Jeanie’s Blog

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 ...

In singing, too much independence can be dangerous. In Europe and in South America (and  in Asia, from what I have read although I haven’t been there) older people are held in greater esteem than they are here in the USA. That’s not really news. What’s unfortunate, however, is that a newbie with a fancy piece of paper automatically ...

I have been, since 1978, a strong advocate for voice science research. It’s application to vocal pedagogy has been a very strong ingredient in helping us all understand how the voice works and what the mechanism does when it is functioning optimally. My own work rests on knowledge of voice science, vocal health and medicine ...

I attended a performance a few nights ago. It was in a small theater, probably an old Vaudeville theater that had been revamped. The show was “Hair” and it was decently done, although it seemed a bit chaotic. The biggest problem was the volume. Although the band was in a space high above the stage ...

When I taught last April in Chicago, a group of four classical singing teachers attended and on the second day they informed me that the course was “beneath them”. They understood everything in the course already, they told me, and that it should be only for beginners. This was based on the idea that they had ...

Integrity? In 2017?? Really? The Merriam-Webster definition has this example: She had the integrity to refuse to compromise on matters of principle. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say: In ethics, integrity is regarded by many people as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one’s actions. Integrity can stand in opposition to hypocrisy, in that judging with the standards of ...