.

I think "creative block" definitely describes my problem.  I mean I practice daily and learn new music, but I am at a loss as to what to do with this big talent (yes, I have a big talent, I just don't have all the skills, or any of the educational underpinnings, not to mention the physical stamina, free time, and youth to pursue it along traditional channels), so maybe these exercises will help.  Although I want to continue singing and would like to be able to incorporate my big dramatic mezzo rep (the bits and pieces I can sing without getting tired) into something but the question is what? I am in an environment that is crawling with singers and performers of every possible sort so I see nothing I can do that would be of interest to anyone except teachers and friends.  (FWIW yesterday I sang "Acerba Volutta" better than I ever have, I think, from start to finish.)

I would even be happy to find some nonmusical creative outlet (e.g. continuing to market my play until someone picks it up) if I can get inspiration somewhere.

I had another insight, namely, that a lot of the general discontent I feel began when I started going to that Unitarian church.  Not just because of the Mentor but because that was the first time I had a lot of contact with working performing artists of all sorts.  I live on the Upper West Side, and believe me, that's where they all live, from Hell's Kitchen up to Inwood.  Previously I had only known one working artist - a Tony-winning costume designer, but I saw her as the exception not the rule and in any event she was not in a field that I was interested in.  I knew starving artists who had Hellish lives (including one who managed to live on Welfare for years until she found a rich husband), and weekend artists who had day jobs at the various companies I worked at (as many of them at my last job were my subordinates, or my professional peers' subordinates, I hardly envied them), but not anyone who really made a living out of performing (or out of performing and teaching). I knew lawyers, doctors, and various types of academics, and occasionally I felt a pang of envy that they got to do something both interesting and lucrative, but those feelings were short lived because I could have gone to law school for example, if I had really wanted to.  I have never felt that something like that was out of reach because of circumstances beyond my control or bad choices I made long long ago.  But I really do feel my interest in performing was jinxed from the beginning.  I had no one in my corner.  Until I met him and of course that was a mixed blessing.

Then I began to "meet" real singers online.

And the Lutheran church is the same.  Although there are not many singers there at my level certainly not in the choir regularly there are a number of instrumentalists and other kinds of performers who make a living at it.

There was an old Jewish joke my mother used to tell (I hope I remember it).


A man who has made a lot of money buys a yacht, and then he buys a captains uniform.  He visits his mother in the uniform and says "Look Ma!  I'm a captain!"  So she says "By you you're a captain and by me you're a captain, but by captains are you a captain?"


So there it is in a nutshell.  By singers (certainly the hoards of conservatory graduates living in New York) I am not a singer.  Not really.

Speaking of my play, I remember being at the auditions for the lead at the community theater in Texas where my play was produced, and singing a few bars of "Mon Coeur" to demonstrate what I wanted to the auditioning women.  This literally blew people away.  They had never heard sounds like that come out of anyone's mouth.  I suppose that is what I am looking for - at least once in a while.

Keeping my fingers crossed that The Artist's Way will help me uncover some "wow" moments for myself, as nice punctuation to all the hard work...

On Gratitude and Lassitude

Today it will be 8 years since I have been seeing this therapist, who is now going away for 3 weeks.  Does this mean  I am a hard case who is unable to change?  When I started seeing her I was awash in feelings about the Mentor, musical, romantic, and otherwise, and felt trapped with my partner with whom I had not had a real relationship for quite some time, and whose life revolved around a host of minor physical ailments that day by day made her life (and by extension my life) smaller and smaller.

Sometimes I wonder if I have made any progress at all.

I got away from the Mentor and even made peace with him (so that if we run into each other it is neither a cat fight nor a stony face-off) but the imprint he put on me has not left (which is a good thing) and I have found ways to amuse myself under the radar.  I have left the painfully stressful and boring job, which had me quasi-suicidal, although that was not through any efforts of my own.

I keep singing better and better, but at the same time feel smaller and smaller in the universe of singing and have had enough bad experiences out in the "big wide world" that I no longer venture forth to do anything that I have not planned myself.

I spent two years - 2006 and 2007, ostensibly "single", coming and going as I pleased and fighting off nuisance calls and threats from my partner.  After she had a hip replacement in 2007 I began taking care of her again, and yes, I really love her and it breaks my heart that she is now really ill, physically and possibly mentally as well, and may be losing her eyesight.  I don't have the energy to fight over every little thing, like why am I spending $25 to go to a group get up and sing thing, where everyone will sing better than I do (or at least be much younger and have much more confidence).  So there is a synergy between my own fears of inadequacy and not having the strength for a fight over something that no longer seems worth fighting for.

Yes, I will fight for my Requiem. If I have to I will lie and say other people are helping me pay for the pianist, just to shut my partner up.  Or I will treat her to something I can't afford to sweeten the pill, so she sees that there is money for a vanity event and for "us".

All this came to a head because my teacher gave me a list of operas that this pay to sing outfit is doing.  The price is actually quite reasonable and the repertoire is right up my alley.  It will probably cost more for me to produce this Requiem but at least with that I have control over what I sing and how I am treated by other people.  Now, I should say that my teacher didn't suggest that I audition for this outfit, he only mentioned it because sometimes the man who runs it asks him to sing something if there aren't enough paying men to handle all the performances (he knows almost every tenor and baritone role in every standard opera).  So he is working on Adriana Lecouvreur. The princess is a role I really want to sing.  It suits my voice and personality and the highest note is an A.  So I will work on it, once I get the Requiem under my belt.  I sang through "Acerba Volutta" at my lesson after not having sung it since January.  My teacher said it sounded better although I didn't feel I had the "oomph" for the ending the first go around.  He suggested not taking a breath before "non mente" (the word "mente" is on a high A) but that only worked in the studio, not at home.  I suggested that maybe when we're done with the Requiem we could work on the duet from Adriana and put together another concert and call it "Viva Verismo" (the Verdi concert I did  last year was called "Viva Verdi").  I also sang some of the best real high Cs at that lesson that I have ever sung.

But I just find it so hard to get my energy up, emotionally and otherwise.

I mentioned "gratitude" in the title of this post because I think I find it hard to differentiate between gratitude and lassitude.  Sometimes I can slip into gratitude without realizing it and feel content in my cozy apartment, knowing that I have paychecks coming in, albeit small ones, cuddling with my cat and watching reruns of Dowton Abbey, but then I think "if I give up the fight, that means I am lazy".

I was wishing I still had the Mentor to fight with, yearn after, and fear.  At least that lit a fire under me.