What brings an American girl, born in the 50’s, growing up with rock and roll, a fan of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, later of folk and jazz, to become a singer of classical music, of opera? Seem pretty far-fetched an idea. But perhaps a little background discussion will help sort out what has brought me to this place in my life.
My childhood was fairly uneventful - in the 1950’s, our mothers kicked us out of the house to play with regularity, so we ran from morning till night with all the other neighborhood kids. My mother worked outside the home, as we euphemistically say now, so I spent a lot of days being watched over by a neighbor who eventually had 6 kids, the oldest two being the same ages as my brother and I. And the same sex, so we were automatic friends. Being friends with Theresa was always a challenge, because I was shy, fair, overweight with an inferiority complex and she was small, thin, dark (half Aleut Indian) and quite self-possessed. My stubbornness would eventually cause me to balk at always doing what she wanted (probably my best survival technique in those days) and she would stomp off for a few hours, only to return to my door to ask if I could play. I would spend those hours playing with my dolls made out of my father’s pipe cleaners, not that I didn’t have “real” dolls, but because I could imagine these stick figure dolls to be whatever I wanted. And there were definite male and female stick figures, so I could have families and romances and very elaborate stories, all of which I did out loud, to my brother’s amusement. He used to think I should write them down…. Who knows, maybe I should have….
I had a rich fantasy life as a child, probably because I felt so inadequate in reality that I needed to invent scenarios for myself that included happiness and success. Although I didn’t project my own appearance into these fantasies, I’m sure I must have identified with the central character. I just don’t really remember.
I knew always that I could sing. Family legend has it that my first “public performance” was lying on my grandmother’s bed, ostensibly to nap, at 18 months and being overheard from the living room, singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”, which, of course, gathered the whole clan in to watch in amazement. My mother sang to us all the time as babies. Most songs were in ¾ or waltz time, since that was the easiest to rock to, in her opinion. In contrast, my son didn’t get anything that definite from me…. I didn’t sing him to sleep, but he did learn early to sleep through my singing. Quite a feat if you know how much sound I produce…..
Singing was not so highly valued as instrumental music in our house, even though my father sang (a tenor) and my mother obviously loved to sing. But my brother exhibited early talent on the piano and later, the string bass and composed works of music for each within months of beginning studies, so he was the family wunderkind. I was the little sister with the dimples who stood behind everyone else, waiting for my turn to be briefly acknowledged. Most people I know would not recognize me now from that description, but occasionally I still feel that rise to the surface. I just overcome it with humor or bravado….
I did take violin lessons in grade school, although I really wanted to play the flute. I just bowed to the peer pressure when all the more popular girls chose the violin. My mother hated it, because her sister had played it, badly! But I stuck to it for 4 years and learned more about music theory and about myself in the bargain. I had two private teachers during that time. One was a former symphony violinist who had had a stroke and could no longer play, but had successful students. He alternately sympathized with my position as the invisible younger child and railed at me because I couldn’t possibly know what pain and anguish was since he was paralyzed on one side from his stroke. He terrified me.
The second teacher came about when the first had a second stroke and was away recuperating for several months. He was a loveable Englishman, teaching at the UW and playing in the symphony, who lived in a little rental house with his wife. I would take the bus to their home and wait on their porch till they arrived. My lessons would always have a “tea break” in the middle, which I adored. They treated me as an individual and didn’t even really know or acknowledge that my brother was the family genius. Unfortunately, they had to return to England for family reasons and when they returned to the US, were offered a position at WSU across the state and I never saw them again. After that, I gave up the violin.
The next year in school, 8th grade to be exact, when I quit the orchestra, my brother wrote a note introducing me to the choir director at school. My brother was 3 years ahead of me in school and always made an impression on his teachers, but this was the first time I actually used it to my advantage. So I delivered the note and the gentleman, Roger McRae, asked me to sing a few scales. Glenn had written that he had personally heard me sing “triple high g flat” (he thought that more impressive than F#), so Mr. McRae vocalized me up to, I think, about high C before he declared that enough and told me to report to his class the next day. I was thrilled, because singing was joy for me and now I could get credit for it! Thus began my journey into the world of singing in public, still not a soloist, although that did come later with the choir. And, at the end of the 8th grade, Mr. McRae pronounced me more than ready to begin voice lessons and my parents found me my first voice teacher.
I used to say that we were the only kids in Seattle who didn’t ski because my parents were always paying for music lessons. True. Glenn, however, got piano, bass and composition lessons, while I got first violin and after that just voice. I did ask for and receive a guitar as a Christmas present early on and found an outlet for my growing performance addiction, playing folk music (taught myself the guitar – chords and fingerpicking styles…), hiding my shy, still overweight self behind the guitar.
To overweight, heredity had, in the 6th grade, added oversized breasts. Oh my, something else to be teased about. It is ironic that I came to value them as one of my best assets and then later in life, had them be invaded by cancer. But that is a story for another day.
Anyway, I eventually learned about boys and their adolescent fascination for breasts and started to use that to get attention. I was too terrified to initiate sexual contact or, at first, even to allow it. But I was always attracted to the “bad boys” who desired it. Played with fire, but somehow managed to escape the trauma of sex too early by interesting twists of fate. I think God was protecting me in those days from that because I could not have handled it. Didn’t last forever, but did serve to shape me for the future. Now older and wiser, I just shake my head at the mistakes of my youth and thank God that it wasn’t much, much worse.
Skipping forward, I sang in the school choirs through high school. My senior year, I joined the “Swing Choir” which became the Vocal Jazz ensemble and discovered a new love. I had always enjoyed rhythm and my brother, who always had a fascination for complicated rhythm, had made sure that I was a singer who could count. So although I was far too inhibited to improvise, I did love the way jazz slipped right into my soul and made me open up. And it was the vocal jazz director who encouraged me to be a college music major.
He sent my name to a state college music program in the central part of Washington, because he had a good friend who was jazz band director there. They mostly trained teachers there, or should I say, traditionally trained teachers, but John Moawad (the director) rapidly turned it into a destination program for budding jazz musicians. But at the time I started, the vocal program was totally classical, so for the first year, that was what I did. They had a swing choir of the old, choreographed pop tune variety, so I only lasted there for a quarter. But it was becoming evident that I had many sides to my musicianship to explore and explore them I did. Still am exploring, for that matter.
My second year included an epiphany experience, vocally. I sang my first aria in performance. Up to that time, I could pretty much master a style or technique (with the exception of improvising which I mentioned before..) in 20 minutes or so. I was a quick study. But opera was different. It required the use of all my faculties to do properly and it meant I actually had to study. The languages, the styles, the drama, the vocal theatrics. And I was HOOKED! My first aria was from Puccini’s La Boheme, “Mi chiamano Mimi”. A little ambitious a selection for a 19 year old girl in that period, but very good for me at the time. And the performance was marked by, first, a feeling of expansion during the singing, an actual physical sensation of my shoulders stretching out to the sides of the stage as I took my audience into my world, into Mimi’s world. And secondly, the music faculty lined up in the hall afterward to shake my hand! Holy S*#%!!!! I was stunned! And so began my journey into the world of classical music for my voice. And I have learned to love it, to find my favorites, to open myself up to new works and newly discovered (for me) works and embrace this talent of mine that fits into that world so neatly.
That’s enough for now. Lots to digest and my mind is reeling from the flood of memories. It has had its pitfalls and disappointments and even disasters. But I’m still here and I’m still singing. It does annoy me to no end that I have reached my vocal peak at this age at a time when youth is so over-valued. But I need to work at convincing more people that experience is even more valuable, especially when it comes packaged with a strong, well-maintained instrument with an intelligent musician in the driver’s seat, so to speak.
A domani!