Jeanie’s Blog

How can you know about Broadway and about music theater on Broadway if you have never been in New York and never seen even one Broadway musical? NEVER SEEN EVEN ONE MUSICAL ON BROADWAY IN NEW YORK. That sentence boggles my mind. I guess if you have seen a good professional quality “Broadway” show ...

If the human voice is capable of all kinds of sounds, and has a wide range of pitches and volumes (as sitting at any playground for a couple of hours will prove to you), then what happens to that ability and why do some people exhibit so much more of that than others when they ...

How do you know that you aren’t any good if all you do is stay at home and sing for your students? How do you know if you never sounded any good in the first place, especially if you didn’t really have much of a career? How do you know you sound good ...

We all know the value of a label. What’s worth more, a Cadillac or a Lincoln? A Ralph Lauren or a Donna Karan? A Rolex watch or one made by Movado? If we are talking about sound, the label matters, maybe more than for a watch, except how do you label ...

We know that there is more than one way to belt. If, however, the scientists that look at singing don’t go along with that, the research they do won’t help us. I see that as a BIG problem. Having just returned from the PAS 4 Conference in San Antonio (that’s Physiology and Acoustics of ...

We recently attended Young Frankenstein for the second time, as it is closing soon and we wanted to see it again. You have to be a true Mel Brooks fan to find it funny, but I am, and I do, and I was delighted to hear and see it once more. Sutton Foster ...

Using interpretation to improve technique falls into the same category as using songs to develop technique. It’s not the best choice. If a singer has very little awareness of what’s going on while he or she is making sound, the only adjustments that will be made to the song in terms of what ...

How do you put art into a box and write about it in words? Singing is an alive, in the moment event. When you are doing it or when you are listening to it, in each second, there it is. You can’t stare at it, hold it, feel its weight, plant it, ...

Human beings are capable of being unselfish up to and including giving their lives for the sake of others. They are also capable of the most unspeakable atrocities committed without the smallest bit of remorse or sadness. Most people do things unconsciously, meaning they don’t really examine deeply the motives for their ...

Until very recently, we did not understand vocal function. Training for singing was based upon observations by people who lived as long ago as a few hundred years and on each individual singing teacher’s personal subjective opinion. This situation is, thankfully, going away, but it is far from gone. Recent issues of ...

If you have a voice and can use it, be thankful. If you have a voice and can sing, be deeply thankful. If you have a voice and can sing well enough to stand up in front of an audience, rejoice in your gratitude. If you sing well enough to do it ...

The meaning of the word educate comes from the Latin educare, which in turn came from educere, “to bring out” or “to lead”. The word teach comes from Old English and means “to show, point out” or “declare, persuade, warn”. To learn is also from the Old English and means “to get knowledge, ...

Why do I do what I do when I do it and in the way I do it? What leads me seamlessly from one vocal exercises to another such that at the end of a bunch of them, the student suddenly sings better? Beats me. Really. I wish I could articulate what goes ...

I heard recently that one of our most prestigious university music theater training programs here in NYC is going to start training teachers for CCM styles, copying my original and ground-breaking program at Shenandoah Conservatory in some manner. This same MT program is dominated by a young man (who is as old as the ...

It has finally happened that someone who is a chair of a voice department at a major university thought that Contemporary Commercial Music was about jingles for TV and radio. This same person also thought that students of CCM were “playing guitar and doing folk songs”. How out of touch can you be ...