It's expensive in the middle

This is a post that I wrote a couple of years ago on my personal blog.  It seems fitting to share it here.  Enjoy!

Original Post Date:  June 4, 2007

I am a mezzo soprano. It basically means that I am not a soprano and I am not an alto. I used to be an alto. I sang Alto 2 in high school and college. My voice has raised considerably since then. I can now sing a high C, if I'm warmed up and if I worked up to it.

Anyway, that's not what I'm writing about. Here's the thing...since I am a mezzo soprano (a lyric mezzo soprano, if you want to get technical), I can sing pretty much anything. There problem comes when I am trying to buy vocal books. I have recently decided to learn 4 songs by Stefano Donaudy. I went to the music store to order the book, so I can my voice teacher's back to her, and I had the choice between the high voice and the low voice books. Ummmmmm....which do I need? I have absolutely no idea. So I ordered both. This is the not the first time this has happened. When I did the Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel program with my mom and friend last year (2 years ago? When was that? We've done it a couple of times.) I had to have the High Voice and Low Voice books. I sang two songs, one out of each book. Because of my range and the tessaturas of the songs, I couldn't sing them both out of the same book. I have a feeling the same thing is going to happen with the Donaudy songs. Oh, well. I guess it's my lot in life, being a mezzo!!!

If you're still confused about the whole "mezzo soprano" thing, I have a great explanation I gave to lady at choir practice last night. She heard me sing a really high note and wanted to know why I wasn't singing soprano. I replied "I'm a mezzo soprano. If I want to sing for a long period of time, I have to sing alto." That's the best explanation I have. Any other mezzos want to weigh in on this?

Got a response from my friend "K":

I'm there for you girl: I top out at a high e flat when I'm warmed up, but then I can also get to a low C (that is, below middle). People at [college] had me sing soprano for almost two years because they figured with a high range I must be soprano. BUT it's not what you can sing, but where the warmth is in your voice, and for me it's mezzo. Also mezzos are just cooler people in general. BUT it's always nice to have flexibility in range to keep people guessing, am I right? How's that for an explanation?

Reviews Coming Up!

I am currently reading three books on the subject of singing (and related), which I wish to review for this blog soon. They are (in the order of in which reading I am furthest ahead)

 

1. Marketing For Singers by Mark J. Stoddard
2. The Third Line: The Singer As Interpreter by Daniel Helfgot
3. An Interpretive Guide to Operatic Arias by Martial Singher

As soon as I finish a book I will post a review of it here.

Awkward Audition Experiences #1: Auditions In Wonderland

A few weeks ago I had an audition that was a bit on the unusual side.  I contacted the conductor of a local performance ensemble because I was interested in performing the tenor solo in a concert that was to be performed in the area within the next few months.

I sent the conductor an email:

“Dear Mr. Gardner, My name is The Radioactive Tenor and I am a tenor currently studying with Mme Iris. I learned of the upcoming X performance through  [Local classical music/opera newsletter] and I would like to express my interest in auditioning for the tenor soloist. I would like to inquire about the audition process and whether there are any dates available to audition. I can also send my resumé over e-mail using either PDF or Word/RTF format, whichever is more convenient.”

The exchange was bizarre from the beginning: After my introductory letter (where Ispecifically indicated that I was interested in performing in this concert) he suggested a meeting time and place, mentioned that there were “several tenor solos available” (the Cantata in question only has one aria and one recitativo for tenor) and referred to my audition as “trying each other out.” This gave me a weird vibe, since this is usually the kind of language a prospective voice teacher uses with a prospective student- hardly what you would expect to hear from a conductor and a performer, at least within my experience.

The second bizarre tidbit about this was that he requested no audition repertoire. In 99.99% of auditions, you walk into the room and you sing one or several pieces from a prepared list of repertoire that will show your strengths as a performer.  The parties interested then will judge your skill and artistic level and decide to whether sign you up or not for the opera/concert/gig/whatever.

What I mean by ‘requested no audition repertoire’ is that he said that he could give me a full hour or half an hour, the full hour having an accompanist at hand “depending on if you would like to work on rep with me,” the accompanist fee to be charged at my expense.  Now, normally you go to an audition and either the interested parties provide the accompanist or you can bring your own (and therefore negotiate a fee with the accompanist, in exchange for an accompanist who is familiar with the rep you are singing, and familiar with your way of singing it.) 

It was the second part of the sentence that puzzled me. I have never really been to any auditions where the conductor or music director was interested in ‘working on repertoire’ with me. Working on repertoire is, again, something you do with a coach or your voice teacher – for an audition, you present material you already have polished and ‘worked on’ with somebody else, so I was getting increasingly mixed signals. The email continued with:

“If an hour, we can do other rep as well. We neednt spend a ton of time on [The composer whose Cantata I was interested in.]”

In my mind I thought “I’m not going there for a voice lesson or to be coached, I’m auditioning for a concert,” so I told him I would rather do the half-hour (again, most auditions never take more than 5 – 10 minutes), and that I would like to bring [X aria from the cantata in question] for him to hear.

Instead, this conductor said “I will be very familiar with your unique instrument and talent from the vocalise session. Don't worry about rep in that case. We'll just take it easy.”

Vocalise session? As one of my favorite authors once put it, curioser and curioser.

I arrived at the designated place and met with the conductor. The vocalise session started – the first thing he had me do was do a 1-3-5-3-1 arpeggio on a purely nasal squeeze. I am not exaggerating, the sound he required me to do was a high laryngeal, frontally placed nasal emission that made my larynx figuratively shoot up through my nose… very uncomfortable. This was to be followed by another arpeggio properly produced – I knew that aftersqueezing in such a manner I wouldn’t be able to get the space I have been developing with my teacher, but he insisted. 

Eventually I finished vocalising for him through several other exercises – he kept demonstrating in his own voice what he wanted me to do, and it was very much the ‘pinched’ nasal tone that had proved to be my undoing from previous teachers in the past. I approached it the way I have been learning with my new teacher—where frontal placement and resonance is a by-product of the combination of an open throat, a raised soft palate, proper breath support and lack of excessive pressure (the problem with having frontal placement as a primary effort and focus is that you end up with a collapsed soft palate and a raised larynx… i.e., how I was singing before I started with my new teacher) … I succeeded to a certain extent, but the first squeezed vocalise had given me a whole lot of tension to work with and not much time to reset my larynx.

When we were finished he didn’t address the Cantata casting per se, but vaguely hinted at the fact that he would like for me to work in ‘this environment’ (the place where this group sings) and even take lessons from him (knowing full well I was studying with another teacher), saying that he didn’t know how ‘the politics of that’ would work out. He mentioned that he had worked with ‘all the big boys’ and did a brief recount of his credentials for me, hinting at the fact that he could teach me how to do things in the style of the aforementioned big boys. He said that it was also possible that one day I might end up with a position at this place, provided I was willing to work with the music director who is a rather intense fellow (who must be so due to the enormous amount of music he must cover in such a short time.)

I was more or less stunned at this and said I’d e-mail him back. The whole deal struck me as simply bizarre. He said he thought my voice was excellent, gorgeous and beautiful, but the overture of offering lessons to me disoriented me – in ‘the field’ so to speak, it is considered very unethical to make overtures towards another voice student unless that student has openly expressed a desire to change teachers. Mme Iris would not have me discuss changing into her studio, for example, until I had settled the matter with my previous voice teacher, out of professional respect. So, in a way, I came out with a certain unsettling feeling at what had happened.

Ultimately, it came to nothing. The conductor ignored any e-mails and never responded afterwards. I judged that it was best not to pursue what was obviously an endeavor with a very toxic person who lacked in principles. I did some digging around among singers in the area and he has a reputation for doing exactly what he did with me: I know of a tenor and a soprano that have gone through his rigmarole too. In the end, although the concert exposure would have been positive, it is a good thing that it did not come to be.

All in all, a supremely bizarre experience.

Now that I’ve shared this mini-horror story with you, singers (more surreal than horrific, I guess), I want to ask you the following questions:

 

• What signs would have told you from the get-go that this audition/gig was a rotten deal?
• Do you think I handled the situation in a good way, or would you have been more outspoken? Why?
• Have you had similar experiences, or worse? If so, can you share what you learned from them, so that other singers don’t have to go through with them?

 

I look forward to your replies!

Audition FAQ

As I have witnessed my former colleagues sweat bullets, and now that I am preparing to enter the audition circuit myself, there are some questions that my predecessors were concerned with, and thus the present generation of auditionees are confronted with. The Audition is an intimidating experience, everyone agrees, and while there are many variables that you cannot control, you have the ability to have some power over the situation. This post is concerning the nitty-gritty of the auditioning experience. All aspects of the audition are up for grabs, and if I neglected to mention one aspect or situation in an audition setting, please feel free to add another number to the list, and if you would be so kind as to send me a message with the amendment, I will update the list as soon as possible. Thank you for your consideration, and I look forward to other singers' responses to the following questions!

Preparation and Before the Audition:

1. Of course we have coached our arias to within an inch of their lives, so that kind of preparation is understood, but on the night before you leave for an audition, do you have a ritual for last minute preparation? Other than your music, clothing and toiletries, what do you bring with you on your check-bag?

2. Unfortunately, la voce is a delicate and fickle mistress, and due to travel, or lack of rest, or dehydration, or other un-forseeable reasons, you will inevitably wake up with a dry throat, and immediately panic. Has your teacher given you the recipe for a secret cure for the dry throat, or clogged sinuses, or other common symptoms of too much stress, or travel?

3. What clothes do you wear to the audition? How formal is too formal? How casual is too casual? What do you think of color vs. the traditional and professional black and white?

4. How soon do you arrive to the audition location?

Audition Hell- The Waiting Room:

5. Assuming that you have 15 or 20 minutes to kill before your scheduled audition, what do you do while forced to be silent in the waiting room? Do you try and make friends? Do you listen to music, if so, is it the music that you will be singing in your audition?

6. What things do you think about to calm yourself down for the audition that is about to take place?

Inside the Audition Room:

7. How do you greet the panel of judges sitting at the front of the room? Once again, how casual is too casual, how austere is too much?

8. When announcing the pieces that are being performed, what format do you prefer to use to introduce your pieces?

9. Interpretation and feeling "in the zone" are both good things, but where is the line drawn for you that turns acting and interpretation into presentation?

10. What are some techniques that you use to cope with the stress of having to sing for notable judges, such as the Merola program, or other YAPs?

The Aftermath:

11. When exiting the room, what farewell salutation do you use? How do you deal with addressing the accompanist after an audition?

12. Concerning colleagues waiting outside the door: When asked how it was, or how you did, what do you typically respond?

13. In the follow-up do you send email, card, phone call? How do you make sure that the conductor or the casting director doesn't forget about you?

There is a lot of room for discussion! I look forward to reading responses, and I am working on the answers to them right now! they should be up tomorrow!

until then,

Buona Sera

Ciao!

Buona Sera a Tutti!

My name on this site is really two-fold; I chose an italian name because I wanted people to know that I am able to offer my assistance with difficult to find translations of art song, aria, or just poetry.

First off, I want to thank TRT for inviting me to participate in this blog. I have had the pleasure of singing with and performing with him during the past 2 summers and am honored to be a part of this venture.

I am a student at a conservatory that has been called "a diamond in the rough" by Opera News, in the piedmont of North Carolina. I, unlike The Glowing Tenor (hehe..), am a true leggiero tenor, or as my name says, un tenore di grazia.

I am working with a notable teacher (who will henceforth be known as La Dottoressa), and like us all, am working out vocal kinks and trying to balance my love of opera and classical singing, with the performance and acting based musical theatre. I have done tons of musical theatre, film, TV, oratorio and most recently opera. I think that it has the potential to be the worlds hybrid artform, with all the best singing, acting, and dancing, all in one performance. I hope that I can be a part of the movement that tries to bring realism to the operatic stage, merging the vocal virtuosity of opera, with the dramatic intensity of musical theatre for an unstoppable art form.

All of that to say that I love musical theatre, and I love opera, and would be more than happy to discuss Larson's "Rent," and Puccini's "La Boheme" in the same conversation and be familiar and emotionally connected to both. I look forward to meeting everyone and discussing technique analogies and metaphors, audition experiences, and everything else involved with the insanity that is being a student/pre-professional/professional in the classical vocal field.

This is going to be a blast.

Greetings and Salutations!

I will be known as VoceBella, but you will probably figure out that my name is Angela.  I am a lyric mezzo soprano.  While I do sing a little bit of opera and other classical stuff, my true love is musical theatre.  I have a BA in Music and have been involved in theatre & musical theatre for 18 years.

I don't know what else to say about myself.  You'll figure out from my writing that I'm a bit of a goof ball.  Hope you enjoy what I have to say!

Questa Voce Rules:

Greetings, fellow singers! Consider this the introductory post for this blog- a blog aimed at giving professionals and students in the field a place to share experiences, tips and stories about the profession we love so much.

Without further ado, here are the general rules of this site:

 

1. The Place: Questa Voce is a blog where members may discuss any aspect of their careers as singers in the classical and operatic fields. This includes (but is not limited to) technique, repertoire, auditions, young artist programs, experiences, make-up, staging, ensembles and acting.  Members may discuss any subject they wish related to the field.
2. The People:  Some people like identifying themselves by name, where they are from, etcetera. Think twice before posting private information that would otherwise not be available to concertgoers or the audience (such as your phone number, street, etc.) 
3. The Decorum: Remember that everything you do in public sites on the internet will contribute towards your reputation in your field of work, as anyone can access them.
4. The Topics: Consider that every post published on Questa Voce expresses the views of each author. That being said, please refrain from personal attacks. If there is an idea with which you disagree, you may make your disagreement known within a civilized context. When discussing contradictory ideas, please do so in an intellectual manner and not in an not emotionally, refraining from insults and jabs. If you wish to engage in a personal feud, you can do so within the safe confines of your Facebook’s friend lists (a handy hint to remember: if you fight on Facebook, make sure it happens in your personal account and not on any professional accounts you may have created for yourself).  Never post negative threads or articles about other forum members. If any Trolls are present in a thread, you can either ban them or request for them to be banned.
5. The Guides: While we may talk about our teachers and their techniques, make sure you have their permission before you mention them by name.  This is just a rule of thumb out of respect your teachers’ privacy and basic courtesy. Until you know whether it is alright to post their names, you could use a nom de plume (or I guess here it’d be a nom de chant?).

 

A brief introduction: I am The Radioactive Tenor (I won’t disclose my name until I know it’s alright to write about my voice teacher here by name, and yes, I do glow in the dark)  and I study with Mme. Iris (my nom de chant for my teacher). I have only been studying with her for a brief four months, but they have been the most vocally productive four months of my life.

Prior to this I was considered to be one a tenore leggiero, also known as tenore di grazia, but now I have come into my true voice, that of a lyric tenor. I am currently discovering many new and interesting things about my voice and my body’s relationship to it, and now I am able to do things I never could before. All in all, it’s very exciting and I look forward to writing about my experiences.

Now, how about we hear from our other writers?