How an adjunct college professor changed my life...

I have a few friends who are college professors.  One of my teaching friends is a woman I met while we were both working as waitresses.  She later earned higher degrees in English literature and now teaches at a small college in Virginia.  Yesterday, she shared an article from The Atlantic about how some adjunct professors at colleges are living at poverty level.  While the article itself was shocking reading-- it's hard to imagine a college teacher being forced to sleep in their car-- it also made me realize that an adjunct professor changed my life in a profound way.

In the fall of 1990, I was a brand new college student.  I had signed up for the usual general education classes… math, English, history, music appreciation, etc.  One course I had signed up for that was kind of a surprise was voice class.  I chose it because I needed an arts class for my general education requirements.  Of the four disciplines offered-- theatre, art, music, or dance-- music was the art that spoke most directly to me.  I had never sung before, except in the car when I was alone.  I knew I had a pretty decent singing voice, though.  My parents are musicians as are a number of my extended relatives.

So I signed up for voice class, which was a one credit course that met once a week and was taught by an adjunct professor named Ann Browne.  My father happened to know Ms. Browne's mother, who is a concert level pianist and was the accompanist for one of the many singing groups of which he was a member.  He was excited when I told him Ms. Browne would be my teacher.  He knew she was very qualified because he'd met her through her mother.  Ms. Browne had attended Westminster Choir College near Princeton, New Jersey and, like me, had perfect pitch (I found out about mine during a brief period during my childhood when I studied piano).  Besides teaching at college, Ms. Browne was also a professional singer.

On the first day of voice class, about five students met in the choir rehearsal room at my college.  Ms. Browne was there, looking like she'd jumped off the pages of a Spiegel catalog.  She wore colorful, stylish clothes and had long, curly hair.  She was very tall and seemed serene as she sat behind the grand piano in the rehearsal room.  She immediately put me at ease.

The five of us each had a copy of the required textbook for the class, Basics of Singing.  It was basically a songbook that had a nice selection of songs for beginning voice students.  I actually wish I still had that book.  I see it's listed on Amazon and very expensive… it also gets low ratings.  Well hell, I liked it at the time.  I sold it back to the bookstore, no doubt because I needed beer money.

Ms. Browne asked us each to choose a song.  We would be learning three each that semester and performing it in her class.  Basics of Singing had a number of familiar songs in it, which was a good thing, since I never did learn how to play piano and was too poor to buy the optional accompanist tapes.  The first song I chose was "Summertime", from Porgy & Bess.  I sang it with relative ease and Ms. Browne was apparently impressed.  She took me under her wing.

Sometime near the end of the course, Ms. Browne took me aside and told me she thought I was very talented.  She said I should study voice privately and encouraged me to audition for Camerata Singers, which was our college's "better" choir.  I had never sung in a choir before.  My dad's obsessive devotion to his choirs had turned me off of them.  Besides, my mom was an organist, which meant she was always at choir practice, too.  I grew to enjoy the couple of hours with the house to myself.

Studying voice would entail an extra expense.  I would have to hire an accompanist and pay an extra lab fee.  However, given my parents' devotion to music, I knew they would agree.  They did… especially after they heard me sing for the first time during a beer enhanced Thanksgiving celebration (but that's another post).

The audition for Cameratas didn't go quite as well because I was nervous and wasn't such a good sight reader.  Dr. Trott, the director of the choirs, asked me to join the non-audition group, Concert Choir, instead, which I did.

The following semester, I took private voice lessons from Ms. Browne.  Her class quickly became my favorite, even though I was an English major.  I found studying voice challenging, yet relaxing.  I grew to really like Ms. Browne as a person, too.  She became more than a teacher.  She was a friend.  While I was her student, I got to go with a bunch of music majors to Richmond, Virginia, to see Cosi Fan Tutte.  After the show, we visited Ms. Browne at her home and looked at her college yearbooks.  She had attended Westminster Choir College at the same time Dr. Trott had and it was fun to see them when they were college aged.  With Ms. Browne's help, that semester Dr. Trott welcomed me into Cameratas when I demonstrated my uncanny tonal memory, which also makes for a fun party trick.

Besides teaching me the basics of singing and showing me that opera can be beautiful, Ms. Browne introduced me to the wonderful music of Kathleen Battle.  She gave me a copy of Battle's CD, Kathleen Battle Sings Mozart.  I became a big fan of Kathleen Battle's crystalline voice, even though she has a reputation for being a bit of a prima donna.  I now own many of her albums, but before I met Ms. Browne, I had never heard of her.  Because I listened to Kathleen Battle, I started listening to other singers and developed quite an appreciation for classical music.

My exploration of classical music enhanced my study of literature, which made me a better writer and a more cultured person.  I can't even count the number of poems and literary works I became familiar with because I first encountered them set to music.  The very first Robert Burns poem I ever heard was set to a lovely melody in four part harmony.  When I went to Scotland years later and enjoyed my first taste of haggis, I appreciated Burns' gift of language even more than I might have, for I associated him with music.  It made his "Address to A Haggis" much easier to swallow.

I took lessons from Ms. Browne for three semesters.  Unfortunately, after the third semester, the college decided to lay her off.  It turned out another professor, one who was tenured and had been working in the Office of Continuing Education, had decided to come back to the music department.  There was no longer room for Ms. Browne and her very special style of instruction.  I was very sad when I got the news, especially since I had already signed up for lessons the next semester.  The next professor didn't make as good an impression on me at first, though I eventually grew to like her.  But let's just say, the initial transition was very rough.

A year later, Ms. Browne was asked to come back to my school.  Rumor had it she declined, because as an adjunct professor, there was no guarantee that she wouldn't be laid off again.  Another, very competent adjunct professor was hired.  I wanted to take his class, but by then the tenured professor had claimed me as her student and changed my schedule back to her class.  At the time, I lacked the assertiveness to raise hell about that… in the long run, it probably wasn't a big deal anyway.  I eventually grew comfortable with Ms. Browne's successor and learned from her, too.  The last time I saw Ms. Browne, she was on a stage in Richmond, performing the starring role in The Medium.  She was outstanding, of course!  

Adjunct professors can and do make a huge difference in the lives of their students.  I think it's shameful that so many of them are struggling to survive.  If it weren't for Ms. Browne, I might not be a singer today.  I might not be writing this blog or on Pop Rock Nation.  I might not be as fierce a competitor as I am on SongPop because I know more about opera and art songs than I might have.  She truly did change my life and enhanced my college experience in the most amazing way.  If I had never taken her voice class almost 24 years ago, I couldn't have made this video.



Or this one…



Video production is another skill I've learned, in part, because I sing.  I've most recently been teaching myself how to do sound production and have even been improving my photography skills.  It's all a work in progress, obviously...

Ms. Browne was the first of many teachers I've had who have helped me develop a part of me that, until I went to college, was completely undiscovered and undeveloped.  I may not be a professional singer, but being able to sing has improved my life exponentially.  I have an adjunct professor to thank for that.  Yes, she really did change my life for the better.  I sure hope she's not sleeping in a car these days.

The first time I ever sang for anyone...

I grew up in a very musical family.  My mother was a church organist from the age of 14 and my dad is a singer... or at least he was until his voice was ruined by spending too long on a ventilator.  I have aunts, uncles, and cousins who are musicians.  My sister took piano and played clarinet in the school band, though music didn't really stick with her.

Me?  Well, I started out playing piano.  When I was six years old, I started taking lessons.  It turned out I had really good tonal memory.  The teacher told my mom I had perfect pitch.  I hated practicing, though, and eventually quit taking piano.  When I was ten years old, I joined the school band.  I started with drums, because I auditioned and it turned out I had rhythm.  But I could never get the hang of using the sticks and ended up switching instruments.  I played my sister's clarinet for a year.  I was okay at it... even took summer band that summer.  But for some reason, I decided I'd rather take art, so I dropped out of band.  It might have had to do with the fact that my mom was playing piano for the chorus at my school and had regular interaction with the music teacher... who had actually recognized that I had some talent, even back then.

I spent most of my childhood around horses, not music.  I was really into riding and had dreams of making horses my career.  As I got older, I realized that I didn't really have a lot of natural talent for riding.  I was successful enough at horse shows and it was a lot of fun for me, but I wasn't a "natural".  By the time I was seventeen, I was ready to do something else.  I left the horse world, though I have to confess I miss it today.  I hope someday I can make horses a part of my life again.

I never sang in front of people when I was growing up because I knew how much it annoyed me when people sang in front of me.  I knew I could sing on key, but I didn't know I was any good at singing.  I was very shy about my voice and wouldn't even sing hymns in church.  I'd hear my mom play them at home and in church when she was the organist at the church where I attended.  I'd hear my relatives sing and play music at family reunions.  I never joined in.

Then when I was eighteen years old, I went off to Longwood College.  I had to take an arts class for my degree.  I needed four hours, so I took music appreciation, which was a three hour course.  Then I took a one credit voice class.  Voice class was designed for non singers.  It was fifty minutes and there were about five of us in the class.  The teacher was a woman named Ann Brown.  She happened to be the daughter of a woman who was good friends with my dad due to his many musical pursuits.  Ms. Brown's mother, Mary Lirette, was an accompanist for one of my dad's musical groups and had obviously passed on her passion for music to her daughter.

Ann Brown was an adjunct professor at Longwood and the University of Richmond.  She had graduated from Westminster Choir College, had perfect pitch, played piano, and was a wonderful singer in her own right.

Ann Brown was a neat lady for so many reasons.  She was really tall and wore really cool, stylish clothes in bright colors.  She had big hair.  And she was very nurturing and encouraging.

I remember we had a book called Basics of Singing that had some very simple songs in it.  There were a few show tunes, a couple of simple arias, a few art songs, and a light pop song or two.  We were instructed to pick out a couple of songs.  The first one I chose was "Summertime" by George and Ira Gershwin.  I had heard some girl sing it when I was in sixth grade and I always liked the way it sounded.

Ann Brown worked with me on that song, as well as several others.  I seem to remember singing "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" from The Sound of Music and "Almost Like Being In Love".  I remember that singing came very easily to me.

One day, I asked Ms. Brown if all the music majors had to do senior recitals.  I was intrigued after having watched a couple of people do theirs.  Ms. Brown said they did and then asked me if I wanted to study music.  I said I was an English major and wanted to be a writer.  Ms. Brown told me she thought I had a natural talent for singing and that I should study voice privately.  I realized how much I enjoyed music.  Private lessons would mean extra lab fees and I would have to hire an accompanist.  But when I pitched the idea to my parents, they were supportive.

Over Thanksgiving break 1990, I went to the annual family reunion at my grandmother's house.  As usual, people were standing around the organ singing.  My mom was playing and my aunts, uncles, and cousins were harmonizing.  Some of the others were playing cards and/or watching football.  Though I was only 18, I'd had a couple of beers and was feeling a little giddy.

Having heard that I was taking a voice class, someone asked me to sing.  I kind of giggled and said okay.  My aunt played "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" for me.  I sang it... and people were really pleasantly shocked.

People who know me offline know that I'm often saying and doing shocking things.  I used to make my parents blush with embarrassment for outrageous things I used to say that embarrassed them.  My mom used to yell at me because she never knew what was going to come out of my mouth.  I've always been outspoken and obnoxious.

This time, my mom was shocked again... but this time it was because she was overwhelmed with pride.  My mother was blown away.  She had never known I could sing and she was absolutely floored that I was good at it.  I remember her eyes were huge and she was actually speechless for a couple of minutes.  She barely choked out "I didn't know you could sing."

I will never forget her reaction.  It was something I had never seen from her before.  She was very proud of me.

I later realized that if I had studied music growing up, I might have done something with it professionally.  But I also would have had to deal with with my dad, who was very competitive about his singing.  I clash with my dad anyway... not so much nowadays, but years ago when I was growing up and he was still coherent.  I remember signing up for voice lessons from a teacher in Williamsburg, Virginia when I was in my mid 20s.  I did it to help get over depression.

My dad signed up for lessons, too... from the same teacher.  He brought my mom with him to play piano.  It pissed me off because it was something I had done for myself and I didn't want to share it with him.  I remember singing at a recital and he was performing too.  He didn't understand that I didn't want to compete with him.  In fact, my goal was not to join music groups and become known for being a singer.  My goal was to feel better and do something that came easily to me.  I resented that he had horned in the way he had.  Of course, once I quit studying voice to go off to grad school, so did he.

I never got the sense this was something he wanted to share with me.  It was like he didn't want me to steal his identity.  I guess I can understand that on one level, but at the time, it really sucked.

Looking back, I totally see why, as a kid, I chose horses instead of music.  My parents did not care at all about horses and had no expectations of me.  If I had chosen music, it would have turned into a big contest.  My mom would have pushed me and my dad would have been jealous and competed with me... or pressured me to join his groups so he could show me off to his friends.  I have always gotten the impression that my parents valued me most when I did something the could brag about.  They have always been concerned about other peoples' opinions and impressions more than they have the opinions of their loved ones.

Despite all of that, I still love music today... and I still share it, though I try to be sensitive about how I share it.  I post recordings on SingSnap which I sometimes put on this blog.  I've gotten good feedback, which is a nice thing.  I'm still kind of shy about my voice, though.  Get me in a karaoke or piano bar with the lights dimmed and lots of booze, the shyness goes away somewhat.  ;-)