We don’t take enough time to really talk about how hard it is to sing music well.
Especially difficult, harmonically rich music. But really any vocal music.
If I’m rehearsing a saxophone quartet, and the tenor plays a B-natural instead of a B-flat in a C7(b13) chord, I might stop and say, “B-flat.” The tenor sax could look down, see the music and her fingering, and fix it immediately.
A tenor singer singing that same wrong note would need to audiate or hear the part, and ideally understand the harmonic function, how the right note is dissonant with the bass’s E and the soprano’s A, carefully read the line to know the melodic contour, and then work on it in isolation and with the other parts to lock in the note.
Some of the smartest musicians I know are singers, and they are smart because it’s hard to do well. They have gotten smart in order to succeed at this difficult art.
It’s hard to believe that in 2023, we’re still hearing the same “musicians vs. singers” jokes that weren’t funny a quarter century ago. Let’s celebrate every musician – vocal or instrumental – for the way they succeed in spite of the challenges particular to their work.