Triumphs, Frustrations, and Auditions

First for the triumphs.  It has been over a week since my last lesson and I can still feel a difference.   I feel something more head-y (not quite as much as I did, unfortunately).  I think it has something to do with my having figured out how to raise my soft palate in the back.  Whatever it is, I am now able to sing full voiced arpeggios up to a high C that don't sound like something is "stuck" (or like I'm screaming) and the climactic A in a piece like "Acerba Volutta" is a walk in the park.

One thing my teacher talks about is how good singing involves having the right mix of chest and head register up and down the scale, and that it changes, but it has to do that smoothly.  I really am beginning to understand something now.  My chest voice (which he says is overdeveloped) is constantly overweighting the mix and this is something I have to fight against, which is helped by singing oo, or humming, which is what he had me do when I first began studying with him in the late 70s. I'm sure at that time, that having smoked did have something to do with my lack of head voice because not only couldn't I sing much above an F or a G, but I also couldn't hum and I couldn't scream, only squawk.  Zachary had mentioned that he knows singers who smoke, but the ones I've met began smoking an occasional social cigarette as adults after their vocal technique was in place and their vocal apparatus was developed.  I began smoking when I was 13.  My teacher said that now the issue is more to do with the fact that I went for over two decades without singing, but I was talking, so I was using the chest register but not the head register, because of the way I speak.

As for the disappointment, I had written in answer to an ad in Classical Singer looking for someone to sing Mercedes in Carmen, so I sang through the "Seguidilla", which I don't think I'd sung for two years.  Well, despite all the glorious Verdian B flats and B naturals I'd been singing this week, I could not make it up to that staccato-ish B natural at the end of the "Seguidilla", something I used to be able to do.  So what does that mean?  Is my voice now to heavy for that piece?  It's too bad, because the heavier parts of the role sound good in my voice and it certainly suits my personality.  I know I have never had much luck with staccati.  This is something I asked my teacher about once because another singer had mentioned it as a way to help high notes, and he blew it off.  I may ask him  again (I will take the "Seguidilla" to my next lesson).  I do sing a lot of coloratura, but that is mostly in a lower register in the Bach alto and soprano 2 solos or in an upper middle register in "Rejoice Greatly" (which, as written, goes no higher than A flat).

Continuing on with the subject of auditions, I saw another ad in the back of Classical Singer, from an Episcopal church in the neighborhood that is looking for paid soprano and alto choir members.  I had auditioned there about five years ago (as a soprano, singing "I Know that My Redeemer Liveth") and they put me on a sub list but never called me.  Actually, I don't think their choir sounded as good as the volunteer choir I sing with at the Lutheran church, possibly because the choir director at that time liked "straight tone"?  Also the music they sang was not as interesting.  (I had gone to a number of services there before I auditioned.)  It would also make me very sad to leave that Lutheran church.  I have a good relationship with the choir director and have made friends there.  They have a lot of fun outings planned for the summer, which I plan to participate in if I can.  Ideally what I would like is to stay there and get paid choir work once in a while, perhaps on the big holidays.  But I plan to go to this choir audition if someone writes back.  I said I could sing either soprano or alto and I gave a list of major choral works and solos that I had sung.  I will go to the audition and then will take things from there.