The Key to my Heart; or what is my drug of choice

It’s not uncommon that I find myself wide awake at 2:00 in the morning, trying to go to sleep. On one of those nights, about two months ago, I started looking up videos about opera on Youtube. I knew that Renée Fleming was doing an episode of YoungArts Masterclass on HBO a while back, and I was hoping that somebody would have uploaded a video of it. What I found were not only bits and pieces of the show but also a bunch of masterclasses and performances by Ms. Fleming as well as many other world leading opera singers living and dead. I got hooked. For the next two or three hours I watched masterclasses, interviews, and performances by many, MANY sopranos. 

Let me backtrack a little. I have been listening to classical music ever since high school. While I enjoyed it then, I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as I do now. For the past four or five months now I’ve been listening to classical music and almost nothing else. I guess Owe that to age and experience. Growing up and becoming more refined along the way had helped me to appreciate the music more. It doesn’t just sound pleasant to my ears; it is really deeply felt. It’s the kind of love that words cannot do justice. A few months later I discovered my tremendous love for sopranos, which is beyond even that. It is beyond anything I have ever experienced. 

I have always been amazed by proper vocal productions such as found in classical singing. I have even studied how to produce such a sound myself. Unfortunately I didn’t have much of a talent for it, and the time and effort I had dedicated to the craft bore no fruits. However, my appreciation for the art never ceased. I always thought it was the closest thing to godliness a human being could get. It was as if the singer were a muse and the sound didn’t come from her body but from heaven. I feel that way about all voice types, but mostly soprano, which might have something to do with the fact that they sing in a vocal range higher than what they speak in. I have been listening to one great soprano or another every day. It is like a drug. It’s so exhilarating. It makes me burst with joy. I tried listening to other voice types and they didn’t make me feel the same way. I listen to soprano arias before I go to work, before my improv class and performance, while I’m running on a treadmill, sometimes before I sit down to meditate. The feeling of lovingkindness that meditators (generally) achieve by picturing a mother nursing an infant child, I get from listening to these arias.

It’s like I have found a key to my heart. All of a sudden the immense amount of joy I didn’t know I had flowed out of my body. I listen to Renée Fleming, Leontyne Price, Joan Sutherland, Cecilia Bartoli (a mezzo who sings soprano sometimes), Kiri Te Kanawa, Renata Tebaldi, and Maria Callas, and they keep me in such an incredible mood. I have always known that music is supposed to make you happier, but never before had any music made me this happy. I am an addict and my drug is sopranos!

Sore Throat

I have a sore throat, and despite the unpleasant feeling I am actually smiling inside. There was a time when I used to always have a sore throat, because I was singing so much. Well, I sang too much today and the room was too dry hence the sore throat, but I'm happy.

Worked on sight singing today. Apparently I'm not as bad as I thought I was. Not as good as I used to be but it's getting there. I'm optimistic. If I have time to stop by the library tomorrow I will probably check out some songbooks so I have something to practice. My heart is full of love for music right now. I can feel my old self returning. I feel younger. I know it sounds weird to say that at my age, but I am older than I was in high school, and it is that person--tireless, ambitious, hopeful--who is returning.

Thoughts about Singing (and Life)

When I was in high school, I was training to be a classical singer. I was a baritone with a few more high notes than other baritones, giving me hopes that one day I could become a tenor. Tenors were badly needed, so that my director put me in the tenor section, hoping that I would be a good contribution.

I wanted so badly to be a tenor, because most of the leading male parts in musicals are tenors. Most of my favorite male singers were tenors. Having the potential to become one, I worked so hard trying to strengthen and expand my high register. I would try too hard to hit the notes and end up flatting. I would get sick constantly, and it would take forever for my voice to recover due to the strains I put on it. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I spent most of each year coughing.

Fortunately, any damage I had done to my voice when I was younger didn't last permanently--it was great to be that young. But if there was one advice somebody could have given me then, it would be this: Relax, kid! You're in fucking high school. You have your whole life ahead of you. Your voice is still changing, and will continue to change for a very long time. And it will change however it wants to change; no matter how hard you force it, it is out of your control.

Harder than I worked to be a tenor, I worked to resist being a baritone. Most of the time I insisted on trapping myself in my head voice, trying to sound pretty to avoid developing that warm baritone sound. I turned out to be a nasally, mousy singer who sharped and flatted constantly because I didn't use proper techniques. I never developed I great classical voice suitable for operas. I spent those years hating myself for the bad singer that I was. Had I embraced my baritone self, I might have felt better about myself, and life could have turned out differently.

I'm not writing this because I feel sorry for myself that I didn't become an opera singer. I have found other things in life that I enjoy so much more. I'm writing this because I spent many years thinking a lot about my voice, and from time to time I still do. It is still my source of creativity, and I incorporate it into so many things that I do. Thinking about this today makes me realize the importance of accepting who you are and living in the moment. I have found an art form wherein I can be myself and use everything that I have. Realizing what you have and learning to use it is very necessary. For a long time I felt useless, but now I know that I'm not--I just chose to trap myself and my talents instead of letting it evolve. Once I learned to embrace myself, I realized my full potential, and it's fun.