Dear Stephanie and list
First a question: do you mean by 'awesome' that it was
very nice? From the meaning of the word I would not
say so, but since you want to go back?
Then some answers by somebody who is neither a mezzo,
nor an expert and who does not even have a big voice
(although it is getting bigger every day now): a mezzo
is a mezzo soprano, so a soprano that sometimes is
seen as something in the middle between an alt and a
soprano, which does not mean that a trained mezzo
could not be able to sing a 'high c'. Some people also
see a mezzo as just another kind of soprano.
The most important difference is the way the voice
sounds: a little darker, or lower, if you wish, than a
soprano. But as some people already mentioned, I would
not spend too much thoughts about this at the moment,
because as you learn to sing better, your voice might
get higher or lower or both or whatever, the most
important thing is that it will get better.
If you go to
http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/1450/fachlist.html
you'll find a list of opera's and aria's for different
voicetypes (sometime called fach, like trade) can
sing. You will find two types of mezzo's there, which
even makes it more complicated.
Then this strange thing, a big voice. A big voice is
something almost all people want to have, many people
claim to have, yet not many people acually do have. It
has to do with loudness, but it is more than that.
A simple and unprecise explanation: a big voice is a
voice that can be heard over an orchestra and over
other voices. If you listen to it, and close your eyes
and imagine the voice visually, it is as if it takes
more space from left to right than other voices,
whereas a smaller voice seems to be more pin pointed,
hence the use of the words big and small. But be
careful when listening to cd's, because you never know
how much the sound has been manipulated.
Technically spoken I think - but maybe some of the
other people could shine their light on it - a big
voice has at least a strong basic frequecy and a
strong singer's formant, the high metallike 'ping' you
hear in opera voices. A big voice is very well suited
for opera's, a very small voice might not be able to
sing opera at all.
(If you don't understand this: a tone you sing
actually consists of many tones, like if you would
play one note on a piano, and play all the octaves
above that note as well. The amount and strenght of
those tones vary and make all the differences between
voices, but again: this will change when you learn to
sing better.)
In general a big voice can sound a bit rougher than a
smaller voice, especially at a close distance, but
this must not be the case! An ideal voice would be big
and despite that be able to make very beautiful soft
notes.
But like with the question whether you are a mezzo or
not: don't worry, it's a good thing as long as you
don't try to overdo it.
The most important thing: if your teacher tells you
something you don't understand: ask her. Obviously she
doesn't know that her expressions, her 'jargon', is
abacadabra to you. And it is necessary to understand
her!
Best greetings,
Dre
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