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If you think about it, how much do most people care about singing? In comparison to football, say, or any other sport — golf, tennis, baseball, even soccer, singing pales. I often wonder if vocal competitions were handled like the Olympics, with certain kinds of things given a number for a degree of difficulty, would that make more people pay attention? (This run from “Lucia” is a 3.5 degree of difficulty. Here it comes! Oops, she flubbed that top C, and those roulades on the way up were uneven! That will cost her some points! That’s it, and the judges now give her a total of 8.6, dropping her to fourth place, behind the Romanian soprano. Too bad!)

What about comparing singing to cars? Cars are sexy, hot, cool, powerful, symbols of success and style. The ads for cars cost millions of dollars every year. How about ads for singing? (Men, this piece of music begs to be sung. Singing it will make you the envy of every girl at your gym. This song is so persuasive that when women hear you singing it they will follow you around no matter where you go. You can purchase this song for only $.99 at UTunes. Don’t be sorry, sing it!)

You can compare singing to just about anything in our culture and it comes up near the bottom of the heap. I tried contacting Billboard to get statistics about singing. How much money was made by singers last year? What kinds of styles are singers doing most? No one bothered to answer me, even though I tried several times and also went to other places. Millions of dollars are made worldwide by singers, but no one keeps track? Did you know that there is no category in most “job searches” for “singer” but there are ones for musicians. Does that mean all musicians are singers or all singers are musicians? Hmmmmmmm.

When school music programs were eliminated or cut, what was it that also went out the window? You could maybe keep the piano, keep the DVD player, keep the music ed, but there isn’t any more singing of songs in the classroom. And most of the choral directors of the schools, universities and religious institutions are pianists first. Singing training isn’t necessarily a part of choral conducting. The American Choral Directors Association Journal hardly ever mentions singing as a separate topic, but when it does, it is certainly only one small part of the overall topics covered. You can’t have a choir if you don’t have singers, so why not pay MOST of the attention to the singing? Beats me.

And yes, 32 million people watched “American Idle” [sic] last week and the contestants on that show are supposed to be singers, but we know that this show isn’t as much about singing as it is about sensationalism and the egos of the judges. Does it raise anyone’s awareness about the richness and variety of singing as it exists throughout the world? Well, you know the answer.

If we cared about singing the way we care about some of these other things our entire society would be different. (Singing Sunday!! Singing Snacks!! Tailgate Singing Parties!!) Each of us would be different. Singing itself would certainly be different.

It is incredibly apparent that the people in this world who are passionate about singing are in the minority. Amongst those folk some people only care about certain kinds of singing or certain singers, so you can’t include them all as being “singing enthusiasts”. Some people who are passionate about singing don’t sing themselves. Passionate non-singing fans — a group unto itself.

It is not surprising then, that making a change in the general attitude about singing isn’t an easy thing to accomplish. It isn’t simple to reach a mass audience and interest them in singing issues when you can’t even interest some of the people who are singers and teachers of singing to pay attention.

How about we get together next year and buy a Super Bowl TV commercial that says “Singing, the best thing to do to make the world a better place!” All we need is a few million bucks. Whaddya say?

Some singers never learn that the intrinsic muscles of the throat are the ones that must do most of the work in a good singer. That means that the muscles on the surface of the body should be relatively quiet. In someone with good technique, often the amount of movement in the face, mouth, jaw, and tongue is minimal until a very loud or very high note is sung, and even then, all that is usually necessary is a widely open mouth. (Any style of singing).

The bind here is that the inner muscles are not deliberately movable, so how does one learn to make them the muscles “in charge”? How do you strengthen the vocal folds when you can’t feel them and the larynx itself, when you don’t feel it either (unless something is really wrong).

Beginners are rightfully taught to work from the outside in. “Open your mouth”, “drop your jaw”, “move your lips”, “keep your head level”, etc., are correct instructions to give a novice, as are admonitions such as tighten your belly muscles (support the tone). Other kinds of guidance might apply, but this is where teachers having little or no information can get into trouble. I have had students tell me that teachers have told them to: “add some more cord”, “press the tongue forward”, and “vibrate the tone in the masque” (huh?). This means the teacher has some grasp of what the mechanism must do to make sound but doesn’t know how to get that to occur.

The voice is reflective (see The Free Voice by Cornelius Reid). This means that we, as singing teachers, are looking to elicit a response from the mechanism, not cause a direct manipulation of the intrinsic musculature. This is more than just semantics. It is possible to configure the vocal muscles in a number of adjustments, not all of which will be natural or easy at the beginning of training. If the concept of freedom is not re-enforced by the teacher, the student can get the impression that sound has to be making deliberate , instead of allowing sound to happen and guiding the changes to arise over time. I truly believe there are people teaching singing who have never experienced free interior movement of the vocal organ, and don’t understand this in any way, consequently they teach manipulation as a goal.

When “fixing” a broken voice, a lot is involved. Even very skilled, experienced singers can find themselves in situations where the voice doesn’t do what it should, but the vocal folds are healthy. I have worked with several very skilled vocalists, some with noted careers, who have had something called “Muscle Tension Dysphonia” (MTD). The diagnosis means that the vocal folds are not phonating (making sound) properly, due to some kind of straining or squeezing. In my opinion, this is what happened to Callas, gradually, over time, toward the end of her singing career, and why you can hear that it took greater and greater effort for her to sing on pitch, especially in high notes. I think this is why, in the end, she was forced to stop singing completely.

No one knows why MTD occurs, or what is happening. Speech Language Pathologists (SLP) can’t deal with it in terms of singing unless they also are singing teachers (and some are, but most are not) who have experience working with this issue. The most common problem with MTD is that the singer can’t sing the pitch they are hearing. This can be slight, meaning that the singer might just be flat, or severe, meaning that they cannot make the pitch at all. This does not have anything to do with “breath support” and it cannot be fixed by changing the breathing, and although poor breathing and posture doesn’t help, they are not the source of the dysfunction. None of the singers I have seen had any issues with posture or breathing, having had lots of training and professional experience. It doesn’t have to do with jaw tension or external tension, although these areas can become involved if the problem is left unaddressed, as it can cause tension to spread. It has to do with internal tension within the throat itself. The tension is usually not felt as such, as it is “buried” deep within the internal vocal musculature. Sometimes, if the person just stops singing, it goes away on its own, but if the singer has reasons to perform…..gigs, contracts, etc., or a family to support, stopping isn’t so easy. People will struggle to go on, if at all possible.

In the past we referred to this as someone “losing their voice”. It isn’t the only reason why someone who is experienced and skilled speaks normally but can’t sing. It is not, however, just “mental” or “psychological”, although the singer can assume there is “something wrong with them”. Even some throat specialists don’t necessarily understand this issue as one that is a diagnosed medical condition that professional singers can develop.

Working with a professional singer who has MTD is tricky. Fortunately, everyone who has worked with me has recovered their ability to sing. I developed my technique to work with this on my own, and I cannot explain why what I do helps. It uses a combination of approaches and can take time. Even if the singer is diligently practicing, muscles that are “locked” take time to unwind, given that the singer was probably not aware that something was getting tight in the first place. There may be a significant emotional component involved in this situation, but certainly losing one’s ability to sing (but not speak) can be a cause of emotional distress, so it is hard to know if the emotions are the source of the problem or the result of it.

Working with a singer who has severe technical problems isn’t so far from working with someone who has MTD. Singers who come in with wide vibratos, uncontrolled breathiness, big register breaks. etc., are experiencing vocal muscle distortion. Sometimes this is CAUSED by training. Teachers who ignore changes in singers’ vocal output (especially young ones) and do not note these issues as being incorrect vocal response from the mechanism, are irresponsible teachers. Singers who develop these problems may not notice them, or may not have the resources to know how to fix these behaviors without assistance.

The only formal training for singing teachers is in Vocal Pedagogy courses, which are aimed at students in Masters’ or Doctoral Programs for CLASSICAL singing only, [there are NO Masters or Doctoral programs in CCM or Music Theater Vocal Pedagogy anywhere except for my program at the CCM Institute at Shenandoah Conservatory, which offers credit at the masters level]. The few Vocology internships don’t exactly cover this topic, either, so it isn’t surprising that singers and teachers generally have no way to work with MTD or severe technical problems, especially in CCM singers, except if they “fall into” something that works, as I did. There are many more teachers who have not taken such Vocal Pedagogy/Vocology programs than those that have. And even those that have a degree in Classical Vocal Pedagogy (still quite rare) are not trained to work with MTD in a singer, but are rather asked to be knowledgable about the various “schools” of vocal training and their philosophies. Speech Language Pathology doesn’t offer much training in voice, and being a SLP who specializes in working with professional voice users is also rare. Being such a person who also sings various styles of music and understands them from personal experience is beyond rare……..I can think of only a handful, and I know LOTS of people in voice care in many disciplines all over the world.

This is one more area where there is so much need for knowledge to be shared. Perhaps we need to start a database for addressing MTD and severe technical problems so that singing teachers can have this as a resource. It’s a thought.

In all these years, I have never been able to force myself to watch “American Idol”. Hearing about it was enough.

So, finally, this year, I am forcing myself to tune in to this truly frightening show. It epitomizes all in America that I despise, and all of what passes for “experts” who “judge” singers, when, in point of fact, they have no wisdom of any kind.

Clearly, in the pre-screening, the panel choosing the contestants who will go before the “judges” makes an effort to pick people who can’t sing and think they can, just to give the “judges” people to pick on. It’s like watching the gladiators face the lions and tigers in the Coliseum, with the audience waiting for Caesar to do “thumbs down”. Mixed in with these pitiable aspirants are some people who can actually carry a tune and an occasional talented person. These people give the facade of “try-outs” just enough credibility to keep the show from being even more of a travesty than it is.

And, if the contestants don’t sing everything as if it were an R & B song, regardless, that’s it. My word!

Twenty years ago I was on “10,000 Pyramid”. I know how contestants are chosen and what the game show people did with them because, me being me, I asked a lot of questions. Contestants were placed on the show, not just for how well they could play the game, but by their looks and personalities. Lively ones were held to counter sullen or quiet ones.

Perhaps, when the “finals” are on, and most of the people singing can actually sing, there is justified reason why the show attracts so much attention, but these preliminaries are disgusting. Let me say that again, DISGUSTING. If I rail against lack of respect for singing and singers, what could be worse than to have to watch poor sorry folks who don’t know what singing is in the first place be put on national TV to display their ignorance, be humiliated, and have the “judges” laughing and gloating over the contestants’ flaws.

If there is a hell, the people running “American Idol” (behind and in front of the camera) surely deserve to be in it, no matter that the past winners and runners up have gone on to become successful professional singers and even stars. It would be appropriate to call this waste of time “Idle”, as that is what it is.

A lot of the argument about what constitutes “good” vocal training would be eliminated if singing teachers could distinguish between functional training and classical training (remember, that has been the only vocal music training for the last 200 years).

Good classical training is functional training, if it is geared towards training the voice to function efficiently in classical repertoire. It might also be good functional training for other styles as well, but that would be possible only if the training included activities that were “multi-task” oriented. If the training were geared to helping the voice function in a number of different ways, under different circumstances, and produced improved vocal response in those specific ways and circumstances but not in any or all vocal behaviors, it would be functional but limited.

Conversely, when training is geared toward making only one CCM style, that is not optimal training either. For instance, singing training geared exclusively to rock singing might be effective, but functionally it is limited and limiting. Such training is not universal or holistic vocal development. Singing training that leaves out working with the speaking voice is also not fully functional, although it may still be useful and even effective, within certain boundaries.

“Total” training of the voice does not yet exist. Working on speech in all its myriad forms, and working with vocal production, posture, breathing and application to material regardless of whether the material is spoken or not, classical or CCM, cannot be had in just one person, place or approach. Somatic Voicework® does address all of these vocal responses, but it focuses primarily on the singing voice and CCM styles (not speech or classical), mostly for practical purposes. There just isn’t time in the summer course to dwell on all of these ways of making voiced sound and doing justice to them. I have studied all three, but I was constrained to reduce the course itself down to absolute essentials for teachers addressing CCM.

When we can train the voice to be robust, flexible, variable, consistent, powerful, free, controlled and spontaneous, no matter what the application, then we would have what would be called “universal, functional” vocal training. Sooner or later, I hope we get there, I hope.

Just came back from the Met (Opera), where my friend, Robert, and I attended “Jenufa” starring Karita Mattila. The opera’s music was lovely, the orchestra played nicely, the singing ranged from not-to-hot to wonderful but the set was frighteningly awful. Ugly, very steeply raked, bare, and bizaare. It was not only useless, it was an obstruction. The second act of the home of Jenufa in the little country village was a huge grey rodent-shaped tub (15 feet tall). That was the only thing on the stage that was so steep the singers should have had on sneakers. Some person (I chose not to look at who), was paid a LOT of money to design this monstrosity, and this kind of set/production isn’t rare. Opera News recently wrote about an “updated” production of “E’lisir d’Amore” in a 50s style diner with Nemorino as a James Dean type hood and Norina as a waitress. PLEASE. How about the “Don Giovanni” where the Don was in the mafia. PU-LEEZE!

What if someone decided to “redesign” and “update” Rembrandt’s “Nightwatch”, to make it “more contemporary” and “accessible”. First, we repaint the Dutch Guildmasters by taking them out of their garb and putting them in three piece pinstripe suits and then we take out some of the other things, and put in a TV and maybe a bottle of Bud or Merlot. How about making one of the guys hold a cigarette, with smoke curling out, and another guy could be looking at a beat-up copy of the Wall Street Journal (just to make it more topical). It should be lit with rotating purple and green spotlights and a background of “cool jazz” should be playing to add “atmosphere”. That would do it, you know? It would be so DIFFERENT, RELEVANT and SIGNIFICANT.

Clearly, to go back to respect, we don’t do that to Rembrandts (thankfully). I guess they cost too much. But an opera, well, that’s not in the same catagory as a “Piece of ART” as is a fine painting, right? Why should that be left alone when each new person can bring their own significant spin to enhance it?

You can hear my teeth grinding.

There’s more, though.

How about hiring singers who actually sound good? Not just loud, not just convincing, but GOOD. (OK, how can you tell what “good” is, when these things are so SUBJECTIVE). For one, you can get a pair of EARS. Most people wouldn’t call a donkey bray a pretty sound, and that doesn’t require a degree in music. The average person can tell the difference between a shreik, a wail, and a shout, so why can’t the person who is in charge of casting at one of the world’s most important opera houses hear the difference? This is not, by a long shot, the first time I have been to the Met to hear all manner of warbling, wobbling, screeching and swallowing up on that stage. To have someone like Ms. Mattila, who is not only a superb singer with a gorgeous voice but a powerful actress, standing on stage with some others who just didn’t cut it vocally was sad. Don’t tell me there aren’t enough good singers. I can think of 10 in my own small life here in New York who easily sing well enough to be there, and have the training and experience to back it up, but they will never get the chance to audition, let alone sing. The process of getting an audition at the Met is like climbing Mt. Everest, pretty hard to accomplish even if you know what you are up against.

No, it is the same thing. Not enough respect for singing, for it’s own sake. If folks are going to rant about how awful CCM is, that the singing is noisy and ugly, and then claim that opera singing is “Bel Canto” when some of the pop singers have really beautiful voices under all circumstances and some (not all) of the opera singers sound like the people we heard tonight, then we are facing yet again “ga-ga land” thinking. Beautiful singing is beautiful singing and what’s ugly is just that.

Beauty is inspiring, moving, heart-opening, touching, uplifting, lasting and rooted deeply in our human nature. Children are beautiful, pristine nature is beautiful, kindness is beautiful. What is “artistic” may be something that cannot so easily be pinned down, but it certainly isn’t someone expressing themselves just because they can. That produces not-so-“bel” music that just can’t. OH-OH!

It’s very sad to give someone half a gift. It’s like giving half a birthday cake, or half a vacation, or half a train ticket (go, but don’t come back?). Giving half a gift is almost worst than receiving half a gift.

I have had occasion to work with students who are making great progress, who seem to be excited about what they are learning, who ask questions and take in whatever information or guidance I offer and then, with no explanation or warning, just disappear. I’ve talked about this before.

It pains me when this happens, and it causes me the most grief when I know that the person leaving didn’t really get the full picture, although they may have thought they did. Perhaps they thought that the whole enchilada wasn’t important, or that half of my enchilada would be a great mix with someone else’s half a pizzaburger. We might have a voice that is getting freer, more responsive, stronger, higher, whatever, and a singer who is learning to go more deeply into her or himself, mining their own inner landscape, and then they fall off a cliff.

I recall a few students who left because they wanted to study with someone who was an opera singer or someone who is classical, and, conversely, students who left because they wanted to work with someone who was “more pop oriented” and less classical. None of these people actually asked me about my own training and background, they just left, and I heard subsequently the reasons for their departure from others. I have had students leave because I was too technical, even though I clearly state that this is what I do, and because I am not helping them find good songs, when I make no bones about that not being one of my interests or strengths. I have had a few students take one or two lessons only to discover that they are out teaching others with my approach, only it really ISN’T, because you can’t learn that in one or two lessons.

The people that say “this is what LoVetri teaches” when it is only half (or less) of what I teach or tell their students “do this exercise”, without knowing that I do the same exercises with many students, but not necessarily with the same intention or for the same reason, make me very unhappy.

It is one thing to decide to stop training because you don’t like what you are doing, or what is being produced in your singing, and you are clear about that. it is another thing entirely when you stop because you think you know everything about someone else and their approach, when you don’t and can’t possibly.

None of this is peculiar to me, or new. It is part of being a singing teacher working in the professional world in a big city and it isn’t going to change. I thought that expressing more about my frustration over the situation might be encouraging to new singing teachers, who will certainly experience their own stories along the same lines.

One can only sing as well as one’s control over the voice allows. If there is a weak place, or places that are tight, the singer will either be limited or sing badly. Period. The reason to work on perfecting technique is because it allows the singer to sing, and sing freely, with artistic expressiveness.

Emotionality in music, or the ability to allow the voice to actually carry genuine emotion, should be the goal of any good singer, no matter what style they sing. This is what people respond to, what makes the music alive and vital, and what makes for unique and memorable performances. Anyone’s voice can be emotional if they are experiencing strong emotion and making voiced sound, but using the voice healthfully in a powerfully emotional manner, over and over, in musical phrases that can be demanding on many levels, isn’t something the voice generally “just does”. It requires conditioning of the vocal muscles and the breathing mechanism, else the emotions cause strain and abuse of the vocal folds. Singing “with emotion” isn’t necessarily easy.

Musicality is the ability to find the expressiveness and emotion in music and allow it to move through the sound. It isn’t the same thing as being a good musician, although it certainly is hoped that those who are professional are both. Most people would rather listen to a singer who is musical (although the audience wouldn’t necessarily know if the person was a good musician or not), than to someone who is an excellent musician but is emotionally flat in delivery. Talent has to do with many ingredients, but musicality is certainly a strong component in any talented performer’s lexicon.

Classical training should set up the voice to allow great emotion to pour through the sound, but often this is not the case. There is often so much emphasis on the sound for its own sake, and so much attention paid to various versions of “correct placement” or “ringing resonance” or on breathing that actually feeling emotional during a sung phrase may never happen. Making a lot of sound is impressive, but I am not won over by such displays. I would rather be moved or touched during a performance. That happens when the voice is at the complete disposal of the artist and when the artist is willing to go deep within to a place of truth while singing. Simple but very hard.

Certainly some music, and some kinds of styles and performance, isn’t meant to be continuously profound, and the various levels of intensity that any performer feels may vary quite a bit. Emotion can be expressed through many avenues, in addition to the voice alone, and sometimes a simple delivery of words and melody is enough to make for a fun or light-hearted and entertaining performance. There are also performers who do not want to risk feeling really emotional while singing, lest the emotion overtake them and the voice, and make for chaos. That is what training is for, and it is a shame that such individuals don’t know what could be available if they were to look for it.

Teachers of singing should always find a way to investigate whether or not the student is in touch with actual, real feelings while singing, and whether or not the singer is capable of being emotionally free but in control while performing a song. The training process needs to be harnessed to feeling, and feeling happens in the body as both sensation and emotion. When these ingredients exist equally, it could be said that the singer posesses perfect vocalism.

A few days ago I wrote a piece from the “opposition” point of view. I thought it was telling that some readers didn’t know if I was serious or not. I wasn’t. I couldn’t possibly have the beliefs I espoused in that piece. I was trying, obviously with limited success, to point out what the time-honored assumptions of my profession have been and to a large degree still are, which are to me, at least, no longer valid when applied to any style of CCM.

In questioning beliefs (about anything, not just singing) that have been around for a long time, and which are considered to be “the truth” for many of the believers, one is bound to cause both upset and confusion. Counting on the ability of individuals to use common sense and apply a “trial and error” attitude toward any ideas or philosophy is a crucial element in the hope for change. The attitudes I have toward singing and the teaching thereof are NOT based upon “believe it because I (the authority) say it is so” but upon the notion that one should accept as beliefs only those which have been confirmed by personal experience and experimentation. The other core assumption I put forth is that it is possible to be in touch with one’s own body at a profound level and that such awareness calls forth wisdom which is deep and irrefutable, and not necessary explanable in a rational intellectual manner, but is valid, perhaps required, nonetheless.

Singing is a part of human vocal expression, albeit a unique part. We, as sound makers, have limits to what we hear and can execute, but within those limits an enormous amount is possible, and possible for most people under most circumstances (even if that does not seem to be evident). Various types of singing have been organized according to assorted criteria, sometimes in a deliberate manner, but mostly by happenstance and accident. Value judgements about what these organized criteria are or should be are made by those involved and by those outside. I don’t have any idea why rock, country, rap, R&B, folk or other styles were created, or why the artists singing in these styles have a certain acceptability within each style, but I do know that these labels for each style exist and that people claim to recognize the various styles as being individuated musical expressions, even if the boundaries are constantly in flux. In other words, a self-proclaimed country, rock, pop, or folk artist knows that he or she is one because they say so and others agree.

If we don’t recognize that each style exists within its own world, and that there is no such thing as universal vocal training, we are going to remain confused and teach from a state of confusion. Applying the values of verismo to Mozart will get you in trouble. Applying classical vocal qualities to rock music will do the same. Taking the values of “good singing” that apply to classical training and applying them wholesale to other styles is a sure way to go nowhere. We must understand what the individual artist needs and what is required of the material that is being sung and guide the training accordingly.

Therefore, question everything anyone says, including me, until and unless you prove to yourself that it is worth holding as a tenet.

This week I have worked on two sides of the same issue. One singer came in with a lifetime of singing with a natural vibrato. She wanted to learn how to eliminate it and had done so by the end of the session. Another singer, who told me not so long ago that she had never had a vibrato and couldn’t find one even when she tried, sang today with a nice steady vibrato which we have coaxed into showing up and that is continually getting better, which pleases her a great deal.

Vibrato is one of those things that is “somewhere”. It is a functional response of something to something else but science has not yet resolved exactly what makes the singing voice vibrato arise in those who have one, when it clearly isn’t there when those individuals are speaking. The research I did with Dr. Titze, wherein he had electrodes placed on my vocal folds so that he could run electricity through them, certainly made it clear to me that it was the vocal folds that were making the vibrato, but, sadly, the research wasn’t definite even if my own experience was.

Like a lot of professionals and skilled amateurs, I can sing a straight tone in all registers, I can sing it breathy or nasal, and I can turn it off and on at will. In my classical singing, I can, with some attention, keep the vibrato from being too slow. The vibrato rate is definitely different in classical than in CCM, although I don’t make that happen deliberately.

I have found that people with strong voices often have powerful vibrato responses and that they find it harder to subdue or inhibit it than do singers with more lyric, lighter voices. That’s just a tendency, though, not an absolute. The styles that use straight tone either a lot or all the time (Barbershop, Early Music, and Jazz), can end up affecting the natural vibrato of someone who has one by making it go away and stay gone. That is only a problem if the person singing wants to do other styles where the vibrato is expected, as for instance, in most music theater songs.

It is hard to speed up a big wobbly vibrato, slow down a machine-gun fast bleetly vibrato, or create a natural unmanipulated vibrato for the first time, but hard doesn’t mean impossible. Generally, the whole vibrato function is best left to Mother Nature’s domain most of the time, but learning to deliberately affect the vibrato for stylistic or expressive reasons is certainly possible and not a bad thing. This is contradictory, but true. Ah, the human body! Such a great and mysterious thing.