La Prima Dona

This series of posts started out by my desire to respond to a post of one of my fellow bloggers. It prompted me to contemplate why musicians cite their teachers and the schools at which they studied before they offer opinions about things. Here are some random thoughts that don't really answer the question, but that may make sense of some actions of classical musicians:

1. There is an unspoken socialization that occurs in the music world. A regular person must learn how to carry oneself as a musician. Someone with bad posture and a hesitant bearing can't slink up onto the stage and "sell" themselves and their music to an audience. We are taught, either explicitly or by watching other performers, to walk tall and carry ourselves with confidence. One of my voice teachers told me to walk as though I was suspended by my sternum. Quite a spectacle, but when singing opera it does open up the chest to produce freedom of vocal production and movement. It also creates a sense of bearing and presence.
After I defended my dissertation proposal and took a verbal beating from one committee member, my chair took me aside and commented that he was amazed that I had appeared to be unmoved and positive during the entire onslaught. Of course! We are taught to do this when we sing, because people talk aloud in concerts, make faces, and once someone even passed out and emergency workers rushed in to carry him out--all while I was singing.

2. Another interesting phenomenon is that of learning how to establish a pecking order without beating anyone up. This is called "upstaging" and can take a variety of forms. Once during a Messiah sing-along, I was seated on the stage with the three other soloists--all old enough to be my parents. The soprano, who was wearing an off-white chiffon number with a long train, leaned over to me in my plain emerald green silk dress and sniffed, "I'm very thirsty. Would you please pour me a cup of water?" The organizers of the event had placed a small table with a pitcher of water and four paper cups on it. It was right between the two of us. Why this woman couldn't get the water herself answered the simple question: Can I upstage you before you upstage me? It is truly a dog-eat-dog world in some musical circles. I was appalled because I would no sooner have asked anyone else to pour my water than I would have stood up and barked like a dog.

3. A singer has nothing to hide behind. If people don't like our voices, we feel rejected in a different way that a flautist would. You don't like how they play a song, or don't like the fingering they use. They can say, I didn't practice enough, or my lip was shot, or any number of things. But singers feel attacked when someone doesn't like their voice. We can't hide our twitching eye or quivering chin behind a trombone or lean into a violin. People are looking at our faces, our bodies. Our voices are part of us and can't be separated from who we are. Our soul is in our throat, near to our heart. So singers often develop some other sort of notoriety to define them. Some wear Bible dresses (low and behold). Others have wild outfits, or pitch a fit about one thing or another. Some have an obnoxious, gutteral, whooping laugh, almost as though they are vocalizing when they find something to be funny. I think this is what leads to people acting like divas. It's almost as though some think that since you can't see a voice and know a person is a singer, there must be some external behavior to notify the observer that one is a personage of note (no pun intended).

4. Musicians are at the mercy of the conductor. A soloist may sit with a conductor and explain how they interpret a piece: tempo, rubato, mood, and what-have-you. But the conductor can trump you because he or she can do whatever they want once you are on stage with them. If they decide that your interpretation isn't consistent with theirs, or your ideas outrage their sense of musicianship, say goodbye to your fantasy of performing a piece how you'd like to.
This happened more than once to me. The last time it happened, I was singing against a men's chorus and a full orchestra in a small hall. I could barely be heard, as I am a mezzo soprano and sing in a range that doesn't offer contrast with the accompaniament. The conductor discouraged me from using a microphone, stating that he would tone down the orchestra and chorus for the performance. Of course, at performances, nervous energy makes people play and sing too enthusiastically, and I was drowned out for a good third of the performance. I had also asked for the tempo to be a bit faster because the lyrics supported a more cheerful speed. The conductor made a lot of non-committal comments after about five requests to speed up the piece. He liked so-and-so's interpretation of it and played me a portion of it to show me (that sounded like a dirge). I politely requested that we find a tempo somewhere between his and mine and he agreed. At the performance we slogged along slower than his original tempo! And since I was oversinging due to lack of amplification, I was running out of breath. This made me look really bad, I thought. People in the third and fourth rows back couldn't hear me over the din. I was furious.
After the performance, the conductor saw me backstage and glibly commented, "I only heard one mistake!" That was all he said. No thanks!, no collegial comment, nothing. I had thanked him and complimented him on how the chorus had sung, etc. The experience was deflating, to say the least.
Perhaps then, it makes sense to the reader, why a performer may seem demanding sometimes. If we aren't, and conditions for performing are unsuitable as it was with me, we look bad. If performing is the medium for making a living, this is a serious problem, because a person can lose opportunities for future performances after one bad concert.
Negotiation skills are critical for performers. An agent works out the logistics of where and what to sing, but the singer has to deal with conductors who can ruin them. Singers are known for having screaming matches with conductors, calling them all sorts of unsavory names in front of the orchestra (and vice versa). The worst is, "dumb singer." A number of people think of singers as very dumb people unless they hold some sort of advanced degree. Even then, because their whole life is about singing and nothing else, they can appear to be very narrow people. To be called a smart singer who is easy to get along with is a compliment, indeed.

5. If you perform for a living, you have probably given up a lot just to follow your passion. For classical singers, it is not possible to pick and choose which performances one would like to participate in. You have to do all or most of the engagements because that is how you build a referral base and become in demand. That is how you meet people who can invite you to perform elsewhere. There is a huge amount of networking and politics that go into a successful performance career. One must greet members of the audience afterward--something that I have always disliked doing because I don't know what to say. It seems ostentatious (to me) to be in a reception line where the expectation is that people will compliment you. I remember saying to my parents once that I just wish I could perform in a balcony or behind a curtain so no one would accost me afterward. I never knew what to say. If you try to act humble and minimize how well you sang, you sound dismissive of the good will of the person who compliments you. If you accept the compliment and try to carry it further as a way to support what they are saying, you can look conceited. It's hard for some of us to simply thank people for their kind comments, particularly if the performance was a spiritual experience for you. It is much easier to fall into an easy conversation about who they are, what they do, and focus on them, before thanking them for coming out to hear you.
Ah yes, where was I? --giving up my all to follow performing. It is not as easy as it looks.

6. There is an interesting underbelly of the musical world that is all about hearsay and politicing. We get the real scoop from the musical grapevine about various musical personalities and whether they are truly as hard to work with as is reported. Or the conductor who is really a pedophile. Or the bass soloist who slept with the concert mistress. And always, when in the presence of the people with power--the ones who determine where you perform and what you perform--you have to conduct yourself in such a manner that they will invite you to perform so you can have your livelihood. The powerful person who wants you to sleep with him, the sexual harassment that goes on backstage--all of this is rarely visible to most people. It does however, have a huge impact on performers and our sense of personal integrity.

So when people give up this type of life for reasons of religious conviction--to teach music in a conservative religious institution, for example--they would love to hear words of appreciation that they prefer dealing with the uninitiated, unsophisticated musical wannabees, instead of being "out there" performing. Many feel that they have given up all possibilities of ever becoming famous. It can feel like an enormous sacrifice. It is not uncommon for such musicians to talk together, discussing who has given up what opportunity and what they almost did. To be around people who do not recognize the inner struggle associated with the choices and lifestyle in performance, can make musicians feel like they are living amongst aliens. The entire mindset is different, the socialization so very different. It is like living without having your legs under you.

Or they may just get disgusted with the scripted role they must live in the performance world (I think role expectation is much more common in classical singers than other performers). Two weeks ago I had a long chat with my neice, Amy. She questions her career choice in voice performance. To hear her sing is to hear an angel. But she is sick of the politics, the "kissing up" to conductors who "are so insecure that unless they feel that people like them, they write you off and don't invite you to sing anything." The upstaging of her voice teacher, the critical comments meant to keep her within a pecking order--all of this is wearing.
"There is nothing on earth like singing--really singing," she tells me. "But I can't stand what I have to be in order to do it."
Food for thought.

Lions

I didn't realize what I had gone through when I started my graduate program, at the age of 30. Life had felt very challenging, but I didn't have a name for what it was. One day I came across a book on gifted children and saw this poem. It almost leaped off the page and strangled me. Tears poured down my face as the light came on and I reviewed my young life through the lens of having grown up (too fast) as a talented kid. There's more to be said, but here's the poem:

They laughed at me.

They laughed at me and called me names,

They wouldn't let me join their games.

I couldn't understand.

I spent most playtimes on my own,

Everywhere I was alone,

I couldn't understand.

Teachers told me I was rude,

Bumptious, overbearing, shrewd.

Some of the things they said were crude.

I couldn't understand.

And so I built myself a wall,

Strong and solid, ten foot tall,

With bricks you couldn't see at all,

So I could understand.

And then came Sir,

A jovial, beaming, kindly man,

Saw through my wall and took my hand,

And the bricks came tumbling down,

For he could understand.

And now I laugh with them,

Not in any unkind way,

For they have yet to face their day

And the lessons I have learned.

For eagles soar above all birds

And scavengers need to hunt in herds.

But the lion walks alone,

And now I understand.

Written by an unidentified 11-year old, and quoted int he forward of the book, The world of the Gifted Child by Priscilla Vail, 1979.

Boheme

After graduation I moved to California where I planned to work as a nurse for one year. It seemed a prudent thing to start paying off my student loans before going back to New England to finish my music degree.
Nursing was harder than I thought it would be. When I interviewed on the unit I eventually worked on for seven years, I did not recognize anything I saw: tubes, machines, monitors, specialty beds. I was a new nurse who had never started an IV, catheterized a patient, given antibiotics or suctioned anyone. How I ever got through nursing is a mystery to me--and all the more proof that there was nothing about it that came naturally to me. My sister worked on the unit, and I desperately tried to live up to both her expectations and reputation. It was a living nightmare. I had to repeat my probationary period and was written up more times than I probably was even aware of. I had to work a 10-hour night shift and couldn't sleep during the day. So it was hard to think straight after working three nights in a row. But I stuck it out. After a year or so, I wasn't a hazard to my patients--and the fact that no one had died due to my care was a miracle in itself.

Somewhere along the way I began to study voice with a short, stocky tenor. Through his influence I applied for and was accepted in an opera workshop.

The workshop was held at a local liberal arts university. A well-known musician and Italian language coach team had come to town for the three weeks it would take to put on three Puccini operas. There were singers from San Francisco, Texas, and Arizona. And a few of us from the area. Each of us sang for Bill (not his real name) and were cast in a role based on our voices. I was cast in the role of Musetta in La Boheme, and Ciesca in Gianni Schicci.

The singing and rehearsals were invigorating. It was soon apparent that Bill really liked me. While he'd swear and shout at the other singers, when he realized that I was within earshot, he'd immediately rush to me and apologize profusely. "Those words were not meant for your ears, honey," he'd drawl. Our daily voice lessons were thrilling--I'd never sung so well before, and it was wonderful to be able to sing high notes that I'd never performed before. I had a high B and reveled in singing it loudly in the several arias that contained it.

Meanwhile, I was embroiled in an internal struggle. I was convinced that opera was not a good venue for a Christian. I was even more convinced that I did not want to forsake all in my life and follow music. This came forcefully to me one day when Bill introduced me to a visiting singer who had lived in his car for a summer just to be able to attend a one of his workshops in another state. The singer had given up his job, been penniless and transient just to be able to gamble on a maybe. The life of a gypsy was not for me. I was also scared about how I could make a living if I chose to throw it all into one basket.

One day during my lesson I was working out a passage with rather languorous lyrics and Bill stopped me. "Think only of sex when you sing that." I was a virgin, and his comments awakened nothing in me. This must have registered on my face. "Barbara, you need to have an affair before you can really sing." For several minutes he waxed eloquent on the benefits of being sexually ravished and bringing that sensuality to my singing. I flatly told him that I wasn't interested in having an affair and could we please move on with the lesson. We did move on. But the next day there was a visitor for my lesson. This all-brawn-no-brains type of guy, wearing very tight jeans and a shirt unbuttoned clear down to Bakersfield, sat in the corner leering at me throughout my lesson. It was clear that this was someone only too willing to help me with the affair Bill recommended. What a turnoff. Although I was cordial when I met him, I ignored him thereafter. He never came back.

I wasn't sure what to think about this sex business. I hadn't realized that it would be so rampant. I was only 22 years old and still rather naive.

My regular voice teacher hugged me one time and whispered in my ear that he'd love to get me in bed. He was a father of seven children. I was disgusted to the point that I dropped him and never went back to study with him. (By then I also learned that he'd been having an affair with another singer who he later married).

What was I going to do with my singing? Bill wanted to know and really pressed me about it one day. I didn't know. He told me that he thought I should go to New York and that he would take care of me there. He would see that I sang where I should, was introduced to people who should know of me, and that he would be there for me. He said that I had an extremely rosy future if I would only go to New York and work hard at singing (with him, of course) for two years. Then I could sing wherever I chose.

Singing had become an intoxication. I loved it. I was free and I was good at what I was doing. Languages came easily to me, as did acting. So opera was really fun. But I still had that nagging question--How could I be true to my religious convictions and have a professional musical career? Part of my confusion was obviously rooted in the way singing had come upon me. Part of it was from the mixed messages and emotional charge that singing had for me. And part of it was that there was no one to trust, no one to ask how to proceed, and no one to support me. So I did what I had done for years: I prayed.

One night, on the way back from the workshop I had words with God. I told Him that I was mighty angry at the fix I was in, that I really wanted to go to New York with Bill, and that I had lived with my dreams so long as a teenager and that now they were coming true. But something didn't seem right. The very time we don't feel like praying is the exact time we should pray. And pray, I did. And rant and rave and cry.

The next morning I had real peace about my singing future. I awoke with the intention of singing with all my heart, of reaching for excellence. But only as a dedicated Christian of conviction.

That day, Bill again pressed me about my future. "Bill, I don't know what I'll do with my voice. I don't need to know right now. But I believe that if God wants me to become a famous singer, nothing will keep me from that. If God wants me to go down the the corner and sing for a drunken man and then die, that's up to Him. I'll do my best, but I simply don't have the answers to what I need to be doing with my voice right now. I just know that I want to do what God wants for me."

I cringed under Bill's stare. He walked around the piano, looking sideways at me and then out the window. He suddenly wheeled around, pointing his index finger at me. "For by grace are ye saved, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God! ...And we know that all things work together for them that love the Lord." He paused, looking at my shocked face. "Oh yes, I know all the verses. I used to be a child evangelist with the Southern Baptist church. I know how to preach and I know exactly what you believe. I respect that. I understand." He didn't say much more than that, and our lesson was over very quickly. But I did catch him looking wistfully at me several times over the next day or two.

It was just like the tenor from Seattle, at the cast party. After we performed Boheme, we all got together for a party at my voice teacher's home. Sitting in the jacuzzi, a huge pink hibiscus in my hair, and false eyelashes aflutter, I was approached by this man. He squatted down next to the hot tub, probably for a better view down my swimsuit, I thought.

"I hear that you're a Christian," he said in a low voice.

"Yes," I answered, well aware that nothing about me looked very Christian.

"So what are you going to do with your voice?"

"I don't know yet. Are you a Christian, too?"

He stammered a very weak, "Yes." He said he had left his family and his pastorate in Seattle so he could go to New York to pursue singing. "I've given up everything for music," he said. "You should go to New York. You have a very bright future there."

By then I was out of the hot tub and standing next to him by the sliding door into the house. "You know, I don't really know what I'll be doing with my singing. But I do know that without a doubt, God will be central to whatever decisions I make about my future."

The expression on this man's face is one I will never forget. It was one of sadness, regret, wonder, and earnestness. "I wish I could think about it that way" was all he said. He was watching me through the evening with a very wistful expression.

Life moved on after that workshop. I had sung very well and experienced something beautiful. And I was sure that I didn't want to live the life of an almost professional singer. I still sang quite frequently, but mostly oratorio work. More and more, I sang religious music--arrangements of all the old hymns with lofty, uplifting words. And that is the path I took until 2001. Doctoral studies and lack of a musical network pulled me out of the musical world for the most part. Then a nasty bout of gastric reflux excoriated my vocal cords to the point that I am hoarse after only a few songs. So perhaps my singing days are over.

It could have been very different, this singing business. But it wasn't. I feel as though I have already had a career in music and retired from it. Yet it has influenced all that I am--how I carry myself, the way I interact with people after I speak, my sense of presence. I'm grateful for what remains, even though the focus of my life has moved on to something else now. The memories live on in my heart.

My Lord, What a Morning!

Marian Anderson

I had been bitten. Singing had become my passion. If it meant that I couldn't fit in with my friends, then so be it. If it meant that I'd need to practice for hours on end, then I would. There just had to be a way that I could make it all happen for me, even though my circumstances made me feel closed in, scrutinized, drained dry, and hopeless. I still sang--but mostly in private and never in front of my parents. If they were going to dictate when, what, and how I sang, then I simply wouldn't sing at all around them. So at age 17 I stopped singing at home and have not sung in the house in front of my parents since. If I sang in front of them, one of them would cry, or stare at me so I felt uncomfortable. My voice got all the attention at the cost of Barbara getting any attention at all. I would be volunteered to sing any number of places and have hell to pay if I refused. But I thought, if they won't see me, then they don't hear me either. At least I could control what I did at home.

This is the very thing that anorexics do: if they can't control their own lives and do not get to order how they live or negotiate rules for themselves, or if they feel out of control in general, they focus on their eating. That, they can control, and control it, they do. I completely understand that concept. I have always loved to eat, so anorexia never occurred to me. But I suppose you could say that I had vocal anorexia!

Our family did not have money. In fact, I was frequently reminded that because we did not have what other people did that I needed to keep a low profile so my lack wouldn't be as obvious. At least that is the message that came through. This made me feel rather hopeless that I would ever be able to get out of my home town, afford to go on to school, or get to a place where I could afford voice lessons. So many people could afford lessons and I couldn't. I had to beg my parents for piano lessons, and even then, we could only afford lessons for six months, all told.

Somewhere I came across the book, "My Lord, What a Morning!" --the autobiography of Marian Anderson. She was the courageous African American woman who was invited to sing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., 1939. She was a famous mezzo soprano who had come up through poverty and difficult family circumstances to become a much loved opera and recital singer. I devoured her book and borrowed records from the library of Marian singing spirituals. I had a cheap little record player in my bedroom, and I used to listen to her singing as I lay in bed at night, all those wonderful spirituals. If she could do it, so could I.

My last two years of high school were absolutely miserable because I withdrew into myself, certain that my peers didn't like me. The music that the choir sang was unappealing and our choir director was loud and socially awkward. So I dropped choir. It seemed that there was no social connections available to me at the school.

When it was time to go on to college, I was eager to go to New England and study music. There are so many excellent musical opportunities there and wonderful schools of music. I was very excited about finally being around students who were serious about music. My parents strongly encouraged me to attend a college in the Southeast, stating that I could become a refined, well-mannered young lady if I learned the Southern way. I was horrified at the thought of being pushed into the Southern Belle mold and told my parents that I wanted to go to my father's alma mater in New England. Imagine my shock and disappointment to be told that my education would not be paid for unless I studied nursing. If it couldn't be music, I wanted to study psychology and journalism. I already realized that writing was enjoyable. Neither of those were acceptable careers, however. So I dutifully went up to New England and enrolled as a double major: voice performance and nursing.

I knew a good number of music students, because many of them had been in the youth orchestra with which I had traveled three years earlier. It was terrific to be able to sing with the orchestra once again, and to eat, breathe, and dream music. I felt free and at the cusp of opportunity. Even though I worked three jobs to pay for my education (yup--I ended up paying for most of it myself, even though I studied the requisite subject!), I spent every free moment down in the music department. It was pure joy to sit at the piano and accompany myself singing all sorts of art songs and operatic arias. I was a soloist with the choir and performed several challenging choral works there.

Meanwhile, nursing studies were not going so well. I enjoyed microbiology, anatomy, and physiology. I even enjoyed learning about various diseases. But I couldn't quite grasp what my role as a nurse was supposed to be. For whatever reason, I couldn't catch on to what I was supposed to be doing when we went to the hospital. I followed around other students, trying to figure out how they knew what to do next. It could be that I had no interest in the subject matter so I simply didn't take in the information that had been offered in class. Or, maybe I was so unstructured that I couldn't develop any sort of routine. My nursing labs at the hospital were stress-filled and anxiety producing. I had no idea what I was doing and was so painfully shy that I could hardly converse with my patients.
But as soon as I left that world and made my way to the music department, all the pieces fell into the right places. I could chat with people, I felt outgoing, and my grades--while they were all C's in nursing--were all A's in my music classes.

Sadly, I had to drop my music major in my last year of college. I just couldn't keep up with all the nursing labs and required recitals. I still gave a junior recital that was very well received. But I began to notice things about the music department and musicians that I'd not seen before. Once, when returning a reel-to-reel recorder to my voice teacher, I tapped on his office door and heard scurrying sounds and whispering. After I knocked three more times, he finally came to the door--no shoes on, his glasses off, and his shirt hanging out of his pants. I knew the girl in there with him and my idealistic sense of right and wrong was outraged. Storming into the office of the chair of the department, I told him what I thought about my discovery and followed up with the comment, "I don't know how you expect God to bless this department when this kind of thing goes on!" I later found out that my roommate was having an affair with him, and quite possibly, another faculty member. Of course, nothing was ever done about my voice teacher.

There had also been interesting events with my previous voice teacher there with whom I had worked two years earlier (the orchestra conductor had paid for them herself, God love her!) Alex had come to our college to teach for a couple semesters. He was very worldly to my way of thinking, but he liked me because I joked and laughed with him. But there were times when his comments caused real discomfort. "Lift your chest when you sing, Barbara, or I'll come over there and lift it for you!" Suggestive words for a 16-year old. He'd put his hands on my stomach, chest, and back, while coaching me to produce sounds from various regions. He had me lie on the floor and pant while making vocal sounds--to get me to breathe properly. This is when we lay under the piano and laughed about the pictures of Big Bird that he'd taped under there.
One day he said he'd like to take some time and help me with my French pronounciation. Not wanting to waste time with something I could get elsewhere, I said I just wanted to work on the music. Alex blew up and called me "spoiled rotten" and "conceited" and told me that if I didn't get my act together, no one would be able to tolerate me. I was stunned. How could I be all those things when I was afraid of my own shadow, felt helpless and hopeless? When I feared that I'd never be given opportunities to really sing. I had two more voice lessons with him before the end of the semester. I tried very hard to do what he said and was cheerful and appreciative as I knew how to be. And I remained confused. I didn't connect having enthusiastic opinions with noncompliance. And since singing had come to me so easily, I didn't know how to work at it. Perhaps it would be important for me to try to appear to be more humble and quiet. So I pulled in a little more, trying to keep that low profile that I'd been groomed to create.
It was an odd, almost out-of-body experience to be taking voice lessons. One of my teachers sounded constipated when he sang, so I wasn't sure what he was going to be able to teach me. Since I sang very well and very naturally, some of my voice teachers didn't know what to do with me. We all knew it. So I'd go perform at some concert and have excellent reviews about my effortless, full-bodied voice. Then go to a voice teacher who lazily encouraged me to sing any art song that was handy, and really was more of a vocal coach (pointing out phrasing and music dynamics) rather than a teacher. Many times I'd go through the motions during my voice lessons, feeling utter disgust for my assigned teacher.
Looking back, I realize that my standards for these teachers were impossibly high. I just assumed that if I could sing the way I did without training, and they had years of training, they should be able to do more with me. So I dropped singing lessons.
Graduation finally came. I sang something that my voice teacher chose--something really awful and atonal. But I went out of that college with a bang, glad it was over, wanting to return after a year off and finish my voice degree. I wanted to be a singer. If Marian could do it, so could I.

Warnings

Found here

So here I was, a gifted child living in a small rural community with people who for the most part, didn't understand or appreciate classical music, let alone an operatic voice in a 15-year old. I didn't know anyone who could tell me how to navigate these waters. My father tried to encourage me to sing like the female performers that he knew of: Christa Ludwig or Dame Janet Baker. I loved listening to the latter and feared sounding like the former. Baker had a clear, crisp, decisive sounding voice. To my ear, Ludwig sang hootily and sounded like her mouth and throat were full of cotton. My father presented me with a recording of her singing Brahm's Alto Rhapsody, along with the vocal score. It is a soaring piece, written for an alto voice against a men's chorus. I was immediately entranced both with the music and melancholy lyrics of Goethe:

But who is that apart?

In the underbrush he loses himself

Behind him the shrubs clap together,

The grass stands up again

and the wasteland engulfs him.

Ah, who heals the pains for him

whose balsam became poison?

Who drank hate

out of the fullness of love?

First despised, now a despiser

He furtively consumes

his own merit in

unsatisfying egotism.

If there is in they Psalter,

Father of love, one note

audible to his ear,

Then refresh his heart.

Open his clouded gaze

to the thousand springs

next to the thirsting one

in the desert.

(Harzreise im Winter)

Well, that's pretty heavy stuff. Contemplating what it meant made me recognize that I felt like the bitter, brokenhearted man wandering in the desert. The music took me places that I'd never been before, mentally, spiritually, and vocally. But immersing myself in the lyrics like that was not good for me emotionally. About 60-70% of teenagers experience dysphoria: feeling sad or melancholy for long stretches of time. It's a sadness that is not quite depression, but is a melancholy that holds on. It is one of the things that makes us think of teenage girls as "drama queens." Being a teenager is hard enough, but living in the romantic composers' world dropped me down into the subterranean levels of mental health. Consider these lyrics of Robert Schumann:

I'll not complain though I have loved in vain.

Now you are lost to me!

I'll not complain

Once blind with love I saw you pure and white;

How could I know your soul was black as night?

But now I know...

I'll not complain though I have loved in vain.

(Ich Grolle Nicht)

Or the words of Mahler's Lieder eine faharenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer) in which a man sings about his agony on the day of his true love's marriage to someone else:

I have a burning dagger,
a dagger deep in my heart,
Ah pain, it cuts so deep.
In every joy and pleasure deep,
so deep it cuts with pain so deep.
Ah, why must I have this evil guest,
never is he hushed, never will he rest.
Not by day, not by night when I sleep.
Ah pain.
When I look into the sky,
there I can see the bluest eyes. Ah pain.
When in the golden fields I roam,
there I can see her golden hair
on breezes blown. Ah pain, such pain.
And when from my dream I start
then I hear laughter, her silver laughter,
Ah pain.
I wished I lay in the darkest grave.
Oh never, never to wake up again.

(Listen here)

And so there I was, living in the ephemeral world of anguished romantic composers--a good 60% of whom have mood disorders, as I would later learn. My external world had enough challenges of its own without this added ingredient. Longing to sing these songs, I was consumed every waking moment with a type of unrequited love: the music was in me but there was no place out in that rural environment to sing it. It was within me, but didn't belong to me. When I did sing it, I had to brace myself for whatever unthinking remark was made by my siblings or friends. And all the time, I kept wondering who on earth could I turn to who could help me with all of this.

I grew up in a very conservative religious home. One could say that we were fundamentalist Christians. We were told that it was our duty to develop our talents and gifts as much as possible as a way to bring honor and glory to God. But I began to notice that as I did that, I was getting unspoken messages that there was something spiritually dangerous about being a professional classical musician. I might lose interest in spiritual things and become full of prideful, dissipation. Especially with all those opera stories of lust, betrayal, and all manner of relationships inappropriate for Christians to portray. Think of it: Carmen, the girl with the loose morals who worked in a cigarette factory, has an affair with the jealous Escamillo who eventually knifes her to death in a jealous rage. Or let's see, how about Madame Butterfly? A 15 year-old geisha girl falls in love and marries American Lt. Pinkerton. In doing so, she must renounce the religion and love of her own parents. She does not realize that her marriage to Pinkerton is merely one of convenience and is not legally binding. So when he returns to America saying that he will return "when the robins nest again" she innocently believes him. Of course, he doesn't come back. When he writes to tell Butterfly that he has married an American woman, she does not read English and assumes that his letter is full of love for her. In fact, Pinkerton and his American wife come to Japan to tell her that they want her child to live with them in America. As Butterfly realizes what has happened, she tells them that they can return for the child in half an hour. She bids an agonized goodbye to her small child, goes behind a screen, and with Pinkerton's own dagger, kills herself. Pinkerton and his wife rush in to find her dying, and as the curtain falls, Pinkerton is pathetically calling out her name and weeping over her.
This is the ilk of operatic stories. No wonder conservative Christians do not like the idea of opera. They contain every stripe of immorality. But if I couldn't sing that sort of thing, why would God give me an operatic voice? Was I to sing Christian hymns in church? Was that to be my life?

I sought out every person whom I thought might be able to help me. One of them was my religion teacher, Mr. Barton. He had a thundering bass voice and when he sang "Asleep in the Deep" at church, he tucked his chin into his chest and shook his head from side to side, squeezing out those low notes. He used to sing in the Metropolitan Opera Chorus, he was quick to tell people. He was full of the stories that musicians tell: the time the obese soprano dramatically flung herself off a parapet supposedly to her death, but landed on a trampoline type affair offstage, only to bounce back up into full view of the audience. Or when the chorus members got lost and sang obscene lyrics in Italian to one another on stage. Or how the tenor couldn't sing a note and someone sang it for him from offstage. I used to listen to Mr. Barton talk about his days of glory and take notice of the wistfulness and regret on his face. "Oh, but a Christian can't stay in that field for very long," he'd tell me. "It was all so awful. You have to sleep your way to the top. There are so few really good singers that that's what you can expect to have to do." I didn't like the sound of that. But I didn't believe him, either. He sounded like such a martyr as he poured cold water on my dreams. Mr. Barton pointed out several opera singers who used to be fine Christians: Shirley Verrett, Thomas Hampson, and Kathleen Battle. "They gave up their godly lives to live out of a suitcase and sing on a stage. You need to be careful that this doesn't happen to you." He didn't have any advice, just a steady diet of futility and fatalism. A has-been, that's what he is. I don't want to ever be a has-been.

I note on Shirley Verrett's autobiography cover, she mentions how she "over came the fundamentalism" of her own family. Hmmm.

To hear this kind of commentary from Mr. Barton as well as from my own father, and to be led to believe that singers inevitably become power hungry, vain, dissolute divas, was the most discouraging thing any young singer could hear. It was as though my voice had been a cosmic joke: Here--see what singing is all about, but don't you dare do anything with it or else you'll be forever spiritually lost. It shocked me that I had been given something I didn't ask for, that I couldn't safely pursue or develop, that belonged to someone else, that others would receive accolades for (parents), and that was a danger to my eternal life. What had I done to deserve this? It was a double, triple, quadruple bind. I began to pray that my voice would go away.

Be careful what you pray for.

In the Big House

Grove Plantation House found here

During the days before the Civil War, slaves were bought and kept in little hovel-type shacks away from the Big House--the name the slaves gave their owner's home. The land owner needed domestic servants, so there were times when a slave's child who looked the part would be taken up to live in the Big House. While their parents slept on a mud floor, suffered in their back breaking work in the fields and survived the elements, their child was sleeping in a bed of her own up in a warm, dry house. Because her owners did not want her appearance to speak poorly of them, the household servants were taught how to interact with their White owners, how to polish silver, what to wear, and in general, conduct themselves according to what was expected.
When the time came for the servants to visit their parents out in the shacks on the back forty, they were awkward and felt out of place. In their parents homes, they sat on log benches or on the ground. Their parents and friends handled them carefully so as not to ruin their clothes, which compared to what the parents were given, were lovely. Children tried to converse with their parents, but their worlds were so different. There was a vast gulf between parents and child: even though the child was in their space, she did not belong there. The child spoke differently and used different expressions, spoke of different situations than any that the parents had experienced. As she watched her parents talk, she heard the idioms of her parents through the ears of those who had taught her to express herself in a different way, and she hung back from her parents. The parents could not go up to the Big House because they had not been schooled in the expected behavior, nor did they have clothes, or feel at home in such big homes. It was not that the parents didn't want to have homes of their own, or that they were content with the horrendous living conditions that they endured. It was not that they were not happy that their children were doing better than they were. It was that they could not enter that world, nor could they understand the experience of their children--pulled between two worlds but part of neither. When they saw their children hang back or behave awkwardly, they attributed this to their child feeling superior. But in fact, the children felt lost. They could visit their parents but the parents could not go to the Big House. One is not better than the other--both reached for the once known solace of each other only to find that both suffered because something significant had changed and nothing felt entirely comfortable for either party. This is a loss and a grief to anyone who has ever lived in the Big House, or who has lost another to the Big House.

The first day of class after I returned from Europe, my English teacher announced, "Barbara has come back from Europe after singing for the President." She looked over her glasses at the class. "Maybe if we're nice, she'd sing for us, too." I don't know if Mrs. Nelson meant ill by this or not, but it struck me as catty and unkind, and I shrunk down into my seat, horrified to be singled out in that way.
The same thing happened when I went to choir practice for the first time. Miss Olaf made some sort of comment that clearly did not celebrate my recent experience. I was mortified, but determined to prove that I wasn't big headed, and was the same as they were, even though I'd done something different from the others at my school.
But I wasn't the same.
Looking around at the choir members, it was hard not to compare the pimply-faced, sophomore tenors with the tenor opera singer from Vienna who had become quite encouraging of me. Or my tenor voice teacher with whom I had lain on the floor under the piano in his studio, laughing at the cartoons he had pasted on the underside of the piano.
Singing such uninspiring music as Miss Olaf chose, I could not help but recall singing Bach at the top of my lungs in front of an enthusiastically playing string orchestra. Or the tall granite buttresses of so many cathedrals across Poland, and the sound of our music echoing through them.
I had been surrounded by extremely gifted young musicians--some who had won young musician competitions for years, or who had made recordings, or had been taught by famous string players. Our conversations had been about things like which composer we preferred and why; or the performer we had heard play Chopin's Ballade No. 1 with such force that the piano had moved across the stage; or how the bowing should be for the slow movement of the Tchaikovsky violin concerto. They had actually been interested to hear me talk about the Italian songs I loved, and why I loved to sing certain notes--yes, other teenage kids actually wanted to know which note I liked to sing best!
There had been a freedom and level of understanding that I had never dreamed I could have.

Other kids actually understood what it was like to step out on the stage and give birth to Music in front of people who sat mesmerized, with tears in their eyes. Our youthful idealism and love for what we created kept us striving to give more to the people who heard us. It was a love that I have never seen or felt anyplace else, so unique, spontaneous, and strong it was.

So, as I walked through the halls at school, was approached by immature boys, or tried to join in conversations with girls about what color nail polish they preferred, my heart was very far away. I longed for the Big House. Even though I would be alone there now, at least it was a place where I knew I belonged.

Now, as a 48 year-old woman, I have lived in a couple Big Houses. One of them--where I live most of the time--is the Big House of being a therapist. People who study to become therapists need to learn that there are losses of every kind when they decide to live in a place where others can't come--even if you want them to. We look at our families in different ways. We think about our spouses differently. We have opinions about the children of our friends--all based on what we have learned, seen, and known from clinical experience. We are told things by friends that clearly states trouble, but that we are not at liberty to point out to anyone.
Fortunately, I've found that there are places where I can meet my friends and husband, where we both fit and belong and where I can turn off the voices in the Big House.

When you're a teenager, trying to figure out who you are in the first place, the longing voices coming from our parents often make us very lonely up up in the Big House.

Singer

When summer came, off I went to New England for a week of rehearsals with the youth orchestra. Then off to Poland. I'd never flown in an airplane before, never left North America, never been away from home for more than a few days. Here we were flying over the Atlantic for what seemed an eternity. Carl had smuggled on a mango and wondered if I'd like to taste one. That was another first. As we lurched and bobbed up and down in the sky during landing, that mango made me as sick as a mule.
We landed in what was then a communist country. From growing up in the US during the 60s, I was well aware that the communists were the ones who were the Big Threat. Russia was purportedly going to bomb us with an atom bomb, prompting all those air raid drills at school. Poland wasn't far away from Russia, I reminded myself.
There were a whole bunch of us kids, traveling with enormous instrument cases, full of horns--the bells of which were packed with our clothing. We had made use of every square inch of space: the harp case housed all our performance gowns, hanging upright. Unsmiling customs agents searched every bag, every suitcase and instrument. People in line behind us stared at the contents of our bags, lying out on the table for everyone to see.
There was an atmosphere of depression and gloom. I did not like how it felt to be there. We had been told that we would be watched, that quite possibly one of our interpreters was an agent of the State, sent to spy on us. Very intimidating.

Our first stop was a large public restroom in the city square. Our 13-year old concertmaster had to go to the bathroom. He disappeared down the stairs of a cinder block structure, in a real hurry. Momentarily, he came running out the door, aghast with concern. Behind him charged a squarish woman, shaking a chair leg in the air over his head. The bus driver intercepted her as she rushed up the steps into the bus. Apparently, every bathroom had a woman whose job it was to keep toilet paper stocked and the facilities clean. She was usually an older, matronly woman, sitting in a straight-back chair inside the bathroom, a small collection basket in her lap. I thought that I'd better watch my step in this country.

I've written about what happened during our first concert that day. I learned to soar without wings. When I entered that first ancient cathedral--my first cathedral--I was a nervous 15-year old girl. When I left, I had experienced magic. The power of music had become something that I had to have, over and over. It had been such a thrill to be capable of singing the beautiful music that echoed from one end of the cathedral to the other. It was marvelous to have as large a voice as I had, that would completely fill all the space in the building. People liked it, too.

We traveled to Auschwitz one dreary, drizzly day. I stood where a faithful Catholic priest gave his life at the firing post, and died in place of the man with seven children waiting at home. I stood in the barracks, touched the ovens, saw the bins of human hair and eye glasses. The horror of it stays with me to this day. That evening, while the orchestra played Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings, there were tears in many of the player's eyes. The ascending chords and intensity of the piece seemed to pull us back to the despair and hideousness of humanity's worst hour.

We went to the famous Polish salt mines, where there was an underground chapel complete with salt chandeliers. We sang several songs down there, much to the delight of the other visitors.
Because we were guests of the State, we were given some marvelous meals. It was the first time I ever ate chicken (I grew up in a mostly vegetarian household). Our breakfast breads were delicious, full-bodied, and slathered with real butter and currant jelly. We had sliced hard boiled eggs, cucumbers and tomatoes for breakfast with big mugs of black tea. We also had some foods that should not be given to adolescents: Rhubarb-noodle soup. Milk over there was not refrigerated. It was not pasteurized, so when it got old, it merely separated. Yup--that was the soup base with big curds, clumps of rhubarb (which most of us loathed, I found out), and thick noodles. But no one can hold a candle to Polish ice cream. There is nothing like it.

Midway through our month concert tour, we hopped over to Vienna for what in my church, is called General Conference: a meeting of church leaders and delegates from the entire world church. It lasted for a week or so and ended with a gala concert by us. We were to perform Beethoven's Choral Fantasy, as well as a couple original works for solo quartet and orchestra. Our rehearsals for this event were quite interesting to me. We sang against an enormous festival chorus, composed of singers from around the world. As I walked past the German singers, I didn't know how to say, "Excuse me" so I repeated what I'd heard my father say: "Bitte..." I got "Bitte" in return that sounded like, "You bet, baby!" I'd never been spoken to in that way before, and I liked it.
When the conductor called for the soloists to come to the podium to rehearse our numbers, I walked to the front and took my place next to people who were old enough to be my parents. There was a tenor from the Vienna Opera, a French professional recital baritone, a tenor from Iceland, two sopranos from our tour group and me. The Icelandic man was warm and seemed attracted to me somehow--he kept hugging me to him. I wasn't so sure about that. But the other two professional singers would hardly look at me. They seemed insulted by my presence or something. But the orchestra began to play the introduction to the first number and off we went. By the end of that first number, they were looking at me in an admiring way. I was a bit embarrassed, since I didn't know how to respond to them. But it was also very nice--validating. I began to understand that I had an incredible voice that fit in with professional adult singers' voices. I could do this.

I was now a singer.

The last night in Poland, we were slated to perform for the leader of the Polish people. At the last moment, we learned that Gerald Ford would be present. We were carefully coached on how to behave, not to make sudden moves, to do our best, and to be polite. It was a fairly small hall in a beautiful palace in Warsaw--the name of which escapes me just now. As we sat silently waiting, we heard footsteps coming down the hall and men's voices. In came the Polish premier, Gerald Ford, Henry Kissinger, and about 20 other people whom I did not recognize. We burst into applause. After a few comments, we played and sang for them. I was taken aback by Henry Kissinger belching loudly during our performance. And I kept staring at the president. Our Mr. President.
When the concert was finished, President Ford stood, thanked us all, and exited along with the other dignitaries. We again applauded as they left. Then the rush was on to get downstairs, change into travel clothes, pack up the instruments, and race over the airport where our plane had been held up 30 minutes for us. As I was pulling my dress off over my head, the cry was heard, "The President is back! He wants to see us!" We pulled on our clothes again and rushed upstairs to the concert hall. There stood Gerald Ford, without Secret Service, hugging and shaking hands with the couple orchestra members who were present. We descended on him. He was so gracious and warm. I got to shake his hand, as he systematically reached forward to greet every single orchestra member. We were with him about 10 minutes. Suddenly the doors to the room burst open and the Secret Service rushed in, surrounding the President. "It's okay boys," he said. "These are our finest." I reached past one agent and met his concerned glare with a smile. As we stepped back from him, Mr. Ford motioned for silence. He said something to this effect: "I want to thank you for representing the United States tonight. No one could have done it better than you did. You made me proud and I want to thank you for that." We again burst into furious applause as the Secret Service herded him out the door.
We found out later that he had gone upstairs after our concert but said to Betty, "I want to go see those kids downstairs." So he found the back stairs and came back to see us. He had evaded the Secret Service for 20 minutes. No wonder they were worked up!

As we boarded the airplane, I was leaving a different person than when I landed there four weeks earlier. I had sung in factories, concert halls, cathedrals. I had received standing ovations, armfuls of flowers from children and adults. I had been respected, supported, and approved by other outstanding musicians who were my very own age and who were also "different" in the way I was. I was not alone any longer, even though I didn't know anyone like them or me back where I grew up.

My parents came to Boston to pick me up at the airport. They were excited for me, as I regaled them with stories all the way back home. I also got quite a scolding: I'd never written home while I was gone, I'd been so consumed with everything that I was getting to see, hear, and experience.

I looked the same as I had before I left. But very little inside my head was the same. I'd seen something different--that fit me.

Vog

What I write in this post is about my family. Today, I dearly love my parents and siblings. I owe the world to my parents for giving us more than either of them ever received as children. It is important to me that anyone who reads this realizes that we are all--every one of us--broken, sinful people. It is quite true that we pay for the sins of the fathers of the third and fourth generation. This is how I account for what happened to me. I write without malice but not without pain.

As I fell asleep that night after my first solo, I had a mix of feelings: excitement that perhaps I could be a musician like my father, whom I adored. I also felt scared--I didn't know how to be a singer and thought that they knew how to act and be gracious in all situations. I was a naive country girl who didn't like to be around people I didn't know, and I knew that I was decidedly not gracious. But most of all, I was confused by what my father had said to me. It seemed a double bind somehow, to do all that I was supposed to do with my singing. It didn't seem fun anymore, especially when my voice wasn't for me--it was for God. Of course, I was glad that I could do something for God, but there was something wrong with the awful weight of thinking that I couldn't sing just for me. So I lay in bed and wondered about this thing that had come out of nowhere and that had everyone on campus talking.

A few days later, I was walking down the hall of the girl's dormitory and hear the familiar strains of someone playing a recording of the Vivaldi Gloria. I wanted to hear how the singer on the record sang the numbers I had performed on Friday evening. The recording artist had a loud, mature voice that had a full, operatic sound to it. I popped my head around the corner of the door to find three of the choir members listening to a cassette recording. "Who's that?" I asked.

Gales of laughter. "Come on, Barbara. Don't give us that."

I was confused. "No, really. Who is that?"

It was me and they thought I should know that.

I have never been so shocked in my life. Since I'd never heard my voice on a recording, I didn't recognize myself. It was a horrifying and jolting experience all at once. If that was truly me, then I couldn't be a shy, naive teenager. What was worse was that if anyone else knew that I sang like "an old lady" that I'd not have any friends and boys wouldn't like me. After all, the big music rage was David Cassidy singing, "I think I love you." I'd never be able to sing along with that, no matter how hard I'd try, with that operatic voice of a much older woman. My social life seemed doomed: I sounded like Two-Ton-Tillie.

For several weeks I could hardly see the light of day. My entire world had been upset by what had happened. My view of myself had changed so drastically that I couldn't seem to get my balance. This was to me like a curse. I kept thinking about how my life had been before I'd sung. Yes, I'd been very quiet and almost anonymous in school. Writing class had been fun and it was great to hide out in the library, or to simply sing in a choir. But now everyone knew me and I just felt so awkward. There was such hoo-haw about me everywhere I went that I was mortified.

Two weeks after that first performance, a traveling youth orchestra came to the school to give a concert. After sitting through what had been to me, a stunning concert, the conductor asked to hear me sing. She had heard about me through the grapevine, two states away. So I sang the Vivaldi solos for her whilst my parents stood by, eagerly awaiting her pronouncement. I sang the best I could, and got more than a pronouncement. I got an invitation to tour with her orchestra as a soloist that summer for a month in Poland. She was very encouraging and indicated to my parents that she would be looking out for me herself. I left that concert in shock.

My parents were so excited that they could hardly contain themselves. They were full of platitudes and advice about how to conduct myself and what I needed to do in order to prepare for the trip to Poland.

At that point, everything changed in my family. My parents pledged to send me to Poland, which meant that they had to empty their savings of the small amount of money they had in order to send me off for a month. My sister, who was in college at the time, and in need of money, was livid. Why should I, who had never sung a note in her hearing, get that kind of support, when she had performed at school in numerous venues. Why not my brother, who had sung in choir and played several instruments--why had he not gotten that kind of encouragement or support? Why indeed.

It was quite apparent to me, even at that young age, that my parents began to live through me then. If I thought it belonged to God, I was wrong. It belonged to them--theirs to schedule, groom, and to reap the rewards of my accolades. I was merely the medium for them to get strokes and to feel that somehow, their lives were fruitful in the musical world.

Does this sound harsh? Probably. And yet, when gifted children are in the picture, there is often some sort of exploitation that occurs. Particularly when the parents do not have a strong sense of personal agency or identity on their own.

Almost overnight, my parents began to carry around recordings of me singing. They often took them to people's homes to which we were invited, and asked if they would like to hear them. That's like boring people with home movies. Most people don't like operatic sounding vocal music, so I could tell that between my parents' poor manners and the type of music that this was not a good thing. I would skulk back away from everyone, mortified that I was being dragged into something that I would never seek out for myself. It was embarassing to be an object of curiosity like that.

Of course, this had quite an effect on my siblings. Goodness knows what prompted mother to do this, but she told my sister that I suffered from low self-esteem and needed to hear her praise me about my singing a lot. This did not sit well with Dana, who needed to be nurtured herself, not think about what I--the overprivileged younger sister--was getting. She became very cruel in her comments and mockery of my singing. I was the "fat Italian opera singer" whom she parodied with painful frequency.

My brother was pretty good about my singing. He didn't say much about it. But he did tease me about being a fat opera singer. A Wagnerian (that's pronounced, Vahgnerian). Rather than call me a Wagnerian, he called me, "Vog" (Wag). All I was missing was the Valkerie iron bra and horns on my head. What a sickening thought to be compared to an overweight, bellowing, swooning tank of a woman, which my brother caricatured so well.

My father was a classical musician by his training. He was a music teacher from the old school. He had studied at the Westminster Choir College and had very strong ideas about "proper" singing and "proper" church music. When I was asked to sing at church, my mother would not allow me to decline, citing my responsibility to God. My father would then dictate what I was to sing. After all, God did not deserve some haphazard rendition of popular music in church. He should have "the best." So I found myself singing songs like O Divine Redeemer, The Holy City, and Open the Gates of the Temple. I didn't like a one of those songs. I sounded so old singing them that I felt sick having to sing them. But there in the front row would sit my parents, looking expectantly at me. Sitting several rows behind them would be kids my age--who visibly had no interest in what I was singing because it was what old people sang.

"Can't I sing something with a guitar sometime?" What a silly question.

I was absolutely trapped.

The interesting thing is that I loved singing, once I knew the freedom that came with soaring off into the music. I often crept off to the chapel in the girls' dormitory and would sing at the piano through lunch hour--all the classical songs that I was realizing that I could sing flawlessly: Brahms, Mendelsohn, Bach. For that hour every day, I could sing for me and lose myself in the music. It was intoxicating and I couldn't get enough. But then one day when I finished singing something by Purcell, I heard muffled applause on the other side of the wall. I had been found out and my vulnerable freedom was gone. I never sang there again.

Vog. My parents had stopped seeing me and only saw my voice. My siblings resented me. I didn't feel that I fit in with my friends. I was ashamed of how my parents made over me in front of other people. In a word, Barbara, as I had known her, had mostly disappeared.

The Beginning

This is Amy and me at her senior recital in college. She had graciously invited me to sing a couple pieces with her. We ended with my The Flower Song by Delibes. My favorite--quite possibly because in it, I got to sing as full-voiced and loudly as I ever have. Have a listen to it (sung by others) here.
Sam had never heard me sing before and he was stunned with what he heard. He couldn't get down from the balcony fast enough to hug me and look carefully at me. Later he said quietly to me, "I was thinking, that's my wife!"
I hadn't told Sam much about my singing experience before we were married. I wanted him to like me for me--not for my voice, not for the social benefit or any other thing. I wanted him to love me for who I am--how I talk, walk, think, speak, laugh, live. Of course, there are reasons for that.

My father was a high school music teacher. He had always wanted to be a nurse, but a college professor talked him into changing his major to music. He came from a musical family: a violinist father, pianist mother, and brother who both sang and played coronet. Daddy had an excellent ear and was quite talented: he sang and played brass instruments very, very well. He was also a charismatic conductor who was much loved by his students.
My mother used to be quite a gifted young singer. As a child in the inner city, she contracted tuberculosis and was taken to a sanitarium in the mountains. There, she lived for about three years. During that time, some do-gooders from the city would visit "the San," as it was called, and would hold concerts. One was a songwriter who wrote for Dinah Shore. He tried out his songs on the tuberculosis patients. If they liked the song, he would take it down to Dinah to record. My mother was the one who sang the songs first--for the TB patients.
Both parents were frustrated in their attempts to be musicians. Mother thought that if she married a musician, she would have unlimited support and opportunities for her singing. She couldn't read music and desperately wanted to learn how. My father, on the other hand, soon despised having to force his artistic sensibilities in order to make a living. Although his students loved him, he was easily frustrated with his job. He was also a demanding, irritable, and short-tempered teacher to his own family. Every one of us took music lessons from him. I can remember Daddy trying to teach me about tone row when I was only 7 years old. He was irate that I couldn't grasp the concept.
By the time they were 40 years old, Mother and Daddy had stopped dreaming about becoming famous, or living to make music. Life had become rather difficult: four children in private Christian schools, disillusionment with a career, too little money, social isolation. Rough days for all of us.
But even with all of those challenges, there was a good deal of happiness beaming out through the cracks. We used to sing as a family, in four-part harmony. Since there was already mother and sister to sing the soprano and alto lines in the music, I kind of sniveled along, not feeling terribly indispensible. We sang with my cousins when we got together. I was in awe of them because they were both beautiful and excellent musicians. But I hated to be in front of people and was so shy that I didn't like answering the phone, lest I be forced to converse with someone unknown to me. A friend, describing me during those years, referred to me as "a wallflower." I was.

I started attending a Christian high school. Since my older two siblings had always sung in the choir, and since I could read music well, I joined the choir. I'd been in the high school band since sixth grade, but I'd been able to hide behind an instrument. Choir was different. I stood in the back row next to the cool girls who could really sing well, and threw myself into the music. No one cringed when I sang, and I didn't think anyone could really hear me. I loved being in a group with the older students. How I looked up to them! There was JP, Janice, Lori, Kevin, and of course, my brother, who sang bass very well.
That first fall in high school, the music teacher announced that the choir would be performing Vivaldi's Gloria for the Christmas concert. She needed two sopranos and one alto soloist. There was quite a buzz about who would try out. I turned to Linda, who was sitting next to me and said, "I'd like to try out for that." I have no idea why I even entertained such an idea. I'd never sung a solo and would rather be shot than get up in front of anyone. But I had this unshakeable conviction that I could sing those solos, and sing them well. Who knows where that came from. I had never even sung in my bedroom with the door closed, or in the shower. My sister and I had sung together at the piano, but I typically opted just to accompany her and follow her lead. Somewhere inside of me however, I knew I could sing the solos.
Friday of the next week, I went to Miss Olaf's office to audition. I'd practiced these solos in the chapel of the girl's dormitory all week, where no one would hear me, so I knew the music well. As I sang it, Miss Olaf's eyes got bigger and bigger. At the end, she asked me where I'd been hiding my voice. It was a nice thing to say, and a pleasant way to tell me that I'd been given the solos.
On Monday I sang the solos for the choir. People went crazy. Their responses struck me as overkill for a boring Baroque solo that was nearly monotone. The fact that I had sung on pitch might account for some of their enthusiasm, but I ignored it. Mostly, I attributed the choir members' reactions as kind encouragements to me--a shy, self-conscious freshman.

The concert was to be on a Friday evening. We had come home from school and were eating an early dinner. My brother was telling my parents about the concert that evening. I piped up and told my father that I would be singing a solo with the choir that evening. Would he please come? I must have been a real liar as a child, because he thought I was making it all up. My brother vouched for the veracity of my story and urged my father to come. And so, when I stood up to sing that evening, looking into the darkened auditorium, I could see my father and mother sitting half-way back on the right. The solos went off without a hitch and I was relieved to have it over. My only thoughts as the lights came on was that it had truly been fun to sing a solo with the choir behind me, singing antiphonally with me. I intended to do it again someday and hoped Miss Olaf would let me. And I wondered what the boys thought--if it might help my chances of getting a date.

What stood out for me that evening was that my father was crying when he came up to me after the concert. Mother grabbed me and hugged me, and Daddy just kept crying and looking at me. I didn't know what was wrong. The ride home that evening was awkward with Daddy sniffling and mother gushing about the choir and how I had done.

We got home quite late and it took awhile for six people to get ready for bed. I was the last one to kiss Daddy and go up the stairs. He still hadn't said much to me and was sitting off by himself in his chair in the livingroom. "Was it okay, Daddy?" I just had to know.
Daddy started choking up. He apparently couldn't believe that the voice he'd heard had come from me, and was utterly touched, shocked, and delighted. He said three things to me that night that framed my approach to, confusion about, and struggles with my singing for years:
1. You are so great at this that you are really going to go places with your singing. Don't let anyone tell you you're not great.
2. Don't let this go to your head. Be humble.
3. You have an obligation to God to sing for Him. Your voice is not your own. You owe God something with a talent like this.

I went upstairs to bed feeling satisfied that I had sung my best. However, I lay awake for some time, trying to reconcile my father's injunctions and come to terms with this sudden, blinding alteration in my self-perception and experience. Why had Daddy been crying? What was the big deal? Why hadn't he told my other siblings that they had an obligation to God, or that they would be great? What was I supposed to do? How was I to act if I was as great as Daddy said I was, but couldn't let it go to my head, and had to use it for God? How do you do that? Do well, downplay it, and recognize it's neither mine or for me.
This is like sprouting an extra arm that I didn't ask for. There is some agenda for what I'm supposed to do with it, only I don't know what that is.

I was 14 years old.

Music Pedigree

This is Amy, my neice in her "Queen of the Night" costume that she wore for an opera performance a couple years ago. She is a graduate student, getting her master's in vocal performance. Amy is following in my footsteps. Yes, I am an educator in a mental health profession. But I began in a very different field at quite a young age. It is just not something that I talk about very much any more.

I recently read a post on my friend's blog which asked the question, "What's up with classical musicians and The Pedigree?" So much flooded back over me as I read Joyful Woman's comments about her observations and puzzlement about musicians that I have found myself preoccupied remembering many things.

It may be a long, complicated, contorted trail, and it may bore even the likes of Freud. But I would like to reflect here, in the next few posts, both my response to Joyful Woman's question, and my experience in the vortex of this question. I am especially thinking about this as I think about Amy getting ready for her final recital. All of her language is musical language. A great deal of my past, attitudes, experiences, and feelings are visible in her. I left that world for a variety of reasons--some that I could help, and some that I couldn't.

You may wish to skip over the coming rambling, stream of consciousness recollections. It is the story of unrequited love, unutterable joy, confusion, and disappointment.

A Grand Week Away

Sam and I have been out of town for the last week, visiting his parents in another state. Let me give you a rather impressionistic account of our time away.
Papa and Mama were thrilled to have us with them couldn't do enough (from their perspective) to make us feel at home--and pampered. They woke up every morning at 5:30 to shower, tidy up the house, and wait for us to wake up. Being on another time zone, they had some waiting to do--and they did it very patiently. It was delightful to drag out to the kitchen in the morning to find hot German pancakes, scrambled eggs, slices of mango, and orange juice waiting for us at the table. Papa would say the most fervent prayer over our food and then off we'd go, with gusto.

Our first day was spent visiting property the folks have recently purchased in an adjacent state. I was struck by how green and serene it was there, out in the country. Twenty acres of the most flat, but green land, and three little dwellings on it. They hope to build homes there for themselves and two of their sons. There, we met Fred--an obese, good-natured, old dog. He looked part Corgi and part German Shepherd. He also looked like he couldn't get out of his own way. Rumor is that he is vicious, but that was hard to believe, looking down at him resting his chin on my knee and begging for a good scratching behind the ears.

We went into town and ate at a wonderful little restaurant in a bend of the road. The menu items presented a problem for Papa. His Puerto Rican rules of speech dictated that Cajun chicken was pronounced "Cahoon," for which he received much ribbing from all of us.

Papa's Puerto Rican cooking left us flopping happily about in the livingroom--helplessly full and sleepy. His chicken and rice, full of fresh cilantro and sofrito, cooked for several hours. The house smelled absolutely marvelous.

Sam and I slept on a platform air mattress in the study. The folks have a small two-room house, which put us in a very small room. It took us about three nights to adjust to the mattress, letting air out of it so we didn't feel as though we were sleeping on a very slippery, shifting board. If Sam turned over quickly, I could fly up in the air.

Mama and I spent a day shopping through several huge gourmet food and European cooking stores. I loved the freedom to be able to do this. No pager, no calls on the cell phone, no time crunch. We just meandered through the aisles of fresh herbs, cheeses, and freshly baked breads, oohing and ahhing about everything we saw.

I sang at my in-laws' church during the visit. I was to sing twice that morning. The pianist at their church played like the house afire, and we raced through what was to have been a meditative song of preparation for communion.
Why are sound technicians the same, the world over? As the pianist plowed through the introduction, he gestured to me as if to ask whether the monitor in front of the podium was up too loud or not. I motioned for it to be turned down, since I couldn't even hear myself think. I could see him up in the balcony sound box turning a knob before he disappeared from sight into a little back office. He took no interest in me thereafter, even though my microphone at the podium was nearly turned off. How could I know enough to tell him to turn down my mic when in fact I had not yet sung when I motioned to him? There I stood, singing my heart out, not being heard over the piano's broad, crashing chords. It dawned on me that people looked somewhat dismayed, but I thought that they could be deep in reflection about the words I was singing. Later I realized that they couldn't even hear me. I was to have sung during the communion service proper, but the organist hijacked the congregation with a great Bach toccata that took up the entire time. Papa was livid, ready to tear someone's head off for not being more organized, causing me to be preempted. Since according to my time zone, the time I was really singing was at 7:00 a.m., I was grateful to get away with only one strained song.

In reflection, this was the first time I was a guest with Sam's family of origin. I've met his brother and have visited with his parents before. But we never stayed with them. This visit made me feel part of a second family--something I never anticipated, what with being single for so many years. Probably many people take in-laws for granted. I have waited many, many years to have some. Seeing Papa suddenly puff up and start to sing a Spanish love song to Mama in the kitchen; to laugh with Mama about an idiosyncracy shared by our Sams (Jr. and Sr.); to hear Papa tell his friends, "These are my cheelren": this warmed me. To find that I fit in, that they love me dearly, and that I love Sam more after being there--this is the best result of my trip away. We made many good memories. It was grand indeed.