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I went to college to be an opera singer, not a writer. Full voice scholarship, even meals paid. And I carried through that shit and ended up getting some work as a professional tenor. This is America where classical music rarely pays anyone full-time $, so it was a part-time job.
Anyway, the 2000s begin & inspired by my (then-new, 2nd) wife Dana I begin a blog, because I've always been a writer, too. Just never had my shit together enough to push it. But blogging, for a writer with my lousy attention span, was perfect.
About 5 years after I started my 1st blog I was essentially scouted by an editor for the Crime Library and BLAM became a professional. No idea what I was doing, but I had some basic skills & intuition that worked in my favor. Writing & later editing became my job.
Now that's what I do. It was always who I was. But even though I let singing slip to the side by about 2007 or so, in the last couple of years I've realized I'm still a singer, too. These things are all related, not separated in little boxes. I began taking voice lessons again.
In short order, my 1st audition for an opera in over 10 years, I got the lead tenor role, the 2019 Greater Worcester Opera production of The Mikado.
But I wasn't sounding like myself yet.
But I wasn't sounding like myself yet.
I can be a champion overthinker. And my teacher, Jane Shivick, spotted this quickly. I obsess. I tinker. I try stuff, throw it out, try over. Go back to zero & re-launch. Through The Mikado & ensuing performances with GWO people said nice things, but I did not sound like ... me.
My high notes were wrong. It wasn't Jane's fault; she was saying all the good stuff you'd expect from a soprano who'd won the Metropolitan Opera Nat'l Council Finals -- a huge deal in opera. Jane could even tell what I was doing. Which was overthinking, then clenching.
After a lesson in which we discussed (with a lot of laughs, but it was a seriously-intended conversation) my overthinking I went home bummed out. Started singing & realized something idiotically simple. If you don't know about singing technique, this'll blow your mind.
All along, I'd been feeling way too much in my throat. All the tension was in my throat. I would hold my sound back with my throat.
I began repeating in my head, "If you feel it in your throat, stop & re-start till you don't." That was it. That was my new singing mantra.
I began repeating in my head, "If you feel it in your throat, stop & re-start till you don't." That was it. That was my new singing mantra.
It was the most KISS -- Keep It Simple, Stupid -- moment I've ever had. And in my next lesson it was obvious something had changed. I was free. And I told Jane I just realized I had to get my throat out of the way. Which I know she found both perplexing and hilarious.
I'd been thinking about everything but the most basic thing once you've established good breathing and learned music -- let that voice out. Let it go. It's that simple. If you feel it in your throat, stop, re-start, sing till you don't.
Suddenly I wanted to sing more than ever.
Suddenly I wanted to sing more than ever.
Then coronavirus self-isolation began, and everyone was home. This is not an ideal situation for an opera singer. We are loud. Stand beside an opera singer doing their thing, you'll see. It's a little uncanny a human is making that noise. So there's been irony in this situation.
That, in fact, is why I'm bothering with this thread. I want to be singing right now. But my landlord is home on the floor below & my wife can only stand so much of me at full volume when she's spent the whole day doing work on her doctoral degree.
