You’ve probably heard them before, the glib one-liner’s about singers, especially sopranos, being terrible musicians. If you are an opera singer like myself, you may have heard worse. Operatic sopranos have long-standing reputations as Divas with large egos, (and bodies), who bellow around unmusically, shrieking at the top of their lungs, sucking up all the excess air in the room with overbearing, unmusical incompetence…

At least, that’s the impression we’re given, especially by people who don’t like opera. I’m sure there are some singers out there who accurately fit that description. However, they are far from typical, and the egotistical opera-singing Diva is a dying breed. In fact, opera singers today, especially sopranos, are held to ever-elevated standards of musical excellence.

Still, there’s a trend brewing with musicians today that don’t read music. Many have no interest in learning any theory at all and think it’s unnecessary for their music…