JUNE, 2009

          Last month I wrote about Dr. Charles Schatz and our discovery of a voice he never knew he had ... until a couple of months ago ... at sixty-six. He is progressing wonderfully well and now has about four songs in his diverse repertoire. We will begin O du mein holder Abendstern, from Tannhäuser this week. Yes ... it is an full lyric baritone, not unlike my own.

June was a month of riches. It always amazes me how many people there are walking this planet with wonderful vocal potential but, by not having had a musician or three in their respective families and at least a piano, there was little or no singing of consequence ... and the voices lay dormant for many years.

 Such was the case of David Burke, who was sent to me by my buddy Seth Riggs, just two weeks ago. Tall and slender–six feet four–attractive and “oh so smart!” I always ask my students if they have played sports, as it gives me an idea of what to expect with their coordination potential when being given my breathing/support technique. On this, he had little to report, but his academic achievements were considerable. He is an high-level electronics technician who works with satellites. Figures.

 He virtually understood immediately my coordinated Mind dictates, Body implements concept and within minutes was producing a full-out, open and naturally resonant baritone, the quality not inconsistent with my own. As with Charles before him, he had never had a voice teacher ... so we had no bad habits with which to contend. He is just a bloody natural! During the last fifteen minutes of the lesson–I always give an extra half-hour for the first one, no extra charge–he was singing lines of ten to fifteen seconds in duration, fully forward and focused ... with virtually all of the vowels ringing and spinning in the same place. He didn’t know it was hard!!! So ... I took him higher, having explained about the passaggio between E flat and F, but assuring him that it would be of no consequence, if he just continued to lift and grow as he rotated the tone forward. The smart-aleck did the sixth interval, G to the D, then the E, the F and then ... the G ... time after time. It was a full baritone, the vowel a little fuzzy on the G ... but they were all high G’s. He really had no concept of what he had done. Most singers take five or six years to get to the point ... he had already reached! The most exciting thing to me its that here are millions of natural singers out there waiting to be discovered. I get ten to fifteen a year. Oh yeah  ... did I mention Dave is forty-seven?

I had been a singer all my life. I didn’t sing all that much in the four years I was in the Navy, but on my last submarine, the Irex, my Underway Surface watch station was in the Conning Tower, a half hour on the Surface Search Radar, a half hour on the Helm–I would be steering the boat–and a half hour off. When on the Helm, there was so much noisy air coming down through the Conning Tower hatch from the Bridge, I thought I could sing and nobody would notice. Well what a surprise on the day I left the boat for my discharge. There were six or seven of my shipmates standing by the brow as I was leaving. We all shook hands and as I turned to leave one of them said, “We’re sure going to miss your singing?” I turned back and asked what he meant. It turned out the air racing down through the hatch though the lower hatch to the Control Room and back to the two engine rooms to feed the engines, had carried my voice back through the boat. He told me that when I would sing, guys would come into Control and just hang around while I warbled ... and then just on about their business when I stopped. I had no idea ...

          When I returned home, I enrolled at El Camino Jr. College, in pre-Engineering … and joined the A Cappella Choir. My top note was an E flat so I led the bass section. It took me five or six months, with the help of Robert Merrill records, to teach myself how to sing an F … and another seven or eight to have the G! Now I teach all voices how to sing the G … and higher in the first lesson.

I have one more like David, who came in last month ... also kinda neat! Three in a month ... now that’s a good month!