I have been called (to my face and behind my back) a “control freak”. I do deeply care about what I teach and the quality of the materials I use which I wrote. I care that the courses we teach are run efficiently, graciously, and in a way that allows people to feel well taken care of and respected while they are learning. I care about the quality of the overall experience as much as I can about the information and how it is presented. My name is “above the title” so to speak. If I don’t care, who will? Would you want to study with someone whose attitude was “none of this is important, just come and give me your money?”
I have also been accused of having the attitude “my way or the highway” but ask anyone who has ever attended any of my workshops and courses and they will tell you that I always start with the statement that what I teach is MY way, not THE way. You will find, should you investigate, that others don’t bother to do that. Then, I teach “what is right”, having already stated that the attitude (without constant restating) is IN THIS APPROACH.
However, when I present about the music business and the music marketplace, I am presenting what is so, from my point of view, based on forty-two years of life experience. Since my private practice stands or falls on how I help singers meet the needs of maintaining their careers in various music marketplaces, I had better be in touch with the realities of that marketplace or I would be out of business very quickly. If my stating that the music business is a certain way seems to others who may not have any awareness of the music business like I am dictating “the only way” that’s too bad, for them. It would be more than a fantasy to think the producers or executives come to me to ask me what I think the music business should do. My opinion is just that — my opinion. It is based, however, on life experience in New York City for years.
And, vocal folds operate according to the laws of nature. I have spent significant time finding out about how they work. If I state something based on my knowledge of that function, and it flies in the face of what someone else has been taught, that’s too bad, too. I don’t dictate how the vocal folds operate. No one does. But if I hear someone doing something that works against free vocal production and say so, that is done to help the vocalist have the opportunity to change things to be better.
I am well aware that there are people in NATS who have spoken about me negatively without having ever seen or heard me in person. That says more about them than it does about me.