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An imaginary conversation between two singing students in 2110.

Mary Jo was speaking to Charlene.

“Gee, I just read that in the old days all training for singing was called “classical”. Everyone studied the kinds of sounds that people make in arts songs or operas no matter what kind of music they wanted to sing! Isn’t that WEIRD?”

Charlene answered, “Yeah. I heard that they said that if you sang rock or gospel music you were told it would ruin your voice and that learning to sing opera would let you be ready to sing things like R & B. My mom even told me that singing teachers used to argue about this stuff ’cause no one really understood how many different kinds of sounds a person’s voice could produce. I’m really glad we don’t live back there in the 20 teens!”

Mary Jo continued “My mom also said that when her grandmother was young operas weren’t amplified at all and that singers sang without any kind of mikes. She said her grandmother remembered when her mother went to the opera and the opera orchestra didn’t have any electronic instruments in it or any kind of effects from a sound engineer. Her Granny told her that her mom went to lots of operas in New York at the Metropolitan Opera where people sang like this all the time. Isn’t that incredible? How do you think they did that? I think that was when they showed the first television broadcasts on big screens to people in theaters and on the street in New York City. That was before everyone had a portable TV they could wear on their wrist to see and hear anything they want at any time. It must have been a strange way to live, you know?”

Charlene continued. “I did a report last year on schools back then. I found out that if you went to college (of course that was before we could all take college courses at home on line) you had to study all kinds of things that were required that didn’t really have anything to do with what you needed to learn so you could go out and get a job singing after school was done. You had to take sight-singing and music theory if you wanted to be in music theater but not necessarily get dancing, and you had to study acting in drama school but maybe they wouldn’t give you singing lessons, or if you wanted to be a rock singer and learn to play a guitar, they probably wouldn’t give you singing lessons at all, or teach you how to perform on stage. The training was all mixed up and there were no schools where you could get a college degree studying all the things in one place that were practical, necessary and important, but related to whatever kind of singing and music you wanted to do. Lots of people had to study “classical” singing to get a degree when that wasn’t what they wanted to sing at all. A lot of the teachers were teaching things they couldn’t do themselves and hadn’t studied either. How wacky is that??”

“Wow,” Mary Jo replied, “I had no idea. I guess that’s why they call it the Dark Ages of Singing Training. I’m so glad it’s not like that now, where you can study anything you need to at any time with any kind of teacher just by getting on your computer. It’s so simple. Like, you know, you can study Japanese with a Japanese teacher in Japan while sitting in your own kitchen. Imagine back then when most people had to go to a school in a building sometimes far away, and go outside even when it was snowing. Yuk.”

The key to singing well is understanding register function. No matter if the music is classical or some style of CCM, if you do not understand registers, you will not get good vowel sounds (resonance) and you will be limited in what you can do with your body and breathing.

Why is this so? Because the vocal folds are responsible for both pitch and register quality. When you are vibrating the full length and depth of the folds, you are using the vocalis or thyro-arytenoid muscle, and the sound is chest register dominant (meaning it is full-bodied). If you are contracting the crico-thyroid muscle, tilting the thyroid cartilege, you are stretching and thinning the vocal folds, tightening them, and pulling them to vibrate only on their upper edges, which gives the sound a lighter quality and is called head register. You can label these vocal qualities any way you like (chest resonance, chest voice, chest mechanism, heavy mechanism, lower mechanism, modal, etc.) and you can say that either or both are good or bad (depending upon your pedagogical point of view). You can even say they don’t matter or aren’t there, but that won’t change the FACT that they exist and, in normal voices, they function.

The vocal folds are in the larynx (the above mentioned thyroid and cricoid cartileges together, as a joint), and the larynx can go up (for swallowing) and down (for yawning) by virtue of the contraction of the constrictors (upper, middle and lower). Theoretically, you can have thick folds (chest) or thin folds (head) in a larynx that is down low at the bottom of the throat, in the middle of the throat or up high near the soft palate, as there is a lot of variability here. One thing you CANNOT do, however, is by-pass the larynx. Any sound that is voiced comes from there, no matter where you feel it vibrating in the bones of your face and head, or kneecaps!

The key to developing the voice is developing control over registers for their own sake which, for the vast majority of human beings, is a deliberately learned behavior. Rarely is a voice perfectly cultivated and balanced through life experience without any kind of training. Breathing is a factor in singing, but it is most important in classical singing for the sake of generating sufficient levels of volume (high decibels or high sound pressure level), called “good breath support” by most teachers, and in other styles that require a belt sound. Soft easy production as used in many styles of CCM need conversational level volume or something close, but are electronically amplified when more volume is necessary.

No one really knows or understands why it is that the mechanism wants to change from chest to head at approximately the same place in everyone (give or take about a major third) which is approximately at or near E/F above middle C. There have been studies for a long time but no one has really explained why we have these two different sound qualities and why they want to adjust where they do. (Ask Dr. Titze about this if you don’t agree). It is pretty much decided, however, that we do have these registers and they do function differently. The behavior of the vocal folds effects the parameters of the air that flows between the vibrating folds (the vocal folds control the airflow, NOT the other way around. The wind moves the sail, but the sail doesn’t make the wind blow). The vocal folds do not make the air move, but they control how much gets out and how fast, no matter what goes on with the abs and ribs.

If you do not learn to control the transition between the two registers, you don’t really have “good” vocal technique. If you control everything by manipulating the shape of the vowel and the volume, good for you, but that’s not all there is to know or do. If you have one register developed and the other is latent, you don’t even know what balanced singing is. If you confuse one parameter with another, you are confusing what is cause with what is effect….a good recipe for poor control if ever there was one.

Many people teach effects as if they were cause. What does that mean?

It means that they want to change the basic color or tone of the sound by manipulating the breath or the shape of the mouth. Those are not causes, they are effects. The vocal folds are the source (cause) and the vowel sounds are effected by the position of the larynx and the behavior of the vocal folds. The shape of the vocal tract (resonant space) is very variable. Not all shapes are equal. Some are more accurate for bouncing the vibrating patterns of each vowel sound around in the vocal tract, therefore producing resonance (effects) or less accurate and don’t produce much resonance. Without a good deal of pressure (strength) from the exhale, and without the ability for the vocal folds (larynx) to receive this strong exhale in a viable manner, you don’t get real “resonance”. Therefore, a hard driving exhale does not good singing make. A yell has high sound pressure levels, but you know it is a yell and not singing, so the idea that “breathing” does it all is just WRONG.

Understanding registers or registration takes time and developing them takes more time. There is, however, NO SUBSTITUTE for this in vocal training. I repeat, NO SUBSTITUTE. Only register development is register development. If you do not have this figured out, keep working on it, as everything else will get better as you do, especially in your middle voice, which is where the vocal function (the mechanics of singing) matters. You CANNOT skip over this in terms of skill development. You can try, but if you were to ask the people who have done so for years, and who are well aware of the fact that their singing has always been “flawed” even though it was good enough to get them high-level work, they would tell you, it’s worth doing it right in the first place. It’s better than not figuring it out all at or figuring it out after 20, 25 or 30 years of being a singer.

Singing is a physical skill. The exercises that singing teachers give students are meant to provoke change in the muscular systems that produce voiced sound.

An exercise is a stimulus and the sound the singer makes is the response. If the response is not good, it could mean that the stimulus was incorrect, vague, confusing or not possible. If the person giving the instruction has no idea what the exercise is meant to do, the exercise is just a random shot in the dark. Great way to learn to sing or to change how your singing happens.

That’s like learning to bowl by knowing that you need the ball to do something in the alley with the pins but not knowing what, exactly, that is or how it is supposed to be accomplished. Should it just “come to you” that the ball needs to be flung hard with one hand to roll down the alley so that it hits the pins and they all fall down at once? If it did not just occur to you would that make you an untalented bowler?

All explanations about singing that are NOT functional can only be musical or dramatic. The mental images that are poetic can stimulate various kinds of sound, but they can’t help someone learn to change the core ingredients of their own sound. They relegate the singer to being stuck with the sound they already make, albeit in a more deliberate or controlled manner. They might make the singer more imaginative, more expressive or even more audible, but they will not really help change anything from the inside out in terms of vocal or breathing patterning.

If the singer’s response did not seem to be good and the stimulus was, there has to be something else going on in the first immediate result. The most common possibility is that the singer is getting the right response but that it is too small to register, either as movement of the vocal organs or in the externally perceived sound. Repetition of the same stimulus will eventually produce a new audible and kinesthetic result. If the person understood what was being asked and the teacher understood what was being asked and those two things agree, the singer will get there in due time. If, however, the teacher does not understand what is being asked, or the student misunderstands the teacher or both (very common occurance), then how can the result be anything but random? Vocal development done randomly is better than none at all, but it is a very slow, very frustrating way to learn.

The teacher has to think in a certain manner in order for any program of vocal training to be effective. The teacher must listen to the singer for function, first. That means the teacher understands what normal vocal function is and is not. That means that the teacher also understands developmentally what extended, professional music vocal behavior is, not just for classical styles but for all styles, and what various vocal ranges and voice types do in normal people under typical circumstances. It means that the teacher understands individual variance that is still normal and normal consistency that is not limitation. It means that the teacher can assess what is going on that is good and should be kept and maintained, what is missing and needs to be cultivated and what is wrong with the singer’s vocal production and how to fix all of that using exercises. It means that the teacher also knows how to adjust the exercise so that it is more applicable, easier to do, and that it is done effectively but at whatever level the singer can manage.

It means that the teacher sees and hears progress quickly (and progress always means change and improvement in some area). It means that the student agrees that things are improving (if it is only the teacher, that problem has to be addressed). It means that the singer’s instrument is getting ever closer to a freer, easier more satisfying vocal production that is suitable to that particular person’s professional or personal goals and that both parties agree that this is so.

You do the exercise until it produces the desired result first time, every time. Then you ask the student to go repeat it on his or her own, allowing the exercise to do its job. When that takes place, you no longer need that exercise. You do it until you don’t have to do it any more because it has done it’s job.

If singing is a physial skill, then motor learning or kinesthetic coordination should be a much featured part of development. Singing teachers are just waking up to the idea that what they do is train the singer’s voice and mind to do a series of physical movements and coordinations on demand.

The vocal exercises given to a student are a stimulus. The response the student makes through sung tone is the result of the stimulus. If the stimulus is vague the response will be vague.

Some people are perpetual victims. They are always sick, they always have problems, things are always happening to them and they really want your pity. These people may be very nice, at least on the surface. They may seem like they are doing the right things, making all efforts to go beyond their problems, but sooner or later, they end up back in the same hole.

Everyone has troubles and everyone, now and then, experiences a true catastrophy. Life can play hard and be very daunting. But it’s rare for things to stay in a miserable, continously disastrous state without the cooperation of the person in whose life these situations occur. Unless you are a very negative-thinking person yourself, you will admit that most people are OK most of the time, except those who are delighted to remain in their miserable mode.

It takes a while to learn how these people operate, particularly if you are not one of them yourself. You can be taken in by the outside, by the seemingly normal exterior, by what seems like their efforts to do “better”. You have to observe their behavior for a while before you realize that it is not going to change, and, in fact, it resists true change very strongly. People who are always in a state of being a victim like being there, even if they have no conscious knowledge of that at all. Mostly, even if you were able to point out alternatives, they would either not listen or say that you were incorrect in your assumption about their situation. Things seem to “just happen” to these people. They NEVER have anything to do with their own situation. The world is against them. People don’t treat them fairly. They do so much for others but others never reciprocate in kind. They get taken advantage of, etc., etc. They do not understand how to look at themselves in an honest, introspective manner and ascertain why it would be that things ALWAYS do not seem to go their way. It is always something external that is to blame, something over which they have “no control”.

Victims like pity, it enables them. If you pity a victim, you will get sucked into the vortex that they create and find that they can easily impact your life negatively. In fact, if you don’t watch out, you can end up being their victim (at least once) because your pity makes you vulnerable. Better to feel distant compassion. Offer whatever assistance you can, but if it isn’t taken or acted upon, walk away without a guilty conscience and be content that you have attempted to be of service.

If you teach singing, you must learn about the students who are always victims. They are absolutely out there. You can put in lots of time offering them your skills, your expertise, your commitment to their vocal progress, goals and dreams. You can work hard to help them overcome their vocal faults, limitations and confusions, but keep your antennas up, folks! If you find the person working with you over a long period of time and you see that you are in the same place over and over again, be suspicious. If you keep correcting the same faults, if you keep fixing the same limitations, if you keep giving the same advice, and the person keeps going back to the same issues, and you have done this more than once over a period of months and years, WAKE UP! The person you are teaching is STUCK and you will not, you CANNOT, unstick someone who refuses to cooperate.

Some students want you to teach them to be “better” but are not willing to change anything about what they do. They want to keep what they have and add to it. That only works if what the person has is good in the first place. If it has faults or problems, you must fix them, because if you do not, the new behaviors will not work. People who cannot change in order to grow are not willing to let go of control and experience any kind of vulnerability. They cannot be taught. They are stuck. They will say, however, that they really do want to “grow”, it’s just that they haven’t found the “right” approach/teacher/time/situation just yet.

This can show up in any kind of situation. The person has changed teachers several times, the person has gained and lost their vocal range several times, the person has had nodules repeatedly, they have had confusion about breathing for years. Nothing you do seems to get through to a deep enough place to make a lasting change. Remember, Einstein’s definition of a crazy person is someone who repeats the same behavior over and over expecting it to produce a different result. If you do not stop the cycle, you become a victim of the person’s stubborn resistance.

Every singing teacher who cares and is persistent is bound to encounter at least one of these people in the course of a career, maybe many more than one. Sooner or later, though, you begin to get a feel for “the victim” and you don’t lose too much time on them. You develop the capacity to determine whether or not the student is able to assimilate what you are teaching and what you would like to convey without taking forever to recognize those who are stuck. If you are new to teaching, do not feel badly when you encounter this kind of student, as it must happen if you are to build your experience. Just remember that the truly stuck always have their own company and that of others who are also in the same place, and that’s not a place that YOU are willing to stay.

In the end, everything passes away. There are many sites in Central and South America left by the Mayan and Incan civilizations that have never been excavated, and no one really knows what happened to the people of those great civilizations, some of whom just seemed to have picked up and disappeared. We do not understand the great markings of the Nazca Plains that can only be seen from the sky, nor do we know who made Stonehenge or why, or how the giant statues got on Easter Island thousands of miles from land. The people who made all these things have been long gone.

In the end, when we die, we will not be able to take our bodies and our voices along for whatever comes after. If there is another life, if we re-incarnate, we will get a new body with new capabilites……this piece of flesh will never be again as it is now. If we have something to offer while we are alive, it is only for a period of time. Infants don’t make recordings and very old people rarely do. For a certain number of years we can use our voices deliberately and can, if we wish, speak and sing in a deliberate manner. We can train the voice and body to do our bidding and we can use it to perform in accordance with our choices of music or words. During this period of time, the voice is always changing…improving, growing and expanding or decaying, losing ability, coming apart. It follows the body and/or the body allows it to do what it does. They are, after all, partners always.

Yet, while it exists, it is a glorious thing, the voice. It carries with it energy that cannot be expressed the same way by any other means. And even though the voice is finite, the idea of singing is not. People have likely always sung and always will sing until there is no longer a human race. The singer passes away but not the singing, not the song. Those who passionately explore, study, examine, develop, create, investigate, express and enjoy singing do so with enthusiasm. They act as if singing were the most important thing in the world. While they are alive, singing is the reason to go on living. As Bernice Johnson Reagon says, “Singing is the reason to get to the songs and the songs are what you came here for”.

All that really matters is how much love we experience. How much love we give out, how much love we can experience (there is no limit), how much love sits under every moment of life. This alone is what gives meaning to everything else. If we truly love singing and singers, if we love everything in the process of singing, then it carries the full measure of what it means to be a human being in it. It has no inherent permanent value in and of itself but as a vehicle for spiritual awakening, it is as good a means as any to discover that which will never pass away. Nothing matters, everything matters. Singing is a doorway between the two.

Tradition is a good thing. Keeping the ways of the past is a very important ingredient in making sense of things. Tradition gives context, history, meaning and weight to our lives. Honoring the past, keeping it significant in the present does matter. All of what we have in every museum says that what happened in the past is important. The people who wrote down what happened, who painted, who sculpted, who built, who created expressions that have come down to the present moment saved for those who came after, give us a sense of what was, of why it was and for whom. Without that, we would have no way to measure where we are now, and plan where we are to go in the future. Those who are responsible for maintaining what has been, so that it does not degrade, or become disrespected, perform a very valuable service.

Innovation, on the other hand, is also a good thing. Without innovation there would never be anything new. There would never be a way to break out of what has always been done in the past. The paths of the past would become prisons. Life is always creating itself newly in each moment. Not allowing things to change is always a mistake, as change is the only constant in all of life.

It isn’t uncommon, however, for these two ideas to end up in some type of conflict. The traditionalists argue with the innovators. Those who would break with the past confront those who hold the past with reverence.

We need both of these things. We cannot do without them. We need to know and understand the past and we need to innovate in the present moment. They are necessary to each other. It is difficult to “break out” and change something when you do not know what that something is or how it got there. It is difficult to “innovate” when your innovation might, in fact, be something that has always been done, it’s just that you personally did not know that.

It is possible to be an excellent singer of any style, and it is very important to understand the history of that style, and what created the parameters of it. It is also possible to break away from that style and do something in a way that is a deliberate break in tradition. Classical singing does not oppose rock and roll or gospel music. They are simply two very different ways of using the throat while making music. It is possible to be a traditionalist and an innovator at the same time. Yes, it is very possible.

The shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere was noted in ancient civilizations. It seems they marked the soltices with celebrations of some kind. We have “the holidays” now, as the days are short and darkness comes early on, to cheer us up, to counter the loss of our beloved sun, and, if you are Christian, to honor the birth of a different son. Son of light. Son of the SUN, which IS our light). Even Chanukah, which some say is not of great significance in Judaism, is about lighting candles. Light.

We share with others in the form of music, of gifts, of parties, of feasting, and we look back at the year that has passed with a sense of wonder, both at what transpired and what did not. We look forward to the new year with hope but also perhaps with dread, as we know all too well that we can never know what is around the corner in the upcoming 12 months. We can’t even know what is around the corner is 12 minutes! We mark the darkness and celebrate the coming light.

So, share your light. Sing your song. Receive light and music from the world and from your family and friends. Take time out to listen to the wind in the trees, the waves on the shore, the laughter of little children, and the cheer of the crowds at the game or the show. Enjoy the cacophony of a traffic jam, or a flock of geese honking overhead as they fly, or a noisy restaurant. Listen to the world around you.

Then, go find silence. Go into your own quiet place and be still. It is from there that sound arises, out of nothing, into the world. In your mind, your ears, your awareness. If you were not there to witness the sound, would it exist? It is you that gives the sound reality.

Remember that the sound born in you, as you, through your voice, and through your awareness of what you perceive, is unique. Remember that each sound is born as you make it and dies as it is made, that you create through it continuously and spontaneously and that it is the most powerful way you can communicate with others, sometimes many others (as in an audience, live or in recordings). Remember that sound is a both a wave and a particle, depending on how you perceive it, and that its energy cannot be destroyed — just captured for a milisecond through you.

May your holidays be filled with light and sound, shining and cheerful, may your song go forth and may we all join together for a happy, healthy and peaceful 2010 and the decade which follows. Let us sing in and for the world.

Why is it that some people who are extremely able think they are never good enough and some people who are only so-so think they are great?

It’s frustrating to encounter someone with all kinds of talent, ability, and intelligence, and find that they are absolutely not confident in any of it. People who could step up to the plate who, for whatever reason, are afraid. Fear of success? Fear of failure? Fear of being seen and known? WHAT IS IT???????????

And, because these people who could lead, who SHOULD lead, do not, the people who are willing to be OK — just good enough — who don’t really care about being the best, are very quick to let you know that they will be up front right away thank you very much. I can only squirm and think — well, nevermind what I think, you wouldn’t like it. These people do not question themselves, they don’t probe, they don’t want any depth, they don’t even know that they don’t know. They are often slightly better than lousy but it never enters their minds that they are, so they put themselve out in whatever place they may find themselves and, (this is what makes me crazy), the world says, “Welcome! You are OK with us. We think you are what we need!”

One of the “spiritual gifts” that is supposed to come with wisdom is discrimination. The discrimination to know what is good and what is not, what is right and what is not, what is real and what is only a facade. Of course, our society is built largely upon what is cheap and available, what “sells” and what is “hot” — not what is lasting, of substance, has some real value, and is a reflection of something that is truly illuminating about the human condition. (I can only imagine what our world would be like if everyone cared about such things).

If you are someone who thinks you are flawed, ask another person in your field who is an expert. If that person is respected by others and she tells you that you are GREAT, please believe her. Then, go out and do whatever you can to bring your own voice, vision and gifts into the world. Do not shrink from challenging yourself in this way, go towards it with courage. Only you can make a difference in the special way that is yours alone.

If you are someone who is ready to be visible, a leader, an up-front figure, find out from another person in your field who is an expert whether or not you are leader material. If that person tells you that you have work to do, that you are not yet really ready, that you must work on yourself for a little more time, LISTEN to her and take their advice. Do not inflict yourself upon the world just because you think you should. PLEASE.

On the first day of singing my true love gave to me: My heart’s song to sing out gayly.

On the second day of singing my true love gave to me: Two dulcet tones, and my heart’s song to sing out gayly.

On the third day of singing my true love gave to me: Three high notes, two dulcet tones and my heart’s song to sing out gayly.

On the fourth day of singing my true love gave to me: Four lovely “ah’s”, three high notes, two dulcet tones and my heart’s song to sing out gayly.

On the fifth day of singing my true love gave to me: FIVE GOOD DEEP BREATHS, four lovely “ah’s”, three high notes, two dulcet tones and my heart’s song to sing out gayly.

On the six day of singing my true love gave to me: Six tenors yelping, FIVE GOOD DEEP BREATHS, four lovely “ah’s”, three high notes, two dulcet tones and my heart’s song to sing out gayly.

On the seventh day of singing my true love gave to me: Seven hefty mezzos, six tenors yelping, FIVE GOOD DEEP BREATHS, four lovely “ah’s”, three high notes, two dulcet tones and my heart’s song to sing out gayly.

On the eighth day of singing my true love gave to me: Eight jazz cats scatting, seven hefty mezzos, six tenors yelping, FIVE GOOD DEEP BREATHS, four lovely “ah’s”, three high notes, two dulcet tones and my heart’s song to sing out gayly.

On the ninth day of singing my true love gave to me: Nine crooners sighing, eight jazz cats scatting, seven hefty mezzos, six tenors yelping, FIVE GOOD DEEP BREATHS, four lovely “ah’s”, three high notes, two dulcet tones and my heart’s song to sing out gayly.

On the tenth day of singing my true love gave to me: Ten fancy phrases, nine crooners sighing, eight jazz cats scatting, seven hefty mezzos, six tenors yelping, FIVE GOOD DEEP BREATHS, four lovely “ah’s”, three high notes, two dulcet tones and my heart’s song to sing out gayly.

On the eleventh day of singing my true love gave to me: Eleven growling basses, ten fancy phrases, nine crooners sighing, eight rockers screaming, seven hefty mezzos, six tenors yelping, FIVE GOOD DEEP BREATHS, four lovely “ah’s”, three high notes, two dulcet tones and my heart’s song to sing out gayly.

On the twelveth day of singing my true love gave to me: Twelve rockers screaming, eleven growling basses, ten fancy phrases, nine crooners sighing, eight rockers screaming, seven hefty mezzos, six tenors yelping, FIVE GOOD DEEP BREATHS, four lovely “ah’s”, three high notes, two dulcet tones and my heart’s song to sing out gayly.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL!!!

(Feel free to copy this and send it around or sing it yourself at your holiday party!)