Various Posts

Most of us are taught that when something isn’t working it’s because something is wrong and it needs to be fixed. That’s not a good attitude to have when you are working with students of singing.

A much better attitude is to find out what works. Look for what a student can do not for what they can’t do. Look for things that go in a good direction, not the ones that do not. Do not fix what’s wrong, find what is right and build on it.

In order to help someone correct vocal problems or faults you have to guide the voice towards efficiency of production. That will take it away from incorrect habits and poor usage. If you tell your students the many things they do “wrong” they get very good at knowing their faults but not at understanding what they do well. Tell each vocalist about things you notice that are “plusses” and refer to the “issues” as minor things that will go away over time. Provided, of course, that you have that as a goal and know what you are doing.

If the student can’t sing high notes comfortably, work on lower notes that are comfortable and strengthen them through traditional tools: vocal freedom, posture and breathing exercises, and clear vowels and consonants. Work on vocal flexibility and strength. Work on listening for function. Done well over time the high range should emerge without undo strain as long as you incorporate trying high notes from time to time. If the student can’t sing very loudly, work on strengthening the sound from its typical level by using specific exercises, over time, gradually going from mezzo piano to mezzo forte to forte over a series of lessons.

Having a clear intention to improve something that is already functioning at a minimally acceptable level is important. As problem or issues arise, acknowledge that they are there but do not make them worse by working only on them, as if nothing else was available. Incorporate awareness of what can be better over time while expanding the domain of what is already good or excellent.

Strengthen what works, address what does not gently and in small doses. If you know what you are seeking and the student cooperates it will emerge over time.

It’s frightening to listen to instruction that has no basis in reality and that rests entirely on ideas that are not grounded in any rational codified system that is broadly accepted and widely acknowledged as being valid. This, of course, happens every day if you are dealing with vocal instruction. When it happens in a master class and everyone is nodding and clucking approval, one has to wonder if the entire room thinks the Emperor is still wearing his clothes.

There is so much nonsense in the profession as to be laughable, but sadly, the game that is played is that gobbledegook is actual information. First and foremost, in order to be SANE, people must stay in touch with the body and how it processes whatever data it experiences, as it happens in time, moment by moment.

We live in a society that thinks its feelings. If you are asked, “How do you feel about that?” and you respond by saying, “I am having trouble getting my work done,” that is not a feeling. You might feel angry or sad or frightened that you are not getting your work done. It might make your chest feel heavy, or make it hard to breathe or make you clench your fists. Those are feelings and sensations that reside in the body. The way you feel about having trouble getting your work done has to begin by being either a sensation or an emotion, located in your body as somatic experience. Mostly, people have no idea what the previous statement means. Guess what? That will make you very confused and you will find it hard to trust your own judgement, to follow your “gut” or to know “how to listen to yourself”. If you are a performing artist, that’s deadly.

In this state, it is easy to get lulled into thinking just about anything and it is easy to be brainwashed. Beliefs not based on trust of your body and its experiences will lead you astray. Emotions are feelings and sensations and must pass through your body as feelings and sensations. How you react to them is open but you have to experience them to react to them. Think about that. How can you learn to direct something you don’t actually experience?

Information that is meaningful has to be heard, seen, felt, and sometimes tasted and smelled, for instance, such as when one is studying to be a chef. Singers need to hear and see and those things operate through the ears and eyes but also through the mind as visual images and cognitive recognition of things like pitch (notes), volume, and other auditory cues. They have to listen and look, inside and outside. Seems obvious, no?

Instruction which tells the singer feel this, don’t feel that, or release this or make that happen, is poor. It is better to ask a student singer, “When you read these words, what do they mean to you? What is your reaction to them? How do they make you feel? What is your reaction to that feeling? Now, if you were having that experience in your own life, right now, and you had to say those words, how would you sound? Let’s find out!” Then, in exploring this (together, teacher and student) the singer would have a chance to work towards making a sound that has something to do with their life experience and that would give the voice natural power and meaning. Most vocal instruction doesn’t go near that, sometimes even in a master class. Not good.

No, it’s not a substitute for basic vocal function learned through exercises but if you can already sing decently and no one helps you connect that sound to meaningful personal expression, who cares? That’s why many people don’t like opera. A lot of it sounds like loud, empty howling.

Voice teacher gobbledegook:

Open the space, make it vertical. Keep it high, don’t drop. Don’t do your “singer thing”. Stop being hung up, be free. Try to make it looser, don’t hold your jaw. Watch that you don’t fall out of the buzz. Keep the spin going. Draw up from the belly more. Want it, really want it. Go for it. Stop thinking too much. Remember how that felt. Keep the dome going.

B A L O N E Y.    S P A M.    K O O L   A I D.   S C A R Y.

Translation in plain English:

Let your jaw go straight down. Keep your mouth/lips in an oval shape. Smile. Focus your attention on what you are saying. Allow your body to move. Allow your jaw to hang as loosely as possible while you pronounce the syllables. Articulate as clearly as you can while you sing. If you can hear and feel a kind of firmness in the sound, stay with it. If you can sing softly and easily without a lot of pressure on your belly or your throat, that’s great. Be sure to contract (lift, engage, work with) your abdominal muscles while you are singing. Be very clear, as the character, that this is a very important moment and the stakes are high. Know what it is that is your character is saying and why and then sing as if it were vital that you be heard and understood. Focus your thoughts on that and only on that. While you practice, pay as much attention to what you hear and feel as you can and make note of those things so you can return to them next time. Remember that as you get more skilled in your singing, changes in your soft palate will allow you to sing a sound that is fuller and has more harmonic richness because the vowel sound shape, inside your mouth, will change.

Advice. Suggestions. Queries. Guidelines. POSITIVE statements (no “don’t’s”). And no one should be given more than ONE of these at a time. ONE.

Yes, I recently went to another master class. Yes, I was frustrated (angry, in my gut). Yes, you’ve heard all this before.

Someday, an entire audience will know that this kind of teaching is meaningless and they will not sit there making excuses for the teacher because the instruction is “artistic” or “creative” or “passionate” or “well-intended”. We’re not there yet. Not at all.

When you are born with a lot of talent and life circumstances are such that you can enhance that talent through training, and you are lucky enough to get recognized by those who can put you forth into the world with that talent; you can end up with a career, sometimes a very big career. Things being what they are in our society, people will gravitate towards you as soon as you start to become successful. They can foster even more success and eventually a talented person can end up with what we call “celebrity status” and become a public figure.

There are all sorts of problems with a situation like this and it’s rare that it does not deeply touch the artist in some profound and lasting way. When multiple people from various worlds tell you on an almost continuous basis that you are a genius, a life changer, someone who is “special” and “different”, it must be hard not to finally start to believe that this is indeed true. You can accidentally fall in love with yourself, or what you perceive to be your self, and build your own sense of importance, sometimes to the detriment of all those around you who love the real you.

A true artist has some amount of protection if he or she really delves deeply into the work they are creating, for it is there that they must confront the depth of their being and ask difficult questions that have no pre-ordained answers. The questions can only be resolved through brutal honesty, thoughtful and extended self-examination and confrontation of habitual patterns, both conscious and unidentifiable. Still, without diligence, delusion is possible and even artists who truly seek to be free of any limiting encumbrance can be fooled by their own defenses and end up falling in love with their own false self-image. This can lead to deep, dark despair and profound self-doubt.

The ego is interested in itself and its own ideas, its own needs and its own emotions. It survives by finding ways to justify its own existence and can become a shadow self (“I am nothing, I am always a jerk”) just as much as it can be “I am the greatest”. Either way, its hold is great and its damage is even greater.

The one and only remedy to a raging ego is service. True service liberates the individual from the bondage of the small self. It is in work or task that serves the highest and greatest good that freedom is available. It is connected to producing something of lasting value that leaves the world a better place than it would be had it not been created. Truly generous work, done for the sake of the work and for no other reason, is ego-free and not bound by any time frame nor monetary consideration. It is not at the mercy of momentary obstacles nor does it shirk from determination. It does not drain but supplies energy. It does not harm but heals. It cannot be limited even if it is confined to small endeavors.

In order to serve the only requisite is to desire to be of service. Understanding what needs to be done and doing it is enough. The job at hand is the job that needs to be executed, without complaint and without acknowledgement.  Service, carried out in this manner, creates joy and in this perfect expression of love and life, the ego shrivels and goes into hiding.

If you are famous and you want to help, take a good long look at what those who are not in your inner circle tell you and remember that you are just like everyone else. No worse but surely no better. Wash the dishes, sweep the floor, take out the garbage, listen to the birds, walk on the beach. Don’t let your huge ego eat your soul.

When does learning stop? When do you get to have “all the information you will ever need?” When is your education complete?

I think a lot of folks would say when you finish school. Many people learn what they have to and stop there. Singers, however, should NEVER have that idea. You absolutely cannot afford to think that you have nothing more to learn at any stage of your life.

Taking courses, studying new things, working with teachers, coaches, conductors, directors, composers, choreographers, language specialists, diction experts……there is so much to discover when you sing. Yet, sadly, I have encountered singing teachers who have had one, maybe two teachers, were happy with them, liked their own singing, and that was that.

I have to admit it – that mentality baffles me completely. I can’t imagine not wanting to grow, to challenge myself, to examine old ideas and beliefs and see if they need re-organization. It’s like never cleaning out your garage or attic. Ideas, like boxes of “life stuff”, can become out-dated and irrelevant. I am always taking courses or attending conferences, working with coaches, talking to my colleagues and mentors, reading articles and books.

Self-satisfaction in an artist is important because you really can’t share your singing with others if you don’t much like it without feeling like a fraud. Self-indulgence, however, can become a trap. Thinking you are above it all and know more than everyone else is AWFUL, but every profession has people who think this about themselves and, sadly, they convince others that they are smarter than they actually are. Then, not only is the individual deluding him or herself, but he is taking others down the road of delusion as well.

If you study with a teacher who hasn’t been to one of the conferences that are offered to voice professionals (and there are many now), or hasn’t sung or performed in decades even though they could, or has no interest in reading the latest information about voice science or pedagogy – why would you do that? Is your teacher some kind of magician? Even the smartest, most talented people continue to develop through study. Why should your teacher be different? Don’t study with such teachers. Look around for those with a more open, curious mind.

CCM Vocal Pedagogy Institute, Shenandoah Conservatory, July 2014. ccminstitute.com

“Spin the tone more from the top”.

“Release the back as you ascend”.

“Engage the respiratory muscles before you begin the tone”.

“Aim the tone high into the mask so you can generate the singer’s formant”.

“Support from the lower chamber to find the inverted triangle used in belting”.

“Sing as if you have no jaw”.

“Sing as if your head is empty”.

“Let the tone go up and back but lift the soft palate into a dome”.

“You’re listening to yourself!”

“You think too much!”

 

Nonsense language. Meaningless language. Impossible to understand phrases. TYPICAL phrases of a singing lesson.

These phrases and the hundred others just like them belie profound ignorance of kinesthetic learning, of the way the brain is hooked up to the larynx and the throat, of the responses the body makes to a verbal stimulus and an intention. (What intention? Is “spinning” some kind of intention? Is having no jaw an intention or a goal?) Want more of the same? Just go to the internet. What’s there is endless and mostly ridiculous. Worse, look on the NATS website forum and take a look at the things the singing teachers say there. Scary stuff.

It is absolutely and completely unnecessary to use anything other than plain simple English with no voice teacher jargon to teach singing based on vocal function. Of course, if your teaching is based on your own unverified ideas, and your basis for “proof” of those ideas is your own singing, and you have decided, based entirely upon your own personal observations that what you do is what everyone else should also do, you will have no choice but to make up words to describe your “discoveries”. If you have drunk the Kool-Aid of some method that is not based on science but also on vocal health and music marketplace reality, and you teach what you have been told without really understanding it personally as experience, then you will have no choice but to be stuck when trying to help someone else learn to sing. You will have to resort to making up meaningless phrases to convey your ideas to others. This will add to the profession, what? Exactly nothing. That we are still there, 50 years after I took my first voice lesson, is appalling, but so.

If you teach or coach singers and you don’t run your ideas about what the voice does before an actual honest-to-goodness voice science researcher, or a laryngologist or a qualified speech language pathologist, you may not know that your ideas are incorrect, or incorrectly applied, and what you think is happening is not what is actually happening at all. You can make up new terms, you can call what you do by any description including naming the sounds orange, pink, purple and red, but that doesn’t make those terms real, accurate or even useful. In fact, even if all your students do really well singing the red sound and win contests with the one that’s blue, it’s still not useful to anyone but those particular students and only useful to them while they study with you and not if they ever study with someone else, ever.

As long as the profession tolerates or even encourages this behavior we are doomed to remain in the past. We will continue to disagree about “breathing in” and “breathing out” and “forward placement” and “masque resonance”. We will argue over small irrelevant things instead of deciding how to use common language, grounded in science, and applying function to actual present-moment music and the demands of the music marketplace.

Dysfunctional training? We are surrounded by it.

CCM Vocal Pedagogy Institute at Shenandoah Conservatory (ccminstitute.com). Think different.

 

What’s vocal function and why study it?

In fact, isn’t all singing training functional? Aren’t all singing teachers the same?

Maybe not. Depends on what you think you functional training is. Most people don’t know but think they do.

If you think all you need to know in order to sing better is “resonance” and “breath support” or versions of “placement” and “breath management, control, or coordination” then any teacher who presents these ideas in some way would seem to you to be just as good as another one. If you have a teacher who doesn’t sing or sings really badly (sounds awful) and tells you that doesn’t matter (and it might not, but it usually does), then you can study with anyone with equal results. If you study with someone who teaches from their own point of view, which is very clear to them, but maybe not clear to others, as long as you finally figure out what that teacher wants, that’s OK, until and unless you study with someone else or become professional. If what the teacher tells you smacks of “this is the new, best way” and only they know those techniques, then that’s OK, too? Not.

If you can’t tell the difference between good singing and bad, and you don’t know a thing about how we make sounds as human beings, and you don’t know any parameters of musical styles, and you think that opera singers are better than every other kind of singer; or, if you think that really good singers don’t ever need lessons and that training will “change” your voice or that you only need a few lessons to “get some tips” then you are ripe for lousy teaching, lousy results and a big load of baloney from the teacher.

If you are NOT in any of these categories, and if you want real, honest information, you can find it but you have to look. You have to know what good singing is and how it works, and that means you have to do some research. If you look online, talk to other singers and read some books, it should help you ask intelligent questions.

And, if you don’t want to go through months of searching, you can come to Shenandoah University in July and learn more in 9 days than many people have reported they have learned in 9 years. Come learn with others of like mind. ccminstitute.com

“I Am The Greatest” worked as a slogan for Mohammed Ali. He actually delivered the goods to back up his claims.

There are a few singing teachers here in New York who boldly announce that they have “THE” voice studio. They are “The best”, “The most famous”, “The most important”, etc., etc.

Generally speaking, the people who decide this about themselves are NOT the most anything, except perhaps the most egotistical and narcissistic . The people here who have the most students, the biggest reputations and the most well-known students don’t advertise at all. Some of them don’t even have websites. One thing they do not ever do is claim to be “The (fill in the blank)”. They don’t need to.

I have twice had students who came to me from two different singing teachers who both claimed to be the “only famous” singing teachers in New York and both of those students had learned next to nothing useful. Both teachers continued to claim these students in their ads long after they had stopped studying with them. This is borderline unethical. When they were studying with me, I didn’t discuss it.

If you are foolish enough to study with someone who has decided (based entirely upon his or her highly inflated opinion) that they are the best or only teacher of singing, RUN AWAY. RUN AWAY.

Teachers of singing who know what they are doing have a wide variety of tools and techniques, based on vocal function and voice science, vocal hygiene and the requirements of the music business. They respect their colleagues, even when they disagree with them, and they are not egotistical or, yes, stupid, enough to make up exaggerated claims about themselves. It is shameful that teachers of singing can make such fantastic claims based only on their own ideas of their self-importance, but they can. There are no laws against it. They can also advertise themselves on the internet claiming to teach every human being on earth how to be a vocal star in 6 lessons or less. There are dozens of teachers like that. Can’t stop that either.

If you are seriously interested in learning to sing, before you decide that any one teacher is “perfect” and before you let that teacher convince you that he or she is THE ONLY person who really understands singing and how to teach it, take lessons with at least 5 other well established teachers (with a solid reputation, going back at least 5 years, preferably longer). Read about them, question others about them. Do not be sold a bill of goods.

Here in New York City there are probably at least 1,000 people teaching singing, with new ones emerging every day. There are many others who “coach” who are not really singers (they never sang) but work with singers. Some of the teachers have been around a very long time. There’s a reason why that would be so.

If you end up with someone who has convinced you that he or she is THE ONLY teacher who can teach you, or claims to be THE BEST or THE MOST FAMOUS or THE FIRST, and that person turns out to be not nearly as good as they convinced you they were, it’s your fault if you stay.

One more thing: the teachers who really know what they are doing are not going to make you sell your first born child to raise money to pay for a lesson, either. Expensive is not a guarantee of effectiveness. If you know someone studying with a teacher who claims to be “the best, most famous, most important and greatest” singer teacher who ever lived send them a copy of this post.

We live in a society which doesn’t really value artists until and unless they become very very famous. Then they turn into demigods which is lamentable for the artists. Some survive that condition and some don’t. It can’t be an easy life. What happens to those who are really fine artists but who never make it to Lady Gaga status?  In a word, struggle. Finding an audience and making money can be very difficult.

For the past 40 years, maybe more, we have allowed music and art education in public schools to be beaten down into a nearly dead state. Music programs are among the first to go, typically before sports. The pity is that there are many children who might be quite talented if they had a chance to find out and the only way for that to happen (if you don’t have a parent or guardian who can facilitate it) is in school. I know several people who became professional musicians/singers because of the exposure they had to music in public school. I am one.

There are many private organizations doing what they can to make up for this loss. There is awareness that things aren’t good. What is lacking, however, is made worse because of the consciousness of the average person. What they know of music is found only on American Idol, X Factor and Glee or on the local “top 40” radio station. That’s a sorry state of affairs indeed.

The discipline of learning to appreciate music can also teach you how to appreciate other things. And the relation between performing arts and fine arts is an important one. Creating art and/or music connects us to aspects of ourselves that can’t be accessed through the intellect alone.

I have dear long-time friends who are not much for the arts.  They don’t read books, they don’t attend musical events. He likes the outdoors, she likes her above-the-ground pool. They are wonderful people, but the arts don’t mean much to them. We went with them once to the Metropolitan Museum and visited the American Wing. They found an old formal portrait  to be peculiar and laughed at it, thinking it stupid. I was horrified. It represented a particular aesthetic of a certain period in American history that was quite important and I thought it was wonderful to see how artists reflected that aspect of their society at that time. These two people attended the same school I did but they did not have any music or art courses while I took all of them that were available. Perhaps, even then, the paths of our tastes were well established, but would it have been the same if they had been required to take an arts course? Our school had plenty of them back in the day.

What is lamentable is that people in our country do not understand what they lose when they don’t live in and with the a wide variety of the arts. They do not understand how their day-to-day lives could be enriched by hearing music that’s never going to be on a top 40 radio program, or by having a fine painting to view in their living room every evening.

If there are any kids in your life, even if it’s the neighbor’s kids, offer to take them to a concert of classical music, music theater, or jazz. Offer to take them to hear an opera or a concert or a cabaret performer. Take them to hear an alternative band or a folk singer. Take them to the art exhibits at Washington Square Park every summer. Take them to a museum. Be an advocate. Be an inspiration. It’s up to us.

I attended a benefit performance at Joe’s Pub last evening. The cause was breast cancer research (a very good cause), the producing group was Broadway World and the honored artist was composer Jule Styne. The performers were drawn largely from the Broadway community.

Unfortunately, the evening was very uneven. It was generous of all the performers to give their time but some of the singing was very questionable. One would think that all professionals would do better than “so-so” but perhaps that’s just wishful thinking.

I am not interested in reviewing each vocalist by name, so if you weren’t there or you haven’t seen it on the web, you won’t know who sang what, and that’s fine with me. I am not looking to comment on the individuals involved but on their vocal presentations. That’s what this blog is about – singing.

The opening number, “Don’t Rain On My Parade”, was more or less yelled by the young woman singing. It carried with it today’s idea that loud is good, very loud is better and extremely loud without vibrato is best. There was little connection to the emotion of the song and no effort whatsoever to perform it. [This is what comes of being told by well-meaning but wrong-headed teachers: stand still and sing the song.] She needs to see Streisand’s film. The next number was sung by a seasoned Broadway veteran who is known for her loud rock style. She was clearly out of her comfort zone with “I Guess I’ll Hang My Tears Out To Dry” but she followed this by a very flat rendition of “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend” while reading the lyrics, attempting to play the drums and basically throwing the song away. Clearly, she had given this evening’s performance zero forethought. She also didn’t know that Styne wrote the music, not the words. Gee.

Then we had several vocalists in a row sing with variations of wobble, pitch problems and no clear clue about style. These singers weren’t bad but they weren’t good, either. Why would you stand up in front of any New York audience and sing off pitch as a professional? “Three Coins In The Fountain” isn’t a difficult song. It’s not rangy, it’s not melodically complicated and it isn’t emotionally chaotic. Nailing the pitches ought to be a given, but I guess not at that performance. Point of view about the song? Beats me. “People” was sung nicely. That helped make up for “Three Coins”.

Ditto big belty numbers from Gypsy, Styne’s most well known show. When your vibrato covers a whole step, maybe it’s time to re-think your vocal production. Gutsy, yes. Committed, yes. Musical, not so much. Everything wasn’t Coming Up Roses. No.

Then, finally, someone who understood the song, knew how to sing it, gave a great performance and absolutely belonged up there. “All I Need Now Is The Girl” can be hard to do without the dancing but the fellow didn’t need to add anything to make the song come to life. It was a relief.

The evening was dominated by women, but another young man did a decent job with his first song, “Time After Time”. Very acceptable rendition. The second song was just a mistake to include. He accompanied himself (sort of) on guitar and seemed embarrassed to sing “Let It Snow” in May. Too bad. Charming young performer, though.

One of the  two “big names” also fell into the category of the earlier singers: loud is good and louder is better but really loud is ultimately the most impressive. If you don’t consider why the song wants you to get louder and where the breaths ought to go in order for the lyrics to make sense, you can only get so far on impressiveness for its own sake. “His Is The Only Music That Makes Me Dance” is a very lyrical, soaring song that needs to be sung, really sung. Uneven vowels and phrasing and indeterminate vocal production do not meet that demand. There was a big ovation as there always is for loud singing but I was quite disappointed. From this artist, in particular, this song should have been so much better than it was. In order for that to have happened, however, it would have needed to be deconstructed and re-examined as the fine song it is and done from a much more detailed, honest place. Being well-known can be a deadly trap.

Then, a younger woman came out and did a lesser known song about Jelly Roll Morton and was quite wonderful. Direct, clear, simple and with just the right amount of pizzazz. It, too, was a relief.

And THEN, we were allowed the great gift of hearing Anita Gillette (whose name deserves special mention) sing “The Party’s Over” and got to see what the real deal about that song and that cabaret evening was. It was in a class by itself and deservedly so. She redeemed the whole evening with that one piece.

Toward the end of the evening a lovely young vocalist came out and did a very sweet first verse of “Just In Time” from the same show, Bells Are Ringing. The second verse, though, turned into a kind of rock/pop/jazz version which made no sense, especially since the musicians stuck to a straight swing beat for the whole song. This artist has a great voice, pretty belty, but freely produced and expressive, but her musical sense was just off.

At the end we got to listen to some wonderful theater stories from Anita Gillette as she was answering questions. To finish the evening, the audience was invited to sing along on “Together” from Gypsy by someone from Broadway World who came out in an orange baseball cap. He was extremely awkward, embarrassing to watch and spoke much too long about things that had nothing whatsoever to do with the evening. In fact, beyond the fact that the banner about breast cancer research was up, nothing about that very important topic was mentioned at all. It was just weird.

There was a director of this show and a musical director, too. You have to wonder, what did they do? The whole thing had a kind of “thrown together” atmosphere, as if they did a talk-through with the musicians and then winged it. Too bad. People deserved better.

Just because someone has been on Broadway, you can’t assume they know how to approach songs they don’t normally sing, in a style they don’t typically perform and someone ought to be in charge of some kind of minimum standard for the performers who are going out before a paying public (in a packed house). I guess no one was.

I write this review because I often wax elegant about what is here in New York to hear, as if all performances were of the highest quality. That’s not so. I also write this because I want people who are not in New York to understand that even here, there are people who have had successful careers in the entertainment industry who really do not understand how to sing well, or maybe don’t care about singing well, even when they call themselves professional singers. It’s never a guarantee and it is always a surprise when they are not so good.

That’s why, when you find something terrific in all directions it’s pretty special, wherever you are. When it’s not, it’s best to “let it go”. After writing this, I am.

 

 

That which is of lasting value cannot be measured in brief moments. Characteristics of the soul take time to develop.

Honesty, integrity, loyalty, perseverance, dedication, persistence, humility, compassion, generosity…..all these and more take time to emerge in life. Facing something once is very different than dealing with it every day for months, years, or decades. When we speak of someone’s character we are describing qualities that can be perceived through their behavior, their habits, attitudes, and their outlook on life. A quick first impression can sometimes be very misleading. The only way to really know someone is to be in close association with them over time.

This can be said about the voice, too. It takes a while for a voice to be cultivated to its fully developed capacity. Only after that happens can it be determined what its natural characteristics are. If it isn’t allowed to grow naturally, over time, exploring all possibilities in the process, it’s possible to decide too soon what kind of a voice it is and live with that limitation, wrongly, for the rest of life. Voices, like people, can change over time, sometimes quite a bit, but not if they are restricted to only certain kinds of sounds, and not if that restriction is put in place early in its development.

Discovering what someone’s singing voice wants to do is a fun-filled exploration. Singing through various kinds of repertoire, trying this and that, is like going someplace you’ve never been before, discovering new sights and sounds along the way, and deciding what you like best so you can go back there again and again. The lasting value of knowing what your voice wants to do, what it can be asked to do, and what it really does not want to do, cannot be measured, but is very important. Not knowing leaves you wondering, and not exploring leaves you clueless. Both situations are unfortunate.

I had enough knowledge of my voice that when some teachers told me that it was something it wasn’t, I was at least suspicious, if not certain that that advice was not for me. As it emerged, I found through trial and error what it could do and what it didn’t like. Any time I let myself forget and get wooed away I always paid a price and had to re-group to get back to balance.

The lasting value of knowing your voice for all that it is over time is that you are free then to use its full compass with freedom and to honor its natural boundaries with dignity. You can’t substitute something else for that wisdom.