Thank you, Chris. You summed it up perfectly. Damn, you’re right!

I think where I get caught is when I admire the work of another and want to be a part of it somehow. It’s a little like trying to sing a song you love even when it doesn’t fit your voice. Often, I can let it go. Sometimes, I try to mutate myself in order to be able to sing it. Which never works.

I so appreciate your perspective (and your passion) around musical issues like this. You’re one wise man. Thank you for being my friend. And my fan!

(I miss you both, too).

In the classical music world, concerti and arias are often written with a particular performer in mind – and, if a composer writes a work for a performer, that performer is not expected to shoehorn their way of playing or singing to align with the composition.

So if songwriters want to write something for you to sing, they’ve gotta do it in a way that *lets you show off their song*. Getting wrapped up in “I might not sing the way they want me to” is setting yourself up for failure.

And one more piece of the puzzle, though harder to gauge, is what *your audience* wants to hear. Your audience wants to hear *you*, and not your attempt to finagle your way around someone’s song. As an example, I’m often puzzled by those artists who want to “cross-over” to different genres of singing. Their attempts, to me, vary from the inappropriate to the objectionable.

I’ve heard you sing quite a bit. And when you sing “too high because of [your] training”, I like it. I think your high range is a *great sound*. I always love it when you open up and sing in your high range towards the end of a number – I say to myself, “There’s Nancy’s *real* voice!” Why would you deprive your audience of your *real* voice, and torture yourself trying to conform to someone else’s idea of how you “should” sing a song?

Your voice is your voice, period. If some song can’t be changed to show off your voice (changing the key or the ‘feel’), then *pick a different song* – you & I know there are lots of songs out there, or yet-to-be-written combinations of the 12 semitones of Western music with English words, that are or will be perfectly wonderful for you to sing.

Dana & I send our love & best wishes to you. We miss you!