Jeanie’s Blog

Things are changing now, faster and faster. Everyone is jumping on the bandwagon to champion functional training based on body awareness and voice science.  Mindfulness and voice science are jumping out of everyone’s mouth. They are the flavors of the month. “Bring in the high partials.” “Tune the 2nd harmonic to the 1st formant.” “Find the singer’s formant cluster ...

This word comes from “soma” or body in Greek. Psyche means mind. Psychosomatic means  of the mind and body. Somatic education, experiencing, awareness. All of these words imply that the body is directly involved in something that has to do with what is happening. Surely, if anything was ever “somatic” , singing is. Yet one must go ...

Learning to pay attention to something when you have not previously had a reason to do so can take time and commitment. Paying attention in a broad general sense asks that you proceed very slowly, taking time to absorb experience as it occurs, moment by moment. This mental state, alert and alive but not filled ...

Many people work on “physical fitness”. In that world, feeling the pain isn’t uncommon. Pushing the body to go past its natural limits comes with the territory. If you do that enough, you deaden yourself to pain and learn to ignore your body’s natural wisdom, and then you run a greater risk of becoming seriously injured. Cultivating ...

Most of us are taught that when something isn’t working it’s because something is wrong and it needs to be fixed. That’s not a good attitude to have when you are working with students of singing. A much better attitude is to find out what works. Look for what a student can do not for what they ...

It’s frightening to listen to instruction that has no basis in reality and that rests entirely on ideas that are not grounded in any rational codified system that is broadly accepted and widely acknowledged as being valid. This, of course, happens every day if you are dealing with vocal instruction. When it happens in a master class ...

When you are born with a lot of talent and life circumstances are such that you can enhance that talent through training, and you are lucky enough to get recognized by those who can put you forth into the world with that talent; you can end up with a career, sometimes a very big career. ...

When does learning stop? When do you get to have “all the information you will ever need?” When is your education complete? I think a lot of folks would say when you finish school. Many people learn what they have to and stop there. Singers, however, should NEVER have that idea. You absolutely cannot afford to ...

“Spin the tone more from the top”. “Release the back as you ascend”. “Engage the respiratory muscles before you begin the tone”. “Aim the tone high into the mask so you can generate the singer’s formant”. “Support from the lower chamber to find the inverted triangle used in belting”. “Sing as if you have no jaw”. “Sing as if your head ...

What’s vocal function and why study it? In fact, isn’t all singing training functional? Aren’t all singing teachers the same? Maybe not. Depends on what you think you functional training is. Most people don’t know but think they do. If you think all you need to know in order to sing better is “resonance” and “breath support” or versions ...

“I Am The Greatest” worked as a slogan for Mohammed Ali. He actually delivered the goods to back up his claims. There are a few singing teachers here in New York who boldly announce that they have “THE” voice studio. They are “The best”, “The most famous”, “The most important”, etc., etc. Generally speaking, the people who ...

We live in a society which doesn’t really value artists until and unless they become very very famous. Then they turn into demigods which is lamentable for the artists. Some survive that condition and some don’t. It can’t be an easy life. What happens to those who are really fine artists but who never make it ...

I attended a benefit performance at Joe’s Pub last evening. The cause was breast cancer research (a very good cause), the producing group was Broadway World and the honored artist was composer Jule Styne. The performers were drawn largely from the Broadway community. Unfortunately, the evening was very uneven. It was generous of all the performers to ...

That which is of lasting value cannot be measured in brief moments. Characteristics of the soul take time to develop. Honesty, integrity, loyalty, perseverance, dedication, persistence, humility, compassion, generosity…..all these and more take time to emerge in life. Facing something once is very different than dealing with it every day for months, years, or decades. When ...

Sometimes music is made that is too beautiful to absorb. It borders on being a painful experience to try to take it in, as the expansion necessary to encompass it challenges the far edges of personal awareness. Music such as this lives in the gossamer world between the hard and fast of mountain and skyscraper and luminous timeless light. ...