Jeanie’s Blog

I recently encountered both some truly wonderful and some truly awful singing. Neither of the people singing (a man, a woman) were my students. I have no idea how they came to be in the circumstances they were in. The wonderful singing in the man, who was probably in his early 40s, and the awful ...

Two opposing things are always true when things are in balance. You need flexibility in order to sing well but you need strength and stability, too. You need to be able to have firm control over your vocal technique in order to let it go and sing freely. When you can take a deep breath easily, it will ...

In order to create mix you have to have two equally strong registers that automatically cross in the middle. AUTOMATICALLY. If you do not develop head register, it will not be strong in the bottom pitches. It takes time to make it strong and clear in a lower pitch range because of the vocal fold behavior. ...

I have heard the comment “I think too much” many many times, coming from the mouths of singers, usually young. This comment makes no sense. It goes along with so many others that are also nonsensical like “I like to squeeze my throat”, “I like to hold on to my jaw”, “I’m not usually on top ...

Recently, I had occasion to listen to students being taught behind the closed doors of a studio in a building where there were many studios and many people singing and playing music. I have had this experience numerous times. Whenever I hear someone singing nicely I enjoy walking by, listening and taking in the great sound ...

It is easy to take some kinds of information for granted. We all assume that “everybody knows that”. Of course, nowadays, even basic assumptions are often wrong. Things like “all graduates of public high schools in the USA are decently educated” and “those who hold high government office know how the government was formed and ...

I have written previously about talent. My definition is being able to do something very well with little effort and hardly any training. Singing is something that some people can “just do” and do “well”. Some people just have “good voices” and a few lucky individuals have “exceptional voices”. Some people can easily sing with ...

Think of the complexity of most human endeavors. Think of what the brain has to do to coordinate swimming, or skiing or translating freely from one language to another in a running conversation or speech. We are beginning to understand the cosmos and what we are finding is that it is far more complicated than ...

I have had some people come to my studio over the years with all manner of tension and distortion in their sound and vocal production and when queried, “How was that?”, the answer is “Fine.” I might have gone further,”How did it feel?” (Looking at a distorted neck, overly tense jaw, and a distorted mouth ...

How do you mix if you don’t “just mix”? What do you think of to get a mix? Is it lighter or brighter or both? What is lighter? What is brighter? How do you know when you have either sound? How much lighter is the right amount? How light is too light? Is that possible? What’s the ...

No one gets paid for low notes unless maybe he is Amonastro or a Russian Bass. People like high notes. Over the decades the fascination with high notes has grown. Higher and higher. No note is too high. No upper limit. We like to hear that “excitement”. My late colleague and nemesis, Elizabeth Howell, used ...

It’s very hard to be kinda sorta good at something and also kinda sorta good at something else. At some point, it is easier to be good at just one thing. Really good. If you accomplish this, then, maybe you can also learn to get very good at something else. Being good at several things at ...

The natural condition of head register is that it is weak, most particularly in the lowest pitches. This means that it is typically also breathy. Since classical singing requires a high degree of head register dominance, it takes quite a while to be able to accomplish singing in a “head mix” in mid-range in most ...

There is currently a new, and somewhat deadly, trend amongst teachers of singing who are open to the idea that belting is not harmful. It is this: if you want to belt, just sing loudly all the time, or sing in your nose. It is sounds bad, that’s OK, because that is what it is ...

You can’t sing fully if your voice isn’t strong. Yelling is not a good way to develop true vocal strength. Loudness alone is not a sign of enduring, sustained strength. Strong voices can be loud, or not. A strong voice can do things a weak voice just can’t manage. A strong voice can handle a lot of ...