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Music As Magic

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I once looked up the root word for music and found (somewhere) that it had the same origins as the word magic. For those of us who are musicians, that’s not surprising. Music is magical. It can totally change things.

The power of music is being studied seriously in many places. It has the power to make significant changes in the brain. Oliver Sacks has written about his observations and he isn’t the only one.
Part of the problem with using music in a larger way is that we do not agree about what music has what effect. I might find something peaceful and soothing but you might find the same piece boring and mindless. You might enjoy a piece that is for you energizing and uplifting but I might find that the same music made me crazy and made me want to run away screaming. Since we live in what is still, we hope, a free society, no one can come along and say, “THIS MUSIC IS CALMING. Those who do not agree will be sent to jail.” Let’s hope not!
Nevertheless, how bad would it be to pipe in smooth soft jazz in a jail during lunch time or some relaxed “meditation” music at bedtime? Wouldn’t it a good tool? What if certain music made it easier for students in school to focus and concentrate? Wouldn’t it make sense to use that music for the benefit of the students?
The answer is yes but somehow or other people would find a way to disagree over the music itself and how it would be used. In a society where everyone has a say, no matter who they are, there is a lot of time wasted arguing. (Just look at Congress!)
Trying to get singing teachers to agree upon anything related to singing or the teaching thereof is like herding cats. That this is so takes us away from magic-making and away from the power of the music to lift us up and help us transcend our differences. After all, do we really care how someone is trained or who did the training if the singing is sublime? We shouldn’t (but sadly, some people do). Further, the connection that music allows us to make with emotion is one of its most powerful tools. Yet, there are musicians who disavow that music has to do with emotional expression and say the two are unrelated. I don’t understand how that could possibly be the case, but it is a point of view that’s out there and has been for a long time.
The only way for any of us to enter into the magic of the music is to open ourselves to that experience without having any preconceived ideas ahead of time about what that means or how it should look. Then, as long as you do not resist, the music can transport you to other realms, taking you to universes you have long forgotten.
If you think of yourself as a magician who makes magic through music, your perspective about what you are doing might change quite a bit. Try it sometime and see how it goes. You could be very surprised.

Followers

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When I was young, I was very sure I did not want to teach anyone anything. Then, at 22, I found myself vocal directing a production of “Finian’s Rainbow” in Connecticut that had, in 1971, a budget of $20,000. I directed the chorus and understudied the lead, Sharon, and I got good feedback about my aspects of the show in the local newspapers’ reviews. Somehow, I had launched myself as a teacher, whether I had intentions to do so or not. I have been teaching singing ever since.

I also never set out to create a method of teaching singing, but I was absolutely driven to understand the process from every possible angle. It has been a long and winding road, but I would say a very interesting one. I didn’t have a goal at the beginning, I was just traveling. I would have thought the destination was being a better singer. I could not have ever imagined that I would end up teaching teachers and in so doing strive to be a better and better teacher.
It is a very odd experience to have “followers” or people who are choosing to walk the path after you, trodding, more or less, in your footsteps. It creates a strong sense of responsibility and of seriousness about each step that you take, lest the others who are behind you, trusting you, step accidentally into a hole or fall over a branch.
Such leadership asks that you not only be on the lookout for all new developments but that you integrate them into the knowledge you already have even if that means throwing some of it out and starting all over again. It asks that you remember, every minute, that the people behind you do not have your vantage point, your ability to see out in front of you with no one standing there to obscure your view, and that they may not be able to take advantage of what is coming their way unless you clear the path first. Just as a mother tests a baby’s formula on her forearm to make sure it isn’t too hot for the infant, a leader should be testing the information that comes along to make sure that it is accurate and useful, before putting it out to anyone else.
It isn’t always fun to be visible, to be scrutinized, to be criticized, but we live in a society that does this from day to night with every person, issue, government, party, idea or organization so there is no point in worrying about it. Everything is “tweeted” instantaneously like it or not. It takes a certain kind of determination to focus on the job at hand, ignore anything that is not pertinent, and keep on keeping on until the job is done. Nowhere is this better observed than at the Olympics, where the young people have to focus on their sport, to the exclusion of all else, when that must be extremely difficult. It’s hard enough in a small arena with a small group let alone with a camera in your face, thousands watching live and billions watching on TV and on various media. The price to be paid for excellence in any public forum is being in a public forum and risking being less than excellent. Tough.
Nevertheless, if anyone ends up having others look to them for support, encouragement, enlightenment, direction, discussion and clarification, it would be less than responsible and less than respectful not to do the very best to provide such in whatever way seems best, regardless of any personal cost. Generally speaking, figuring out the best way to do this isn’t something you learn in school. You may not even have a chance to learn it in life. It becomes part of the path to look at the path.
In the end, the leader must remember that there is never really any leadership unless someone wants to be lead. Force is not a part of the equation at any time. The Olympic coaches have to be strong for their athletes but they cannot go onto the floor or into the pool and compete. In the end, the leader/coach/teacher must step back and watch those who were behind step forward and take over the front position. To forget this at any point is a mistake and a costly one.
It is wonderful to watch the shining faces of those who win the medals, but hard to watch the disappointment of those that fail after so much work and striving. This is the way of the world, however, and it has been thus for a long time. The followers become leaders and then, in time, they also must step aside.
When we sing, we have a long legacy, going back to Manuel Garcia and others, who first lit the way with their keen inquiry. We have many who have given the profession information and life experience and we have had great leaders of health, research, medicine and performance who have shown us many things about singing we might have never known. We remember their contributions as we go into the 21st century, which stretches a very long way before us, knowing that whatever we do to bring the present into focus with greater clarity, will some day long into the future make the path wider, surer and clearer for all those who follow after us.
When you teach, as you stay present with each student in each moment of his or her lesson, remember those who we are now following and those who, in decades to come, follow after us.

The World We Want

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The world we want is not the world we have. The world we want is always in the future, it is perfect, it is constant. The world we have is none of those things. The world we want is one in which all things are balanced and fair. This has never been a reality and if it were, we would only tolerate it for a very brief period of time.

The only way the world can truly change (and this is old news) is for each person, one at a time, to change inside and out. This change can be something sought or something seemingly forced upon an individual from circumstances beyond their control. If the world at large is to be different at all, it is a necessity. There is no other path.
Acceptance is a form of peace. Struggling against what is just wastes energy. The way to be at peace is to let things be as they are and be as content as possible no matter what the circumstances. Nelson Mandela certainly made this his attitude while he was incarcerated all the many years that he was. Many others have had to do so as well.
The argument then is: why bother to try to change anything? Why not always let things be exactly as they are in a comfortable, non-resistant manner? Why push back against anything for any reason at all?
The truth is always expressed as a paradox. The truth, when lived, is always a finite point of balance between two things which present as opposites. In order to be free you have to understand oppression or confinement. In order to appreciate independence, you have to encounter being linked. If you are going to grasp chaos you need to recognize order. If you create form in any sense you need to confront that it is from formlessness that all form arises.
Doing nothing seems to be a choice but it isn’t really possible to do nothing. That’s an illusion. If you are living, you must choose all day long. That isn’t even something you can control. Yes, you can stop talking, you can stop eating, stop drinking, you can even choose to end your own life. Yes, you can follow no rules and drop out of society or join a strict religious order or the military and do nothing but follow rules for your entire life. But even when you think you are not choosing, just “hanging out”, that experience flows into micro-moments of how you chose to continue to hang out until you stop.
To observe the world as it is, you need to be in it but then step back from it. If you cannot do that, your observations will be less than objective. A conundrum indeed. If you do not like what you see, you can accept it anyway, you can walk away from that slice of life, removing yourself from it, or you can see what it would be like to change things. Deciding to play the game of “this could be different” is absolutely a game and the stakes can be low or high, important or insignificant, depending on the issue or condition and the players involved. You must include yourself in the equation as part of the problem while you also step away and act as if you were not involved. A contradiction and another necessity.
If all truth is personal (how could it be anything else?) but many people have the same perceptions (a common occurrence) then we together create a world with congruence and also enormous disparity. A person must live and express their truth through any means available, but many people can independently chose the same things at the same time. We call that society. Particularly if the expression of personal truth carries within it an urge to be of service, you are compelled toward that service by finding some way to move toward it. In the end, in life, you either serve or are served. When you have achieved your goals, there is nothing left but these two choices. Expressing your truth as a way to be of service requires that the expression be done without any idea of personal gain. That is, naturally, easier to talk about than to accomplish.
Striving to tell your truth with integrity and passion is a noble effort. If it is possible to make the path easier for a fellow human being, or if any suffering of another can be alleviated or even eliminated through the sharing of what you have found to be true, choosing not to share your knowledge and experience would be a sad mistake.
We may never live in a world where everyone who wants to sing learns to do so in an easy, direct, simple and satisfying manner. We may not ever create a reality where all the great singers have a chance to develop their abilities and sing the music they are drawn to sing for all to hear. We may not ever have an educational system that brings each singer all the most practical tools in an accessible and affordable way, but striving to accomplish these things is a decent set of goals.
No one individual alone, changing him or herself, is enough to make every other person want to change in the same way. Even Jesus didn’t convince everyone, and his was an exemplary life. If, however, a single human being inspires even one other to make changes, to look within and then look outward again in a new light, larger change in the world is indeed possible. Leadership is being willing to stick your neck out and “boldly go where no people have gone before” and tell the truth as you see it while you go.
Each of us is capable of greatness. Everyone is a leader and a ground-breaker. Not everyone acknowledges that and acts upon it, but creating the world we want is more possible when we believe that we can, individually and together, bring to life whatever we seek every day through our thoughts, attitudes, actions and behavior.

Political Correctness

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Being “politically correct” is very tricky. Many people who depend on university positions in order to support themselves or their families are unable to speak up vigorously about various departmental issues, lest they anger their colleagues and perhaps lose their jobs. This is particularly true of adjuncts, who have no protection, but can also happen with tenured professors who may not lose their positions, but can end up creating for themselves a toxic atmosphere in which to work.

I, of course, am self-employed and have always been so. My outspoken criticism of various aspects of the profession is often seen as being disturbing and I understand this. I am frequently encouraged by my colleagues to be quiet and docile, keep my opinions couched in the most polite language and pass up making any inflammatory or opinionated judgements about the profession at large when I speak or present.
I regard myself as someone who is more or less an independent voice, one who isn’t fearful of negative backlash (although I never like it), when calling a spade a spade. Would that there were more truth in our profession!! I say over and over, “If someone is lousy and you make believe they are not, you are only making the profession worse,” but many disagree. They feel that each person should operate as an island, doing the best that he or she can, and let what others do be of no concern. This is an old argument and it can be found in many other professions besides that of teaching singing.
The problem with this argument is that change does not happen by accepting the status quo. Change happens because someone is interested in causing change. Virtually every person who has upset the standards of any given time or era, in any profession, has been reviled and, in some severe cases, even put to death! The easy path is to stay quiet, mind your own business, say as little as possible and hope that you can live your life in security and peace.
If Rosa Parks had not decided to refuse to sit in the back of the bus, who knows how long that segregated policy would have continued before some other brave soul decided to put her foot down and say “no more!” Think of all the people who put all they had on the line for the right of women to vote, for the rights of African Americans, for the rights of those with physical challenges, or to stop drunk driving from being socially acceptable.
People who teach singing should be able to sing and sing well. They should understand the way the larynx works, including understanding that you cannot directly manipulate it without also shutting off freely expressed emotion. They should understand the standards of the various styles of the music business as they exist in the marketplace. They should be able to tell the truth in a clear and compassionate way without making condescending remarks to students, particularly young students. If stating that a particular approach or method is not in alignment with these things is, in itself, a criticism, then so be it. If that makes me a monster, then I guess it does.
If, however, a young student should happen to hear something I’ve said that lets her know a specific vocal instruction given in a singing lesson is just plain not possible, and is therefore poor teaching, and, by finding that out is saved feeling stupid and inept, then my being labeled a “monster” or, more often, a “bitch” is worth it.
If we are to entrust young singers, or adult beginners, to teachers who do not know what they are doing but think they do because no one has ever confronted them, are we not part of the problem? If you see something, say something. That’s what they tell us. During the AIDS crisis the posters read: Silence = Death.
Surely, it isn’t fun to be associated with a loud mouth. It isn’t nice to have as a colleague someone you wish would just be quiet. It has to be very hard to hang with someone who can be volatile and unpredictable rather than sweet and easy-going. I do understand.
On the other hand, if for all these decades I had kept quiet and said nothing or done nothing other than teach my private students, I would still be sitting at home, in my studio, teaching lessons one at a time and living my life. There would be no CCM Institute, no courses anywhere, no Somatic Voicework™ to share with anyone. In order to put yourself out into the world in a way that lets the world know who you are and what you stand for, you have to make some kind of noise. If you aren’t willing to take the heat, you shouldn’t be in the kitchen.
I will continue to cook…………..

It’s Never Too Late

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Perhaps because of my own vocal fold issues I have lately run into many people who are having similar ones. My own vocal fold is responding quite well to the exercises I am doing to help it get stronger and more able to make louder, clearer sounds. I can’t promise that they would work equally well on everyone but it’s better than accepting the idea that there isn’t any way to get better and that I’m stuck with gradually losing my ability to sing. I am performing on Sunday evening, in fact.

I just used my voice continuously and in many different ways for the past 10 days at Shenandoah at my CCM Vocal Pedagogy Institute. I did not get hoarse, tired, or lose any of my high notes. I had only mild weakness in mid pitches. I sang both classically and in a couple of other styles and made all kinds of sounds for the entire time I was teaching.
It would seem then, that there are vocal exercises that could help others who have similar diagnoses. It the interventions I am doing are helping me keep my singing at a baseline level of function, wouldn’t it be worth sharing those exercises with others to see if they can get similar results? That’s what I did at Shenandoah, but that is a very limited audience (even though we were buldging at the seems with attendants.) It would be great if we could expect both the medical profession and the Speech Language Pathologists to know about exercises that could help their patients, but many do not have any idea that they exist. Isn’t it a shame that we can’t easily and directly share what we discover across the professions?
And, we need to acknowledge that time and age are not necessarily factors in working with singers who have vocal problems. Just because the issue is long-standing and just because the vocalist is “older” doesn’t mean that the symptoms will not be improved through intervention. It may take longer, it might not produce dramatic results, just small improvements, but sometimes even that a real relief.
We need easier, simpler ways to interact. I am not a computer techno person, but if anyone who reads this is, we need an interactive website, with otolaryngologists, SLPs and singing experts to exchange information about techniques and approaches.

Empowering Your Own Voice

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Your voice is only as powerful as you allow it to be. You have to look not only at how you sound, but what you do with how you sound, and what you think about that. You have to give some thought to the impact your voice has in the world, in the minds of others, and you have to be able to take responsibility for all of that.

Taking responsibility is something that most people resist. Blame is much more popular than responsibility. We were taught that George Washington told his father, “I cannot tell a lie, father, I chopped down the cherry tree.” (which, it seems is not a true story at all), and then his father said, “George, I am not going to punish you because you told the truth.” Hmmmmm.
We all know that it isn’t easy to say, “I am responsible”, if the thing you are taking responsibility for is a mess. And, carried to its fullest, even if you had nothing deliberately to do with the mess, if you are the head of a group of people that messed up, you are still the one who has to answer for the group’s disaster. The captain is in charge of the ship all the way up to and including going down with it, if necessary. We’ve had some fancy “resignations” in the business world recently, because of this same scenario. The CEO maybe didn’t make the bad transactions but he is supposed to know what’s going on during his command.
If you tell the truth with compassion and speak your mind with clarity, if you listen to others without judging what they are saying, and if you strongly support your own point of view but support others who disagree with you just as strongly, you are empowering your voice in the best possible way. If you are going to apply that to singing, you can think of being the best singer you know how to be, challenging yourself to constantly work on your art, without harming or interfering with anyone else or criticizing anyone who does not work as hard but seems to be more successful than you.
Your voice is strong because you choose it to be. It represents you in the world. Some people may resent you for that, for owning your strength and authority and for standing tall for what is for the greatest good of all concerned, perhaps because their own integrity is less than wonderful and they are jealous.
Keep on keeping on. Do not allow yourself to fall victim to others, to the world, to anything outside yourself. Dwell on your inner resources, your strengths, your capacities to speak and sing forthrightly and with your own truth ringing out energetically. In this way, your generosity of spirit will make it possible for others who need a guiding light to be lead, and it will allow you to know who you are, what your voice is and what it wants to communicate, and it will slowly grow stronger and more powerful because of your intention.

Each Individual On His or Her Own

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Wouldn’t it be great if we could really get inside someone’s head and transfer what we know, like a Vulcan mind meld? It surely would save a lot of time! There have been some truly brilliant minds in history and it certainly would have been a great blessing to have been able to transfer the knowledge and experience they had gathered in their lives to others who perhaps could have been “repositories” for that miraculous wisdom.

Right now, though, there is no such thing. This is a trial and error universe. No matter how much someone else tells you, you still have to try it out for yourself and see how it goes. What works for me might not work for you. Or, you might think you understood what I said about what I do, but maybe you didn’t, and then it wouldn’t work or would work in a different way. It’s hard to know. It’s frustrating to think that each person is on his or her own, particularly as we become adults and take on the responsibilities of being “grown-ups”.
We all know that we are gaining insight as we get older, adding to our knowledge through many different avenues, weighing and measuring how we do as we go along. In “middle age” somewhere, we have enough life experience to be a little better at figuring things out and we can perhaps give others guidance, based on what we have learned, but it isn’t always so that the information we dispense is the answer. When we age, going toward our “golden years” we either stay present, keeping up with the trends that emerge, or slowly withdraw our attention from the outside world into our own smaller universe. Finally, when Time catches up with us, whatever we learned or did not learn we take with us into that “next place” (if you believe there is one, like I do). Who knows what happens after that?
Maybe you can write a book, or make a recording, as I spoke of the other day here, to preserve some part of what you know, and make it available to those who come after you. Maybe you will spark something new and important in that person, even if you never meet them or learn what they do with your inspiration. If you don’t do that, however, the influence you’ve had is only through the people you have had some personal contact with over time. It could be a small group of friends, family and co-workers whom you’ve touched. For each of us, it’s different.
So, with singing, all we can do is listen, talk and try. We can share what we know, we can talk about how we feel, we can analyze the experience this way and that. We can write about it, we can record our sounds, we can sing in performance. In the end, that’s all we have. If each person takes responsibility for his or her learning and development — if she seeks guidance, if she asks for help, if she is open to learning, she might increase her understanding and deepen her experience of “being a singer”. In the end, it is she alone who sings, who studies singing, who works with what she is learning or has learned and makes something of it, or not.
It’s possible there is no such thing as a “bad” student or a “bad” teacher. It’s possible that the problem is simply that the student and teacher are mis-matched. It’s possible that the singer and the information don’t fit together well. Perhap, if you seek something with enough determination and will power, you will ultimately have within you all that you were looking to find. And then, what will you do with it? Will you take it with you or will you give it away?

The Song Is Over But The Melody Lingers On

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We don’t know how the great singers of the 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th centuries sounded. There are some writings about them and musicologists think they have figured out what the sounds were like. They have decided that certain things about music from those times are stylistically correct and others are not, based on what they have read. When they get new information, they change their thinking. One very big assumption was that there was generally no vibrato in the early days of classical singing. Straight tone was considered somehow “better” in certain circles, especially that of choral conductors, but now, that is held less rigidly as an idea. Things change.

The “castrati” were supposedly able to sing with great power and agility and were famous in their day for their feats of vocal stamina and expertise. We don’t really have an idea of how a mature male would sound after having been trained for decades even though his voice had never changed. It surely wouldn’t sound the same as any of the present moment lyric tenors who sing in a very high range, or as our countertenors who sing mostly in a “re-inforced” falsetto, but who also (typically) retain their normal chest dominant speech.
In fact, the world of musicology and ethnomusicology is fascinating because it looks at music as an expression of history and culture. I wonder what scholars of two or three hundred years from now will make of our musical culture? We leave behind millions of recordings and many thousands of films and TV shows of all kinds for them to see and hear but they may not be able to understand who was famous for what reason and why some music stayed around but other music disappeared.
You don’t much hear now what used to be called “Irish Tenors” or light lyric tenors. Even the famous “Three Tenors” who were actually from Ireland weren’t all “Irish Tenors” in the sense that John McCormack was, or even Dennis Day. Robert White, a present moment light lyric tenor, is in this category and he has had a very good career, but it’s a special niche which, for the moment at least, is not much in the “mainstream”. I guess Michael Jackson was a lyric tenor but we hardly think of him that way, mostly due the style of music he sang and the electronic interface that was always there impacting in his vocal output.
I often think that the classical music that will go on into the next several hundred years is that which was written for films. The average person can relate, for the most part, to the music written by John Williams, and understands it to be “classical” even if the classical world turns up its nose at him. Modern composers, whose music is well accepted by the cognoscenti, may have their music described as being “ethereal” or “transcendant” but, frequently, it’s not very memorable. Hmmmmmm. People remember what touches their hearts, not what impresses their intellect. Time will tell.
Indeed, when the various famous vocalists of the past hundred years died, they left behind their energy through their vocal recordings or even their movie musicals, in a way that no previous human beings had ever had an opportunity to do. Even though some of these great singers have been dead for quite a while, we can still hear them every day on the radio, as background music in the restaurants, or in other venues. If it’s true that the sound carries the vibration of the soul, in a very real way, these people are more with us than gone. Something to ponder.
In a way, their song may be over, but their melodies linger on. That’s true for John Lennon, for Billy Holliday, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Pavarotti, Tebaldi, Elvis, Michael Jackson, Barry Gibb, and Whitney Houston. It could be true for you, too, if you make a recording. Wouldn’t you like your melody to stay around after you are no longer amongst us?

When It Goes

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I have recently been diagnosed with a vocal fold weakness. I noticed it because my voice began acting erratically in April and just wouldn’t “behave” no matter what I did. I sang at a benefit, two operetta pieces, and had almost no sound when I came in on A440.

I subsequently went to my good friend, Dr. Peak Woo, one of NYC’s best otolaryngologists, reporting to him that the left vocal fold was weak and not working properly. He looked at me with his super high speed camera and said, basically, “That’s right”. It is below the right fold, bowing a little and not really vibrating, instead making a kind of spastic shaking, at least in chest register and in chest mix in middle pitches. My high voice is unaffected and I can vocalize to F above high C. Go figure.
I was, at first, very depressed because all that can be done to help me is to have an injection in the fold, to prop it up and help it close and meet the other one. I don’t think it will help the vibratory issues. It’s risky, temporary, and not much fun to contemplate. The weakness could be from age (I’m 63), it could be from an old injury (I have twice burst blood vessels on this fold from coughing due to severe bronchitis, even while medicated), or it could be from the fact that the entire left side of my skull is 3/4″ longer and therefore droopier than the right side, indirectly effecting the larynx through the muscles of the throat and neck. We will never know.
I decided, however, to do whatever I can to see if I could help the folds work better. I started practicing right after the diagnosis. If you heard me practice, your eyebrows would raise. I sound scary, mostly on purpose. I know what I am doing, however, and I understand how far to go. I don’t tire myself out, I don’t get hoarse, and I am getting results. The noise which is quite prominent both in speech and in singing diminishes as I warm up and eventually goes away and stays away for quite some time after I stop. I can match pitch, control volume and keep the sound going, although with some slight constriction and an occasional unplanned glitsch. I don’t sound optimal (at least to myself) but I must be doing decently because I sang in June at my godson’s wedding and got several comments from complete strangers. They didn’t have a vested interest in telling me I sounded good so I accepted the complements as a way to validate that I’m not dead yet, vocally speaking.
I don’t know how long this phase of things will last or what will come next. I don’t know if I will continue to be able to teach and sing, but I will continue to try to do both. I don’t know how I will sound next week or next month. All I can do is keep practicing and keep a positive attitude.
I cannot imagine my life without being able to sing and sound good. I have been singing since I was 7, but I do know that life goes on, no matter what, and that I am first a human being and that isn’t going to “go away” until I’m in the ground. People face worse challenges every day and we can remember that the ones who strive to overcome sometimes are victorious.
I wanted to share this with those who read this blog regularly, because it might effect my point of view and my experiences and I thought I should be honest in case that shows up in what I write. From time to time I will keep you all posted to let you know how I’m doing.
When it goes, it goes, but as long as it hasn’t yet gone, I’m not giving up. I’m a tough old bird.

Those Who Can, Can and Those Who Can’t — ?

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Why are there so many folks who teach who sound lousy themselves? What’s up with that? Shouldn’t a teacher of singing have found a way to sound good?

I guess not. There are plenty of people who can present a good argument that you don’t have to sing yourself to teach others to sound good. I guess I can go along with that. What I find hard to accept is to think that someone who has never felt how different it can be to sing in various different vocal qualities can teach another person to learn how to create those different qualities entirely from their discernment of outside feedback.
Many singers are taught to sing “by feel”. In fact, it is the predominant method used by most teachers of singing. “Feel the resonance in your forehead”, they say. Feel the sound in your eyes, your cheekbones, your sinuses, your facebones. Feel the breath moving. Feel. Go by the feeling.
So, how do you get someone to feel a sound that doesn’t do “classical resonance” if that’s all you know and you don’t, yourself, know what it feels like to make a belt sound or even a mixy sound correctly, since they don’t depend upon “resonance” very much. Please explain to me how you can get the feeling right if you have never had that feeling yourself.
That leaves listening. Listening is mostly forbidden. You are not supposed to listen, lest you be lead astray by the distortion of having the sound be audible from your ears and also, to a lesser extent, from your bone conduction of the sound. But, how much do we hear through bone conduction? We don’t know. I don’t think it has been studied, because, how would you study it? You can’t get inside someone’s head. You are not supposed to listen lest you, God forbid, fall in love with your own voice. Tsk Tsk.
There’s always how you look. Some teachers of singing insist that the mouth must never open. You must learn to sing with your mouth mostly closed. Other teachers are busy telling you to drop the jaw and open the mouth. Which is better? When is one preferred? The profession can’t say, as no one has studied that either.
So, if you can’t sing but you can teach others to sing, my question would be, why haven’t you tried to teach yourself what you are teaching these other people? Don’t you like singing? Don’t you want to sing? And, if you have tried to teach yourself and you still don’t sing well, how do you justify to yourself what you are doing with your students? What is the rationale?
This is not an argument that can be settled. There is no answer. It’s just one of the many things about singing that will remain a point of discussion.
Those who can’t, teach. Is this true? What do you think?