The Unlikely Hero

I think The Onion dreamed up its best headline yet with “Casual Friday Claims Lives of 13 Nuclear-Waste-Disposal Technicians.” I needed that laugh. I really did.

I wish I could say everything is dandy here. I think I have a real bitchin’ case of Seasonal Affective Disorder. I feel like the ship stuck in the doldrums. The world’s supply of chocolate would not cure it, I fear. I spent 5 minutes looking into a fluorescent bulb, but that didn’t help much.

Well, peoples, as Karen likes to call you... what to do?

I have been practicing a lot. I started taping my time in the practice room so that I could hear it and correct things if needed. I don’t know if any of you out there realize this, but you can’t really hear yourself very well when you’re singing. It’s because the ears were made to hear from the outside in, not the inside out. That’s why your voice on an answering machine sounds funny. Anyway, I am a pretty good voice teacher, and can diagnose vocal problems when I hear someone sing. I can do it for myself, too. But, unfortunately, I have a little bit of a problem being objective with my voice. I hear it, and I know what I should do to correct the problem. I just can’t help but thinking the whole time how unpleasant the voice sounds to me.



Amongst the other philosophical problems that I have with coming to the understanding that I am a Heldentenor is that Heldentenors tend to have extremely powerful voices, but beauty is not really a word that a lot of people would use to describe them. They sound heroic, thus the name. But, I grew up as a singer doing early music and singing all that Bel Canto stuff. I grew up singing almost everything in Italian, and now I sing almost everything in German (because almost everything for my Fach is written in German.) It is just a change that seems sad. I have always been attracted to music of the 20-th Century and music written before 1750. Now I am stuck in the 19-th Century Romantic shit and cannot escape. I am just complaining because I am depressed. There are about a million Mozart tenors out there who would give there right leg to be a Heldentenor.

I am filled with doubt of myself and my talents. I have GOT to get over this if I am going to be anything. Must believe. Insert grunting noises here.