Anyone who has auditioned or who has listened to singers in different types and sizes of rooms knows that no two performance spaces sound alike. The shape of the room, the number of reflective surfaces, and the amount and thickness of carpeting are among the seemingly countless factors that help or hinder the singer’s ability to project the sound of his or her voice.
In the simplest terms, all of this means that a room could sound “really dead” or “really live”—which, in turn, affects how a singer’s voice sounds, to both the singer and the audience. So, how have some singers dealt with these hurdles, and how can a singer cope with the challenges presented by less-than-ideal acoustics?
Soprano Jessica Slatkoff Arteaga received a master’s degree in voice from San Francisco Conservatory of Music in 2005 and spent the summer of 2010 performing as a Studio Artist at Opera New Jersey, covering Donna Anna in Don Giovanni and singing in several concerts and masterclasses. Upcoming are agent auditions, both at the end of the summer and during the traditional audition season, which ends in January.
When Arteaga was younger, she suffered from some bad auditions because she did not know how to cope with poor acoustics. At times, when a room was dead, she pushed her voice to the point of fatigue during her first piece, resulting in what she describes as “her voice being in shreds by the end of the audition” if the judges requested a second or third piece. Conversely, Arteaga’s pitch tended to be sharp in live spaces. She changed her approach after receiving feedback from the people who were evaluating her; they could hear that she was forcing her voice too much.
Now, for each audition, she tries to prepare for the acoustics by researching the hall to find out what the room sounds like. “If I know the space is going to be dead, I have to be really careful to not listen for the feedback and rely more on making sure that I am technically correct because I can’t trust what I hear, if I hear anything,” Arteaga says. “If a space is really live, I know it’s safer to start with my tried-and-true starter aria.”
Twelve years into her international career, soprano Indra Thomas has spent a majority of that time auditioning. She also used to push her voice in dead rooms and lighten her voice in live rooms. “But then, about six or seven years ago, I decided to just sing and not worry about the acoustics, because I have no control over how the acoustics are designed and it is more important to treat my voice naturally,” she says. “Plus, I realized that an audition is truly a performance, so I started treating my auditions like performances. That took the anxiety out of the audition process.”
Thomas recalls that her most successful auditions happened when she worried the least. “I can honestly say I had a 95 percent chance of getting the job singing this way,” she says. “Every time I worried, I got nothing. So that old cliché that ‘worrying gets you nowhere’ is pretty much true.”
For countertenor Raymond Storms, a 2007 graduate of New England Conservatory, churches have presented most of the problems, either because of too much reverberation or none at all. Although these acoustic problems have caught him by surprise, he now considers those experiences examples of “learning through performance on the stage.”
“It’s all about balance,” Storms says. “I usually get a feel for a room, not to mention my adrenaline slowing down, within the first two bars. The most important thing, in my opinion, is to stay on my support [including proper breath control and posture], especially in live rooms, where I may feel swayed to support less, resulting in singing off my voice.”
Storms takes the approach that auditions are cases of “mind over matter,” especially because they should reflect diligent practice. “Just because I am having trouble hearing myself does not mean that my audience is having trouble,” he says. “I focus on staying confident. The acoustics of a room should be the least of our worries.”
Of all the bad acoustics that tenor Calvin Lee has endured, he cites dropped ceilings as the worst. Lee—who has earned degrees from the North Carolina School of the Arts (1991), New World School of the Arts (1993), and Conservatory of Trento (1995), and who sings around the world—tries not to push his voice. “You, as the artist, have to know your instrument,” he advises, “and you have to know what you are capable of doing without harming or having pressure in the throat or destroying your instrument.”
Soprano Louise Pinkerton is able to address the acoustics issue from both perspectives—as a singer and as one who listens to auditions. A vocal instructor and music lecturer at the University of North Dakota, she listens to singers who audition for undergraduate lessons at the university and judges competitions for NATS. Based on her own auditions earlier in her career, some of which took place in unexpectedly small rooms, she knows the value of trusting one’s voice and breathing technique. “The more auditioning I did, the more varied spaces I had been in, and the more I trusted my own singing, acoustics were much less of a problem,” Pinkerton remembers.
She believes that the most important preparatory action singers can take before an audition is to practice singing in a variety of acoustic spaces, including classrooms, large theaters, churches (to experience the effects of too much reverberation), and office-sized spaces. “Even if the acoustics are not identical to what the singers will encounter in any given audition, they will still have an idea of what to expect no matter where they sing,” Pinkerton says. “They should have the experience without the pressure.”
Also important are learning to sing by feel, instead of by aural feedback, and not trying to accommodate the space. “If the space is dead and they over-sing, they’re not demonstrating their best singing,” Pinkerton says. “If the space is too live and they under-sing, they’re still not demonstrating what they can do because they’re responding to the space in a way that doesn’t serve their voice.”
If poor acoustics come as a surprise, the bottom line is to ignore them and trust the voice. As Pinkerton explains, if singers think about the acoustics, they are not paying close enough attention to their singing. “If it doesn’t sound like what they’re expecting or what they want, assume that it’s the space,” she says. “They can’t control or change it, so let go of it.” One specific piece of advice that she offers: if the room has a lot of reverberation, allow for enough breathing space during pauses in the music to let the sound fade.
Assuming that the room is the problem raises the question of whether judges overlook poor acoustics when evaluating singers or if acoustics influence their opinions of singers. According to Pinkerton, if it is a room where judges have heard many singers, they probably know how the space affects voices.
“I try not to let the acoustics influence my evaluation,” she says. “If you’re hearing everybody in the same space, everybody has the same problems with it. If you have to make decisions and evaluations, you do what you can. The hard part is when a singer tries to accommodate the space and alters how they usually sing. I have to evaluate based on what I hear at that moment.”
Thor Eckert—a former artists’ manager for 10 years, chief music critic for The Christian Science Monitor for 15 years, and currently professional development coach at the Academy of Vocal Arts (AVA)—is adamant that singers have to learn to trust their technique because it is the most fundamental aspect of their careers. “At AVA, I specifically work with singers in a small room where the sound is rather contained because most of them hate singing in that room,” he says. “It’s a confusing room if you’re singing and striving to listen for acoustical feedback. I tell them that if they learn to sing in that room, they will be able to sing anywhere.”
Singers have actually told him that they cannot hear themselves, but he responds that that is not an excuse. “That’s why they have a technique,” Eckert says. “If they start listening to themselves and relying on the acoustical feedback, they’re going to change how they sing depending on the room, and you can’t do that. There are a lot of opera houses where you can’t hear a thing, so if they start worrying about the acoustics, they’re not going to be doing what they’re paid to do.”
But, over the years, Kristin Cowdin has heard singers try to make adjustments. An artist manager at Guy Barzilay Artists, Cowdin is usually familiar with a room’s acoustics and knows how singers will sound in that space, but she agrees that it is difficult to overlook the results when a singer changes his or her sound in the middle of an audition to try to adapt to the acoustics.
“This actually hurts the singer more often than not and can lead to pushing or a more manufactured sound,” Cowdin says. “Anyone looking to hire or represent a singer wants a performer who will deliver consistently, even in a less-than-ideal venue. So, while I understand that a certain room might not showcase a singer as well as another, I do want to hear consistently solid performances, even in a room audition.”
