Baritone or Tenor? What the Hell am I?

Is this your singing biography?

When your voice changed at age 12 you suddenly had a very rich and mature sounding voice much lower than anyone else your age. Soon you were being called a baritone by your high school and church choir directors, although you could sing quite high in pop songs using what they referred to as “falsetto”. You could sing a relaxed low G along with the rest of your section, but your real glory was being able to soar up to E and F above middle C when a lot of the others had to drop out. The first solo repertoire you learned (Caro mio ben, The Vagabond) were in the low keys, because only two choices were available in the compilations your school used.

When you arrived at the University with the small but reputable music department you were immediately one of the best baritones in the school. Your voice teacher immediately set about to get a big, robust, mature sound out of you. More for his own ego than for your best interests he assigned you some pretty big stuff; Schubert's “Atlas” your sophomore year, a Verdi aria the next year. You could muscle your way through it all and everyone complimented you on your big dramatic high notes. You were cast as the Count in Mozart's “Figaro” and you dominated all the ensembles and nailed the high F# in the aria. Your voice was totally exhausted at the end of the performances, and you were hoarse and raspy the next day, but hey! Everyone told you you were great. You placed very high at the local NATS competition and all the judges encouraged you to keep up the good work.

After graduation you continued on the same path. You were given a few supporting roles at the local opera company, and entered some competitions. You made the finals and placed 4th or 5th in some of them. You had to be very careful about what you sang first. You wanted to sing your big Verdi show-stopper first, but were worried that it would wear you out for whatever the judges chose next. And if you started with the Mozart it wasn't as impressive, and it was a little too low for you. You began to notice that there were baritones out there with bigger high notes than yours, so you started to woof it up even more. You couldn't toss off the optional high A's in “Largo” the way your competition could because you were singing with such heft, and you were wary of singing “Largo” first because it might get you all tied up in knots for whatever came next.

You continued in this vein for a couple of years. You left voice lessons and coachings vocally exhausted and hoarse. You no longer had that sweet “falsetto” you had as a teenager. You didn't win any competitions and no professional company offered you a big role. Some of the judges pulled you aside and expressed concern about how heavy you sang. Some told you “sure, you have good high notes, but they are very bright, and not really what is called for in some of your repertoire.” A few even told you that your technique was really bad, and that you might actually be a tenor.

This SCARED THE SHIT out of you. You had never thought of yourself as a tenor. You wanted to be the manly guy, not the simpering jilted lover. Sure, your high school and college choir directors sometimes asked you to sing second tenor when it was divided, but that was just due to the lack of real tenors. “But I'm not really getting anywhere as a baritone, and my voice HURTS a lot.”

“WTF am I going to do?”

If you identify with some or all of the above, let's talk. I've been there. If you want to discuss things here on the group that's fine. A group discussion would be fun. But if you don't want this kind of thing posted for all the world to see, contact me personally.

Thanks for dropping by. Come back again. I plan to post a video soon.