This *is* a New Year's Post

I tossed and turned last night worrying about my last post, that it was too much of a "downer" to end the year with.  I was even going to delete it, but when I woke up this morning I saw that it had already gotten 12 views, which means it must have been of interest to someone.  I was planning to make a real New Year's post anyhow, so here it is.


Last year's New Year's resolutions played such a large role in my therapy sessions, and were used as talking points for checking in, that I was surprised that yesterday she didn't ask me if I had made any; she only asked me what I thought about how my year had gone.

Well, I think I will do a preliminary draft of some resolution ideas.  There will be some overlap with last year, but the wording may be different.

1. Affirm that my number one priority is to make the end of my partner's life as happy as possible.  Cherish and savor every minute with her.  Rein in my temper.
2. Continue to build on the huge technical breakthrough I made this year with my singing.  This means singing "big girl dramatic opera rep", even if it's mostly in my bathroom and at lessons.
3. Admit once and for all that the "small opera companies" in the greater New York area are not for me, no matter how well I can sing - even if I sounded like Dolora Zajick next month.  And stop trying to "break into" the clique of singers who all have music degrees, went to YAPs, know each other, and have been working together for years.  They don't want me, I am not part of their peer group, no matter how good I sound.
4. That being said, keep an eye out at all times for other solo singing opportunities where I can use the big voice that God gave me (so I don't mean doing choral singing or singing the kind of "accessible" music in English requiring a more musical theater sound). It doesn't have to be opera.  It can be oratorio or art songs.  Of course if I can find a venue for throwing in an aria or an opera scene, so much the better.
5. As a continuation of 4, talk about myself and write about myself broadly.  I still believe there is someone out there who would find my whole "package" intriguing, even with all the imperfections and the lack of a traditional history (and the uncertainty of my "future").  Remember, there are guys who love girls with acne and scars (I hope this doesn't offend anyone). 
6. Since I don't seem to be able to have big things (which really hurts because I have a big flamboyant personality that loves the spotlight and never was much of a one for "subtlety") savor all the little things.  Find beauty and opportunities for creativity everywhere, even if I'm just taking the 135th photo of one of my cats, or putting the magazine with the prettiest cover on the top of the pile.
7. Continue looking for (and acknowledging the presence of) people who are not as well off as I am, in my immediate surroundings.  (Obviously I know there are hoards of people less well off than I am, even here in Manhattan.  They are just not part of my social surroundings.)  I am not being self-deprecating, but probably 95% of the people I know socially are better off than I am, and I am not talking about dollars and cents, although that would probably apply to at least 60%.  I am talking about doing meaningful work that energizes them, that is part of who they are, having a spouse or partner who does interesting and meaningful work, having a circle of friends that revolves around this meaningful work, and having gone to prestigious schools, had fellowships, etc.  So I need to focus on that remaining 5%.  Really talk to them and engage with them.
8. Make a marketing plan, if I have a date to perform somewhere.  Analogous to what I said in item 3, don't chase after the music lovers.  Many of them like me, but they will not be interested in a homemade operatic concert (certainly not after they've politely seen one or two).  
9. Set aside time to work on the non-vocal aspects of singing: translating, pronunciation, studying various musical styles.
10. Take more risks.  Particularly in letting myself be known.

So I will see where I am with these some time next year.

On a final note.  I realized that exactly 10 years ago today I went in a limo, with my leg in a cast, to sing "O Holy Night" at the Unitarian church.  Things were very bad between me and my partner and I was sobbing my heart out over The Mentor (who was away for the holidays).  So have I come a long way?  I sing 200% better and am not crying over anyone.  My knee is 90% healed (that is what the paperwork for my financial settlement said).  This year I am not singing any solos, but will be in aesthetically more pleasing surroundings, having a low stress evening.  And Epiphany (Spanish art song Heaven) is just around the corner!!!

Not Really a New Year's Post. Maybe Later

So today my therapist asked how my year had been.  It was once again, mostly disappointments.  This doesn't mean I don't have things to be grateful for.  I make myself think of these as often as I can.  I said what I wished for more than anything was the musical equivalent of a soul mate.  Not (well, now now) a "partner" in the spousal sense, just someone who is really interested in me from a musical and artistic standpoint.  Who feels that I have something unique to offer and wants to showcase it in some fashion.  I don't mean a big talent scout who will give me a big opera contract; obviously that's absurd.  What I mean is some little small scale operation that is looking for people over a certain age who began performing late, that is just for us, that shuts the "emergings" and the older managed singers out.  That is not used as a "test drive" for those people.  Where whoever is running it is excited to find, say, someone like me who sings better at 64 than I did at 54, and who finds other people who fit that demographic and wants to do something with and for us.  Peers who are as excited about singing in front of an audience as I am, who invite all their friends.  You see, if I put on a concert with people who sing better than I do (these are really the only people I know who are interested) then the issue isn't that they sing better than I do but that they don't respect what they are going to be performing in and don't invite people, so that not only is all the planning and financing of it on me, but I have to provide the audience too.

I mean it was a huge disappointment that I couldn't get people to come to Carmen.  Eight of the 20-30 people whom I invited came (along with the narrator's parents and some people from the building where the theater was.)  I mean, yikes, I bet more people from the choir came to see this opera at the conservatory that Little Miss was in, even though she was only singing in the chorus.  Because you see that was "real" music and whatever I do isn't.  This set me back in terms of my journey toward building self esteem (not just my journey of building my voice, which is going like gangbusters) quite a long ways.  I thought that here I had come up with something original and different, but when all was said and done it didn't matter.  And the woman who helped me produce it was disgusted with me and has lost interest in me, for the  most part, although she did let me sing two songs on September 11 and seemed happy with them.

Then there was the smaller disappointment of being turned down for the Handel opera mostly, I believe, because I am not the "type" this woman is interested in using (meaning I am not going anywhere, even if I keep singing better).  I was less angry at her than at the fact that there isn't something similar for amateurs (I mean real amateurs like me) who would rather bellow their way through, say, leading roles in Il Trovatore than sing in a chorus, even if it's just for each other, maybe spearheaded by a pianist who asks us each to chip in some money, and who will make it clear that this is not a training ground for "emergings" or professional comprimari who want to sing through a lead.

And the choir director (most likely unconsciously) only likes sopranos with pretty voices.

I mean I have been on the planet long enough to know that no matter what you look like and whatever your temperament (unless you act like a total horror) there is someone out there (may you find him or her - some people don't) who is looking for you.  So if this is true with dating and mating, shouldn't it also be true for performers?  I am not, as I said, asking to be paid big bucks, only that my "package" (age, talent, skills, how I acquired them, and my story) really grabs someone.

So why can't I find anyone?  Even a friend who wants to dive into this with me.

I was feeling better since I told myself that the most important thing in my life was making my partner happy for what remains of hers.  This doesn't mean that I don't want to sing, just that I am not going to chase after opportunities that there's a 99% chance I won't get, and a 1% chance that if I do they will take up time that I don't have.

I don't want to give up singing.  I sound so much better than I did last year that this must be what I am meant to be doing.  There is nothing that I do (I am not now talking about snuggling with my loved one or sharing sweet moments) that makes me as happy as letting my big dramatic voice rip and seeing how much easier it is than it was before.

Can 2015 please be the year I find someone who thinks I'm special and wants to "take" me somewhere?

The Ugly Dachshund

It's been a long time since I've felt the need to return to this theme (which I've never linked to the movie before) but I had an irksome contretemps with the choir director last night.

I think the issue is, really, in a nutshell, that he just doesn't like the sound of big dramatic voices.  To him they sound ugly, even when they're not.  Yes, I know in my lifetime I have let out some really ugly notes at both ends of my range (never in my comfort zone of on the staff) but I rarely do that now.  But some people just think those sounds are ugly (the way, for example, I always thought the sound of Lotte Lenya singing was ugly and, therefore, preferred Gay's The Beggar's Opera to Weill's updated Threepenny). This is not to say that Lotte Lenya is not a great artist, simply that she is not to my taste. When I was a child I tried to imitate Julie Andrews and the lyric sopranos on my mother's Gilbert and Sullivan records.

So to the import of this post.  Last night when we were warming up before choir rehearsal (which I always disliked, as everyone has their own way of warming up that works for them) the choir director had us sing the phrase "Joy to the world, the Lord is come" going down and back up the scale. When we got to a G (or maybe it was a G sharp) I ditched the words at the end of the ascending scale and just sang "Jah to the world, ah, la, ah, ah").  Well, that's pretty standard practice when you sing up there, even for a lot of sopranos.  So the choir director said to me "you know you can always sing it an octave lower."  So I said "I can sing up there, I just can't sing words up there."  So he said "well, maybe that means it is out of your range".  Well, that had me boiling mad.

Basically, there is a whole series of things that add up to making me feel that I am not a golden child there.  I would not go so far as to say that I am not wanted, because he needs me for certain things: to hold down a second soprano part, to sing with solid intonation and power in a middle register where most sopranos have no volume (many of them, interestingly, can belt very loud toward the bottom of the staff and below), to be an anchor in services (e.g. Christmas Eve) where there are often no trained singers (particularly in the soprano section) because all the golden children are young people who came from "elsewhere" to try to have a "career" in the performing arts and therefore go "home" at Christmas.

In any event, I am just very disheartened.  Basically I sing with that choir for the following reasons.

1. I have no family, and sort of by default, even though I am not Christian, the people in that choir are my "family" for now. (There are a lot of lovely people around my age, mostly avocational singers, whom I have made friends with.)
2. It has improved my musicianship enormously.
3. We sing interesting music and I have been acquainted with a wide variety of composers and large choral works.  Often this has led me down a byway to discover a solo from one of those works that I can add to my repertoire.
4. I get solo opportunities often enough that I can use this as a regular venue for singing in front of an audience.

On the other hand...

1. It is obvious that the choir director does not like (or understand) my voice type.  He likes women's voices that are small and pretty.  If they are small and pretty with training, then those women become the season's "golden children".  I get the most compliments from him either when I make my voice sound small and pretty (I can do this without harming it if I don't sing above an F sharp or maybe a G) or if I sing something in an extremely limited range, like "O Rest in the Lord", which is actually listed as being for a contralto, but does not go below middle C.  For example if I compare the video of "Angel" from the church to the video of the same song sung in a concert hall I can hear that in the first instance I am barely singing above a whisper and am obviously afraid of making one false move.  The second version sounds much more "present".  Yes, I am still singing softly but I sound like a dramatic mezzo singing softly not like I am trying to imitate a light soprano.
2. If there are solos interspersed into choral pieces he never gives those to me.  If they are for lower or midrange voices he asks everyone to sing them.  He only gives solos to whoever the current high soprano golden child is that year.  Occasionally he will give a solo to a man.  I hadn't thought that a choir director who is barely over 30 would be sexist but maybe he is, in that only men are allowed to have voices that are large, authoritative, maybe occasionally "un-pretty", but nonetheless impressive.  He does not like women whose voices conjure up those adjectives.

As for the title of this post, this whole situation conjures up this film (and the book, which was actually better).  Particularly as I am a Dachshund lover as well as a singer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ugly_Dachshund

Well, so OK, here's my game plan going forward.  Christmas Eve I will be the only trained soprano there.  We are singing two pieces in an easy range.  The new Director of Music Ministries will be leading the choir.  He seems to have a better understanding of different voice types (and of group dynamics) and he also does different warmups.  Some of these are things that I do not do (I was told not to do lip trills ever and in fact don't even know how - my teacher said to roll an r instead - and some of the staccato arpeggios leave me behind in the dust around a G) but if he really wants to get the soprano section to keep singing higher he gives us nice friendly legato arpeggios on an Aw vowel, just like my teacher, not a string of words that keeps ascending. 

As for the first rehearsal in  January, it turns out I may be late anyhow because that is the day of the tryouts for the Alzheimer chorus which I hope to get involved in with my partner.  After that, the simplest thing may simply be to come to rehearsals at 7:45 instead of 7:30.  I don't need these warmups (except the ones that involve singing in parts on a chord, which never go very high).  I can warm up at home and save myself a lot of agita.

And as soon as we get the January schedule I will try to find a spot to sing a Spanish song on or near Epiphany.  I already have one picked out.

Something to Try?

Yesterday I went with my partner to a concert by the choir for Alzheimers patients and their caregivers.  It was very moving.  They sang a group of familiar songs and there were little solos interspersed from time to time.  One of the women had a lovely voice (I don't know if she was a patient or a caregiver) and some others belted probably as well as some people you hear in live shows (they certainly all sang in tune).

My partner was "happy as a clam" (one of her favorite expressions) singing along when the audience was motioned to join in.

So we are going to go to their first rehearsal and see if we are considered suitable.  My partner doesn't have Alzheimers but she does have some cognitive impairment, which seems to be getting worse (she has very disturbed sleep/wake cycles and often now, if I call her at 8 or 9 pm she won't know if it's day or night).  So maybe this will be something we can do together out of the house.  And maybe this will be someplace I can use my singing talents where they will matter.  It seems that unless a group has very strict criteria regarding whom it is for and whom it is not,  it will be invaded by high level semi-professional singers who have spilled over from paying venues where they did not make the cut, whether it is an outfit where you have to pay to sing through an opera in someone's living room, or a choir that does not pay people.

Anyhow, recently I have had a paradigm shift (at least for the moment) and I realize that nothing is as important to me as making the end of my partner's life happy.  As she is failing, she has gotten sweeter and less irritable, and I realize that I can not take one single day with her for granted.  Yes, I would never want to live there  (the place now looks like a cross between a hospital room and the Collyers Brothers, not to mention that there is not only no Internet access but not even an outlet that I could plug my laptop into) or comingle our finances, but I would not trade one day of her precious life for anything, not the biggest singing gig in the world.

Now this does not mean that I will not go ahead with my Spring concert (I need to keep singing this challenging opera repertoire the way I need food or water), just that I realize that I don't need to be endlessly looking for singing opportunities that could tie up large chunks of time, and for what?

It also helps to avoid "triggers" (a friend of mine was writing about that online yesterday, in another context).  For me these are polemics that disparage "amateur" performers, or that imply that anyone who doesn't have a fulfilling career (or a partner with one) is a loser. One good thing about the national focus on all the tragedies that have happened lately is that the country (at least the part of it where I live) has also had a paradigm shift away from all the silly "self-esteem" talk; you know,  as in "if you had self-esteem you wouldn't be a copyeditor sitting at home taking care of someone who never bestirred herself to get a good job" which is what the Op Ed pages are always making me feel.  Our country really has some very serious problems to deal with that can't be solved by "abundant thinking" about me me me.

Was Planning to Make this an Upbeat Post, But.....

First, the upbeat part.  My teacher definitely wants to sing with me at the May concert.  Other than substituting the Giovanna/Enrico duet from Anna Bolena for the Amneris/Ramfis Judgment Scene from Aida, it will be pretty much the same program I sang in this concert.

This means we will sing the Laura/Alvise duet from La Gioconda and the Vengeance Duet from Samson et Dalila.  I realize that the latter might be viewed as "politically incorrect", as the last line is "death to the Hebrews", but, well, this all happened a very long time ago!!

Then we will each sing a least one aria.  He wants to sing Bartolo's aria from Barber of Seville and I will sing Dalila's "Mon Coeur" (minus the interpolated B flat which is not written anyhow).

If there is time for us each to sing two arias, I may add Laura's aria which I have always found easy to sing because the first part moves, and there is a lot of "setup time" before the last climactic high note.

On top of my excitement about having something on my calendar, I was really really thrilled with how I sounded at my lesson.  My voice is just getting freer and freer and more open.  I have even changed how I breathe: breathing lower in a more relaxed way instead of gripping with my back ribs, which I didn't even know I had been doing.  And (counterintuitively) the darker and "heavier" I sing the easier it is to sing higher.  And most importantly, I can tell that my teacher sees me as being in a different "league".

Now for the subject I am avoiding.  I was just beginning to get over how upset I was at how few people came to my Carmen concert.  I am not angry at any particular person.  Everyone is busy.  I think I am angry at how this event was perceived by people, consciously or unconsciously.  It was like "yes, it's great that BabyD is doing this, but it's not a real performing arts event [you know, the sort that get reviewed in the Times or are at prestigious venues]."

Now here's the huge thing.  I have no idea if this is deliberate or unconscious, but my choir director has never emailed out any flyer I sent him or given people a nudge to "let's come and show our support"!  All he ever did was let me hand out flyers and make an announcement.  Which sends the message that the event is important to me but not to him, whose imprimatur obviously sends a signal.  Well, this morning I got a group email from him forwarding flyers from people (one was Little Miss Conservatory who is singing in the chorus of an opera; the other was someone else who sings cabaret) saying just that "let's come and show our support"!  So what should I make of this?  I am not going to say anything.  He actually did come to three of my events: two at the church and one at a small venue where I sang scenes from Il Trovatore and Aida (actually not very well, because the air conditioner had not been cleaned and I felt like I was choking; something that has never happened before or since).  But it all just makes me feel irrelevant and pushy.  You know I  am always the one who has to remind people that "hey, yes, I'm a performer too, hey, yes, I sing too and, ok, it's not just high Bs that take artistry even if all the untrained women think anyone could sing 'O Rest in the Lord' because it's in the same range someone might sing 'Happy Birthday'".

So I'm just in a really bad mood, just when I was starting to feel optimistic again.  Sunday I sang "Patiently Have I Waited for the Lord" in two services.  It went well for the most part except for those low Bs which I am not comfortable sitting on any more than I am comfortable sitting on high notes; it's just that with the low notes it's easier to fake it.  And I got a lot of compliments, including from a woman in her 90s who said "your singing is really improving".  I didn't find that insulting, actually it made me happy because it means that all the hard work I have been doing has paid off.  So I just said "Thank you.  I work very hard at it."

And the best news of all...maybe maybe maybe I really will not die anonymous!  Someone may interview me for a magazine article about classical singers who started late.

Next Year in May

A few weeks ago, I titled a blog post Next Year in _______. I took the space to refer to a place. I do have a venue now, but am not going to post it here (for those of you who are also my Facebook friends, it will appear there as the time approaches).  I also have a date.  An exact date because that venue only hosts concerts on Thursday nights, and only one was available in April or May of 2015, which is when I want to have the concert (after the cold weather is over, after Easter, and before the summer).  Night is not ideal for me as I tend to wind down and run out of steam at night.  Well, 7 to 8 is manageable (they told me the concert can't be more than an hour, which is odd, as the concert operas my teacher has been in are longer than that).  I can eat a big high protein supper of some kind at 5 and bring a protein bar.  Despite my best efforts, and even though I don't have to set the alarm on weekdays any more, I go to sleep between 11:30 and 12:30 and wake up between 7:30 and 8:30 am like clockwork.  And I never feel like napping.  And unlike people who say they can't sing on a full stomach, I, as someone with low blood sugar, can't sing on an empty one.  I am at my most energetic an hour or so after a high protein meal.  Once it's been longer than three hours since my last meal I start to "wilt".

I don't know yet if I will sing the Giovanna Seymour excerpts.  I can certainly do the duet with Enrico if my teacher wants to sing it with me.  He wants me to do the aria (cavatina and cabaletta with a duet section with Enrico in the middle) also.  It's not familiar to most people so I don't think anyone will care if I take the two ending cadenzas down to a G sharp instead of up to a B natural.  Well, there is certainly time.  I would feel more comfortable with the "Judgment Scene" from Aida and the duet from Samson et Dalila, or the one from Gioconda, but it's early days yet.

It's funny.  My partner has been in the middle of a health crisis and I had thought I might lose her, so I was really not thinking much about concert plans; just barely doing enough practicing to sound good with the choir and make sure I am spot on with the solo I am singing on the 30th.  I had written to the woman at the residence about the concert several weeks ago and had just about given up hearing back, so this was a nice surprise.

Anyhow, my partner is out of danger for now, so it really is just one day at a time.  I had a fabulous voice lesson about 10 days ago, and need to get back in that groove.

Something Old, Something New

As for the something old, which I am trying not to seethe over: we are singing a very complex piece for Christ the King Sunday.  When I listened to the sound file, it sounded as if it had a solo quartet in it.  It does, in fact (or mostly a solo trio, ATB).  So I said to the choir director that I would be interested in singing the alto part.  Whoever is singing on the sound file has a rich mezzo voice like mine (well, in the largest scheme of things, my voice may not be that "rich", but it certainly is for a choir of singers with smaller voices).  He said he would probably have all the altos sing it, and  I can see the point in that; otherwise people don't have that much singing to do.  Ideally, looking the piece over, it should have two or three full choir sections and the rest interspersed solos (mostly ATB trios, and a few SSA sections).  But as it is a choir anthem, everything might as well be sung by everyone.  But here's the rub.  There is one long, achingly beautiful, arching phrase that sits on a high A, that is labeled "soprano solo" .  As no one else can sing it (there are two new high sopranos but they are not trained), it will go to "you know who" (who does not come to Wednesday rehearsals any more, but sings Sundays) and then it will become a "thing", and people will ooh and ah over it, and no one will care how many vocal assets other people (including Yours truly) are bringing to this endeavor, and I'm just sick of the whole gestalt.

Fortunately I will be singing "Patiently Have I Waited for the Lord" from the Saint Saens Christmas Oratorio the following Sunday, the Sunday after Thanksgiving, which has no choir scheduled (the church now has four choirs).  As for the "something new" there are some personnel changes in the music program at the church, which may change the "tone" slightly.  A man who is an experienced choral conductor (whom I have known for a while;  he used to have a smaller role in the music program) has now been made head of all the music ministries at the church.  Our regular choir director is still directing our choir, but he is no longer involved in services that don't use our choir.  So, for example, how I got the opportunity to sing on November 30 came about because this man asked our choir if anyone wanted to do anything on that day, as there was no anthem scheduled.  So I volunteered and he put me in touch with a new pianist that they have, who will be playing.  In any event, I have a hunch (hope?) that this new director is a little more savvy about how to deal with groups. Just to keep things straight, I think our current choir director is wonderful at leading the choir, is a superb musician, doesn't ask people to do things that are vocally harmful, and is basically a good person, but does not know how to handle group dynamics all that well (by which I mean not realizing that it will tick certain people off if he keeps giving this young lady special treatment.)  Which makes sense, as he started out as a concert pianist and piano teacher not a choral conductor, so he may not have taken classes in group psychology or that type of thing.  So for example, I think that this new director would be more sensitive to seeing to it that solo and featured opportunities are more evenly divided among the people who want them and most particularly, that they are more evenly divided among voice types.  And he may have different taste in voices.  For example, I think our current choir director just does not like big dramatic singing.

Another "something new" that has pleased me is that there are new people in the choir who are not trained singers, and they have asked me for help; not about singing, but about foreign pronunciation and things like how to "parse" a piece so that they know which part they are singing and when to come in.  No one did that before.

At one of my last therapy session, I lit a candle and made a wish.  I was told to make the wish pretty general.  So I wished for "joy and visibility".  For me they are both connected to some extent.  I often can experience contentment, or "serenity" (boooooring, although I suppose it might not be if I didn't have it), but rarely joy, elation, or anticipatory excitement.  In any event, a lot of those latter are tied up in visibility for me.  Wanting to be somewhere where I feel that my talents and skills can sparkle and shine and I can get praise and recognition (after I've worked very hard for it, of course) is just hard-wired into my DNA, I think.  Some people don't want those things.  Interestingly,  I don't particularly want praise for "doing good".  I think doing good is important (which is why I take care of my loved one, even though she drives me crazy) but I don't do it to get praise or recognition.  But if I count the times Little Miss Conservatory has gotten public praise or recognition during these choir rehearsals with the number of times I (or most people) have, it boils down to about 20 to 1.  She may very well have a real career in front of her.  So can't I be allowed to shine in a choir where no one gets paid, pls?  

I still have hopes for the Alzheimer chorus.  I have no idea what will come of it (if they have regular rehearsals in the snowy season it may not be manageable for my partner, or they may think we're not suitable), but if it works out, it will not only be a source of shared enjoyment with my partner (and be something we can do out of the house!!) but it may be an area in which I can shine and use my talents.  And be visible.

Positive Thinking, Wishes, and Something Totally New

Sunday's Times had an op ed piece called The Problem with Positive Thinking. This interested me because I try to stay optimistic, but have been beaten down by so many disappointments that it is hard not to sink into despair.  This article stressed that using only positive thinking does not help people achieve goals, but rather, what is most helpful is a combination of positive thinking and "realism", in other words imagining obstacles that stand in the way of your wish.  One sentence in particular stood out:

"When participants have performed mental contrasting with wishes that are not reasonable or attainable, they have disengaged more from those wishes."

Now with me, here's the thing, and I only realized this as I was reading.  I have a very hard time "disengaging" from wishes when I believe that the obstacles are external rather than internal.  If, for example, despite studying voice now for 10 years, I had not made any progress (let's say I had gone to several different teachers to check out what was stalling me), something might ring a bell telling me that it was time to invest my energy in something else.  (And in any event, I don't all that much enjoy doing something if I don't do it well, or see my way clear to doing it well; at least I am not going to invest a lot of time and money in it.)  But I am singing well, and have made exceptional progress this year.

What makes me angry, is that most of the obstacles are external.  First, there's the presence of too many talented people scrambling for too few opportunities (and the yearly influx of more of these people, which makes it impossible to climb the food chain as my skill level increases). Then there's the almost daily availability of every possible sort of musical or theatrical event, at every price range, which siphons off any potential audience I might have,  howevermuch people care about me and want to be supportive.  Some people have large families and circles of friends who are not themselves necessarily all that knowledgeable about classical music, who will sort of function as a claque, but I don't have this.  Which brings me to a topic I had written about in the past: the role of praise versus constructive criticism.  I think the latter is essential coming from teachers, coaches, and directors, but it's nice to get the former from a group of loved ones, you know, the people who think whatever you do is wonderful because they love you and it's not really their area of expertise.  This is what I find lacking, mostly because I have no extended biological family and among my circle of friends, even the ones who are not musicians have been going to concerts or the opera for decades and so even if they don't hear flaws in my actual singing, they know the difference between a homemade performance piece based on Carmen and someone's senior recital at a big conservatory.  Not to mention that I can't go anywhere where there's a group of more than 20 people where at least two of them haven't worked (often for money at a high level) in the performing arts.  So this simply is not the identity I have with these people.

But I can't disengage from these wishes, which have scaled down considerably from doing something "professional" in opera, to doing something high profile in amateur opera, to just being able to get a decent sized audience for something I produce myself.  I have a big operatic voice that is not going to be satisfied doing nothing but singing in a choir where I have to "blend" or even singing the occasional church solo in a limited range both vocal and dynamic.

That being said, I have something new that I am going to look into, that is not like anything else I had ever thought of.  Howevermuch my SO drives me crazy, and however relieved I am that we do not live together or have comingled finances,  making her last years happy is one of the most important things in my life.  Nothing really makes me as happy as seeing her smile, or picking up my phone (she doesn't have or know how to use email) and hearing one of the endearments she calls me.  On several occasions she has mentioned that she misses choral singing.  There is a Unitarian church in her neighborhood (not the one we went to together where I met the Mentor) which I am sure she could go to if she asked someone to escort her (churches do that), but she has not done that.

A few days ago I happened to see a story on tv about an experimental choral group for people with Alzheimers and their caregivers.  So I looked at their web site and sent them an email.  I said that I was a trained classical singer and that my partner, although she did not have Alzheimers, had some memory loss and was elderly and quite frail, and had said she missed choral singing.  So they invited us to come to one of their (free) concerts, and told us when the first rehearsal of the new year would be (on a day in January, so fingers crossed that the streets are not clogged with snow).  They said they decide at that rehearsal whether they think people would be suitable for the chorus.  So I have no idea where this is going, but if we got involved it would mean one weekday afternoon rehearsal each week, and three concerts a year on Saturday afternoons (so it would not interfere with choir, and I could probably still do my spring concert and maybe a few other things).  It would be something my SO and I could share, and it would get her out of the house.  So this is one day at a time.

I don't think it will be "enough"; as long as my big dramatic voice is still throbbing inside me like a bird that needs to soar I can't squelch it, but maybe it will be something.

Elegy for a Lost Narrative

"Don't sell yourself short," a friend told me.

"Why can't you give yourself credit for all that you have accomplished?" my partner has told me on numerous occasions, despite her initially having no understanding of why I was doing all this.

In some ways, things are so exciting, and so exhilarating.  I never ever sounded this good.  Now that I know how to really push my larynx down and stop gagging on high notes, make space, lift my soft palate, and relax my jaw, I sometimes can't believe how I sound.  So, OK, I may never be able to sit on a high B for five counts, but I'm homing in on those notes and everything sounds so much better.  After making some (standard) cuts, and replacing the two Bs with G sharps, I am sailing through the two Giovanna Seymour selections that my teacher wanted me to work on.  And I am working on my Italian pronunciation as well as taking out the dictionary to look up the words I was unfamiliar with. (Although of course I know the import of what she's singing!)

And I am really rocking it at choir rehearsals.  How many people in a "convenience sample" choir can start out singing a highly ornamented alto line in a Bach cantata (in full dramatic mezzo chest voice, or at least a rich mix) and end up floating a high G sharp in the soprano section for a piece for All Saint's Day?

The problem is that my narrative is lost. 

I want to "not sell myself short," and "give myself credit" but it all gets lost in the Babel of Manhattan's Upper West Side, most particularly here in ZIP code 10023.  Who really cares?  People can go to the Met or they can go to see all those low budget opera productions that don't want to use me that are full of the stars of tomorrow (or the working comprimari of today showcased in leading roles), or free chamber music featuring conservatory students, or senior recitals, or edgy groups that use some classical singers with smaller voices in smaller venues.

I had hoped that writing this blog would give meaning to my narrative, but responses are few and far between, other than from one friend I made here with whom I correspond almost daily. (She is another late-starting classical singer in a less talent-packed geographic area.)

My teacher is (surprised and) impressed by my progress, but he knows so many mezzos who sing better (and who if they're anywhere near my age have decades more experience) that this doesn't really translate into any opportunities that I don't have to organize myself.

I know they now say too much praise is bad for kids.  Certainly praise with no constructive criticism isn't going to help a person improve.  I wouldn't be singing this well if my teacher hadn't been at me constantly through every exercise, stopping me when something didn't sound right.

But as I have no venue, so it seems, for regular high profile singing (even a very humble one), I also have no context for my narrative that will make it sparkle and shine.

No one has ever said "It's really amazing that someone your age, who began singing at the age when many singers retire, sounds the way you do now." Or, "It's really extraordinary the amount of time and effort and dogged persistence, against all odds, that you have put into perfecting an art form at your age, with your limited resources, when you could have just said, why bother?"  All I want is to hear those things.  Some time.  Then maybe I would stop selling myself short.

Next Year in_______________

My communist mother used to have a saying: "Don't mourn, organize!" so it is getting to be about that time again.  The time I start thinking about next year's concert.

Each year - I hope - I build on what I learned from the last time.

So what did I learn from Carmen?  I suppose that I have to find a different kind of audience.  I can't rely on my social circle because there are just too many other things they'd rather be doing, no matter how much they care about me.  Which I suppose says something about the nature of my social circle.  I have a significant other who is elderly and disabled, no blood relatives, no bffs, really, or the ones I have don't live in New York or they are up to their eyeballs in family problems, and a large circle of acquaintances who have season tickets to hear the best music there is, or who trawl the city for free concerts.

So what's next?  There's a Salvation Army residence near the church where my teacher's group has sung concert operas.  In fact one of the women in the choir lives there.  They have a performance space, and I don't think I would have to pay to use it.  My choir colleague says that the acoustics are not great, but my teacher says it is a "nice" place to sing and that people are appreciative (my built in audience - and if people don't come no one will give me a "look" the way the woman did when I didn't have a big enough audience for Carmen.)

My teacher said maybe we can sing together.  He is dying to do excerpts from Bolena.  I bought the score and now I'm getting cold feet.  I can probably do the duet with Enrico if we take a cut in it (the last portion has a long repeat, for me in a very high tessitura), but do I really sound all that great up there?  I think I sound better as Amneris, aside from the treacherous duet with the tenor.

Well, when I have my next lesson I will talk to my teacher.  I might be happier if he and I did a reprise of the concert I did with the other bass several years ago. We did the Judgment Scene from Aida, the Vengeance Duet from Samson et Dalila, and the duet from Gioconda which I have now nicknamed the "Domestic Violence Duet".  Then we each sang two arias of our own choosing.  But it's early days yet.  I haven't even contacted them about reserving the space.  I am planning to start the process next week.  It can be in late April (Easter 2015 is early) or early May.

I can hear how much better I sound just at choir practice.  Yesterday I sang the alto part (very low and very florid) in a Bach cantata.  The reasoning behind that is that the soprano part is a chorale that sounds on the recording as if it is being sung by boy sopranos.  Then I switched gears and sang the soprano part (including a limpid high G sharp) for the piece we're doing for All Saints Day.  Well, any mezzo worth her salt should have that kind of complete package. The choir is getting bigger, mostly with experienced choral singers who don't have solo voices, really, which is just fine, so I am enjoying myself more.

And I had another idea for a solo for Advent.  There are several versions of "O Magnum Mysterium" that are written as solos.  I will try to get the sheet music.  We have sung two different choral arrangements of this during Advent.

Another Disappointment

My therapy "homework" for these past two weeks has been identifying when I feel good about myself and when I don't. The premise is that if I felt better about myself I would not be so devastated by various disappointments.  I think this is both true and not true.  I think there can come a tipping point when after you have one disappointment too many it can affect how you feel about yourself.

What came out of this exercise is that most of the time I don't feel anything about myself, good or bad. Probably the biggest pleasant surprise I had this period was how well I sang at my last lesson, and the biggest disappointment (I can't really call it a "surprise") was being turned down for the Handel opera .  Although that disappointment hit me harder than it normally would have because of the watershed-like disappointment of so few people coming to Carmen in the environment of everyone buzzing about "Little Miss Conservatory's" senior recital.

In any event, I don't think I particularly dislike myself (I know people who do - dislike themselves - and whatever it is I feel is not that.)

I think I wasted a large part of my life and made a lot of the wrong choices.  I don't totally blame myself, because most of these stemmed from having squandered my "emerging adulthood" when I was drinking, after which it was in many ways too late to turn around and change course (I needed to earn a living, and chose the option that provided the most short-term financial security, for starters.)  And sometimes I feel I am trapped with dull work because I am a dull person, but I don't dwell on that 24/7.

But these disappointments have made me very angry.

As for the latest one, the woman who produced the September 11 concert spoke about "outreach" events over the holidays.  Last time she did this it was a sort-of concert in a nursing home that had a theater.  There were 5 or 6 women and we each sang one or two solos and then did some caroling and sang some Chanukkah songs.  I sang two songs in Spanish.  Well, it turns out that what she is doing this time is only group songs, with little solos assigned from some of the songs.  I would not mind participating in something like that, on an ad hoc basis (if she asked me about it a few weeks prior, and I came to one or two rehearsals) but there is no way in Hell I am paying to come to a "meetup" to sing group songs!!!  And in point of fact, I think her asking people to pay for sessions to go over group songs shows major chutzpah and quite frankly I don't think she will get very many people who would be willing to do this.  If we are volunteering out of the goodness of our hearts we shouldn't have to pay to do it!!! It's one thing to pay $20 at a meetup so that I can get coaching for a solo that I will be singing somewhere (singing it in an "outreach" venue is fine, even singing it at one of this women's "musicale"s in her living room is fine).  But if there's nothing in it for me, I think it takes a hell of a lot of nerve to ask me to pay!!

So now this means there is nothing on my calendar again.

I am going to order the piano score of Verdi's "Ave Maria with Strings."  It is unlikely that the choir director will want me to excerpt something from it, but who knows?  I also found a Bach solo hymn called "Advent".  It is not all that interesting in that it has four verses that are all the same, but I can offer that as an alternative.  Or go back to something I had sung in the past, maybe Saint Saens' "Patiently I Have Waited for the Lord".

But I am stumped for ways in which I could feel better about myself that would make these disappointments less devastating (well, the second one, involving the holiday events, wasn't really "devastating" it mostly made me angry).

Someone who commented on my last post said "it isn't that people aren't interested in you, it's just that they are more interested in other people."  Well, so how does that translate in real-world terms?  It's not just about ego (basically, I know that living where I'm living - forgive me for inconsistent math, it's not my strong suit - I am like someone who nationwide is in the 88th percentile among classical singers who nonetheless ends up in the 20th percentile here).  It's about being cheated out of a chance to do things that are "fun".  For me, singing opera scenes is fun.  Singing art songs on a program with other people singing art songs, where we all get our chance to shine, is fun.  So I am cheated out of these chances to have "fun" even at the lowest level.  I wouldn't call the singing I do in church "fun", unless I am singing a part where I can stand out (like being one of two second sopranos in a very difficult piece, or singing an alto part with the odd F or G in it that none of the other altos can sing).  Singing church solos is spiritually fulfilling, but rarely "fun" (singing Erfreute Zeit was an exception) because I am singing during communion and always have to choose something quiet and unobtrusive, although I do get compliments.  Getting compliments and applause is fun.  Dressing up because the occasion is "special" is fun.  So in addition to being made to feel mediocre and unimportant, I am deprived of "fun".  And if I try to plan something myself, people don't come (except for a few friends who want to be supportive) because, as this commenter said, there are always things to do that are more fun, where they can hear world class musicians.

So is the only "fun" I'm going to have on a regular basis going to the grocery store in my low cut top and my stage makeup, knowing that people looking at me think I'm some kind of performer?  Or singing opera scenes (sometimes gloriously) in my bathroom for my neighbors, one of whom is a music critic who goes to Lincoln Center three times a week, one of whom is a Juilliard trained coloratura (she actually was quite complimentary to me on several occasions), and many of whom go to the Met once a week when it's in season?

Not a Drop, but a Thud

So I heard back from the woman I sang the Handel for and she wrote back and said "no thank you".  She didn't even offer me a cover.

Why has this upset me so much?  The last two auditions I went to I didn't get anything and I just shrugged it off.  Maybe because these were real live staged productions of big Italian operas and this was just a chance to sing a role in a Handel opera from a book in someone's living room.  So I'm not even good enough to do that?

I just feel so much despair.

I was so happy with how I've been sounding (although I got into perilous waters at last week's choir practice singing a spiritual where the second sopranos end by pounding words on Fs and G flats at the top of the staff) but it's like a big so what.  At the risk of making an inappropriate analogy, I feel the way certain ethnic groups feel about immigrants.  No matter how well they do, a new wave of immigrants comes in and pushes them back to the bottom.  Actually that's a very apt analogy, because no matter how much progress I make, there will be a new wave of people coming here who have a "package" (they sound perfect, look good, and have music degrees).  So I end up on the bottom again.

I just don't know how many disappointments I can sustain.  But apparently it's not enough to make me stop singing (and no, choral singing doesn't do it - I have to have a venue for solo singing, even in someone's living room where I'm just singing for peers, or in church).  I know that the Mentor found me in the back of that church for a reason and I can't give up now. I feel like there's a huge bird beating its wings inside me and it has to fly.  And no, it's not a little sparrow or a little robin but a huge tropical bird with bright colored feathers that wants to take people's breath away when it soars.

I think the last straw was when I produced Carmen, which was something innovative and different, and hardly anyone came.  And that this annoyed the woman helping me produce it, to boot.

Yesterday I looked at the site for a nursing home/social service facility that brings in "performances".  Well, guess what? All the names of scheduled performers were groups I'd heard of, the sort that get reviewed in the TIMES. 

So I'm at a complete loss.  And I don't even have anything on my calendar.  Not one thing.  Well, once the Advent schedule comes out I can chase the choir director around trying to get a spot to sing something (I am going to order the piano vocal score for Verdi's Ave Maria with Strings to see if I can excerpt something; otherwise I found a Bach hymn called "Advent" that is arranged as a solo.)  And maybe the woman who produced the September 11 concert will have a Christmas concert in various outreach venues.  At least she's savvy enough to know that if she wants to get a group of people to do this (last time it was 5 or 6 women) she has to offer us each solo verses in the carols we're doing.

And I will think of something else...

Totally Amazing

All the breakthroughs I have made with my singing have held.  There has been steady progress in 2014 (I began to notice it with Carmen) and there has been no backsliding.

Well, all in all it has taken me 10 years!!! to learn how to

1. Lift my soft palate (this involved also dealing with my mucus and sinus problems)
2. Relax my jaw
3. Keep my larynx down to prevent the "gag" reflex that interfered with my high notes.

Using item 3, and starting with a woofy "h" (which actually effects item 3) I have been singing B flats and B naturals off the cuff without singing a lower note first and without having to force through a barricade of tension.  And I have been able to do this for several weeks now.  This is something I never ever was able to do before.

By singing the lowest notes very low, with a very low larynx, I can now sing arpeggios up to a high C and back almost every day.

And even though I have not jumped on the fitness bandwagon (there were plenty of powerhouse singers before this was all the rage, if people have forgotten) I have defied the odds and get much less tired and have much more stamina at 64 than I did when I started at 54.

I think I may have a handle on those two pages of the Amneris/Radames with the B flats.  (There is no fermata over those B flats; therefore I should sing the progression like an exercise, with no breath in the middle.)

Yesterday I brought the score of Aida to my lesson thinking I was going to work on the Aida/Amneris duet first (which I really might be singing somewhere) and then take a crack at the duet with Radames.  But it turned out that my teacher just got a gig singing Enrico in Anna Bolena on very short notice, so he said "Let's look at the duet between Enrico and Giovanna."  (One of the great things about having him as a teacher is that he is still singing, so sometimes he does things like that.)

Giovanna Seymour is a role that I squeaked and sqwawked my way through  sang 35 years ago.  I have no idea why I was cast in that role as I did not have a usable high B natural.  I had auditioned to sing Smeaton (a trouser role in a lower range, with two nice arias) but that role had gone to a woman who was bigger and taller, with a darker voice.  My teacher (with whom I was studying with back then) said I was probably cast as Giovanna because I was slim and had red hair.  In any event, I did do a good job with the duet with Enrico, so I thought, well, why not give it a go.

To my amazement I sailed through it (it was there somewhere in my phonographic memory bank) despite the high tessitura.  My teacher, who certainly is not usually impressed or amazed, said he was speechless.  He said he had never heard me sing like that.  He also said that the production he was in was double cast and that one of the Giovannas did not sing the B naturals in the last aria but sang G sharps instead, which fit in the chords being played as sounded just fine.  So he told me to buy a copy of the score.

Part of me walked out of that lesson like I was floating on air.  But why ten years?? Why did it take so long?? I'm bloody 64!!! My teacher said among the reasons all this took so long is that muscles and cartilage in older people are not flexible and take longer to train.  Other reasons cited were that I only take two lessons a month, have a lot of stress as a caregiver, and had been singing incorrectly a lot of the time to try to "blend" in the choir (I seem to do less of this now and can sing a real supported pianissimo, at least up to a G.)

So now that I have half of what I've been yearning for all these years, what do I do about the other half (breaking into the huge crowd of mega-talented people who have a stranglehold on the all the opportunities)?

Another Audition

I had an audition yesterday, the first in two years.  I don't want to say too much about it, because I have no idea who might read this blog, but here are a few things that I feel I can make public.

First, I had stopped going to auditions because none of the opera groups here that don't pay people are interested in avocational singers (unless we've been doing it for decades and started out in music schools) no matter how well we sing.  And the last time I actually got cast in something, a role consisting of about four chunks of music, the conductor was so abusive for unknown reasons (no one had any idea what I was doing that he didn't like) while mollycoddling a woman less than half my age to whom he had assigned the larger role for which I had auditioned (by "mollycoddling" I mean he put up with her coming in not only unprepared to sing her part, but unprepared to speak the words in rhythm and clueless about how to pronounce French).

I went to this particular audition because it was for a Handel opera and Handel is something I sing well.  The fact that I have a church rep background not a 19th Century opera background (I am speaking of the things that I sing regularly in public) means that I probably know as much if not more about Handel style than a lot of singers.

I sang Bradamante's aria "Vorrei Vendicarmi".  For me that sort of thing is not difficult.  What is difficult for me is anything with big climactic high notes although I am getting much better with those.  In fact the woman I auditioned for complimented me on my middle voice and my top A (which I had interpolated into one of the runs).  She said my Italian pronunciation needed work.  No one had ever told me that before, on the other hand this woman speaks Italian fluently and lived in Italy.  So this is something I need to work on.

The bad news is I think I will be squeezed out by professionals or emerging professionals who have or will have or might have a gig to sing this role (or one like it) in a real professional performance.  Even if I sang that aria as well as they did (which I might not have, which is another story).

This has made me sad and frustrated.  If I need to work on vocal technique, or Italian pronunciation to be competitive, I can do those things.  But I can't rewind the tape and be somewhere else in my life trajectory.  I am not young (although I still look hot - men in their 30s and 40s are always hitting on me) and have no "future" in singing other than what I can make for myself (this does not mean that I will not keep singing better, just that other people's interest will not be there), so I will be pushed farther and farther into the background.

It makes me sad that there is nothing for us - people who discovered our passion for singing later in life and want to perform.  I am not asking to be paid.  I am only asking to be given a chance based on my own merits, not my resume or what people think my "future" might be.  The professionals snatch up everything and use these no pay groups, even the pay-to-sings, as places to test drive roles.  So they basically encroach on every sphere, no matter how humble. I was told, in fact, that people might come from as far afield as Chicago to read through one of these operas for a fee.

Well, the woman I sang for was very nice.  She might find something for me.  I said I was not interested in singing a comprimaria role (unless it was for money).  I would rather sing two arias or art songs in a studio recital and get my share of the applause and the attention.

So now I have to ward off postpartum depression again.

It's so bittersweet.  I keep singing better but the older I get the less "marketable" I am.  Not because of my looks (if nothing else I have a better figure than a lot of 35 year olds) but because of how my "future" is perceived.

So OK, as for what I think about my future:

1. I bought two aria books: one of Handel opera arias and the other of Vivaldi opera arias (I have fallen in love with the little snippets of Vivaldi's Orlando Furioso that I have heard).
2. I am going to order the piano/vocal score of Verdi's "Ave Maria with Strings," which was written for a mezzo.  I will see if something can be excerpted for Magnificat Sunday.
3. I will keep working on Amneris, including the dreaded scene with the two high B flats.
4. I will plan something and come up with a better marketing plan than whatever the one was that I used for Carmen.  

How My Imagination Atrophied

In a recent post about sexism, which also included quite a bit about generational differences, I spoke of how some of my self-dislike and low spirits around my dull work life, life as a caregiver (despite passionately loving my "care recipient"), and financial and temporal limitations, stemmed from "the conversation" or "the buzz" as you will around the topics of self-actualization through work, postponing coupling (and childbearing, which for me was not relevant), and an extended period of self-exploration.  And more importantly, about how doing those things is a passport to a good life, whereas not doing them, is a passport to poverty and a lesser one.

And now we have this op ed piece, which rehashes some of the same ground.

What I found most compelling, particularly in view of my goal to "jumpstart" my imagination, is the recent belief that postponing "settling" (one of the hallmarks of adulthood) allows the imagination to blossom more fully, and (although this was not mentioned) also allows one to "settle up" (with a more interesting and more lucrative career and a more appropriate spouse) when one does settle.  The article states that the jury is still out on which comes first: the "settled, hardened brain" or the routinized life, but they do seem to be related.

I (and many others of my generation) postponed adulthood, certainly middle-class adulthood, for a period of time, and some never found it, but this was a very different trajectory from that of today's millennials.  First, we got away from our parents at as young an age as possible and never went back.  We did not take money from our parents for living expenses, certainly if we were living in a way that they would not have approved of.  (If there was money, parents paid for college and graduate school - the latter mostly for sons - but nothing beyond.)  We did not become part of the "establishment".  Aborted our education.  Some died of drug overdoses or ended up in jail for misguided "politically motivated" crimes or for God know what that we did when on drugs.  Some managed a complete turnabout and became Yuppies.  The rest (I would include myself here) settled for the lesser life that one ends up in with a tenth rate education, often too little too late, and the need to opt for short-term financial security.

Once I got sober, the first thing I did was find a mate (someone I was madly in love with, with whom I could have sex regularly - let's get real here), then a job.  With nothing but a high school diploma and no work history I was lucky that I was able to get a "career ladder" secretarial job in publishing.  I was making a pittance but had good benefits and a ladder up in an industry that I was familiar with because I had grown up around it.  But that, and my early "marriage" did not do much in the way of allowing my imagination to blossom through novelty seeking.  True, I believed that I was sort of living on the edge of danger being out when sexual orientation was not a protected class with regard to employment discrimination, and when being in big groups of gay people demonstrating (or even going in and out of buildings known to be gay-centered) might have led to an ugly skirmish, but actually my life was pretty dull and predictable.  In the "textbook" time frame my relationship deteriorated from endless lovemaking and fighting (although some of that lasted for 20 years and the fighting continues to this day when I am mainly a caregiver) to discussions about grocery shopping and laundry, and certainly very little that I did at work was interesting at all.  I mostly liked the job because it was easy and I could take an hour and a half for lunch three times a week to go to an AA meeting and talk on the phone with my AA fellows most of the day while I shoved documents into file folders.  And I met interesting people.

I had  hoped that when I stopped working in an office and got out of the routine I could find "something different" but I see that I have settled into another routine that is just as dull, and I don't even sleep that much later!!

It always seems to be a struggle, not just to find venues for singing at my age with so little experience, but just to diversify my life in any way at all!!  I have always felt that my brain and my psyche fight these attempts at diversification much as my soul hungers for it, and at least this article explains why,

This also explains one of my sources of fascination with The Mentor.  I envied how he was free of the two things that made my life feel like a prison: monogamy (which wasn't even that any more, when your partner is physically failing) and an office job.  I can't comfortably address the first issue in a public blog, but although I am now free of the second, and do enjoy being able to mix and match my daytime schedule (do outside errands and make appointments during the day and work at my laptop at night), I seem to have ended up in the type of work that is largely dull and rote.

So how do I get my imagination jumpstarted?? Certainly remembering everything I learned from The Artist's Way has helped.

I would also like to see some articles about how some of the choices people like me made (and I am certainly not unique) can be leveraged as assets, going into the home stretch.  I'm really kind of sick of all the coverage given to young people.

A Lovely Night, Some Pictures, and an Attempt to Build a Bulwark against Post-Performance Depression

The concert last night was a lovely occasion.  For the most part, I think I sang well, certainly the aria from Handel's Joshua.  That is the type of thing I sing really well: fast moving in an upper middle register with no sustained high notes.  I am going to try to see if I can sing it as a summer anthem next year.

The place was full, so even though only one of the people I personally invited actually came, I was not disappointed by the turnout.  The purpose of this concert is to provide solace on that day for people living in the building.  I wish more of them had come to Carmen, but that's water under the bridge.

One of the women in the audience even asked me if I had sung at the Met!!! That's the type of audience I need to find more of.  People who love classical music but don't know all that much about it.  My friends, unfortunately, are only going to come to these things to hear me and be supportive.  If they want to hear music, they know, in this huge city full of free events, where to find it.  I think next time I do something big I have to find a new marketing strategy, and the market is not going to be the people who come to the chamber music series at the church, it has to be a different segment.

One great thing that happened is I made friends with a lovely soprano (actually, she had sung Micaela's aria at one of the living room events where I sang the duet from Carmen with my tenor, and she had actually been my first choice for Micaela) and we are going to work on the Aida/Amneris duet together.  I am dying to sing that again.  I know I sing it very well; the last time I sang it in public I didn't because I was in a room where the air conditioner had not been cleaned properly.

Technically I continue to make huge breakthroughs.  (I hesitate to write about technique here because I can say one thing works and there will always be someone telling me to do the opposite.)  I finally (think I) know what to do to open my mouth and sing a high B flat off the cuff.  It really is about lowering my larynx as my teacher always said, but I can't do that (apparently) by yawning or anything else that's "gentle".  I have to push it down by making a (silent) "woofy" "h" sound and then sing the note.  Most of my problems with high singing (I finally figured out) are the result of my having an involuntary "gag" reflex that kicks in.  My teacher said a lot of people who start singing when they're older have that problem because the muscles that make a big pharyngeal space are not flexible in older people.  These are not muscles that people use who are not singing, unlike abdominal muscles, which some people who are not singers do use.

In any event, I need to find something asap to ward off post-performance depression.  It hit me particularly hard after Carmen because I thought the concert producer was angry that I didn't bring in more people (and I was deeply disappointed by this - see previous paragraphs).  Also that month was the month of "Little Miss Conservatory's" senior recital and that was what everyone in the choir was buzzing about and I was aware that people who wouldn't have been caught dead at any concert I threw together went to see and hear that.

So next up is to look at the Bach piece we are singing for Reformation Sunday and see if it is part of a larger work with an alto solo.  And pick something for Advent.

To finish on an upbeat note, here are some pictures.  The one in the church is of me singing "Erfreute Zeit" and the other is of me and the lovely soprano, before last night's concert.

On Sexism

I rarely make these sorts of posts here (I think the last one was on same sex marriage) but I have been having thoughts on this subject for a long time, so....

It was fairly recently that I realized that the industry I worked in all my life (and that my mother worked in before me) - the janitorial, clerical, and scheduling aspects of publishing - was a predominately female one. (It is also one that is gradually disappearing, thanks to technology, which is another subject.)

A number of years ago I went to a book group at the Unitarian church that was discussing Cranford. The group was mostly, but not only, women, and was even more predominately made up of people over 50.

The woman leading the group spoke about the poverty of "genteel" older women (she was referring to women a generation older than I - I was born in 1950), many of whom lived in rent regulated apartments on Manhattan's Upper East Side, and many of whom, barely surviving on their Social Security, ate at the church soup kitchen. According to the group leader, most of these women had had jobs in publishing, jobs that paid very little, at organizations that did not provide pensions (now most of them have 401ks, but they didn't then).  What she also said, which resonated with me, was that these jobs were never meant to provide a comfortable salary; they were jobs for "bookish" women as a stopgap between college and marriage, or for wives to work at for "a little bit extra".  So for most of these women the years went by, no husband appeared, and they fell into poverty.

My own situation is not that bad.  First of all, because of my interest in and aptitude for dealing with complex interpersonal situations, I was promoted into management, which pays slightly better.  And the last two companies I worked for provided 401ks, one with a hefty employer contribution.

But what was an eye opener for me was realizing the extent to which my lack of interesting and engaging work stemmed from the attitudes toward women and girls when I was growing up, that were just in the air.

My mother prided herself, above all, on "being an intellectual."  Likewise, her expectation for me was that I would be brainy, well-read, well-educated, and well-informed.  It wasn't until decades later that I saw the importance of the word "be".  Women were about "being", men were about  "doing".  I have noted more and more that one of the highest compliments one can pay a person is to say "she is very very good at what she does."  I don't recall hearing this comment until fairly recently.  People might have said "she is a good doctor" or "an exciting painter" or "a very special kind of teacher", but that was because medicine, teaching, and making art are important things.  Most things that people "do", particularly for a living, are not all that important.  They are a means to a salary, which is used to subsidize what really matters: family, friends, and enjoyable leisure.

I think the ingrained idea of women as doers began with the generation born from 1970 on.  I mean there were plenty of doers in my generation, but it was not the norm, even for intelligent, well-educated women (and in those days "well-educated" meant a liberal arts BA from a good college, nothing more), so it was no source of self-deprecation not to be one.

As I enter the last third of my life, I often feel heartache that I have not done and don't do anything that is interesting (either to do or to talk about), certainly not in New York where superachievers are as numerous as cockroaches.

The other day, I realized that I did what women were supposed to do when I was a young adult.  I chose "being in love".  Today the media are full of articles about the "planned" marriage.  I hear young (and by "young" I mean those people born after 1970) talk about self-actualization in a partnership, parenting, money, sex, but never about "being in love".  It sounds almost quaint, like a mild mental illness that didn't used to be thought of as one, but now is.

When I was 25 I fell in love with someone (who happened to be female) whom I saw as exciting, bold, and slightly dangerous, and who was, of course, much older.  A charming ne'er do well who knew her way around Lesbian Bohemia (and various corners of the visual arts world) and had no time for such bourgeois things as keeping a job or maintaining order in the home.  And she was in love with me.  I was a pretty girl who liked pretty things; not something easy to find in the 1970s Lesbian community.  Eventually I sort of grew up: I worked my way up the ladder in publishing (never a chosen career), learned how to clean and decorate an apartment, how to cook, and how to plan our leisure time the way I planned a publication's production schedule.  In many ways we had a wonderful life.  We traveled, had lots of friends and lots of pets.

Things are hard now.  The city is full of Gen Xers (now both men and women) with high powered careers and mates chosen the way you would buy a house or a car, and that is who you see.  That is who owns the conversation about what it means to be a person.  That is who writes the OpEd pieces.

So I chose love.  Now, love means holding the hand of someone 80 while she struggles to walk.  Buying groceries. Doing laundry. Arranging social services.

I'm an old fashioned girl.  I don't have a proud answer to the question of the millennium: What do you dooooo? But I have someone who tells me she loves me (even - still - that she is in love with me) every single day.

Erfreute Zeit!

Yesterday morning I sang one of my all-time favorite church solos: the Bach alto cantata "Erfreute Zeit" (loosely translated as "A Happy Time").

I love singing this piece for a variety of reasons.  First, it has a virtuoso violin accompaniment and is, in fact, more of a duet for voice and violin than a solo.  I sang it in the summer of 2011, sans violinist, because that was the summer that my beloved violinist friend began his rapid decline (he was 88) and was no longer able to see the music (or remember it from one day to the next).  Second, it is an object lesson in the fact that you don't have to have a high voice to sing something flashy (something that triggers a gut level "wow"! reaction from listeners).  (Here is a link to the version by Angelika Kirchschlager.)http://youtu.be/Dpj5N9lTnHM  Finally, I love the piece because it is happy.

I had a really happy day yesterday.  It is the kind of day I wish I could have more of.  Singing, in a situation where I don't feel I'm competing with anyone, and in which, in that moment, I can excel on my own merits.  Getting acknowledgment (I got compliments, Facebook posts, and even applause, which is almost unheard of for a church anthem.)  And then, when my inner diva is satisfied, enjoying other people for their gifts and their friendship, and letting the day wind down by doing something cozy with my SO, or even at home in my bed with my little Siamese cat (yesterday I did both).

I find these moments of happiness very hard to come by (the glorious ones, not the quiet ones; the latter for me are much easier to find).  So should I be damned for this?

After the suicide of Robin Williams there has been a lot of talk about depression.  People, at least in the circles in which I move, understand depression the way they understand cancer or diabetes.  Unfortunately, according to both my therapist and on online screening test, I am not depressed, so people write me off as having a bad attitude.  I don't think that is true either.  I think (this was a term my therapist used) I am suffering from "affluenza", in other words, as I wrote here I am in a "toxic environment".

So I need a way to find more "Erfreute Zeit" moments.

On September 11 I will be singing Handel's "O Had I Jubal's Lyre".  That can be one of them.  And then there will probably be a Christmas concert.

Healthy Denial. Is this an Oxymoron?

As one of my goals is not just to keep singing better, find opportunities, and stimulate my right brain, but also to be in a better mood, I have cut certain things out of my life.

In addition to the Facebook "friends" with whom there was a mutual unfriending as a result of ill will, I also unfriended several working performing artists who basically ignored me.  Why do I need to read about what they are doing?  Added to this, I "unsubscribed" to the email lists of two of the small opera companies I had had dealings with: the one who gave me feedback that included telling me I was "not a future investment" and the one that cast me in a tiny role and then ripped me to pieces.  Apparently when you unsubscribe to something they ask you why, so I gave them an earful, the point basically being that I didn't need constant reminders of things that had been hurtful.

Where "denial" comes into the picture, is that more and more, I am trying to shut out the whole world of small opera companies here in  New York.  They do not want me.  This was very very painful for me.  I never thought I was good enough to have a "career" singing, starting at this late date, but I really really did think I could be good enough to sing leading roles with the groups that don't pay people.  I had sung with these sorts of groups 30 years ago when I did not sound nearly as good as I do now, and these groups at that time featured many people my age who looked and sounded about like I do now.  I am not going to audition for any more of these groups, and quite frankly, I can't see anything to be gained by going to see them perform, other than the pay to sing group that my teacher occasionally still helps out with, as there are some very very good avocational singers there (who sound as good as professionals) who are only a little younger than I am, and whom I am not too proud to listen to and learn from (I am not interested in trying to learn something from singers under 35 - what would be the point??)

So I made a decision, for example, not to go to this year's reprise of this.

They are going to be performing practically on my doorstep again next Wednesday at noon.  I can't really see that going to see them would enhance my life or improve my singing or performing techniques in any way.  My time would be better spent staying in and working and then devoting a two hour chunk later in the day to practicing my church solo and my September 11 pieces.

So is all this denial, and if it is, are there times when denial is healthy?

I was telling my partner the other day that going to museums and looking at visual art is so important to me because it is something that I can enjoy on an aesthetic and spiritual level, whereas music and performances are what I work at so there are always mixed emotions involved when I am in the audience.  In fact I have almost entirely stopped going to the opera, even though it is on my doorstep.  I mean I would go if someone offered me a free ticket, or if a friend wanted to go and we bought cheap seats to go together, but that's about it.  My partner and I, no matter how broke we are, always get a subscription to the ballet because it is something she loves.  And if I can scrape together the money, we sometimes see a Broadway show, which we can do for a discounted rate because she is unable to climb stairs, so we get orchestra seats at the balcony price (which btw isn't always all that cheap!)

So the question is, can my denial make a big enough ring around me that I can believe that where classical singing is concerned, I'm the real deal?

A Toxic Environment

Yesterday I almost lost it.  By "lost it" I mean got into such a rage that I crossed some kind of line between mental health and mental unwellness.

I hesitate to use the term "mental illness" because these are serious illnesses.  Severe depression kills, as was evidenced by what happened to Robin Williams.  Severe depression cripples.  Mental "unwellness" is another thing, a state that I can get into frequently if I have enough external triggers (I am never one of these people who says "everything is going so well, but I'm miserable").  If I'm miserable, it's because I'm having my nose rubbed, on a daily basis, in other people's talent, exciting careers, large families, interesting travels, new opportunities, you name it.

Yesterday I was in a situation that was a metaphor for everything that makes me angry and despairing.  No, I don't feel suicidal.  I am more apt to want to kick out a window than slit my wrists, quite frankly.  So yesterday I was bringing my SO home from a doctor's appointment in Soho.  I forgot just how awful Soho is.  I have written at length about how living on the Upper West Side, I feel about the size of a gnat, and about as relevant.  But Soho is where everyone seems to be glamorous and, oh so young!  So, waiting for a cab with my SO on the corner of Houston St. and Broadway, I was virtually trapped under what I will call a tsunami of young, glamorous, people ignoring me and my SO, some of them trying to hail cabs.  A seemingly nice young man started to help us find one (with no luck) but abandoned the task once his eye was caught by an extremely glamorous and trendy looking heavily made up (yes, I usually am that, too) woman in her 30s, probably, who didn't speak much English (was she Italian? maybe).  So he began chatting her up, was rebuffed, and scarpered off.  And then, when this (expletive deleted) started hailing a cab, I just bloody lost it!!  I tried to gesture to her that I was trying to get a cab for someone elderly (I pointed to my SO's cane), but who knows if this woman even understood my words.  On the other hand, she could see, right???

I truly think I was saved from committing a murder (I wanted to throw her into the traffic) by my SO grabbing me and our skittering across the street to an island, where, Heaven be praised, a taxi appeared.

I did not feel good about myself after this.  My SO was angry with me.  Later I realized that this was not about getting a cab (although I have been known to almost get into fistfights with young healthy people who try to take cabs away from me and my SO from under our noses) it was about my endless frustration at feeling at the bottom of a tsunami of talented young people who suck up all the opportunities, the attention, the concert attendees, the water cooler conversation at the church, and the list goes on.

Last night I had a dream I was in prison.  Not a hardcore prison and I don't think I was expecting to be there long because I was trying to figure out how to get hold of someone who could pay my rent.  At the crux of the dream was my anxiety that I hadn't been given intake forms to fill out, which was supposed to happen.  I know that that was a stand in for my desperately wanting people to know who I am; that I am a performer too, that my life revolves around what I am singing and where I am singing, and sometimes about my photographs and my writing.  That I am not ordinary.  

Overall, I have been in a better mood than usual.  My therapist always comes back to that a lot of my bad feelings stem from living here in New York, where the best of everything is in my face 24/7.  Well, that's just the way it is.  My maternal grandparents moved here in 1919, and I'm a third generation apartment dwelling non driver.  I have a cheap apartment.  At my last session my therapist used a phrase I had never used either aloud or too myself.  She said "well, so let's start from that you are in a toxic environment and then take it from there".

I never used to feel that way and I have lived here all my life.  The city (so it seems) used to be full of ordinary people who lived in cramped apartments and went to ordinary jobs, who weren't especially stylish, and who, although they may have loved to go to performances, did not and had no plans to work in the performing arts.  So where are those people now?

For the most part, things have been going well.  I have two definite solos for the September 11 concert: Handel's "O Had I Jubal's Lyre" and "Domine Deus" from the Vivaldi Gloria.  The concert producer is happy with them.  There will be seven singers on the program, four classical singers and three musical theater singers.  I am able to hold my own quite nicely in that setting.  And on Sunday August 31 I will sing "Erfreute Zeit" as a solo in the church service.

And I keep singing better and better.  Those exercises with the "h" have really done something to open up my voice.  I am singing regularly up to a high C again.  I had a nice time singing with the informal summer choir.  "Little Miss Conservatory" is not there.  She is away performing in a real opera with real singers who are going places.  I don't have to think about that.  So I wonder how things will be when she is back?  Will there be "room" for me as a serious performer?  Another issue is that I think one unwritten mission that this church has is to be a "home" for "young people" who have come to New York to work (for pay or not) in the performing arts.  So OK.  What about the older people who want to perform, who want to be taken seriously?  This is a continuing source of discontent for me.  Finding visibility.  Finding visibility in a toxic environment.  Without ending up in prison for real.

Requiem: Further Musings on a Loss

The loss of this coach has hit me very hard, much more than I expected.  I didn't cry over the news, the way I did the day I heard that my 91-year-old violinist colleague had died, but that was a different situation.  I truly loved him and saw him dwindle day by day.  I regretted that I hadn't visited him one last time.  But it was not a shock.

I suppose much of this is about "why is she gone and why am I still here"?  She had a musical career that I can only dream of (it wasn't a big career, but she was always in demand playing for operas and concerts, usually ones in which the singers are not paid but the pianist is) and she had amassed quite a few regulars coming to the studio for coachings, myself among them. So she got to do what she loved on a regular basis and had the respect of her colleagues.

And then there is the mother/daughter thing.  That's a touchy subject with me.  One thing I have to remember is that however bad my relationship with my mother was, most of my friends and acquaintances' relationships with their mothers was as bad or worse.  I think it's a generational thing.  Mothers born at a certain time, even ones who fancied themselves as "enlightened" (meaning in my mother's case that she used the "F" word all the time and talked about sex in a clinical manner in a loud voice in public places) were still quite authoritarian (as in "my way or the highway") and didn't know how to respect their adult children as separate people.  The women I know who are under 45 have an entirely different kind of relationship with their mothers.  They can be different from their mothers and that's ok.  Their mothers are interested in them instead of trying to control them.

I know this is childish and pointless, but I really do think if I had had a different kind of mother (and a different kind of school environment, and different peers - or maybe none; my coach's daughter who is a rising young mezzo was home schooled) I might have done something with my musical talent.  I know character is important, and I probably lacked it until I was well into my 30s, certainly, but most people's successes or lack of it involves a synergy between the person's character and temperament and their environment.

My coach and her daughter adored each other.  As I said, this young woman was hand groomed to be a singer from childhood, but I never got the feeling that she was pushed in a way that she would resent later.  One sign of this was that she was independent enough to go abroad after graduating from Juilliard (which doesn't seem to offer as much to singers, as, say, Manhattan School of Music does, as a case in point, the woman in my choir whom I call "Little Miss Conservatory" has nailed a high profile mentor at MSM whereas my coach's daughter never did at Juilliard).

So again, the question is, why is she gone so soon and why am I still here?

Don't worry.  I am not feeling suicidal.  I couldn't imaging killing myself.  Things are not that bad; there are many things I enjoy in the moment: singing well, reading, going to museums, my favorite tv programs, cuddling with my SO and my cats, to name a few.  It's just that things are not that great either.  In addition to having a perfect life, I always was in awe of my coach's sense of wonder at how things turned out.  She was always not just happy or positive, but "elated", a mood I am almost never in, or if I am, briefly, all the much of toomuchness of twenty-first century New York, particularly here in the lee of Lincoln Center, comes crashing in on me.

In a strange kind of synchronicity, the night I heard the news about my coach's death, Verdi's Messa da Requiem broadcast on Channel 13.  I listened to the beginning, then my SO asked me to turn to something else.  I got to hear "Liber Scriptus", but not "Lux Aeterna".  I think we changed the channel at the point that we had had an intermission in my concert; after the big ensemble ending in "Amen".

I was underwhelmed by the men, for the most part, but of course my eyes and ears were on Michelle de Young who was the mezzo soloist. She sang well (not as impressively as some of the mezzos I have on recordings) and looked stunning. Her very long (bleached no doubt) blonde hair hung in tight curls, her makeup was more for the balcony than for a closeup, and she had on a black lace dress.  As I have said before, I covet all that as much as I covet being able to sing a work like that in a large venue with an orchestra and chorus behind me (no, I would not be interested in being a chorister in a large venue unless I was paid; I turned down an offer to do that several years ago).  It's funny, my partner said she looked "trashy", which I suppose is understandable.  She is obviously over 40, and her hair was obviously bleached and not a length recommended for "professional women".

On a more positive note, go me for being able to hear (and remember) most of the mezzo line when they were all singing together.  I am not a natural harmonizer and certainly had to drill, drill, drill, my part so as not to get distracted by the top.  Which is one reason I am grateful to have been singing with that church choir for all these years.  If I hadn't done that, I wouldn't have had the musicianship to sing the mezzo line in the Requiem.  

What I wish now, is that I could find some "takeaway lesson" from this loss.  I am not sure what it is.  Interestingly, at  my last lesson (which went superbly; the big breakthrough I made has held, especially in new art songs and church pieces; too bad I am not 20 years younger with all the big girl rep ahead of me to sing well, instead of behind me with memories of singing it badly) my teacher said that what I did over the past ten years has been important: taking care of my mother (even thought I did not like her) at the end of her life, and now taking care of my partner.  In the eyes of God, doesn't that mean more than having (had) a singing career?