I’ve been working a bit here and there on a “memoir,” largely focused on music and worship. I’ve had fun recalling my time in the Florida State School of Music, and decided to share a few snippets on the blog. Hope you enjoy.

 

The following fall, I began my adventure into the School of Music at Florida State. I enter the campus with fear and trepidation. Florida State I was familiar with, but not the School of Music. I enter the Kuersteiner music building timidly and enviously watch the confident seniors stride past me.

 

Some classes I cannot wait for. My music theory class is beyond interesting, and I soak up everything. All of those years of staring at scores in choirs are all making sense. That strange code that I hadn’t felt privy to before now makes perfect sense in my brain.

 

Ear training and sight singing turns out to not be as easy. It all makes sense on paper. Can’t we just leave it at that? I have to hear it too? I struggle trying to tell the difference between a major third and a minor third interval. I dread the days when we have our sight singing class and I’m expected to sight read a melody. My heavily accented TA doesn’t help matters.

 

With even more nervousness, I begin my voice lessons with a new teacher. Gone are the days of my gentle, encouraging teacher. My new professor is kind, but he lets his frustrations toward me show. He is expecting more than I give him, and his explanations and techniques are not working for me. I try desperately to make my voice into what he wants it to be, to no avail. I dolefully trudge through my first semester, simply trying to get through.

 

I like my voice teacher. He is fun to talk with and has great stories. I smile as he tells me about his wife of forty years. “We’ve never once considered divorce!” he proudly tells me one day. “Murder a couple times, but never divorce!”

 

But fun stories are not helping my vocal techniques. He tries everything he can think of, but his visual pictures are not clicking in my head. I grow bored with his song selections. Opera arias are not my performance goal. I am learning more every day how this school frowns upon contemporary style singing, especially with a microphone.

 

I work hard on the Baroque pieces he has assigned me. Oh Sleep, Why Dost Thou Leave Me, by Handel seems weird to me. The melody is kind of pretty, but I cannot get the long phrases with eighth notes and sixteenth notes strung together. No matter how much I practice the runs, I cannot seem to get any better than sloppy. I Attempt From Love’s Sickness by Henry Purcell is a bit easier to sing, but my apathy toward the song is more than evident in my execution of the piece.

 

With a huge sigh of frustration, I wrap up my first semester of music school. This was not going as well as I had hoped.

 

 

After a couple weeks of rest over Christmas vacation, I take a deep breath and begin the next semester. I am a stubborn person and I hate to give up on something once I’ve started, no matter how hard it is. Even though every ounce of me wanted to run from that music building and never look back, I knew I would never forgive myself. Returning to my classes, I resolutely decide to finish what I started.

 

Music Theory grows more challenging, and I excitedly embrace the challenge. Ear Training and Sight Singing become a bit easier, and I find with a different teacher, the class becomes less dreaded. Although far from perfect, those intervals are getting better. My ears are hearing the things I’m supposed to hear.

 

With a new semester of voice lessons comes a new accompanist, as my old one is unable to come to my lesson time. My new accompanist is a friendly brunette woman. She comes dressed everyday with trendy pencil skirts, beautifully matched tops, perfect makeup and accessories, heels, and an encouraging smile.  I like her immediately.

 

We pick up where we left off last semester, frustrations raging at my lack of vocal ability. I leave many lessons near tears. I simply do not know what else to do. I thought I was good at this, and all these lessons have left me with are feelings of inadequacy and insecurity.

 

The one bright spot to this semester is working with my accompanist. She has taught voice and worked with choirs for years, and I quickly see that she knows what she’s talking about. She tells me stories of working with high school choirs and hilarious anecdotes from her conducting them. My adoration of her grows, and I feel comfortable with her. One day during rehearsal, she pauses her piano playing, looks at me, and offers a few words of musical wisdom. Desperate for any help, I gladly accept. Encouraging me to put my weight in my front foot to help my posture, she puts a hand on my stomach to bring my attention to my breath. After a few moments of this, a loud, beautiful vibrato emerges from my vocal chords. I look at her in surprise. She smiles, saying, “See? Like that!”

 

I can’t explain what just happened, but I have had a vocal breakthrough. I don’t know how it’s working, but I know if I think about it too much, I might not be able to do it again. I simply relax and trust the sound to come. With this newfound knowledge, I come to my next lesson with increased confidence. My accompanist proudly tells my professor about my breakthrough. He sits back, waiting to hear the improvement. I worry that I won’t be able to recreate the sound I had before. But sure enough, when my mouth opens, the same full, beautiful sound emerges. His eyebrows raise in surprise.

 

“Now that’s what I’ve been looking for!” he declares from his swivel office chair.

 

The rest of the semester goes much better than the preceding semester. I continue my voice lessons with a renewed faith in myself, and my ability. I receive more counsel from my accompanist than my professor, but I am simply grateful for the progress.

With just a couple months remaining until my first jury, my professor sits me down to have a talk. A jury is where you perform in front of all of the voice faculty and they grade you to determine if you are good enough to advance to the next year. To call it nerve-wracking is an understatement.

 

My professor decides that since I was a bit of a “late bloomer” this year, it would be in my best interest to take voice lessons over the summer and take my jury a few months later. He will not be teaching over the summer, so he arranges for me to take lessons from a different teacher. After weeks of forms being signed and questions asked, I finally got the approval to take my jury late.

 

I breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that I simply was not ready for the stress that is a jury.