My Second Voice Teacher

When I was studying at the University of Chicago for three years (September 02 - June 05), I took lessons with Bruce Tammen, a voice teacher in the neighborhood. Bruce has conducted choral programs in several universities and has studied extensively in France with Dalton Baldwin and Gerard Souzay. Here is Bruce and me at the end of our last lesson in June 05!

Bruce has been a great teacher! Admittedly, I was not very committed to singing in my 1st year with him, cancelling lessons when I was sick, less than prepared or overloaded with work. In my 2nd and 3rd year, I was a whole lot more passionate, practising 5-6 times a week! In my previous years of studying piano, I have never been that dedicated and disciplined!

I have learnt alot from him. In particular, he has introduced me to much repertoire, emphasized diction and most importantly, hammered the necessity of smoothening the registers. With regard to register smoothening, his favorite exercise for me is what he calls "hum-glide", which is to portamento/glissando from falsetto to chest voice (i.e. normal voice, or more professionally, modal voice) and back to falsetto an octave apart, without having any breaks or "clicks" during the transition from one "voice" to another. I tell you, this exercise was killer especially for me! The "click" is always there! One possible reason is that my falsetto was extremely bad and weak, worse than most guys'! Most guys would be able to eliminate the "click" maybe after few months, one year. But I could never do it...even after constant drilling for three whole years!

Albeit initially frustrating, smoothening the register eventually produced incredible results for my voice (which I will relate more later). For that, I thank Bruce for making this the top priority during lessons!