“Here’s the Man Who Thought to Beat Me”, Weber’s Der Freischutz
Two years later, in a fit of temporary insanity, I signed up for voice lessons. I was a junior. The teacher was Mrs. Marcia Bissell, a lovely woman whose chief qualification for the position was that her husband was chair of the college board of trustees and one of the college’s principal donors. She started me out working on breath control (mine was more than adequate) and projection (projection had never been and never would be a problem for me). She had me wrap my arms around her beneath her formidable bosom to feel with my own hands the change that took place in her diaphragm when she sang. Then it was my turn. She put her arms around me while I sang over and over one word, “Getragen” (“sustained,” “with sustainment”) while she, arms around my abdomen and hands on my belly, instructed me in how to project my voice forcefully with a sustained and vigorous vibrato.
The problem was that I had no desire to develop a more prominent vibrato or learn how to sing like an opera singer. My model for singing was the lead baritone in the Four Freshmen or June Christie maybe –jazz singing. Continuing the course she proposed would ruin me forever for the only kind of singing I cared about while fitting me to sing a type of music —lieder and opera– that I didn’t care for at all.
I quit talking voice lessons after three sessions, claiming work obligations as my excuse.
Normally, quitting a course in midterm would mean an F on one’s transcript. Fortunately, just as I bailed on voice lessons, the music department mounted an opera, Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischutz (The Magic Bullet), for which they needed many more singers than they had music majors.
We struck a deal. If I accepted a subordinate singing role in the production, Mrs. Bissell would give me a B for the voice lessons and I wouldn’t have to show up for them ever again. The role was Kilian, a forester. He was the romantic rival of the head forester, who was the hero of the piece. I had one big scene as Kilian. I ‘d just beaten the hero in an archery contest and taunted him in song: “Here’s the ma-ann who-oo though-ought to-oo beat me / Now wi- ith mo- ore re-e-spect he- e’ll treat me…” I don’t remember what happened later in the opera but the next time around we both used guns and I lost because the head forester had a magic bullet that always found its target. (Unfair!)
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But you didn’t have to major in music to sing at Hiram. Because everyone sang everywhere. It wasn’t like The Sound of Music and the Trapp family: we didn’t walk around singing songs while we worked. But everyone at Hiram learned the college songs –“Oh, Mister Moon,” “Alma Mater Cara,” “O Sons and Daughters of a Generous Mother”–as freshmen and there were plenty of opportunities to sing them later on.
At Hiram, singing was a sociable act. I didn’t realize how special an environment it was until I graduated and no longer lived there and I haven’t seen anything like it elsewhere. Anyone who could carry a tune sang at least some of the time at Hiram.
The college didn’t have -still doesn’t have– national fraternities or sororities. Rather, there were social clubs: six for men and five for women, yoked in pairs except for one men’s club, I think Delphic, that had no mate.. Except for a few local students, we lived in common dorms and ate in common dining halls. Social clubs formed the backbone of our surprisingly vibrant campus life. Every spring, there was the Inter-Club Sing, with prizes for the best men’s and women’s choruses, and two or three of the men’s and women’s club pairs put on their own variety shows, with ample opportunity to strut your stuff. My first year, I pledged Theta, and Theta, together with its sister club (whose name I forget), put on the Theta Follies.
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When I joined Theta, the club had neither chorus nor director. Spring came and with it Interclub Sing. Every club competed in the Sing, no matter how bad its chorus was. Ours was …. let me be nice and call it … bad. I’d at least sung before and none of my new brothers had so I was tapped to conduct the chorus right off the bat. I hadn’t a clue how to conduct and many of my brothers couldn’t hold a tune so I picked the easiest songs I could find –lots of unison, no more than two-part harmony for the rest except for the rare four-part phrase. We rehearsed for a month. Sing came along. We placed fifth out of sixth among men’s choruses, which wasn’t as bad as I’d expected.
I’d expected sixth.
MUSIC & ME 