The Lyric Soprano

Hmph

Apparently there’s been a miscommunication. Andrea thinks she assigned me “Winter’s on the Wing” from the Broadway show The Secret Garden a month ago, for performance at the recital in May. The version in my memory consists of us spending five minutes on it and telling her I didn’t like it enough to work on it.

I was pretty clear on the phone earlier, when we discovered this, that I don’t like it, but a lot of other students are doing Secret Garden songs at the recital so I think she’s going to be pushy about it.

I’m capable of telling her I don’t want to do it, but I’m also nonconfrontational and lazy, so it might be easier just to do it. We’re going to discuss it at lesson tonight. It’s a patter song — not my preferred type of song by any means — and I’d like to know enough of it to not stumble in sightreading it.

Think I can memorize a song in the next hour?

In which I translate the whole of the Lakme Flower Duet

Translation from the French:

“Ooh, pretty flowers!”

No, really, that’s about it. *laugh*

Things that make me angry

“Maestro Arturo Toscanini, the greatest of Italian conductors, was against all forms of scholarships and subsidies because he maintained that they only guaranteed mediocrity; real talent would establish itself.”

- William Murray, Fortissimo: Backstage at the Opera with Sacred Monsters and Young Singers

Okay, first off, Toscanini? Got his start from a scholarship. Hypocrite.

Second, artists aren’t created in a vacuum. Mozart was a genius, yes, but his father trained and promoted him from a very early age as well. Would that genius ever have shown itself if Amadeus had been a street sweeper in London instead? I doubt it.

How many geniuses, great artists, have we lost through history because of poverty, abuse, and simple neglect? Yes, there will always be the rare talent that survives impossible odds and goes on to stardom. Those are the extreme outliers.

Without a minimum level of resources, training, and support, most people with great talent will simply never have the opportunity to develop it.

Maybe if it were easy to make a comfortable living in the arts with little competition, mediocrity would flourish. That’s never been the case, though: not in Toscanini’s time and certainly not now.

The bootstrap method Toscanini seems to be endorsing here is also a sign of privilege. Most of the great performers I can think of either came from (at least relatively) wealthy and privileged backgrounds where they received early training and support, usually from a musical family. The rest were recipients of (gasp) scholarships or other assistance that allowed them to progress.

To put it in terms Americans, at least, are more likely to understand and sympathize with: Think of sports such as figure skating that require training from an extremely young age. No one’s out there arguing that Michelle Kwan’s mother should never have agreed to drive Michelle to the skating rink; if she really had talent, she’d drive herself at 16 when she got her driver’s license.

Un Giorno per Noi

Every week, I seem to find something new I want to sing. One of the latest is Un Giorno per Noi from Romeo and Juliet, popularized by Josh Groban. I’ll post the music soon.

I bought the sheet music from Musicnotes.com, which will let you transpose a piece before you buy it. I was in a hurry and, seeing that the piece needed to be changed, just guessed at the right key. I printed it and dashed off to my lesson, where we discovered that I’d made it way, way too low for me. Oops.

My second try was more successful. It’s really a lovely piece it changes keys a lot, so in E flat major it starts around the center of my range, dips down pleasantly low, and on the final verse soars up to a B4. Love it.

No idea when I might get the chance to sing it, but I’ll learn it anyhow and have it on hand just in case.

Now what?

Earlier, I talked about how I didn’t have a lot of support or encouragement for my music when I was growing up. I was feeling a little sorry for myself, so I gave myself space and permission and after a few days was ready to move on.

In some ways it’s a really good thing I didn’t pursue music as a career back then. Now, I have more confidence and resources and means to do it right. Not that I’m looking to do it as a career now, either, though it could be an option in the future.

For now, I’m trying to decide what direction I want to take this. I’m not feeling pressure to do something so much as to have an end goal in mind, something to work for.

My options in musical theater and opera are limited. I have a light lyric soprano voice — an ingenue voice — but not the body to match. Quite honestly, fat women don’t get hired for gamine little ingenue roles. I’m not particularly disappointed; opera and musicals aren’t really calling to me.

Pop music is right out. It’s a spectacularly bad match for my voice. That’s okay, too, I like my music more challenging technically.

I really enjoy choral work, but that’s not calling me right now either. If I’ve got the chops to do solo work, I want to give that a try.

I wouldn’t mind singing for a Celtic or classical crossover group. That would be a lot of fun. I’ll have to keep an eye out for startup groups.

What really seems to be calling me, though, is concert and oratorio work. Get up there, do your thing, and be done. Handel and Mozart and yum. Andrea and I have been discussing it, and I might do some auditions later this year.

I’m trying to move really slowly on this so I don’t burn myself out. I already have so many things going on. I owe it to myself to take this as far as it will go, though.

Take it Back

Copyright ©2004 by Kathleen Sloan
Lyrics posted by permission of the author

Do you remember back when we were kids?
We were artists and dancers and musicians all
We sang because we needed to, we danced because it gave us joy
(We) made art to share our very selves with the world

Then as we grew older it became very clear
Not all of us were good enough to make the grade
Our singing was sometimes off key, our dancing had a few mis-steps
Our art was judged a bit too odd to share with the world (but we can)

Chorus:
Take it back! Take it back!
Take back the right to sing and play
It will fill your heart, it will feed your soul
When you take back the right to sing and play!

Bridge:
In a dozen other countries, no matter your age
You’re encouraged and expected to create
Here in the west we’ve been robbed of that choice
Come join our revolution, we’ve found our own solution
You’re all invited to participate! (when we)

Chorus

We have broken the rules, we have carved out this space
Where skill is not the only measure of our worth
We’re free to sing in circles here and dance if the spirit calls
Make art once again and share ourselves with the world

Chorus

Welcome to our diverse little clan
Don’t worry you’re not good enough, come grow with us
We’ll help you with your melody, we’ll catch you if you trip and fall
We’ll celebrate the art you choose to share with the world! (we will)

Chorus
Take it back! Take it back!
Take back the right to sing and play
It will fill your heart, it will feed your soul
When you take back the right to sing and play!

Take it back! Take it back!
Take back the right to sing and play
It will fill your heart, it will feed your soul
When you take back the right to sing and play and make art
Take back the right to sing and play

Source: Kathleen Sloan

Last week, Andrea and I had another talk about my abilities and potential. These talks are just as important for me right now as the teaching; I’m trying to overcome an entire lifetime of people discouraging my interest in music.

It blows my mind that across 10-plus years of music, through school choruses and church choir and concert band and marching band and various percussion ensembles and college choir and the sort of in-depth instruction that comes from being a music performance major, not one person ever, ever served as a mentor or even gave me an encouraging word. Not one person. Every single adult I interacted with was discouraging or, at best, neutral. I desperately needed a mentor, but a vast silence surrounded me.

That sort of environment…well, it’s almost like gaslighting. Over time, I started to feel like I never got any feedback because people were too nice to tell me I wasn’t any good. That voice scholarship? Well, it wasn’t very big, and the college was really just trying to get high schoolers to attend, and they must not have had anyone good audition for it. And so on.

By the time I’d spent a year as a music major and still had no support, no encouragement, nothing, it’s no wonder I dropped out.

And the thing is? I’m pretty good. I might even be really good. I have a keen sense of rhythm and I pick things up really fast. My voice — the actual instrument, as Andrea calls it — is good. Yeah, I’m no Renee Fleming, but it wouldn’t matter if I were the worst musician in the world. No one should discourage a child like that.

I really, really resent that I lost ten years of music because of this.

Last week, Andrea said, “You know, whoever guided you to a music major knew what they were doing.” I said, “Well, no one really guided me. I just sort of went and did it.” She just boggled, but it’s true. My parents wanted me to go into a nice sensible career like orthodontia. I had no mentors to advise me either way.

She also said, “You have a lovely floating high soprano voice, and when you find a piece of music that suits you, you just jump right in and do amazing things.” And, “I don’t have to tell you a lot of things, interpretation and phrasing, that I have to go over and over with some of my students on. You just do them.”

Andrea points out where I have issues — for example, I have terrible breath capacity and control, and a head/chest voice break a mile wide — and we work on them, but for the first time in my life a professional musician has encouraged me. Not silently listened and moved right along, but given me real feedback.