What's Up Next (Thumbs Up and Thumbs Down)

As both my Carmen concert and Holy Week are now approaching, there is a lot to take stock of.

For Thumbs Up, Carmen is really progressing.  Other than the B at the end of the "Seguidilla" (which is "passable" if not lovely or easy) and making sure I keep my strength up and my jaw relaxed during "Chanson Boheme" (and if we get a Micaela she can sing the bridges between the verses, which will make that a nonissue), there is nothing that is difficult to sing, and I can have a ball.  Also for Thumbs Up, the woman producing the concert is really excited about it, as is evidenced by the fact that she is already heavily into the planning stage.  The tenor is difficult to pin down.  He says he is on for the concert as far as he knows, but did not yet get back to me about whether he is available on April 6 to sing one of the duets with me at another "musicale" (she told me not to refer to it as a "concert" LOL) in her living room or whether he can go to me to any of the Meetups to rehearse.  Another Thumbs Up is that my partner did not give me any flak about returning to these Meetups.  I don't know if I mentioned it, but she had a little mini-tantrum over my telling her how much the woman producing this "meant to me".  I was referring only to her as a mentor, after a lifetime without such, not comparing my feelings about her to my feelings about my partner.  YIKES!

As for Thumbs Down, I have written quite a lot about my frustration with the fact that the only solos interspersed into choir pieces seem to be for high sopranos or men.  In fact, I was telling someone that I think the reason such a "fuss" is made over that young soprano is that she has sung (quite a lot of) solos that are interspersed into choir pieces, so she gets to be a star in situ whereas any solos I sing are a separate item that I rehearse before the regular choir practice when people are not necessarily listening and which I sing mostly during communion.  True, many people come up and say nice things (which I am sure they mean) but it doesn't have quite the same feel to it.  I finally got up my nerve and posted a question about this in a closed Facebook group for church musicians, mainly asking whether or not the issue is that composers don't write interspersed solos for midrange and lower women's voices or whether it is something else.  Quite ironically, when I went to choir practice last night, we were given music for Ash Wednesday, one of which was a piece with a little solo in a middle range labeled "soprano solo or unison" and we were told that all the sopranos were going to be singing that together.  So what am I supposed to make of this?  I know the Lutheran tradition is that the communal voice (meaning hymn singing) is more important than the choir, and that the choir is more important than soloists, which I have no objection to.  My only objection is that exceptions continue to be made where very high voices are concerned.  And of course there's the fact that the high soprano(s) can do something that other choir members can't do and that this is obvious to everyone.  Any untrained singer who can carry a tune could (theoretically) sing all the notes in "O Rest in the Lord" so the fact that I can sing that, albeit in a way that sounds "lovely" (I have been told) doesn't quite have the same "wow" factor.

Anyhow, I suppose on the side of Thumbs Up is that we have also been given, for Ash Wednesday, a very complex piece by Benjamin Britten in eight parts.  That means I can learn my part cold (I don't sightread, so I did a mediocre job last night with it, but several days' "plunking" and singing it against the recording will imprint it in my auditory memory forever) and be the anchor for a very small group of people.  Ash Wednesday has its positive and negative aspects, as a service to sing in.  On the plus side, you have to be there early on a work night so there are fewer people.  On the minus side, the other church that shares our building brings in paid singers but this is usually one high soprano and one alto, and I am holding down second soprano.

So now I am waiting for the Lent singing schedule.  I will see what has been selected for Good Friday and see if there's a mezzo solo connected with any of the pieces that I can "lobby" to sing, otherwise maybe I can sing "Qui Sedes" on Maundy Thursday.

And I won't be available on April 6 because of the living room "musicale".  Whether anyone will miss me is - well, it shouldn't really matter.  I am starting to accumulate a lot of other fish for a nice big fry-up.
 

Writing Assignment: The Most Important Thing that Happened to Me This Year

To my regular readers: I posted this in response to a "prompt" from the woman who taught the writing class I took this summer.  Much of the "history" here is familiar to you.  It isn't to her, so I needed to include it here.  And I suppose there are always new insights.  So of course I would love you all to read this.

The most important thing that happened to me this past year was finding a mentor.

When I look at people who have achieved excellence (and perhaps renown) in their chosen field, what they all have in common, is that they had a mentor.  It might be a parent (David Brooks once said that it took three generations to make a career), teacher, coach, or even a spouse or lover in a the same or a related field. I never had a mentor for my singing.  My mother wanted me to be a writer, in high school I was steered toward academics, not music (interestingly, students from disadvantaged backgrounds with good voices were more likely to be encouraged to sing than I was), and after I graduated from high school, let’s just euphemistically say I “fell off the map” for a looong time.

I began studying voice seriously (I had had a few informal lessons before that) in my late 20s, and was singing quite well, but at that time I was immersed in Lesbian-separatist political activities where I was discouraged from “giving my energy to a patriarchal art form,” particularly one where I would have lots of interaction with straight men.  So at 30 I stopped singing and enrolled in college to get a degree in – what else? – Women’s studies.

I say that after that I never thought about singing again until well into the millennium, but that is not really true.  If people were gathering around a piano at a party to sing, I would join in (and blow people away) and at least once a week I had a dream (I’m referring to the nocturnal kind) about singing.  And when we played “getting to know you” games at the office, I loved being able to answer the question “What is something nobody knows about you that would surprise them?” with “I used to be an opera singer” which I can say was true, even if I never got paid a penny for it.

Fast forward to 2003, the year of my “discovery” sitting in the back pew of my local Unitarian church, singing from a hymnal.  My partner and I started going to that church because we liked the idea of going to church but didn’t believe in most of the supernatural events that are the bedrock of most religions.  Certainly I didn’t go there to sing.  But one day, a very charismatic figure who looked like a cross between Rudolph Valentino and old drawings of Mephistopheles, whispered in my ear seductively “You’re a professional singer, aren’t you?” and things were off and running.  He led me a merry chase, which I wrote about at length here, but the end result was that I have been singing for ten years now.  He and I had a very ugly falling out (and then made peace five years to the day after that fateful Samson et Dalila duet, when I was singing the "Habanera" at a Valentine's Day concert at the Unitarian church), and I left the Unitarian church both because of that and because they decided to stop using classical music in the services, but I got right back on my feet and now have some solid (or they would be solid if I didn’t live in the most talent-packed ZIP code in the country) accomplishments under my belt.

Looking back, I realize that I would not have been so susceptible to a lot of his silliness (voice lessons, at which I learned a lot, were laced with racy comments – to me flattering, I suppose; I was 54 – and silly New Age blather) if I hadn’t been so starved for a mentor.

And I did not find another one until this year.  I have a good voice teacher, a musically knowledgeable choir director, and several coaches, but no one who was really interested in me.  I mean, really, when you come to think of it, who wants to mentor someone over 60?  Everything is about young, young, young, young talent.

But this year someone materialized.  I had sung with her before, but this year it has been different.  She says I have the perfect voice for Spanish songs.  Which to her includes Carmen.  She is going to help me produce a concert of excerpts from Carmen with someone reading from the novella by Prosper Merimee.  She gave me a big thumbs up for the Youtube video I made, singing the Habanera in the Strand Bookstore (available on request, just send me an email).  She suggested a book of Spanish songs for me to buy, as well as a book about Spanish culture.  And if the weather had been better, she had planned to come to the Lutheran church where I’m singing now to hear me sing a Spanish song about the birth of Jesus at a service conducted entirely in Spanish!

I have had so many disappointments since my 2003 “discovery”.  There are about 10 “community opera groups” (aka they don’t pay people) here and none of them wanted me.  They are filled with professional sounding singers (some even have managers) with conservatory degrees and impressive CVs.  Even a choir that doesn’t pay is now filled with the “stars of tomorrow” from the big conservatories.  I was starting to give up hope.

Now I can believe again.  That someone sees a special spark in me, no matter that I’m over 60, have no music degree, and nothing on my resume except church solos and a few homemade concerts (produced by me or someone else).

And if nothing else, I can still hope that someone turns my blog into a movie.  If it happened to “Julie”, cooking from Julia Child’s book, in obscurity, it can happen to anyone.

In Praise of Praise

This blog post is prompted by several things.  The fact that, working alone at home, and now, compounded by the dangerous snow and ice conditions outside, I get so little feedback.  The fact that I recently read an article citing a study that showed that happy workers are workers who get regular feedback (which presupposes that at least half of it, or more, will be positive; the rest being instructive).  The fact that when I look at little micro-situations that have made me feel blue and put out, they mostly involve other people getting praise when I got none.

Now praise is very different from a grade or an award.  Praise can be given to each according to her personal accomplishments.

I am not one of those people who think "everyone is a winner".  If a role is being cast, it will only go to one or two people.  Likewise a prize.  Perhaps there will be first, second, third, and honorable mention, but no more.  Think of Olympic medals: gold, silver, and bronze.

But praise is different.  Praise can go to the person who improved the most since the last round of auditions.  Or to the person who sang that particular aria better than she had ever sung it.  Or - and this is the import of this piece - to someone who exceeded expectations of what was possible given the person's age and starting point.

My partner, who occasionally says something really supportive and profound, said she couldn't understand what made me so sad about having this 21 year old conservatory student in the choir.  She said, how can you compare yourself to her?  You're 63!  You can't "do your life over" (which of course made me want to cry).  But it was then that I realize that what I was so envious of was not that this young woman got a solo on Good Friday (which is again approaching; I must fortify myself with lots of planning for my Carmen concert, which will be two weeks after Easter, or - who knows? I may be pleasantly surprised).  It was the fuss that people made over her, all the way from the choir applauding her in rehearsal to the choir director asking people to give her a hand for a solo that she sang that was interpolated into a choir piece.  People have come up to me when I've sung something and said it was "lovely", which is no small thing, as I know.  People don't have to say anything.  But no one has actually said to me "you know it is quite amazing what you have accomplished over these past ten years, considering your age and all the obstacles that entails."  My partner said that to me.  She who almost never compliments me on anything except my cooking and my looks.  She said I should be proud of everything I have accomplished and how hard I have worked.  I laughed and said that I wished I had her in my pocket!  That then I might feel more confident and less despairing.

Actually, I did once get a compliment of that sort, from an unexpected quarter, from a voice teacher, one who is at least as well respected as some of the ones I have had "issues" with over the Internet.  She said I was an "inspiration", sounding like I do at my age not to mention that no one in a million years would guess how old I am.

I just long for some praise, some strokes.  Not instead of constructive criticism.  There have been articles lately about how too much "self esteem" is not good for kids; that if they're told everything is "wonderful" they will never improve or develop any self discipline, which is probably true.  It's important to be told (often) that the wonderful things are wonderful, and also to be told which things need improving and how to improve them.

Lastly, there is a quote that's been circulating, that I would have shared on my Facebook page, but it ends in an obscenity which is so not my style; also it is really not the correct word for my situation.  It reads, more or less:

Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, surrounded by [jerks].

If I substituted "superachievers" for "jerks", I would have it, in a nutshell.

I wish all the superachievers could just clear off, so I could really see myself.

The Internal Call and the External Call

I have not been feeling great lately, mostly because of the weather.  Being A. more housebound than usual and B. noticeably more frightened by the idea of walking on snow and ice than younger people are (or than I was 20 years ago - yes, the last rapid succession of snowstorms was in 1993) has not been good for my mental health.

So this afternoon I took a break from work to listen to a tv interview with the (drop dead gorgeous) pastor at the church where I sing.

A lot of the thrust of the discussion had to do with the role of women in the church, the lack of female role models at the time she was ordained, how she dealt with her "call" in the absence of these, and what that call consisted of.  I am not going to post a link to the interview here, mostly because it is almost a half hour long, but one thing she mentioned about her "call" was that in the Lutheran tradition it is considered important for there to be both an internal and an external "call".  That means that not only was it important that she felt called to the ministry, but that other people should perceive her as being suitable for it.

So therein lies the heart of some of my deep sadness about missed opportunities as a singer.  The lack of an external call.  Oh, there were external calls, mostly when I was much younger, but they were few and far between and never loud enough to compete with my generation's exhortation to "turn on, tune in, and drop out", to smoke to stay thin, and to "be" an intellectual, engaged with the issues of the day, not with something as self-absorbed as the pursuit of excellence in classical music.  (Don't get me wrong.  As I've said many times, my mother and her circle adored classical music, but it was meant as something to listen to after a day's work in a classroom or at the typewriter, not as a personal pursuit.)

And the external call mostly petered out by the time I turned 21.  Even though I began studying singing seriously the first time at 26, that was too late for me to matter.  And my whole heart wasn't in it. True, I was no longer smoking, but I was still starving myself to fit into a size 30 jeans and spending long evenings at Lesbian discos.

I am now coming up on the tenth anniversary of my "discovery" by the Mentor.  I think why that was such a cataclysmal event in my life was that it was the first external call to singing that I'd had in a very, very, long time and it was neither elicited nor sought.  I had begun going to that Unitarian church to go to church, not to sing.  If we want to be picky, it is now beyond the date of my "discovery", which probably happened in the summer of 2003, but it was the sumptuous "Mon Coeur" that changed everything.  Which may explain why I am so (inexplicably) sympathetic to Miss Kansas. Maybe singing "Nessun Dorma" badly lit a fire under her that singing "Caro Mio Ben" in a studio with a vocal pedagogue never would. Maybe she will start again and do that now that the fire has been lit.  Would I have continued to be obsessed with singing for a decade if I had been asked to sing "Amazing Grace" instead of being coaxed and seduced with an image of my own lusciousness in a seethrough lace top singing one of the sexiest arias ever written?  Possibly not.

It is the external call that I still crave.  That is why I am happy with the woman who is helping me produce Carmen and sing Spanish songs.  More than half the people who show up at her meetups have never even had a formal voice lesson, so in that milieu I feel special.

I am also facing a choir dilemma.  Last Sunday we sang a piece in 8 parts and, for the first time ever, there were four other second sopranos, including one "ringer" (not a trained singer, but an instrumentalist who can sing pleasantly in tune and can sightread).  Why on earth was she needed in my section.  When I told her I was surprised she wasn't singing alto (where more people are needed) I am not sure she understood but she mentioned two women by name in the first soprano section, saying that their voices are "so strong".  Hello??? I can sing loud enough to drown both of them out any day of the week.  Now I will say with all humility that my voice is in no way as lovely certainly as the 21 year old conservatory student's.  But strong???  I know this sounds idiotic, but I was really hurt.

I just am not all that excited about singing there any more.  If I am not noticed, even as someone with a big, obviously trained, voice who can hold a part with confidence, why am I even doing this?  On the other hand, I don't want to skip rehearsal because of the weather.  That just makes me look old and dilettantish.  I will be there whatever the weather, unless I get a "call" from somewhere else to do something else, which I hope is more often than used to be.  I think the woman who produced the last Sunday concert will be producing another - in March.  I hope I can sing there with my Don Jose.

And now I need to get onto finding a reader.

A Father and a Daughter, and Some Sadness

Several months ago, I wrote about my sadness over a father's pride in a daughter's blog post. Well, there was a deja vu this afternoon, when the father, once again, referenced one of his daughter's blog posts with pride.

This father, this daughter, their respective lifestyles, their "issues", and, not least, the father's (non)relationship with me, hit so many nerves.

First, the father is a professional musician.  He has been extremely helpful to me, giving me guidance about one or two things when I asked for advice, and his advice was sound.  If it hadn't been for that advice, I wouldn't be doing some of what I'm doing today.  On the other hand, based on our interactions on Facebook (we have never met) it is obvious that I am not part of the "inner circle".  There is a way that professional musicians talk with each other that is "clubby" and exclusive that does not include serious hobbyists and to this serious hobbyist, at least, this is quite obvious.

Second, he is genuinely proud of his daughter.  As an adult, a separate person.  My parents loved me, but only as a child.  When I began to have adult concerns (am I pretty?  why am I not popular?) I was just blown off.  My father died when I was in high school, at the height of our estrangement.  Would he have encouraged me to sing, I wonder?  (I know he would have beaten me bloody if he had ever seen me smoking.)  And my mother, who died fairly recently (I was 60) never was able to relate to me as a person, only as a piece of property, which as the years went by, so obviously did not meet with her expectations.  She wanted me to be "an intellectual", most particularly a writer, but only on her terms.  She could never remember what I actually did for a living (making it harder for me to learn to like it and have any self-respect in that area) and when I did have a small success with a piece of writing (a play that I suppose would qualify as "chick lit"), she kept the bound copy in her bedroom, while keeping the typescript of a friend's son's postmodern novella on her living room coffee table.

Then there is his daughter's lifestyle.  She is a housewife.  How fortunate!  I would love to have (or at least to have had) the experience of living off someone else's earnings, even briefly.  And obviously I don't mean family.  I mean someone who chose me because in some way I was romantically attractive to them.  I learned from this recent blog post that this young woman had problems with mental illness.  Well, so have a number of people I've known, and most of them have had to soldier on, bouncing from dead end job to dead end job, using the "reasonable accommodation" HR law to get them through if they needed time off.  Most of them could not maintain a long-term relationship, certainly not with someone willing to support them!

In all honesty I can't say that I have ever had a major mental illness (other than active alcoholism, in the very distant past) but I have had various degrees of mental un-wellness that have probably interfered with my fulfilling my potential.  I had a keen eye for jobs where I didn't have to work too hard and could take long lunches to go to AA meetings, spend hours with a phone tucked under my ear while I sized art, and, more recently, blow off steam in email and chat room exchanges.

There are people who like me and people who love me.  I know that.  I suppose sometimes I yearn to feel "showcased" the way that daughter was by that father.

And the bad weather doesn't help.  I know I will have Carmen rehearsals starting soon.  And I will have to fight with my partner, who got angry when I mentioned how fond I was of my new "sponsor" and how much that relationship means to me.  And I was pleasantly surprised at choir practice last week when the choir director asked me, in front of the group, how my concert went.

Concert Went Well - And a Whine about the Weather

I was going to wait to post about Sunday's concert until I got pictures (two people took really nice pictures of me with the producer) but I haven't gotten them yet.  I did take a "selfie" which sort of shows my outfit and also shows a wall hanging I bought in honor of the Mentor (about 5 years ago).  I have gotten better at selfies (remembering not to grimace the way I would if I were just trying to frame a photograph) but I still can't get them to show anything below my shoulders.

I thought I sang well; the only problem was that the silk rose somehow got stuck in my lace sleeve, and flipped backwards instead of out into the audience (also, there was no attractive man or woman I felt that I wanted to honor with the rose!).  Also, although using the chair as a prop was a great idea (I had no trouble sitting down, standing up, or standing with my foot on it), when it came to "toss it aside" gracefully, it was too heavy and I could barely move it.

Plans for the Carmen concert continue.  I now have an accompanist.  I have not gotten a confirmation email back from the tenor, so I will contact him again.  There will be two runthrough rehearsals with the accompanist (I don't know yet if we will have a Micaela and an Escamillo) and before then I will try to go to 4 or 5 meetups with the producer/sponsor.  She posted several for the end of January and the beginning of February, but I want to avoid going out unnecessarily until there is less snow on the ground.  I am figuring I can get to maybe one at the end of February, two in March, and two in April.  

I finally had a lesson yesterday after not having had one for five weeks, and not singing any exercises (or anything) above an A for a week.  I sang through "Chanson Boheme" like a house afire, and today during my practice I sailed comfortably up to a high C on a long arpeggio.  Not a squeak that got stuck in my throat but a real note.  Maybe at some point I will go back to the difficult repertoire (meaning Verdi) that I have taken a break from.  

As for the weather, I am frightened for my safety in this storm.  I had a doctor's appointment this morning, but am in for the rest of the day.  Tomorrow night is choir practice.  The choir director has said the rule is that if the subways are running, we are on.  If I want to stay competitive with all the new talented young people I can't be a sissy and stay home because of a snowstorm, unless an advisory is issued (it has been for tonight).  I mean I now have a whole "old lady" protocol all the way from using a cane, to taking buses not subways, to, now, since my last fall, asking the bus driver to let me exit using the wheelchair platform if the bus has steps (a lot of them don't).  But staying home is not an option, I wouldn't think.  Of course this is an endless source of friction with my SO who would love to keep me in a little box until it's time for me to come do chores for her.  What bothers me is I have lived with inclement weather for over 6 decades and this is the first year I have really been frightened by it.  As a child it was fun, as a teenager it signaled a welcome holiday from school, and as an adult going to work it was a nuisance (I remember waiting for a bus standing in a foot of snow and thinking my legs were going to freeze off, for example, as well as having to clamber over huge snow drifts to cross the street) but  not a hazard.

Well, now it's back to Carmen.  I need to get serious about memorizing the second half of it!

ETA: Here is a photo of me with the woman who produced the concert and will sponsor my Carmen.  Note the stunning view from her window!

Some

Particularly in view of my last post, I want to write here about the fabulous time I had last night working on the "Habanera"!  I have been singing this piece for 49 years yikes!! yet it is always fresh.

Last night I got the kind of holistic coaching that I had not gotten since working with The Mentor.  Some of the vocal things are not 100% in synch with what my teacher tells me, but as the piece is in a comfortable middle register, it doesn't matter.  The Spanish coach (she considers Carmen like Spanish music, and is very excited about working on it with me) told me to pronounce the French like spoken French, very forward and nasal, and to emphasize the consonants. She also wants it more self-contained and sneery.  There won't be room to walk among the guests, so she suggested using a chair (which will be by the piano) as a prop.  I am a little nervous because with my bad arthritis, standing up and sitting down gracefully is not easy, but this chair is high enough (unlike a church pew) that it should certainly be manageable.  She also gave me a silk rose, and there are all sorts of things I can do with that that will be quite titillating.

I was going to wear these shoes, which I had worn at the bookstore, but the buckle is broken and I won't have time to get it repaired by Sunday, so I will wear black ones.  I am a little nervous about walking in heels, but they are not high and the shoes have rubber soles.

And the date for the Carmen concert is confirmed!! I reminded the tenor, and asked him about finding a Micaela and an Escamillo.  I said that if these were people from the pay to sing group it would be "nice" if they chipped in to pay the accompanist for the performance and 2 or 3 rehearsals.  I hope that didn't put him off.  I know he has sung with that pay to sing group but I have no idea if he has paid anything.  He is a member of the Met chorus.  I would not ask him to pay anything, but when he mentioned finding the other singers he implied they would be "emerging" types.

I also sent an email to the accompanist the coach suggested.

Of course when I mentioned this to my partner, she made a snide remark about tenors (I had told her about the concert several months ago when I first had the idea) referring back to the Mentor.  But this morning she apologized.

My back is about 95% better, and I have not taken any Advil since Monday.  So I am going to try to schedule a lesson for next week and go back to my regular practice routine.