Jeanie's Blog

And to the teachers of singing:

Singing is one of the great gifts of the world to those who sing and to those who listen. It is an art and a skill. It has to be regarded with respect and honesty. Teaching someone to sing is also a skill and it requires a broad range of knowledge that take years to learn. If you do not really know what you are doing, teach with very careful awareness and NEVER, EVER do anything that causes vocal or emotional harm to another. DO NO HARM!!

I do not look much at the “voice teacher” groups online because so much of what appears there is outrageously low grade. People who have no idea at all about what they are writing espousing ideas that are simply amazing in their lack of accuracy. They argue with each other, trying to “prove” who is “best” or “right”. Stunning, really.

If your singing teacher does not sing well, meaning she can’t apply what she is trying to teach you to herself, (and there is no medical reason why this is the case), if he cannot give you a solid explanation of why you are being asked to do something or why it doesn’t work, run away. Especially if he can’t tell you why what you are doing is wrong that causes your throat to hurt and, more importantly, what to do to stop that behavior, RUN AWAY!! P.T. Barnum said it best, “There is a sucker born every minute.” Don’t be one of those people!

Even severe laryngitis can be uncomfortable if it continues past a few days. Having to whisper or be very raspy can interfere with being heard and understood. If it lingers, only a few of us can manage easily in that situation .

Yet, truly, who gives thanks for this vital part of the body on a regular basis? On a day given to gratitude, does anyone think to be grateful for the ability to make vocal sound? And, if you sing, you may not realize that your entire career depends on two tiny pieces of gristle, not longer than your last joint on your pinky finger and much smaller than that in size. You may not understand that all your notes, for your entire life, depend upon the function of your vocal folds in response to your decision to sustain pitches in music. And, yes, it is possible to continue to have the ability to speak but lose the ability to sing. Julie Andrews is possibly the most famous example of such a person, but it can happen to anyone. Singing demands more of the vocal folds than typical conservational speech and you can discover this, sadly, when they no longer do what they once did easily, and there is no help to be had that will heal the problem completely no matter what medical expert treats it.

Those who deliberately teach singers to scream without any regard for vocal health, or who teach singers to deliberately manipulate the internal structures of the throat and larynx, are doing a terrible disservice to both body and voice, yet there are many who teach in this way. That the profession of singing teaching at large does not object to such instruction but, in fact, often embraces it wholeheartedly, is a disgrace, but this, too, is a fact.

Those who teach singing are not required to adhere to any tenets by outside objective experts. If you tell a young or inexperienced singer to squeeze the aryepiglottic sphincter (if you can locate it in the throat) or to retract the false folds (ditto), or to curb the vocal folds (as if they were a puppy) or to tilt the cricoid cartilage (which doesn’t move volitionally at all), or to sit on the back of the tongue and the jaw to prevent the larynx from moving up when that is part of its natural function, and if you then expect the student to both understand and comply with any of these instructions, only to find that they struggle, you must ask yourself why you would continue to teach in this manner. Why?

Why not just help your throat do what throats do? The structures in the throat, all of them, need to be free to move. (Singing freely requires no such deliberate maneuvers or restrictions.) Instead, why not be grateful that you can sing whatever you want and however you want by respecting the way the body is designed to function so that both can remain in excellent shape for your entire life?

Please be grateful for your voice in all of its many expressions from your first lusty cry as a newborn until you exhale your last breath. Do not wait until it is lost or impaired in order to be thankful for what you already have. Give thanks every day, starting right now.

Any authority figure must learn to choose words carefully and to pay attention to the consequences of the words uttered. You cannot take them back. Words once released last for as long as the person who heard them carries them in their own mind. Written words can last for thousands of years and effect millions of people.

We have now a President who speaks with no regard whatsoever as to the truth of his statements or the consistency. He is oblivious to the damage his complete lack of command of language causes and how it weakens both what he says and his own image. The country suffers because the truth is construed as lies and the lies as truth. Such is the damage than can be done by words uttered blithely and by an individual who either can’t tell the difference between truth or falsehood, or by someone who doesn’t care about it in any way.

If you teach, you simply cannot afford to be indifferent. Certainly you cannot come from that point of view when teaching singing which is spoken word come alive. Music well written and beautifully sung allows us to share the landscape of our inner lives. Those who are listening and open can be transformed, sometimes forever, by receiving this gift.

Therefore, we must ask ourselves what we really want to say and what it means. We must own the words, the sentences, the thoughts and the emotions, and when we sing, we must own the notes and rhythms, too, as part of our communication.

Not everyone is highly articulate. Some do not have diverse or broad vocabulary. Some people don’t bother to determine if what they want to communicate is what gets communicated. The only way to know is to ask. “What do you think I was saying? What did I just communicate? What did that mean to you, if it meant anything at all? What kind of a reaction do you have to that?” You cannot know if you don’t ask or if someone doesn’t volunteer to tell you without being asked.

A great deal of success in life is precipitated by knowing the right questions to ask. There are people who never question anything ever. If they end up in power, at any level, it is really scary.

In your life, try always to find the best words to express your thoughts. Take time to think about which words are the ones you need. Don’t press forward to say whatever comes to mind just because it’s easy. Choose your words with care and, following this further, when you sing, do so with clear intention.

You cannot retract what you say (or write) so be willing to take responsibility for your utterances. A song is words come alive through music. With both, make your choices carefully.

If you don’t know what “high quality” is you can buy “off the shelf” and think you are getting a bargain when you are just being ripped off. But quality costs more because it is quality. When it comes to services rather than goods, that’s even more importantly true.

If you “price shop” for a service you are making a big mistake. Singing teachers are not brands of laundry detergent. It would be much more useful to save up for one or two lessons with a well-established, highly regarded expert than to buy whatever is “inexpensive” in bulk. You might learn more from two really excellent lessons from a master teacher than from a dozen from someone who barely knows what’s what.

If you are being told that you can learn “all you need to know” in a few short lessons you should be highly suspicious. Be wary of all “the 10 best tips” people. There is nothing worthwhile that can be learned through 10 best tips, or 40 best tips, or even 500 best tips, although that larger number might be more useful, especially if the tips came from a real expert.

Recently I had a student who had studied seriously elsewhere and came to me with a number of significant technical problems. Breathing and coordination issues, tone quality problems and lack of awareness just generally. This was a large-framed person with an overly forward sound, a tight throat and less than stellar control over either body or throat. Still, progress was being made, sometimes significantly, and there was talent there and a lot of vocal potential. Then, just as things were beginning to turn around, the student disappeared to work with someone else. Happens. Is that other person going to know what to do? The best odds are only 50/50. That’s quite a risk to take if you have just started to get over your problems.

But some individuals like their problems. They enjoy the struggle. They identify with it. Maybe their “not-so-great” vocal behaviors were not, in fact, unconscious or accidental but deliberate. Maybe the singer has no clear idea of what encompasses good vocal production or free singing. Maybe someone else was very flattering in lessons and that ploy worked well enough to pull the student away.

In the end, you do not have an unlimited number of years to get things right and get out into the world as a professional singer. If you come to New York City and you have various technical issues you can’t spend forever fixing what’s wrong. There are too many folks who arrive here without those challenges who are your competition and they will be spending time learning rep while you are trying to figure out how to use your voice and body properly and get a better, freer sound. The worse off you are, the more you are vulnerable to becoming the victim of vocal “snake oil” salesmen.

If you get sold a bill of goods because you did not do “due diligence” regarding investigating your singing teacher comparing him or her to others with more experience, more skill and a more reliable reputation over many many years, it becomes your own fault if you get taken advantage of as you study. Be careful. Think. Use your eyes and ears.

I hereby today, in this blog post, declare that am I against direct manipulation of the structures within the throat while attempting to sing. I am against it in every style, under all circumstances and for all reasons. It is a mistake. Further more, I have been against this for all the decades of my teaching. This is not a new conclusion on my part.

Vocal development is precipitated by vocal stimulation which begins in the mind as a desire to sing a pitch at a certain level of loudness or intensity on a sustained vowel for a specific amount of time using a specific type of vocal quality. The movements provoked by the exercise as a stimulus are spontaneous and occur as a response to exercise. The singer often doesn’t know exactly what will come out until it does. Often there is surprise.

Currently we are in an epidemic of vocal manipulation. Making odd and unnecessary movements of the vocal folds, the larynx and the throat is part of many popular methods of singing training and consumers (voice students) are oblivious to the negative effects such maneuvers have on their overall vocal responsiveness and well-being. Yes, you can, after a fashion, force your throat to do something it has no business doing and you can get used to it and even manage it well enough, but you cannot say such training has no cost. It is painfully costly.

Further, if you regard the throat and body as being “stupid” and in need of force in order for it “do what you want it to do” you can justify treating both badly. Over time, the movements of free vocal production will go away, making manipulation the only possible response to a stimulus to sing a specific tone. That is just awful.

The popular idea that the larynx must always remain down in classical singing is unfortunate. The larynx rides low in the throat because the throat is relaxed. Keeping the larynx down restricts natural movement and makes singing harder. In the end, you lose soft tones, high notes and soft high notes (both together). Bad choice? Just ask the throat of the vocalist.

Another one is that the larynx has to come up for belting. Well, maybe, but the less the better. And should anyone do that deliberately? Absolutely not.

What about singing in any particular place, adjustment or configuration just because you can? Does it help you express music? being alive? communicate something? Unless you are doing it as a “character” probably not.

Manipulation is what’s left when you can’t get your throat to do something you would like it to do so you make it happen. That is a bad idea but it is a very very easy and common thing to do. It makes for bad teaching, bad singing and no honest, unique sounds coming from a human being’s throat. If you are trying to imitate someone else’s voice or style and you have to force your voice to copy that model, you are making a mistake. If you are paying money for someone to teach you how to do that, stop. You are wasting both your time and your money, and, in a way, your life.

If your throat is giving you trouble, something is wrong. Singing should not be ridiculously hard. If it is, something is wrong. Even if it sounds impressive or important or “beautiful,” it’s still wrong. Trust your body. It has no reason to lie to you.