Skip to main content

This Voice Thing

I have written at length about voice on my other blog. Sometimes I ask myself why I'm doing this. It's so dispiriting to listen to recordings of myself, now a year or so into voice lessons, and still find my own voice ... less than pleasing. I feel kind of bad for my voice teacher -- I love my voice teacher, but each week he sees a student who feels frustrated and uninspired by her lack of progress.

Part of the problem is that I never do well in lessons. This is an age-old problem, of course. I never play piano as well in lessons as I do at home. There's always that nervousness that comes with playing for a teacher, even though I know I shouldn't feel it. When I'm home, I listen to opera all day long and sing "Libiamo" (from La Traviata) and "Voi che sapete" (from The Marriage of Figaro) with as much gusto as the most confident opera singer. At my lesson? My throat feels like a pinhole and I can barely choke out "Caro mio ben."

My voice teacher tells me that I just need to relax. I agree. (Though knowing how to relax is my problem.) Tension is a voice-killer. And I know that I carry my tension in my throat and jaw, so that doesn't help. I told him that I just wish there were some kind of magic formula--something that can transform my voice from its slightly off-key, hoot-owl sound into something beautiful, or at least pretty.

There is no formula. I need to relax. I need to be a not-stressed, not-tense person.

I don't know how to be that!

However, he did say (or I should say, he repeated) that there are some "magic-formula" type things I can do:
  • Stop swaying. I sway when I sing. That forces the body to constantly adjust for balance, which isn't great for the voice.
  • Open my mouth. Almost make it like I have a double chin.
  • Open my throat. Like I'm yawning.
  • Breathe from my diaphragm. Not from my neck, which is how I've breathed all my life.
  • Sing from my diaphragm. Not from my neck, which is how I've sung all my life.
  • Don't shrug my shoulders when I get to the high notes. Contrary to intuition, shrugging the shoulders (or stretching the neck, or standing on the toes) doesn't help with the high notes. Instead, I need to think down. As the notes get higher, the sound should come from a lower place, somewhere in my stomach.
  • Memorize my songs. (This has been a big challenge for me. I don't know why.)
He also suggested that I get a mirror so I can watch myself sing. So today I went to Walmart and bought a cheap full-length mirror. And tonight I watched myself sing, and cringed at all of the neck-stretching and shoulder-shrugging that was going on. But it was good, because it made me stop doing that.

Tonight I worked on "If Music Be The Food of Love." (Here's a nice recording of someone singing it on YouTube.) While I focused specifically on singing the entire song by memory, I also worked on the high notes. The highest note in this song is a high G, which I am perfectly capable of reaching. (I'm a soprano. Who knew?) But when I get to F, my voice goes hoarse. This happened a few times, and then I focused really hard on opening my mouth and on singing from my diaphragm.

Like magic, the high notes stopped sounding hoarse.

So maybe this is the magic formula. I recorded myself a few times, and I definitely don't sound terrible. Where I was singing off-key 50% of the time a year ago, I rarely fail to hit the notes now, even the high ones. So I've gotten better.

It would make perfect sense for me to quit voice and use my voice-practice time (and voice-lesson money) to focus on piano. But I'm not going to do that. I've come too far. Maybe I've just gone from "bad" to "mediocre," but still, I've come a long way. And I'm looking forward to my next lesson, where we'll take a break from the Italian songs (which I love) and focus on the English songs (which I love less and have therefore neglected for the past few weeks).

I'm also enjoying choir and feeling more confident in my ability to not distract everyone else with my off-key-ness. Perhaps there is hope for me yet.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Rusty Lock and Key

I'm in a room. There's a door in front of me. On the other side of that door is a whole world of adventure and imagination and joy and delight, but for the moment, I'm locked in this gray little room. The door itself has a lock that is all rusted. I've tried to open it in the past, but I've never gotten very far. Sometimes I try to scrape the rust off the lock. I also have a rusty old key that I occasionally try to polish. Each time, after I've made a little progress, I'll put it into the keyhole in hopes of opening the door. It turns a half a millimeter or so, but the brief excitement at my progress dies quickly when I realize, once again, the lock isn't opening. I set the old key aside, and from there I can forget about the door, the lock, and the world outside, for months—years, even. But then something happens—I hear birdsong, or I catch a glimpse of color—and I pick up the key and start picking away at the stubborn rust. That dark little room is my ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Dance of the Digits

Note: I've expanded significantly on this post over at my other blog, A Sort of Notebook . I am loving Liszt. I love the way my hands have to "share" the melody. I have so much to write on that, but I'm borrowing a computer and don't have enough time to do it justice. Suffice it to say that I've practiced three and a half wonderful hours today, and about two hours on Liszt alone. What I find wonderful about Liszt is that it pushes one hand hard, but not too hard. Then the other hand gets a turn to be pushed. But it's never both at the same time, and never one hand for too long. It's hard to explain. When I have more time to write, I'll word things rather more eloquently, I'm sure. All I can say now is that my fingers feel like they're dancing a wonderful, graceful dance. I've been trying to "play with my body," as my piano teacher says to do, so all of me is dancing. And Standchen, though it still need a lot of work (like, um...
3 comments
Read more

The Amazing Practice Tracker 2.0: Leveling Up My Piano Game

(Apologies for the cheesy clip art. I needed to come up with something, or the Blogger template would show a fuzzy, overly-enlarged snippet of the first chart below.) When I showed my husband my piano practice tracker, he said I should market and sell it. Ha. It’s not for sale, but I’m excited to share how this tool has transformed my practice—and why it might inspire all three of my readers. Since my last post about the Amazing Practice Tracker, I’ve made it even better. Here’s a peek at how it works, using my June data. All The Pretty Colors, All the Pretty Winners My tracker now sparkles with color: darker shades for active pieces, lighter ones for maintenance, technique, and sight-reading. Each day, the piece I practice most gets a bright yellow highlight—a little “gold medal,” if you will. (Click image for a slightly larger view.) A leaderboard automatically shows the day’s top piece and time. And if that isn't enough, I keep track of the month's leaders--specifically, ho...
Post a Comment
Read more