Viva la Voce

Not.

Like a lot of performers, I'll find something to say to the audience during the program. I want to break down that invisible wall that sometimes lurks between a classical musician and his or her audience. Once concert-goers realize that I'm a normal person--albeit one with a weird job--they relax with me, and a good time is had by all.

So, I recently heard the recording of a concert I gave a few months ago. As always, I had found something profound to say to the audience. (Yes, I'm being sarcastic. Depth is not the issue here, rapport is. I'll make a comment about anything from baseball to what I had for lunch, if I think it will help the audience to loosen up and enjoy the program.) But I was alarmed to hear how noticeable that occasional--and supposedly slight--drawl I'd inherited from my dad has become. I guess I don't listen to myself talk enough, so the sheer down-home twanginess emanating from the same lips that were about to play a Bach sonata was a little jarring. Or even bizarre.

I worried that the incongruity of an elegantly-dressed woman speaking like a cross between Lady Bird Johnson and Ellie Mae Clampett might confuse the audience. Maybe they'd wonder if they were really going to get the Franck sonata, or if I was going to break into "Variations on a Theme by Willie Nelson" instead. So I thought to myself, "You know, I need to learn to speak in those well-modulated, plummy-vowelled tones favored by classical music deejays everywhere, instead of sounding like I took a wrong turn on the way to a tractor pull."

But then I came to my senses, and decided that instead of trying to lose that countrified drawl, I should surrender to it. Or even embrace it.


After all, how classy can a gal really be when she's dripping spit all over the floor?