Sylvia came to Spivey Hall yesterday to conduct a "masterclass". For those of you lacking in classical music pedigree, this is a session with a semi-famous professional musician where you perform for him/her and then get critiqued.
I haven't seen Sylvia's bio, but I know she is a diva because she showed up at the masterclass in a shiny, cherry red, leather pantsuit with scrunched up sleeves. She was pretty and statuesque and appeared to be much older than she appeared, if you know what I mean.
Most of the performers were just random people who paid to have Sylvia critique them, but a couple of my classmates sang. Chelsea, a 4th year mezzo-soprano with an uncanny resemblance to Jessye Norman, sang "Una voce poco fa" from Barber of Seville. Sylvia seemed genuinely stunned and actually said, "How do you sing all those notes?"
Then she made an interesting admission: "You just can't teach that."
I've been surprised to learn that singing well, even in opera and classical which require years of training, is still fundamentally determined by the sound you make when the doctor slaps your butt. No guru can make a great voice out of a bad one. You can only take a great voice and harness it, maybe polish it up a bit. The only people who get to be truly great singers are the ones that are incredibly gifted and work their [diaphragm] off.
Not that this bothers me a whole lot, since I've got no ambitions of being an opera singer. But my voice prof told me the other day that there have been studies of the best voices in history and most were found to have unusual bone structure in their hard palates. All this stressing over vocal chords and the key to sounding good is to be thick-headed.
I can see why there are a lot of music school dropouts. So much of it is wholly impractical. The faculty sometimes seem bent on hanging on, white-knuckled, to art forms that for all their beauty and complexity, have lost popular appeal and with it, relevance. And as someone who has returned to school to study music because I wanted what I make to serve people, this is distressing.
This was illustrated by the exchange that took place between Sylvia and my classmate Brandon, after his performance of "Lydia" by Faure.
Sylvia: You need to work on your French. Your vowels in particular are not far enough forward. Try this: oeuuuuuuwww.
Brandon: euuuuuuww.
Sylvia: oeuuuuuuwww.
Brandon: euuuuuuuuuuuwww.
Sylvia: (shaking head) oeuuuuuuwww.
Brandon: oeuuuuuuwwwwwgghhh.
And so on. I know that there is beauty here, in honoring the language, and in doing things well, with professionalism. But I can't help but feel that it's a useless beauty sometimes. And frankly, that's why I want to serve the Church with music. There's a context and a goal therein that makes all the beauty you can muster worthwhile, because it's nothing if not a reflection of Something else.
this is great, i can totally imagine the scene, red leather and all. highly amusing.
what makes Beauty beautiful is always an interesting question. definitely, music created in the context of serving the church has the most potential for beauty/significance. but i'm not sure how to figure out how that applies to genres of music. maybe the degree of beauty increases depending on how well truth is communicated. and if no one appreciates the genre (or understands french), very little gets communicated.
Posted by: amy at October 12, 2004 03:12 PMSounds like a typical master class to me, Abe. I participated in several while I was in school.
You have to remember that your musical goals are probably much different than Sylvia McNair's. She's teaching from the perspective of her secular performance goals - you're learning from the perspective of your God-oriented goals.
I've learned that with most things in life, you take what you think God's giving you and file away the rest.
Take working at a Catholic university. My job has required me to lead music at a number of masses. Subsequently, I've listened to a bunch of homilies and seemingly drone readings from the Bible. I don't subscribe to Catholic teaching, but truth is truth and the Bible is the Bible, and God has used what I've heard in masses on more than one occasion.
If nothing else, music (in French or otherwise) is an incredible testimony to God's creativity. No way could man have ever invented it. In that way, God can be found even in secular beauty.
Now, if you can find God's beauty in a shiny, cherry red, leather pantsuit with scrunched up sleeves, you've the heart of a prophet.
I'll stick to music.
Didn't mean to get preachy.
Posted by: Lane at October 12, 2004 05:52 PMamy, i think beauty must certainly be tied to communication, which is why we often say that it's "in the eye of the beholder". but the question of beauty for no reason remains.
lane, that's good words from my musical elder. it just struck me that i'll spend so much time in the next coupla years learning how to sing things that i'll probably never sing again. shame. twould be better to learn to write a little jazz, or compose/arrange, or something.
nevertheless, my desire to learn does not diminish.
Posted by: abe at October 12, 2004 07:45 PM