Various Posts

If you are a pro, on Broadway, doing a lead in a Broadway show, and if you have also done other shows as a lead, and been a professional for a long time, and you retire and decide to go back to school, to enter into academia, do you somehow become the equivalent of a 21 year old?

The sad answer is YUP. Why should this be?

Because in order to educate, you have to have criteria. You have to create guidelines, requirements, measurement, and parameters. You have to put whatever subject you are teaching into some kind of a codified box that can be conveyed in a linear manner. You have to be able to organize your topic into certain kinds of accepted ingredients so that it can be evaluated and measured. In other words, in order to study the frog, you have to kill the frog. You might find out what is inside it, but you won’t know what a frog is until you realize that you have to go observe it in the environment in which it lives with other creatures.

By definition, an artist is someone who sees the world uniquely and redefines reality, first for him or herself, and ultimately for the rest of us. When an artist expresses something about the human condition that illuminates it in a new way, and when that artist seems to transcend what has gone before, we can all learn and experience something about life that we might otherwise have missed. Artists, then, are the opposite of academics. They are ineffable, indefinable, and cannot be put into a rigid category. When you tie an artist down, you lose what it is that makes the art itself.

Language is linear. We are stuck with expressing through words, one at a time, in a line, that takes time to verbalize or write. We cannot express the three dimensional sensorial life that we all experience using words, although we try. Living art, that which is not on a printed page, cannot be captured as a moment in time, although the fine arts, which create painting, sculpture and other forms of concrete expression come close to that. Writing, too, when it is brilliant, can create a mental picture just as vivid as one that is painted. Music, of course, can be written down and replicated, but the performance of music is a “moment by moment” event that is never the same twice, except after it is made into a recording.

If we are to evaluate singing, it should be done by working only with professional singers in professional venues, in front of audiences that have paid to see and hear the singers. If we are to evaluate the singers, we should ascertain whether they have been able to sing for not less than 5 years, have been relatively healthy from a vocal production point of view, and have a credibility in the professional world amongst their peers for being able to consistently do their job of being professional singers. Then, and only then, should we award degrees to the singers, most especially at the level of master’s degrees, because we would then have actual evidence that the singers are, indeed, masters of their craft. If there were to be “doctorates” for vocalists, then that award would be given to those who are 30, 40, 50 or even 60 years singing (like Tony Bennett, Barbara Cook, Barbra Streisand, Elton John, Placido Domingo and many others who have really been around the block and still sing well) because they have earned the right to be considered true experts in the school of life called singing. Do we do any of this?

And, if we really wanted to study singing, we would only do our research in the field. We would bring the machinery to the backstages of theaters, arenas, clubs, stages and opera houses, and put the tubes into the throats of the singers in between performances. We would study them closely on cameras from various angles and we would evaluate the vocal production using whatever means are currently available as acoustic measurement. Has this been done? Once, maybe.

But, if you have all the experience in the world and you are very skilled and you do the process as well as anyone in your field could ask you to do it, and you go into an academic institution, you will still be judged by people who maybe couldn’t do what you’ve done in a million years. You will still have people who have never performed in the same way decide if you are “good enough” or not. You will still be judged by individuals who maybe didn’t perform anywhere at all but have spent decades teaching, sometimes only college students who could sing decently in the first place, and they will decide if you “qualify” to be given a specific piece of paper. And that paper will say that you are a singer of distinction, a singer recognized by your academic peers (who maybe wouldn’t really know if you were a good country singer or rock singer in any way), and that you have passed their tests. Your life experience may be seen as nothing of import and your ability of no consequence. Your grades, however, would count as being “important” even if they were 40 years old.

Forgive me if I find this situation ridiculous. It is the truth of the moment, however, and it isn’t going to change any time soon.

Did you know that at the voice conferences there is a pecking order?

The MDs are at the top, the voice scientists are right there at the top, too, depending on whether the conference is medical or scientific, but if it is both, it could be either profession who is “King of the Road”. This is followed by the Speech Language Pathologists, especially those who do research, then by the teachers of classical singing, then by the teachers of professional speech for actors, then by the performers, then, maybe, by various students. Teachers of CCM might be in there somewhere, too, but maybe not.

The MDs don’t often appear at the voice conferences (NATS/NYSTA) and hardly ever sit through a singing teacher’s presentation of terms that singing teachers or performers use as part of the “professional jargon”. They may or may not understand professional criteria in terms of expectations for any given style or why one singing teacher might be very different than another, assuming that both are competent. The MDs who mostly treat professional voice users know much more about all this than their counterparts, but they are absolutely in the minority, and even they don’t know all that much about the other disciplines’ worlds.

One of the most important interdisciplinary voice conferences has a “pre-conference” tutorial for those not familiar with voice science or medicine, to help participants understand the presentations that are to follow. I thought it would be nice if the singing teachers were allowed to present what the doctors and scientists need to know about Broadway, recordings, club dates, rock bands, jazz clubs, etc. just in terms of the language used and the professional parameters that the singers must meet. I thought that would put all the professions on equal footing, stating, by example, that the MDs should take in some information from the teachers of singing and that the scientists should do the same. Didn’t happen. Not surprised.

Singing teachers are still learning from scientists like Dr. Ingo Titze and Dr. Robert Sataloff, both of whom write regular columns for the Journal of Singing. I wonder, though, how many singing teachers write articles for medical journals or the scientific publications like the Journal of Acoustics (probably none is a good guess). So, if we are “equal” to the other professions, it is often so that the actual behavior of the other disciplines does not back that up. It’s changing, and I think it is getting better, but teachers of singing could help their own cause by making a little bit more noise in the direction of MDs and SLPs, urging them to participate in our conferences and events.

When everyone presents equally in any of the disciplines at any of the conferences and when all of us are familiar with the basics of the other professions, then we will really be professional equals. We aren’t there yet.

The jury is out about whether or not it is so that only “big, impressive” voices can have successful careers in opera in the USA. Do those with “lighter” voices have to sing “early music” or go to various concert or recital venues if they want to have a crack at viable work as classical singers? Or, as some have it, do lighter voices have a better chance now than in the past?

Some artists who have major careers, like Cecilia Bartoli, have very small and delicate voices. Ms. Bartoli wiggles and jiggles while she sings, which is hard to watch. Yes, she is very vocally agile, she can be very animated and she is musically very secure, but having seen Marilyn Horne do many of the same pieces standing stock still, lampooning those runs with a big fat tone, and expressing every bit of the music’s color and communication, I have to say Ms. Bartoli did not impress me much, yet, there she is, in a place as large as Carnegie (although the acoustics there are very good). She has sung at the Met, too, although I don’t know how she would ever have carried well enough to be heard without electronic help.

Singers like Bidu Sayao and Lili Pons, John McCormack, a young Gigli, and others including Roberta Peters might find it difficult to be famous if there were starting out now. On the other hand, Juan Diego Florez has done just fine and his voice isn’t big.

One reason why “heroic voices” might be so popular here might be that our opera houses are so big. Another might be that conductors let orchestras play as loudly as possible a good deal of the time. Another could be that we are so used to amplification that normal-sized voices don’t make it. After all, we can turn up the sound on the iPod as loudly as we want. And, the very popular emphasis on the “lowered larynx” style of vocal production does make for a heavier, darker sound, even though it makes high notes harder to do and takes out a good deal of the brilliance that used to be associated with opera singing, making those who can sing easily at the loudest volumes (rather than with the brightest tone) most able to survive an evening-long performance.

If you listen to Corelli or Pavarotti and then to Licitra you will hear the absence of this ringy brilliance. Without it, it is hard for a voice to carry over an orchestra unless that voice is really loud in terms of decibels (over 100 dB probably). Sopranos could maybe be heard above the staff just because of the pitch but lower pitches would get lost and lower voices in general would sound “woofy”, a quality that is unfortunately easy to find these days, even in very good singers. It shows up less often in those trained outside the USA, but even in people trained in Italy (such as Licitra) you can hear it. Big, but not brilliant.

Since we don’t ever hear CCM voices unamplified, it’s also a matter of comparison. We don’t have other kinds of styles to compare classical singing to in terms of vocal output. Perhaps years ago when everyone was unamplified, because there were no microphones, the contrast of being “just a little louder” as an opera singer was enough. We will probably never know.

There is a lot of distortion out there in the music marketplace now, in all styles. Between electronic manipulation and vocal production that can be very extreme, plain simple singing connected to actual human emotion can be hard to find. It’s not gone, but when it shows up and the voice is good, it can be startling.

Has there always been a lag between education and the real world? Has it always been so that higher education in particular is insulated from the day to day pulse of life? And at what point, if someone is getting an “applied” degree, does the education of the student relate to the world where that “application” takes place?

I wonder all the time why it is that the world of vocal music education doesn’t RUN and EMBRACE new ideas and approaches, particularly when there are ever expanding music theater degrees being offered in music departments that were previously only classical. If the students are being wooed to come to these colleges by promises of “Agents’ Showcases”, “Meetings with Casting Directors”, and “Contact With Industry Professionals”, but the people teaching the courses in the department have no intention of “training to the marketplace”, how is that dichotomy being addressed? (Hint: it’s not).

I wonder, too, why it is that people who don’t sing well can tell other people how to sing. Is this because there is magic in the pieces of paper they hang on their wall? Is this because it doesn’t matter if you can’t do something as long as you can get someone else to do it? It is because they don’t know what to look for when they put up job notices? (Hint: all of these).

One of the oddest things about the human race is how quickly people want to blame the victim. It is also so that the teachers who do not have adequate means to educate a student to sing rock or pop music are very quick to say it is the student who is at fault. It is the student who is dense, doesn’t try, “likes to squeeze his throat”, “holds on to his jaw”, etc.

I read recently about an activist in coal country who went to battle with the coal mining company that owned the same mine in which over 20 people perished last year. The woman was fighting to stop mountain top mining, which leaves the mountain ruined, the water polluted and the ground contaminated. In some of the most beautiful rural areas of the USA, where people have been on the same land for 5 or 6 generations, the mining companies come in to lay waste to the entire area to get coal, one of the dirtiest fuels to mine, to process and to use. Did the neighbors join her? Did the people around her rally around her and help her fight the mining company? No, they threatened to kill her. They threatened to harm her family. She passed away last week from cancer (which is how I read about her), leaving as her legacy a new school far away from the noxious fumes that blew through the last school. Why attack her? Why not attack the bad guys? Because they saw her campaign as something that might cost them their jobs. Jobs that basically kill them. Every miner eventually dies from mining.

College teachers have to eat. They need a job. They don’t want anyone to know they don’t know. They are not going to speak up on behalf of the students if that might open up a debate they could possibly lose.

Students who intend to go to college to study music theater should be aware. Where you go and what you learn depends quite a bit on luck in terms of what you will get. You could get lucky and learn a lot, but you could also have much trouble and learn stuff that is not useful, or even harmful.

Most schools are behind the times. Remember that.

If you are an opera singer and have no experience and/or training in music theater, but you teach it, how could you possibly approach it without using classical tools? Would you even know that you don’t know? There are a lot of teachers in this category, as we discovered this in our research (2006 and 2008, JoV).

I noticed today in “Classical Singer Magazine” that the summer opera programs are offering all varieties of classical training……early music, Wagner, Italian opera, lieder, operetta……and, in some of them, oh yeah, there’s music theater (stuck on the end, like dessert). What, I wonder, are they teaching? Rodgers and Hammerstein? Lerner and Lowe? Sigmund Romberg? GREASE???? RENT??????? SPRING AWAKENING????????? ROCK OF AGES??????????????????????????

Cheez, Louise!

Why not hire people who are on Broadway NOW to teach music theater? Why not hire people from Broadway who have been teaching professionals on the Great White Way for decades? (There are quite a few of us here.) What good is it to stick “music theater” in with all the other disciplines, as if it were just something you could toss off or doodle around with, if all you have to offer is teachers from the world of opera?

Perhaps I’m wrong. I don’t know. Maybe they make it work. I have never been to one of these summer opera festivals and I have no knowledge of what actually happens in them. Still. It makes me wonder.

And.

That’s not the only thing that makes me wonder.

There is an INTERNATIONAL CABARET CONFERENCE at Yale that offers training that costs about $3,000 every year. People come there to work with professionals (who often ARE from Broadway) on how to do cabaret. The brochures says, “Learning how to touch the heart may be the main goal of the conference. But the students also learn how to dress and do their hair and makeup. And they learn about sound, lighting and marketing.” MARKETING????????

You have to know, folks, that there are NO, and I mean NO professional venues for cabaret performers who are unknown. Here in NYC we have a few places like the Oak Room at the Algonquin Hotel, Feinstein’s at the Regency, and The Café Carlyle where NAME performers do acts but please realize that only those who are famous or have a large loyal following can work in these places. There is also a separate Cabaret Convention every year in NYC, and the people who are performers in that Convention are only known to the other performers and to the small group of people who come every year to the Convention. You don’t know them and neither does anyone who doesn’t go to there. Philip Officer? Karen Akers? Not household names. Yet, the International Cabaret Conference program charges THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS for a short summer course…….guess who benefits from that? I think they should offer a course called “How to lose your shirt by attempting to perform cabaret in a dead market.” I consider this entire enterprise borderline un-ethical, as teaching people to do something that has no outlet, and hasn’t had one since the 1950s is outrageous but every year they advertise and every year people go. OK, you want to do it for fun, as a hobby, but WHERE? In your church basement? You can RENT “Don’t Tell Mama’s” on 46th Street here in NYC, which is a bonafide cabaret space, but it will cost you a bundle and then, when all your family and friends have come to see you, that’s it. No career to launch, as there is no marketplace in which to land. The person who thought up this “training” is raking in the dough, people, and no one can stop him. Hokey Smoke, Bullwinkle!

Makes my head spin.

I heard today about someone who has just been hired to take charge of a music theater program in a New York City college who has stated out loud that he hates music theater.

This is not the first thing like this I’ve encountered. I can only imagine how that will help the students, never mind the teachers.

I also know a person who is in charge of another college music theater training program, also here in NYC, who has no musical training, no background in music and no training in voice. All of the music theater students study with this man and he stages the agents’ showcase at the end of the year, frequently with no clue of how he absolutely kills the musicality of many of the songs, and of the kids’ expression of same.

I know teachers who continue to teach kids to sing all music, no matter what kind it is, in a classical vocal sound.

AND, if you think about it, the main classical critic of the NY Times, Anthony Tommasini, has no clue that the world has progressed past “masque resonance” and “diaphragmatic breath support” as an indication of “vocal technical skill”. He does not know the least about how to evaluate any music but classical but has tried a few times to discuss “crossover” with clearly no idea about how to address that issue. This man is probably one of the most powerful critics in the world, but when it comes to singing, he is way behind the times.

In the opposite direction, I know at least one R&B vocalist who has been ill, has lost her voice and doesn’t want to take any lessons, for who knows what reasons. The R&B artist (or jazz vocalist, or rock singer) does not necessarily understand that functional training isn’t going to make the sound become operatic, or that “losing the voice” is not permanent, or that it is possible to again learn to do something you could once do in your sleep with no effort, in a deliberate manner. A sad state of affairs but not all that unusual.

The hardest thing is breaking through all the walls of ignorance. Ignorance is dark, it closes out the light of expansion and locks the door to growth. Any analogy works. Look how long it took for human beings to figure out how to fly, something that humanity had dreamed of for thousands of years, and look how quickly we went from the Wright brothers to putting a man on the moon. Thinking that there is just one way to sing and one standardized approach to classical singing that meets all vocal needs is much like being the Wright brothers before their plane got off the ground at Kitty Hawk. In good time, all training will be functional and everyone will learn how to sing all kinds of sounds for all kinds of music. We aren’t there yet, but wait a hundred years and these days will look like the ones just before the famous brothers made their historic flight.

In between, we need to face down stupidity whenever we encounter it. If you are stuck in a department that hires people who don’t know music theater or hate it, and you have to work under those people, see if you can help to open their eyes to what they do not know. Pierce the darkness with your own strong light. That’s all we have.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

We enter life with a cry, we go out with a sigh. Sound is our pathway, coming in and leaving.

In a human being who is free to express, emotions often come with sounds, released spontaneously. Laughter, tears, screams, shouts, grunts. This is the universal language of humanity. Laughter and crying are the same in all languages. We all understand the sound of someone giggling. A scream can be one of joy or pain, one of surprise or one of anguish. Moans, too, can be ones of pleasure or of pain. It is interesting that some of the sounds we make that are wordless are not as clear cut as others.

If singing is a magnification of speech, if it is an expression that combines both words and music, then it is a bridge between the mundane day to day world and the one in which our emotional life is amplified. If it brings together the same kind of freely released sustained sound as that of spontaneous expressions of life, then it is a special kind of sound making that is in itself unique.

Much of what we hear today as vocal music is lifeless. Canned, electronically manipulated, distorted, messed around with. Where, really, can you hear live music that isn’t affected by the machinery available to us? How are we to know about this special magical thing called singing if few of us are exposed to it in a live, immediate way? And what of the people who have those amazing, one-of-a-kind voices that can only be experienced in person? How do you describe what it is to hear Luciano Pavarotti live, unamplified to someone who has only heard that great voice over a piece of machinery?

I recently sang in front of one of the younger groups of the Brooklyn Youth Chorus in a teaching session with them. I was demonstrating my range, explaining how it is that some people can sing higher than others. Mind you, I do not have an impressive voice, and I have no delusions that what I do is “world class” in any way. Rather, it is just a well-trained light classical lyric soprano and I am fortunately enough to still sing, at 61, rather easily above high C. I was amused to see the expressions on the young faces in front of me, and it made me realize that a good percentage of these kids, probably most of them, have never been in the presence of a trained voice, standing in close proximity to their ears, singing without help from a microphone or speakers. Their faces were a delight to see and their reactions (“Cool!” “Wow!”) were even more delightful. I had forgotten what it was like to hear a trained classical voice right in front of me for the first time. It was an unforgettable experience and I was not a child, but a young adult. Prior to that, all of my teachers both in school and privately were either musicians (pianists) or retired teachers who no longer sang. The teacher I had in New York was in the prime of his life and still performing as an operatic tenor. Hearing him sing in my lessons, from 5 feet away, was thrilling. Yes, I had been to many performances, and had heard many recordings by then, but the distance between me and the stage was just enough to make the sound rather less intense than it was in a small voice studio.

Someone with a trained, distinctive, unique voice, fully connected to emotion and a clear intention, singing beautiful music live, without amplification, is doing something special. Some people never experience hearing and seeing such an event. In fact, I would venture to say that MOST people do not get to have that experience, or the one of hearing well trained children singing together live, without any outside help (except maybe being conducted).

We have all these experiences in living. Simple sighs, everyday sounds of laughter or tears, and the magnified sounds of trained voices expressing powerful feelings. The smallest and the greatest, the alpha and omega of what it means to be a sound making human being. Something to contemplate and to appreciate all year long.

It really is amazing when you think of it how much energy goes into Christmas in America. The decorations, the concerts, the symbolism, the MUSIC. We are surrounded by it, whether we are practicing Christians or not. No other holiday comes close, and we have a lot of them. Why is this celebration so big? Is it just the commercialism? That’s part of it, surely. I think, though, that the energy behind and underneath Christmas would make anyone want to celebrate something, and celebration is always, ALWAYS accompanied by music and singing.

I am “generically spiritual” in that I believe in something larger being underneath and through everything, and in everyone. I have a problem with the rules and regulations of religious dogma of any kind and I have a really big problem with any negative precepts that are cloaked in righteousness under the name of “God”.

Christmas represents the birth of the man called Jesus. It ought to remind us of ideas in his teachings like peace on earth and good will to men/people, but if you have ever stood on a long slow line of grumpy customers in a crowded department store a couple of days before the holiday, being waited on by exhausted underpaid sales clerks, you may not much encounter those bright feelings, in your own heart or in the hearts of those you see. It takes an act of will to be full of peace on earth in those circumstances, but isn’t that the point?

What good are any kind of teachings if one does not try to live them on an hour to hour, day to day basis? What good are any kind of teachings if they do not guide you to be more accepting, more tolerant, more compassionate? Why would anyone want to participate in anything that pushes you to close up, pass judgement, and regard your fellow beings (both two and four footed, as well as those with no limbs at all) as being “lesser” in any way? Why would anyone want to make the world colder, nastier, and more hostile, when that is the easy way? It is much harder to look at the world with a positive attitude without being foolishly sappy or blind.

Praise of life, praise of all of what life contains — good and bad, ups and downs, suffering and joy — is wrapped up in the bundle that we call Christmas. The child in each of us is born out of the darkness (in the northern hemisphere) or prepares to enter the darkness (in the southern hemisphere) to begin again, with the innocence of a babe, to engage life in its most basic way. The mundane, simple repetitive tasks that we all do every day are the keys to the kingdom. Finding that, and rejoicing in the depth and simplicity of it, the heart bursts with hope and with satisfaction. Surely, this is the message, that each of us is free to find within that which saves us from the pain of life itself. This discovery, which is utterly miraculous, can only burst forth in ecstasy…..in lights, color, and generosity of all kinds and in the most universal expression of all — the sound of the human voice making music.

So, it makes sense to decorate the outside (trees) and the inside (fireplaces) and to share our abundance, joy and commonality and what better way to do that than to sing carols with others, or to attend a concert of music that is familiar and has been heard by millions for many years? What better thing is there for us as singers to do than sing? The holiday itself, representing the birth of Jesus, but also representing the mystical reason for a Jesus (and all the other great spiritual teachers) to live here amongst us, is worth celebrating. The reminder is that the teachings attributed to Jesus admonish us to “love one another” and “treat others as you would be treated”. What better lesson can his life teach us? What better experience can each of us come to comprehend?

Tonight I had the great privilege of hearing Jenny Burton sing. Jenny is a wonder. I can’t imagine anyone seeing her perform who does not recognize that the amount of talent in this one human being is stupendous. You can’t take your eyes off her when she sings and her voice is capable of many kinds of sounds. (Listen to her at www.watchfiremusic.com)

She moves constantly with grace and beauty, joy and freedom while she sings. She never ever stands with her arms hanging limp at her sides, as so many now do, and her face radiates the beauty that shines from deep within her as she pours forth the music from her heart. It’s as if she goes directly to heaven and links us up to the source of all music through her voice.

I do not know why Jenny did not have a major international career such as the one Whitney Houston had when she was in her heyday. I do not know why everyone does not know this woman, but I do know that singing such as this graces the world, makes it a better place and lifts up the weary to give them strength to go on going on. Even if you never hear it, it makes you a better person, somehow, in that it sends such juice into the molecules of air around her that they get carried into the ethers with more spin and sooner or later, all that energy bounces back to each of us.

When I hear Jenny sing, I remember that I, too, sing. I remember the many people I have known in my life who also sing, and I remember how many of them are wonderful, special singers who have never been recognized by the world. They do not have careers, you will not see or hear them, they are not going to be famous and they may never even make a professional recording. They may have given up their dreams, or been forced by life to go in a different direction, but in their hearts, that love of singing, that commitment to song — words and melody — never diminished. Those people are Jenny’s kin, they family that she has all over the world.

Those of us who sing, who are deeply commited to singing and what being a singer gives us, understand. That the soul can be fed by singing, and by listening to singers who understand how to dive deep into the ocean of sound that is in us and around us, is something singers deeply know. We realize that singing is not a material possession, we know that is cannot be weighed or measured. We comprehend that we cannot hold onto it or bequeath it to others when we die. We know it is alive moment to moment and then gone and we recognize that every singer, every song, every time, is unique and special. We live knowing that it is something to be cherished nonetheless, because the singular experience of hearing someone sing while living in each second as a carrier of the most potent force in the universe — sound — is unforgettable and always a gift.

Thanks, Jenny.

R & B or Rhythm and Blues, a form of rock music that has its roots in jazz, has very specific characteristics and you have to have a feeling for what they are. As with any style, in order to do it effectively, you have to have the sound “in your ears” which takes a lot of listening. If you do not grow up with this music, or grow up singing it, you don’t really just “do it” without help. This is true of Broadway stylistically as well. Many classically trained singers/teachers just don’t have the feeling for Broadway, even when they think they do, and even when they teach it. It’s hard to explain in words. Even the true jazz folks often don’t do well with Broadway, as it isn’t improvisational but you don’t always play what’s written exactly as it is on the page either. Some things adjust more than others. If you don’t have the difference in your ear, you can’t fake it. This has to do with how much listening you’ve done to any particular style (but under the guidance of someone who can teach you how to hear) but also how much you have sung in those styles.

The sad thing is that the people who “crossover” without working on style with someone who actually is expert in that style, often don’t know that they don’t know. I’ve seen this more times than I care to think. Young people sometimes think singing something in a different manner (a guy singing a girl’s song, making a serious song a parody, etc), in other words, taking a song and standing it on its head, is OK because is it. “Different for its own sake as an end in itself.” They think it shows how creative or talented they are but I always find this pointless. It takes a lot of skill to pull off a switch of this kind and many people try and fail. (Just ask Renee Fleming or Michael Bolton.) This is why I typically am against teachers in colleges having students sing material that the teachers do not do, because the teachers often don’t know what’s missing themselves and that just adds insult to injury.

Anyone who did our gospel workshop, taught by Dr. Ronald High, at our Institute at Shenandoah Conservatory in July will tell you that singing gospel isn’t just about learning the songs and singing them with “emotion”. Until I sang with professional gospel artists for five years, I had no idea of what was and was not part of that idiom, but I learned. I still don’t sing gospel tunes like the great gospel belters (wouldn’t think of it) but at least I can hear and appreciate what they are doing when they are secure and expressive.

There has to be a connection between the voice (or the vocal instrument), the body (posture and breathing), the personality of the singer, and the kind of music being sung. They work best when they match. Anyone who is going to sing metal had better be an athlete. If you are going to sing folk songs, maybe that’s not so necessary. If you like doing theater songs, you have to be able to act authentically but you need to know the difference between singing a song that was written in the 30s by Irving Berlin and one from the 80s by Stephen Sondheim. You don’t sing them the same way. The word “type” as it applies to theater is there for a reason.

If you are a shy 20 year old female and have a sweet light voice and no formal vocal training, and you want to sing like Christina Aguilera, you are going to encounter problems. If you are a a rock singer whose only experience with singing has been in a band, and get cast in a Broadway show, without any further training or adjustment, you will encounter problems doing 8 shows a week. It happens, and more often than you might think. If you are operatically trained and you have been hired to sing “Annie” in Annie Get Your Gun, unless you are really unusual, you will encounter problems, especially when you go back to singing opera.

If we need a specific example, let’s look at the song “And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going” from Dreamgirls. This song, popular now for decades, is one that’s for a vocalist with a really hardy, powerful instrument with a strong body. It’s not for a lyric voice unless that voice is no longer singing lyric material and has worked for YEARS to go in a different direction. You really need both vocal and physical strength to do it well. In Somatic Voicework™ I teach that everyone can make all sounds but I also say that the instrument matters, as does training (both type and length) and life experience (studying and singing, listening and performing). In this, we establish boundaries of both personality and function, of musical style and appropriateness. I think those things set SVW off from other approaches (although I could be wrong because I am not expert in other people’s methods). We teach body/mind, spirit/music, science/humanity. If they are all not there, we feel that the delivery is, basically, “weird” or “wrong”.