No matter how old you are, it’s never too late to work on your singing. The muscles respond to exercise. The production of vocal sound is physical, therefore, if you work at it, you can improve.
I am happy to report that more and more training is aimed at function (rather than resonating your forehead, eyebrows, nasal cavities and teeth) and that we are moving toward an understanding of vocal function based on science, not science fiction. It is true that change has been exceedingly slow and fraught with argument, but it is also a fact that younger people “get it” and are happy to accept technology alongside art. Why not? Most of the web is represented through graphic design and it is certainly a technology, as is the cell phone we all carry.
Once we get free of Art Songs from foreign countries as being the only way to begin vocal training, then we will be able to focus on the amazing repertoire for the styles that were born in this country and fostered by average folks, not royalty or clergy. It will be a great day when Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Cole Porter and Leonard Bernstein are held in the same regard by academics as George Crumb, David Adams, Elliott Carter and Phillip Glass. We will also be able to ascertain, without negative judgement, what those styles demand in terms of vocal production. Then we can investigate differences within style and within individual singers in each style.
I imagine a day, 100 years from now, when students say, “Wow, in the old days, you could only study classical music and vocal technique at school. How weird is that?”
I might be well dead by then, but wherever I end up, I will be smiling.