Finding Your Voice With Ms. Day

“I like working with students who struggle with their voice,” said Melody Day, adjunct instructor of music. Currently, PVCC offers private voice lessons (MUS 136 Applied Music: Voice) with Day. She has been teaching at PVCC since 2012, and this is her last full year. 

The Applied Music class is open to all ages and levels and voice types: soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, and bass. The only requirement is to “Be willing to just learn,” said Day. 

One aspect of the class is “Preparing the entire body to sing, because your body is your instrument,” Day said. She talked about the kinds of things she works on in that regard, for example, breathing, muscle tension, relaxation of the jaw and neck. One of the first things she starts teaching in her lessons is how to stand properly, because how singers hold themselves is a big part of how they sing. 

She also works on resonance and diction, and as she said, “vocalese,” which is adapting which exercises and warm-ups singers do based on their voice type or what needs attention in a specific song. In choosing a song, Day said that you have to find out what a song means to you. “The audience is waiting to receive it as a gift, so once you figure out what it means, then that’s your gift to them,” she said.

Day emphasized annunciating vowels and consonants. She said, “Vowels show the beauty of your instrument,  but consonants help you to communicate.” 

Voice lessons are held in the practice rooms on the third floor of the Dickinson building. At the end of the semester, Day said that she likes to take students up to have a lesson on the stage. She said, “It’s really interesting for them to get in that wonderful space.”  

Day herself still takes lessons with the former PVCC music instructor Ruth Ann Bishop. Day said, “It was hard to see her go, but at least I get to see her every week.” Day is one of the last in-person music instructors left at PVCC. She told me that the music program used to be quite large, but people left over time. Day said, “It’s been kinda hard to watch when it was such a full and vibrant program, and it’s just, [makes a collapsing motion with hands] done this.”

Now Day teaches voice lessons and two levels of private piano lessons at PVCC. For both voice and piano lessons, she said, “It’s just me and the piano and the student.”