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From:  matthewmurray@m...
matthewmurray@m...
Date:  Sun Jul 29, 2001  1:04 pm
Subject:  When to throw in the towel.


Hi, everyone. I'm a sometimes member and an even less
sometimes-poster to this list, but I thought I'd ask all of you what
your opinions were about my current conundrum.
A little bit of background: I'm 25, and have been "singing" for about
seven years now. A community theatre musical my senior year in high
school got me started, and when I went away to college, I sought out
singing classes and teachers. During the years between then and now,
I've gone through a lot of teachers--there are a couple I've worked
with for a year each, one for two years, and a few others peppered in
there as well. After recently moving to New York city (long story), I
met a Broadway performer who was offering reduced-price singing
lessons, and I thought, well, what the heck.
Here's the problem. In the seven years I've been "singing," it seems
as though my voice has only gotten worse. It doesn't seem like many
of the teachers I've been to have done much for me. Thinking that
something really got screwed up along the way, I went and saw an EENT
last year, and he assured me that I didn't have nodes or anything like
that, which is good.
What's not good, though, is the hundreds (possibly thousands--I'd
really rather not think about it) that I have paid various voice
teachers for helping me make my voice worse. That doesn't make me
happy. I started singing lessons because actually singing (and
singing correctly, though I must admit that, in my mind, there's not
much of a difference between the two ideas) was very important to me,
and it still is. It remains one of the two major things I have wanted
to accomplish in my adult life, but have not yet. But, as my
financial situation has changed within the last year, I've started
thinking about whether or not it is a good idea for me to continue
with this. I'm a little wary of continuing to throw hundreds and
hundreds of dollars at my voice trying to make it work, when it just
never seems to want to do anything the teachers try to get it to.
It's getting very frustrating--it's not that I expected to be singing
on Broadway after seven years--but I guess I thought I would be
further along than I am. At least, I guess I thought I'd be
someplace.
When is the time--if there ever IS a time--that it's okay to say, This
is never going to happen, I should stop trying? As I said above, I
want to sing very much, but, quite frankly, right now I have much
better things I could do with that money than pay it to a teacher who
can't teach me anything. (There's absolutely nothing wrong with my
current teacher, by the way--a very good friend of mine who has been
singing only slightly longer than I have and is much, much, much
better assures me that the stuff he is telling me is right, it's just
that almost none of it makes sense to me.) If any of you have any
suggestions or advice for me, I'd definitely appreciate it. Thanks.

--Matthew



  Replies Name/Email Yahoo! ID Date Size
13338 Re: When to throw in the towel. Wim Ritzerfeld   Sun  7/29/2001   4 KB
13341 Re: When to throw in the towel. Greypins@a...   Sun  7/29/2001   3 KB
13342 =?iso-8859-1?Q?Re:=20[vocalist]=20When=20to=20thr vanese@t...   Sun  7/29/2001   3 KB
13345 Re: When to throw in the towel. rjime7@c...   Sun  7/29/2001   2 KB
13354 Re: When to throw in the towel. michael.chesebro   Sun  7/29/2001   2 KB
13358 Re: When to throw in the towel. Greypins@a...   Mon  7/30/2001   2 KB
13545 Re: When to throw in the towel. (on being your ow dredeman   Sat  8/4/2001   5 KB
13369 Re: When to throw in the towel. Kirsten Jerlin   Mon  7/30/2001   2 KB
13371 Re: When to throw in the towel. sopran@a...   Mon  7/30/2001   2 KB

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