Various Posts

Functional training is very important if you have to work alone. You can sound fine, and feel fine, but not be doing what you need to do in a way that works. Sometimes checking for functional reasons is the only way to tell what’s going on. Listening won’t do it, acceptable musical results won’t do it, but functional evaluation will.

I am preparing at the moment to sing at a community concert for the holidays, doing a classical piece that requires a sustained pianissimo high Bb followed by a top of the staff G. I am also doing two jazz pieces. Getting ready for both of these at the same time has been challenging.

I sound fine but I don’t feel fine, although the voice is almost where I need it to go. The high stuff was always available. I could sing the piece but I thought it sounded frail or lifeless and I was working much too hard on the breathing. The jazz pieces seemed too high to do in mix but I didn’t want to do them in belty chest, either and I would never do them in head. The middle jiggled back and forth between too light, too heavy, unstable and stuck. Frustrating. Still, I knew better than to let that get in the way of practicing every day (something I do not do when I don’t have a performance pending….bad, bad). Today, for the first time, both sides of the equation were comfortable, responsive and not very hard. I know, however, that it can get better and do more. Good that I have another 10 days.

Most of the people I work with develop the ability to tell when the voice is “off” and generally can fix it themselves using the functional work we do. Sometimes, however, fixing your own voice is likely a bit like trying to fix your own teeth if you are a dentist…….

Learning what healthy function is can be a very important thing to a working singer but learning what your own healthy functional default should be is even more important and that is different for each performer, based upon what that person primarily sings. Balance is always first, but then the override has to be aimed at the material the person sings. The individual singers are the ones who have to say where their own voice needs to go. It takes me a while to find out what anyone’s voice is like when it is balanced and then a bit longer to discover how to counter-balance it towards that individual singer’s personal preference. I don’t tell the vocalist where that is, the person tells me. Sometimes it takes people a while to decide and sometimes they need to change their normal default for various reasons. They need to learn how to do that without harm and how to get back again when a particular gig or performance that demands the change is over.

Functional training is very important. It has almost nothing to do with “resonances” and “breath support”. If you do not know what it is, come to the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, in January and do the Level I training of my method, Somatic Voicework™.

Some overlap with the previous post here. Same things said a different way, but some new things, too.

Look at the song as a whole. Which phrase is the most important phrase in the entire song? Why? How many phrases lead up to it? Do any of them repeat, either in the words or in the notes, or both? Where? Look at the highest note in each phrase, locating where it is in terms of the phrase (beginning, middle, end) where it is in terms of the words (most to least important), look at how long it lasts and whether or not it has any dynamic markings. Compare this phrase to other phrases in the song, especially in terms of the form of the song (ABA, ABAB, ABC, ABCA, etc.) Make a diagram of this entire structure.

Notice the shape of the song in terms of the phrases. How many phrases lead up to the climatic moment? What happens as you go through the phrases (do they vary, and if they do, in what way)? What might the composer be suggesting in setting the music this way? Be sure to notice the density of the musical accompaniment (not a lot of notes underneath; moderate amount, but broken chords or running notes; moderate amount, but thick block chordal movement; lots of notes, lots of density with block chords, arpeggios, double octaves, extended range; a lot of notes, but not doubling the vocal line — mostly above or below the notes being sung). If the song is CCM then, can this be changed or adjusted in terms of an arrangement? Notice the dynamic markings in the accompaniment, paying attention to where they are and whether they differ from what is in the vocal line. How does this effect the overall tempo?

What other music has this composer written? Is this a typical piece? Is this typical of a certain period in the composer’s life? What do you know about the lyricist? When did they both live? What was happening then in the world, and in the area they were from? How might that have effected what they wrote/composed? What have other people done with this song in terms of how they performed it? Do you like what they have done? Why or why not?

What is the landscape of this song? If you were in a place, what place would you be in and why would you be there? Can you “walk around” (literally) in the room and see the landscape as you walk? Where is the stream, where are the rocks and trees? Where is your friend? Where is he sitting/standing? What does he have on? Where did he come from and how did he get there? Why are you there? When will you leave? Where will you go? Why will you go there?

Can you dance to this song? If it were a piece that was to be choreographed, what kind of choreography would be best? Ballet, modern, jazz, tap, ethnic music? Would you be dancing alone or with others? If you were to orchestrate it, what kind of instruments would you use?

If this song were to be painted, what colors would you use? What style — realistic, surrealism, impressionistic, romantic, cubist? If it were a sculpture, what materials would you use — clay, wood, stone, found objects? How big are they? Where did they come from? How do you react to those stimuli?

If the music were background for a film or video, can you “storyboard it” (that means make it into a cartoon, with blocks or squares for important points to illustrate the story)?

Are you tired yet?

There are so many ways to break down a song. Almost an unlimited number.

Here are a few, many of them well-known, but repeated, just in case.

Say the words out loud. Ask yourself what they mean, what they imply. Decide how you feel about that. Sing the words.

Say the words, paying particular attention to the sounded vowels. Elongate them, draw them out, very slowly. Linger on each sound. Connect all the vowels smoothly, running the words together without extra breaths in between them. Make the words into a spoken, intoned phrase. Sing the phrase with that in mind.

Say the words, noticing the rhythm of the words in speech. Pay attention to the places where the stresses are. See if you can speak the words with different stresses, even if it makes the words sound wrong. Then go back to the normal stresses, paying attention to them. Sing the phrase with that in mind.

Say the words on the rhythm, but without the pitches. Notice if that changes anything. Sing the phrase with that in mind.

Say the words gradually changing the volume, first as it seems appropriate, then randomly, without regard to the written phrase. See if you can increase and decrease the volume while also lengthening the vowels and slowing down the speed. Sing the phrase.

Sing the pitches on a nonsense syllable, paying attention to the melodic pattern. Do it several times to see where the highest and lowest pitches are in the phrase. Notice where you breathe or want to breathe or don’t want to breathe. Repeat.

Sing the pitches without rhythm on a nonsense syllable, making every note value the same. Sing the pitches the same way with the words.

Sing the rhythms on pah or dah, without pitch (stay on one note). Notice anywhere the rhythm is repeated, where the stresses (beats) are, where the patterns are. Say the words on rhythm. Sing the phrase. Notice any shifts in your own awareness.

Listen to the accompaniment separately. Notice its characteristics. Is it simple or complicated? Does it sit underneath the vocal line or is it a counterpoint? Is it musically difficult, in either rhythm or intervals or both? What range does it cover and where? Why would the composer have written it this way? Does it convey an image, a mood or a state of being (peaceful, aggitated, etc.)? Notice the rhythm, notice the stresses, identify the harmonic or chordal structure.

Think about the printed key. See if you can play or sing the song in other keys to notice if that changes the feeling or mood of the song overall.

Ask yourself why the composer might have chosen these words or this poem? What could have been his or her interest or motivation? Why was the poetry inspirational? Why was the music inspirational? What kinds of ideas or reasons would have been part of the creation of the piece overall? How do you relate to those ideas?

What can you say about the words as a story? If the song is traditional, what kind of story do the words convey? What might have been happening before? What will happen after? Where are you when you are singing? Is anyone else there? If so, where are they? Are they responding? If so, what are they saying? What made you say what you are singing? How do you feel when you sing the words?

If you are singing while standing, how are you standing? What do you look like to others? What are you doing with your body and why? Where are your arms, hands and feet? Why are they positioned the way they are? Do they stay still or move? Why? What should I know about the communication of the song by your body language? Are you congruent between your body, your movements, your words and your sound? [If the song is angry, do you look angry all the way down to your toes?]

Do you believe yourself when you are singing? If not, why not? What can you do to make yourself convinced that what you are singing about is real and important? If you are singing a sad song, do you feel sad when you sing it? If not, why not?

Has the composer asked you to do two contrary things? That is, has she set happy words to a long slow soft phrase? Has she set sad words to a jumpy fast rhythm and melody? Has she set a question with a descending vocal line? Has she written a climatic phrase in such as way as to de-emphasize the words? What does that suggest to you in terms of communicating the story or the music or both?

There’s more, but that’s enough for now. Have fun.

The tongue consists of 35 muscles, two matched sets and one in the middle. The larynx is suspended from the muscles in the front, under the chin, and attached to the side walls of the throat in the back (the upper constrictors). The “at rest” position of the tongue determines the acoustic possibilities of the shape of the vocal tract as it adjusts into various vowel shapes. While the front of the tongue determines which vowel we hear, the back determines how much the larynx can move and how much the muscles of the soft palate can stretch and lift. This has an effect on overall mobility of the larynx, and of the responsiveness of the laryngeal musculature to the crico-thryoid to stretch and thin the folds to raise pitch.

BUT

Muscles are muscles and they can, over time, stretch and adjust quite a bit. A trained dancer learns, over many years, to get the entire body to do things it doesn’t normally need to do. A ballet dancer, in particular, is doing a great number of things that bodies were never meant to do, but with enough time and attention, do quite well and without constant pain. The stretches that dancers and gymnasts do help give the muscles flexibility. The resistance training gives them strength.

Why should this not be true of the muscles in the throat and mouth that effect the sound? The muscles of the tongue can learn to lift more, stretch more, contract more and move more than they ever need to in normal speech, or even in theatrical speech. The muscles of the face, mouth/lips, and jaw can do the same. Even the vocal folds can learn, over time, to stretch to higher pitches, contract into lower pitches, and close more powerfully providing the sound with more “body” or “fullness” (all of this, of course, taking place indirectly). The muscles of the ribs (intercostals) and the abdominal muscles and, yes, even the diaphragm inside, can get more flexible, stretching further and stronger.

I cannot prove this theory, but I believe, based upon my own singing, that the “at rest” or “default” position of the back of the tongue is paramount in the way the vocal folds can react to the stimulus to make sound. Once these muscles are free to move, independently of the swallowing muscles and of the muscles in the back of the mouth, which takes time, the tongue can rest in the back of the mouth/top of the throat in a number of places and can also make a number of shapes and configurations, also in the back, that change both the feeling of freedom of phonation as well as the stability. There is also a corresponding release of the muscles directly under the jawbone in the front (the genio-glossus and genio-hyoid are included also), that allows the larynx to descend by “hanging” in the throat (which is not the same as having it be parked deliberately in a low position from which it cannot move). Further, the inner muscles of the tongue can contract, giving the back of the tongue a role in shaping the vowel. This shaping can be deleterious or advantageous, depending on the degree of contraction, the kind of sound being made and many other mitigating factors.

All of these changes can be accessed through registration and vowel sound correction but it speeds things up if the person singing can feel the interior changes. In the beginning, this is patently impossible, even in talented singers. But, over time, (over many years, actually) one can develop the capacity to feel things that are not normally felt and the capacity to feel them can be very precise, vivid and deliberate. (You can’t teach someone, however, to do that. It happens on its own over time if you pay attention to what you feel and where you feel it). You can actually learn to “let go” in a way that doesn’t happen at first. This is a kind of bio-feedback between the mind and the body.

Of course, some people who sing develop these capacities on their own and then try to teach them with the idea that they are teaching something that you “just do” and this ties the student up in knots. Teaching a sensation you have as if your students should also have that sensation is pointless. Understanding where you feel something, however, is extremely valuable as long as you understand that your student won’t feel the same thing, even if their vocal behavior exactly replicates yours, for a very long time.

If I can organize the back of my throat, the back of my mouth, the shape and position of my tongue and my soft palate, as well as my jaw opening and mouth/lip position and COUPLE THAT WITH REGISTER BALANCE, I can literally choose almost any sound I want to make and be 98% sure it will come out, before I sing it. Nothing, however, will substitute for register work, as this is how to get to the vocal folds themselves, and you must do that if you are to truly change the output of the mechanism.

Perhaps someday there will be a way to see or measure the individual muscles in the tongue and how they effect the laryngeal and pharyngeal behavior of a singer. Right now the only measures available are invasive or possibly harmful (EKGs and X-rays). Until more is known, this is only my anecdotal experience, but it is not random, I do not believe I am making up delusional theories and I do not believe the effects upon the sound are purely subjective or imaginary. If you relate to any of this, let me know, as I do believe I’m not alone in my perceptions and I would like to hear from others who have similar experiences.

The philosopher Alan Watts wrote a book with this title. In it, he says that we should all always be insecure because, of course, there is never any security in life at any time except in whatever immediate moment you are experiencing, one second at a time. That is obvious but it is also something we resist and refuse to address. It is absolutely true that you can plan to do something in a minute or five minutes or a week, but that life could interfere and make carrying out those plans impossible.

On the other hand, given the nature of our minds, it isn’t really sane not to plan and plan well. It seems reasonable to look into the future and mentally sketch out what you would like to do or where you would like to be. Many courses and books exist on this very topic. Business runs on sales projections and Wall Street futures traders do, too. Nevertheless, being able to make adjustments to whatever plans one makes is a good personal asset.

The delicate balance of staying present in the moment and looking to the horizon with your map of your destination clearly in front of you is a big part of succeeding in life. You cannot stop the flow of life, even if you were to use all your will and effort, time will go on, your body will continue to do what bodies do, and consequences will inevitably show up. If you believe in the hereafter, you could think that life even goes on after life is over…………that time really does not end.

While we can work on vocal technique, we can cultivate our capacities to use the voice with greater skill, great expressiveness, more subtly, more refinement or power, and we can work on making singing significant in our lives in all kinds of ways, we can never be absolutely certain that the singing will always be there, or be there as it is now or was before. There is no ‘always’ in singing, and part of the mystery/fear is that it only exists while we do it. When we are done, it goes into hiding, and if we do not take it out of this hiding place, after a while, we could forget where it went and never really find it again. Worse, it can get lost or taken away and we can search for it but never really find it. We could go on with our lives in every other way, since singing is not a life or death activity, and no one would be the wiser about the loss if we did not discuss it.

Don’t settle into a false sense of security about your singing voice. Remember every day that it will always be an unknown before and after it is happening. We can never know the voice completely and constantly. There is wisdom in being with the insecurity.

Vocal mechanics are required in mid-range. No really good vocalist can do without some kind of knowledge of what happens in the mid-range pitches where the voice must change gears, with two exceptions: a counter tenor and a true low bass. Even a lyric coloratura soprano has to descend into lower pitches these days. It really isn’t possible any longer to have a major classical career singing only in head voice as a female.

Those who do not understand or deal with registration will always be at a loss in explaining or teaching vocal technique in mid-range, relying primarily on “resonance strategies” which are ineffective as a substitute for register balance across the “primo” or first passaggio at approximately E or F above middle C. This break, which is at more or less the same place for every voice category, male and female, young and old, can be avoided. It can also be pushed out of the way (but at a cost) and it can be uncultivated or invisible in a weak, small voice. What it cannot be is eliminated.

If you assume that most people speak in “modal” or chest register, not in “head” or loft, then in most people the weak register is head. The crico-thyroid muscle, which stretches, thins and tightens the vocal folds to raise pitch, produces a “lighter sound” as it activates the folds to vibrate only on their upper edges. It takes a good deal of strength in the edges to resist air pressure coming hard on from below, so head register is typically breathy in untrained voices, but the capacity to develop that strength is an absolute requisite if the voice is to function optimally. That is one of the main points of functional training.

I teach all my students to balance their voice across the break in order to maximize vocal freedom and have the most amount of artistic choice about where to go and how to get there. This approach has kept my own voice, now at 61, able to vocalize through four octaves (F below middle C to F above high C) and to sing a belt sound to D, a mix to high C, and head above that. The choice, when I am practicing regularly, is up to me, insofar as how I sound when I sing and I do not mix my sounds unknowingly. Pop music does not accidently sound like jazz, and Broadway belt songs don’t sound like Mozart, particularly in my mid-range pitches. They are the hardest to deal with and keeping them in balance, so that the middle “pivots” as needed is very hard, continuous work, but it is not so hard as to be unavailable or unlearnable. If you study with me long enough, you will do it, too.

In order to have strength in the middle voice, you must develop head register first, crossing it down past the break until it “settles” and develops the ability to withstand breath pressure. Then you can work on strengthening chest register, without pressuring the tongue in the back, and carrying that up to about E/F/G above middle C. If you do this enough, mix emerges and you don’t have to work on it. It shows up because the instrument has to make an adjustment in order for the larynx to remain freely moveable. Of course, most people need assistance to get this to happen because there are myriad ways for it to go off on a not-too-wonderful tangent that causes, rather than eliminates, vocal problems. Breathing here is an ingredient, but THIS CANNOT BE DONE THROUGH BREATH SUPPORT. No. Nor can it be accomplished through manipulation of “the resonators” since the only factors involved are the tongue itself (it’s position and shape), the soft palate, the lips and the jaw. You cannot vibrate your sinus cavities. They do not add anything to the sound (FACT — go read Johan Sundberg’s book if you do not know this). After that, if you want to learn to belt, you can, but you have to gradually take “chest” up without pressure or weight and without changing the vowel sounds too much. There is more than one way to belt, of course, just like there is more than one way to sing classical or Broadway music, but you only have the vocalis and the crico-thyroid to adjust the source (the vocal folds) so you are in chest if you aren’t in head (as the primary default) or vice versa. The people who say that belting isn’t chest register do not understand register function…..and usually do not themselves, belt. Read the science, not the pedagogy.

One way to learn something is to be completely immersed in it.

Many years ago I took some jazz lessons with a pianist. Having no idea at all about what I was doing, I just sang. I tried to feel “jazzy”. Every now and then he would say, “No, you can’t do that. It’s not in the groove. It’s not jazz.” I found this confusing, because he couldn’t tell me why it wasn’t or what to do about making it better. We would just try again. Sometimes he would sing it for me and I would just copy him. I don’t think I did too well even then.

He grew up with jazz, his life was jazz, he could eat, drink and sleep jazz, and all that jazz is. It was his world and his life. He likely just taught himself (don’t know) but there were many things about singing jazz that were very clear to him and completely opaque to me. Of course, I could have gone back to school to actually study jazz. It’s not like it isn’t available. But at that time, I didn’t really have a clear path to do that and I just tried to listen to more jazz vocalists. Eventually, that helped a lot. At least it gave me a better context for the art.

Many things in life are like that. Language is one, culture is another — but, you have to want to learn. You can be in the midst of something and shut it out (although I think that takes a lot of willpower). Most of us “pick things up” if we hang out with whatever it is for a long time and we associate with others who hang out with it, too. Immersion will allow you to pick up things by osmosis, if you are open to that. Somehow or other we just “get it” and find that we are aware of something that we didn’t notice before.

It’s very hard to teach someone to sing without a context. If the person who wants to sing hasn’t really listened to singing, you can’t substitute for that in the lessons. You have to ask her to go out and listen on her own. If she wants to sing jazz, it’s better to have her listen to jazz vocalists (and instrumentalists, too) but not necessarily to listen to opera, and vice versa. While listening to all kinds of voices in all kinds of music and from all eras would give a person a very good general awareness of what a human being does while singing, it takes concentrated listening to inform the mind of the context of the style. You have to really be in it, surrounded by it and let it drench you in all directions if you intend to make it fully your own. There is also no really good substitute for live listening. Recordings are fine but these days they are so much manipulated and tinkered with, you don’t really know whether or not what you are hearing has anything to do with a real person who is really singing.

I am someone who can pick something up by just being around it for a long enough time. I notice what goes on in my surroundings, with other people (in terms of social clues) and what is part of the environment. I gather information not only from what is but from what is not, but I don’t do that all the time with everything. No one does. We all notice different things in different ways. If you are going to sing, however, you have to notice singing and singers, and you have to broaden what you notice to include as many ingredients as possible. The more you immerse yourself, the more you will “osmose” the world you are taking in.

Remind your students to listen and listen a lot.

In order to develop as an artist, you must be able to direct your concentration to a single point of focus. You must learn to get your mind to stay on that focus without wandering for quite a while. You must learn to probe deeply into your concentration so that it steadies and becomes alive in each moment, rather than have it put you to sleep.

Many people do not understand the purpose of practice. They mistakenly think that “running through things” is practicing. They think “warming up the voice” is all there is to do. Most people want to just “get to the songs” as quickly as possible. Vocal exercises are boring and to be endured and the ones used don’t really matter. One is just as good as another, more or less. Go higher, go lower, get softer, get louder, speed up, slow down, open your mouth, close your mouth, breath low. Some version of this is what most people usually have. Who wouldn’t be bored with that?

If you do not know how to probe deeply into vocal practice, by directing your attention to the small details of what is happening musically, physically and mentally, you are not really practicing, you are, mostly, wasting time while making voiced sounds. If you cannot harness your mind to the tasks at hand in the present moment, you have to learn, because if you do not, you will never be able to direct your attention to something helpful.

Concentration is an act of will. It doesn’t happen to you from outside. It might be that something external catches your attention briefly, but if you really are going to sustain your one-pointed focus, you cannot depend on flashy experiences to be always available to substitute for your own determination to keep your mind on the goal at hand.

Many young people do not understand how to concentrate at all. The images on TV go by very quickly. They multi-task, they are continuously distracted. Remind your students that they must learn to concentrate before they can expect to improve their abilities. It seems like this would be obvious but many people do not know how to concentrate on anything for longer than 5 minutes. That’s not long enough to do any good.

It’s frequently true that young people do not understand what the word “professional” means. One of my many jobs as a teacher is to tell them.

If you are a singer, being a professional is something to take seriously. Each of the styles has its own criteria, but those who are successful in that style learn what the expectations are. Jazz vocalists who are high level successful singers with careers will tell you what they think they have to know in order to be successful. Broadway vocalists will give you a different set of criteria, as will gospel singers. There are some things, though, that run through all of the vocal arts.

One is a being good at what you do without having to fuss over it. You sing on pitch, you have control over what you are singing in terms of volume and phrasing, diction and expression. You can sing when you are less than 100% well, and know how to “manage” when you are not up to par but not seriously ill. You can speak the language of music with others using the same terms and words they use knowledgeably. You can communicate with an audience in a live situation no matter what kind of a venue it is. You know how to practice and rehearse to prepare for performances or gigs. You can adapt what you are doing when necessary, and are not so rigid as to have only one way to do something, no matter how much you like it or how it works.

You know how to work with other colleagues in a respectful and efficient way. You arrive on time, prepared for your job with proper equipment, music and clothing. You do not waste other’s time by doing things that are distracting in a rehearsal. You thank the people you work with when you are done.

If you do not do these things, you might still have a career, but you would have to be either very lucky or so talented that you can outsing the rest of the universe. Otherwise, the people who are also in your area are going to find out very quickly that you are not a pro, you don’t behave professionally and you are not the kind of person they would want to work with. In other words, you won’t last.

Best to learn these things while you are young and aspiring, as the hard knocks school of life will give you a failing grade if you don’t.

A lot has been written about talent. Everyone’s take on talent is unique. Talent is this or that or the other, but no one can say for sure, exactly, what talent is.

To me, talent is something that a person does very well without much training or effort. The capacity exhibited garners recognition from the outside world without it being sought by the talented person. Talent is “being good at” anything, sometimes profoundly good.

But the saying goes, talent is overrated. Success is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. And here in New York, where talented people are like bunches of grapes, collected at every market in all flavors and colors, talent and $2.00 will get you a ride on the subway or bus.

If you have talent in the arts, rather than, for instance, a talent for fixing cars or building boats, you may or may not be lucky enough for that talent to lift up your life and transform it. Luciano Pavarotti said in his first biography that he knew someone in his home town who was a much better singer than he (hard to believe), but that the man didn’t have the interest, drive or ambition to do anything with his singing other than sing at home.

The combination of things that has to come together in order for the talented person to have the talent become the driving force in his life is formidable. So many people have some of the things that are needed but not all of them. I have found it almost heartbreaking to see how close someone can come to having everything work only to miss the mark by a molecule.

If you have a room full of people who have beautiful voices, who are musical, who are expressive, who have studied to develop their capacities to sing (in any style) and who have the interest, desire, drive and capability to organize their lives so that singing becomes the goal, you will have some people who never become professional singers, some who do, and some who make a patchwork quilt of singing and other things that allows them to live somewhere in the middle. You will have some who succeed at the highest level, maybe even world fame, some who succeed and are known only to their peers, some who succeed locally and some who barely make it.

Would that it were so that only those who deserve success got to be successful! If only the world could hear all the amazing voices that exist, and all the people whose hearts are filled with song and with feeling, what a different universe this would be. Until that day, however, those who are talented and who may have ended up behind a desk, or in a restaurant, or on an airplane should remember that man who knew Pavarotti. He sang at home and was content to do so. Let that be a solace to us all.