I’m writing a book called Mrs. French Was Wrong so that this doesn’t happen to anyone, anywhere ever again. 

Music was always on in our house, and I loved it.  When I was four, I used the bottoms of candlesticks as cymbals to accompany the 1812 Overture.  I sang along all the time to my little Fisher Price record player and Free to Be You and Me.  When I was six or seven, my parents took me to a symphony concert and asked if I wanted to play any of the instruments I saw. “That one!” I pointed straight at the violins. I started lessons the summer before third grade.

Part of fifth grade general education was learning all of the patriotic songs, so we sang in class a lot.  When it came time for the big year-end assembly, though, my teacher asked me to mouth the words. I had no idea I had been singing badly all year long.  No one had said anything. I don’t know how to describe that particular combination of shame and confusion, except to say, you know it if you’ve felt it. In my life I’ve met way too many people who have felt it.

I didn’t try to sing in school again. I sang at home, with the radio, with friends from Girl Scouts, Christmas caroling… the kind of singing that could be excused as “goofing off.” No harm, no foul. Not singing “for real.”

In my freshman year of college (B.A., Russian, CU Boulder), a graduate student overheard me saying that I played the violin and she asked, “You read music?”  “Yes.”  “I sing in a community chorus that’s a lot of fun and we desperately need altos.”  “I’m not really a singer.”  “You don’t need to be a singer to be an alto, you just need to be able to read music.”

Actually, you do need to be a singer to be an alto, but her point was that altos rarely get the melody, and the harmonies can be hard to hear. Being able to read music really helps keep the group on track. I went to the rehearsal. No one made me sing by myself and at the end, they asked me to come back.  Singing alto felt a lot like playing second violin, which I loved. I got to be in the middle of all that sound, and I felt useful. I started thinking I might be a singer after all.

Fast forward a few more years. I changed cities and went to a new chorus. The conductor had me sing along while he played scales on the piano. After I sailed up to a really high note he said, “So, why do you think you’re an alto?”  “Because I can read music?” I replied. I don’t remember whether he laughed, but he said, “You’re a soprano. Let’s put you with the seconds, and you go find a voice teacher. You’re not an alto. You need training.”  The year was 1994.

I’m telling you all of this so that you’ll understand why I say progress is possible.

I was afraid I wasn’t good enough. I was even told I wasn’t good enough.

I started “late.”

And here I am, more than twenty-five years later, a professional singer and a successful teacher. 

Mrs. French was wrong.