Weeks before an important performance, opera singer Laura Crocco notices there's something wrong with her voice.
Laura Crocco is an Australian researcher in music performance and human movement science. She graduated with a Bachelor of Music (Voice Performance) and a Master of Applied Science (Health Science) from The University of Sydney and is now preparing to commence doctoral studies in 2020. The demanding nature of elite music training that she encountered during her undergraduate studies prompted her research interest in how the science of human motor learning may improve the way we train musicians. Laura aims to provide evidence-based professional development for music performance teachers in higher education so as to encourage student autonomy, improve performance and nurture the wellbeing of our future musicians. She is passionate about encouraging music teachers and students to recognise the current issues in one-to-one training, and showing them through her published works, presentations and masterclasses how more systematic and objective research may serve as an ally to the field. Laura often presses buttons on an accordion and hopes to one day convert an old upright piano into a mini-bar.
This story originally aired on July 26, 2019 in an episode titled “Dream Deferred.”
Story Transcript
I remember seeing my very first opera when I was 12 years old at the Sydney Opera House. It’s called Cavalleria Rusticana. I’m sure none of you know it, but it has one of the most beautiful melodies I've ever heard. It’s so delicate and nostalgic.
My mom organized a minibus for some elderly Italians in our local community to go to Sydney every few months to see an Italian opera. I was lucky enough to go along and score a seat next to them all. I remember being in the theater just going it’s so grand and yet so cozy when the lights go down just before the curtain rises. I absolutely loved it.
I remember being in the top balcony row and as soon as the orchestra started playing, my mom turned to me and she saw that I was crying. I knew in that moment that I wanted to be on that stage. I knew even before the first tenor came on stage.
I ended up going on to study classical singing. I trained in it quite intensely. I missed so many parties just to get a good night’s sleep before a performance. I switched many delicious beers for a glass of water just to keep my instrument well hydrated. It sounds tough but, as a classical musician, I willingly chose that life. I chose it because I loved the skill, I loved the music, I loved the performance, I loved the art.
Come the fourth and final year of my Bachelor of Music, practice became a chore. It really did. I never felt like I was singing well. I was constantly in my head. I was criticizing myself all the time. Midway through that year, I developed a cold that became a pretty bad virus and I was in bed for two to three weeks in our July break. It’s our winter break in July in Australia.
I went back to university after the break and my singing voice didn’t really feel the same. It felt like I couldn’t control it the way I used to. It went on for a little while so, though it was scary as a singer to admit, I thought I'd better go and see an ENT to have a checkup, an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist.
This first ENT I saw, he didn’t see anything physically wrong, but he did notice that I was quite stressed and concerned about my instrument. So he sent me to a performance psychologist, someone especially for professional voice users such as singers.
A few sessions in and she was like, “Well, I can tell that that stress and concern is coming from the fact that you do have something wrong with your voice and now, on top of that, you've just been given a misdiagnosis.”
Yeah, well, now I need to go and get a second opinion but, at that point, I didn’t have time. I was a few weeks out for my final, qualifying 50-minute solo performance for university.
I pushed, physically pushed through those final months and weeks of my degree. My voice had become painful to the point where every time I went to make a sound, any sound, it felt like an elastic band was constantly hitting my vocal folds. That’s exactly what it felt like. Like someone had both their hands wrapped around my throat tightly, all the time, to the point where my speaking voice became really, really, really high. I spoke like this all the time, annoying, but that was the only way I could speak comfortably at that point.
The day my recital arrived, I was really trying to suppress my nervousness about what my voice was going to sound like that day. I didn’t know what I was waking up with from day to day anymore. I had no control. But I was focused throughout my recital. I got through it. Usually, at the end of a performance I'd be really happy, but this time I felt nothing but relief that it was all over.
My family and friends congratulated me but I knew that they heard something different. My singing teacher is so supportive and caring and remains a dear friend until this day, but I knew that he was just as worried as I was.
After years of high grades, I came out with a poor mark in my recital. My examiners commented saying, “She needs to control her voice. Her voice is so wobbly. We didn’t know what pitch she was singing.”
I knew all these problems. I knew. But I couldn’t fix them because my instrument wasn’t responding. There was something wrong. And to top it off, I couldn’t tell anyone other than my singing teacher that there was something wrong. I couldn’t tell the examiners that because I was afraid that if anyone knew that I had any hint of a vocal issue, as an opera singer, you're blacklisted in the music world. And I was a student. So I was left with this memory that I struggle with until this day of a final performance that was a vocal train wreck.
A few weeks after that, I woke up and I couldn’t talk. I was visiting my family for Christmas and I woke up, went into the kitchen, sat down, had coffee with my mom and I didn’t say a word. My mom turned to me and she knew. She knew exactly what was happening. She’d see me in those recent weeks not being able to talk for very long anymore. Even that was tiresome and painful. My family and friends knew me as a singer so when I woke up that morning, my mom saw me lose a huge part of who I was and I felt bland inside.
Immediately after that, I sought the opinion of another ENT. This time, my vocal folds were quite swollen. I had developed a polyp in one vocal fold, a blood vessel, but in order to get a diagnosis we really needed to get that swelling down. So he sent me to see a speech pathologist and also so I could talk comfortably again.
I remember being in the clinic. I remember seeing it so clear. I had to be the last patient that day. I was in the waiting room on my own, it was raining, the receptionist had already gone home.
The speech pathologist asked me why I wanted to be an opera singer. I said, “Honestly, at this point in time, I have no idea why I wanted to be an opera singer. Who wants to wear all that crap?” I was like, “No. No. The heels, the gowns. I don't know.”
I felt really, truly, I felt so much self-loathing for having trained to be a musician for 20 years to end up being stopped by what was later diagnosed as being laryngeal nerve damage, that, what we know to this day, is generally permanent. Stress and a viral infection were my potential causes. And the damage, though it was mild as an opera singer, was enough to stop me considering a career at such an elite vocal level.
Eight months into my voice therapy and I come to terms with that reality. I couldn’t physically or emotionally do it anymore. My speech pathologist and I had been having general conversations about what I had observed as a musician during my training, what I had observed by teaching and learning.
Singers, especially classically singers at that elite level, don’t just have one singing teacher. We have so many teachers. Opera singers have many languages to learn so we have many language coaches, performance coaches, accompanists, master class teachers. Over those four years of my bachelor, I had received so many different types of instruction, so much feedback, but varying feedback that I could no longer filter what I was being taught anymore.
I had no motivation at all, I didn’t know what my goals were, and I came out not knowing my own instrument. I didn’t know how to use it. A bit counterproductive.
Amongst all of this my speech pathologist thought that I had a research question that, if studied, could potentially improve how teachers teach musicians. So she asked me if I'd ever consider doing a postgraduate research degree.
My immediate response was, “I’m never setting foot in the music institution again. You won’t catch me dead there. No.”
She said, “No, I mean in health science. You should come study with me and I'll be your supervisor.”
Firstly, okay, science, yup. I haven't had any science education since high school. And, to top it off, I thought she was nuts for thinking that I could try and study a subjective art form using scientific methods.
But she saw something in me. At that point in time, I had nothing else to do but I also didn’t want anyone else to experience what I had, so shortly after that I enrolled for a Master of Applied Science research degree and was then adopted by an entire department of wonderful, wonderful speech pathologists.
That was five years ago. Today, I am a researcher in both music and health science, a bit of a hybrid but it’s fun.
I was in Australia this past summer visiting my family. I was on the beach, just had a dip in the ocean. My mom came with me. It was just before I was leaving to come back to Canada. And when I came back to lay down next to her, she asked me, “Do you miss performing operatically? You've loved music your entire life?”
Obviously, a big part of me wanted to say, “Yes, of course, I do,” but I didn’t. Instead, I said to her, “I truly think that my voice disorder saved my love of music. I get to enjoy it and listen to it, play different instruments stress free. I don't need to worry about making it a sustainable career anymore.”
But I also get to use my voice for something else and I’m just as passionate about. I get to use science to improve how music performance teachers teach and to support our students in more of evidence-based ways. That is unheard of in that field. There aren’t many of them doing what I’m doing. I don’t need to perform operatically to love music. Thank you.