Enlightening/Puzzling

There is so much that I am learning about myself by intensely studying, refining, and polishing my voice. The interesting thing about this kind of study is how much the principles that underlie the technique of singing are principles that can guide life in general.

Let go of control.

My voice is inhibited, greatly, in fact, by an overabundance of tension in my tongue. The tongue, actually, is a very large muscle that extends all the way down your throat practically to the voice box where your chords are housed. There is a delicate balance in how much tension should be in the tongue. The tongue must move...it is what we use to articulate consonants, and it helps us to form the different vowels that we use to communicate. But it should not be bound in tencion in order to sing well. The root of my tongue is very thick and full of tension (the wrong kind), basically disallowing a good portion of my sound from actually making it out of my body.

It’s funny, though, since in English, when someone has trouble communicating, we would say that “the cat’s got his tongue.“ In some fundamentally incorrect way, I am using the base of my tongue to form the sounds that I want to produce. Unfortunately though, this kind of control is just the kind that actually inhibits the “real” sound that my voice is capable of.

So, I try to control my sound in an attempt to make it better. But this need for control actually makes the sound worse. Allan likes to use the word “allow”: We must allow ourselves to be open to what life will bring us, not constantly seek to control our world. This is a principle that I have been working on in my meditation for months now. Letting go, or allowing, is not easy for a control freak. It is almost an ironic juxtaposition, one where the cause has the opposite effect as was desired—this principle being turned upon itself once again, since the cause should never have been instated in the first place.

It seems like a sort of Buddhist principle, really. “Do nothing” seems to be the guiding principle of voice, the teacher, through time, stripping from the student all that they have ever learned was correct in order to reveal a fully natural, unencumbered instrument. But “do nothing” is, of course, over-simplified. Really it is just a matter of doing all ther right things and none of the wrong ones.

No one knows everything.

Studying with a voice teacher, especially with one as intense as mine, and at the “polishing” level where every slight mishap is addressed, and condemned, is like going to a very strict church of some kind. After every lesson, I leave the service feeling like a sinner who fears for his very soul. It is frustrating being a horrible vocal sinner, you see, and can, at times, seems like a never ending story, a saga of bumps along Art’s road-to-nowhere. Sometimes I feel like a caged animal in the presence of the Voice Teacher, going slowly mad being continuously poked and criticized. She pushed me to a near break-down just a couple of weeks ago. I felt like a new Christian who’s been to a two-week tent revival and is just plain churched out. Hell, sometimes you just gotta backslide and booze your way right to the whorehouse when you got an injection of Jesus just a little too intense for your recently-baptized soul.

The Voice Teacher just has so much energy and does tend to rant like a preacher “getting’ Jesus”, the otherworldliness of a lesson made poignant by her All Seeing Eyes practically seeing straight through me and catching every last incorrect thought or impulse. Call me human if you must, but I can’t help but get some Schadenfreude, though, when I know that the Voice Teacher has said something that just ain’t right.

Voice Teacher, obviously unimpressed by the size of my instrument, has declared that it is a medium-big voice (as opposed to a big-big voice), that she thinks that I have made the switch to Heldentenor too early, and that I would be a great oratorio singer (singing things like the Messiah and the Elijah.) I was listening to my lesson of just yesterday, and thinking to myself: how could anyone think that is anything except a Heldentenor?

But, you know what? I didn’t come to the Voice Teacher so that she could rethink my Fach for me. I came to perfect my technique. I will rely on vocal coaches and the people like the Dream Agent to help determine what kind of rep I should be singing. Besides, I really could care less what I sing. The most important thing is what I get hired to sing. I know it sounds odd, especially considering how obsessed I am about the subject, but the question of my Fach is moot, or should be.

It’s like the old joke that waiters are neither pessimists or optimists because when they see a glass half filled/empty, they only think ‘I don’t need to refill it yet.’ For me, the point’s mootness at this point in my career is most like ‘get me the gig, and I’ll sing it…whatever it is.”

"Hosanna…a client!"

The Dream Agent called to ask me if I might want to sing Lohengrin in 2009. I, after falling out of my chair, simply said a resolute "Yes".

My first big gig!

The performances will be concertante and will take place in Frankfurt an der Oder, Potsdam and Berlin. Lohengrin…my dream role….now a reality. I can barely believe it. Thinking of this gig brought back memories of a caricature drawing a colleague from the chorus in Pforzheim made of me a couple of years ago. The bubble above my head is Lohengrin's most-famous line in the piece. The book is titled "How will I be a great tenor."



Because it was meant at the time tongue-and-cheek, I find it especially poignant somehow.

My progress with the Voice Teacher has also taken a great leap forward and is producing some pretty amazing results. Things are looking up.

Randometer Kopierkatze

When we last saw our hero, he was battling giant centipedes on the planet Zyrgon…

I know it has been a while, and a lot has happened, so, inspired by Monica, I might have to just do a Randometer list in order to bring everyone up to speed.

1. Dream Agent, in November, recommended that I polish up a few things with the Voice Teacher in Munich. I had a lesson with her and decided to re-locate, part time, to Augsburg where she also teaches, in order to intensely “get shit done”. I have had three lessons so far. Thursday, I came home to Chris (thank God for his existence) and had a mild nervous breakdown. I guess I am not just doing a few things wrong…it’s more like EVERYTHING I do when I sing is wrong. On Thursday, I was on the brink of giving up singing all together. Seriously. I am better now, so don’t worry.

2. So, I live in Augsburg in a little apartment, ok tiny apartment, from Tuesday till Thursday every week. I sleep on a foam mattress that Monica once bought and used when she visited us in Pforzheim. The lack of a real bed and all of the walking (which I hadn’t done for the past three moths) and the intense breathing exercises the Voice Teacher had me doing especially focusing on the back muscles, brought about my back going completely out when I was in Augsburg. I can think of no more pitiful sight that what I must have looked like, barely able to walk, hunched over like I had osteoporosis, limping my way to the doctor where he gave me a shot in my back and extra-powerful pain meds. I am better now, but that was trying. The whole experience, really. is a trial of some sort. The set-up and the way it is playing out is like the universe plopping a very significant question before me, in dazzling marquee lights: “How much do you want this?” My will was almost broken this week. But I ain’t nobody’s bitch.

3. Convinced that I would absolutely lose my mind just sitting around, waiting for my next voice lesson, I started training at the Language School. I need a hobby. Teaching English seems like a good one for me. I have been training for the past two weeks and will teach my first class, in front of a bunch of businessmen on Tuesday. It should be fun.

4. Augsburg is cute. It looks a lot like what most people in America would think a typical German city should look like. It must not have gotten bombed out during the war. The one thing I have noticed, though, is that I see so man nuns on the streets here. I think I am going to start counting them. I will offer my data later.

5. Chris had a job interview in Berlin this last week. The interview went really well, and I was so proud of him for getting his portfolio together and presenting himself well. He ended up only being the runner-up. We were disappointed, but he has another interview this next week. I think he will get a job in Berlin soon, finally concreting our plans to move there.

6. Books I am reading/have recently read: “The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio” was pretty good. It tells the story of how a mother ended up supporting her large family by winning poetry, writing and jingle contests in the fifties and sixties. The story is very nice, but the book itself is quite badly written—going for the folksy style but never quite getting it right. “The Genius Factory: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank” is good. It is written by David Plotz who also writes for Slate. I like Plotz’s writing style. I am half-way through and am wondering, though, if there is really enough material for a book here? Phyllis Diller’s “auto-biography” called “Like a Lampshade in a Whorehouse” is looking pretty good. I find her very funny, so her little anecdotes with inserted one-liners are great. I especially like the line that she was so ugly as a baby, the doctor “said it was the first full-term miscarriage he had ever witnessed.” I have just started this one, but it looks pretty good. Her ghost writer/editor seems to have done a pretty good job.

That’s all the news that’s worthy to print, so far. I know, because I have been monitoring it, that there are a good number of you reading my blog. It would be nice to hear a comment every once and a while…

Obamania

I feel like a lame John Kerry (‘First I was against the war, then I was for it, then against it…’) I really was behind Obama at the beginning. I thought that someone with his record, “look”, and well-spokenness (as opposed to my bad writiness) could win the nomination, and, ultimately, the presidency. Really he is the only one of the Democrats that appears to have a very solid anti-war stance, this, ironic considering my lead-in, mostly because of his voting record on Iraq.

Anyway, I just wanted to share how overcome with joy I was, after having turned coat, defecting to the Hillary camp for some months, hearing that Obama won Iowa. And, when he said “They said this would never happen” at his speech, I have to admit, yes, I did shed a few tears. The significance of a black man winning anything in this presidential race hit home like a pile of bricks when he said that, my heart melted, and I realized the error of my ways.

What fooled me into thinking that Hillary is electable anyway? We all know she isn’t. Too many people hate her.

Now is the time for change, and the people know that, I think. A friend and Washington insider is trying to tell me that Obama doesn’t have a chance. What does he know? Hell, he even thinks that McCain is going to win the Republican nomination. I sincerely doubt that.

Anyway, I am all for Obama. I only wish that he would get with an elocution specialist or something and improve his delivery. He says “uh” way too much especially when improvising in debates.