Wow, what a feeling it is after so many years of singing opera and Classical music to return to your soul, and my soul has always resided in the land of pop. I started there as a young child. I would go around the house and the barn that we had singing to the animals. I discovered at a young age that I had perfect pitch because I could sing the songs back in the same key in which I had heard them on the radio.
I will never forget the week before Thanksgiving in this 2020 COVID year- I went into the recording studio at The Center for Rock Research in Cleveland, OH and laid down an audio and video of “We shall Overcome”, an arrangement of my own that I adapted from a Pete Seeger arrangement, and I played the piano for myself.
Watch the video here, or click the link to it on my YouTube Channel here: “We Shall Overcome” by Heidi Skok (c) 2020
It is SO SO good to be back to playing the piano. I grew up playing the piano but when I was moved along into the Classical route by teachers, I gave up my piano because I felt the need to really work to perfect my vocal technique as much as I possibly could and I did not have enough practice time for the piano. Now I am forming a real relationship with my FP30 Roland keyboard. I spend hours on it almost daily now.
Live your dreams. Don’t sing the voice that someone else wants you to sing. I don’t regret my Classical route, it brought me to the Metropolitan Opera right out my undergrad studies at Carnegie Mellon University, but it was not my real soul. I am singing my real soul now. I encourage you to learn your voice through and through with excellent vocal technique. I encourage you to train your voice classically as I did, but then plug in that technique to the genre that you love and that best fits your voice.
For me, I can easily go back and forth now and sound like a real pop singer when singing pop and a real opera singer when singing opera or classical music. YAY!!!!
Love,
Heidi Skok