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I think it depends on what your voice is suited to as to what's easy to sing. My voice is similar to the link Lacey posted. My first vocal coach was a retired opera teacher so my training was very formal. We did share a love for Barbra Streisand so I sang a lot of her songs in training. Once I learned to control my voice and we started working on songs I was performing we had some good laughs while she learned to understand country music. Then when I was learning to play guitar I learned all the old county because my teacher was a performer from that era. Still love Silver Wings and although I haven't performed in years, still warmed up with the technique from my opera based vocal coach. She also has some great stories about stars back in her day.
My vocal coach also taught me a phrase in Italian (which I can't remember anymore) but it basically said that the song was not suited to my voice. I was to say that when someone wanted me to sing something that wouldn't compliment my voice. She was a kick!
I completely agree! The stuff I think is hard is the stuff I can't do. lol I love Barbra too but there are a few of her songs I just can't do (even though I really, really want to). She has a phenomenal range and although mine is decent it just isn't as good as hers.
I bet you had a great time with that vocal coach! She sounds like a hoot! I could use that phrase she taught you. I've been in that situation before and I absolutely hate it when someone insists you do a song (or sing a song that's not in the right key for you) that's not right for you. It's usually because they can't play it in a different key and they really only care about how they sound not about the audience's experience as a whole.
Once I had to peform "Somewhere Out There" in a key that was way too high for me and it was recorded! I still cringe when I think of that. Luckily no one in the audience seemed to have a clue that it was not a great performance or they were just being extremely sweet!
OK, here's what she told me to say when I knew my performance of a song wouldn't be best for me. She told me that I shouldn't open my mouth if it wasn't going to be good... "That song doesn't have suitable tessiturra" I was told to hold my head up, as if it was distasteful! She was quite a primadonna, dressed to the nine's down to her jewelry for every session!
Here's the translation of the word tessiturra: tessitura, (Italian: texture), in music, the general range of pitches found in a melody or vocal part. It differs from the compass of a piece to the extent that it does not take into account the extremes of the pieces range but is concerned with the way in which the vocal line is arranged or situated. The tessitura of a piece, therefore, is not determined by a few isolated notes of extraordinarily high or low pitch but rather by which part of the range is most consistently used; for example, the role of Siegfried in Wagners Ring operas extends from c♯ to c″, but its tessitura would be considered extremely high (and consequently very demanding) because the tenor is frequently required to sing long phrases in the range c′ to a′. Added to the strain of singing in such a high tessitura is the full volume and dramatic intensity often required for such parts.
