Your voice is unique to you. It grows as you grow. It changes as you change. If you’re curious about the relationship between your voice and your body, your heart and your mind, welcome. My name is Michèle Voillequé and I can’t wait to hear you. 

I am not a “real” Lord of the Rings fan. I tried to read the books when I was younger, when all of my friends did, and I just, I couldn’t get into them. I found the whole thing too complicated. I didn’t like it.

And then, one of my favorite actors played the role of Gandalf in the movies that came out a zillion years ago now, and Ian McKellan turned me into a Lord of the Rings fan. Or maybe, maybe I’m just still really an Ian McKellen fan, and he happened to be in that film.

I’m recording this in late February of 2025, and it’s been quite a few weeks in the life of the United States of America, and I’ve been thinking about a scene from the Fellowship of the Ring where Frodo is complaining about this job that he has to do, and he says, “I wish it need not have happened in my time.”

And Gandalf replies, “So do I. And so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

That is such a weighty call to a deep and meaningful life. “All we have to decide”… deciding is hard! Deciding is a commitment. Deciding. Do you remember decision fatigue? Anybody? From the pandemic? I feel like “decision fatigue” along with the word “unprecedented” was in every headline it seemed during lockdown.

“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

That is not simple. And it’s so important. I’ve just been leaning into that scene and to that idea because, however big a dumpster fire there seems to be happening in the world, I believe we’re still called upon to find some joy in life, to make connections with people we love and things we love, books, art, music.

We’re still called to live. We’re here now. This is our moment to live, and we have to figure out how to live.

I offer this to you with the hope that it helps, that it doesn’t make your life heavier. But just to know that we can make it, we can do this.

Other generations have had their difficulties and they made it through because, here we are. There’s something in our ancestors’ DNA that we can rely on, that we can lean on, so that we can live as happily and as fulfilled as we possibly can in the time that is given us.

How this relates to singing and speaking is in that deciding, deciding what to do with the time that is given you, a lot of people reach out to me.

They decide that they want to get back to singing so they can audition for a community chorus so that they can feel connected in a community activity, so they can be with other people. They need, they know that they’re ready to be surrounded by the voices of other people again, they know that would be good for them, and so they reach out for voice lessons.

Or someone wants to record, is a singer songwriter, and they want to make recordings of their songs for their children, their grandchildren, their friends, their neighbors, their parents. They’re ready to share their art with the world, and they need help preparing for that.

Or somebody’s ready to ask for a raise. And they want to learn how to manage their body so that they can do that with confidence and clarity and, well, success. And so they call for a lesson.

And there are many other reasons why you would call for a lesson.

You make the decision. You reach out for help and then it occurs to you that something is going to change. Your voice is going to change, and people get afraid. My students get afraid that they might not like how they sound.

They know that they want to grow, and they’re really worried that they’re not going to like how they grow, what they grow into. And it’s that drama of wanting everything to be better, but for nothing to be different. Change is really hard.

I’ve wrestled with this in my own life as a singer, and I’ve come up with a tool that I think may help you. I know it’s helped me and it’s helped my students. And it comes out of my own personal experience with my own growing and changing voice.

I always sang a lot as a kid, but I thought of myself primarily as a violinist, and it wasn’t until I went to college that I was asked to join a community chorus and started singing “officially” (in air quotes).

And after a few years, I was auditioning for another chorus and I thought I was an alto. I sailed on up to a high B flat – the conductor was just playing arpeggios and I was just, you know, echoing, just singing back what the piano played, and I just sailed on up to this really high note without any effort.

And he looked at me and he said, “Why do you think you’re an alto?” And I said, “Because I can read music?” Because that’s what I’d been told. I was put in the alto section at that first community chorus because I could read music.

And he looked at me and he said, “You are a soprano. I’m going to put you with the second sopranos,” (singing the lower of, when there are two soprano parts, the second soprano part is lower), “but you need to find a voice teacher. You need training.”

And when I went to my first voice lessons, well, I don’t know if it was my very first voice lessons, but somewhere along the way of taking voice lessons, I was asked the question, which voices did I admire?

And at the time I really wanted to sound like Bonnie Raitt, and I was studying with classical singers and that singer-songwriter, kind of country, kind of bluesy voice – I’m not even sure they knew who she was – that was certainly not the tone quality or the timbre that they were hearing in my voice, or that they were interested in developing in me, or able to develop in me because their training had been for art songs and opera.

So I really wanted to sound like Bonnie Raitt and I was with teachers who were teaching me how to sing operatically. And I remember over and over again having little identity crises about my voice because how I wanted to sing was not how they were teaching me to sing.

After a while, I figured out that I did actually like how I, I mean, I, I grew up listening to opera. I do like opera anyway, and I started hearing my own voice in that style and started accepting it, started liking how I sounded.

I really gravitated towards Schubert and Mozart who are… Schubert is, didn’t write any operas that’s all art song. And Mozart, which is sort of, it’s like a simpler style. It’s a cleaner line. It’s not great, big, heavy – what I would’ve said at the time – warbly, or putting on airs.

Mozart to me didn’t sound like I was trying to be anything special. Mozart to me just sounded like I was, I was trying to do something beautiful. So that’s kind of how I found my way into classical repertoire, was through, simpler 18th and 19th Century music.

And then I, my voice kept growing and it kept feeling good to sing. When I say my voice kept growing, I mean my voice got bigger. I was able to make a large sound with less and less effort, and my range grew and my tastes grew.

So now I still love Mozart and Schubert, but now I’m singing Verdi. Now I’m singing Puccini. Now I’m singing things that I would’ve never remotely thought were possible for me or that I would have wanted. Like, the arias that I’m singing now would’ve been on my, “no, never, never, never, never” list when I was in my early twenties.

Now I’m 54.

And yet, honestly, when I look at all of the things that I love to sing and that I have sung in my life, I do see a through line. I do feel like it’s all authentically me.

It’s my voice in these different stages: as I’ve grown, as I’ve matured, as I’ve had more life experience, as I’ve listened to more music. As I’ve grown, the pieces that I sing have grown along with me and it all feels like it belongs to me.

And I think how this happened is that I’ve always been clear about what it is that I love. So while Verdi doesn’t have really anything obviously in common with Bonnie Raitt, how it makes sense to me is, what I love about her voice is that it’s warm and clear and honest. It has an integrity that I just love, that I just can wrap myself in.

And I feel like, those values, those qualities that I first, you know, glommed onto with Bonnie Raitt, as my voice grew, I just kept looking for that. I kept looking for the next version of clear, of simple, of honest integrity, and I just kept growing along that line.

Those don’t need to be your qualities at all. I mean, I’m talking very specifically about me and what I, what I loved hearing and what I wanted to learn, how to replicate – the qualities that I wanted to embody as a singer.

The gift that I wanted to give to the world and still want to give to the world is something that’s warm and honest and clear and compelling, and sometimes comforting, but sometimes not.

I actually enjoy singing pieces of music that kind of nail the audience to the chair. That are, I love being able to sing something and have it be riveting. That’s so satisfying for me.

So this tool that I’ve developed that has helped how I’ve approached with my students when they’re at the beginning of their journey and they’re just clueing into the fact that their voice is gonna change and they’re worried that they might not like it, right, they’re on that, It feels like a precipice.

It can feel like your voice is gonna change, and then you’re not gonna be able to change back. Your voice is gonna grow and then you’re gonna lose something of yourself.

I remember this fear and it was really, really visceral. It’s really truly a fear and, and maybe talking about it, I don’t know how this sounds to you. Maybe it sounds crazy, but it’s a real thing: what if I change and I don’t like it, and then I can’t change back, and then I’m stuck?

What if I learn how to sing in a particular way and then I can’t go back to singing how I used to sing and then nobody likes my voice anymore?

What if I learn how to speak more easily, like how to project my voice with less effort, and what if I lose my friends? What if they decide that I’m too bombastic for them or something? What if they just tell me that I’m just too uppity.

Maybe that’s just a very charming expression from a rural part of the country that nobody uses anymore. But one of the things that I’m afraid of or that I don’t wanna be perceived as I uppity putting on airs too big for my britches.

I’m curious, do any of those expressions make sense in an urban environment? They feel very real to me, coming from a smaller state in another time.

…but that I’ll be somehow, that my voice will change and I’ll be cast out. I’ll be cast aside. I won’t be accepted anymore because now I’m different.

This is a drama that happens throughout our lives whenever we’re confronted, I think with a, with a significant change. But now being in midlife, it feels to me like I’ve already changed so many times, I’ve already had so many precipices that I’ve managed, there have been so many detours and so many, you know, so much change has happened that I’m, I’m kind of over it.

Changes are continuing to happen, for sure. Absolutely! Does life get boring after 50? No! There’s, there’s been so much change in my life after 50, but it’s less, uh, it’s less of a catastrophe.

I guess I’ve been myself enough for long enough that I’m confident that whatever changes I make, I’m still going to be me.

I did not have that certainty in my twenties and my thirties or even maybe most of my forties. I was getting better at change, but I was still like, oh, okay, well who am I now?

You know? And now that I’m in my fifties, it’s like, you know, I am who I am now. And there will continue to be changes, but you know, this is me. And it’s kind of, you know, take it or leave it.

I did not feel that way in my twenties and thirties at all, remotely.

Okay then maybe that was a long tangent. What’s the tool, Michèle? What’s the tool? So the tool is something I call a quality inventory.

What is it that you love, if you have voices you admire? Or you have an idea of how you want to sound, what is it that you love about those voices? What are the qualities?

And so I gave you some of mine. There’s warm and clear and honest.

Here are some other words. resonant, smooth, deep, strong, intimate, gentle, sincere, unguarded, harsh, gravelly, passionate, full of bravado, caring, nostalgic, wistful, familiar, teasing, direct, round.

And from one of my opera books, I wanna give you some qualities that are listed there in terms of describing the different operatic voice types in case they’re helpful, too, or interesting: tender, slender, mellow, warm, again, brilliant, dark metallic. Really, that’s a quality that opera people talk about, metallic. Noble. Clear, again, rich. I don’t remember if I said rich already.

So these are some, just to give you some ideas of qualities that you like, what you want to embody. Make the list as long as you want, and then see if you can settle on three or four. Three to five. Not more than five. More than five is, it’s too much for your brain to handle.

Let those qualities be your criteria for evaluating what you’re doing with your voice. “Is this still me?”

So using three of my qualities, simple, warm, and clear:

Even if this piece of music that’s in front of me to sing – maybe I’ve chosen, maybe I haven’t, maybe I’ve, you know, been asked to sing a thing and I said yes, but you know, it’s not something that I necessarily chose for myself – in order for it to sound like me, in order for me to feel at home in it, I know now that I need to find a way for it to sound simple and warm and clear, that simplicity, warmth, and clarity are things that I bring to that music, and that’s how I find myself in it. That’s how I express myself in it.

And I find that as long as you’re doing that, as long as you’re staying true to the qualities, to the sound that you want to make, you’re always going to sound like yourself. And that is what the world needs. That is beautiful.

And what I found with my students is that once we identify what those qualities are for them, what they wish their voice sounded like, or what the voices they admire sound like, you know, what, draws them in? What really makes something meaningful and heartfelt and what feels organic to them?

That was a run on sentence that I got lost in.

What I’ve found is that when I can help my student discover what those qualities are for themselves, they immediately calm down about the whole process of changing.

Changing is not so much a thing anymore. Now it’s a growth process. It’s not an, “oh, I’m gonna be different problem.” It’s, “oh, these are qualities that I can grow into.”

If I want my voice to be strong and resonant, I can feel into that. I can feel how, oh, okay, I can grow into a stronger, more resonant version of myself, and I can see that there’s a path there.

And maybe there isn’t even an end point because you could always keep getting stronger and more resonant as you grow into a deeper and deeper person. And as you grow stronger and more resonant, you’ll share your message, your music, your work with more and more people in a way that is authentic to you. Because strong and resonant is something about who you are.

So that’s my introduction to the quality inventory as a way of helping yourself manage the anxiety that comes with a change process, that comes with growth.

Bringing it back to Sir Ian McKellen, Gandalf, “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

When we make that decision or those decisions – it’s always more than one – as we make those decisions, we are deciding to grow. And we’re choosing the direction in which we’re going to grow.

I really hope this has been helpful. Thanks so much for listening.

If you enjoyed today’s episode, please rate and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Every positive review helps new people find the show. Subscribing ensures you’ll learn about new episodes as soon as they come out. If you have a question about singing or speaking or being, please send me an email at letters@mvmusik.com.

That’s letters at M as in Mary, V as in Victor, M U S I K.com.

Transcripts and show notes are available on my website. You can subscribe to my newsletter there, too. Can’t Wait to Hear You is produced in conjunction with Particulate Media. I’m your host, Michèle Voillequé. I can’t wait to hear you.