Experiences, thoughts on classical vocal music for postpubescent transitioners?

[Clarine]

<sup>[Huh, so I did make an account here after all. I completely forgot about that. Oops. My apologies are due to one friendly and helpful operator/mod I met in chat earlier.

Is this in the right place? Maybe it should go to one of the transition/community-related sub-boards. Oh well, here goes.]</sup>



Hello.

Most transwomen who passed their early teens before the widespread penetration of internet access in their area of living, and a still unfortunately not insignificant portion of those reaching that age later, are all-too-familiar with an aggravating bodily issue that often complicates all but the simplest of social exchanges. While a quick search of the web will provide many reassurances that it is more than possible to overcome these hurdles in regards to speech, and quite a few when it comes to general vocalized entertainment, I managed to find exactly zero (0) that consider the possibilities for postpubescent transitioners interested in classical vocal/choral music as their primary focus. I'll grant that I perhaps simply wasn't looking hard enough, or often enough - this was a year or two ago, after all. But given the relatively low number of people who seriously follow classical vocal/choral music and the even smaller number of people who are seriously considering transition, at least in comparison to the general population, it certainly doesn't surprise me that so few thoughts have been gathered on the minuscule intersection of those two groups. Now, I suspect this topic applies far less to transmen, but I'm sure there are those who, for a variety of reasons not limited to finances or physical condition, find themselves unable to obtain hormones, and there could be other difficulties of which I am not aware. At any rate, I'll try to keep the remainder of this post as gender-neutral as possible.

I should note that, as I understand things, the expectations for classical vocal/choral music and those of other vocalized art genres are quite different. On a more abstract level, I might submit that most non-classical genres are more concerned with freedom of individual expression and on-the-spot creativity (the art serves you), while classical music sacrifices those for perfection of aesthetics and clarity of tone (you serve the art). I'm not suggesting that my formulation has any basis in empirical fact - it is one hundred percent speculation, and pretty shoddy speculation at that. To the extent that it may have at least some validity, however, it could explain why non-classical genres appear to be much more open to those who find their voices dysphoric: neither expressionistic nor improvisational techniques are hindered by an ill-fitting but otherwise perfectly functional larynx, while those same qualities of voice can make tone-shaping problematic. It may also be that the pitch-matching that is so crucial to classical music, and difficult for singers overstepping their usual range, is of lesser importance to other genres - in my extremely limited experience, I have rarely if ever seen a person at a jazz band or karaoke joint slamming at a piano key repeatedly while screaming bloody murder about quarter tones, and I can't imagine a rap or beatbox gathering having any need for the same at all (relative pitch is, of course, still important across all genres). Please believe me when I say that I'm not writing all this to show off, and I really do apologize if I came off that way, but merely to temper the notion that the comfortable success of postpubescent transitioners in this or that non-classical genre of vocalized art can so easily translate to the classical realm.

When I first had to confront this problem myself a few years ago, a few fruitless searches and less-than-encouraging discussions had me more or less convinced that emotional dissonance was an inevitable sina qua non if the singer's voice is a source of dysphoric feelings, at least so far as classical vocal/choral music is concerned. It hopefully should come to no surprise to anyone reading that I wasn't exactly pleased with this assessment, and I was at a point where, despite my love with the lyricism of centuries past, I wasn't really sure if I could handle that extra source of frustration and dysphoria. And so, when it came time for me to suppress the latest resurgence of my desire to partake in this musical tradition, I decided to try questioning the qualifications of those to whom I spoke, rather than the rational groundings of my wishes. I didn't get much more than the last time I searched, but one new finding was that there were two people, one on these forums and one on another, who seem to know something about this, though I'm not sure if it is appropriate to call out names in a topic in such a fashion. I think I can say this much without singling anyone out, however: the person on these forums has a certain non-classical interest and a certain dislike of something that appear, at least on the surface if not on a deeper level, to be at odds with one another. However, I do not anticipate being a prolific poster on these forums, so my communications with this user or anyone else will have to be limited to what I can get from this topic - I'm pretty sure that I will never be able to reply to PMs or e-mails from this site, if I read the rules correctly, and it would be unfair for everyone here if I were to force out fourteen vapid posts merely to surpass a requirement whose fulfillment benefits no one other than myself. On the other hand, perhaps this way I might find someone else who has not shared their own expertise/experiences until now.

Even if you do not feel you have anything unique to add to the discussion here, please post if you have at least found yourself in a similar situation regarding classical vocal/choral music. If nothing else comes of this, I'd like to know at least that I am not alone in feeling this way.

Thank you.

[luna nyan]

Wow.
Quite a long first post!
I'm guessing one of the mods will post up a welcome and here are the rules posts soon.

Welcome to Susans.

Ok.  My background.
Classically trained pianist, chorister from age 10-12 (boy soprano - highest consistent note was about F6).
Post voice break - baritone to tenor range.

To be honest, of all the things to have happened with puberty, the voice breaking has been one of the hardest things for me to deal with.  If I were to be fair, it's a reasonable baritone, but that's not where I want to sing, but my falsetto/head voice range is insufficient to even manage to sing alto at this point in time, let alone mezzo-soprano in a manner that is satisfactory to me.

One possibility is to consider training as a counter-tenor, and with a large amount of work, you may be able to get close to the sound of a mezzo-soprano.  I don't know of what results you might get with vocal chord surgery - I have not heard of anyone who has picked up classical repertoire afterwards.  The basic physical limitations of the male voice box vs the female will always mean some difference in singing tone.

For me, it is another part of the whole dysphoria issue.  I'm a whole head taller than all the females in my family (and pretty much the tallest male), hands with sufficient span to be able to manage to play Rachmaninoff without having to roll too many of the chords required, and the singing voice is probably never likely to get to where I want it to be for classical singing.  I am likely to settle on a smaller repertoire of songs with limited range in a number of genres to satisfy my singing urges.  I have to recognize that puberty has not been kind to me (as trans - for a male, everyone thinks I'm blessed!), and deal with it as best I can.

[Clarine]

Wow.
Quite a long first post!

I do tend to be rather long-winded when it comes to writing. Undergraduate papers seem to be the one stupid exception, though. At any rate, the one thing it seems I can always count on is that the length of my unedited writing will always be inappropriate to wherever I plan to submit it :-/

Hey, complete non-sequitur here, but do either you, your family, or some person close to you regularly celebrate the lunar new year in a region where it is not customary for most people staying there to do so? Gah, silly me, making uneducated guesses about people based on their user names.

I'm guessing one of the mods will post up a welcome and here are the rules posts soon.

Don't people read the rules before they sign up for things anymore? I'd grumble about the good old days of the internet... if there were any to speak of.

Ok.  My background.
Classically trained pianist, chorister from age 10-12 (boy soprano - highest consistent note was about F6).
Post voice break - baritone to tenor range.

To be honest, of all the things to have happened with puberty, the voice breaking has been one of the hardest things for me to deal with.  If I were to be fair, it's a reasonable baritone, but that's not where I want to sing, but my falsetto/head voice range is insufficient to even manage to sing alto at this point in time, let alone mezzo-soprano in a manner that is satisfactory to me.

I feel the same way, and it gets better since it was entirely preventable were it not for my incredible carelessness and naïveté (or so I have come to believe); I was fully aware that I was at an impasse but deceived myself while under no outside duress into thinking I wanted something else, and I can only blame myself for that.

My own background is that of a classically trained cellist, with first voluntary formal choral experience at around age 14. I was assigned T1 at that time, a designation which has more or less stayed with me for my entire singing experience. I was scared away from joining a scholastic chorus earlier, and I can't help but wonder if overcoming that fear and being in such company would have provided the necessary impetus for me to come to terms with this before everything went downhill, rather than after. The paper-thin silver lining to all that is I have no benchmarks of a prior singing voice with which to compare and grieve (actually, I don't even have any memories of loss - I guess the damage was either unusually small or unusually gradual... or perhaps my denial capacities were working overtime). Small comfort indeed.

One possibility is to consider training as a counter-tenor, and with a large amount of work, you may be able to get close to the sound of a mezzo-soprano.  I don't know of what results you might get with vocal chord surgery - I have not heard of anyone who has picked up classical repertoire afterwards.  The basic physical limitations of the male voice box vs the female will always mean some difference in singing tone.

Unless things have changed drastically from when I looked into it, surgery is a definite no, what with its 0% chance of success as far as singing is concerned. The counter-tenor training idea has been mentioned to me before, but I'm not sure what exactly that entails - when I said "seriously follow classical vocal/choral music", I meant more along the lines of "has willingly and unreservedly tried out for an audition-only chorus" rather than "has had private lessons and/or plans to go professional". You mentioned limitations and differences, and really, I suspected from the outset that when it comes to classical vocal repertoire, the imitation will never be mistaken for the real thing (not in isolation, anyway). For me, the real question is whether skill and technique can overcome that defect enough that the director will not be forced to choose between artistic beauty and GLBT sensitivity - the last thing I want to happen is for me to be dragging down the chorus because the conductor was guilt-tripping. The classical singer on this forum I believe had a voice type close to mine before her transition, and she posted about a year-and-a-half ago that she was singing as an A, so I was hoping that she could elaborate on her experiences and techniques here, and maybe offer a few carefully chosen words of encouragement. Darn my inability to send PMs/e-mails :-/ Perhaps I should leave an e-mail forwarder of some sort in this topic in case someone wished to contact me outside the forum. In regards to the mezzo bit, I always presumed that particular range to be completely out of reach, so I'm touched that you considered it a possibility, even if only to "get close", as you said :-)

Hmm, now that I think about it, I had a chance to try out for a counter-tenor part at one point in the public scholastic chorus I was in. It was some three-piece work by Bernstein. Too bad I was under the mistaken impression that newcomers to the chorus couldn't partake in the informal audition, otherwise I might have been able to solicit surreptitiously some feedback on my classical musical passability.

For me, it is another part of the whole dysphoria issue.  I'm a whole head taller than all the females in my family (and pretty much the tallest male), hands with sufficient span to be able to manage to play Rachmaninoff without having to roll too many of the chords required, and the singing voice is probably never likely to get to where I want it to be for classical singing.  I am likely to settle on a smaller repertoire of songs with limited range in a number of genres to satisfy my singing urges.  I have to recognize that puberty has not been kind to me (as trans - for a male, everyone thinks I'm blessed!), and deal with it as best I can.

Interesting that you should mention other genres. I find that whenever I am forced to listen to something that is not by a classical composer who lived at least a century ago (usually on the bus or some public venue, before I started using the budget mp3 player I obtained recently), I almost always feel greatly discomfited by the experience. I confess that I'm a bit of a snob when it comes to my musical preferences, but I am nonetheless interested in what you like to listen to on the side - I think I've given the local radio stations more than enough of a fair chance.

As for your voice, don't lose heart yet! Assuming I don't have early-onset Alzheimer's or anything like that, the person on the other forum shares your untrained vocal range and claims to have made good progress. I'm having trouble reaching her, however; it seems she's more or less vanished from the internet as of three weeks ago :-/ I'm sorry I can't help you with any of the other things you mentioned though - why does it always seem that trans people wind up with bodies that are *less* suited for transition than those of their cis peers?

Thanks for your kind words, luna nyan! I hope more people will come and share their thoughts in the days to come.