by Nabil khazzaka
There are many myths in music. You must have heard a couple of them already. People want to make you believe that there is only one way (i.e. their way) of achieving something. Why? They have many reasons: they want to secure their own position, they are jealous, they haven’t got a clue, …
In this contribution I would like to talk about the myths regarding singing. I’m going to approach this by talking about my own experience in this field. I apologize if it may sound plaintive. It’s not the purpose. I want to share my experience with you and give hope to musicians whenever they might be discouraged. Because you have to face it: there are alot of nasty people around. My message is that you should acknowledge there existence but you should never let them bring you down. Surround yourself with positive, constructive people who YOU feel are helping you. Don’t work with people that tell you that THEY are helping you.
From the age of 12 I started singing and composing simple songs. I first performed before an audience at the age of 17. From then on I heard all kind of things about my voice: some said I had a nice and warm voice, others said that I couldn’t sing, … A good friend of mine even told me that I should stop singing and concentrate on piano playing because he heard me sing once and he wasn’t too impressed. The truth was somewhere in the middle: I had a nice timbre but I corrupted my voice by “pushing” it when I sang. As a result I was often out of tune (slightly under or above the note)
When I realized that I used my voice badly I decided to take singing classes in a music school. My teacher was a former opera singer who, I discovered later, was frustrated because she’s never managed to get any major part. She decided that I was a real bass and so I was doomed to do all the very low bass parts. For example she wanted me to sing “In dieser heiligen Halle” from Mozart’s “Magic Flute” which has to be sung by a real bass. Because I am a baritone it was very hard to stay in the low regions so I made a total fool of myself and some teachers told me that I couldn’t sing well. On top of that my teacher could not explain anything properly. At one point I realized that I had been working with her for three years and that I still hadn’t improved my singing technique (which was the reason why I started singing classes in the first place) The only thing she did was repeating things she’d probably read in a theory book like “imagine that the sound is going through a rubber tube” and “the air has to come from your belly” etc. She believed that I was not progressing because I didn’t practice. One day, a friend told me about this great private singing teacher. So I took a chance. The funny thing is that I was still taking classes with my teacher while I started going to my new teacher’s classes. The difference was huge! All of a sudden I understood all that “rubber tube” and “breathing” stuff! Another good thing about my new singing teacher was that he judged my voice correctly: I discovered my real voice and he challenged me to hit the high notes. The friend, who I mentioned earlier on, heard me sing at one of my gigs and said that my voice sounded more “open”.
I’ve also been in a couple of choirs. In one choir we did not do any warm up but after an hour of singing we had a break where we got sweets “to soften” the voice. Total rubbish, of course! On top of that the director bullied me all of the time and he excluded me twice from performing a concert with the choir (because he thought I was not ready). So I quit! A couple of years later, I joined another choir and once again the director didn’t like me. One of the tenors was a good friend of his and he got all the great solos. The director’s excuse for not giving me any solo parts was that I was a bass (because I sang in the bass section of the choir) and that I therefore was not going to be able to sing Robbie Williams or John Travolta. On top of that he was always on my back because I sang too loud and I was out of tune; etc. I think the choir leader was jealous because he was in his forties and still hadn’t achieved anything musically. In the end I decided to leave. It was a tough decision as I had alot of friends in the choir but I just couldn’t stand being bullied.
The last two years I also have been taking trainings of three or seven days. I had French traditional singing, African polyphonic singing and a more general singing training. You could wonder why I took these trainings as I am not making folk music. I believe it doesn’t matter what style of music you’re playing: singing is singing and a good teacher is very important!
I was on the right track but I needed two more things to happen before I really started to surpass myself. Firstly, they offered me the role of the Pharaoh in an amateur musical. It doesn’t seem much but it gave me this boost of self-confidence! The director really believed in me and that gave me wings. Secondly, my teacher of French polyphonic singing told me that I have such a wonderful voice and that it would be great if I really had the technique because then it would be even better. That motivated me and I started to work really hard, singing hours at an end to find the placement of my voice. I’m still not completely there but I think I made alot of progress the last year.
To conclude: as I said in the introduction: stay away from (nasty) destructive people. Work with people who are strict but who also respect you. As you read, I started to progress from the moment I worked with nice, motivating and competent teachers. And of course it takes a lot of work too! So you see … there are no myths!