Various Posts

In all these years, I have never been able to force myself to watch “American Idol”. Hearing about it was enough.

So, finally, this year, I am forcing myself to tune in to this truly frightening show. It epitomizes all in America that I despise, and all of what passes for “experts” who “judge” singers, when, in point of fact, they have no wisdom of any kind.

Clearly, in the pre-screening, the panel choosing the contestants who will go before the “judges” makes an effort to pick people who can’t sing and think they can, just to give the “judges” people to pick on. It’s like watching the gladiators face the lions and tigers in the Coliseum, with the audience waiting for Caesar to do “thumbs down”. Mixed in with these pitiable aspirants are some people who can actually carry a tune and an occasional talented person. These people give the facade of “try-outs” just enough credibility to keep the show from being even more of a travesty than it is.

And, if the contestants don’t sing everything as if it were an R & B song, regardless, that’s it. My word!

Twenty years ago I was on “10,000 Pyramid”. I know how contestants are chosen and what the game show people did with them because, me being me, I asked a lot of questions. Contestants were placed on the show, not just for how well they could play the game, but by their looks and personalities. Lively ones were held to counter sullen or quiet ones.

Perhaps, when the “finals” are on, and most of the people singing can actually sing, there is justified reason why the show attracts so much attention, but these preliminaries are disgusting. Let me say that again, DISGUSTING. If I rail against lack of respect for singing and singers, what could be worse than to have to watch poor sorry folks who don’t know what singing is in the first place be put on national TV to display their ignorance, be humiliated, and have the “judges” laughing and gloating over the contestants’ flaws.

If there is a hell, the people running “American Idol” (behind and in front of the camera) surely deserve to be in it, no matter that the past winners and runners up have gone on to become successful professional singers and even stars. It would be appropriate to call this waste of time “Idle”, as that is what it is.

A lot of the argument about what constitutes “good” vocal training would be eliminated if singing teachers could distinguish between functional training and classical training (remember, that has been the only vocal music training for the last 200 years).

Good classical training is functional training, if it is geared towards training the voice to function efficiently in classical repertoire. It might also be good functional training for other styles as well, but that would be possible only if the training included activities that were “multi-task” oriented. If the training were geared to helping the voice function in a number of different ways, under different circumstances, and produced improved vocal response in those specific ways and circumstances but not in any or all vocal behaviors, it would be functional but limited.

Conversely, when training is geared toward making only one CCM style, that is not optimal training either. For instance, singing training geared exclusively to rock singing might be effective, but functionally it is limited and limiting. Such training is not universal or holistic vocal development. Singing training that leaves out working with the speaking voice is also not fully functional, although it may still be useful and even effective, within certain boundaries.

“Total” training of the voice does not yet exist. Working on speech in all its myriad forms, and working with vocal production, posture, breathing and application to material regardless of whether the material is spoken or not, classical or CCM, cannot be had in just one person, place or approach. Somatic Voicework® does address all of these vocal responses, but it focuses primarily on the singing voice and CCM styles (not speech or classical), mostly for practical purposes. There just isn’t time in the summer course to dwell on all of these ways of making voiced sound and doing justice to them. I have studied all three, but I was constrained to reduce the course itself down to absolute essentials for teachers addressing CCM.

When we can train the voice to be robust, flexible, variable, consistent, powerful, free, controlled and spontaneous, no matter what the application, then we would have what would be called “universal, functional” vocal training. Sooner or later, I hope we get there, I hope.

Just came back from the Met (Opera), where my friend, Robert, and I attended “Jenufa” starring Karita Mattila. The opera’s music was lovely, the orchestra played nicely, the singing ranged from not-to-hot to wonderful but the set was frighteningly awful. Ugly, very steeply raked, bare, and bizaare. It was not only useless, it was an obstruction. The second act of the home of Jenufa in the little country village was a huge grey rodent-shaped tub (15 feet tall). That was the only thing on the stage that was so steep the singers should have had on sneakers. Some person (I chose not to look at who), was paid a LOT of money to design this monstrosity, and this kind of set/production isn’t rare. Opera News recently wrote about an “updated” production of “E’lisir d’Amore” in a 50s style diner with Nemorino as a James Dean type hood and Norina as a waitress. PLEASE. How about the “Don Giovanni” where the Don was in the mafia. PU-LEEZE!

What if someone decided to “redesign” and “update” Rembrandt’s “Nightwatch”, to make it “more contemporary” and “accessible”. First, we repaint the Dutch Guildmasters by taking them out of their garb and putting them in three piece pinstripe suits and then we take out some of the other things, and put in a TV and maybe a bottle of Bud or Merlot. How about making one of the guys hold a cigarette, with smoke curling out, and another guy could be looking at a beat-up copy of the Wall Street Journal (just to make it more topical). It should be lit with rotating purple and green spotlights and a background of “cool jazz” should be playing to add “atmosphere”. That would do it, you know? It would be so DIFFERENT, RELEVANT and SIGNIFICANT.

Clearly, to go back to respect, we don’t do that to Rembrandts (thankfully). I guess they cost too much. But an opera, well, that’s not in the same catagory as a “Piece of ART” as is a fine painting, right? Why should that be left alone when each new person can bring their own significant spin to enhance it?

You can hear my teeth grinding.

There’s more, though.

How about hiring singers who actually sound good? Not just loud, not just convincing, but GOOD. (OK, how can you tell what “good” is, when these things are so SUBJECTIVE). For one, you can get a pair of EARS. Most people wouldn’t call a donkey bray a pretty sound, and that doesn’t require a degree in music. The average person can tell the difference between a shreik, a wail, and a shout, so why can’t the person who is in charge of casting at one of the world’s most important opera houses hear the difference? This is not, by a long shot, the first time I have been to the Met to hear all manner of warbling, wobbling, screeching and swallowing up on that stage. To have someone like Ms. Mattila, who is not only a superb singer with a gorgeous voice but a powerful actress, standing on stage with some others who just didn’t cut it vocally was sad. Don’t tell me there aren’t enough good singers. I can think of 10 in my own small life here in New York who easily sing well enough to be there, and have the training and experience to back it up, but they will never get the chance to audition, let alone sing. The process of getting an audition at the Met is like climbing Mt. Everest, pretty hard to accomplish even if you know what you are up against.

No, it is the same thing. Not enough respect for singing, for it’s own sake. If folks are going to rant about how awful CCM is, that the singing is noisy and ugly, and then claim that opera singing is “Bel Canto” when some of the pop singers have really beautiful voices under all circumstances and some (not all) of the opera singers sound like the people we heard tonight, then we are facing yet again “ga-ga land” thinking. Beautiful singing is beautiful singing and what’s ugly is just that.

Beauty is inspiring, moving, heart-opening, touching, uplifting, lasting and rooted deeply in our human nature. Children are beautiful, pristine nature is beautiful, kindness is beautiful. What is “artistic” may be something that cannot so easily be pinned down, but it certainly isn’t someone expressing themselves just because they can. That produces not-so-“bel” music that just can’t. OH-OH!

It’s very sad to give someone half a gift. It’s like giving half a birthday cake, or half a vacation, or half a train ticket (go, but don’t come back?). Giving half a gift is almost worst than receiving half a gift.

I have had occasion to work with students who are making great progress, who seem to be excited about what they are learning, who ask questions and take in whatever information or guidance I offer and then, with no explanation or warning, just disappear. I’ve talked about this before.

It pains me when this happens, and it causes me the most grief when I know that the person leaving didn’t really get the full picture, although they may have thought they did. Perhaps they thought that the whole enchilada wasn’t important, or that half of my enchilada would be a great mix with someone else’s half a pizzaburger. We might have a voice that is getting freer, more responsive, stronger, higher, whatever, and a singer who is learning to go more deeply into her or himself, mining their own inner landscape, and then they fall off a cliff.

I recall a few students who left because they wanted to study with someone who was an opera singer or someone who is classical, and, conversely, students who left because they wanted to work with someone who was “more pop oriented” and less classical. None of these people actually asked me about my own training and background, they just left, and I heard subsequently the reasons for their departure from others. I have had students leave because I was too technical, even though I clearly state that this is what I do, and because I am not helping them find good songs, when I make no bones about that not being one of my interests or strengths. I have had a few students take one or two lessons only to discover that they are out teaching others with my approach, only it really ISN’T, because you can’t learn that in one or two lessons.

The people that say “this is what LoVetri teaches” when it is only half (or less) of what I teach or tell their students “do this exercise”, without knowing that I do the same exercises with many students, but not necessarily with the same intention or for the same reason, make me very unhappy.

It is one thing to decide to stop training because you don’t like what you are doing, or what is being produced in your singing, and you are clear about that. it is another thing entirely when you stop because you think you know everything about someone else and their approach, when you don’t and can’t possibly.

None of this is peculiar to me, or new. It is part of being a singing teacher working in the professional world in a big city and it isn’t going to change. I thought that expressing more about my frustration over the situation might be encouraging to new singing teachers, who will certainly experience their own stories along the same lines.

One can only sing as well as one’s control over the voice allows. If there is a weak place, or places that are tight, the singer will either be limited or sing badly. Period. The reason to work on perfecting technique is because it allows the singer to sing, and sing freely, with artistic expressiveness.

Emotionality in music, or the ability to allow the voice to actually carry genuine emotion, should be the goal of any good singer, no matter what style they sing. This is what people respond to, what makes the music alive and vital, and what makes for unique and memorable performances. Anyone’s voice can be emotional if they are experiencing strong emotion and making voiced sound, but using the voice healthfully in a powerfully emotional manner, over and over, in musical phrases that can be demanding on many levels, isn’t something the voice generally “just does”. It requires conditioning of the vocal muscles and the breathing mechanism, else the emotions cause strain and abuse of the vocal folds. Singing “with emotion” isn’t necessarily easy.

Musicality is the ability to find the expressiveness and emotion in music and allow it to move through the sound. It isn’t the same thing as being a good musician, although it certainly is hoped that those who are professional are both. Most people would rather listen to a singer who is musical (although the audience wouldn’t necessarily know if the person was a good musician or not), than to someone who is an excellent musician but is emotionally flat in delivery. Talent has to do with many ingredients, but musicality is certainly a strong component in any talented performer’s lexicon.

Classical training should set up the voice to allow great emotion to pour through the sound, but often this is not the case. There is often so much emphasis on the sound for its own sake, and so much attention paid to various versions of “correct placement” or “ringing resonance” or on breathing that actually feeling emotional during a sung phrase may never happen. Making a lot of sound is impressive, but I am not won over by such displays. I would rather be moved or touched during a performance. That happens when the voice is at the complete disposal of the artist and when the artist is willing to go deep within to a place of truth while singing. Simple but very hard.

Certainly some music, and some kinds of styles and performance, isn’t meant to be continuously profound, and the various levels of intensity that any performer feels may vary quite a bit. Emotion can be expressed through many avenues, in addition to the voice alone, and sometimes a simple delivery of words and melody is enough to make for a fun or light-hearted and entertaining performance. There are also performers who do not want to risk feeling really emotional while singing, lest the emotion overtake them and the voice, and make for chaos. That is what training is for, and it is a shame that such individuals don’t know what could be available if they were to look for it.

Teachers of singing should always find a way to investigate whether or not the student is in touch with actual, real feelings while singing, and whether or not the singer is capable of being emotionally free but in control while performing a song. The training process needs to be harnessed to feeling, and feeling happens in the body as both sensation and emotion. When these ingredients exist equally, it could be said that the singer posesses perfect vocalism.

A few days ago I wrote a piece from the “opposition” point of view. I thought it was telling that some readers didn’t know if I was serious or not. I wasn’t. I couldn’t possibly have the beliefs I espoused in that piece. I was trying, obviously with limited success, to point out what the time-honored assumptions of my profession have been and to a large degree still are, which are to me, at least, no longer valid when applied to any style of CCM.

In questioning beliefs (about anything, not just singing) that have been around for a long time, and which are considered to be “the truth” for many of the believers, one is bound to cause both upset and confusion. Counting on the ability of individuals to use common sense and apply a “trial and error” attitude toward any ideas or philosophy is a crucial element in the hope for change. The attitudes I have toward singing and the teaching thereof are NOT based upon “believe it because I (the authority) say it is so” but upon the notion that one should accept as beliefs only those which have been confirmed by personal experience and experimentation. The other core assumption I put forth is that it is possible to be in touch with one’s own body at a profound level and that such awareness calls forth wisdom which is deep and irrefutable, and not necessary explanable in a rational intellectual manner, but is valid, perhaps required, nonetheless.

Singing is a part of human vocal expression, albeit a unique part. We, as sound makers, have limits to what we hear and can execute, but within those limits an enormous amount is possible, and possible for most people under most circumstances (even if that does not seem to be evident). Various types of singing have been organized according to assorted criteria, sometimes in a deliberate manner, but mostly by happenstance and accident. Value judgements about what these organized criteria are or should be are made by those involved and by those outside. I don’t have any idea why rock, country, rap, R&B, folk or other styles were created, or why the artists singing in these styles have a certain acceptability within each style, but I do know that these labels for each style exist and that people claim to recognize the various styles as being individuated musical expressions, even if the boundaries are constantly in flux. In other words, a self-proclaimed country, rock, pop, or folk artist knows that he or she is one because they say so and others agree.

If we don’t recognize that each style exists within its own world, and that there is no such thing as universal vocal training, we are going to remain confused and teach from a state of confusion. Applying the values of verismo to Mozart will get you in trouble. Applying classical vocal qualities to rock music will do the same. Taking the values of “good singing” that apply to classical training and applying them wholesale to other styles is a sure way to go nowhere. We must understand what the individual artist needs and what is required of the material that is being sung and guide the training accordingly.

Therefore, question everything anyone says, including me, until and unless you prove to yourself that it is worth holding as a tenet.

This week I have worked on two sides of the same issue. One singer came in with a lifetime of singing with a natural vibrato. She wanted to learn how to eliminate it and had done so by the end of the session. Another singer, who told me not so long ago that she had never had a vibrato and couldn’t find one even when she tried, sang today with a nice steady vibrato which we have coaxed into showing up and that is continually getting better, which pleases her a great deal.

Vibrato is one of those things that is “somewhere”. It is a functional response of something to something else but science has not yet resolved exactly what makes the singing voice vibrato arise in those who have one, when it clearly isn’t there when those individuals are speaking. The research I did with Dr. Titze, wherein he had electrodes placed on my vocal folds so that he could run electricity through them, certainly made it clear to me that it was the vocal folds that were making the vibrato, but, sadly, the research wasn’t definite even if my own experience was.

Like a lot of professionals and skilled amateurs, I can sing a straight tone in all registers, I can sing it breathy or nasal, and I can turn it off and on at will. In my classical singing, I can, with some attention, keep the vibrato from being too slow. The vibrato rate is definitely different in classical than in CCM, although I don’t make that happen deliberately.

I have found that people with strong voices often have powerful vibrato responses and that they find it harder to subdue or inhibit it than do singers with more lyric, lighter voices. That’s just a tendency, though, not an absolute. The styles that use straight tone either a lot or all the time (Barbershop, Early Music, and Jazz), can end up affecting the natural vibrato of someone who has one by making it go away and stay gone. That is only a problem if the person singing wants to do other styles where the vibrato is expected, as for instance, in most music theater songs.

It is hard to speed up a big wobbly vibrato, slow down a machine-gun fast bleetly vibrato, or create a natural unmanipulated vibrato for the first time, but hard doesn’t mean impossible. Generally, the whole vibrato function is best left to Mother Nature’s domain most of the time, but learning to deliberately affect the vibrato for stylistic or expressive reasons is certainly possible and not a bad thing. This is contradictory, but true. Ah, the human body! Such a great and mysterious thing.

I’ve been thinking that it would be good to take on the position of those whose attitudes I dislike.

SO…

I believe that singing opera can be helpful to anyone who wants to learn to sing. In order to sing opera, one must learn to breath efficiently and deeply, using the diaphragm and the abdominal muscles to help support the tone one is producing. In a talented singer, who can stay on pitch and has a naturally good voice, developing resonance is best approached by suggesting that the student produce a tone that vibrates in the bones of the face and head at all times. The vowels should remain in the most forward position in order to help increase these vibrations, and the resonance should be uninterrupted by noisy or drawn-out consonants, although an effort should be made to pronounce all words intelligibly. The student should be encouraged to sing in Italian, as the vowels in Italian are musical and pure and this will help the English, German and French vowels follow that same path. The tone should have a vibrato which is not too fast, too slow or irregular, and it should not be artificially manufactured.

It is appropriate for the student to begin with Italian Art Songs or other similar art songs in order to learn how to sing a flowing musical line (legato) and to spend time on vocal exercises of various kinds to strength breathing and resonance.

When doing material that is not classical, students should be encouraged to carry over as much as possible all of the above skills that have been developed by doing classical music. All music in any style should be sung with as much consistent resonance as possible, with legato, vibrato, and clear, undistorted vowels. Consonents should be used minimally so as not to effect the vocal line, but they should be audible and crisp. Students should work to create a beautiful sound in whatever style of music is being performed, and use the sound itself as the main vehicle of communication.

Problems which arise in the music should be addressed through breath support work, correction of resonance positions (placement), and through changes in the concepts of the sound and the images that accompany those sounds. Students should be encouraged to stay within material that is comfortable and easily done until the voice and body are very secure in those behaviors.

Anyone who has mastered the above skills will have drawn out the best of their singing voice, and can go on to develop as an artist while learning more about music history, style, interpretation, performance practice and stage deportment.

OK, what do you think of that?

I continue to receive personal reports, one at a time, from various teachers of singing who are at university, that there is a “war” between the departments of music and drama, and that within the departments of music, there are many problems between those that are “strictly classical” teachers of singing and those who teach music theater, jazz, or other CCM styles. Since this is something I have had to face for more than 31 years here in New York, as well as a master teacher all over the planet, I am not surprised, but I am sad to know that not much has changed except that the number of confrontations is increasing. (We all remember that I was strongly verbally attacked in Minneapolis at the NATS Convention in July for pointing out that we don’t sing gospel, rock, and belt songs with the same sounds used in Schubert and Fauré).

Since the CCM teachers are often in the minority, sometimes isolated, and frequently need to work within the guidelines of a school in order to keep their jobs, the resistance they are forced to face is all the more troublesome. ( I am exempt from that particular worry, since no one can fire me, having always been in private practice). CCM teachers end up having to defend themselves and CCM repertoire, something which should be unnecessary, if things were fair, and which is, in point of fact, offensive. The drama departments often want their students to sing well, but find that the singing training, being almost exclusively classical, does not always support the needs or parameters of music theater material. This is true in jazz schools, too. Even there, the vocal training is classical, which strikes me as being even more paradoxical. How does learning “Caro Mio Ben” help you sing music “Mood Indigo”, written by Duke Ellington? (It doesn’t, as I sing both, and anyone else who does both also knows that is true).

I have heard from quite a few people that their “Bel Canto” training has helped them sing in whatever CCM style they do. Surely, good breathing, easy production and resonant vowels are helpful things for any singer to understatnd, but true Bel Canto style (florrid singing as written by Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini) must carry with it far more than that in order to be correctly executed. The inability to separate what is style from what is vocal production fuels the silly notion that singing an aria from “Lucia di Lammamoor” would somehow be a good stepping stone to singing “And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going” from “Dreamgirls”. Cheech!

Speaking out and speaking up to dispell such nonsensical notions ought to be a good thing, but it is often most unwelcome, and even controversial. Martin Luther King, whom we remembered yesterday, said something like “not speaking out is the beginning of death” and he knew whereof he spoke. We must remember Dr. King’s courage and steadfastness and know that, although singing CCM isn’t at all in the same league as an issue as is racial discrimination, it has its own kinds of arrogance and ignorance to confront.

The value of this blog, and of the chatroom, is that we have each other, and that we are not alone. Please know that this is a “battle” that is necessary and that each person, teaching wherever and however he or she may be, adds to the changes in teaching singing that will someday be standard behavior everywhere. The balance of the scale will tip when there are more of us. That this will happen is certain. Each of you contributes to that global shift. Don’t forget.

What does it mean to respect a piece of music? Does respect mean treating it the way one treats a person? Do the same kinds of values matter when one is in relationship to an artistic creation as to a human being?

A good deal of what would constitute respect is connected to knowledge. You have to have some kind of information before you can be respectful. Without it, you might be disrespectful and not even know it. That could be a problem. The knowledge would probably be some kind of context for the piece of music — where did it come from? Who wrote it? When? Why? What else was going on at the same time, both musically and in the world at large. What is known about the composer and/or lyricist? What is known about the style of music in which the piece is written, and the style as it was or is represented by other composers of the same era? What is known about the composer’s intentions, based upon how it was done originally, or anything that has been written about the piece?

Artistic license says that anything is possible, but we do have to get permission from a composer and author of a published piece of music before we change any of its written notes or words, unless the changes are very small. If the piece is changed so much as to become unrecognizable, it can be considered to have been destroyed. This isn’t artistic license, it is criminal, and can be prosecuted in a court of law by the copyright holders.

Therefore, when someone is arranging a song for a jazz artist, for example, the arrangement can be creative and unique but the arranger cannot re-write the song. Knowing how far to go is a judgment, usuallly made by someone wise enough to have been around the music world long enough to know by exposure what appropriate musical and artistic boundaries are acceptable.

Taking a song completely out of context can certainly constitute disrespect. Not liking certain styles of music but performing them anyway, is disrespectful. Squeezing certain songs to fit one’s own limited ability to sing is also an abuse. (That’s why taking a gospel song and singing it with an operatic or classical sound is repugnant. No matter how schooled the singer, any music is not “improved” by changing it’s character because the vocalist has only one way to sing it).

One of the most amazing attitudes to encounter amongst voice teachers is that of profound ignorance. Teachers of CCM who don’t even have the minimum amount of information about any style of CCM to know that they are being disrespectful to these styles abound. This only matters because the music deserves to be respected. We’re still a long way off from having this be the gold standard in terms of training and performance.