For the past two and a half years of being a music major, I have been preparing for this day to come. As a music theatre major, my school requires every singer to give a half hour vocal performance filled with classical repertoire. Everyone has been learning this classical music for the past five semesters, from the start of being a freshman to now, a first semester junior. Being a music theatre major, I didn’t realize how much classical training is needed to produce such beautiful sounds. Studying classical works has been a rollercoaster ride, as it takes your love for music and lots of time to produce a high quality performer. I am going to take you on my journey of the five stages to a junior recital, as each stage is a semester spent in my major:
Stage 1. Freshman year.
Stepping into the music school, I fell into being a typical scared freshman. I was overwhelmed by the great amount of talent surrounding me, as there were better and bigger voices that I never imagined could be possibly human. I listened to the performers who were going here for opera and told myself, “I can’t do that, nor will I ever.” I had this sweet tiny voice where in my mind, I only thought I could only play roles like Cosette in Les Miserables (which would be still so amazing to play). When my voice teacher told me I would have to learn three music theatre and three classical songs, I was terrified. As a child, I would joke around being and singing like an opera diva, and my parents would tell me seriously, “you should think about studying this seriously.” I would only laugh it off because I really thought opera singers were old high class folks and somehow singing opera would make me age faster. So now being forced to studying opera, made me change my perspective.
Stage 2. Freshman year.
I started growing frustrated with learning classical music. My voice wasn’t sounding anything near like the incredible Renée Fleming’s and honestly, it didn’t interest me as much as my love for musical theatre. I think second semester was the slowest stage of them all. So we are going to skip to Stage 3…
Stage 3. Sophomore year.
The summer before going into my third semester, I occasionally would have a voice lesson with my teacher back home and reflected on my voice training my freshman year. I frequently listened to classical music and famous opera singers, but really gave my voice a rest. So coming back to singing classical music, I was very anxious that my voice would sound worse to my voice teacher. Coming back and singing for my teacher, to this day, we say it was my groundbreaking moment. My voice was much more open and round, and my voice physically matured. This was the beginning of when I began to enjoy classical music to sing.
Stage 4. Sophomore year.
Sophomore shambles are definitely a real thing. My personal life took a tole on my studies when my friend passed away and my phone was robbed out of my hands. I felt like I had no control over my life and I felt that way with my voice too. I fell into a depression and learning music became a task, it wasn’t fun anymore. Luckily, I had summer and time to go back to so I was able to heal myself back together.
Stage 5. Junior year.
The growth after I “found” my voice was slow but I achieved struggles and goals that I never thought would be possible. I learned an entire English song cycle over the summer that was very 21st century (just very hard none melodic melodies), and now is ready to go to be performed in front of an audience.
I’m amazed by the love I have for classical music has grown. A year ago I would have said after my junior recital, “I’m not going to look at or sing classical music ever again”, but my view for it has entirely changed. I love music, period. After my recital, I’m going to continue to study and learn arias because it is a genre similar but so different from musical theatre. I believe musical theatre takes from other genres of music, so learning the foundation will make you a strong developed performer.
