Mimicry

We live in an extraordinary time for music for many reasons, not the least of which is the existence of the vast body of recordings that have been made. We are constantly being inundated with music at every turn, and why not? Music makes everything better for the simple reason that it elicits an emotional response. That emotional response is a primary driver for learning music, singing along with the radio, going to see La Boheme for the umpteenth time. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve listened to Hamilton, always ready to ride along with its brilliant emotional, dramatic, and musical trajectories.

Nearly every piece of music that has been composed has also been recorded. With the creation of streaming services, one does not even have to buy the recordings anymore. The advent of Apple Music, Spotify, etc., enables us to listen to countless renderings of any given song or aria. We understandably gravitate towards our favorite versions, and when we sing along, imitate what we hear. This is a double-edged sword.

Consciously and subconsciously, we internalize those sounds we hear, creating metrics of how we measure our own capabilities and progress. Recordings of renowned artists are also terrific teaching tools. My very first voice teacher, the late Glenda Maurice, arrived at college singing Country Music standards – Your Cheatin’ Heart was her go to performance piece. Her family hoped to measure her progress by how well she could sing selections from South Pacific, as their metric of success was Broadway. Paraphrasing Glenda’s story, her first college voice teacher after their first lesson gave Glenda a recording of Kirsten Flagstad, saying, “listen to this: this is what you should sound like.” Within six months Glenda went from Williams to Wagner, becoming an International Metropolitan Opera Competition Winner. She never looked back.

It was the imprint of sound that gave Ms. Maurice – I never called her Glenda! Gasp! – the metric for which to strive. It should be recognized, however, that she was the freak of nature, that “one in a million” blessed with that type of ear-mind-body connection whereby she could accurately and correctly imitate those sounds. For most of us mere mortals straight-up imitation can cause unending frustration as we don’t know precisely how to make those sounds and end up engaging in all manner of physical contortions to find some approximation of our self-imposed metric.

More on this tomorrow…