One of my favorite soprano aria, Song to the moon, comes from Czech opera, Rusalka!
Rusalka is a water nymph who wants to have human soul from the Prince's kiss.
If she transforms to a human shape, her voice will be muted. This is exactly the Disney's Mermaid story, however every characters die at the end of the opera. This is such unpleasant and depressed.
In my teaching experience, i have met too many singers who was chosen as a mezzosoprano in their earlier singing life (before we met 😜).
I have met a lady about 30, a powerful dramatic soprano voice, unfortunately her previous singing teacher is a mezzo, consciously this lady became sang in mezzo voice. And when i first listened to her singing, she was using a horrible backward chest voice over her range. That is the worst mistaken voice classifications that i met.
Obviously, she has a beautiful upper range and strong vocal quality , pearl-like character, then why this situation happens frequently? Why beginners voice is incorretly classified to a mezzo?
I have made three conclusions:
They are hesitate to use their power when singing high notes. This is a MENTAL problem which convince themselves to stop at notes out of their comfort zone.
Because the early singing experience does give them a mistaken concept without probably training. So that , their muscles have memory to avoid singing high notes.
They seldom listen to professional recordings. Without comparison, students can hardly tell what is soprano and mezzo.
As a singing teacher, we have to classify the best track for our students. We have to make classification carefully. How should we do if singers was singing on a right way?
My approaches are......
Identifying their vocal registers
Make them feel comfortable when singing first
Expand their vocal range half step by halp step without any mention (this will be a quarter of a year time)
After a while, they will feel confidence with those high note, YES, the singer will know what is the best for them.
Miss Lau
Christmas presents to my beloved students 😘🎄🎅🎁🎉🎊💝