Un Avvenir Migliore

I'm a baby bird learning to sing. I'm not pretending to be an opera or musical theater singer...I just love to sing and perform and want to get better at it. Here I reflect on how I'm getting to where I'm going. Very long posts more often than not. This is a journal after all. Learn more about me here if you're interested. Opera documentaries playlist!

[tenestelapromessa]

Never never mind

Well, I’m pretty sure I got ghosted on all fronts now. 

It’s ok, but it’s illustrative to me again of an unreliability in music that I’m not sure I have the patience for anymore. I know rejection is inevitable and I should keep trying. Maybe I will, as an exercise in following through and facing fears. In a way, those two contacts I made last week are successes in that I never put myself out before like that, and I did it anyway.

But I’m actually beginning to wonder if grad school - in any field - is for me at all. The professor I wrote to brought that into question as well. My sister also cautioned me to not go to grad school to just bide my time. I’m thinking I don’t really know myself and what I want to do. Do I want to sing? Of course. But as a career? Not if it’s this unstable.

The path of not doing grad school tempts. It would be my choice. Not my mom or dad’s, who respectively have strong opinions on school and what steps I should take next. The steps they envision for me do not involve indecision. 

The truth is I have no plan. But I’m tired of feeling stuck. Maybe we just need to try making it on our own, and with time I can figure out if I have a dream career that grad school can help me get to.

Damn, I’m scared.

[tenestelapromessa]

Am I being ghosted?

Aforementioned teacher hasn’t sent a response about my video....I’m probably being paranoid considering she has her own damn life. But let’s say she has something negative to say - would it change anything for me? Would I quit, or stop taking chances on reaching out to teachers? I want to say no, but we’ll see. There has to be a place for me. I’m not asking to be a star, just to be excellent at this craft.

Oh, and I forgot to mention my other fear-facing effort - I reached out to a successful opera singer for online voice lessons. If you’re hip to opera singers on Instagram you can possible deduce who I’m talking about, but I was put in touch with her social media manager (who I happen to sort of know but not really, she doesn’t know she’s talking to me even though we’re facebook friends) who gave me a list of rates. She’s over double I’ve ever paid for a lesson, but again, this is a fear-facing exercise more than anything else. I’m so used to hiding myself and apologizing for myself, and I want to break that. Not obnoxiously or arrogantly, I just don’t want to treat myself like garbage.

Anyway, I decided to go for it and book the lessons, but I have not heard back since I sent that email out. It’s been a couple days. The manager did tell me she’s not going to do lessons for much longer, so maybe that’s why, but I suppose the silver lining is that I can save a couple hundred dollars if it doesn’t happen...and also that I tried instead of just hiding myself away.

Will update as things progress, oh vast readership of mine.

[tenestelapromessa]

Well...

...looks like I’m switching back to music for a Master’s. 

Just talking with my professor and my mom, it makes sense to follow something I really do like to do, even if it leads me to an unexpected place. But now I’m terrified because for the past 6 months I have not looked into music programs and now I really have to get moving. Jesus. I barely know where to start.

However...I did, on a whim, get in touch yesterday with a teacher at a school somewhere south that has taught sopranos (at least one very successful one) who have beautiful voices. I feel very awkward writing to professors I don’t know, but she actually responded this morning very nicely and flattered by my interest. She asked to know more about me so I told her what I’ve accomplished, and she then asked me for a recent video of my singing.

I don’t have recent videos. I didn’t download the performance of Queen of the Night from last year because I feel they recorded my worst performance, and the same goes for my Crucible scene from the fall. So I did something stupid, which was to slap together during my lunch break a messy recording with a midi file of “Je ne t’aime pas.”  I’m not proud of this next part but I need to be honest here (and no one is reading anyway), but I told her it was so trashy because it was recorded live for a workshop during quarantine. I feel like I had to email her something immediately, and at least this is representative of where my voice stands (though I’m sure it would have been better with my voice properly warmed up). I literally sent her the first full take I was able to get before scurrying back to work.

Anyway, I’m waiting for a reply, which will probably be tomorrow morning. I’m so fucking nervous I can’t take it. I have this deep insecurity about my age, as though no one will want to give me a chance or that I’ll always have to explain myself. She’s being very nice but who knows what she’ll say and why I’m so desperate to know now. The other part of me is saying fuck it, face your fears. Because I am afraid. She’s a respected teacher.

I mean, one school out there could take me, right?

[tenestelapromessa]

Okay, maybe?

I broke my anxiety self-imposed isolation (why do I do this to myself, why does depressed-me do this?) to make a post on facebook about grad school applications a couple days ago. My music history professor who I’ve always got on well with offered her guidance through email, and when I told her I wasn’t applying to music programs she wrote me this back: 

“I am no great font of wisdom on all of this, but here’s what I do know:

You’re extremely bright and insightful, and the word “potential” must strike fear in your heart because you have so darned much of it intellectually.   I actually haven’t heard you sing in a long time, but word “on the street” is that you’re a really fine singer.   My sense is that if you set your mind to do something, and you don’t lose focus, you can do most anything.

So the big question I have for you is, what do you REALLY want to do with your life?    What are your priorities?   Do you have any obligations (family?)?  Parameters?   Ground rules?

In a perfect world, would singing be what you want to do?   Are your “realistic conclusions” the only thing holding you back?

What are you hoping to do with an Italian Studies Degree?

It’s SUCH a cliché, but close your eyes, and try and see yourself in five years… and in 10 years.    Then we can figure out how to get there.”

And now I’m at a pause again. I do think there’s something to being realistic at my age, but just like my self-imposed isolation is really just depressed-me’s way of sabotaging myself, I cut myself off from going over my “realistic thoughts” with others because it’s depressed-me’s way of keeping myself from hearing an outside perspective.

She’s right in that no matter how passionate I am about Italian studies, I have no damn clue what I want to really do with it. And am I really ready for 2-5 years of writing 25-page papers? Of entering the publish-or-perish world? But what chance do I have in music? BTW, this professor is a decades-long veteran of the upper levels of the LA classical music scene so her opinion does have value. But I just don’t know what’s going on anymore, not that I ever did. Of course, I need to make up my own mind at the end of the day, but I don’t know what that is. I do know I love singing, it’s the only thing that makes me feel transported when I’m in front of people in another character. It helps conquer depressed-me.

I think I might adjust my plan...still apply to other grad programs, but throw a couple of music applications out there, too. Jesus Christ. Someone help me.

[mauritshuis-museum]

Flowers in a Vase, Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini, Mauritshuis Museum

https://www.europeana.eu/portal/record/2021672/resource_document_mauritshuis_1144.html?utm_source=api&utm_medium=api&utm_campaign=j4AoMQNzp

[tenestelapromessa]

Right after I wrote yesterday, I vocalized and did some singing. Nothing is ideal which is no surprise - when is it ever? But one of the biggest takeaways from this period is how much I surprise myself. In some ways I feel stronger, more instinctive about my technique. I wish I had the real space to let it out, but clearly some rest has done me good.

I sang through a little of "Ach ich liebte." It is workable. The challenge is that broken into pieces, it feels deceptively easy, but getting through to whole aria is a mountain. I despair at times - why prepare such a hard piece not knowing when I'll ever sing it? The answer is that it has everything in it that I need to work on in just the right amount.

I'm trying to go to the Smith regimen from "The Naked Voice," which I first read a couple summers ago. It's not a comprehensive book, but it's stuck with me and the routine he lays out appeals to me right now in all its naturalness and ease. I bookend it with voiced velar consonant warmups and alternating vowel exercises. Even if that's all I do in a day after getting back from work, I'll feel like I'm taking care of myself.

I notice the moments I feel saddest about the quarantine's affect on music making is when I hear classical instrumental music. I never entrenched myself among the instrumentalists at school, but being exposed to their repertoire over the years is, I increasingly feel, a privilege easily taken for granted. Outside in the world you don't get to hear this music in the halls, in rooms around you, on stages. And theoretically I only have a year left of this life, or half of one for all intents and purposes. I feel robbed. It could be worse, but if this is my last year of scholastic music studies I wish it could be everything it had the potential to be. Of course, I agree with the quarantine - I just wish it didn't take this year away.

Singing again manew me wish I could get a Masters in vocal performance, but I know it's not the step I should take. It would only be about wanting to prolong my time in this exploratory feeling. But I'm not 20 anymore. I love my voice, but it won't pay the bills.

Most impactfully on my mind, I watched a Gina Lollobrigida interview. She said (in Italian) "I wanted to be an artist. I didn't want to be a diva." It perfectly encapsulates what I can't force myself to do. I see the singers, young and youngish, who try to project the image, the confidence, the "divaness" of being an opera singer. Dressing the part, making the social media moves, etc., but prioritizing that over the essence of the music. That's the struggle I'm leaving behind, not that I ever was good at it or tried to be. I won't do those things to be noticed, but I will work on my voice. And I have sensed a glimmer of freedom, of no longer needing to compare myself, after deciding to switch paths. Now I can focus on being an artist more than before.

[tenestelapromessa]

Nothing going

I’ve been in Montana for nearly two months and I’d be lying if I said I’ve been doing much singing. My work work schedule has me out at 6pm, and by then I just want to kick back and get ready to make dinner, plus it’s always harder for my voice to get going later in the day. However, my voice is still there, and I like the timbre I’ve grown into so I’m not terribly concerned, though I’d like to get singing again. Motivation is hard, even if the love is still there.

We haven’t heard anything from campus about whether or not we will be meeting in person for any of our performance classes. I hope they tell us soon, since I’ll have to plan moving back to SoCal again in the next few months. Also, we’ve received no information about how we will be making up for the junior recital I was supposed to do in the spring. This concerns me only because my breath endurance, high notes, and coloratura will need some time to get back into shape and I don’t want a surprise assignment that leaves me in a weaker position.

As for more future plans, I’ve decided to apply to Master’s programs in Italian Studies. This was always the natural course for me, but since I didn’t major in Italian for undergrad I doubted my chances. Now it seems there is a chance, so I’m narrowing down schools. I think studying vocal performance is definitely an asset in this regard, as I’ve focused a lot on Italian repertoire. But preparing to apply is going to consume some time for me, time that maybe would otherwise be spent singing.

In my dream of dreams I’ll get the Italian Masters and still study with a private instructor, and possibly sing in an opera chorus or other ensemble (maybe even at whatever school I aim for). I’m a bit jaded about the path of a solo opera singer, but I still love the music. I really, really do. That’s what it’s all about.

[tenestelapromessa]

Northern Summer

I’ve been up here for a tad over a week now, and the last two days....I’ve practiced! I’m mostly focusing on getting my technique back into shape before repertoire. The three main weaknesses I have right now are 1) breath stamina, 2) agility, and 3) high notes, but I have confidence that all of that is addressable. The high notes issue is mostly due to nerves over neighbors hearing me, but I also haven’t touched that range in months so I’m taking it slow.

I wrote myself a New World Order (what I call my practice regimens, in case you missed it) to help me get back in shape. Breathing Gym exercises, hissing, and some voiced support exercises for breath, and then lottttsssss of middle range vowel balancing exercises (aka using combinations of front-unrounded and rounded back vowels) for resonance. My chest voice was gone today, but that is often due to lack of sleep. 

I forgot to mention that as part of an ill-advised foray into attempting a TESOL certification (more on that another time), I had to take a couple of linguistics classes. I truly fell in love with the subject, this past semester in general. I was well set up from singing with the IPA, but there’s so much more to IPA and speech that what we’re taught in singing, or at least what I’ve been taught. Having to learn the distinction between sounds more concretely has really helped me understand the voice better, and why we combine certain consonants or vowels to get a specific result (usually regarding resonance). I have learned over the years that I’m a person who needs to know why I’m doing something in order for it to make a difference for me, and linguistics gave me a deeper understanding. I can forgive the singing world for messing up IPA a little, but I feel with a little more knowledge of linguistics outside of singing a bigger difference can be made.

Anyway, it’s occurred to me that I want to use “Non mi dir” as a study piece again. The trauma!! Just kidding. I feel it’s a good exercise for everything I need to get back into shape without being too too much. I’ve embraced being my own teacher over the years. The times of studying with TWO private instructors simultaneously feels so long ago. 

[finnish-art-gallery]

Ducks, Magnus von Wright, 19??, Finnish National Gallery

http://kokoelmat.fng.fi/app?si=A+IV+4299

[tenestelapromessa]

Die Mainacht

So I sang for class today and it wasn’t horrible horrible. I had to move to the lobby of my building and of course people had to walk in and out right as I was singing. My boyfriend said he could hear me from the apartment. 

But my voice is still there, and I got to use it for the first time in two months. The vibrato was there, the high notes were there, and those are the two things that I generally pay a lot of attention to so yay.

It wasn’t perfect; had to take a couple unsanctioned breaths, my confidence was wavering, and my WiFi was giving me anxiety. 

I chose Brahms’ “Die Mainacht” because I’ve loved it ever since I learned it years and years ago, before I even transferred. I’m pretty sure I wrote about it here back then, too, and I remember how challenging it was at the time to get through those phrases with the high notes, but also how I was able to sing through them by the end of that semester. I was really worried about that today, and yet I managed to make it through them so not all is lost. And my classmates were very encouraging, which meant a lot.

There is still anxiety on the horizon. Everything is confusing again, but it seems that the entire fall semester will be online with the possibility of some classes meeting in person. I want to be clear that I support the quarantine and keeping people safe and that I believe in the science, but singing in a zoom class today for the first time made me very nervous about the expectations that will be placed on me to finish this degree. I don’t have the best internet, I don’t have a place to sing comfortably here (yet), and it all starts to feel as though if I don’t get those things, then I’m just making excuses. 

I will be in Montana the day after tomorrow. There’s a lot of uncertainty up there, but if it turns out I don’t have in-person classes at all in the fall, then I may just stay up there where I at least have a place I can sing in more comfortably. If I have to come back then that’s that, but I would hope that a performance class that meets in person would mean that practice rooms would be available. It’s at the point where, again, my mind has considered dropping the major. I feel like I’m disappointing L so much.

TL;DR: I’m pleased with the singing that I did today and am optimistic, but concerned about the future and I can feel the anxiety building right now so I will log off.

[tenestelapromessa]

One of my favorite scenes in an opera from my favorite Verdi opera, on the subject of the music that moves me. Sadly I’m not a Verdi soprano, but even if I can’t sing this greatness I can still let it do its magic.

[tenestelapromessa]

Getting back to the music

Something that has cracked inside me over the last year is the worshiping of singers themselves. I’ve been there, but there’s something about how singers have taken to social media that has escalated this idea that famous, successful performers aren’t people - they’re QUEENS, they’re GODS, they’re ICONS. And I’m not saying there aren’t wonderful, amazing, inspiring performers out there, but they are still people with flaws (just like me), and what got me into opera in the first place? 

The music.

Look, I know how fun it is when a singer responds to your comment on Instagram or likes a photo of yours. I’ve also seen the other side of how impersonally some of their accounts can be run, certain singers that just chase that algorithm. But it adds this other layer to the experience that takes me further and further from the music itself, and even adds another layer of complication. 

I want to the music. How can I get back to it? How do I overcome the sadness of not being able to sing without getting sucked into the popularity contest of image?

As I said, there really are some gems of singers out there who are really helpful and an asset to the force. But the thing that’s going to save me through this time is being touched by the voices and the music again. 

[tenestelapromessa]

I know my musings have been melancholy lately, so I wanted to write a little about the highlight of my singing year: performing the character of Abigail Williams from Robert Ward’s The Crucible for opera scenes in the fall. Amidst a lot of disappointment this was the zenith of everything that made at least my fall semester worthwhile.

Let me preface by saying that while I had never heard of the opera before, I was a huge fan of the play since I was a teenager and an even bigger fan of the history of the Salem Witch Trials in general. History was always my favorite subject in school and I never understood why people thought it was generally boring, especially American history. American history doesn’t fascinate me out of patriotism and a belief in a heroic, pure past - it’s just overall interesting, and the religious roots of the US in general are very intriguing. Plus I’m drawn to the paranormal and the history of witchcraft so....this is really just my jam. (For the record, I don’t believe anything paranormal happened in Salem and please don’t tell me about ergot poisoning, that’s a theory that’s been largely discredited since if it were true there should have been some deaths from it)

Anyway, when we all were gathered into the room to learn what we had been cast in, the moment the director started his preamble about the scene from The Crucible (the finale of Act 1) I was like, “oooooh, what’s this?” And then when he said announced MY name for Abigail Williams I internally started shrieking. “I’m a witch!!!” I actually exclaimed aloud like a giddy 12 year-old.  There were a lot of fun scenes last fall, but I can’t emphasize enough how much Abigail was a dream come true for me and I wouldn’t have traded her to be a character in any of the others. If any other name but mine had been announced for her, I would have been PISSED, especially with how everything else shook down.  Now, I know the opera itself isn’t a total masterpiece, but that scene was so satisfying (probably the most fun musically out of the whole work from an ensemble standpoint). A lot of the satisfaction came from having the different scene - you know what I mean? We were bookended by a lot of Mozart, Handel, operetta, etc, and don’t get me wrong, I like that stuff....but 20 straight minutes of darkness, singing about drinking baby blood, clawing and fighting on my hands and knees on stage, and difficult, borderline atonal music was such a blast that I didn’t care if the audience was like “WTF????” And we had a great sense of camaraderie in our crew - we all really felt that it would be amazing to be able to maybe someday do the whole opera. 

Lastly, it was interesting to me that I have never really been cast as a good person. I don’t believe in black-and-white good-and-evil, but everyone I’ve sung so far (Frasquita, Queen of the Night, and Abigail) doesn’t make conventionally good choices in life to varying extents, and I really get a kick out of that, especially since my voice type is usually the demure maiden. I love those roles, too, but I’d love ride this complex, bad girl wave for as long as I can..

So all I have left now of this is Abigail’s aria that I’m working on. I really hoped to present it this fall at the school music competition - it would be my first competition ever and my last chance to participate in this one since I’m graduating in the spring, but now that we’re starting the semester virtually I don’t know if that’s going to happen anymore. I don’t want to present it because I think I’ll win with it, but because I really believe in it and it’s out of the box. Nonetheless, the full role is on my list of dream roles now for sure and I will insist on singing the aria in my senior recital at all costs.  Just thinking about it sparks a little joy for singing again. I’m interested to see how my voice rehab will go once I’m up north and will try to chronicle my progress here. I don’t know why I’m writing sometimes (especially now that I’m at a low point), but I do believe in at least commemorating the positive experiences like this one.

[tenestelapromessa]

Good, neutral, and goodbye.

Good news: probably next week, I will be heading up to Montana where I will finally be able to sing again! It will probably take a little while to rehab my voice, so I’ll have to go easy on myself and see it as a learning experience. I’m hoping this will lift my spirits.

I’ve been talking to a therapist for about a month or so now and it’s too soon to tell what kind of impact it’s having on my life, but I think it’s good to process emotions and experiences that I never really had a chance to deal with. One thing that’s been coming up a lot in the past couple weeks is this feeling of saying goodbye to music as a career choice. A lot of the feelings are painful - the word “fail” is heard frequently - but it’s probably good for once in the past almost-decade to not have to sugar coat my raw emotions. 

He asks me how it would feel if I failed, and it stumps me because I don’t believe not bursting onto the music scene is failing. This industry is hard to break into, we hear that over and over, so not everyone can have a dream career. But there’s this sense that if you don’t it’s because YOU didn’t work hard enough, have enough passion or dedication, or that...you failed. But if that’s the raw feeling, true or not, I have to address it. 

As I said, I’m not saying goodbye to music, but especially with this virus I feel like I’m saying goodbye to it as a career. My patience to jump through hoops pretending I’m 22 years old is at its end. It’s finals week and I don’t want to do any of this. We’re starting next semester virtually, which I support, but it’s my last year in my degree and I feel like I have nothing to look forward to. I’m almost tempted to drop the music major entirely and try to graduate with my American Studies degree this fall, but I don’t want to have regrets so I’ll try to keep going with music. I’ve even fantasized transferring to somewhere in Montana for my last year, but that’s crazy.  just feel like I’m letting everyone down, especially L.

I’m hoping that being able to sing again will give me another wind, but this week especially I’ve had this desire to be open to happiness in my future whatever that means, music or not. Because what if happiness is out there and I’m resisting it because I’m insisting on a narrow definition of fulfillment? 

Stay tuned.

[tenestelapromessa]

She’s talking about meeeeeee.

I never want to quit singing. I still want to be a singer...I just need to do something alongside it to pay the bills.

I had my second therapy session today. Whether or not I feel better is yet to be seen; it’s so new and confusing for me. Sometimes it feels uncomfortable. I worry whether or not I annoy him. But one thing’s for damn sure - I keep a lot inside me and need to lay it all on someone. 

[arjuna-vallabha]

Sunrise at Apollo temple, Side, Turkey

[tenestelapromessa]

3 observations.

Past: I was talking to my mom today about the contents of my last post, and just had a revelation. Maybe not getting cast in the opera was the universe looking out for me, knowing that it would not pan out. I think my faith may have just been renewed.

Present: My voice (especially since my last regular posts) sounds womanly at last. Interesting to know I will never sound very girlish ever again, but this warmth delights me.

Future: Also talking to my mom about this with my mom today...what happens in the virus isn’t under control by the beginning of next semester? It’s a possibility. Next year is my last year of undergrad, and what happens if I can’t perform at all?

I guess that’s where my newly renewed faith steps in.