Today I had the first voice lesson I've had in a couple of years and it was fabulous! Voice lessons have always been special to me. It is one hour with a teacher/mentor who totally understands the voice. What could be more exciting?
My teacher I work with now has worked with me since 2004 and has defititely changed my life and helped me uncover my high notes.
A few years ago when I started exclusively singing my own material, she started to realize that I no longer needed lessons. I was writing material suited to my vocal strengths, I wasn't trying to tackle arias any longer. I was doing extremely well.
Since then my voice has been great, more than great. I started to notice it expanding at the tail end of 2009. I thought it must be my age. 27 must be the magical year the voice finally matures. But today Kate told me that was not it, I was relaxing.
I recognized in that moment that in these past few years I have finally let go of wanting to be a certain type of singer, of trying to produce a certain type of sound. I've stopped wanting to be someone else. It has taken me quite a journey, but I'm free of the wanting and now my voice is completely surprising me! My range is so big and strong. My high notes have never sounded like this before. The freedom in my heart is showing in my voice.
Kate said that my rich mezzo tone reminds her of British mezzos because they have the roundness in their vocal tone that Americans do not. Being a mezzo is my favorite thing about my voice. To be a mezzo is rare, almost all women are sopranos. I love having the more rich deep lower tones. There is actually a home movie of one of my first Christmas' where my Grandmother comments on what a deep speaking voice I have. I am a mezzo. It is me.
Many mezzos have dificulty with their high notes, as I did for all of my young singing life because our voices are big and heavy and we try to bring the heaviness into the high notes and the high notes can't handle that and end up not sounding at all or sounding small and forced and not as pretty as they should. But with work and time and journey and all the things I did, they can be magical, truly magical. My teacher helped me uncover them the first time and this second time came from my new acceptance of me.
I'm in this new wonderful place and I'm going to figure out how to use these new tools in my songwriting. So, you might be wondering why I was going to Kate now? There are some interesting projects I have in the works. Some cover songs to be exact. You'll have to come see my show to find out! In the mean time, I'm on top of the world and so thankful.
This photo was taken today as I walked through Times Square after my lesson, elated.
Sarah Elizabeth Foster | 
