Jeanie’s Blog

 Detailed news about the 2019 LoVetri Institute for Somatic Voicework™ in residence at Baldwin Wallace University’s Community Music School will be announced soon but in the meantime please save the dates. Level I begins on July 20, Level II on 23, and Level III on July 26. Past participants still get an incredible 50% discount ...

Excitement continues to build for the second year of the LoVetri Institute for Somatic Voicework™ at Baldwin Wallace University in July in Berea, Ohio. Participants are arriving from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, France, Spain, the United Kingdom and all over the USA. Many people are also returning to review the course because the information is always presented in ...

Somatic Voicework™ seeks to bring the voice, the person, the emotions and the mind together. It seeks to illuminate the path of vocal artistry by conveying objective information about vocal production based on what is currently known and understood in medicine and science. It supports inter-disciplinary exchange. It is an open system. All premises are ...

Vocalist Maria Damore demonstrates her ability to sing in a variety of vocal styles in this compilation of Kurt Weill songs from her 2016 concert in Reading, PA. She is accompanied by Lars Potteiger. Song clips include Pirate Jenny, My Ship, Speak Low, Youkali, Lost in the Stars, and, Mack the Knife. Maria has studied Somatic Voicework: ...

I know that older people always complain about “the youth of today” and praise the good old days. Now that I am an older person, I don’t want to do that, but it is hard not to look back at what I learned and think that much of it is gone. To me, that’s a ...

Imagine that you are a singing student who has been taught a method that leaves you with your throat feeling pain. It actually hurts when you practice or perform. Imagine, also, that when you complain to your teacher, you are blamed for being unable to understand the great pearls of wisdom falling from his or her ...

You need only be exposed once to someone who has had a laryngectomy to understand how important it is to be able to speak. While it is certainly better than dying from laryngeal cancer, it is a terrible loss and staying alive becomes much harder. Since the larynx is responsible for keeping the lungs protected ...

In most spiritual traditions the “masters” are of few words, carefully chosen. They understand the power of words, as spoken sound, to influence. Strongly spoken words carry emotional and mental power and have an impact. Singing magnifies that experience. Any authority figure must learn to choose words carefully and to pay attention to the consequences of ...

We all know that it’s very easy to sell something to someone who has no information than to have success with someone who is knowledgable. The Simms Clothing company has as its motto, “An educated consumer is our best customer.” They mean, of course, that people who are knowledgeable about high quality clothing will recognize ...

Years ago the late Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop, came out clearly as being “against animal testing.” At the time, that was a radical thing for a company selling cosmetics and toiletries to do. Nevertheless, it became a battle cry and made The Body Shop stand out for a long time in a ...

Perception is all we have. Points of view, based on what we are exposed to, what we conclude from that exposure and how we regard all of it. This is what we have while we are alive in a body. We take in the world through the 5 physical senses. Some people notice or rely upon one ...

Have you ever heard someone say, “I don’t know much about wine, but I know what I like.” That can be said about many things. Experts are supposed to be people with highly cultivated tastes, developed over long years of immersion and study, exposure and experimentation, such that they end up knowing a great deal about ...

Why do so many people teach manipulation as a way to learn to control the voice? How is it that people do not even know that they are pushing and forcing when they sing and in many cases are being taught to do that as part of learning vocal skills? Why are we living in a ...

My dear friend and colleague, Eve Zanni, coined this phrase, “mugging the mentors.” When I heard it, I laughed out loud. There are so many people in this world who think they are entitled to anything they want. We used to call that being spoiled. Yes, some people are grateful and very willing to say so. They ...

We are living in a time when humility is very hard to find. Who wants to be humble when you can be grandiose, arrogant, and self-satisfied? “I’m the greatest,” Ali used to say. He ended up with many people thinking so. Not too many people think about virtues and vices these days. That’s too bad, as ...