Expert: Sean Martinfield - 11/14/2008

Question
QUESTION: Um, I didn't mean to click private last time. I'm sorry. It's not clicked as of now...

Hi Sean,
I have the most bizarre issues with my voice. I'm eighteen now, but in eighth grade I dropped to a bass-baritone range (I think)and sang low bass in my choir. I also remember being overwhelmed at having to sing an Eb which is really wimpy. Well, I continued singing in that section in high school for two years and continued to struggle with high notes starting around C (I can always get it, but it just never feels easy). So E to F were/are impossible. Yet I don't have the resonation (I think, again) of a bass. I don't know if I'm pushing, but I can get to a low C# almost always though it is very quiet. Once on a day where I felt good I got to a Bb2 or 1, whichever is the realistic low one. That has only happened once in my life though.

However, I've been to four voice teachers, two of which thought I was a tenor and the other two thought I was a high baritone. Each of them said I think too much which is quite probable, but I've NEVER been able to access these higher notes. I try placing them every which way but I either have to "belt" (I don't know if it is a belt), be breathy, or I acquire this strained raspy sound when I'm sing quietly. As a result I try to avoid singing high at all costs which may have made the muscles weak, too.

I have severe allergies and only recently had them diagnosed, so I figured there'd be improvement with my medication. But there hasn't been any. It's still just as impossible to sing up high. My ENT says that my chords are red (probably from sneezing or allergies) and vibrate well, but I've never sung 'super' high for him. Could the irritation be the problem with my voice? could I have always  had swollen chord and been unaware?

And if I am a bass, why do I sound like a tenor? Or am I tenor that just has damaged chords with limited range that I must cope with?

Anyways, I'm tired of reading thousands of documents on the internet and in books because none of them seem to able to find something that will "cure" me.

To put it simply, help!

Gratefully,
Jordan

ANSWER: Hello, Jordan –

Thank you for re-posting a great question.  I appreciate it.

Eighteen is a good year for young men with a calling to perform to begin their vocal training.  You are very young to have accumulated so much baggage about your voice and how to use it.

High school choirs are not always the best venues for the singer who wants to be in the solo spotlight.  Very often the well-intentioned and much-experienced choir director is not capable of properly identifying the true vocal category of the would-be soloist and, thus, furthers that singer's problems by assigning them to the wrong section.  It's very possible that you are not a bass or even a bass-baritone.  Simply because – at the moment – you don't know how to sing past 3rd-space C, that does immediately knock you into a lower vocal category.  All my basses sing to at least High G-flat.  All my bass-baritones sing to at least High A-flat.  In other words, a fifth above 3rd-space C – on an average day.

I was 18 when I started my vocal training.  I had heard my teacher's clients perform in concert and was thrilled by their technique.  I was already versed in all kinds of operatic and classical literature, along with Broadway and film repertoire.  I knew how to listen and to evaluate.  Thus, I was very certain about my vocal category and aware of the limitations of my range.  At the first lesson, that teacher gave me working solutions about strengthening and expanding my range which I was able to repeat the following day and the day after that, etc., until my next lesson.  Six months later I earned my first check as a professional singer.  It's been a long time since then and I have never stopped singing.

The point is – that coach knew how to correctly identify vocal categories and to then train the individual accordingly.  I learned to do the same.  It's an art.  It's also a personal passion.  Not everyone identifying themselves as a singing teacher or a vocal coach is capable of such determinations.  If they err at the beginning, then any manner of "training" is only going to create more problems as time goes by.

The good news is – you are fixable.  Allergies and sneezing and whatever else that gets in the singer's way is analogous to what dancers to through, what weight-lifters suffer from, or the sit-down problems of some pianists.  You learn how to counter it, absorb it, and hopefully solve the inconvenience along the way.  My problem was tonsillitis.  Then one day the doctor said, "That's it!" – yanked them out – and six weeks later my voice was better than ever.

I would welcome the chance to work with you.  If that is not possible because of location, then my best advice is to contact the nearest accredited Music Conservatory near you, i.e., such as the one we have here in San Francisco.  Sometimes these institutions have members of the vocal faculty who also teach privately or are available for consultation by non-registered students, i.e., someone still in high school, etc.  Find out.

It would also help for you to become more informed about successful recording artists – from any era – with voices you suspect might be similar to yours, especially in the classical world.  In other words, who can you name right now, singing what piece, who sings to Low F or even Low G – that is a REAL sound, not some pitch-corrected / studio enhanced whisper that wouldn't be heard without a microphone past Row B in an empty theater?  Start with that.

If you are in the San Francisco Bay Area and want to book a vocal coaching session, contact me through Craig's List:  http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/lss/489612953.html

Take a look at my recent You Tubes:
SAMSON & DELILAH – Meet Seán Martinfield
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Sean+Martinfield&search=Search

Also, check out my articles on the San Francisco Sentinel (www.sanfranciscosentinel.com):

PATRICIA RACETTE – Returns to San Francisco Opera as “Madama Butterfly”
http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=7631

LEANNE BORGHESI / aka ANITA COKTAIL – to appear at HELP IS ON THE WAY IX
http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=7431

JONATHAN VANDENBERG – Playwright/Director of “No Such Thing”
http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=7533

MACBETH – Double Trouble, Spoil and Rubble at SF OPERA
http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=7344

THE OLD MINT – Breathing New Life Into “The Granite Lady”
http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=7180

LA RONDINE – A Fanciful Art Deco Flight at SF OPERA
http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?cat=10

QUEEN OF FASHION – What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution
http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=6508

THE COLOR PURPLE – Musical Excellence At The Orpheum
http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=6071

JENNIFER SIEBEL – A Conversation
http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=6361

JERSEY BOYS – Earth Angels invade Curran Theatre!!! Cast #2: Their Eyes Adore You!
http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=2301

SWEENEY TODD – Sheared Ennui At A.C.T.’s 41st Anniversary
http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=4781

MARIE ANTOINETTE’S PETIT TRIANON COMES TO SAN FRANCISCO
http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=6380

A CONVERSATION with JIM BROCHU and STEVE SCHALCHLIN – “The Big Voice: God or Merman?”
http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=4069

APPOMATTOX – A Flag–Waving Victory for San Francisco Opera
http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=6003

An Interview with PASCAL MOLAT, Principal Dancer of the San Francisco Ballet
http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=305

NORMA SHEARER – Headlines the 12th ANNUAL SILENT FILM FESTIVAL
http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=1481

Stay in touch.

Best regards,
Seán Martinfield


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Perhaps this is now unnecessary, but I simply wanted to thank you for your advice from a while back. Sometimes my little folds still at like tricksters yet now I can understand their mechanics a bit more fully.

Now I'm in school at the University of North Texas for voice and their training is altering my fundamental vocal technique for the better. Thank you for encouraging me when I was direly confounded by my voice.

Appreciatively,
Jordan

Answer
Hey, Jordan!

Thank you so much for making my day.

Some time ago I attended a two-week conference at the University of North Texas.  Along with everything else, it was my first experience with katydids.  A very different environment than San Francisco.

I wish you the very best.  Please stay in touch.  When you come to our city, I hope you will book a coaching session with me.  One of my clients just got cast as "Trina" in William Finn's most popular musical, FALSETTOS.  Watch for my review of San Francisco Opera's production of LA BOHEME.

In the meantime, check these out:

CHRISTINE ANDREAS – A Conversation with Beautiful Broadway and Cabaret Star
http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=17442

CD Review – REVOLUTIONARY, Cameron Carpenter, Organist
http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=17408

THE ELIXIR OF LOVE – It’s Happy Hour At San Francisco Opera
http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=17279

SAMUEL RAMEY IS BORIS GODUNOV – Now at San Francisco Opera through November 15th
http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=17140

CD – BRAHMS: Ein Deutsches Requiem
http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=17012

PHANTOM OF THE OPERA – Lon Chaney Silences SF Symphony For Halloween Night, Friday at 8:00
http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=17181

Best regards,
Seán Martinfield