Thoughts On Our Second Rehearsal - Shay Estes

     There was a beautiful and very humbling moment for me at our most recent Fado Novato rehearsal when we each spontaneously confessed to each other that we are out of our comfort zones on this project.  Jordan, who has played mostly pop and jazz music in his career, is delving into the patient art of the fado accompanist.  He must now hold the ensemble together like an anchor.  This requires perfect time, consistency, sensitivity, and subtlety.  He must be always aware of the soloists' needs for consistency in one moment and then tension or fluidity in the next.  He must add color and texture to the music without distracting from the soloist.  This role is not always the most exciting to play in an ensemble but it is the foundation on which everything else is laid.  In fado, this anchor is the 6-string guitar or viola, and it is the beating heart of the music.  Having long enjoyed the freedom of jazz improvisation and the carefree nature of various kinds of pop music, Jordan is now diligently attending this new, unfamiliar role.
     Beau, while no stranger to soloing on many instruments, finds himself usually more comfortable in Jordan's present role with his present instrument.  He is a classical guitarist first and foremost.  Sure, he is proficient in a multitude of stringed instruments, but he has only been working with his new guitarra for a few weeks.  It is strung and tuned very differently from the 6-string guitar.  It takes him one day for every new tune he must transcribe and work into his fingers.  He confessed that he has cleared much of his schedule and is working on little else leading up to our debut.  While fado is so similar in certain respects to many other styles he plays, the music and the instrument are still quite foreign. 
     For my own part, the differences between what I have done as a  vocalist up to this point and what I am learning now are not just altering the way I use my instrument: they are physically altering my voice.  The Portuguese language is very nasal,* which places a lot of the resonance in the mask of the face.  Fadistas rarely allow their voices to move into the falsetto register, which keeps the bulk of their vocalization in the modal range and resonates heavily and fully in the vocal chords.  An additionally challenging factor is that the key of any given composition is occasionally limited by the respective musical ranges of the guitarra and the viola.
     Finally,  fado lends itself well to natural vibrato.  I have spent most of my life as a vocalist - particularly the last eight years singing jazz - doing exactly the opposite of everything I just mentioned.  I have sung mostly in English, which as a result of the phonetics of the language causes resonance in very different places at very different times than Portuguese, which puts resonance in the nose, the sinuses, the front of the mouth and the forehead.  Through my training in jazz and previously in classical voice, I was taught to develop my falsetto and to suppress and control my vibrato to create bright, clear tones.  It was particularly a big "no-no" to push one's voice too high in the modal range; repeated violent resonance in the vocal chords can cause nodules, a career-ender for many a singer.  A great way to avoid those pesky range problems is always to change the key into something more suitable for one's vocal register.  After all, the piano player has eight octaves to work with!  What does he care?
     The effects of these efforts have been interesting.  As rehearsals commenced and I really dug deeply into our chosen tunes, I began to use my voice much of the time in a way to which I was unaccustomed and untrained, in a language I barely knew, on melodies I was very unsure of, in a part of my range that was weak, with a vibrato I had been holding back for years.  Sound began resonating heavily in my nose, forehead, and throat, with my voice pushing at questionable pitches in the top of my modal range and vibrating them like mad.  As I found out, this will give you headache.  A big headache.  A lot of big headaches.  It will also make your throat sore and horse.  I started to feel guilty about what I was doing to my instrument.  I needed to back off.
     I am not used to learning things slowly, especially not music.  Conquering a lot of Brazilian music took time initially because of the language, but much of it is very musically adaptable.  Within two months of diving deeply in I was digesting it at my usual pace.  To date, nothing has ever gotten me stuck as much as fado, not for the musical difficulty of it but for the sheer physical challenge.  I listen to these fadistas belt out their souls, and I marvel at their strength and endurance like a couch potato watching Michael Phelps win his umpteenth gold medal.  My feelings of doubt and insecurity (and a heaping workload from a few other projects I gleefully prioritized over my fado homework) lead me into Wednesday's rehearsal feeling sheepish and uncharacteristically unprepared.
     Then, a very funny thing happened.  At rehearsal, I listened as two musicians I know to be some of the most talented and hard-working guys in town told me how challenging this has been for them.  I perceive that music comes to these men as easily as breathing, and they confessed their similar frustrations and insecurities.  I realized that I allowed myself to miss the point:  The process is the point.  I am supposed to fail before I can succeed.  I am not going to be Ana Moura overnight.  If I am going to train my voice to do this correctly I must start slowly, just as Mr. Couch Potato probably needs to start with just a few laps a day at the community center before he tries to qualify for Rio in 2016.  I will sound a little awkward at first, but if I keep working at it a little every day I will get better.  No more headaches, no more sore throats.  Baby steps to Lisbon.  I confessed my lack of preparation to the guys, and they were kind to me.
     The good news is that after some rest, I can feel my voice has changed.  My range is broadening and my lower tones are richer and fuller with better pitch and more strength.  I am straining less at the top of my modal range, and the overlap between my modal and falsetto is slowly increasing.  I was worried that too much focused time spent on belting would weaken my falsetto as well, but as it turns out (and some research supports this as happening fairly often) it may actually be strengthening it.  Like any other muscle, I cannot max it out every day like I had been, but the heavy lifting is making it stronger.  Now, to get myself a good trainer.  I wonder if Carminho is taking students...

--Shay

 *By "nasal" I mean that that the Portuguese language contains a greater number of nasal vowels and consonants than English or many other languages.  Nasalization in phonetics refers to the specific and correct pronunciation of a vowel or consonant in which some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound, causing nasal resonance.  In English, this includes sounds like "n" or "m."  This is not to be confused with hypernasal speech, which is increased airflow through the nose during speech causing abnormal resonance in the nasal cavity (to oversimplify, everything a person says sounds tinged with the "n"  sound.) It should also not be confused with hyponasal or denasal speech, in which no air flows on nasal sounds (aka, "mom" sounds like "bob," or stuffy-nose speech.)  These are linguistic terms indicating speech disorders.  I am by no means an authority on either subject, but they are important to distinguish, lest I be accused of insulting the beauty of the Portuguese language.