[Menvi-discuss] Getting just vocal line vs. the whole piece transcribed?

[Brandon Keith Biggs]

Hello,
my teachers are really pressuring me to analyze all the vocal pieces I sing. 
They say that I need to know where in the chord I am, especially as a bass. 
My theory teacher wants to prepare me for form and analysis as well as give 
me a better idea of what chords are being played in my performing songs so 
my own vocal compositions can begin to become more like the masterpieces I 
sing. My teacher believes that knowing my music implicitly will both help in 
my characterization and interpretation and also will help my pitch and 
rhythm improve. My voice teacher is spending lots of time in my lesson 
playing the chords and playing me the place where I am. But my musical 
memory is very limited when I don't have words, so it goes in one ear and 
out the other. My teacher knows this, but we are kind of at a loss. Getting 
a whole song transcribed with piano is two or three times the size of just 
the vocal line and the cost is significantly more. I'm trying to think of 
when I really begin memorizing Operas. My relative pitch is not good enough 
yet to hear the chords when they are played in such quick succession like 
they are in my songs, but I'm pretty quick at memorizing pieces when I'm in 
control of how I learn. If I had them in Lime or Braille they would stick a 
lot better in my head.
I'm currently looking at a 5 page song I'm learning, it is an orchestra 
reduction I believe and the piano part is rather complex. I think it will be 
3 pages, around $15-20 for the vocal line, but around 10 pages, around $60 
if I got the whole piece done. I feel kind of concerned as I am given tons 
of pieces already and the number only increases from here. If I'm going to 
be paying for opera scores as a professional I will be broke before I get 
started.
My school is already hurting for money and spending a couple thousand on me 
every time I'm in a show or learning a libretto is not conducive to friendly 
relations with my accessibility services. In my masters program I'm 
expecting on being in 5 shows a year... 10 grand and a million Braille 
pages. If they were in Lime files life's difficulties would be halved, but 
still, I'm not sure how to handle this.
I already write 3-10 pages on each piece I perform, and part of that is 
analysis of the piano pieces I have music for. But I haven't really started 
digging into libretti, that starts this quarter, but I'm pretty sure there 
will be pages on each section.
I spent a couple hours with a pianist, asking questions and hearing sections 
played on one of my pieces while taking notes, but compared to reading the 
score and taking notes, I missed so much.
I'm wondering if people have any idea how I can deal with this?
Thank you,

Brandon Keith Biggs