The Ugly Dachshund Redux

I spent the first six or seven years in my choir feeling like The Ugly Dachshund. (For those who don't know, The Ugly Dachshund was first a book, then a movie - the book is better - about a Great Dane who thinks he is a Dachshund and therefore thinks he's ugly.)

Everything I sang was too loud; I was constantly nudged to want to sing alto (no! as I've written about on numerous occasions, singing in that limited range, which is mostly around my passaggio break, is at best unsatisfying and at worst useless as a vocal workout). I do sing alto in some of the masterworks (particularly Bach) where there are only two women's parts and the ranges of both are somewhat higher.  Although there's still that hated "gap".  By which I mean that choral soprano and alto parts are usually one fifth apart.  As a mezzo, my voice is a third lower than a normal soprano's. Fortunately, somewhere along the line, the choir director started picking pieces with multiple women's parts so I found a home as a second soprano.  It was perfect.  I pretty much never had to sing a high A, but could sing lots of Es, Fs, and the occasional G, which is what I need to be doing to maintain vocal health.  If I am not getting paid, singing in this choir needs to be a worthwhile and rewarding experience.

Even though as a child I imitated Julie Andrews (my first vocal solo was "Wouldn't It Be Loverly" in a school assembly when I was 6) once I grew up I never had that "float-y", shimmery, head-y sound that characterizes the soprano voice at its loveliest and most ethereal.  When you think about it, neither does Julie Andrews.  I heard a few clips of her singing coloratura arias as a teenager and her voice sounds a lot like Roberta Peters's: bell-like and wiry, but not ethereal, like, say, the voice of Natalie Dessay And then of course I started smoking.  And like most New Yorkers, I speak entirely in my chest register. So it took years of study after I was "discovered" at 54 not just to extend my range upwards, but to liberate all that head voice.  At lessons and at home I do a lot of singing on oo before I do anything else. The most scathing critiques I got about my singing during the early period (when I was going to auditions, between the ages of 56 and 60, let's say) was that I had very little head register and my voice sounded "locked".  I also needed to clear out my sinuses which I did, finally, with the Neti pot.  By 2014 or 2015 the way I sang had changed entirely.  A fringe benefit was that not only was my operatic singing easier, I could also sing a choir soprano part in pure head voice, keeping the dynamic down sometimes as low as pp, without "getting off the voice".

During my "ugly Dachshund" period, I shed a lot of tears over comments from the choir director.  I don't think he ever said anything nice about my singing unless I sang an alto solo.  He didn't want me to sing "Rejoice Greatly".  He thought I should transpose "I Know that My Redeemer Liveth" down.  When I said no, he made me make a cut. I felt a lot of despair.  I mean it's one thing to know I'm not singing well and quite another to feel that my voice is simply not to someone's taste so they will never like what I do, even when I do it well.

I am not going to re-hash here all the brouhaha about the singer I refer to as "Little Miss".  That is ancient history and I think the whole thing was a learning experience; namely, that if you're leading a group, it's probably not a good idea to make a "fuss" over one person in public.

After that things went on fairly smoothly for a while.

So I was startled last night by the following.  We had been singing a piece with multiple parts.  Both of the soprano parts were fairly high (the first soprano part went up to a B with an optional C and the second soprano part went up to a G).  The new dramatic soprano (whose voice is at least as big as mine if not bigger) was not there.  There were two very light sopranos singing.  After the rehearsal he went up to one of them (privately) and told her how wonderful she sounded.  Since I overheard them, I kind of gave him a quizzical look and all he said to me was "I know that part is very high".  I told him it was in a very comfortable range for me - I mean my part, the second soprano part, obviously. So he said "it just is meant to be light and sort of child-like".  After that we had a nice talk, but it still stung.  Feeling that one person was getting a compliment and I was getting (once again) some veiled criticism.  I mean I doubt the new dramatic soprano can sound "childlike".  Would he say something like that to her? I doubt it. He always goes up to her and thanks her for singing as if by singing she's doing him a favor. Which I guess she is.  She has a lot of other vocal fish to fry.

I am actually surprised by how despondent I feel.  Possibly, the pain of that disaster on December 30 is still with me although I know it was most likely caused by my having had an asthma attack, leading to a situation where my being short of breath for physical reasons (and also for feeling like all my vocal apparatus was inflamed) led to my panicking and ending up short of breath for psychological reasons.

I think partly the issue here is that the choir director is impressed by sopranos with float-y voices (even the new dramatic soprano sort of has one; her voice is big, but it's not "gritty" the way mine is).  He also likes very young people.  (The woman he complimented yesterday is in her 20s).  It seems that the younger someone is the more likely he is to give them a compliment.  If the person is female.  He also likes low basses.

I don't want to feel sad.  I was so happy thinking about my new plan to focus on nursing home concerts in an active way, not in a reactive way because I see it as the best I can do.  I now have two serious "nibbles" about full-length concerts that I am going to follow up.  Wednesday I had a lesson and we talked about concert repertoire.  I ordered Yeston's December Songs.  I am madly in love with them and can hardly wait to sing them.

Sitting here now I am crying, and want to kick myself.

ETA: It is now Sunday afternoon.  The anthem went well.  The dramatic soprano was not there.  I nailed all the Gs sweetly enough not to elicit a raised eyebrow.  As a point of gossip, "choir girl" (have no idea how I thought up that name for her) didn't sit with the choir because she brought a "guest" to the service.  She has done that before, but the last time at least the guest was her Mom from out of town.  Surprised that that didn't elicit a raised eyebrow.

Maturity and Serenity

Last week at our first choir rehearsal of the year, with no notice, we were told that we were going to be singing the Randall Thompson "Alleluia" for the first Sunday we were back.  So ok.  I have sung that before.  The last time I (around 6 years ago) I could see how my technique had improved since the first time we sang it (10 years ago - at the choir director's wedding), and now it has improved even more.  The progression with the pianissimo High A is not difficult, and as for the "stringendo" section (with two high As) I can handle that if I "tacet" for a few bars right before the progression going up to the A.  This is, of course, something that singers customarily do in Bel Canto aria endings, so I am not apologizing for it. 

Of course having that piece of music "sprung" on me was annoying.  I needed to map it out and sing it into my voice at least once.

I also felt very guilty not singing the alto part because there seem to be fewer and fewer altos these days.  It makes sense because most alto parts are pretty thankless to sing even if you are a mezzo. Actually the Alleluia is one of the exceptions.  It sits in the middle of the staff, mostly, with a few low notes here and there.  But again, the soprano part is not high overall.  It has a very wide range, that's all, certainly no wider than the average bel canto aria I would be singing.  The only problem is there is a section that goes on with no break, which would be unlikely to happen in an aria.

Yesterday when I got to rehearsal the choir director asked me if I was sure I wanted to sing the soprano part and I said yes.  If he had told me to sing the alto part (which I don't know) I would of course have done it.  He just said he didn't want me to feel uncomfortable trying to blend, and I said I didn't.  I said my voice had gotten higher, certainly in the past few years.  Actually what has happened is that I have extended my range by two notes on the top and the bottom but my "sweet spot" has probably moved up at least two whole notes.  I asked the choir director didn't he notice that my voice had gotten higher and he said well, he did notice I had more control on notes like E, F, and G, which of course is true. Then I showed him the spot I had marked as "tacet".  I also asked him if the dramatic soprano who has recently joined the church would be singing and he said no.  I told him any time she is singing of course I will sing alto because it would make no sense to have two big voices on the same part.  The altos all have small voices although three of them have voices that are very "pretty".  And (this was both sweet and workmanlike) the choir director had marked his copy of the stringendo section with the note "strenuous for the sopranos; don't overrehearse!" which I told him I loved.

The reason for this post, though, is that I can now see how much more confidence I have, not just vocally, but conversationally.  I no longer feel defensive.  Part of that is that a number of the "sour notes" are no longer in the mix.  There was the other mezzo who sang soprano who was very grumpy and disagreeable and was always trying to boss me around (she has since given up singing for another career and actually complimented me on Good Friday on my solo). There was the minister's wife (they have since retired and moved) with a small high voice who was always complaining to me and the choir director that I was singing too loud.  And of course Little Miss is gone.  If you are a new reader, Little Miss was a 20something conservatory student (she has since graduated and is an adjunct professor at a small college) who sang flawlessly, even at 20, and got endless praise and endless solo bits embedded in choir pieces, not to mention endless flogging of her various recitals by the choir director.  It was because of all that that I had a meltdown about 5 years ago, which was not my finest hour; on the other hand after that the choir director really changed his behavior and there has been no one since who has elicited that kind of  oohing and ahing either from him or anyone else.  The new dramatic soprano is quite modest as is the one other trained lyric soprano who occasionally joins us.

So we will see what Sunday will bring.  I have a vocal strategy, so I won't be felled by nerves.  I will go home early Saturday, not talk much (not hard to do; when I am with my partner I grocery shop and we watch tv), go to bed early (I seem to be asleep before 11 these days no matter what), wake up and eat a good breakfast, bring a protein bar (if my energy flags after the morning rehearsal) and keep pretty much stumm during the service until it's time for the anthem.  The piece builds, so the piece itself can be my warmup.