Dear Stephanie and list
First a question: do you mean by 'awesome' that it was very nice? From the meaning of the word I would not say so, but since you want to go back?
Then some answers by somebody who is neither a mezzo, nor an expert and who does not even have a big voice (although it is getting bigger every day now): a mezzo is a mezzo soprano, so a soprano that sometimes is seen as something in the middle between an alt and a soprano, which does not mean that a trained mezzo could not be able to sing a 'high c'. Some people also see a mezzo as just another kind of soprano.
The most important difference is the way the voice sounds: a little darker, or lower, if you wish, than a soprano. But as some people already mentioned, I would not spend too much thoughts about this at the moment, because as you learn to sing better, your voice might get higher or lower or both or whatever, the most important thing is that it will get better.
If you go to http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/1450/fachlist.html you'll find a list of opera's and aria's for different voicetypes (sometime called fach, like trade) can sing. You will find two types of mezzo's there, which even makes it more complicated.
Then this strange thing, a big voice. A big voice is something almost all people want to have, many people claim to have, yet not many people acually do have. It has to do with loudness, but it is more than that.
A simple and unprecise explanation: a big voice is a voice that can be heard over an orchestra and over other voices. If you listen to it, and close your eyes and imagine the voice visually, it is as if it takes more space from left to right than other voices, whereas a smaller voice seems to be more pin pointed, hence the use of the words big and small. But be careful when listening to cd's, because you never know how much the sound has been manipulated.
Technically spoken I think - but maybe some of the other people could shine their light on it - a big voice has at least a strong basic frequecy and a strong singer's formant, the high metallike 'ping' you hear in opera voices. A big voice is very well suited for opera's, a very small voice might not be able to sing opera at all. (If you don't understand this: a tone you sing actually consists of many tones, like if you would play one note on a piano, and play all the octaves above that note as well. The amount and strenght of those tones vary and make all the differences between voices, but again: this will change when you learn to sing better.)
In general a big voice can sound a bit rougher than a smaller voice, especially at a close distance, but this must not be the case! An ideal voice would be big and despite that be able to make very beautiful soft notes.
But like with the question whether you are a mezzo or not: don't worry, it's a good thing as long as you don't try to overdo it.
The most important thing: if your teacher tells you something you don't understand: ask her. Obviously she doesn't know that her expressions, her 'jargon', is abacadabra to you. And it is necessary to understand her!
Best greetings,
Dre
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