#1: Why? (A super-technician's origin story.)
#1: Why? (A super-technician's origin story.)
All the other kids were doing it. At least all the ones in choir. For some reason during my senior year of high school everyone in choir decided to enter the solo and ensemble competitions singing solos that year. Even the bad singers. They were slopping through the same twenty-four Italian songs that everyone does in high school, and though I wanted to do one too, I didn’t dare. As a pianist I had gone in "Class B" my freshman year with a little Bach two-part invention and had my ego quite bruised when I received only the second best rating: a two. Now it wasn’t like I had sucked utterly and gotten a four or five. But still, this was my main talent, and I assumed that by going in the easier “Class B” I would easily nail it. Not so, apparently. And although I continued playing piano I never again entered any competition as a pianist (even to this day). So going as a singer was an even wackier notion especially since everyone knew me as “just a pianist.” Yet something in me thought, “Do this. Dooooo this!”
As fate would have it, on the list of songs eligible for the competition was “Simple Song” from the Bernstein MASS. Ordinarily a high schooler would never have an inkling this song even existed, but I happened to work at the public library and had randomly noticed it one day. I liked West Side Story so I ”borrowed” it. For several months. Maybe even a year. I loved it and listened to it like it would save my life. It had the additional perk of being in english. (Whew!)
The very big un-perk, however, was that it was “Class A.” Those were the most difficult songs, most of which weren’t even being touched by my classmates. But in a fit that felt more like my mouth moving than actually deciding something, I told the choir teacher I wanted to sing that song. She was shocked. Possibly because of the level of difficulty, or the fact that I was thought of as pianist more than singer. Maybe it was how shocked I myself seemed as I asked. But whatever she thought, she said yes. Great. But now I had to really do it.
Around that same time, I was playing in the pit orchestra for a neighboring high school’s Anything Goes, and I really trusted the choir teacher there more than my own. So I asked her to help me with the song. Her name was Patti. We had only one coaching but it taught me a lot. Patti got me to focus on what I was saying rather than how I was singing it. And for the most part it worked. But then there was the last note of the song. The lyrics were over, the message was complete, and yet I had to hold this low C. An innocuous note. Nothing to show off with. No tricks to hide behind. Just a plain, ironically simple c. No big deal, really. Except that as I practiced it, I was bothered by the feeling that I should be doing something with that note. Getting louder or quieter maybe? Something. Secretly I thought I knew what it lacked: vibrato. That thing that so few will discuss. That thing which seems so magical and elusive. That thing which gets brushed off with glib promises that it will come later or that it will occur naturally. But it wasn’t occurring. Naturally or otherwise. And it became increasingly clear as the weeks rolled by that it certainly wasn’t going to show-up in time for this performance.
I asked Patti, “Shouldn’t I add vibrato there? I think I should but I just can’t figure out how to do it. Can you tell me how?” And she without hesitation said, “Just focus on what you feel.” It was decent advice, but I didn’t know at the time what she was really doing. She was at once dodging a question that she knew could not be fixed instantly, and giving me the best advice ever: Just sing what you mean. Sing what you feel. And for god’s sake, keep meaning it and feeling it. I was dissatisfied since I still wanted so much to know how to make the vibrato that I had heard on the record, but with no other option than to take her advice, I took her advice.
The day before the competition, the choir director back at my school had all the soloists sing their songs in front of the class. Sort of a mock-up of the competition itself. I was neither emotionally nor intellectually prepared for this. To sing in front of anonymous college teachers judging you is one thing. To sing in front of people you actually know is entirely worse. One by one, the other people went and did fine. People endured it. We all clapped. It was sort of routine after a bit. One Italian song that meant nothing and sounded okay followed by ten more. Then it was my turn.
I didn’t know what I should do with my hands, or where I should look. All I had was that one coaching, and all I took away from it was that one idea from Patti. So I thought, “I’ll ignore everything else while I sing and just focus on what I mean and how I feel about it.”
The song was mostly a blur that I can’t recall at all, but one very important moment occurred near the end. On the bridge, when the music swells and the harmonies get intense, I remember singing “and the sun shall not smite me by day…” and then I saw out of the corner of my eye, Cindy, the girl who was eternally my rival in all things musical. She was first chair flute. She was drum major. Sure, I was the choir’s pianist, but she was the other musician vying for star pupilhood. And on the next lyric “Nor the moon by night!” I saw her eyes well up, and she began to cry. She was crying! What was happening that Cindy was crying while I sang? Was it the song? Was it my voice? Was it the sound? Somehow I realized it was me. I was doing something and it was making her cry. Even without vibrato, even without knowing for sure what I was supposed to do with my hands or where to look, I was moving her. With that feedback I too was moved which fueled the performance even more. I have never forgotten that moment and that feeling of bewilderment that something I had only recently even thought to try could be something I was good enough at to make my rival enjoy it.
The next day I went and sang my “Class A” song and received a one. The judges had bought it too. Wow. Just wow.
So while I now understood that I had some kind of power when I sang, I still had no idea what I was doing, and figuring that out became my obsession. I wanted to know the answers to those questions that no one seemed to be able to answer. Patti had given me the building blocks of acting. And I understood how important that was, how significant that component will always be. That part is coaching. But what about the rest of it? What is vibrato? How does it happen? What makes me crack on high notes past a certain point? Should you involve the nose or not? How do you breathe? Why do some people get hoarse? Why do some people not sing on pitch? That is why I needed a voice technician. And in the absence of one, I had to become exactly that.
Sure, I had to work very hard to figure it all out. I had to forge a lot of paths that are quite uncommon. And boy, has there been a lot of science to learn, doctors to grill, therapists to harass, and teachers to dissect, but now I can honestly say that I have collected the answers I sought. And in the interest of sparing you the twenty year detour to figure it out, I am broadcasting these answers I have spent a lifetime digging up. More importantly, I would like to share the info with you in a format that will best serve you and those that will come after you: as direct answers to your direct questions. That's where you come in.
Email your questions (either as text, or better yet, as a short video) to me at [email protected], and I will post my replies here. Tell me who you are, and what you want to know, and if you can, give me an example. I will then give you text and video answers that promise to settle these age-old questions. There ARE answers, and I have them, and you are welcome to them. So let’s get going with your questions!!! Nothing is off-limits here. Rock, opera, cartoon voices. Vocal damage, recovery, rehab, diagnosis. Get as specific as you can. Anything you want to know, ask me. My students often report that in the middle of a vocal crisis they will ask themselves, “What would Aaron say?” And now you can ask me too.
-Aaron Hagan, voice technician extraordinaire