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The meaning of the word educate comes from the Latin educare, which in turn came from educere, “to bring out” or “to lead”. The word teach comes from Old English and means “to show, point out” or “declare, persuade, warn”. To learn is also from the Old English and means “to get knowledge, be cultivated”, from a base of “finding the track”, or from another source, “having knowledge gained by study”. Finally, guide means “to lead or conduct” from the Old French, and also “to show the way”.

Then, are not all who teach guides, those with knowledge gained by study, who lead the way, and bring out or cultivate something in others? Who then, is a true teacher, who teaches by false knowledge gained from no study, from guessing? Can there be any leading when such a soul has not personally trod the path, gained the way of knowing?

Those who teach with an open heart happily share what they have gleaned through personal experience to lighten the load of another who seeks to walk the same path. They stand as “guardians” “marking the way”, pointing out the pitfalls, the hazards, the shortcuts and the straightest paths, helping those who follow to walk with greater safety, peace and ease. Important, this, the opportunity to lend a helping hand to another hapless, and often younger, traveler. A responsibility and at the same time a precious gift.

Whoa, then to those who pose as guides, wearing the cloak of grandma while they are, underneath, the wolf. Let those who pose thusly, those who would falsely point the way, understand that they will be found out and discovered for what they truly are…….dishonest devourers of innocents. Yea, the very ones whom they mislead will turn against them and say, “I have gone where you have sent me and it does not end in the place that I have sought to be”.

Beware, teachers, of what you teach. Speak only what you have lived and know to be true. There is no other course.

Why do I do what I do when I do it and in the way I do it? What leads me seamlessly from one vocal exercises to another such that at the end of a bunch of them, the student suddenly sings better?

Beats me.

Really. I wish I could articulate what goes on, but it long ago it became a “mindless” behavior, insofar as there is no “word thinking” going on in my head most of the time. I am operating via my own intuition or instinct. I am “listening” to the person’s body and “sensing” the person’s voice. I get my direction from them. I do not live in my head when I teach, and I stay “in the moment”, in each sound as it comes.

I would love to be able to articulate the “why” better. I am working on that. I would love to be able to explain why I do this particular exercise, for this particular reason, for this amount of time, on these notes, at this volume, using this vowel, but as of yet, I cannot do so well enough to be as helpful as I would like. I can only give guidance to teachers to be in the ballpark and have a well educated guess. I can and do explain what exercises do what from a functional place, but I don’t have a grid for helping teachers choose better beyond that. But I will………give me some more time.

The process as it happens to me is influenced by my years of study, work and teaching of psychic healing. I was trained to hear “inner” or “psychic” sound and to direct it through my mind for the “healing” or “well-being” of others. I also taught a voice/healing class for over 15 years, both in the USA and Europe. I know that vocal sound is transformative and that making sound is a deeply healing experience when the sounds can pass through the throat without restriction. It is also deeply healing to hear such sounds, regardless of whether or not they have a musical context.

If you are teaching singing and are not yet fully able to live in your own intuition, be patient. You will if it is your intention to do so. Listen to what you feel. Feel what you see. Look for what you are hearing. Stay quiet and open.

The sound will take you everywhere you need to go. Courage!

I heard recently that one of our most prestigious university music theater training programs here in NYC is going to start training teachers for CCM styles, copying my original and ground-breaking program at Shenandoah Conservatory in some manner. This same MT program is dominated by a young man (who is as old as the length of my teaching career) who has reportedly declared that “the music business will come around” and “follow their lead” in terms of its standards. [Note: this is my version of the rumor I heard. I am wiling to be corrected should I find out that the information I was given is wrong. It came, however, from several reliable sources who have credibility and knowledge of what goes on in this organization]. This is the same program that “does not teach to the marketplace”, meaning they think belting is bad and stay away from it, and from the use of active chest register as if it were a malaria mosquito.

Last I heard, the music business/community wasn’t in the habit of going to schools to seek advice for any reason, let alone to ask about the standards it should have for singing. Broadway producers want to have successful runs and make their investments back. They could care less about whether or not performers voices are trashed or are exalted, they could care less about musical values, or even the well-being of the audience. Only someone who is INSIDE the business would know that. If all you have done in your life is get a degree, sing in an opera here and there, and then get a job teaching so you can pay your rent and have a family, this little piece of information might have slipped under your radar.

This attitude harkens back yet again to the idea that the real world is wrong and the smarter-than-everyone-else academic types know better. It isn’t different than other hollow-headed ideas like “supply side economics” (the rich will filter their wealth down to the poor. That really worked, didn’t it?).

Sometimes I become very exhausted after more than 40 years of dealing with this brick wall, and then I have a day of inspiration that lifts me up and keeps me going. Yesterday was like that.

I lectured at Teachers College at Columbia University for a small class in vocal pedagogy that is classically oriented but was open (thanks to their terrific professor, Dr. Jeanne Goffi-Fynn) to hearing about CCM and its various characteristics. Although some of the students looked as if I was lecturing about life on Uranus, they were taking notes like mad. I thought, “Hmmmmmm, maybe these young people will one day run vocal departments and maybe they will have different attitudes than their predecessors have had.” It was enlivening and encouraging 85 minutes and I am grateful for the invitation.

If you are also toiling away teaching CCM, wherever, and are faced with this same slow-to-go-away issue, be encouraged as well. Each of these small moments is adding up, every day. The facts and life’s demands are on our side. Please keep on keeping on and I promise that I will too!!

It has finally happened that someone who is a chair of a voice department at a major university thought that Contemporary Commercial Music was about jingles for TV and radio. This same person also thought that students of CCM were “playing guitar and doing folk songs”. How out of touch can you be and still be in charge of something? Clearly, a lot.

We might never see the day, at least in my lifetime, when rock and roll is taught with equal skill and acceptance alongside classical music in colleges, but I surely do hope that I live to see a day when we have universally moved forward in our thinking.

I just did two master classes out in Washington State over the past week. At the first, where many of the singers were still in their teens, a few of the teachers were present. I took this to be a good sign. There were some students, though, that presented their songs for me without any real preparation. That made me wonder if the teachers had actually ever been at or in a master class. To have a young singer perform a folk/pop piece, read out of a book, without any clue whatsoever to anything that resembled skill, was disappointing. This young woman, one of the oldest teenagers, was barely audible, did not know what the song was actually about, and seemed perplexed that I was asking her to change anything. This lack of preparation falls into the teacher’s lap. It is difficult, in 15 minutes, to be of use to someone who has no clue of any kind, and if the teacher does not know that the student needs to be prepared, there is little I can do to be of assistance.

On the other hand, there were some young performers, a few of whom had had only the barest minimum of training, who were able to rise to the occasion and work with what I asked them to try. Their individual abilities were no better than the aforementioned young lady, but their attitudes were completely different. This reflected something about the preparation they had had. Even beginners can be prepared for a master class if the teacher knows what to say.

The second master class took place at a university. The college kids were very eager to try things and quite conscious of the changes they made as I worked with them. At the end, 8 of them held me captive, trying to find out if it was “OK” to sing rock music and/or “use their chest voice”. It was clear that some of them had been told that doing either of these things was “bad”….a situation that replicates what was said to me 42 YEARS AGO. What does that say about our profession? Are we the only group in the world that has not progressed in 42 years? Well, maybe not, but even the construction company that is re-doing my kitchen is using lasers for plumb lines and electric screwdrivers for the screws.

Sooner or later the information about what real singing is will be in everyone’s hands. Until that time, we all just have to keep on keeping on. Thanks for helping.

Ever listen to someone sing and come away unimpressed? Of course. We all have that experience very frequently. Sometimes while listening to very famous singers. What is it that impresses us? Why does something leave an impression?

EMOTION. What we react to, what we care about is emotion. Without it, sound is just sound. The power of sound, when backed by emotion, is likely one of the most personally powerful things we have at our beck and call. The problem is the split between our societal need to suppress emotion (if we don’t, we are in trouble) so that we can go along in daily life smoothly and the need to be deliberately emotionally demonstrative while singing. The one situation opposes the other and it is, for most of us, the former situation in which we spend the most time.

So, if you are an emotionally demonstrative person by nature, someone in touch with your own emotional reactions to things, you have an automatic advantage as a performer, provided, however, that you are not TOO emotional, as this will make it impossible for you to deal with all the other things that performing requires, (like traveling, getting paid, and getting out publicity) and provided that your throat and body can handle a lot of raw emotion without overloading.

And, emotion for its own sake can also be limiting, as it gets old quickly. Raw anger is a one note rag. It’s interesting for a while but then we want to understand what caused this anger, why is it so strong, where is it going? Any single emotion gets to be like that. It’s a little like watching a serious car accident — fascinating at first, but then static. We want to know what is behind and underneath the emotion. What is being communicated and why. (Unless, of course, we are watching professional wrestling on TV).

Being a singer means that you know how to be emotional in a way that is deeply personal and connected to meaning and communication of intention. It means that you are someone who is able to deeply feel, in your own body moment by moment, the emotions and sensations of emotionality while you are singing, while remaining in control of the entire process in a deliberate, albeit free, manner. You also have to do this while singing specific pitches and rhythms and words, while breathing in specific places, and controlling the level of volume. Not so easy.

And, not all emotion is obvious. We all know that creating emotional impact isn’t the same thing as being hysterical. Sometimes emotion is couched in very subtle expression. If you aren’t listening for emotional meaning, it might be there and you might miss it. You have to listen from an open and receptive place with a desire to receive what you are hearing in a deeply emotional manner yourself, else you may not even notice your own reactions to what is being sung.

Does most vocal technique training investigate how to express emotional truth while singing? How many people are taught to deeply feel emotion or be emotional while singing vocal exercises? How does one make a connection between being emotional and singing in a healthy manner? Doesn’t most of the “interpretation” given to songs reside only in the mind of the singer? Is it a surprise then, that many singers don’t successfully bridge the gap between what they are thinking and how that thought makes them (or should make them) feel? And is it any wonder then, that many singers are making sounds but not making music? And could that be why we aren’t impressed?

The next time you hear something memorable, something that leaves a strong impression upon you, notice if it is because of the emotion in it. It won’t be a surprise if you ending up thinking to yourself, “This is good”.

This feeling inside…….I get it every time I think about the many great singers who have sung all over the world in styles that have nothing to do with classical music. Over the last 100 years, audio recordings of all kinds of people singing all kinds of music have been made and heard by millions of fans all over the world. Many of these singers have had substantial careers lasting a very long time (like Ella Fitzgerald) or have sung music that was certainly not beautiful, in a traditional way at least, (Mick Jagger), and many of the styles have left a permanent mark on the music world, altering tastes or influencing other artists. Many of them also have managed to sound good, 30, 40, even 50 years into those careers. Isn’t that significant?

It would seem that there is much to study, much to examine, much to understand. Culturally, musically, artistically, and personally, because of the enormous diversity of the styles, there is at least as much to delve into in CCM as there is in classical music. Yet, the amount of interest in and study of any kind of CCM is far less in formal academic circles than is that of classical styles.

Ever think about why that would be? Why has no one questioned this in almost 100 years? Why didn’t the study of our own music seem like a relevant, dynamic topic? Why would we perpetuate the notion that only those who had studied classical repertoire were “trained”? Why is this limited vision of training accepted as being the norm, the necessity?

It is time to really make a lot of noise about this. The time to stop this nonsensical attitude is NOW. When should we look around and say “music theater history” is just as important as “classical music history”? In another 100 years? When should we consider the history of jazz to be equal to the history of orchestral music? In a couple of decades? When should we ask ourselves whether or not the development of country music or American folk music, or gospel, is worth knowing about right alongside of knowing about the lives of Bach, Mozart, Brahms, Schubert, Puccini or Britten? Next year?

If you are someone who can answer those questions with the word, “yes”, in terms of whether or not it should be right now, then stop reading this blog and go do something about it. PLEASE!!!!

NOW is good. Now.

The best way to understand something is to do it yourself. Learning about it is different than learning it, no?

Anyone who has done an activity that requires a high level of physical skill and coordination understands that it takes a long time to develop mastery over that activity. It could be anything…..painting, sculpting, building handmade furniture, creating interesting food, doing a sport, learning to dance, act or sing…..but it is something that involves using the body in any way, it just takes time for it to be done well. To some extent the amount of time given to the activity daily matters, and the level of ability the individual brings to the activity at the outset matters, and the quality of instruction matters (but sometimes no instruction is available, so that may or may not be a factor).

And it matters what the expectations of the world are in regard to any of these activities. If you are trying to be an Olympic athlete, there are stringent and exact requirements, mostly measured by objective means. If you are trying to be a violinist who wants to play in the NY Philharmonic, you have your work cut out for you. If you wish to have your work shown at the Whitney or the Museum of Modern Art, ditto. And, if you are going to be at the Metropolitan Opera, or on Broadway, the criteria are very high, too.

The people who determine these things are those who are within any given discipline. The individuals in modern art don’t decide how someone should sing when auditioning for the Met Opera. The people building furniture don’t determine what should happen with Wimbledon tennis players. The folks who choose the winners on “Top Chef” don’t have any say in who gets to dance at the New York City Ballet. So, even though there will always be disagreement between experts in any field, there must be some kind of consensus in each one, else everything would be chaos all the time in everything. Nothing would have any boundaries or structure.

So, if singers have to live up to certain kinds of criteria, it is important for singers themselves to know what those criteria are. It is also important for those who deal with singers to know them as well. If someone is going to sing country western music and the person evaluating their singing is from opera, how would they know whether or not the singing was any good? If all singing is so similar that it has no distinguishing characteristics, why would we have different voice categories and different styles in the first place? That’s like saying anyone who swims well can also play excellent baseball. Doesn’t happen that way.

The way to truly understand what is involved is to learn to do it yourself. You cannot become a good golfer by hanging around golfers, reading about golf and golfers, or buying equipment that sits in your garage. You have to pick up the clubs and play. You can’t learn about singing that way, either, and you can’t learn to change stylistic parameters without knowing what they are in the first place.

I know we’ve been over this before……it’s just that there are so many people who still don’t seem to have it clear that this is the truth. If only they weren’t out there teaching singing, or teaching anything!

If you live in New York, where your singing students can audition for a Broadway or Off-Broadway show, a national tour, a major record label, or appear at a major concert venue, or if you live in a big city that has opportunities for your students to become professionals in major venues of any kind, you are unusual. The vast majority of singing teachers work with school kids, college students or non-professionals. If you are in an area that has little or no professional opportunity, you may never encounter working with singers who are out in the world, earning their livings by being singers.

That means that your constant exposure only to this population could put you out of touch with professional expectations or qualifications. That leads me to ask, what is the purpose of going to school? Is the purpose to make you really skilled at school studies as an end in themselves or is it to give you life skills? I suppose if one goes from classroom to classroom and then returns immediately after graduating to teaching in another classroom, there is the possibility that all of what one has to teach was learned in a school, rather than real world, environment. Then the cycle repeats itself…….Hm, a little skewed?

So much of what happens in schools ends up being about the feelings of the teachers…..their territories, their power, prestige and their security in the position that pays for their rent or mortgage and the food on the table. It takes a brave, independent and, maybe also, financially secure person, to do what is best for the student, regardless of anything else.

And, it takes a person with real vision to see his or her way out of the box that formalized education necessarily has to devise. It simply isn’t practical in a school setting to customize learning for each and every student. Some kind of standardization makes sense — with the exception of the arts. How do you standardize artistic training when, by definition, artists are unique in their view of life and the world, and in the individuality of expression in whatever art they make? Do you give a grade for most unusual rendition of “An Die Musik”? That didn’t happen in the schools that I attended.

Professors or instructors who think outside the box are often quickly fired. Those that do not stick to the party line (the ideas of whomsoever is running the department) will run into political trouble very quickly. Someone who speaks up to ask about the validity or applicability of a particular course, program or colleague may actually be raising a valid concern, but the personal turf wars and ideological predilections of the ruling class has to agree to self-criticism and internal examination. How often does that happen?

Out in the real world, teachers of singing are competing with each other for singers who can come and go as they choose. The have no cushion of days off or benefits paid, and no guarantee from one day to another that the students will continue to show up. One thing, and one thing only, draws the students into the studio and that is reputation. And if such a reputation exists, it does so because it has been created through relevancy, appropriateness, usefulness, service, skill and interest on the part of the singing teacher in the voice and personal goals of the students. Failing to provide information that the singer can use, and use quickly and well is tantamount to starvation, therefore, the independent singing teacher is highly motivated to make sure his or her skills are the best they can be. Especially in a large city, where there is greater competition, you have to be good to stay in business. There is too much choice for students to go elsewhere if you miss the mark.

So, if the “standards” set by academics are tested only within a closed academic system, and those in charge of that system have had their positions for years, or even decades, there is every possibility that whatever standards exist because they do. If, on the other hand, the education is based upon something with a practical basis (job training versus personal edification), it will stand up to scrutiny of various kinds from all manner of folk, adjust and change as necessary. The academics in the drivers’ seats would have nothing to fear.

I sincerely invite all department vocal or singing Chairs to come be private vocal instructors here in the Big Apple (or any other major city) and see if what they have to teach would keep them alive for a few months. It would be very interesting to see who would thrive, who would manage and who would be forced to quickly and quietly go home and find another paid job in some school.

Of course, there are many fine teachers in school settings at all levels. Of course, there are schools that manage to address the needs of the students and provide a balance of real world skills and personal development, and, of course, there are places where teachers can be forthright and dynamic while following curriculum guidelines. Of course.

“Theatrical singers with excellent vocal technique and versatility. (Broadway, pop, classical, world beat, R&B). Females should be versatile sopranos/mezzos with strong Broadway-Pop belt, possible classical background. Males should have high baritone/tenor range”. (Back Stage casting ad, June 19-25, 2008)

The university I just left has a policy of “not teaching to the marketplace”. That means they don’t teach belting. The official policy point of view is that “belting is bringing your head voice down to mix with your chest voice”. Not. It is taught by a 30 something man who is a strictly classical singer. Lots of life experience there. They are so frightened of belting.

If you watched the Tony Awards this past Sunday you were lucky to see/hear Patty Lupone who is Rose in the revival of Gypsy. A true belter if there ever was one, and someone who has diligently worked to make sure she is healthy when she sings. You would have heard Kelli O’Hara sing effortlessly as Nellie Forbush in the revival of South Pacific, going from chest to mix to head with expression and beauty. You could also have heard Sierra Borggess as the Little Mermaid in the real “Broadway-Pop” thing. Kerry Butler represents the same category as Clio in Xanadu, and last year’s Laura Bell Bundy does, too, in Legally Blonde. All of them real pop divas singing very well. Anyone who tells you that all of these women are singing in the same way is deaf. You have one true belter, one legit mixer and three pop divas…..they are very different things. Only Ms. O’Hara sounds like she has had classical training of the best kind, but you wouldn’t mistake her for an opera singer. She is not singing like Natalie Dessay even though the voices are not dissimilar in weight.

These women represent different vocal categories and sing different kinds of literature….in classical music they call the divisions “fachs” or “niches”. Theater doesn’t do that, but by golly, classical singers are going to make Broadway fit into classical vocal pedagogy even if they have to beat that square peg into a round hole with a sledge hammer. If you read the description at the top of this piece, you would know that theater people don’t care about fachs, or categories, as they make them up all the time. The ad asks for Broadway-Pop, R&B, classical and world beat vocalists. Know any music conservatories that ask for all of those on a graduate’s recital?

In order to really understand the implications of this, you have to understand vocal function. That means that you must know that any voice is capable of singing in any style or configuration if it is trained to do so, but not everyone wants to do that and not all training will easily get one there. I love it when classical singers say “it’s all the same” about vocal technique in any style, because they sing every style as if it were opera. Guess what, if you do that, it is all the same. That doesn’t make it appropriate or intelligent or even tasteful.

I recently heard a young opera singer in a concert doing arias that were pretty good. When she forayed into CCM, however, she thought that turning “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” into an opera aria would be a good idea. It was SO awful I had to leave the room. Why didn’t she follow that with “Un Bel Di” as a rock song? That would have been turnabout as fair play. Right.

How can you worry about what “fach” something is in if you think everything is the same anyway, and that you can divide all the various styles of music theater into categories when you don’t even know how to make the sounds and think they are all alike? or wrong?

“Theatrical singers with excellent vocal technique and versatility (Broadway, pop, classical world beat, R & B). Females should be versatile sopranos/mezzos with strong Broadway-Pop belt, possible classical background. Males should have high baritone/tenor range…. (Back Stage casting ad, June 19-25, 2008)

One of the university programs I was associated with has a policy which is “we do not teach to the marketplace”. This means they don’t teach belting. Their version of belting is officially that it is “head voice mixed down into your lower notes”. This is taught by a 30 something man with a strictly classical background…..lots of personal experience there, of course.

If you watched this year’s Tony Award ceremony, you heard our best Broadway belter, Patty Lupone, who has worked hard to make her belt healthy in this year’s revival of Gypsy, which is definitely not “Broadway-Pop”, but old style Broadway belting. The other fine example of “old style singing” was Kelli O’Hara who is playing Nellie Forbush in the revival of South Pacific. This is a voice that seamlessly flows from chest to mix to head while remaining expressive and strong. There was also an excellent example of Broadway-Pop (a new “casting director” made up category) in the person of