The LoVetri Institute

Somatic Voicework™ The LoVetri Method

Various Posts

Spain Announcement, The LoVetri Institute, Atlas, New Online Course, and more!

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Greetings, fellow singers and teachers! We welcome spring weather here in the USA and we hope that everyone is enjoying the budding of the flowers and trees (although we extend our condolences to those who are sneezing, wheezing and blowing!)
Things are developing with Jeanie’s first book, “Notes on Singing.” Dr. Karen Hall, Editor, is working on organizing Jeanie’s writings into book form. It will be distributed by Compton Publishing sometime in late 2020 or early 2021.

During the week of April 22nd, Jeanie went to Los Angeles to work with the cast of Atlas at the request of composer Meredith Monk, and Yuval Sharon, director, of this production with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The opera, which will be presented in June at the Disney Hall under the baton of Maestro Paulo Bortolameolli, was in early rehearsal and Jeanie was able to work with the whole company as well as individual vocalists to help them achieve their singing goals. If you are in or near LA in June, treat yourself and go to see Meredith’s gorgeous opera which will be unlike anything else you may have previously seen. It hasn’t been mounted in full since the early 90s, so it will be a special treat to see it again with a really excellent cast.

In May, Jeanie will again be attending Symposium: Care of the Professional Voice presented by the Voice Foundation in Philadelphia and presenting a workshop on true “crossover” singing. She remains on the Advisory Board, is an adjudicator for the Best Student Presentation Award and a Coach for the Presenters through the Outreach Committee. She encourages everyone to attend this important conference. For further info, click here.
We ask your support and help in sharing our “Belt Study” with your friends, colleagues and students. We need as many responses as possible from professional belters by July. Please click here to complete the survey.

(Photographed below: Jeanie LoVetri, Dr. Melissa Forbes, and participants from Somatic Voicework™ training in Australia)

[Read more…] about Spain Announcement, The LoVetri Institute, Atlas, New Online Course, and more!

What Is Underneath and Behind Somatic Voicework(tm) The LoVetri Method?

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Somatic Voicework™ seeks to bring the voice, the person, the emotions and the mind together. It seeks to illuminate the path of vocal artistry by conveying objective information about vocal production based on what is currently known and understood in medicine and science. It supports inter-disciplinary exchange. It is an open system. All premises are subject to improvement and personal adaptation. It honors and respects the styles of music called Contemporary Commercial and believes that all styles of music have value and worth.

Somatic Voicework™ rests on respect for the body and allows it to take its time adapting to various stimuli while new responses emerge. It works with compassion, allowing artists to face difficulties, overcome issues and recover abilities even in the face of a diagnosis of pathology or damage. It treats every singer, young or old, famous or unknown, talented or talent-not-yet-tapped, the same. It allows teachers to say, with perfect integrity, “I don’t know. Let me ask.” It recognizes posture and breathing, physical coordination and kinesthetic conditioning, aural acuity and visual feedback and asks only that singers address all aspects of singing function through reasonable, repetitive and consistent training.

Somatic Voicework™ teaches “whole people” not larynges or throats or vocal folds, not time slots (the Tuesday noon tenor, “what’s his name” or the “A# soprano with the wobbly middle voice, Something-or-other Smith”). It incorporates physical, emotional and personal stressors as being factors in living an artistic life and does not diminish singers for having to address these things while training and/or performing. It recognizes that we are not mental health professionals but we are all human beings and that life can sometimes be messy but it is always worthwhile. It teaches careful use of language and its impact on students and taking full responsibility for the learning process as the flawed but passionate people we all are.

Somatic Voicework™ is for those who want to dig deep. It is for those who are not looking for the “10 quickest tips so you can be on American Idol” or the “12 best ways to get really great high notes by next week”. It is not concerned with helping people get tenure, being smarter than people who want to squeeze the throat, position the larynx, vibrate the vocal folds on purpose or with proving that all voices should sing the same way in every circumstance.

Somatic Voicework™ is simple and complicated. It is easy to understand but takes a long time to master. It is available to anyone who wants to investigate it but can only be completely assimilated by those who use the concepts on their own voices over time in many ways. It is up to each individual how much or little the concepts in Somatic Voicework™ matter in their own lives but, as teachers, in order to be both ethical and appropriate, it is imperative that teachers know about all voices, and all musical styles, not just their own or the ones they sing.

Somatic Voicework™ is a method of vocal pedagogy that grew out of the life of Jeannette Louise LoVetri, known as Jeanie to her friends and colleagues. It is the result of decades of singing, training for singing, study, investigation, experimentation and thousand upon thousands of hours spent in voice lessons for almost 47 years. She shares the work with an open heart hoping that it will be valuable to others and perhaps help them avoid difficulty, struggle, sadness, frustration and self-doubt, all of which she had to endure to learn what is in the course. It is not presented as “the way” or “the best way” just one way. She invites you to make it your way, if that would be of use to you.

Maria Damore demonstrates a variety of vocal styles

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Vocalist Maria Damore demonstrates her ability to sing in a variety of vocal styles in this compilation of Kurt Weill songs from her 2016 concert in Reading, PA. She is accompanied by Lars Potteiger. Song clips include Pirate Jenny, My Ship, Speak Low, Youkali, Lost in the Stars, and, Mack the Knife. Maria has studied Somatic Voicework: The LoVetri Method TM, Levels I, II, and III, and teaches voice using these principles in her home studio.

Maria Damore, Vocalist, Actor, Voice Teacher
www.mariadamore.com

Maria Damore Voice Studio: www.mariadamore.com/voice_studio
You Tube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpcXGRfXTfdzRljuK7gmAoQ
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Maria-Damore-37902242591/

CD “Moonglow” available at:
http://www.mariadamore.com/moonglow_cd

Celebrations!

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Leischen Moore

Leischen will be performing the role of Eliza Doolittle in Tacoma Musical Playhouse’s “My Fair Lady” from May 18th to June 10th. For tickets and more information, click here.
Leischen will also be Associate Faculty at this summer’s LoVetri Institute for Somatic Voicework™.
(photographed left: Leischen Moore in rehearsals for “My Fair Lady)

 

Dr. Melissa Forbes‘ article, “A Tale of Two Pedagogues: A Cross Continental Conversation on CCM” from The Journal of Voice May/June 2018 pages 579-584 featuring Jeanie LoVetri.

Elise Besler

Vocal Warrior Voice Retreats!

     These luxury long weekend retreats are providing a creative space for adult vocalists and singer songwriters both professional and semi-professional; to inspire/be inspired and lean into creativity, gain vocal health knowledge and performance experience and most excitingly, build community through mutual love of singing and performance. Though I am starting locally at a beautiful rural retreat center, my intention is to offer these retreats in destination locations around the world! (I mean, who doesn’t want to sing in The Caribbean??!!)

For more details about Elise’s teaching, NuSong Studio: Click Here.
For more details about Voice Warrior Retreats, NuSong Retreats: Click Here.

Maite Solana

Maite Solana has just released her second single and music video from her album Vuelvo a Casa.
Please check out the music video by clicking here. 

Heather Keens

Heather Keens’ The ‘Oyster Singers’ is a new community Choir based in Brooklyn, New South Wales, Australia. We are a small community of 750 people, the original industry here was oyster fishing. In the photograph you will see our original nine members from February 2018. We now have twenty members and counting. Most of our warm-up activities are based on Somatic Voicework. They are a delightful group of people who make a good sound. Heather Keens conducts and leads the choir and her husband, Frank, accompanies on the piano and makes arrangements of the songs.
Last term we found repertoire around the topics of fish and water, including Hoagy Carmichael’s ‘Some Days there just ain’t no Fish’. Brooklyn, NSW and our nearest island ‘Long Island’ was named in 1886, when a New York, USA steel company came out to build the railway bridges here. Many of the workers were Americans, who lived in the area until the bridges were finished.

Betsy Fiedler

Betsy’s Upcoming Performances:
GWO Don Giovanni June 9, 16, 22, 24
For details, go to http://www.greaterworcesteropera.org/events.html
Italian Night – Spaghetti Supper and Italian Music with members of Greater Gardner Community Choir

Saturday June 23, 2018 at Bethany Baptist Church Gardner, MA
Greater Worcester Opera Concert Series: Contemporary Broadway July 18, 2018 at Briarwood in Worcester MA.

Senior Faculty for The LoVetri Institute for Somatic VoiceworkTM in Residence
at Baldwin Wallace University, Berea, Ohio July 21-29, 2018
https://www.bw.edu/community-music-school/summer/lovetri-institute/

A Downward Spiral

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I know that older people always complain about “the youth of today” and praise the good old days. Now that I am an older person, I don’t want to do that, but it is hard not to look back at what I learned and think that much of it is gone. To me, that’s a loss.

What people think of now as “good singing” is very limited. It consists of what is found on The Voice or The X Factor, particularly here in the USA. It is what is found on the top 40 stations or maybe on certain YouTube or internet sites. Much of this singing is loud, pressed and emotional only in the loudness. On the other side of the equation there are the Celtic women who sing in a light, delicate head register that is pretty and only pretty. A lot of jazz gravitates to soft breathy phonation for no particular reason and many pop singers emulate the people with two or three separate kinds of sound in their singing, even though that doesn’t add anything at all to the impetus of what they are singing. It’s more a novelty factor.

There is electronic manipulation and physical manipulation of the sound and we are inured to this as being “normal.” If you listen to singing from the 40s, 50s, 60s, or maybe early into the 70s, you will hear many individuals with “voices” that are not just like the pop/rock model we hear today. If you watch old episodes of the Johnny Carson show, you will see Broadway singers, opera singers and jazz vocalists as a normal part of his programming. If you go back to the 50s on the live TV shows you will find a good deal of excellent singing of many styles, but most particularly opera.

A freely produced, live, unprocessed voice, conveying deeply felt, honest emotion through singing is a rare commodity and young people may not ever get to experience what it is like to see and hear such singing. That, folks, is a loss. Period. If you happen to also hear a great voice — a Stradivarius throat as it were — you can be literally blown away by such an experience.

I do appreciate many of today’s young stars in various styles but I lament the dearth of singing that has to do with being a living breathing person. The point of singing at a high level is to convey deeply felt emotion without struggle in various styles while sounding personally unique. This is without auto-tune, over-dubbing, sampling, or any help from machines. It is produced by two lungs pumping air across two vocal folds and only that.

Over-darkened sound, caused by a larynx cemented to the bottom of the throat, or shouted squawked sound emitted by a larynx pulled up somewhere into the top of the throat are very typical sounds of 2018. It’s true there is some value in each but what’s lost is just as important, if not more so, than what is kept. Mostly, the sound is not expressive at all. Rap music is energized and can communicate but it isn’t a substitute for a fluid, smooth and attractive sung sound that magnifies what a human throat can do.

I know we can’t go back to the past. I know people who do not have educated musical ears don’t hear the difference or care. I know that only those who have learned to hear and to see will understand what I write here. Still, it hurts to know that music education is nearly gone, that vocal education in public schools is virtually nonexistent and that the main factor behind all commercial music is money — if you can make money the people who promote the music don’t really care if it’s good or bad. What makes money is that which is sensationalized. The weirder or the sexier the better.

What appeals to the average person is extremism. That’s because what is “out of the ordinary” is exciting. If you do not have the capacity to appreciate subtlety in an artist, if you  cannot comprehend something when it is profound and significant, explaining what you are missing is a waste of time. This kind of listening is justifiable in young children or those who have limited capacity to comprehend complex information for biological reasons, but shouldn’t be found in grown adults. For those who are sophisticated both culturally and musically the multiple colors of diversified artistic output are enthralling. That output, however, may not be commercially successful. People who like Andrew Lloyd Webber might consider him an equal of Stephen Sondheim but those who are familiar with music theater, the cognoscenti, wouldn’t ever dream of putting the composers in the same sentence. Of the two, Sir Lloyd Webber has made far more money and been more popular than Mr. Sondheim by a very long shot. They are not the least bit equal.

Things are certainly not going to reverse under the present Administration in Washington. That is sad but there are other things that are worse than the lowering of musical standards. Perhaps some day in the future when people realize how essential the arts (all of them) are to civilization, things might change. In the meantime, the continued downward spiral of more and more lousy singing continues. It’s hard to watch and to hear.

 

 

My Throat Hurts

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Imagine that you are a singing student who has been taught a method that leaves you with your throat feeling pain. It actually hurts when you practice or perform.

Imagine, also, that when you complain to your teacher, you are blamed for being unable to understand the great pearls of wisdom falling from his or her mouth. It’s your fault, of course, for being a student who can’t “get it.”

Is this actually an imaginary scenario? No. Sadly this is a real, present moment experience happening to singing students all over the world. Those who do not understand the throat and the function of the larynx and who have the hubris to teach singing based on faulty information (or no information) approach the students of the world, who are ripe for abuse, putting them in a terrible situation. The very people who should be helping singers to free their throats and voices are doing the exact opposite. To whom do these students turn? Another student? The internet??

This is meant to help those students:

If your throat hurts when you sing (or speak) STOP. Something is wrong. If you cannot get help from your singing teacher, go to a laryngologist (a doctor who specializes in treating the voice), or a Speech Language Pathologist who treats voice patients. If you can, stop taking lessons with anyone who tells you that you should ignore the pain and keep doing the same thing even if it hurts. If you cannot stop taking lessons (for instance f you are in a school situation), do not do what is being asked. Try to do something — anything — other than what you have been doing when you sing that is different and might help you be comfortable. It’s your throat, do not make it hurt on purpose in order to “learn something” about singing. If your throat hurts when you sing (or speak) STOP. S T O P.

And to the teachers of singing:

Singing is one of the great gifts of the world to those who sing and to those who listen. It is an art and a skill. It has to be regarded with respect and honesty. Teaching someone to sing is also a skill and it requires a broad range of knowledge that take years to learn. If you do not really know what you are doing, teach with very careful awareness and NEVER, EVER do anything that causes vocal or emotional harm to another. DO NO HARM!!

I do not look much at the “voice teacher” groups online because so much of what appears there is outrageously low grade. People who have no idea at all about what they are writing espousing ideas that are simply amazing in their lack of accuracy. They argue with each other, trying to “prove” who is “best” or “right”. Stunning, really.

If your singing teacher does not sing well, meaning she can’t apply what she is trying to teach you to herself, (and there is no medical reason why this is the case), if he cannot give you a solid explanation of why you are being asked to do something or why it doesn’t work, run away. Especially if he can’t tell you why what you are doing is wrong that causes your throat to hurt and, more importantly, what to do to stop that behavior, RUN AWAY!! P.T. Barnum said it best, “There is a sucker born every minute.” Don’t be one of those people!

Gratitude

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You need only be exposed once to someone who has had a laryngectomy to understand how important it is to be able to speak. While it is certainly better than dying from laryngeal cancer, it is a terrible loss and staying alive becomes much harder. Since the larynx is responsible for keeping the lungs protected by the action of the vocal folds and the epiglottis directing food and drink past the lungs into the esophagus, and for the vocal folds being able to close so one can run, walk up stairs, and lift heavy objects, amongst other things, not being able to speak is only one of the things that has to be confronted when the larynx is compromised or removed.

Even severe laryngitis can be uncomfortable if it continues past a few days. Having to whisper or be very raspy can interfere with being heard and understood. If it lingers, only a few of us can manage easily in that situation .

Yet, truly, who gives thanks for this vital part of the body on a regular basis? On a day given to gratitude, does anyone think to be grateful for the ability to make vocal sound? And, if you sing, you may not realize that your entire career depends on two tiny pieces of gristle, not longer than your last joint on your pinky finger and much smaller than that in size. You may not understand that all your notes, for your entire life, depend upon the function of your vocal folds in response to your decision to sustain pitches in music. And, yes, it is possible to continue to have the ability to speak but lose the ability to sing. Julie Andrews is possibly the most famous example of such a person, but it can happen to anyone. Singing demands more of the vocal folds than typical conservational speech and you can discover this, sadly, when they no longer do what they once did easily, and there is no help to be had that will heal the problem completely no matter what medical expert treats it.

Those who deliberately teach singers to scream without any regard for vocal health, or who teach singers to deliberately manipulate the internal structures of the throat and larynx, are doing a terrible disservice to both body and voice, yet there are many who teach in this way. That the profession of singing teaching at large does not object to such instruction but, in fact, often embraces it wholeheartedly, is a disgrace, but this, too, is a fact.

Those who teach singing are not required to adhere to any tenets by outside objective experts. If you tell a young or inexperienced singer to squeeze the aryepiglottic sphincter (if you can locate it in the throat) or to retract the false folds (ditto), or to curb the vocal folds (as if they were a puppy) or to tilt the cricoid cartilage (which doesn’t move volitionally at all), or to sit on the back of the tongue and the jaw to prevent the larynx from moving up when that is part of its natural function, and if you then expect the student to both understand and comply with any of these instructions, only to find that they struggle, you must ask yourself why you would continue to teach in this manner. Why?

Why not just help your throat do what throats do? The structures in the throat, all of them, need to be free to move. (Singing freely requires no such deliberate maneuvers or restrictions.) Instead, why not be grateful that you can sing whatever you want and however you want by respecting the way the body is designed to function so that both can remain in excellent shape for your entire life?

Please be grateful for your voice in all of its many expressions from your first lusty cry as a newborn until you exhale your last breath. Do not wait until it is lost or impaired in order to be thankful for what you already have. Give thanks every day, starting right now.

Choosing Words Carefully

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In most spiritual traditions the “masters” are of few words, carefully chosen. They understand the power of words, as spoken sound, to influence. Strongly spoken words carry emotional and mental power and have an impact. Singing magnifies that experience.

Any authority figure must learn to choose words carefully and to pay attention to the consequences of the words uttered. You cannot take them back. Words once released last for as long as the person who heard them carries them in their own mind. Written words can last for thousands of years and effect millions of people.

We have now a President who speaks with no regard whatsoever as to the truth of his statements or the consistency. He is oblivious to the damage his complete lack of command of language causes and how it weakens both what he says and his own image. The country suffers because the truth is construed as lies and the lies as truth. Such is the damage than can be done by words uttered blithely and by an individual who either can’t tell the difference between truth or falsehood, or by someone who doesn’t care about it in any way.

If you teach, you simply cannot afford to be indifferent. Certainly you cannot come from that point of view when teaching singing which is spoken word come alive. Music well written and beautifully sung allows us to share the landscape of our inner lives. Those who are listening and open can be transformed, sometimes forever, by receiving this gift.

Therefore, we must ask ourselves what we really want to say and what it means. We must own the words, the sentences, the thoughts and the emotions, and when we sing, we must own the notes and rhythms, too, as part of our communication.

Not everyone is highly articulate. Some do not have diverse or broad vocabulary. Some people don’t bother to determine if what they want to communicate is what gets communicated. The only way to know is to ask. “What do you think I was saying? What did I just communicate? What did that mean to you, if it meant anything at all? What kind of a reaction do you have to that?” You cannot know if you don’t ask or if someone doesn’t volunteer to tell you without being asked.

A great deal of success in life is precipitated by knowing the right questions to ask. There are people who never question anything ever. If they end up in power, at any level, it is really scary.

In your life, try always to find the best words to express your thoughts. Take time to think about which words are the ones you need. Don’t press forward to say whatever comes to mind just because it’s easy. Choose your words with care and, following this further, when you sing, do so with clear intention.

You cannot retract what you say (or write) so be willing to take responsibility for your utterances. A song is words come alive through music. With both, make your choices carefully.

Being Sold A Bill Of Goods

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We all know that it’s very easy to sell something to someone who has no information than to have success with someone who is knowledgable. The Simms Clothing company has as its motto, “An educated consumer is our best customer.” They mean, of course, that people who are knowledgeable about high quality clothing will recognize the bargains at Simms’ as being good ones.

If you don’t know what “high quality” is you can buy “off the shelf” and think you are getting a bargain when you are just being ripped off. But quality costs more because it is quality. When it comes to services rather than goods, that’s even more importantly true.

If you “price shop” for a service you are making a big mistake. Singing teachers are not brands of laundry detergent. It would be much more useful to save up for one or two lessons with a well-established, highly regarded expert than to buy whatever is “inexpensive” in bulk. You might learn more from two really excellent lessons from a master teacher than from a dozen from someone who barely knows what’s what.

If you are being told that you can learn “all you need to know” in a few short lessons you should be highly suspicious. Be wary of all “the 10 best tips” people. There is nothing worthwhile that can be learned through 10 best tips, or 40 best tips, or even 500 best tips, although that larger number might be more useful, especially if the tips came from a real expert.

Recently I had a student who had studied seriously elsewhere and came to me with a number of significant technical problems. Breathing and coordination issues, tone quality problems and lack of awareness just generally. This was a large-framed person with an overly forward sound, a tight throat and less than stellar control over either body or throat. Still, progress was being made, sometimes significantly, and there was talent there and a lot of vocal potential. Then, just as things were beginning to turn around, the student disappeared to work with someone else. Happens. Is that other person going to know what to do? The best odds are only 50/50. That’s quite a risk to take if you have just started to get over your problems.

But some individuals like their problems. They enjoy the struggle. They identify with it. Maybe their “not-so-great” vocal behaviors were not, in fact, unconscious or accidental but deliberate. Maybe the singer has no clear idea of what encompasses good vocal production or free singing. Maybe someone else was very flattering in lessons and that ploy worked well enough to pull the student away.

In the end, you do not have an unlimited number of years to get things right and get out into the world as a professional singer. If you come to New York City and you have various technical issues you can’t spend forever fixing what’s wrong. There are too many folks who arrive here without those challenges who are your competition and they will be spending time learning rep while you are trying to figure out how to use your voice and body properly and get a better, freer sound. The worse off you are, the more you are vulnerable to becoming the victim of vocal “snake oil” salesmen.

If you get sold a bill of goods because you did not do “due diligence” regarding investigating your singing teacher comparing him or her to others with more experience, more skill and a more reliable reputation over many many years, it becomes your own fault if you get taken advantage of as you study. Be careful. Think. Use your eyes and ears.