Jeanie’s Blog

The basic principles of vocal function in The LoVetri Method, Somatic Voicework™ are very simple. They are: isolation, development and combination of chest and head registers to create a balanced mix, undistorted vowels, and strong, aligned posture which facilitates deep and easy inhalation and exhalation. If you learned and understood only this about vocal production, ...

What if you like to play piano or sing? What if you aren’t particularly good at other things, are shy and don’t really know what to do with yourself? What if you are from a middle class family of people who “have money” and are all college graduates? What if they expect you to go ...

I talk a lot about “classical” vocal training. Singing teachers generally talk about classical vocal training, with the implied understanding that this is “one thing”, that it is in some way a known entity, an organized commodity that is readily available consistently if you seek it out. That is simply not true. “Classical” vocal training can ...

I am not a big fan of being different because you can. I always want reasons and I want them to make sense. Consequently, it took me a long time to appreciate abstract art, although I finally did decide that I enjoy some of it very much, however I am still someone who loves ...

In college, you can get a degree in music education or music performance. If the degree is in performance, it is an “applied” degree. This means that your school is giving you job preparation, that is, training to get a job as a singer. Theoretically, you are going to be given the skills that you ...

If you are a pro, on Broadway, doing a lead in a Broadway show, and if you have also done other shows as a lead, and been a professional for a long time, and you retire and decide to go back to school, to enter into academia, do you somehow become the equivalent of a ...

Did you know that at the voice conferences there is a pecking order? The MDs are at the top, the voice scientists are right there at the top, too, depending on whether the conference is medical or scientific, but if it is both, it could be either profession who is “King of the Road”. This is ...

The jury is out about whether or not it is so that only “big, impressive” voices can have successful careers in opera in the USA. Do those with “lighter” voices have to sing “early music” or go to various concert or recital venues if they want to have a crack at viable work as classical ...

Has there always been a lag between education and the real world? Has it always been so that higher education in particular is insulated from the day to day pulse of life? And at what point, if someone is getting an “applied” degree, does the education of the student relate to the world where ...

If you are an opera singer and have no experience and/or training in music theater, but you teach it, how could you possibly approach it without using classical tools? Would you even know that you don’t know? There are a lot of teachers in this category, as we discovered this in our research (2006 and ...

I heard today about someone who has just been hired to take charge of a music theater program in a New York City college who has stated out loud that he hates music theater. This is not the first thing like this I’ve encountered. I can only imagine how that will help the students, ...

We enter life with a cry, we go out with a sigh. Sound is our pathway, coming in and leaving. In a human being who is free to express, emotions often come with sounds, released spontaneously. Laughter, tears, screams, shouts, grunts. This is the universal language of humanity. Laughter and crying are the ...

It really is amazing when you think of it how much energy goes into Christmas in America. The decorations, the concerts, the symbolism, the MUSIC. We are surrounded by it, whether we are practicing Christians or not. No other holiday comes close, and we have a lot of them. Why is this ...

Tonight I had the great privilege of hearing Jenny Burton sing. Jenny is a wonder. I can’t imagine anyone seeing her perform who does not recognize that the amount of talent in this one human being is stupendous. You can’t take your eyes off her when she sings and her voice is capable ...

R & B or Rhythm and Blues, a form of rock music that has its roots in jazz, has very specific characteristics and you have to have a feeling for what they are. As with any style, in order to do it effectively, you have to have the sound “in your ears” which takes a ...