Dear Peggy (Margaret Harrison <peggyh@i...), it would be great if I would find somebody to experience 'When > something wasn't working, she was > always able to show me a way to resolve the problem, > in a way that made feel this "This is > something I can do!"' but I honestly doubt it. Let me first qoute from an interview with Ramon Vargas, from the Dutch Magazine Concert Radio, Septembre 1999): (btw, he is really good, and has already sung as a replacement for Pavarotti) (...) and the consequence was, that I started to study singing at the university. First with this guy, later with another one, he tried everything to turn me into a heldentenor. Then it went wrong. I lost my pleasure in singing, became nervous and neurotic. (...) All those people that tell how you have to do it, how to open your mouth and when to breathe and how to stand, thet drive you crazy. There is only one technique, and that is your own technique, that suits to your fysical build and to your character. That's the way Caruso sang and Callas, my biggest idols amongst singers. Finally I found back my own voice. Since then I never wanted to have a singing teacher again.' As a matter of fact, I just found out that the girl who wrote the interview, is a friend of mine, so I might find out more about Ramon Vargas in a few weeks. About my experiences with singing teachers: I had three singing teachers, all women. The first one gave lessons at a music school, but had been an opera singer for about forty years. She had forty students when she started, and she sent away 37 of them: I will always be grateful that she did not do that to me! But she said: 'you are a baritone, and will never be anythign else', which I believed (by the way: she was a mezzo). After four lessons I was the only one left and she wanted me to take private lessons, which was too expensive for me. Then I had a sweet soprano, that was still studying at the conservatory. She improved my diction a lot, and tried to let me forget I few bad habits I picked up when singing as a bass in a choir (I am a high lyrical tenor!). We had a lot of fun, but I also learned to panic before starting to sing: there were so many things I seemd to have think about before you can start. I did not learn really how to support from her. The I moved to Amsterdam and tried one lesson from a teacher that thought I was a baritone (she was a mezzo, so she tried to make a bariton of me, that's how it usally works, I am afraid, but I can sing a bariton's low g, but also the f almost 3 octaves higher, so maybe this is difficult for a teacher) and another one that immediately said: 'if anyone is a tenor, than it is you'. With her I stayed about 2 years until the beginning of this year. We started working on 'Il mio tesoro', which taught me a lot, I even did it on a pupil's concert after 2 months, but of course this was much too early, the a and the g's were ugly. I still don't understand where I got the breathe from! In the first year I really learned something from her, but then I did not make much progress anymore. I started to feel, that the things I found out myself helped me more. I always had the feeling, she never understood how things work with me: she was a ex-alt, ex-mezzo dramatic soprano, and so she really had to work hard for an f'', whereas I don't have to do anything for a f', I just have to be relaxed and then it comes out and is as beautiful as my voice can make it. 'nough said. At the moment I am afraid to take lessons again: I am on the right track, making more progress than ever before: it is a working system. And I would not be the first tenor who basically teaches himself how to sing! (see above) Happy singing, thanks for all the good advices, and I will keep you informed. In four weeks I will give a concert, so if you wish I might send you a cd of it, maybe it convinces either one of us! Of course, if anybody is in Amsterdam by that time: write me and come and listen!
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