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I believe that new opera, written by living composers is indeed alive and well. Sometimes new interpretations of old operas can work, too.

While in Berlin I saw a performance of “Orfeo” (by Gluck for those who are not operafiles) in which the Orfeo was a rock guitarist and Euridice was his drug addled girlfriend. He had to go to the drug lord’s den to find her. This was in German without subtitles. I cringed to think I was going to have to sit through this weird evening but, after the first ten minutes, I was enthralled. The Orfeo (a countertenor) was superb. Every note was expressive. The rest of the cast was the same. The set was not overwhelming and the orchestra/conductor was scrupulously respectful of the music. I came away just delighted that I had been there.

I understand that new interpretations can sometimes work and that the current crop of opera directors have been given a great deal of leeway to do whatever they want (thanks a lot to Robert Wilson) with any work. I think, though, that with no restraints at all, the practice of “trashing” a production in order to make it “relevant” has gone too far and that no one wants to say “STOP!” lest they seem pedestrian, fussy, or ultra-conservative. This, I think, has made the audiences feel blackmailed, since it is frequently so that they will boo a production team, but that distaste is totally ignored by those in charge of hiring. Quite some time ago, I saw Lohengrin at the Met with Deborah Voigt (while she was still heavy), and Ben Hepner done by Robert Wilson. The singing was great but the production was hideous. At the end, when Wilson came on stage, the whole place erupted into loud boos and hisses, more than I have ever witnessed in any production ever anywhere. Nonetheless, Mr. Wilson continues unabated to do his thing all over the world. In the program notes he stated: “I do not have to pay attention to the music or the lib retto, because I am there to put my own stamp on the work.” His stamp is to make the costumes look like something from Star Trek, the movements look like vampires stalking their next victim, and the overall point of view in each production, no matter what it is or where, the same. I am under the impression that Peter Sellars can be guilty of this kind of excess as well, but I haven’t seen his work so I only know about it, not of it, and that would make a difference to my evaluation, so right here I won’t say.

Clearly, people somewhere must like “Euro-trash” or whatever it’s called. I assume it is a small group who, like Wilson, either don’t know or don’t care about the music or the libretto. They must also be the people who give a lot of money or hold powerful positions within opera companies. It most certainly is not the audiences that are calling the shots.

There are no “opera police” but I can’t help but wonder if Callas really would have been OK with being the queen of a hive of bumblebees, or if Placido would really feel comfortable as a space alien or vampire.

I believe that everyone can learn to appreciate opera in whatever way the opera was done the first time by whomever created it. I don’t think people need the old operas to be “refreshed” or “re-done” just to bring people into the houses. I think that people will come when they are educated to do so and that is something that has been systematically stopped in most educational institutions for nearly three generations now. I learned about classical music in public school and it changed my life. If I were in the same schools now, I wonder if I would have the same kind of music education. I also believe that people cannot discriminate good from bad without musical education or life experience in a musical family with sophisticated tastes. How many people have either now?

The “operaization” of American musical theater is another topic, but one not so far away in principle. If you are going to do classic musicals, it seems that they deserve to be kept going without changing them just because they can be changed. I agree that sometimes the changes are fine, particularly if they leave the music alone. However, when the changes make the opera unrecognizable, and make you laugh where there isn’t anything funny going on, and make you cringe because what is being done is so far away from what the lyrics and music are communicating, and make you fall asleep because it is so unbearably dull, then things have gone too far. At that point, especially if the composer is no longer alive, there should be someone who can come along and say “OK. That’s it. You have killed this piece and now you must go someplace to do re-hab!”

I think it takes a great deal more skill and creativity to make something old new again without tampering with its basic ingredients. It’s like baking a chocolate cake. Most people who bake would say that you can make a good one with simple ingredients. It doesn’t mean that people won’t keep trying to come up with new, exciting recipes for chocolate cake but finding a new way to do something which has been done so many times by so many people takes a lot of creativity and motivation. And making a final product that is absolutely delicious can be harder than it appears. Still, people do it successfully every day.

I know, I know, silly wishful thinking about all this, but I can’t help myself.

The decline overall in respect for all performing arts is ever more apparent in the arts themselves.

If you do not educate children to understand and appreciate the performing and fine arts, including the classics, you end up with people who have not had a chance to develop discrimination and what has to be called “good taste”. The deconstruction of all the operas, turning them into ridiculous travesties, and the proliferation of fine art into glorified junk with a very high price tag, has been accelerated by two (now almost three) generations of people who were not given an arts education in school, sometimes not even in expensive private schools, and who therefore cannot discern the profound from the profane.

The death of humanities courses in schools and colleges reflects the death of the enduring values of any society, most particularly one that is interested in those experiences that illuminate our humanity. Pop art is fun and can be refreshing. It can cut through stodginess and pompous excess but it is not and should never be a substitute for the kind of art that has endured through centuries and even thousands of years. Art that transcends time and place, reaching out across the barriers of peoples and cultures, illuminates us to our common heritage as sentient beings living on one planet and also to our profound uniqueness as we grapple with the joys and struggles of everyday life.

If you are part of the so-called “middle class” in this present age you may indeed have had no exposure to art in any form while growing up. I have encountered students who have had not one course in music or art through their K-12 years, and not in college either. This is hard to accept for one who was raised in the 50s in a public school system that had excellent music and art courses. I would not be a professional vocal musician and actress had it not been for my public school courses which opened both my eyes and ears to what music and performing was. It grieves me to think that young people do not have this opportunity but many do not. It isn’t likely that this situation will change in the near future.

The arts are not “extra”. They are not “for elitists”. They are not for “snobs”. If, however, it becomes the norm that those who enjoy the arts are labeled in this manner, that alone makes it even harder for enthusiasts to share what they love with those who do not understand why that would be the case. And, if we allow individuals with little background to rise to a place of leadership in both the arts and in our socio-political system, we are inviting further decay and destruction of the arts in general and society overall.

A society that loses sight of its own enduring values has no legs to stand on in times of crisis. A society that praises crassness and lewdness, that elevates criminals and thugs to become “entertainers” and tolerates the constant depiction of violence in myriad forms as a way to “pass the time,” is very troubled. It is generating the seeds of its own destruction and it does not have the foresight to make the connection between the proliferation of such events and attitudes and its own future well-being.

If we cannot find individuals who have the education, experience and life exposure to the arts in their highest and most enduring forms to be in positions of leadership, we will all pay a serious price. Indeed, this loss is already apparent to those who are observant and it is all the more tragic that speaking up about this issue often incites rebuke. Mocking those who step up to say, “How dare you?” to stupidity and ignorance about this artistic demise (and there are few who have the opportunity who take it), creates an environment of fear and rejection which only those who are brave directly address.

I, for one, have had enough of operas in which the male chorus is made to wear bumblebee costumes (Trovatore in Europe) or where Despina runs a diner (The Met in NYC). I have had enough of opera singers “classicalizing” music theater shows (see previous post). I have had enough of music directors of Broadway shows choosing actors for roles WRITTEN FOR GREAT VOICES AND SINGERS being given to those who can barely do either because they are “famous” on TV or in the movies (see previous post.) I have no interest in and no tolerance for those who would “update” and “make more relevent” the works which were successful in the first place because they were brilliant. (Ditto) I am not ashamed to call a spade a spade and say ENOUGH!

New, yes. Fresh, different, yes. Current, of course! But not instead of knowing what constitutes greatness and what is just cheap show. I am sure there will be a day when someone will decide that the Mona Lisa should be “updated” and for that decision to be greeted by the populace as being a “great idea”.

I am a traditionalist but I am also someone who is a revolutionary. I want to change the present but KEEP the past. I want to know what was, so that I can respect it and learn from it, even as I re-create what is. I do not want to trash that which has a respected tradition in order to go forward to something new that breaks with tradition. If you cannot produce an opera, a musical or any other long-standing work in the performing arts as it was meant to be done, that is a reflection not on the work but on you. If you want to create something “new”, create your own piece and see, then, if you are as good as the person whose work you would dare to “improve”. See if your new work would stand the test of time or whether, in fact, it would be just a passing light breeze, as forgotten as you will be, in just the blink of an eye.

If we who are in the arts do not fight and fight powerfully to keep our traditions intact, who will? If we do not pass on the next generation the spark of life that lives in every great work, how will they know its greatness? If we do not take responsibility to protest that which is demeaning and senseless, that which is done out of ignorance and arrogance, who will? If we are to enrich our heritage as a people, and honor our roots as a country where education and the arts (both fine and performing) are always regarded as being vital to our lives, then we must speak up and speak out whenever and wherever we have the opportunity to do so. Not taking this responsibility is to abdicate, shrug our shoulders and give in, and then, we will have only ourselves, not those outside our arts community, to chastise.

Do not bother to see the last few performances of “Annie Get Your Gun” with Deborah Voigt at Glimmerglass Opera House in Cooperstown, NY. Truly, save your money.

Ms. Voigt is a genuine operatic star, and deservedly so, singing the big gun operatic roles, but she should stay there. She may have done music theater in high school (like Renee Fleming sang jazz in college) but both of these women should stay in their home turf at the opera house.

Ms. Voigt could perhaps have sung Marian in “The Music Man” and done a nice job. She could probably have done a number of other music theater roles written for classical soprano from composers like Rodgers and Hammerstein and Lerner and Loewe, but she should have had her head examined for trying “Annie”, a role written for Ethel Merman. Mr. Tommasini was very kind to her in his review in the NY Times. He should not have been so careful.

Singing alongside Klea Blackhurst, a real deal of a fabulous belter, Voigt was outclassed vocally. Her singing inhibited her in the role, making Annie seem gentler and sweeter as well as more haughty and phoney than she should be. As Frank, insofar as his singing went, Ron Gilfry was awful. The acting was OK, but his “opera” singing is forced, manipulated, stiff, unnatural and he sang interpolated high notes that were done simply for show (very bad taste) and modified everything above middle C. His pronunciation was oh-so-articulated and completely out of character for a country cowboy. It was just stupid singing in every way.

Ms. Voigt can take her chest voice up to about an F or maybe a G above middle C. Although this part, Annie, is rather low (it was prior to rock and roll’s influence of “screaming” the high notes, belted up as far as a throat can manage) it certainly should have been possible for her to sing in a chest mix instead of a head mix. Especially if someone who knew what that was had taught her how to do it properly.

The songs like “Doin’ What Comes Natur’lly” were an insult to Mr. Berlin and Ms. Merman. Here is an unschooled country woman saying she can’t read, saying she is from simple roots, using an effected “cultured” tone in her song about illiteracy. The sound had NOTHING whatsoever to do with the character and, as such, it breaks a sacred “rule” of theater, which is that you must always be in character and authentic. Annie would never had been able to make the sounds that came out of Ms. Voigt’s throat. Further, you can barely hear Moonshine Lullaby (the show is not amplified) since it is low. This is because it lies too low for her head dominant sound to gather steam, but is also too high for her to sing in chest. She was stuck in nowheresville, and stayed there throughout the show. She warbled back and forth across her obvious break in every song. Since I saw this last night, meaning the run has gone on for a long time, and should have by now had time to figure out what to do with these pitches, but clearly she did not. She is afraid to take her chest voice up too far, lest it “hurt” her voice, when, in fact, singing Annie has already had an effect on her technique. The one high note she interpolated (again, very poor taste) was wobbly and slightly flat for a bit. Sticking in high notes “because you can” to show you are an opera singer!!!! I can imagine Gilfry, Voigt and Zambello justifying these little “insider” moments. “Maestra: After all, the audience knows you are opera singers. They expect it!”

Since she had no specific way to train her voice to make the appropriate sounds for this role, she clearly did not have a way to train herself to get out of those same sounds so she could get ready for her Brünnhilde. Too bad. The lack of a clear vocal approach inhibited her performance and it was preposterously silly for the character.

Add to this that Francesca Zamballo had no clue whatsoever about this show. The set was static and she did not know how to use the stage space effectively. The jokes felt flat (her fault) because there was no timing to them. The orchestra had no clue, either, thanks to the conductor, about how to play the rhythms of these wonderful energetic tunes. “There’s No Business Like Show Business” without the beats on the words was an uphill battle for the rest of the talented cast. And the operatic chorus (especially when they were singing as “Indians”) was also inappropriate.

What’s wrong with these people? Do they not respect Irving Berlin? Do they not respect music theater? Do they even KNOW that music theater has a history?

It’s not a new problem or attitude. It showed up way back when Donna Murphy sang “Anna” in “The King and I”. Ms. Murphy, a wannabe belter (who has improved over time) sang the entire role one-quarter tone flat in a speaking voice that was totally inappropriate for a cultured, educated school teacher from England in that era. She sounded like a washer woman. Her performance was magnificent, but her singing was dreadful. No one cared. The same can be said going far back to Michael Hayden as Billy Bigelow in “Carousel” and Sophie Hayden in “The Most Happy Fella”. Neither of them could sing but they were wonderful actors, and all three got Tony’s for their performances. Awarded to them by their peers. Their PEERS.

Think maybe singing comes second to acting on Broadway? Naw.

Stephen Sondheim recently wrote about the lack of respect for a music theater work in his letter replying to a Times article about the present version of “Porgy and Bess” which is being “re-done” by three women who think they know more than Mr. Gershwin and his collaborations. These women, Diane Paulus, Suzan-Lori Parks and Audra MacDonald, suffer from the same thing that allows Broadway producers to bring in “stars” for musicals who have no experience in theater, who cannot sing or dance, but are famous from TV or movies. This is a very common practice now and is tolerated because it keeps the shows going. The list of actors cast in shows for which they had no talent, aptitude or even similarity to type is very long. It is always a disservice to the work. Of course, it’s as bad or maybe even worse in opera, thanks to the “euro-trash” stuff that is popular with those who are “cool”, (not so much with audiences, but with people on the opera Boards or with high level musical people who are very “sophisticated” about such things). These people suffer from an abundance of arrogant ignorance. They do not think they need to know anything about the work, the composer, the lyricist or their intentions, and they do not think the audience matters. I can hear them saying, “They won’t know the difference. It’s such an OLD work. Our ideas are so much better.”

Yes, art is always changing. Yes, art is open to personal interpretation. No, there is no such thing as “art” that everyone agrees upon. But if there is no respect for great works, be they fine art or performance art, then there are no traditions and nothing to pass on. Everything is just a narcissistic personal expression of whatever is happening in his or her psyche at the moment and the rest of the world can just “get over it”. No.

Theater works when it is grounded in tradition. Sometimes because it is grounded in tradition you can do things that are very very non-traditional with great success. You can go far afield and illuminate a work because you have delved into it and its power has touched you deeply. If, on the other hand, you regard the work only from the surface, and you think you can have your way with it, because you are famous, and no one will stop you, SHAME ON YOU!!!

Ms. Voigt, I was embarrassed for you. I was embarrassed for Mr. Gilfry and for Maestra Zambello as well. I would have thought that you would all know better. If you have no one around you who dares speak to you directly and stop you from making such a frightful mess of yourselves in public, then you need new friends and professional colleagues. Ms. Voigt, if you think that Wagner, Strauss and Verdi should be respected and that a dramatic voice is required for the roles you do in the works these composers have written, why would you not accord Irving Berlin the same respect? Does he not deserve to have his works sung with the kind of voices he had in mind? Would you put a lyric coloratura in Brünnhilde, say Diana Damrau, because she is excellent singer and has a solid reputation? Would that make it OK? Of course not. You would take into consideration the whole role and the tradition of that role and of the composer’s intentions.

American musical theater, written by Americans, deserves the exact same respect. It deserves to be taken for what it is without apology, without distortion, without cheapening, without “adapting”, without “adjustment” and without condescension. If you can’t sing it the way it was intended to be sung, STAY AWAY.

It’s all about perception. It’s about your point of view.

What we argue about, what causes strife and even wars, are different points of view. When you are attached to your point of view as if it were LIFE ITSELF….uh oh. If you can’t see that what you believe and what you think and how you feel is just that….a set of beliefs, thoughts and emotions, you will stuck with them as surely as you are stuck with your height.

Changing one’s perception of something is more than just changing one’s mind, although it can be that and only that. Changing perception usually requires changing more than one thing, sometimes all at once.

That’s where information and education come in handy. In order to change one’s point of view about anything, you have to encounter, either deliberately or accidentally, something that causes you to realize that you HAVE a point of view, and frequently that experience is one which also causes you to question that point of view or perception because you have been presented with new information.

There is ample research that people respond to peer pressure in regard to perception. If enough people think that something is so, it can build up a kind of “critical mass” and become the belief of a large number of people, maybe millions. It can be something that is believed for decades, hundreds or even thousands of years, but, then, suddenly, it will begin to shift. The world was flat for a long time and it took a while for people to believe it was round, but eventually, most (not all) accepted that. The determining factor was new information and the dissemination of that information to a larger and larger group of people.

Perceptions that become laws or strongly held rules that cannot be challenged eventually lead to problems. It is always good to investigate what you believe (and why you believe it) as if it might possibly be not the only perception that is valid or maybe might not actually be accurate or useful at all. That way, you are free to change if you find a better way to go. That’s why lawyers can challenge the interpretation of the law. If they can come up with a new way to “read” it, it might have an impact on how it is seen in the larger world.

In contrast to what I wrote yesterday about “caring too much” being a good thing, being attached to what you care about is a deadly trap. In the end, the world goes on long after we are not around, so caring, up to and including the idea that people will die for what they care about, can be a point of great contention. The Catholic Church will make you a martyr if you die for your religious beliefs. Others might just perceive such steadfast faith in the invisible and eternal as just a bunch of demented foolishness.

If you think that classical singing training will miraculously prepare your voice to sing any kind of music, no matter what it is, and you believe that everything is about “style” and not vocal production, you would not be alone. Many people think that “classical training” is a requisite for good vocal behavior. Never mind that “classical training” is a meaningless phrase, because there are no official codified guidelines about what that is, how it should be taught or what it will give you, anywhere. There are opinions about what it should be, but they vary from person to person, author to author. There is a general consensus about what classical singing sounds like, but it is very hard to put into words, and there is great disagreement amongst classical singing experts about who personifies great classical singing and who does not. And, if you think that you can study classically and then sing metal rock without any adaptations in your training regime (and maybe that would be possible), good for you.

If you want to make your beliefs about this topic into a war, you wouldn’t be alone. You could really get your back up and make it a big deal to show how right you are. People have. I have been accused of this, but I know better than to think any philosophy about singing is always “RIGHT” with a capital R. I might argue passionately, but I live my life knowing that there are many roads to Rome. I just expect that people will explain things about singing in a way that is based on actual function and not pink clouds of mist.

SO

If you look at classical singing as a specific kind of perception about vocal sound-making, and you are willing to regard other kinds of singing as different kinds of sound-making, you might end up with a different point of view about both.

It’s all in perception. Worth fighting over? Not worth fighting over? You decide.

I have frequently encountered research done on college students. It has been such that the work implies that what was done on these college students applies to everyone. I venture to say it does not.

I attended the PAS 4 conference in San Antonio a few years ago. One of the presenters had dozens of research articles about choruses on his resume. He was very secure in his statements about what “choruses do”. But when I queried him as to how many adult professional choruses he had studied he indignantly said “none”. So, why then, did his research not make it clear that the data was about college choirs only? Don’t know.

I have heard singing teachers talk about “what singers do” based on long years of observation, sometimes several decades worth, but what they are really talking about is “what college singers do” and even more accurately, “what classically trained college students do”. The differences between a college population and a professional adult population are significant and should not be ignored. Research done only on students is skewed unless the data is meant to apply only to other college age students.

Professional singers who have been working regularly for twenty or thirty years are NOT like college students. Their bodies are different, their minds are different, their skill sets are different. Without having a baseline of adult professional subjects in any voice research that is about professional level performance, no conclusions should be drawn about what “singers do”. And certainly no conclusions should be drawn about what “professional classical singers do” in contrast to what “professional CCM singers” do, because they can be vastly different things in each style but quite similar things within the style.

Since most research is done at colleges and most of the people available at colleges are students or faculty, it stands to reason that this population is the most common group on which research is conducted. It is not, however, the most representative group and that can be dangerous. College teachers who decide (based entirely on their own personal experience) that something “is” a specific way may never have a chance to test out their pronouncements in a non-college environment.

One example of this is as follows: A noted area college teacher says that women breathe differently than men. He also says the soft palate doesn’t go up. He says that because these things are what he has seen in his experience. He has not compared notes with other teachers to see if they come up with something different because he knows he is right, smarter, and better educated about such things. He is right. Scary.

I have known people who have taught at a college for 40 years. They did not teach a wide variety of people of all ages, backgrounds, types and ability levels. They did not encounter people who could barely match pitch or people who could barely stand up straight, or people who have been singing for decades professionally and now have a problem. They may not have been on a professional stage in 40 years either. It matters, because it keeps you aware of how vulnerable all vocalists are when they are singing.

So, if you are conducting research, be sure to stipulate that your population is mostly college students, if it is, and that they are classically trained, if they are, and make sure your “conclusions” are for college aged students only and not for all people. Remind yourself that long term professional singers might have very different behaviors and that you can’t judge those professionals by what you have discovered in your college populations.

A ballet dancer would not do the Swan Queen in Swan Lake at the age of 18, even if she had been taking ballet classes since she was 3 for hours every day. A vocalist is not likely to sing Brunhilde while only 18 even if she has a great big beautiful voice. A weight lifter isn’t going to go for the heaviest weights when he has just been training for a few months. All of these activities do better after the person was doing them for a long time…..years and years, even decades. When you read a vocal pedagogy article, be sure to check to see what it says. If it isn’t useful, let them know.

Caring too much ……. a lyric from “Falling in Love with Love” from Rodgers and Hart’s The Boys From Syracuse — it is a lovely song.

I always wondered, how can you care too much? I’m Italian. I yell because I care. I don’t understand passivity.

I know, being tranquil is good. Staying calm is good. Not making waves is good.

But have you ever known anyone that got anything changed by hiding and being peaceful? When and where in this world did being passive ever make things different?

If a chick has to break open its eggshell to be born, using what little strength it has to peck it’s way through the shell, it needs to be really motivated, not passive. If a flower wants to burst forth from the spring ground to bloom, it has to really want to push through the soil towards the sun. If a baby wants to be fed or changed, it can’t just lie there smiling and cooing all the time, now, can it?

All of life is changing, every moment of every day. Change is movement and movement is change. We resist this. We want things to stay the same, to stay familiar, to not be different. Foolish, we know, but we want it anyway. We don’t like upheaval. We don’t like things that shake us up.

So, we try not to make waves. We try not to be too disruptive. We try not to do anything that will get us noticed. In the end, we do what is the least we can do and live as quietly as we can.

But an artist cannot be this way. An artist is a creator. Creation is not about passivity, or quietude, or just hanging around waiting to see what happens. Artistic creativity demands that we make and to do that we must have a desire, a need, a reason to take what was one way and make it into something else that’s another way. We must be compelled to pull something out of the air. We must want to see or hear something different just because we want to see what happens when we do.

The joy and satisfaction of dismantling something and building a different something is significant. The stimulation of digging in and re-ordering something into a new and more dynamic form is exhilarating. Artistry is not for the shy. Being an artist is about being bold, trusting yourself, riding on your own currents of inspiration and vision. Talent is fueled by creative artistry, by exploring what is personal, what is meaningful to us in a unique manner, and melding it with skill to forge an artistic product.

For those who are not familiar with this process, I have great compassion and sympathy. Not to know this is just sad. For those who have access to it and do not use it, I also feel sad, but it borders on pity. Such a waste! For those who live with it on a daily basis, I have encouragement. Be brave, wayfarers, as you sail your artistic winds! You never know what you will find as you make your journey.

If you are an artist, how can you care “too much” for your art, your work, your vision? How can you not be fully passionate and dynamic about that which drives you to rise in the morning with joy and enthusiasm? How can you not be filled with gratitude for this impulse, this force which surges within? No, “caring too much” is not a juvenile fancy. It is what we who care expect and even seek. I care, so I yell. I yell because I care. I care because I can’t not care. Isn’t that true of all artists? Isn’t that true of all humans?

Singing teachers listen for a living. Most of them have not been taught to listen.

One of our participants in the most recent Somatic Voicework™ training said that she had been “waiting to respond” instead of actually listening. I think that’s typical. We are busy thinking up a response and not actually hearing, taking in, thinking about, being present with and generally absorbing what the person who is speaking or singing is actually communicating. In singing teachers, it can be a serious flaw to “not listen”.

However, in all the workshops, seminars, presentations, lectures, master classes and discussions put on by the profession, how many of them have ever offered anything devoted to listening skills? How many of them have ever discussed that being listened to changes how we communicate. If we know that we are being listened to (as in an interview), what we say and how we say it is absolutely going to be different than if we know that no one is ever going to hear our communication and that, in fact, it really doesn’t matter what we say.

Further, listening has many levels. We can hear the words. That’s the surface. We can hear the meaning of the words. That’s a bit deeper. We can hear the implication of the meaning of the words. That requires that we comprehend what was said and give it some thought. We can hear the tone of voice of the person saying the words. That adds another layer of depth to the communication, sometimes revealing irony or sarcasm. We can also listen to the sound of the voice for other clues. This is the most important thing a singing teacher can do, because a singing teacher has to listen for FUNCTION. The sound is telling the listener what, exactly, is being done in the throat and body while the sound is being made. Make no mistake, the sound has every ingredient in it that you need to know about how it was produced.

If you want to teach functionally, one thing you MUST accomplish is to learn to listen for function. You must also learn to listen to the singer before, during and after the lesson as he talks about his experience of making sound, having a voice, learning technique and achieving his goals. If you do not do that, you will not be very successful, no matter how good you may think you are and no matter your level of education.

I wrote this in a post on this blog in 2006. I was asked to explain further but I did not. It’s a little late, but here it is.

You cannot “resonate” the voice, the sound, the tone, or anything else. You cannot resonate a piano or a horn. You cannot “resonate” anything. Resonance is a result of something, not a cause. We have all been lead to believe that we can resonate and change resonances and that that is what singing training does. No.

This is not correct.

What you can DO is sing a pitch at a certain volume or SPL or intensity (decibel level) on a given vowel sound (a/e/i/o/u, etc.) for a certain length of time. PERIOD. If you do that in various specific ways you will get enhanced kinds of acoustic response in the vocal tract (resonance) but it takes a lot of practice to balance pitch, volume and vowel sound (because there are infinite ways to shape vowels). Every sound you make out loud has resonance or it would be inaudible. Enhanced resonance implies that you are picking up some kind of combination of vocal tract response (formants) and boosting the harmonics by matching them up. It isn’t THAT hard to do. Many “untrained” singers learn to do it. What is hard is to put in all the other parameters that singing entails such as pitch change, consonants, volume change and vocal quality control (breathy, nasal, clear, noisy, chest, head, mix).

It is like saying that you can hit a home run as a result of holding the bat a certain way, swinging a certain way, having enough power in that swing, making sure you have good eye/hand coordination and that you will hit every time. No. Doesn’t happen. Even really good professional batters miss more than they hit. Above 40% of the time is almost impossible, no? They do not try to hit home runs, they try to bat effectively and if they get really good, the likelihood that they will hit more home runs increases.

I suppose, if you try over and over to hit home runs, without caring about anything else at all, and you have years and years of unlimited time, you could, eventually, get pretty good. People have done that. BUT these days, they have super high speed film to show the batters (or golfers, or tennis players or divers ) exactly how they swing, hit or dive, down to tiny micro movements that could make the difference between winning the game or the medal. In sports, they pay attention to the HOW, and assume, rightly, that if the how is consistently excellent and accurate, then the what will be there more often than not.

If your goal is to make a clear tone, undistorted vowels, solid volume, and accurate pitches, sustained over a length of time, you will create resonance, and it could be a lot of resonance, depending on where you are in pitch range and what register quality you are singing with.

And, if you are taught to sing by “feel” or “memory of sensation” you have to hit the right target (by trial and error or accident) in order to generate this magic “resonance” and hope that somehow or other remembering the feelings and sensations of the sound (after it is over) will linger in your mind so that you can replicate it over and over and make it happen in wherever it is that you feel it (sinuses, eyebrows, forehead, cheekbones, hard palate, etc.). If you are singing softly, however, like a jazz vocalist or someone singing a pop ballad, there isn’t much to feel, in terms of bone vibration or sensation, and not much way to remember the sensation, other than it was comfortable. Then what? Do you have to learn to feel resonance first and then get it “turned down” in order to sing correctly, consistently or healthfully. You can spend a lifetime looking for all this and get nowhere in a hurry.

OR, you can sing with an understanding of register quality (chest, mix, head) and work to get good, clear, undistorted vowels, and work on coordination between ribs and abs, and guess what, you can teach your throat and body to get better and better at these things and the “resonance” will show up all by itself, without you having to worry about it at all. What you will get in the meantime is control over the sound you WANT and in the way that you want it. There will be nothing to remember, just replicate. (Which is why you have to know which exercises do what and how to apply them). None of my students “remember” sensation, they don’t need to. They do not try to create resonance (it just shows up) and they do not have to vibrate or feel anything, although sometimes they do and then I ask them to describe to me what that experience is like.

Actually, unless you are singing opera, in an opera house, over an orchestra, you do not need a “singer’s formant cluster” because you will be electronically amplified. You can make a warm sound or an edgy sound, a belted sound or one that is soft and breathy. It’s up to you. All of them work. They will all have some kind of resonance (acoustic efficiency) but only as a side effect, not as a cause.

Sometimes people need to take singing lessons for reasons that have little to do with singing.

We have, in our society, quite a bit of abuse. Some of it is discovered and addressed, but much of it is hidden in various ways.

People who are victims of abuse are frequently not heard when they speak up to protest, particularly if they are children. People who have been beaten, or seen other family members beaten, or people who have been sexually abused, may even have been punished if they spoke up about this abuse. It is generally not to be spoken about or even acknowledged. Women who have been raped may not even have reported it, from the shame and distress rape causes. Children who grow up with alcoholism who are told not to talk about “daddy’s or mommy’s problem” get the same messages.

There are other kinds of abuse, too, that are more subtle but perhaps not so much less damaging. If you are raised in a household of strict rules and absolutely never are given a chance to have a say over your own life, you can end up unable to function in the world without problems. If you are routinely ridiculed, if your opinion is mocked or demeaned, if you are never asked for your opinion, if you are told constantly to be quiet or shut up, if you are ignored or told to keep to yourself, after a while you get the message that you have nothing to say. You learn that your opinion is worthless and you aren’t going to be heeded if you speak out, so why bother?

In order for someone to trust and value their own opinion, to voice their ideas, thoughts and points of view, you have to be heard as a child and what you say has to at least once in a while be taken as being valid. It has to be counted as being of worth, and listened to with interest. Your parents have to, occasionally, allow you to have a say in what happens to you and decide for yourself what you want and how you want it. If you do not get direct loving attention from your parent or caregiver a good part of the time, you learn that you are not worthy of love or of being attended to.

All of these issues can end up as vocal problems. You can end up with a weak voice, an unappealing voice, you can end up feeling like your voice is unpleasant or has other issues. You can have trouble speaking up, giving you opinion, and expressing what you want to say in a clear and forthright manner. You can also end up talking all the time, talking too loud, making your voice squawky or piercing. You can end up trying to make your own opinion more important than that of others, or forcing your ideas on others regardless of what it is you are trying to say. You can end up trying to push your ideas out through forcefulness, and not ever listen to the feedback that others give you about what you are saying or writing. You can end up with actual physical health concerns that show up after years of ignoring these issues. You may have been taught that there is no direct connection between the mind and the body, but that is just not true. The Chinese, Japanese and other Eastern systems of health do not separate things the way we do. They see emotion, mind and body as being all of a piece.

Sometimes people want to sing because innately they know that something isn’t quite right with their voice. They sense that if they could just find a sound they like, that is full and rich and pleasant sounding, that if they can connect to control over their own voice that feels easy and free, that this would give them great satisfaction. They deeply hope that in finding the ability to sing they will also find hidden and lost parts of themselves that are long missing. Parts that were silenced. Parts that were ignored. Places inside where there they cannot find room to come home in their own body.

If you teach singing for a year or so, you will encounter the emotional need that many people have in singing. It may have absolutely nothing to do with making vocal music, but people tell themselves that’s what they are seeking because they do not know how to make any other association. You, as a teacher, however, might well be confronted with behavior that you realize is not typical and has little to do with what you are asking the person to do. If you are not a psychologist, or a psychiatrist, if you are not trained in mental health as a professional, what do you do with this? Do you ignore the person (yet again) or do you focus upon their “issues” with singing? Do you address these behaviors (with what technique?) or is that going in over your head and asking for problems? (yes). Do you send them away? Do you send them to some other teacher? What is appropriate?

Truth is, our profession, that of teaching singing, totally ignores this entire topic. Everyone acts like there is no connection between actions that happen in life, and the body and how we experience the body. It is as if things can be ignored and then they will just go away, except they don’t. People who refuse to deal with psychology, be it their own or someone else’s, are not going to have an easy time learning to sing effectively. You do not need to be a perfect human being with no problems of any kind in order to sing (that would leave out 99% of us) but you do need to know what kinds of patterns you have and address them so that they do not get in the way of your vocal training and experience, or of your ability to teach. As a teacher, if you do not want to wander into a situation where you could make things worse, get yourself in trouble and maybe do more damage to the student, you need to learn what is appropriate behavior and guess what, you can’t learn it from any of our professional teaching associations. None of them have courses in psychology, or in any related topic. Our profession insists that singing is singing and music is music and that’s that.

This is a shame. Learning to sing freely can be a very valid doorway for other kinds of expression that are very important. It is NOT a substitute for working with a qualified mental health professional, and everyone should be very clear about that, but it can be a trigger for things that need to be dealt with and addressed. Although there is still a great deal of shame in our society for people who “need help”, the idea that working to overcome past trauma or abuse is something that should be embraced, not ridiculed. It is the normal people who get help and the ones whose issues are so big that they cannot ask for help that are the ones who are really in trouble. Maybe going for singing lessons doesn’t look like going to a 12-Step Program, but it could very well begin to open up doors that are blocked, starting with the ones in the throat.

Somatic Voicework™ is body based training for the voice. It incorporates respect for the throat and body, and respect as well for the ability for the body to breath deeply and freely. It is based on respect for a human beings’ feelings and it honors each person as being worthy of excellent vocal training, regardless of who that person might be, what their level of ability or experience is, and what they bring with them from their past. It is based on the idea that the throat and body function according to the principles of vocal production as we now understand them in voice science but it is not just about the throat or the larynx. We teach human beings not larynges.

When I was being trained by one of NYC’s most respected laryngologists, a woman came in to see him who had a “vocal web”. This is an actual web that grows between the vocal folds, covering the opening through which we breathe. When the doctor approached her to examine her, he had to place the mirror gently in the back of her mouth to see her vocal folds. She began to cry and shake and he had to stop. After he waited and she calmed down, he tried again, gently and compassionately (I thought) to examine her, but she reacted the same way. Again, he waited and tried again and was finally able to see with his scope the extent of the webbing (which was great) but she could not tolerate having the mirror in her mouth and the examination came to an end. We were all shaken. After she left, he spoke to the Resident and to me saying “this is a psychogenic case”, meaning this is someone who has psychological problems related to her voice. He also said that if she had a bad cold and got severe laryngitis, she could die, as the swollen vocal folds would block off what little space was left in her glottis for her to breathe!

As far as I know, and I could be wrong because I got no further information other than what I have just written, I do not believe she was referred to a psychologist. Nor, if she were referred, would we know if she would have gone. I wondered if the woman had been a victim of rape or sodomy, but I will never know. I do know that my heart broke for her. The issue was with the voice, but an experienced MD thought that there was something else there, too.

As far as I know, I am one of the few recognized vocal pedagogy experts that has discussed this topic in public. It is an area that needs a great deal more research of many different kinds and someone needs to step forward to make it a valid and recognized diagnosis such as exists in other conditions in which the psycho-neurologic interface is a key factor (hypertension is a good example). I am willing to call it “Psychogenic Singing” until something better comes along and invite my colleagues in the profession of teaching to address these issues in papers, symposia, and professional congresses. Your feedback is welcome.

I believe that it is very rare for people to sit in close proximity to a well trained voice and hear it acoustically. I think most people in our society hear amplified voices. There’s nothing wrong with this, especially if the equipment is good and the venue has good acoustics, but it is not the same as hearing one human being filling an opera house or theater on his or her lung power. When the sound is coupled with intention and meaning and it is vibrant, clear and vital, there is nothing to compare to the experience of listening to that sound live and in person. NOTHING.

The great singers whose names and reputations have been passed down since the beginning of recordings (and before that those who were not recorded but written about) have lasted in our collective consciousness because of the vividness of their sound and the deep impression it made on those who heard it.

I wonder then, when an audience hears a voice that is not only manipulated physically by the singer, but is also manipulated by the sound equipment or engineer or both, do the people listening have any clue as to what the vocalist would sound like in their own living room, up close? Probably not. They most likely have no clue as to what they are missing.

Singing students may not have this opportunity, either, and that is awful. Since we learn to speak by the time we are about two years old, primarily by replicating who and what we hear, we often learn to sing by listening to the teacher. If the teacher can no longer sing or sings poorly, how is the student to know what kind of sound he or she is trying to learn to do? That leaves us only words to describe both the sound and how it should be made. Without coupling the words with sounds, the young singer or beginning adult has little to help him judge or measure against. On the other hand, if the teacher is an opera singer who can only make operatic sounds and the student wants to learn to sing jazz, listening to the operatic vocal production of the teacher isn’t going to help the student find a jazz sound that is comfortable and appropriate. That’s probably one good reason why many CCM vocalists have declined serious study. They just didn’t want to sound “operatic” or even “classical” but that was the only aural model available in a formal training session.

I would surely love to go back to the days of Vaudeville when there was no amplification and the bands or orchestras had to play in a way that would not cover up the voices of the singers. I would like to have the opportunity to find out who would last and why. It would be interesting to see what things would change if we all had to accommodate acoustic sound. One thing that would go on Broadway immediately is facing at ninety degree angles to the audience in a duet. You had to “cheat” out to be heard…..that’s gone. Another thing would be singing way upstage. You often came downstage to sing because it carried better. That’s been gone for a long time, too. Another thing would be that the conductor would have to find out how loud the orchestra could play for each vocalist without drowning him or her out. That might happen once in a while, but not too often. Mostly the singers have to crank out a lot of sound or they won’t be heard. It’s one reason why we have mostly very big voices (in very big people) now in mainstream opera. You can’t survive without a big, loud sound.

Sure, rock would sound weird, and all the CCM styles would suffer in whatever way they rely upon electronic support once it was removed, and I am not suggesting that it would be an end in itself to drop amplification. What I am suggesting is that we need to stay in touch with the human aspect of singing and the power of the human voice to do what nothing else can do in the same way, and that is communicate emotion through words and music.