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.
I think part of the problem may be the fact that he is a choir director and does not want any kind of sound that stands out, whether or not the sound is beautiful in and of itself.And dramatic sopranos are noted for voices that stand way out! And the warmup is designed not so much to warm up individual voices as it is to get into the blending process that he wants from the choir. I dropped out of my choir this fall after my teacher and I talked about how much I improved in the summer (no choir), and how slowly I improved over the winter (choir). After a semester of no choir, the improvement is unreal. I am so happy to have made that very difficult decision to drop choir. This is a serious problem that college voice students face, though their youth makes it a bit easier to shift back and forth. Though there are different kinds of choral sounds, all choir directors have in their own heads their ideal sound.
ReplyDeleteI remember your telling me this. As I wrote here, being a part of this choir is an important part of my life, and as long as I am not doing any vocal harm to myself I see no reason not to continue. I would agree with you that he is interested in a group sound and does not want voices to stand out except that any time a high soprano shows up with a trained voice he goes ape-diddly. And if I have a solo voice, why can't I have as many little solo snippets in the choir pieces as she gets? There are sections marked "solo" for lower women's voices, but he always has everyone sing them. If the choir were really all about a blended sound and nothing else I would not be bothered; it's that there's this double standard. I do get to sing stand alone solos if I want them. If I didn't I would probably not sing with the choir any more. As for the group warmups, we do do some group warmups where he has different parts sing different notes in a chord, which makes sense. But if you want to take higher voices up the scale in a vocally friendly way, you don't have people sing words up there. I am feeling in a better mood actually because I just had a voice lesson and my teacher concurred that, yes, I do have a rock solid high A and A flat and no, dramatic mezzos do not sing words up in that range. That is just a fact.
ReplyDeleteIf you are not singing with the choir, are you singing solos at the church or somewhere else? It would be a shame if you were not getting to sing at all.
Not singing solos yet, but I'm getting there. Last January my teacher and I discussed this and she didn't feel I was yet ready, and based on what has happened this year, I understand that but I think discussion this coming January might result in a different conclusion. In any case, I am very happy with what is going on.
ReplyDeleteAre the sopranos your choir director likes lyric sopranos? If they are, they fit much more easily into the kind of music he seems to be after, which would included soprano soloists who sound closer to what the choir sounds like. Maybe he will retire or find another job. My teacher had your problem for years with her church choir director. He retired and she is in 7th heaven with the new director.
I am glad you are happy with your progress. This makes sense about the lyric soprano soloist having a voice that fits more into his idea of what the choir should sound like. What bothers me is the *fuss* he makes over her. When I started there I was one of 3 or 4 trained singers and each of us sang stand alone solos occasionally. Then a young woman came who had been a recent graduate of a conservatory. He gave her some showy solos in spirituals. After the fourth one I set out on my quest to find the showiest alto piece I could find, not even with any alto/mezzo "high notes", i.e. Fs or Gs and came up with "Erfreute Zeit". I was rewarded by a few people using the word "awesome" to describe it. But the choir director did not make a "fuss" over this young woman and in fact would look annoyed if she got too "pushy" about wanting to sing solos (e.g. "O Holy Night" on Christmas Eve, to which he told her "no".) Eventually she left to get a paying church job. The latest young woman is still a student at the conservatory. She is there because her boyfriend has a paying job at the church playing the violin in all the services, otherwise I am sure she would not bother with a church gig that does not pay. Anyhow, anytime she does anything the choir director goes what I euphemistically called "ape diddly", as in asking people to give her a round of applause for her little solo in one of the choir pieces. (He did not do that with the other soprano.) And then everyone else goes "ape diddly" because they think because she can sing notes that no one else can that this means she is in a class by herself. There are all sorts of things I can do that no one else can do (not just sing loud), like sing endless measures of Bach without breathing or hold a note in my lower middle register for 30 counts without breathing or turning a hair, but no one acknowledges how much training and artistry that requires. Or they think "anyone" could sing something like "O Rest in the Lord" because it has hardly more than a one octave range. As for the choir director leaving, he is scaling back because he is primarily a concert pianist, not a choir director and wants more time for other things. He has a new boss, who is in charge of all the Sunday schedules (this was his choice; he was not pushed out). The current choir director is only in charge now of our choir (the church has 4 others). If I want to sing a solo, going forward, I am going to email the boss, which seems simpler, and suggest singing on one of the days our choir is not singing. Also, the "boss" is someone who is a trained choral conductor ,which means he understands more about different voice types and also understands that if you have a group you don't keep singling out one person like that. It doesn't bother the other people so much (particularly the untrained singers) because - I just figured this out - the young soprano is the same age as their kids. I don't have kids, and I am just beginning to feel my oats, and would like my share of the kudos, thank you very much.
ReplyDelete