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.