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
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