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It is a common premise in classical vocal training to be told “don’t listen to yourself” or “you can’t hear yourself like others do” so don’t try to hear yourself at all. Students are ENCOURAGED to pay no attention to the sounds they make.

HOW STUPID IS THAT?

There are many studies in Speech Language Pathology that show definitively that when a subject’s ears are blocked using “white noise” they cannot control their voices or pitch, in fact, they can’t control very much of anything at all. Is this a surprise? Deaf people who learn to speak through bone conduction and/or mouth reading do not sound like hearing people sound and they do not sing. DEAF PEOPLE DO NOT SING.

Yet, recently, I had someone (a teacher) strongly disagree with me on this point because she had attended a seminar on singing in which the presenters “proved” that you cannot hear yourself and that it is not good to try to listen. That is like saying, “When you look into the mirror, don’t see yourself.” Huh?

Listening is a KEY ingredient in singing and learning to hear yourself objectively is crucial to sounding good. Luciano Pavarotti says in his first biography that he loved the sound of his voice. I guess so. If I had sounded as good as he, I would have never listened to anyone else!!! It wasn’t a narcissistic statement, “I love my voice but only my voice and not anyone else’s”. It wasn’t a statement that said “The only time I am happy is when I am listening to myself”. THAT would be not good. Making a sound that you are happy to make, however, is part of why good singers can stand up in front of an audience and confidently open their mouths in the first place. If you are ashamed of your dirty clothes, your messy hair, your beat up shoes, and do not know how to present yourself to the world, surely you would not feel confident walking down a fashion runway. If you hear something coming out of your mouth that sounds screechy, garbled, unpleasant, and is unreliable, why, if you were a normal, functional person, would you want to stand up in front of others to sing? But if you know you look OK or sound OK wouldn’t it be more possible to have confidence in that and share yourself or your sound with others? Seems like common sense to me, but clearly that is not the case with the folks who are the “do not listen to yourselfers”. I put them alongside the same rocket scientists who think Obama wasn’t born in Hawaii and the folks who think that W was a good president.

Try not listening to yourself tomorrow as you converse with someone. Let me know what you didn’t hear.

Seeing what I wrote on my previous post, I would like to contradict myself, because today I saw yet another young person is who living the same 45 year old model that I experienced. What kind of profession makes no changes in 45 years??????????

Teaching singing.

Those who read this blog regularly already know this story, as I have told it here numerous times. I started studying classical music at 15 because I wanted to sing like Connie Francis (if you are young, Google Connie or go to Amazon and listen to her). I sang “Caro Mio Ben” and “My Lovely Celia” not “Who’s Sorry Now?” during my lessons.

By the time I was 19 I had taught myself to belt, although I did not know that. I didn’t know what to call the sound I made when I was singing “Ella” in “Bells Are Ringing” but I knew it was not like the one I sang as “Marian” in “The Music Man” or as “Magnolia” in “Show Boat”, both of which I had sung at age 17 and 18 respectively. No one ever said to me this music should sound like this and the other should sound like that, I just used my own ears, my own common sense and sang what I heard. It did then and does still now amaze me that people who sing classically assume that you can sing any kind of song in any kind of style as if it were classical because that is all they are capable of doing. Are they deaf or just dumb (no pun intended)?

When a young person says, “I want to sing music theater. I want to sing 21st century music theater. I want to sing 21st century music theater the way it is sung on Broadway.” and is told no by her teachers, department, school or university, what is she to do? When the student is asked to be the teacher by first singing and then telling the teacher how it sounds and feels to do that, something is WRONG.

When a school decides to institute a music theater program and tells the teachers who are classically trained “as of next semester you are going to teach music theater” and provides them with NO training, and understands that they also have no experience in music theater, yet doesn’t care, something is wrong. The school is making money, of course, and the students are getting what they want, sort of, but how could something like this happen in any other field?

Could the biology teachers be told, “you must now teach chemistry”? Could the history teachers be told “you must now teach physics?” Could the piano teachers be told “You must now teach percussion?” But are the singing teachers told “you must now teach music theater”? All the time, every day, and guess who suffers most from such decisions? Not the person who makes the decision.

Youngsters are still wanting to learn how to sing the music from “Hairspray”, “Legally Blond”, “Xanadu” and “Little Shop of Horrors” (not a new show) but are being told instead to sing music from shows written prior to 1968 (the year “Hair” arrived on Broadway the first time). Even Jason Robert Brown and Ricky Ian Gordon require some belty sounds, although they are the most “classical” of today’s composers (along with Adam Guettel) cast in the Stephen Sondheim mode. Some are being told to sing “Caro Mio Ben” and “My Lovely Celia” because if they do not, they will ruin their voices. This is 2009.5. Do you think things will be different in 2010? 2011? 2012? I hope I don’t die before this ridiculous situation just goes away and stays away for all time!!

Having just returned from the NATS Internship program as a master teacher, I must say that I am greatly encouraged that we are going a new way in the profession. Amongst my three colleagues I sensed no rancor towards Contemporary Commercial Music styles, although they were all strictly classical in orientation, and amongst the Interns and their students, there was an eagerness to pursue CCM without any fear. The others who were coordinators or facilitators at the program were also supportive.

How long we have waited for this day!!!!! I can only say that it was a joy to have such a reception and one that was uplifting to my spirit in exact proportion to the dampening of same after my experience at the NATS Conference in Minneapolis not too long ago.

Presenting the idea that our own American music deserves to be respected just as much as classical music was not seen as being heretical or crazy. Mentioning that singing CCM in the ways that the composers intended it to be sung was also not a cause for argument, at least not here. [This means that a belt song is sung with belt vocal production, not operatic vocal quality. While that might seem like an obvious idea, it is by no means that to the academic community of singing teachers].

At last, we are talking about vocal function and can begin to agree on some basic points about singing whatever music we want to sing. There is no more talk about finding the “pink mist in the back of the throat” and “resonating the forehead bone” as if those things were something actually possible instead of ridiculous. Halleluia! Reality sets in after 300 years!

Perhaps in decades to come when we people are hearing electronic music at the Met, singers are taught to do whatever kind of sound is necessary no matter what they music is, and it is clearly understood that all music is based upon illuminated communication of the human condition, this long and hard fought battle will be looked upon as just a trifle, a breeze that blew through. That would be fine, as what matters is that things change. It would be nice, though, if the history of this transition were not lost as the profession prides itself upon its lineage, and this link, too, belongs right there alongside of the others.

We have all had students who are talented, personable, motivated and perhaps even very musical who do not improve after taking lessons for quite some time. Why? Why would someone not “get it” if they are motivated, trying hard, practicing, and have the ability to play another instrument or do another artistic discipline, like dance or act or paint?

You have to take a look at the person’s behavior, and that means all of their behavior.

Over the past 3 plus decades, I have worked with quite a few such students. One came faithfully for lessons for over a year but made absolutely no progress, with me using every tool and technique at my disposal, and, believe me I have many. Turns out she spent her evenings doing cocaine. She was always fine at the lessons and I had no clue. I found out by accident.

Another student was a dancer with considerable skill. She did fine with exercises but when she got to songs, she could not change in any way the sound she made, and it stayed the same as when she saw me for the first time, after she had studied for well over a year. I know at least two other talented professionals who were exactly like this. They got great in lessons in vocal exercises but never, ever, in a song did they use what they could do. One woman had more than three octaves range and refused to sing beyond the one she had in the first place.

I gave up with all these folks.

I have seen this over and over in other ways. Students who refuse to find a sound they like, no matter how good it is. I have had people who made lovely, wonderful free sounds. Lots of range, lots of dynamics, good vowels, good resonances, register changes, clear consonants. NOTHING was ever good enough. No sound was ever the “right” sound. I once asked a vocalist who had been trained to sing beginning at 12 and was well into her 40s what kind of sound made her happy to sing. She was so stunned by this question she actually turned pale and stammered, “I don’t know what you mean”. I had asked her what kind of sound belonged to her and was the one that came from her heart. She never came back. Someone else, who came in with significant problems, recovered her ability and learned new things as well, but always had in the back of her mind that the sound wasn’t good enough. She had had many singing teachers, some of them famous, and had sung professionally in various places, and taught. She had significant musical training and performing experience but she did not know who she was “vocally” and was lost, really lost, when confronted with why that would be so. She had to stop, too. Eventually, she developed a diagnosed illness, which can be a “real reason” to justify not being happy with your voice. It garners great sympathy and makes the struggle “valid”.

I have seen people literally space out whenever they make an open, free, clear and vibrant sound. They look as if they have just taken some kind of drug or if they have eaten something bad. I have had people make free, powerful sounds that made them cry only to come back in the following lesson more closed up and tighter than ever. I had a woman with Spasmodic Dysphonia, which some claim is incurable, do that with me twice over a period of several months…..make a fabulous, open sound that brought tears to her eyes, only to come back closed up tighter than the proverbial clam and clueless as to why that was so. I stopped working with her, even though I really liked her as a person. I just couldn’t take her money any longer.

All of these things took place after a long time of working…..not weeks but months or years. I didn’t give up quickly, and neither did they. Some people like the lesson process, as it makes them feel they are “doing something” but if they do not progress, the lessons can become a distraction from deeper issues, and I don’t like playing along with that.

Why would being open and free, making a sound from your heart, making a sound that feels like it comes easily from deep within be so confronting? so frightening? so mystifying? so difficult?

Because it is all those things and some people do not want to deal with being confronted, frightened, mystified, or challenged. They want things given to them in a way that is comfy, easy, simple and always secure. They either do not want to do the work that is asked of them to own their sound, it’s problems, it’s idiosyncrasies, and it’s glory or they would rather run away, hide or be “not responsible”. No teacher can help such as person.

On the other hand.

I have also worked with people who wanted to sing badly enough to fight their way through all kinds of vocal problems. Some of these problems were medical and diagnosed, some were accidental, some were inadvertent. Sometimes these vocalists had lost significants aspects of their ability to sing but they did not give up. They worked and worked hard and made progress, but they also owned what happened to them, they were willing to feel and deal with their emotions, and they were also willing to look beyond the lesson process into their lives to see how singing was part of being a human being with a past. They were willing to see vocal expression and its greater implications as a metaphor for life and for what happens to us as human beings in life. And, guess what? Most of these people recovered and went on to sing professionally. Perhaps not in the same way as they had prior to their problems but well enough to be out in public and garner applause.

The difference, of course, is the attitude the successful singers brought to the process of recovery. An attitude of “I will sing again” as an absolute, and attitude of “I am not what happened to me or to my voice”, an attitude of “I can do this”, an attitude of “I refuse to feel sorry for myself”. On and on, but always with that kind of conviction.

The teacher can only facilitate. If the student is willing, the teacher will come. If the student is doubtful, the teacher can’t always overcome the doubt. If the student refuses, nothing the teacher does will help.

The process of teaching singing is miraculous, but only to those who believe in miracles.

No matter how old you are, it’s never too late to work on your singing. The muscles respond to exercise. The production of vocal sound is physical, therefore, if you work at it, you can improve.

I am happy to report that more and more training is aimed at function (rather than resonating your forehead, eyebrows, nasal cavities and teeth) and that we are moving toward an understanding of vocal function based on science, not science fiction. It is true that change has been exceedingly slow and fraught with argument, but it is also a fact that younger people “get it” and are happy to accept technology alongside art. Why not? Most of the web is represented through graphic design and it is certainly a technology, as is the cell phone we all carry.

Once we get free of Art Songs from foreign countries as being the only way to begin vocal training, then we will be able to focus on the amazing repertoire for the styles that were born in this country and fostered by average folks, not royalty or clergy. It will be a great day when Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Cole Porter and Leonard Bernstein are held in the same regard by academics as George Crumb, David Adams, Elliott Carter and Phillip Glass. We will also be able to ascertain, without negative judgement, what those styles demand in terms of vocal production. Then we can investigate differences within style and within individual singers in each style.

I imagine a day, 100 years from now, when students say, “Wow, in the old days, you could only study classical music and vocal technique at school. How weird is that?”

I might be well dead by then, but wherever I end up, I will be smiling.

I met a rock singer recently. He had an interesting story to tell.

He has a degree in music composition and has sung in a rock band for 20 years, writing a lot of the band’s music and singing lead. They toured a lot, in Europe and South America, but here, too, in smaller cities. He sold some songs to other singers and groups and generally did OK but when he reached 37 a few years ago, he decided that it was time to settle down and lead a more secure life. He found a place to pursue a master’s in music education part time and finally finished his degree and got a job at a small liberal arts college. He was asked to teach music theory, song writing, and some private voice lessons. His students were music education majors, mostly, but also participated in the college choir and semi-annual music theater productions. They were required to learn classical vocal material and pass a jury at the end of each semester.

Now this man had never had formal vocal training. He had sung in his school choruses in both high school and college and the choir directors had given general information (although some of it was conflicting) about “breath support” and “placement” of “the tone”, and musical guidance about the kind of expression necessary in the diversified repertoire the choruses were performing. Beyond that, the man had heard a few classical concerts of Pavarotti on Public Television and had also heard a few classical singers in various other events over the years. He was a little familiar with the major composers like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, etc. and thought that classical music could be both interesting and exciting, but had never had time to delve deeply into it, since he was on the road, writing songs, performing, etc.

His plan was to listen to a few recordings which he would download from iTunes and buy a couple of student books he had found at Amazon and teach enough of these classical songs to his students to get by. He felt that he could talk about breath support, and placement, using what he remembered from his college studies, and describe what he had heard when he listened to Luciano. He also knew a little bit of German and French, enough to get a meal or travel around in Europe, so he figured he would be able to teach songs in these languages. All in all, he thought, he had enough general knowledge to teach his students what they were required to know in order to learn the songs for the juries, and to get a decent grade. He was very interested in keeping his new job, and in hanging on to it long enough to develop some credibility, in the hopes that he might move on to a larger school and more money in a few years. There were only two other teachers on the faculty and the one with the most singing experience got the best students, so he assumed that the people coming to him wouldn’t be that good in the first place, so anything he could tell them would be helpful, no matter what it was. The other teacher was very young and had classes to teach. That man had no private students at all, so there would be no competition from him.

Things went along pretty well the first few years, but the college was growing, and with it, the department. Eventually, in the fourth year, a new teacher was added and this woman had a degree in voice from a classical conservatory of some repute. She had very definite ideas about how to teach singing and was quite proud of her own voice and performing experience in opera and concert. Trouble quickly brewed.

Long story short, a big divide between the two teachers emerged. The rock guy had gone along quietly teaching what little he knew, with the students following him, not knowing good from bad. The new classical woman wanted everyone to sing classical music, sing it to her personal standards, and to sing nothing else in or out of lessons, lest the student be damaged or permanently confused. The department chair was busy trying to handle the growth of the other parts of the music school and paid little attention to the situation of the singing training, deciding to let things “work themselves out”.

I do not have an end to this story because I made it up, but I think you know why. I invite you to post your own ending here.

PS

You are welcome to turn the story around. All you need to do is put someone trained in classical singing, with only classical experience, in the place of the rock guy and put in that that person was asked to teach music theater students. If you leave the classical woman as is, then you will have a reality based story rather than a fairy tale. The ending might be easier to imagine that way. What do YOU think?

So, you have a student in front of you who wants to belt. You are teaching in a college, you have juries to contend with. The kid has to sing “classical” for the juries. You don’t know how to belt, or if it’s safe, but the big musical at her church this year is Hairspray and she wants to try out. You don’t know if belting helps or hinders “classical”. You need this job to pay your rent or mortgage, to feed yourself and your kids, to make a career for yourself. You maybe need it to move you toward “job security” or what is called “tenure”. You want your colleagues to know you are competent and skilled. You want to help the student, to be able to get into the show, and you want her to get a good grade at school, too, and to be OK with all of it. You want her to have a chance to have a career as a singer when she graduates college.

WHAT THE H**L DO YOU DO?

If you are religious you pray. If you are not, you breathe hard and gather yourself together and maybe you do burnt offerings to the gods of singing or the muses of the arts.

This is an insurmountable situation and it can only mean that everyone loses. The teacher, the student, the program and the school. Anyone who says otherwise is just deluded.

Mostly what happens is that you teach “classically”, you ask the student to learn Italian or German art songs, and you work on resonance and breath support (what else?). In the middle of the semester you ask the student to bring in her “belt” song. You ask her to sing it for you, she does, in her “belt sound”. You ask her, “Does that feel OK?” You listen and think it sounds loud and ugly. You ask her “Do you feel the resonance in your face and head? Are you supporting?” She says “YES!” You leave her alone. You have no clue and you certainly cannot tell her that.

She sings the classical pieces at the juries and gets a decent grade and evaluation. You talk with your colleagues about how the students “have trouble focusing” and about “how they like to think too much”, “how they like to hold on to their throats” and “how they always seem to have trouble with breath support”. You keep your job and go forward, hoping not to be “found out”, and teach another semester, and another, and another. You make sure to let the student decide whether or not the belting is good, and you learn more songs each term.

You live in fear that someday, one of those students is going to come back to you and say “how dare you”? You live in fear that someday one of them is going to come find you and ask you “what were you thinking?” You always hope that you will never be asked to explain to other teachers how you work with your “belters” or why you teach belting, or, worst of all, be asked to sing the sound yourself in front of your peers. You tell yourself that “the kids know how to do that sound.”

You may be able to hide, but you really do know, inside, that this is making the part of you that loves to sing go dead. You manage to cover your you-know-what.

No, I’m not guessing that this happens. I KNOW it happens. And if you think that there is nothing wrong with this scenario, then you are part of what is very very wrong with our profession.

There are so many things in life that we can care about. There are so many things that we shouldn’t care about. It is an endless list with all kinds of components. There are things we care about that are strictly personal, things that are a concern to our immediate family, things that concern the community, and things that concern the world, or many people in the world. If people are starving, war is raging, there is no healthcare or work, the icesheets are melting, why should anyone care about singing? Really, we can live without singing.

But can we? What would the world be like if there had never been any singing or was none now? What if we collectively forgot how to sing? Wouldn’t that change life everywhere?

And, if we care about singing, there are so many ways that we can care. We can care about certain styles of music, certain practices in certain styles of music. We can care about who is singing, and what they sing, and how it is sung. We can care about the voices of the singer or singers, we can care about how the voice is being used, we can care about what the relationship is between the music and the person singing it…..if indeed there are notes involved (as opposed to rap, which some would say is a form of singing). There are probably lots of other ways that I can’t think of now.

But if we don’t care, now that’s a problem, at least to me. If we are singers and teachers of singing and we don’t bother to really care about the whole process, all of it, that’s NOT good. And if we do care, and care with passion as many of us do, we have to be careful not to get lost in that passion and let it dominant our thinking. We must remain open to all the various possibilities.

I can be over-zealous. I can sometimes care too much. It has taken me a long time to learn how to step back, calm down and back away, seeking objectivity. I am someone for whom singing matters very very much. I stop being effective, however, if I cannot find the calm quiet place deep within which is the clear pool from which music arises. I must remember always that I can care deeply and let go at the same time. This is a tricky balance to strike, but it is always necessary. Life without singing would be bleak indeed, but living as if singing was everything would be foolish.

Wherever you are with your point of view about singing……..take a look at how you care, or IF you care, and what impact or import that may have. It can be very illuminating.

There is, in this world, such as thing as specialization. There are many people who are “elite” at what they do, and they got that way by being concentrated on one thing and one thing only. There are very, very few exceptions where someone might be equally good at two things, but, generally, if the whole world acknowledges that someone is “the best” at whatever it is, that is the case.

Think about it. The world class athletes who are medalists don’t do more than one thing unless doing more than one thing is what they do (decathlon, triathlon, Iron Man/Woman) but even the people who do those sports do not complete again the specialists who just do a specific one. It’s not a surprise that great baseball players are not also great tennis players (although they might be pretty decent), or that great swimmers don’t automatically do gymnastics well, (even though both sports are “whole body” developers).

Broadway asks that performers be “triple threats”. Dancers need to do ballet, tap, and jazz and sometimes other kinds of dance as well (swing, African, modern, etc.). It’s the same for acting on Broadway…..present moment, revivals, drama, music. If you include other forms of acting (TV, film, industrials) the range actors must have is enormous. Singers, too, must be very versatile. Very few can do “just one kind of singing”. You need to do rock belting and legit and formal styles, new productions, older shows. There are some few performers who have skirted the issue of having to sing “all over the place”, but not too many.

If, however, you want to specialize in singing elsewhere, you can, and often it helps to do so. If you are a “Verdi” baritone, you do that rep most of the time. If you are a true “Mozart” soprano, you don’t do much, if any, Puccini. If you are a prima ballerina (or male principal danseur), you don’t tap. If you are the Swan Queen, you don’t do Alvin Ailey’s choreography. If you sing Rose in Gypsy, well, that is a whole world in itself!

Yes, there are a few exceptions. Wynton Marsalis has played classical trumpet and done well (but has not garnered as much success for doing that as he has found in playing jazz). Eileen Farrell was successful years ago with her blues singing (but nowhere near as successful as she was in opera). Paul McCartney and Billy Joel have written classical music (but neither has been as successful in that as they had been writing/performing in their original styles). It takes so much time to be really good at one thing.  Also, in terms of acceptance from the public, often the people who are attracted to one style are not attracted to something else, so the fan base isn’t the same when an artist switches. 

Sometimes people make a transition into something else after they retire. Opera singers have gone successfully into Broadway when they no longer do opera. Actors have become directors, singers sometimes can become conductors. There isn’t anyone now, as far as I know, (and I’m willing to be wrong here) that is equally well known, successful and acknowledged by their peers as well as by the public, as being really at the top of their game in two very different disciplines or places, and I don’t think that has ever been true. If you want to develop world-class abilities you cannot compromise the time you spent on your primary choice by also spending a lot of time on something else.

All of this I expostulate to build my case for the following argument.

Over the weekend I had occasion to work with a young lady who is in her second year of college studies working toward a degree in music theater. As is typical now, in her singing lessons, she is being taught to be a classical soprano because it is “good” for her. Now, in most cases, I would agree that this would be a beneficial thing and something that makes sense, but not in this case.

This young woman is a natural high belter the likes of which I rarely see. With little assistance she has developed a powerfully strong, clear, free belt that can go to a G top of the staff in the healthiest, most correct sound one could ask for. Her training, which focused mostly upon songs and performance and not too much on technique, allowed her to go to a very good place (albeit one that is still no piece of cake to do) by essentially leaving her sound alone. What she needs is to stay where she is, specialize on gaining even more strength and stamina, understand what she cannot expect herself to do, and work to keep what she has from causing her any health issues (and this is paramount). Why? Because this kind of natural ability is unusual, and in today’s music world, it is THE sound that is most prized in pop, country, gospel and other styles of music, including Broadway. Add to this that the young lady is attractive, expressive and musical, and you are looking at someone who has the highest possible chance of being successful in having a high level professional career. What she needs is support to be better at what she already does. What she is getting instead is training that undermines the very aspects of her vocal production that need to be strengthened, taking her away from her natural gifts, and confusing her both vocally and mentally.

If you have a teenaged prodigy, who can beautifully play a concerto by Mozart on the piano at the age of 15, do you tell him or her that it would be BETTER to learn to play Duke Ellington because jazz is American and all young pianists need to understand how to play in the jazz idiom in order to be correct and musically sophisticated? Or, do you tell the youngster about Mozart’s life and work, take the child to Germany, teach the child about all of Mozart’s works and then introduce them to other composers of classical music to broaden that knowledge while they continue to train their piano technique?  Learning about Ellington might be really cool, but necessary?  I don’t think so, at least not right away.

The educational system for vocal musical training in colleges has absolutely no idea what to do with kids like this young woman. They need to not be trained in classical vocal production after they are fully grown (age 16 or so) if they have a high level of other vocal skills already. Training a voice that is happy belting, and has learned to carry that sound up high without undue effort should be aimed at SPECIALIZATION. As it is, her “classical” training is taking apart the core aspects of her vocal production, the ones that need to be attended to, because of the almost universally held belief that classical training is better. The tenet that it is necessary to study classically in order to have “healthy technique” no matter what kind of music is being sung is never challenged. The mere idea that anyone, anywhere, can sing the kinds of sounds that this young woman produces and be healthy simply doesn’t exist in the minds of singers who do not, themselves, also make this sound. If educate, which comes from the Latin, educare, or to draw out, is about continuing to call forth the unusual vocal abilities of this young woman, then she is not being educated, she is being dismantled. Even if this is being done without malice (and I assume it is), and it is being done for “all good reasons”, it is still WRONG.

I am in New York and she is not. I cannot easily help her. If I knew someone to send her to who I was SURE could take her further in her high belt/mix, I would send her there, but I don’t. If she were my kid, I would tell her to get a degree in something else, like acting, and keep on doing what she is doing on her own until she can find someone to nurture the specialized and outsized vocal gifts she possesses.

Singing is a sensual experience. It’s like eating cold chocolate ice cream on a hot summer day. It’s like settling into a warm cozy chair in front of a blazing fire. It’s like swimming in a crystal clear bay on a gorgeous Caribbean beach. It’s like snuggling your favorite little one on your lap while you read their favorite story.

I could go on and on.

Singing is just plain delicious fun. I usually feel sorry for people who don’t experience singing that way. When singing is work, when it feels hard to do, when it isn’t fulfilling, when it is a chore, something is wrong. Unfortunately, many people think that those things are normal or that they are to be expected. I have heard experienced singers with a great deal of training singing in public with a sound that is just plain not good. Clearly, they have never had an effortless sound joyfully emerge from their throats else the comparison would be enough to make them NOT sing in public. Again, I say, how sad!

For those who do not sing or who think they cannot sing, I can only say — try! If you find a compassionate and patient teacher you can learn, and in doing so, also learn to have fun and enjoy not only how you sound but how you feel. Why deny yourself that opportunity?

Since we carry the voice around with us, don’t forget that it can be your companion when you are lonely. It can cheer you up when you feel blue. It can entertain you when you are bored. It can challenge you when you are curious. It’s free, it’s always available, and it is yours to share or to keep to yourself as you please. We can’t say that about very many other things in life, can we?

The world is full of sounds. Some of them are melodious, some are ugly, but the one sound that is always potent is the sound of your own voice. Pay attention to it and it will serve you well.

The the thing about singing is that the joy of singing is the joy of being alive to sing.