Will learning to sing opera affect my normal singing voice?!
Question:
Will learning to sing opera affect my normal singing voice?
I'm worried that I won't be able to sing in a non-operatic style, is this a legitimate concern?
Answers: From a totally personal perspective... I started singing as a very young child (age of 2) and I got into musical theater at the age of 8. I was a natural belter, and they used to call me a little Ethel Merman.
By the time I got into college, I had great power in my lower register, and my higher register was really weak, and my break was just awful.
I started studying voice, and we covered operatic style. It helped me learn the proper way to breathe, the proper way to stand to support my voice. I learned to think of the voice horizontally, rather than vertically. I wasn't reaching for the high notes anymore, I was just changing the way I breathed, and changing the pitch of the note... And my crowning achievement was singing the "Queen of the Night's Laughing Song" from the Magic Flute for my juries my third year.
Now I sing Celtic music professionally. I'm still a belter. But the difference is that my upper register is almost as strong as my lower, and when I want to sing the high, pretty stuff, I can.
Absolutely study operatic technique. You will learn so much! Source(s):
I'm a professional singer with a group called Shillelagh Law (www.shillelaghlaw.com). no, you'll still be able to sing other styles. Shouldn't be. It might become the most comfortable for you to sing because you're familiar with it, but it doesn't mean you can't learn and sing other styles. It depends on the tones of ur voice high or low and how long u can manage one tone...if all is there with u! then u'll become an opra singer for sure! It certainly won't harm your voice, but increasing your technical resources will give you options that will probably take your style to places you weren't thinking about before. The challenge will become how much technique to let go of, so as not to overdo pop songs. Check out Charlotte Church for proof that high grade operatic voices can do rock and pop well, if they know what they are doing. Learning to sing operatically will give you a set of tools you can apply to any other genre of music. You might not sound the same way you do now, but you will (ideally) learn a healthy consistent method of singing. You will be able to have a much longer career if you approach singing with proper technique, not to mention, the fact that once you start to learn to sing opera, you may not want to sing any other style. It is a legitimate concern only if you will *really* value what you are calling your normal singing voice, something you can't know ahead of your experience. Maybe you will not wish to return to it at all!
I wish you had specified what exactly your "normal singing voice" is like, and what the "non-operatic style" means to you. It could mean a concern about singing in the shower, or just lofting off a little Christmas carol in less than your full regalia. { Full regalia is for singing Christmas carols solo for parties, less than that is for making Christmas cookies.}
Also, singing in a non-operatic style might mean a wish to sing like a French chanteuse like Edit Piaf or singing the music of Jacaques Brel weekends, just for a lark; a dangerous wish, but fun. Just *ask* me! I love love love to do that, but I am always sorry, although not as sorry as I am when I work myself into my Louis Armstrong imitation.
To be frank, it if is anything but a little la-la here and there, you will dis-orient your operatic voice. It is hard enough to find it and maintain it, much less veer off-center into another style. You can do a little pop, for example. However it will always need to be centered in the operatic sound. You won't sound like an opera singer in full regalia, you will just sound better. Years ago there was a singer, Eileen Farrell, a dramatic soprano of some size who also sang things like "On the Sunny Side of the Street" but she sounded like an upscale Sophie Tucker, just not so chesty!
As for today's singers doing the same thing, you might like to listen to Kiri Te Kanawa singing "The Heart is Slow to Learn" on YouTube.... She really is a diva, in fact she is Dame Kiri, having been given that honor by Queen Elizabeth II.
And you might like to look into the singing of Barbara Cook who sings pop but was trained properly, in fact making stardom in Leonard Bernstein's "Candide"
What you do with your voice is really important. In her book about singing, Lilli Lehmann, the German soprano (1848-1929), said that when she was a student still living with her mother, if she sang any arias before noon, her mother (who also knew voice) would always call to her to stop, with the admonition that she would pay for it later. Her regimen was to sing long, slow scales every morning to set her voice in order, then the afternoon was for music. Mme Lehmann reported that with much chagrin, she discovered her mother was right.
This all reminds me of a story about Joan Sutherland, the Austrialian diva. The author who tells the story was staying with Sutherland in her home to gather information, and found Dame Joan sitting in a chair in the kitchen one morning, making fruit salad, and humming to herself. He was aghast because she sounded just like everyone else humming. When the gentleman mentioned it to her, she was very amused. I don't remember her retort, but it was to the affect that she, like all trained singers, could do all the things that everyone else could do .....and more!
I think that last story just about sums up the answer to your question!
Sorry to be so verbose and best of luck to you.
LPM
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