Bit of a Breakthrough

It's been almost 2 years since I finished my Master of Music degree. 2 years ago, I had just been contracted to sing Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro at Bay View, I'd become newly single, I was all set to move in with 4 of my best friends in the fall, and was feeling basically on top of the world about my life. (At least that's how I remember it now. I probably was all angsty and moody in reality, but all that matters is what you remember, right?)
After that summer, things were still going well...I'd met fiancee there and had good performing experiences...but my vocal technique had been called into question. The interpretation of the technique I'd been given during grad school was completely incorrect. I decided that it was time to get a new teacher.

I had NO IDEA how difficult it would be to find a new teacher. I was coaching semi-regularly but hadn't found a technician. I didn't find a teacher I could see on a regular basis until 4 months ago. He's on faculty at CCM and by the time I found him, I had developed some pretty nasty habits in trying to undo the incorrect "mastery" of my old technique. These past few months have been frustrating beyond belief...I've had to keep singing, on tour and elsewhere, with what I felt was not the best presentation of my voice. I also went through audition season feeling like I was selling people a sub-par version of myself. It was embarrassing on some level, but mostly it felt like a waste of a year.

Well, last week I had a lesson and something my teacher told me FINALLY clicked. I started to ignore how I was sounding in my head, didn't do ANYTHING with my jaw or throat, and tried to let my entire vocal mechanism just "be." And guess what? it worked. I started feeling an immense buzz in my "mask" (the bones of your nose and cheeks), and it was as if all my phonation was sitting on an invisible shelf between my soft palate and an imaginary horizontal line drawn from my upper teeth to the back of my throat. I went home, and didn't sing the rest of the day. The next day I could sing for an hour without getting tired. That hadn't happened in 2 years. I've been singing for 30-60 minutes each day since then. I had another lesson yesterday, and it was the most successful one I've had in a long time. I dug out a piece that people have been saying is "right for me" but until last week felt all wrong...like I was guessing if notes would even come out or not. I was able to sing the whole piece without tiring or losing a note.

I'm cautiously optimistic right now. I've made mistakes of oversinging in the past when I made a vocal discovery, and the result was losing my voice from pushing too hard. I also want to make sure I can use this technique without it affecting my overall stage presence in a negative way. I don't think it will, as most of my tension has been released not only from my jaw but the rest of my body as well. I have a competition soon and hopefully this new way of singing (or, more of a returning to the old way before the interference of technique) will serve me well!