Various Posts

Singing can be a path to spiritual growth. This takes the concept of spirituality in its broadest context. The human spirit lives through the characteristics of one’s life. Honesty, loyalty, truthfulness, courage, dedication, perseverance, patience, compassion, responsibility, humility…..these are qualities that reflect the highest and best attributes of humanity. The artistic path will put you in touch with these aspects of yourself (and their reflected negatives) if you are someone who strives to achieve the highest and best goals that are possible.

Art, just as sports, can be daunting. An artist is by definition someone who lives a creative life. The creativity comes from within the artist’s mind. The artist’s point of view about life and about life’s experiences affects everything. How are they interpreted, assimilated and reborn into the artist’s work, for as long as the artist is alive? In order to keep going, inevitably, an artist must confront the things in life that most people spend all their time avoiding. Am I any good? How do I know if what I am creating has any value? What if what I have to say is meaningless? Perhaps there are times when the artist is unable to generate money from their art (and this, of course, is very common). Should I keep going in my art when I don’t have money to pay rent or eat? Will I ever be recognized as an artist or will I wait tables at “Joe’s” forever? Why is THAT artist getting recognition when he isn’t as good as me? An artist’s life is never easy.

Even those who succeed in doing what they love creatively have issues to face. If the artist has fans, a following, makes lots of money, is famous, then they face questions like: Can I keep this up? How long will it last? How can I face the people out there who expect so much of me all the time? If I start to fail, can I give up the rewards that fame has given me without bitterness? The questions are endless.

Yes, other people who are not artists have to face these questions, too, but it seems to me easier to hide from them if you are distracted by your office job. All work is personal but creative work is particularly vulnerable in that the artist is pouring out her heart and mind for all to see. Sometimes even the very best that an artist has to offer just isn’t good enough, and that can be heartbreaking.

Those who desire to sing professionally not only have to have some kind of natural ability, but also need specific skills, whether self-developed or learned in a formal setting from outside resources, and need be willing to put those abilities and skills on display on a regular basis. In the beginning, singers aspiring to have careers have to pay for training, find places to perform, be willing to be criticized by others (sometimes publicly) and put possible career opportunities ahead of other things in life, regardless of whatever sacrifices that may entail. All of these things call for intelligence, stamina, and lots of personal strength.

Clearly, not everyone who is an artist or a professional vocalist is going to grapple with all of these issues, but those who do, and understand that they are often unavoidable struggles, have an opportunity to use these challenges as a way to become better human beings. That is spiritual growth. Returning time and again to the joy of making music, to the beauty of expressing poetry and drama, to the sensuous pleasure of making sound from one’s own body, and to sharing the depth of emotion that is the truth of all human experience, is a call to the singer. Like the Lorelei, the lure of singing pulls on the singer’s soul and says “come back home”. Having the guts to meld those lofty experiences with the harsh necessities of the real world is in itself a tremendous task.

Training which embraces the path of singing as a spiritual discipline facilitates a singer’s compassionate and courageous confrontation with him or herself. The voice becomes the teacher, the singer the student. The teacher is the map reader, the guide on the journey, the holder of the lamp. The sound of the spirit becomes the sound of the person, and the identity born by the merger of the two transcends time. It lifts up both the giver and the receiver and leaves its mark in the eternal realm that humanity has ever traveled. It is, indeed, a path, and one that is filled with the power of the spirit of life.

How do you tell someone they don’t know that they don’t know? Is there some easy way to point that out?

If you don’t have any comprehension of local custom in a foreign country, say, and you make a hand gesture that is considered obscene, and others are outraged at your behavior, but you have no clue why they are upset…….does that mean you made an innocent mistake or were you remiss in not finding out such a thing before you arrived? If no one else was involved but you, well, I suppose you faced the consequences and learned your lesson, innocent or not. If, however, someone else was with you, say a youngster, and if the young person made the same gesture that you made, albeit, innocently, but the penalty for the accidently obscene behavior was going to jail — would it be the same? Not to me.

Singers who don’t know how rock music is supposed to sound (are there such souls?) and who sing it anyway they want (look for the person named “Wing” on YouTube, but brace yourself) have to take the consequences of their actions, which could include being mocked or criticized. Teachers of singing who don’t know what rock and roll sounds like (and it is NOT all the same, by any means), or what any style of music (sometimes including good classical singing) sounds like, but profess to “teach” it, are absolutely dangerous. They don’t know that they don’t know. And if you should be the unfortunate recipient of instruction from some such idiot, woe be to you, unless YOU know. But if you did know, why would you be a student in the first place?

If you think that rock is the same as jazz or that jazz is the same as music theater (and each of these styles has very wide-ranging parameters) simply because all music that isn’t classical is “that other stuff”, why would you assume you could teach it at all, let alone well? Because you probably don’t know, because it didn’t occur to you, that the music was worthwhile in the first place.

Arggh!

Whenever I do a workshop or class out there in Singing Teacher Land I get all kinds of feedback. Sometimes people I work with come up afterwards to shake my hand and thank me for the session, sometimes attendees tell me how much they have learned. I’ve had really glowing responses that massage my ego and make me feel like Queen for a Day. Of course, I have also had no particular response (beyond some applause) from the vast majority of folks, and I have had some few really nasty responses, some of which I have written about in this blog.

Wherever I am, I expect that some of what I say will strike listeners as being good, some maybe only so-so and some of it will seem to really miss the mark. I also expect that some of my listeners will agree with me, some strongly disagree, and some have no particular opinion.

I am careful to comment on the training and the attitudes of the profession as objectively as possible, to cite my reasons for whatever criticism I offer, and to always promote respect for the music and material we have chosen to call CCM, as well as for those who choose to sing in these styles. I may respectfully disagree with other teachers about techniques, but I am careful not to malign them. What I say at seminars and in writing I would (and have) said to them, personally. I give others the same right when speaking to me.

What I DON’T appreciate, however, is being attacked for telling the truth about the state of the industry, about its standards, about its criteria, and about the way that singers are trained to deal with the real demands made upon their voices in CCM styles when I am at a conference or school. It isn’t, wasn’t and never will be up to me, as one individual, to set music industry standards, to change them, to make them what I would like them to be or to protest what they are. It IS up to me to know what professional expectations are in regard to skill, talent and opportunity at the present moment, in this country, and in other countries whenever possible. That’s what I get paid for knowing and that is what people rely upon me to communicate. If I couldn’t or didn’t do that effectively, professionals in the music industry wouldn’t work with me — they would run away!

When I encounter a situation in which the singing training doesn’t align with CCM industry standards for singers, and I know that those singers are paying a lot of money for training which they believe will help them get work, I feel a moral obligation to speak out. Money may be wasted and time may be lost. More money can be generated but more time can’t. Hopes may be dashed and hearts could be broken and there is no remedy for that.

Of course, there is always margin for error. Perhaps what I say isn’t error-proof. I understand that. But it can’t be way off, again, because the professional singers who trust me to help them would know, and they would leave the studio if I was asking them to make sounds that had no relevance to their career goals. They have enough life experience of their own to know what the standards they work under are, and even though we may not ever get to do a “Vulcan Mind Meld”, we can tell by association that our ideas of what those standards are seem to be in agreement.

It’s one thing to know that you are choosing to study singing with someone who isn’t interested in music industry standards, and that you are learning for the sake of learning. That’s a personal decision, and if it is truly an informed one, it is valid. If you are studying without knowing that this situation is occurring, or worse, studying with someone who isn’t even aware that the industry you wish to enter has standards, let alone what they are, then that is a disaster. This is where I am most likely to speak up and this is where I am most likely to get clobbered. I have revealed that the Emperor is bare and the Emperor gets really angry. Not embarrassed, not chagrined, not distressed, no. The Emperor is ANGRY and is happy to blame me for my PERSONAL opinion. The situation becomes my fault. I am the whistle blower and I am the problem. YIKES!

It’s not a nice experience. I do not like it. At all.

Will I stop?

Now, really, don’t you know that answer?

There is an unacknowledged war going on in the world of singing teachers. There are two groups, subdivided into two more groups.

In the first divide, there are those who teach classical singing technique and repertoire and those who do not. Of those that do, there are those that also teach other styles including music theater, jazz, pop, rock, etc. In THAT group there are those who teach CCM styles who have some kind of experience and perhaps also some training and those who teach the same styles that have neither, or almost none of either. Some of them use different techniques for each style. Then there are classical teachers teaching CCM singers who use the exact same approach (exercises and songs) with them that they use with their classical students. In that case, it is up to the student to find some way to adapt what is being taught to what gets used.

Classical training that is based upon function, whether or not the teacher realizes that, can help vocal ability. It can help develop physical coordination and strength over the breathing apparatus, it can help strengthen pitch orientation and musical acuity in general, it can give a voice more consistency and resonance, it can help articulation. It cannot help someone who wants to learn to sing like a rock singer learn to make an appropriate sound unless the person singing is close to that sound in the first place, in which case it might make it better.

How can I make such a statement? All of my own training was classical and I always sang everything and still do. My classical training did not (and does not) help in any way whatsoever when I perform anything that requires a belt sound. I taught myself to do that and what I discovered had absolutely no relationship to what I did in my voice lessons where I sang classical repertoire. I can attest to the FACT that my students who want to belt, to learn to sing rock music and to wail away might be helped by developing head register, but that is NOT a skill that resides in the private domain of classical singing….lots of styles use head register and its resultant effects.

The CCM teachers who know what they are doing are still much in the minority, but that won’t be for long. More and more teachers are realizing that CCM styles have their own parameters and that attention must be paid. More schools are starting Music Theater programs every year because they make lots of money, and someone has to teach those courses. Sooner or later the ones that don’t know what they are doing are going to be discovered for the frauds that they are. Won’t be too quick for me.

It has come to my attention that many teachers of singing spend their entire careers at a college or teaching in a junior or senior high school. Some of these teachers do not have a “private practice” outside of their school jobs. This makes for a strange relationship to singing and singers.

People of all ages can sing. Even really little children can carry a tune and age is no factor for others. We just saw Barbara Cook at Avery Fisher Hall sing with the NY Philharmonic for her 80th birthday and she sounded young, clear, and absolutely wonderful.

People of all levels of ability are interested in or desire to find a way to sing. Some just want to sing in the local community or church choir, others who are professional actors or dancers find that they are suddenly expected to sing in a production although they don’t have any background as singers.

I have worked with people of all levels of ability from practically none to world famous artists, with those from musical families who sang from their earliest years to those who began singing in their later years with no background at all and learned to sing successfully. I have worked with people with absolutely gorgeous voices and those with voices that are plain and simple, and people with all manner of vocal injuries or illnesses, physical impairments, and emotional issues.

Teaching only young people who enter music programs, one assumes, being able to at least match pitch is certainly a good thing to do but it is a finite way to deal with education. Teaching only college students who have to audition to get into a school in the first place also creates an environment that is limited. Those who do not teach any other population might never have to confront any of the people I just mentioned. But confronting those people is an enormous opportunity to learn.

Those who are in the “ivory tower” of an educational organization may formulate the very incorrect and skewed opinion that the world reflects the school environment when frequently the school environment has nothing whatsoever to do with the real world. Those who do not venture out into the world to see and hear all that is out there in singer-land cannot possibly know how the world is changing (ever so fast and always), what is current and why. Those who teach something in the same way, over and over, with no changes in approach for decades, cannot understand why new and different skills and approaches are necessary even in those who do a good job with what knowledge they already possess.

I wonder if this is why, when CCM teaching is demonstrated to these people, they are so against what they are presented. Do they realize that the teaching reflects the real world, what is happening now or are they completely ignorant that there even is a world……..other than the one in their campus studio.

Did you know that the American Speech and Hearing Association (ASHA) decided years ago to take away a singing teacher’s legal right to use the words “rehabilitate” in relationship to singing training? That’s right. Unless you are a licensed speech language pathologist (SLP) you may not use the word “rehabilitate” in regard to your work with singers, and if you do, you can be sued by ASHA for practicing SLP without a license. How could this have happened?

NATS and ASHA had a meeting years ago with each group sending representatives and came up with this agreement. This is in spite of the fact that speech language pathology students get very little voice training as a part of a bachelors degree program and have to go out of their way to receive extra training in voice. An experienced, educated singing teacher, who has dealt with voice-related issues for years, even decades, is not considered able to deal with an injured voice in a rehabilitative manner, but a graduate of a four year college program, straight out of school, is? Something wrong there, I would say.

Further, when this “referendum” was passed, I doubt that the issue was presented to the NATS membership for a vote. I haven’t inquired, so this may not be correct. Since I have been an active member of NATS since 1980, and I don’t remember hearing about this, I suspect it went by very quietly, in any case. It seemed to me that is was a done deal before I ever heard that it was being considered.

AND, Speech Language Pathology is only about 50 years old as a formal profession. Before that, the only people who could help someone with a voice related issue were singing teachers, whose profession goes back to at least Manuel Garcia the elder, in the early 1800s, and perhaps before that.

The problem here is, of course, that SLPs were willing to organize themselves and their training into codified levels, and have clear expectations about what is required of those who apply for licensure. Singing teachers have steadfastly refused to agree on even the most basic qualifications for singing teachers, and this has allowed the sister discipline to outdistance and usurp singing teaching in many areas, not so much because SLPs know more about how to deal with voice issues (quite the contrary) but because they stepped up to the plate and held themselves accountable at least to each other.

If, in fact, we are to stand for healthy singing of any style, and if we who teach CCM are already able to agree on some components of what we hear and teach (which is a part of my method, Somatic Voicework(sm) — consistent and accurate use of terminology and evaluation of aural output), why can’t that become part of a profession-wide expectation? There are other criteria that can be established through research and, coupled with teaching competency, can be combined into a useful professional structure for testing and evaluation. Licensing may not be the first step in such a process, but it could emerge as basic qualifications were clarified over time.

If we do not do this, or something like it, we have laid down in the road and allowed the SLPs to ride over us with nary a quibble. We have allowed them to steal our words and make them forbidden to us and we have allowed their profession to be taken seriously as a science while ours is still locked in mystery-land.

If you belong to a NATS Chapter, or to an International Chapter of Teachers of Singing, please bring this topic up for discussion at your next meeting. Be prepared, however, for the shoes that will be thrown in your direction.

We can all agree that anyone with the money, time and desire can study an instrument. If there is a piano teacher available and I have a piano and am available to take lessons and practice what I am being taught, I can, in time, learn to play. If I am determined and I persevere, I can learn to play well, tackling difficult music of whatever style I like. I can develop the physical and mental skills necessary to read music and translate what I am reading to something outside myself in a consistent manner that others can also replicate. That does not mean, however, that I will be a brilliant artist, with depth and uniqueness, and an ability to communicate what I feel in the sounds the instrument I can play makes. It does not guarantee that I will be interesting to hear, compelling to watch, or memorable.

We all know that this is true of sports as well, and of any other activity in which physical training and coordination must be developed. You can learn to paint, draw, or sculpt, and you can create many artistic works but that doesn’t mean that you will be a significant artist, or that your work will be recognized as such by others. You can act or dance, or you can sing. The same things can be said about those disciplines as well.

There are limits, however, to what can and cannot be done and they are affected by “real world” factors such as natural disposition, time, age and training.

Here is a hypothetical situation: If you had unlimited time and started at an early age, there is no reason why a child couldn’t learn to play piano in several styles simultaneously. Training in classical music, jazz, and rock music would all be very different, not only in approach, but in skill development. Classical music requires finger dexterity, strength in the upper body and arms and hands, and fluidity of movement in the fingers, hands, wrists, and elbows. Jazz requires much the same physical skills but asks the mind to learn a different set of music rules. Rock music, on the other hand, requires a knowledge of some of the mindset of a jazz musician, but asks for a different energy in both the music and body. It isn’t impossible that all of these skills exist in one person. In fact, is it ever more possible, but to have them all exist in equal proportion, at the same time, would be extraordinary, as would having all three styles be of equal interest to the artist playing.

Let’s take another example: If you train a dancer from a young age to learn several different styles, (and this is done all the time), the body can learn to adapt to each of them equally as it grows. Dancers who grow up stretching their bodies become very flexible and strong and end up being able to execute maneuvers that even very flexible non-dancers could never manage. On the other hand, if a dancer grows up only doing ballet, she may not be as comfortable in other styles.

If we extend this to singers we must consider that those who have been trained to sing only classically, or only in one mode of classical vocal technique (a particular approach of one teacher), may not adapt to other styles easily, particularly if they do not sing them until they are adults. Theoretically, if the training in other styles had been given from childhood, and the person had unlimited time and was willing to practice, all styles could be assimilated along the way. This, too, happens, although it has been mostly a result of self-training until very recently.

Now, we go one notch further. I used to dance and used to be quite flexible, particularly when I was young. Now, however, I am no longer doing dance classes and do not stretch my muscles every day. If you asked me today to touch my toes without bending my knees, I could not do so. No matter how much I willed myself, my hamstrings and other muscles would not stretch enough to make touching my toes possible right now. Even if I used a great deal of will power, going past a certain place would be so painful and my muscles would be so resistant, that forcing myself could cause me to be very uncomfortable or perhaps even hurt myself. If, however, I stretch as far as I can every day for weeks, months and even years, even at my age, sooner or later, my toes are going to get reacquainted with my fingers.

If I am a student, and I am singing in a class, and I am doing my best to follow the instructions I have been given, and I am giving all that I have to my song, and my teacher tells me that I am “holding back” or “listening to myself”, what am I to do? If my body has not been trained to make a certain sound, or has been trained only to make a one kind of sound, can I will myself to do some other sound or get there just by trying harder? Can I make my voice go someplace it has never been just by pushing it there? No, of course not. It just isn’t possible. I don’t yet have those physical skills or mental concepts. I am not holding back, but my voice and body have limits I cannot overcome in that particular moment.

It is fair then to say that everyone is as capable of making every movement, every sound and experiencing every emotion as everyone else, as we are all human beings. The potential exists in us all. If I am able to learn how to approach different skills or disciplines while I am young, I could learn a number of different things and perhaps end up being good at all of them, or at least several, and so could other people. If, however, I have not been given that opportunity, and grow up just doing or knowing about one thing, and find that I want to do something else when I am older, I might find it more difficult to learn and assimilate it. I might find it so difficult that I would decide it wasn’t worth the effort. I might just give up. I might feel that it’s impossible.

Is that true, is it “reality” or is it a belief? Is such a situation physical limitation, mental limitation, or something else, like a limitation of time or money available?

I write all this because this week I once again heard from the “grapevine” that “some people can sing in lots of styles and some can’t”. My response (predictably) was “Oh, really?” Says who, says I. It all depends upon what you think is impossible.

Many times I have heard that lovely little saying “Those who can, do, and those who can’t, teach”. Would that this were never the case, but it, sadly, sometimes true. I think it was true in my case. I started teaching when I was 22, in Connecticut. I did so because I was asked, and worked with a few high school students and someone who had been brain damaged in an accident. It was always fun and easy for me and I could hardly stop once I began. Lessons would go on and on. At that time, though, I was intent on becoming a professional singer. I had done quite a few shows in Connecticut and was beginning to go into New York more regularly for classes and lessons. It was in my mind to teach only as something to do “on the side to earn money”, not to become a career teacher. Even though I liked teaching, it wasn’t my goal. I was going to be a star! (Yes, I’m blushing now).

I got to the Big Apple in 1975 and quickly discovered how truly difficult it is to get any work here. It was even hard to get non-paying gigs. You had to fight to get an opportunity to perform for free!! Nevertheless, I looked hard and got some nice opportunities, although I got paid only the smallest amount of money and realized immediately that I had better start teaching again or I was going to starve. Without much effort, I developed a relatively stable voice studio out of my apartment and made just enough money to keep myself alive.

After three years of knocking around, and with the end of my marriage looming, I was tired of beating the pavement, and had to confront that the angel of show biz had not, and probably was not, going to come find me so that I could get that star on my door. What was I to do? I knew I could get a job in an office, as I had been very successful at that in Connecticut. I could wait tables or tend bar, or I could keep teaching. I guess we know what I chose.

It was at that point that I decided to make teaching my life focus and to become the best damn teacher of singing I could. It was also then that I found the Voice Foundation for the first time, and saw the way to make this goal possible. To say that my world opened up then, is too mild a statement. While I couldn’t control getting hired as a singer, I could certainly control learning about singing and the teaching of singing, and that is what I did. The rest, if you know me, is history.

I think that I would not have been interested in teaching had I been very successful as a performer. Performing would have occupied me and I would have devoted myself to becoming a better actor and dancer, resting on my singing skills, as I knew that they were good. I wouldn’t have had time to investigate science and medicine and I wouldn’t have encountered all the confusion that’s out there in Voice Teaching Land. In fact, practically nothing that I do now, would have been likely, had I become a STAR, or even a consistently working vocalist. I owe my present skills and knowledge to my failure.

So, it is true, sometimes, that those who don’t (in this case, have a career as a singer) teach, but if being a career voice teacher is a profession (most definitely), then those who are teaching singing because they want to and because they want to be very excellent at it, certainly don’t fit the old saying. How about a new one — “Those who can teach, do, and those who can’t, stay away from it”. I like that much better, don’t you?

Enthusiasm naturally spills over — it is difficult to contain. People who are enthusiastic are energized and passionate and happy all at the same time. They seem to have a great sense of anticipation and optimism about whatever is the source of that enthusiasm, and all of that is contagious.

The human side of things, of course, is going to get in the way, no matter what. One person’s enthusiasm is someone else’s “overbearing”, and another one’s “lackadaisical”. If I love NASCAR races and talk to you about them endlessly, trying to get you to be as excited as I am, I might succeed and get you to become a big fan, too. I might turn you off completely, and make you run the other way, losing your friendship in the process, or you might just tolerate me, going along without as much energy as I have, and enjoy the races without getting really involved or annoyed.

People who really care about anything are special. People who are willing to commit to something and make the effort to bring their own personal best to what interests them are also unusual. It is very easy to coast in our society. It is easy to go do your job, get your paycheck and go home.

That is how some people teach singing. They meet the requirements of their school, department or organization. They do what they have to and then they go home to watch reruns on TV. They don’t care if their students learn anything, or if they are growing as teachers, as long as they make whatever amount of money they get. You would hope that artists, singers, were above that, but they are first, human beings. If they are teaching because their own careers as singers didn’t really get very far, it can be very depressing to teach someone else to do what you wanted to do and didn’t get to do yourself. People who go into teaching because they have no other skills by which to make a living aren’t the best candidates to become great teachers. People who choose to teach, on the other hand, because they are enthusiastic about teaching, and because they really want to joyfully share what they have learned with others, are often terrific teachers just for that one reason alone.

It is my desire to share what I have learned about singing (particularly CCM material) with others who are enthusiastic about acquiring that information. My desire is to perhaps make it easier for the other person to learn, saving some time and effort, helping to avoid mistakes and expense, if at all possible. My hope is that what I have to show and tell the other person turns out to be useful or valuable in some way, not impressive.

But, being human, I do want to share what I know in a certain way. I want to put it in its best package, I want it to be seen for what it is and not changed (like a chef who has cooked a gourmet meal and doesn’t want someone putting ketchup on it without even tasting it first). I have spent my entire life, over two hundred thousand hours in 36 years, gathering the information and experiences that I have distilled into something that I hope has great value. If I offer it to others, I don’t like to see it trashed, distorted, edited haphazardly, or mangled, particularly if I know the person who is doing those things has less experience or information than I do.

Yet, this has happened, and will, no doubt, happen again many times over. It is the inevitable consequence of enthusiastically sharing the information in the first place. If I kept it to myself, no one could damage or change it, no one could take it away from me, and no one would benefit from it except by personal contact with me. It hurts when someone takes a vocal exercise I know for sure is correct because it has worked over and over in countless different lessons for decades, and changes it simply because they don’t like it, even though they don’t have a better idea of their own. It hurts me when the information I am offering is rejected out of hand because it goes against someone’s past assumptions, even if those assumptions don’t work. It hurts me to think that others find my enthusiasm for all CCM and for teaching it as being overbearing, egotistical and self-righteous.

I couldn’t stop, though, even if I tried. I am so overwhelmingly motivated to share what I know in case it might assist even one person to sing in a way that is easier, more satisfying, more viable, faster, better and happier, that I couldn’t keep what I know to myself under any circumstances. I don’t enjoy feeling “hurt”, but I ignore it, as what does it matter what I feel or what happens to me in the long run, when the young teachers and their even younger students, get to understand how to sing rock or gospel or pop music without hurting themselves and feel so happy to be able to sing freely as the artists they are.

The desire to share is a good thing. The consequences of sharing are always going to be both good and not so good, but there is no other way.

As a child, I was told often by my mother, some people just don’t know how to behave, so you have to forgive them. She was cognizant of the fact that life’s “rules and regulations” sometimes pass people by, and consequently, they are not truly responsible for failing to know what to say or how to behave in certain circumstances. Of course, the government’s position is “ignorance is no excuse”, meaning if you break a law and you didn’t even know it was a law, too bad for you if you get caught. One could make an argument for either position.

In terms of singing, if a person has spent a lifetime singing classical music, listening only to classical repertoire and attending only classical performances, and has studiously avoided virtually everything else, they may justifiably claim to be ignorant of other styles of music and of the parameters they encompass. It would be fair to say, then, that these people live in a restricted world. This, however, skirts the issue that their life of restriction requires some rather deliberate behavior, given that other styles of music swirl around us at the mall, in elevators, in restaurants, in stores, all manner of TV shows and movies, radio broadcasts, internet sources and countless other places. You have to work hard to remain totally isolated when you are living in the midst of it.

It’s a little different, however, if you enter into the world of Contemporary Commercial Music and “mess around” there. If you find yourself being called upon to sing or teach any style in which you have no experience and no training, you are a novice, and you actually have no business being there until and unless you have made some kind of an effort to inform yourself. You have an obligation to know what is expected and why. Refusal to do so can’t be excused as ignorance. It can’t be looked upon as some kind of unfortunate accident.

Every time I run into an attitude of “I know enough” and “this is all I have to know” in singing teachers who fit the bill just described, when I know darn well that the individuals involved have spent all of 15 minutes gathering information, I am astounded. I once again encountered this first hand quite recently and it was all I could do to keep my already too big mouth closed and keep my frustration to myself. (I managed).

I consoled myself with the notion that many of these classical singer/teachers don’t sing or teach classically all that well, either, and in point of fact, likely know less than they should about classical rep and pedagogy, which makes them lousy at their primarily discipline in the first place. Why would their secondary interest be any better? Lousy is as lousy does, I suppose.