Jeanie’s Blog

The idea that singing in different styles is dangerous has been around a long time. I guess it’s dangerous to be in a triathlon or a decathlon, too. I would venture to say that dancers who do several kinds of dance are probably at risk. Maybe instrumentalists who play classical music and jazz are also playing ...

Some day, maybe 50 years from now, there may be no “classical” training left at colleges, except perhaps for “speciality courses” that keep “historic music” from disappearing. Broadway is dominated by rock music now and that isn’t like to change. The songs are sometimes very challenging because they are badly written, uninteresting or just plain stupid, ...

If you have a good solid vocal technique, and you know that you can rely on your voice to do what you expect it to do, congratulations! Not everyone gets there. If you sing in a specific style, whether it be classical, rock, jazz, country, or another one, and you sing material that is more ...

I’ve noticed that the people who don’t like detail are quick to call those who do “control freaks” or “perfectionists”. The people who like detail can easily fire right back that those who “go with the flow” and “let it all hang out” (cool 60s phrases, young people!) are sloppy and disinterested. Actually, I find the ...

Not so long ago Dr. Robert Sataloff presented at his immensely helpful annual medical lecture at the Symposium: Care of the Professional Voice (www.voicefoundation.org) some photos of various singers’ vocal folds. Some of them looked like they had been through a “vocal war”. Messy, pink folds with raggedy edges. The mind immediately thinks, “Boy, these ...

Since rock music is so prevalent on Broadway now, there are a lot of people singing that push and press, thinking this is OK. It does sound more like rock singing, but many of the people who are on Broadway now are graduates of vocal training programs at the various universities and colleges. If you ...

Does any one singing teacher decide what the standards in the music industry should be? Does any producer? Does any music director, or publicist? Does any one person decide who will be the next big opera star? rock star? Broadway star? TV star? movie star? What happens in the “real world” to shape our music ...

Very little has been written about helping singers recover their singing after various types of illness. There is a great deal of research about helping people come back to vocal health in relationship to speech, but little information about how to help people recover their ability to sing or, barring that, restructure their ability ...

If we think for a moment about extreme sports, some of which will be in the Olympics this year but weren’t there even 10 years ago, we have a good analogy with what has happened with CCM singing. Sports like the half-pipe skateboarding and winter sports like ski jumps with aerial maneuvers are very risky. ...

In classical singing sometimes an artist changes “fach”. This word refers to the general category that artist in is in relationship to roles in opera or perhaps also oratorio. There are all kinds of subdivisions of the basic soprano, alto, tenor and bass that you find in choirs. There is lyric coloratura, light lyric, and ...

Suppose I said to you, “This song is not hard to sing, after all, it’s just Mozart”. Or maybe I said to you, “I don’t see what all the fuss is about, it’s just an aria by Verdi”. If you were a good classical vocalist, you might look at me and wonder and rightfully so. ...

Being a singing teacher isn’t supposed to be a competition. It shouldn’t be so that teachers of singing try to beat out other teachers by making themselves the flavor of the month on YouTube. Life, of course, isn’t like that. If you are in private practice, you have to generate a lot of students all the ...

Being “sensitive” can be a compliment or a condemnation. Being told, “You are sensitive”, could mean that you are seen by someone else as being “too reactive” or it could mean that you are “able to feel things deeply and easily”. You only know the meaning if you understand the context in which the words ...

Your vocal folds are two tiny pieces of gristle – ligaments – that open and close over your trachea to protect your lungs from foreign objects. The fact that they make sound is a secondary function. If your vocal folds do not close firmly you will find it difficult to do any activity that requires ...

If someone says “I really like you” and then is always too busy to spend time with you, you had better question what that person tells you. If someone says, “I am interested in your work” and whenever you send them an article you have written, they never find time to read it, you should question ...