MerleAnn

MerleAnn was my very first voice student, and today we had our last lesson. She’s been part of the practicum program at the Institute – we apprentices have offered free voice lessons to low-income people in the community for the last 12 weeks, and we've gotten some wonderful teaching experience by doing so.

And the bonus is getting to know someone like MerleAnn. She is sixty-something; she cares for her elderly mother and her ailing cat and dog. She studies yoga and chant. She is a member of the Women’s Intergenerational Choir. And she belongs to the Tribe of One-Breasted Women, having survived breast cancer a couple of years ago. She does nothing to enhance or disguise her lopsided chest, but shows it proudly, like a badge of courage.

We became fast friends through our weekly sessions; we shared many laughs and some very tender moments too.

We discovered about ¾ of the way through her lessons that her preference is public speaking and dramatic reading rather than singing, so we shifted gears a little. The differences between the techniques for singing and speaking aren't that great – same breath work, posture, speaking with forward focus. I was mesmerized when she read a Maya Angelou piece about listening on the radio to the match when Joe Louis defended his heavyweight boxing title. Today she read a Dave Barry piece – Roger and Elaine, a Love Story - that had me in stitches. Her delivery is flawless. I think she’d keep me on the edge of my seat reading my car owner’s manual.

MerleAnn tells me her voice feels much stronger since she started lessons, and that she moves a little more upright and noble in the world, due to the posture, breathing and rib expansion we’ve worked on. I couldn’t be happier with that feedback!

I’m going to miss our weekly lessons, but I don’t think I've seen the last of MerleAnn.