Various Posts

Ever listen to someone sing and come away unimpressed? Of course. We all have that experience very frequently. Sometimes while listening to very famous singers. What is it that impresses us? Why does something leave an impression?

EMOTION. What we react to, what we care about is emotion. Without it, sound is just sound. The power of sound, when backed by emotion, is likely one of the most personally powerful things we have at our beck and call. The problem is the split between our societal need to suppress emotion (if we don’t, we are in trouble) so that we can go along in daily life smoothly and the need to be deliberately emotionally demonstrative while singing. The one situation opposes the other and it is, for most of us, the former situation in which we spend the most time.

So, if you are an emotionally demonstrative person by nature, someone in touch with your own emotional reactions to things, you have an automatic advantage as a performer, provided, however, that you are not TOO emotional, as this will make it impossible for you to deal with all the other things that performing requires, (like traveling, getting paid, and getting out publicity) and provided that your throat and body can handle a lot of raw emotion without overloading.

And, emotion for its own sake can also be limiting, as it gets old quickly. Raw anger is a one note rag. It’s interesting for a while but then we want to understand what caused this anger, why is it so strong, where is it going? Any single emotion gets to be like that. It’s a little like watching a serious car accident — fascinating at first, but then static. We want to know what is behind and underneath the emotion. What is being communicated and why. (Unless, of course, we are watching professional wrestling on TV).

Being a singer means that you know how to be emotional in a way that is deeply personal and connected to meaning and communication of intention. It means that you are someone who is able to deeply feel, in your own body moment by moment, the emotions and sensations of emotionality while you are singing, while remaining in control of the entire process in a deliberate, albeit free, manner. You also have to do this while singing specific pitches and rhythms and words, while breathing in specific places, and controlling the level of volume. Not so easy.

And, not all emotion is obvious. We all know that creating emotional impact isn’t the same thing as being hysterical. Sometimes emotion is couched in very subtle expression. If you aren’t listening for emotional meaning, it might be there and you might miss it. You have to listen from an open and receptive place with a desire to receive what you are hearing in a deeply emotional manner yourself, else you may not even notice your own reactions to what is being sung.

Does most vocal technique training investigate how to express emotional truth while singing? How many people are taught to deeply feel emotion or be emotional while singing vocal exercises? How does one make a connection between being emotional and singing in a healthy manner? Doesn’t most of the “interpretation” given to songs reside only in the mind of the singer? Is it a surprise then, that many singers don’t successfully bridge the gap between what they are thinking and how that thought makes them (or should make them) feel? And is it any wonder then, that many singers are making sounds but not making music? And could that be why we aren’t impressed?

The next time you hear something memorable, something that leaves a strong impression upon you, notice if it is because of the emotion in it. It won’t be a surprise if you ending up thinking to yourself, “This is good”.

This feeling inside…….I get it every time I think about the many great singers who have sung all over the world in styles that have nothing to do with classical music. Over the last 100 years, audio recordings of all kinds of people singing all kinds of music have been made and heard by millions of fans all over the world. Many of these singers have had substantial careers lasting a very long time (like Ella Fitzgerald) or have sung music that was certainly not beautiful, in a traditional way at least, (Mick Jagger), and many of the styles have left a permanent mark on the music world, altering tastes or influencing other artists. Many of them also have managed to sound good, 30, 40, even 50 years into those careers. Isn’t that significant?

It would seem that there is much to study, much to examine, much to understand. Culturally, musically, artistically, and personally, because of the enormous diversity of the styles, there is at least as much to delve into in CCM as there is in classical music. Yet, the amount of interest in and study of any kind of CCM is far less in formal academic circles than is that of classical styles.

Ever think about why that would be? Why has no one questioned this in almost 100 years? Why didn’t the study of our own music seem like a relevant, dynamic topic? Why would we perpetuate the notion that only those who had studied classical repertoire were “trained”? Why is this limited vision of training accepted as being the norm, the necessity?

It is time to really make a lot of noise about this. The time to stop this nonsensical attitude is NOW. When should we look around and say “music theater history” is just as important as “classical music history”? In another 100 years? When should we consider the history of jazz to be equal to the history of orchestral music? In a couple of decades? When should we ask ourselves whether or not the development of country music or American folk music, or gospel, is worth knowing about right alongside of knowing about the lives of Bach, Mozart, Brahms, Schubert, Puccini or Britten? Next year?

If you are someone who can answer those questions with the word, “yes”, in terms of whether or not it should be right now, then stop reading this blog and go do something about it. PLEASE!!!!

NOW is good. Now.

The best way to understand something is to do it yourself. Learning about it is different than learning it, no?

Anyone who has done an activity that requires a high level of physical skill and coordination understands that it takes a long time to develop mastery over that activity. It could be anything…..painting, sculpting, building handmade furniture, creating interesting food, doing a sport, learning to dance, act or sing…..but it is something that involves using the body in any way, it just takes time for it to be done well. To some extent the amount of time given to the activity daily matters, and the level of ability the individual brings to the activity at the outset matters, and the quality of instruction matters (but sometimes no instruction is available, so that may or may not be a factor).

And it matters what the expectations of the world are in regard to any of these activities. If you are trying to be an Olympic athlete, there are stringent and exact requirements, mostly measured by objective means. If you are trying to be a violinist who wants to play in the NY Philharmonic, you have your work cut out for you. If you wish to have your work shown at the Whitney or the Museum of Modern Art, ditto. And, if you are going to be at the Metropolitan Opera, or on Broadway, the criteria are very high, too.

The people who determine these things are those who are within any given discipline. The individuals in modern art don’t decide how someone should sing when auditioning for the Met Opera. The people building furniture don’t determine what should happen with Wimbledon tennis players. The folks who choose the winners on “Top Chef” don’t have any say in who gets to dance at the New York City Ballet. So, even though there will always be disagreement between experts in any field, there must be some kind of consensus in each one, else everything would be chaos all the time in everything. Nothing would have any boundaries or structure.

So, if singers have to live up to certain kinds of criteria, it is important for singers themselves to know what those criteria are. It is also important for those who deal with singers to know them as well. If someone is going to sing country western music and the person evaluating their singing is from opera, how would they know whether or not the singing was any good? If all singing is so similar that it has no distinguishing characteristics, why would we have different voice categories and different styles in the first place? That’s like saying anyone who swims well can also play excellent baseball. Doesn’t happen that way.

The way to truly understand what is involved is to learn to do it yourself. You cannot become a good golfer by hanging around golfers, reading about golf and golfers, or buying equipment that sits in your garage. You have to pick up the clubs and play. You can’t learn about singing that way, either, and you can’t learn to change stylistic parameters without knowing what they are in the first place.

I know we’ve been over this before……it’s just that there are so many people who still don’t seem to have it clear that this is the truth. If only they weren’t out there teaching singing, or teaching anything!

If you live in New York, where your singing students can audition for a Broadway or Off-Broadway show, a national tour, a major record label, or appear at a major concert venue, or if you live in a big city that has opportunities for your students to become professionals in major venues of any kind, you are unusual. The vast majority of singing teachers work with school kids, college students or non-professionals. If you are in an area that has little or no professional opportunity, you may never encounter working with singers who are out in the world, earning their livings by being singers.

That means that your constant exposure only to this population could put you out of touch with professional expectations or qualifications. That leads me to ask, what is the purpose of going to school? Is the purpose to make you really skilled at school studies as an end in themselves or is it to give you life skills? I suppose if one goes from classroom to classroom and then returns immediately after graduating to teaching in another classroom, there is the possibility that all of what one has to teach was learned in a school, rather than real world, environment. Then the cycle repeats itself…….Hm, a little skewed?

So much of what happens in schools ends up being about the feelings of the teachers…..their territories, their power, prestige and their security in the position that pays for their rent or mortgage and the food on the table. It takes a brave, independent and, maybe also, financially secure person, to do what is best for the student, regardless of anything else.

And, it takes a person with real vision to see his or her way out of the box that formalized education necessarily has to devise. It simply isn’t practical in a school setting to customize learning for each and every student. Some kind of standardization makes sense — with the exception of the arts. How do you standardize artistic training when, by definition, artists are unique in their view of life and the world, and in the individuality of expression in whatever art they make? Do you give a grade for most unusual rendition of “An Die Musik”? That didn’t happen in the schools that I attended.

Professors or instructors who think outside the box are often quickly fired. Those that do not stick to the party line (the ideas of whomsoever is running the department) will run into political trouble very quickly. Someone who speaks up to ask about the validity or applicability of a particular course, program or colleague may actually be raising a valid concern, but the personal turf wars and ideological predilections of the ruling class has to agree to self-criticism and internal examination. How often does that happen?

Out in the real world, teachers of singing are competing with each other for singers who can come and go as they choose. The have no cushion of days off or benefits paid, and no guarantee from one day to another that the students will continue to show up. One thing, and one thing only, draws the students into the studio and that is reputation. And if such a reputation exists, it does so because it has been created through relevancy, appropriateness, usefulness, service, skill and interest on the part of the singing teacher in the voice and personal goals of the students. Failing to provide information that the singer can use, and use quickly and well is tantamount to starvation, therefore, the independent singing teacher is highly motivated to make sure his or her skills are the best they can be. Especially in a large city, where there is greater competition, you have to be good to stay in business. There is too much choice for students to go elsewhere if you miss the mark.

So, if the “standards” set by academics are tested only within a closed academic system, and those in charge of that system have had their positions for years, or even decades, there is every possibility that whatever standards exist because they do. If, on the other hand, the education is based upon something with a practical basis (job training versus personal edification), it will stand up to scrutiny of various kinds from all manner of folk, adjust and change as necessary. The academics in the drivers’ seats would have nothing to fear.

I sincerely invite all department vocal or singing Chairs to come be private vocal instructors here in the Big Apple (or any other major city) and see if what they have to teach would keep them alive for a few months. It would be very interesting to see who would thrive, who would manage and who would be forced to quickly and quietly go home and find another paid job in some school.

Of course, there are many fine teachers in school settings at all levels. Of course, there are schools that manage to address the needs of the students and provide a balance of real world skills and personal development, and, of course, there are places where teachers can be forthright and dynamic while following curriculum guidelines. Of course.

“Theatrical singers with excellent vocal technique and versatility. (Broadway, pop, classical, world beat, R&B). Females should be versatile sopranos/mezzos with strong Broadway-Pop belt, possible classical background. Males should have high baritone/tenor range”. (Back Stage casting ad, June 19-25, 2008)

The university I just left has a policy of “not teaching to the marketplace”. That means they don’t teach belting. The official policy point of view is that “belting is bringing your head voice down to mix with your chest voice”. Not. It is taught by a 30 something man who is a strictly classical singer. Lots of life experience there. They are so frightened of belting.

If you watched the Tony Awards this past Sunday you were lucky to see/hear Patty Lupone who is Rose in the revival of Gypsy. A true belter if there ever was one, and someone who has diligently worked to make sure she is healthy when she sings. You would have heard Kelli O’Hara sing effortlessly as Nellie Forbush in the revival of South Pacific, going from chest to mix to head with expression and beauty. You could also have heard Sierra Borggess as the Little Mermaid in the real “Broadway-Pop” thing. Kerry Butler represents the same category as Clio in Xanadu, and last year’s Laura Bell Bundy does, too, in Legally Blonde. All of them real pop divas singing very well. Anyone who tells you that all of these women are singing in the same way is deaf. You have one true belter, one legit mixer and three pop divas…..they are very different things. Only Ms. O’Hara sounds like she has had classical training of the best kind, but you wouldn’t mistake her for an opera singer. She is not singing like Natalie Dessay even though the voices are not dissimilar in weight.

These women represent different vocal categories and sing different kinds of literature….in classical music they call the divisions “fachs” or “niches”. Theater doesn’t do that, but by golly, classical singers are going to make Broadway fit into classical vocal pedagogy even if they have to beat that square peg into a round hole with a sledge hammer. If you read the description at the top of this piece, you would know that theater people don’t care about fachs, or categories, as they make them up all the time. The ad asks for Broadway-Pop, R&B, classical and world beat vocalists. Know any music conservatories that ask for all of those on a graduate’s recital?

In order to really understand the implications of this, you have to understand vocal function. That means that you must know that any voice is capable of singing in any style or configuration if it is trained to do so, but not everyone wants to do that and not all training will easily get one there. I love it when classical singers say “it’s all the same” about vocal technique in any style, because they sing every style as if it were opera. Guess what, if you do that, it is all the same. That doesn’t make it appropriate or intelligent or even tasteful.

I recently heard a young opera singer in a concert doing arias that were pretty good. When she forayed into CCM, however, she thought that turning “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” into an opera aria would be a good idea. It was SO awful I had to leave the room. Why didn’t she follow that with “Un Bel Di” as a rock song? That would have been turnabout as fair play. Right.

How can you worry about what “fach” something is in if you think everything is the same anyway, and that you can divide all the various styles of music theater into categories when you don’t even know how to make the sounds and think they are all alike? or wrong?

“Theatrical singers with excellent vocal technique and versatility (Broadway, pop, classical world beat, R & B). Females should be versatile sopranos/mezzos with strong Broadway-Pop belt, possible classical background. Males should have high baritone/tenor range…. (Back Stage casting ad, June 19-25, 2008)

One of the university programs I was associated with has a policy which is “we do not teach to the marketplace”. This means they don’t teach belting. Their version of belting is officially that it is “head voice mixed down into your lower notes”. This is taught by a 30 something man with a strictly classical background…..lots of personal experience there, of course.

If you watched this year’s Tony Award ceremony, you heard our best Broadway belter, Patty Lupone, who has worked hard to make her belt healthy in this year’s revival of Gypsy, which is definitely not “Broadway-Pop”, but old style Broadway belting. The other fine example of “old style singing” was Kelli O’Hara who is playing Nellie Forbush in the revival of South Pacific. This is a voice that seamlessly flows from chest to mix to head while remaining expressive and strong. There was also an excellent example of Broadway-Pop (a new “casting director” made up category) in the person of

Did you know that we have lots of teachers of singing who still believe that resonance and breath support are all you need to sing any kind of style? You did? Thank goodness!

Did you also know that most singing teachers do not know what vocal exercises do? Did you know that most singing teachers and singers do not know what kind of vocal exercises are simple and what kind are difficult for every single human being? Did you know that these same people don’t know that using exercises with an understanding of how they work and what effects they produce, both plus and minus, could save quarts of time and gallons of frustration? Yup.

If you are an “average” person…not overweight, not recovering from surgery or illness, not taking medication for a condition, but not doing anything in particular to be in good shape….and I asked you to lift a one pound weight 10 times, you could probably do that. If, however, you were an elderly person who had suffered a stroke and was in a wheelchair, that might make you tired, or you might not be able to do it at all, and, of course, if you were an Olympic athelete, you could lift the one pound weight 10 times without any effort at all. Every time I change the components of the task, it would have a different effect upon the person doing it, and I would have to access who the person was and what they were capable of before I knew whether or not the exercises I asked for would be appropriate. So, a 10 pound weight lifted once is different than lifting it 25 times, and a 25 pound weight lifted 5 pounds is yet again different.

Most singers have been asked to do this or that scale, triad or arpeggio in a lesson, and used this or that vowel on some musical pattern. All of us have been asked to “place the tone” somewhere, while doing some kind of “breath support”. But how many of us have ever been able to ask for and and then get a simple, reasonable answer to “What’s this exercise supposed to be doing for me and for my voice? Is there any negative result to it? When would it be counter-indicated? Can I do it too much? How do I know if I am doing it correctly? ”

Think how incredible it would be if all singers and teachers of singing had to learn what the exercises did and how to apply them uniquely to each person, in each lesson! Imagine what kind of singers we would produce and how much shorter, simpler and more satisfying the process of singing would be if we knew how to do all kinds of vocal exercises effectively!

Ever wonder why no one has figured out how vocal exercises work period? I did and do. It was something I had to know, and I delved to understand through every means possible.

If you ask me to sing a long, slow, high, loud phrase, I will have trouble, especially if I haven’t been practicing regularly and over a long period of time. If you ask me to sing fast, high, short phrases, I will have little trouble, even if I have not sung for quite some time. Is that true for everyone? Of course not. Which of these things is it that makes one set of parameters hard and the others easy. Which of these vocal behaviours would be difficult for most people? Said another way, what would be easy for the “average” person with “average” ability and “average” singing experience in terms of difficulty versus someone of “exceptional ” ability and “lengthy” experience?

An average person, as above, will find high notes difficult, breathing coordination tricky, vowel sound clarity vague, and vocal control unpredictable, no matter what way I teach those things. An exceptional person might find all these things easy to do. However, as I increase the number of vocal activities that have to be coordinated and controlled, and extend the amount of time that the control and coordination must last, then put the exercises at the extreme high or low end of the person’s pitch range, and ask for a great deal of volume continuously while singing, even the exceptional person will have trouble. Seems reasonable, no?

There is so much emphasis on breathing in singing training. You must “support the tone” no matter what. Unfortunately, so few teachers really understand what that means. It’s not surprising, then, that they don’t know much about assisting their students to improve their breathing behaviors.

Let’s start with the basic information. If you are singing a vigorous song…one that is fast, high, energetic, long, or complex, you need to take deep breaths repeatedly. Right away, you are doing something the body has no reason to do on its own. The only time the body takes really deep breaths continuously is when it has been stressed through exercise. Then, it heaves the chest up and down and pulls the vocal folds very far apart so a maximum amount of air can go into the lungs. Clearly, that won’t work in a song. Somehow one has to learn to get breaths that are just as deep while keeping the body quiet, minimizing rather than exaggerating, movement. That is a major task to accomplish and takes a while to learn and years to master.

Thankfully, people are going away from the idea that the voice must “come from the belly” or that one must “breath in or support from the diaphragm”. Science has allowed us to look at all vocal function from a place of clarity and accuracy.

You must breathe into your lungs. Your lungs are in your ribcage or chest. Keeping the ribs lifted and open is a function of “carriage” or posture. If you are standing correctly, the ribs are already expanded to their fullest before you fill the lungs with air. If the chest cannot rise further, (and as long as the pecs or shoulders don’t tense, it won’t), the movement of the air into the lungs will fill them to the bottom, where they are biggest.

This kind of inhalation expands the lungs down into the torso. It works best when there can be expansion forward and down in the area of the abdomen. Said another way, when the ribs expand and the lungs fill up, the diaphragm contracts, lowers and flattens out, and as it does so, it pushes the contents of the middle of the body, the viscera, out of the way. The pelvis is a bowl, and there can be some direct downward movement inside the torso, but the easiest way to get more room is to expand straight out (or forward). Consequently, we experience the feeling that we breath “in the belly”, as it is the belly that seems to expand.

Then, one has to deal with learning to exhale deliberately. A sung phrase is often longer than a spoken phrase and if the phrase has high notes at the end, or gets louder at the end, or both (typical), there is no reason why the body, left to its own devices, would do that easily. When the lungs are full, the air pressure in them is high. The beginning of a sung phrase wants to be loud in a beginning singer. When the lungs are more than half empty, the air pressure level within them drops rapidly, and the sound level (volume or intensity) would also drop off rapidly if something didn’t compensate. The belly muscles are large and strong. There are four layers of them and they move in complex ways……in, up, across, down and out. If, while maintaining a steady ribcage position, one can contact them (in any number of ways) such that they push harder and harder on the viscera, which in turn pushes up against the taut diaphragm, which pushes the bottom of the lungs to keep pushing the air out, the air pressure level will remain relatively constant and the volume will remain the same, or, in a more experienced singer, even get louder. It’s a chain reaction. We push more air out with greater efficiency as we become more skilled.

There has to be a relationship, then, between the rib cage muscles (the intercostals) and the abdominals (particularly the rectus abdominus– the one that helps us stand erect) throughout both inhalation and exhalation AND when the exhalation becomes sound, the vocal folds control the airflow, as they are the valve over the sacks of air (lungs). This is a scientific fact. THE VOCAL FOLDS CONTROL THE AIRFLOW. It is NOT the other way around, no matter how we experience singing. The truth is that when you have a sound that is neither squeezed (pressed) nor flabby (breathy) the air will go out on its own neither fast nor slow and it will be possible to contract the abdominals gradually, while keeping the ribs in a steady state, over the length of the phrase. What takes time, and skill, is to develop enough strength in the ribcage to keep the intercostals working in opposition to their natural function (to stay open as the lungs deflate…..that’s weird, but must be learned). And, if the rest of the body isn’t strong and the belly muscles don’t respond well, that will slow things down, too. Finally, there is the issue of coordinating all this while making sounds, as the sounds will vary, and therefore the airflow will vary, too, and that makes learning to control the breathing process unpredictable, and therefore, somewhat tricky.

IF all of this is mastered, while singing no less, the person will feel that the sound can easily get louder by simply pushing, lifting, or contracting the belly muscles. That is breath support. It is a very complex process but it will not, in and of itself, make someone an excellent singer (else all brass and woodwind players would automatically be great vocalists). You still have to learn to make a nice, or stronger, or better sound (call it what you will). You have to sing from the throat down, not the belly up.

Now, if that weren’t enough, the capacity of the body to breath has a lot to do with being able to feel….sensation and emotion. Breathing is your “aliveness” factor. The more you can breathe, deeply, freely and easily, the more you are vital, alive, energized and “spirited”. So, not only do singers need to learn how to breathe this way for mechanical purposes, but they must be able to do this for expressive purposes, too.

The catch here is that it is difficult to take a full, deep, free, easy breath if you are tight, restricted, or muscularly bound up in the muscles that effect the areas discussed above. Tight shoulders and upper back muscles, tight ribcage muscles (intercostals), tight belly muscles, and, inside, a tight diaphragm, will restrict the amount of muscular expansion and contaction, but the worst restriction, and the thing that makes taking a really deep breath very difficult is tension somewhere within the throat itself. And guess what? Almost everyone has some tension inside the throat, because we live in a stressful society.

The phrases we have for “caught” throat muscles are numerous: “Cat got your tongue?” “Can’t spit it out”, “All choked up”, “Got a lump in my throat”, “Tongue tied”, “Speechless”, “Couldn’t get it out”, “the words stuck in my throat”, etc. The body closes the throat when we are under attack so the energy can go to the core (flight/flight reflex generated in the limbic brain). If you are chronically stressed (do you know anyone who isn’t?), taking a full deep breath isn’t always easy. The larynx itself has to be freed up and THAT is a really tricky business. You have to have a real expert help you get out of that mess. If you don’t, you will never be able to sing really freely, you will never experience feeling deeply emotional and letting the emotion flow out through your throat as fluid, released sound, and you will never know the excitement and joy that singing in this way gives to you and to your audience. It’s worth fighting for.

Deep breathing is its own reward.

You cannot learn technique through songs. I know many people think you can but it simply is not so.

You can learn to play baseball by playing baseball, but it helps if you play catch from the time you are small and practice hitting and catching balls and developing your ability to run and slide outside of playing games. Just ask any Little League player “Do you ever noodle around with a bat, a ball and a mitt when you aren’t in a real game?” and see what they answer.

Dancers spend a lot of time at the barr and on the floor before they learn a combination and pianists play scales and arpeggios for hours every day, as do instrumentalists. Everyone who does any kind of skill has to learn the basics of the skill before it gets applied to a finished product. Chefs learn knife technique and how to braise, fry, simmer, and poach before they make a big meal. But SINGERS — they are different! They can learn by singing songs!

And, the harder the song, the quicker and better they will learn, right?

I cringe when I think of the times when someone would come in to a lesson with an operatic aria, having had a year of lessons as an absolute beginner, and attempt to sing this for me because the previous teacher had told her that “this would be good for you because it is so hard”. Sounds like taking castor oil….!

The skills of singing….strong, aligned posture, coordination between ribs and abs, freedom from tension, strength throughout the musculature that affects the sound as it is being produced, easy facility of articulation and pronunciation, pitch accuracy, appealing sound, precise vowels and musicianship can all be taught and learned.

Learning a song, however, isn’t going to automatically engage any of those things, as we all know there are many people, both professional and non, who sing without demonstrating any evidence of the skills just mentioned. If the songs alone were responsible, why wouldn’t everyone who has worked on songs for an extended period of time just “have good technique”? If you sing the song badly, singing it more often badly isn’t going to correct anything. If you can barely sing a simple song, how will working on one that is really difficult teach you something?

Generally, songs lag about 6 months behind exercises, in terms of level of skill. A serious student, taking lessons once a week and practicing 4 or 5 times a week, needs about two years in order to develop enough coordination and strength to be able to sing a song using those skills. And that would still be a simple song in most cases. Highly developed vocal skill that has to function at a professional level rarely takes less than 5 years, and mastery really takes 10.

Yes, along the way, learning all the things that one has to learn about how to sing songs has to be integrated into the process, but not as a substitute for developing technique. The songs ALWAYS have to be set at a level that is slightly less demanding than the person’s level of technical ability, else the student will be frustrated by her own lack of ability to execute adjustments. That means that the teacher has to know what is difficult and why. Some teachers think all vocal exercises are the same and that all vocal tasks are equal. (I shudder to think that this is so, but it true). Some songs are very difficult even for skilled singers. Teachers need to understand that, too.

If the student is struggling, it is the fault of the teacher 95% of the time. The better the teacher, the less the student flounders. If you are a singer and you are consistently failing, something is wrong. Working on the songs won’t make it better.

To anyone familiar with bodywork, the idea that emotional memory and trauma is held in the body is not new. I have done so much bodywork, healing, meditation, movement therapy, and process-oriented work, however, that I forget this is generally an unusual idea in the population at large.

I knew that I had had many experiences as a youngster that were hurtful to me. I was fortunate, in that as soon as I arrived in NYC, new friends told me “go get your body worked on” and I did. Over the past two and half decades, I have been the grateful recipient of sessions of many disciplines where I was guided to release both emotional and physical energy. The aftermath was that I always felt freer, in both ways, to go forward in my life. Often, the “mental programming” that was a residue of old experiences simply stopped after such sessions as well.

Perhaps because I had a lot to let go of, I have spent more time doing this than others. I think it has been and is an essential ingredient in getting the body to stay open, healthy and free, because “life happens” and we don’t always have time in the moment to know what is going to “cling” to us and later, get in our way. Working with someone who does medical massage is wonderful, but working with someone who views massage (or shiatsu, or acupuncture or Rolfing, etc.) as a healing modality is even better. Those that do bodywork specifically to facilitate the release of trauma, and who are trained to handle that effectively, do a tremendous service, most especially to those who use their bodies to earn a living singing.

When the body “holds” energy, it means that the area is blocked. Bodies work best when they are encouraged to move fully and freely. That encourages the breathing to be the same — free and full. This is what allows us to be alive through our senses — as we process the physical world through what we see, hear, feel, smell and taste, and to understand the emotional reactions we have to those stimuli. What we think about what we experience is also important, but it is not, as we in the West are taught to believe, the only valid catalog of information that humans can obtain. The intellect is just part of the equation of knowing that we are alive. Holding energy in the body is not something one does on purpose, and therefore it isn’t something you can simply decide not to do. In the places where energy is held, it isn’t moving, and consciousness itself can go to sleep there.

Blocked parts of the body are deadened. You don’t know that you can’t feel them. You don’t know you don’t have much sensation or awareness there……it never occurs to you. Blocked parts of the body lack more than awareness, they often lack circulation and therefore, they cannot be contacted through deliberate effort. People who do activities that work the full range of movement in all the muscle of the body (swimmers, gymnasts, professional dancers) can develop the ability to feel and move even the muscles deep within the body, along the bones. Yogis claim to be able to feel organs as well as other inner areas that are not generally “felt” by most ordinary people. There is no limit to what you can feel and experience in and through the body. This is true in the voice as well. The voice is a hologram of the body, if we can allow it to be.

Our culture deadens us through constant sitting, through bombardment of the senses and through other things that pull us away from what we truly feel, as both emotion and sensation. All of us are deadened by the painful experiences that life brings starting when we are kids, but continuing throughout life. Perhaps, if you are a librarian, that isn’t so awful (although I’m not so sure), but if you are a singer, it is a catastrophe.

Singing training which works to free the external muscles that are visible to the eye and can be touched is important, and all valid teaching begins there. Training for professionals, however, must eventually affect the deepest inner musculature of the throat, pharynx and larynx, breaking the patterns there that are habitual and which were set into place through our auditory feedback before the age of 2. Vocal training of this nature is transformational and allows the entire voice to become liberated. It is NOT about making a certain set of sounds for resonance purposes alone, regardless of how that is accomplished. It IS about discovering an entirely new set of vocal parameters, most of which cannot be imagined but emerge as completely spontaneous expressions. If there is trauma, and if it is “stored” in those muscles, in the soft tissue, in the very cells of the body itself, it is broken apart and released through the stimulation of movement and breathing. Emotional release comes with it, whether one likes it or not.

To some this may seem like superstitious nonsense, but if you have not had this kind of bodywork, and you do not understand the theories behind it (both Eastern and Western) then you have no basis upon which to judge. This is personal, subjective experiential work. It cannot be “proven” like a geometry theorem, but it is absolutely real.