Jeanie’s Blog

We were taught the lines of the treble staff by remembering the first letters of the phrase Every Good Boy Deserves Fun. Sometimes I think we need the phrase Every Good Singing Teacher Does Fine. A good singing teacher does much more than teach singing. A good teacher is going to address many different things that ...

It’s not uncommon for me to have a new student come into my studio and tell me they have studied singing previously with one or more teachers. I always ask how long they studied and what that study entailed. Sometimes I get reasonably good answers, but often I don’t get much more than general answers ...

Being aware isn’t something you purchase in a store. You can’t acquire awareness unless you want to acquire it. Basically, awareness is what you pay attention to by choice. It’s what you notice. Some people don’t notice much of anything. They are asleep. They walk through life as in a trance, eating, sleeping, talking, watching TV, and ...

Many times I have written here about what I encounter out in the world as I travel and teach. Each time I bump into disaster, it is just as unnerving as the first experience. I recently had a master class for high school students singing music theater material. Three of the young women did traditional songs ...

Most people do not readily admit to feeling jealous of another. They don’t typically acknowledge envy either. In a highly competitive profession like singing, there is bound to be both jealousy and envy in all its various forms. It’s tricky to handle it when you are the recipient of nasty behavior on the part of someone ...

Western thought is geared towards getting results, frequently at any cost. There’s something to be said for that, of course. Eastern thought, however, teaches us that getting the process right produces the result anyway, sometimes in a much better manner than “going for the goal”. It’s quite hard for Americans, in particular, to wrap their heads ...

Did you know the music business is shrinking? You wouldn’t think so from watching the Grammy’s, Glee, Smash, American Idol, X Factor, The Voice, and the Ted Mack’s Amateur Hour, would you? The truth is, the music business is not what it was for all sorts of reasons. People don’t need to buy CDs anymore, so ...

The people who believe that “it’s all the same”, you just sing however you do in whatever style you are in are still out there. The people who say that it doesn’t matter if you have ever sung, good or bad, you can still teach are out there as well. The folks who say that ...

In a perfect world, we would all care about each other and the earth. We would all help each other and live in peace. In a perfect world, no one would be mean or selfish, greedy or arrogant, stupid or cowardly. Guess we don’t live in a perfect world yet. It takes an enormous amount of energy ...

I want to ask the folks who read this blog, how often do you get out to see and hear live vocalists? If you are in a small town, are there performances that you can attend of different kinds of singing? Do you ever hear anyone sing who is not amplified? Have you ever been ...

The medical profession is bound by all kinds of legalities and protocol. Doctors have to be very careful in how they treat patients and how they record that treatment. They have to operate under the possiblity that anything could go wrong and that they might have to justify their treatments in a law suit, perhaps ...

I recently saw a master class in which a famous classical teacher was working with a young mezzo soprano. This man has doctoral degree and a university position. It was clear that he wanted the student to make a specific sound in a specific way. She was expected to get this sound and was doing her ...

Who you teach, where you teach, what you teach and how you view teaching is important. It makes up your world experience, your point of view about all things vocal and how you interact with it. If you have only taught kids, or if you have only taught college students or if you only see adult ...

Non-classical styles. That term existed since the get-go until 2000 when I called for its end. The new term I suggested, Contemporary Commercial Music, was meant to call all of those styles together under one umbrella. They all come from the USA and have their roots in the common person. Classical music came from European ...

What happens if you spend thousands of dollars and many years or decades training your voice only to discover that the training process you have invested in doesn’t work? What do you do? Can you “untrain” yourself? (Yes, many have). Do you blame your teachers? (Maybe, it depends). Do you find yet another teacher or school? ...