#vocalperformancemajor

[tenestelapromessa]

Quarantine Practice, Day 2

I stuck with the same practice routine that I wrote out yesterday, but fleshed out a few more exercises I felt comfortable doing. I think The things that are lacking right now from my quarantine regimen, aside from high notes and actual singing, are things like staccati, vocal trills, and messa di voce in an effective range. Some of the exercises that I’m doing I can only do in a teeny tiny range...but again, it’s better than nothing. Since yesterday I found I was pretty comfortable lip trilling through rep even with high notes today I trilled through even more pieces, those pieces being “What Good Would the Moon Be?,” “Canto abruzzese,” “Serenade,” “Marechiare,” and Abigail’s aria. Not bad for not even being able to sing.

While I’m here I may as well write a little bit about how working with L has been these last four years. My voice really has filled out. Her style is very simple, there are no really wacky exercises or tricks she employs. She’s just really good at bringing out young, small voices. I’d say my voice is very warm, more “mature” sounding, and resonant than it was when I left off 4 years ago here. If you’re reading from back in the old days, you probably know that if I was crying myself to sleep for any reason, it was my vibrato. I’m happy to say that it’s fairly consistent now, minus in my super high notes. I think whatever residual issues there are with vibrato are psychological at this point. This might sound dramatic, but something about my own mind and my environment made my straight tone voice really traumatizing for me. I always felt like it was that one thing that separated me from being taken seriously as a singer, and it’s hard to let all of that baggage go sometimes. But L got me to a really good place.

That being said, for the past year I’ve been really feeling that it’s time to move on from her. I feel kinda bad that I didn’t spend these last 4 years writing about the good good times with her and the progress I’ve made, because she really is a wonderful lady and teacher, but you know...it’s just that time. But I still have another year here. Realistically, I only do a few of the exercises she’s given me. One of the great things she imparted on me was how to be my own teacher, and that’s pretty much what I’ve been doing. The more recent lessons I’ve had have been somewhat frustrating because 1) I feel that now what she wants to change in my voice are subjective things or things that really can’t be changed so it seems I can’t give her what she wants, and 2) I’ve been going through my own mental health issues and don’t always come in doing my best. Those revelatory lessons are just not happening anymore. And I say this with no bitterness: I feel like a chronicled my time with S here pretty consistently and she’s also an amazing woman and teacher to whom I owe a lot, but I reached that point with her, too. I just NEED some new breakthroughs and there’s that part of my mind that wonders if they would come with another teacher. But I must be patient and try to maximize the time I have left, especially considering I may have to devote a lot of my time to studying something else for grad school.

Anyway, there’s a little bit of an update, even if this journal is really for me to get my own feelings out.

[tenestelapromessa]

Ok, this is how things shook down today and how I’m planning to move ahead for now with practice.

“New World Order” is not a conspiracy theory, it’s just a name I casually gave to my system of organizing my vocal warmup/exercise routines and it’s stuck ever since. I learned over time that I’m someone who needs a regimen to stick to otherwise I get immensely distracted and/or discouraged. It’s just the collection of exercises that I know are working for me at the moment or that I need to stick to, and this list is flexible. Every few weeks or months this list morphs into a new list, which I write down again, then put them all in a binder for reference if I want to look back and see if there are old gems I’ve forgotten. Obviously it’s in my own weird language.

Actually, I was really surprised at how comfortable I felt lip trilling through pieces so I’m going to keep doing that. Even “Ach ich liebte,” minus the coloratura of course. My other aria baby is Abigail’s “aria” from The Crucible. I’m hoping to do it for the school competition in the fall. It’s wild and different and I adore it, but I’m gonna have to save writing about the experience singing her in scenes in another post because I have *feelings.*

[tenestelapromessa]

Future thoughts.

Let me just tell you, I’ve forgotten how to tumblr. I forget what all these buttons mean, I don’t know what’s happening on my dash, but I’m going to embrace this opportunity to verbalize thoughts that have been going on, in random order. Except I’m mostly going to start with my most recent thoughts.

A year ago I was working on Queen of the Night, my first full role ever and a dream come true (literally: if somehow you’ve been reading this tumblr since I started here you know I never really thought I’d get to that point). Funny, Queen doesn’t feel like a full role since it’s a short short short one, but dang, what an experience. I felt like it was a sign that, at least at the college level, I was going to keep rising up and up. Then fall came and I was given some hard lessons to re-learn, but I’ll write about those later.

Anyway, fast forward to now. Since a few months ago it’s dawned on me that a singing career is not something I can count on. I think we’re all aware that classical singing is a very hard career to make work consistently (hopefully we’re all aware, since anyone who’s telling you otherwise is irresponsible). I’ve come a long way and believe in the power of determination and practice more than ever....but I see how that traditional path into classical singing works. Get your undergrad at 21, do pay-to-sing summer programs, get a Masters in your early-mid 20s, do competitions and young artist programs, and hopefully have your foundation under you by the time you hit your 30s. I’m 28 going on 29, y’all, and am still working on my undergrad and my technique. It shouldn’t be this way - IT SHOULDN’T BE THIS WAY - but I’m an old woman when it comes to breaking into opera. 

I never wanted to be super famous and singing leads at the Met, but I don’t want to be struggling either. Things have happened over the years. I’m nearing 30 and still can’t pay for my life. The people I know who can keep pushing for the opera dream are a) traditionally young students, b) receiving financial support from their families, c) precociously talented, d) all or some combination of a, b, and c.

I’M NOT QUITTING MUSIC. But I AM probably going to pursue a Master’s in another field. A year ago I never would have considered it, but as I said, I learned a few lessons this year. I’m probably still going to throw a couple music applications out there, but there’s a REALITY I have to deal with. I see what happens to so many of the people I know who graduate - they made a big splash in college, but once they’re done they work in restaurants or other and lose touch with music. In a year they start sharing photos and videos from their college performances, talking about how they’re gonna someday start pursuing the dream again, but the years go by and it doesn’t happen. This is not a critique of those people, life is hard. But I just don’t want that.

Luckily, I took on a double major: I’m majoring in Vocal Performance and American Studies. AS is an interdisciplinary field so I can use it to pivot into another specialty, which right now is looking like being an ESL teacher. Language learning is something I’ve always been interested in and I really just want a job that’s not entry level that gives me some time and money to do music my way.

Again, I’m not quitting singing. I always hope to take lessons and pursue opportunities. I’m just tired of being broke and know that whatever my path into performance is, it’s not the traditional one.

I’m one year away from graduating if all goes well. I would have had my junior recital at the end of this semester were it not for school shutting down for coronavirus. I’m not going to complain about that because we have to do what’s necessary, but it’s giving me time to think as well.

I’ll cap this post here and come back for more musings.