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In singing, too much independence can be dangerous.

In Europe and in South America (and  in Asia, from what I have read although I haven’t been there) older people are held in greater esteem than they are here in the USA. That’s not really news.

What’s unfortunate, however, is that a newbie with a fancy piece of paper automatically becomes an “expert” equal to those with more experience than the young person has years on earth. Something wrong with that.

Singing is an applied skill. That means you cannot learn to sing by reading a book about it, even the best book. You can’t learn to sing well by reading all the books about singing (and there are many) no matter who wrote them. You can’t learn by attending concerts or listening to recordings (although that can sometimes help) or buying a course online (especially not by that!)  All that you can ever do is sing and try to improve your singing. Some people have no interest in or desire to do that. They sing however they do and as long as they can get by, that’s that.

Others, however, want to do certain things with their voices that they do not have the talent to do with their own resources. Such people often seek out help in some form, typically from a teacher. Finding the right person to assist you can be tricky, but it is possible. If you go looking for the people with multiple degrees, remember,  getting a degree from a school is but a small thing compared to life experience. No matter how many pedagogy courses a teacher  might have had at college or in the conservatory, they do not substitute for life experience as either a teacher or a vocalist. Further, if a teacher has experience singing in one style and the student wants to sing in a different style, the teacher could easily be lost or offer poor advice. And, if the teacher, even if he or she sings well, goes entirely by her own subjective experience of what happens when she sings and tries to convey this to the student, it wouldn’t be a surprise if the student doesn’t understand the teacher at all. Why would they?

An expert is not just someone who went to school and got a master’s and then a doctorate. A master, in singing, is someone who can sing in a variety of styles, throughout a wide range of pitches and who is healthy in whatever sounds he makes. A master is someone who can address any student, in any style, from any point of view, and be effective. A master is someone who understands where the vocalist is and where he or she wants to go and knows the most direct path to get there. A master is always also learning. A master never arrives, she is always traveling the path.

I find a great deal of disrespect towards older teachers with decades of life experience on these social media sites. Many of the teachers there think they know everything. Some of them hold advanced degrees and assume that makes them smarter than others. That would be a wrong assumption. As Americans we seem to be compelled to show the world that we are INDEPENDENT! We must think on our own and knock down the “senior citizens” of teaching in order for them to get out-of-the-way so the “new and cool” can take over.  In some places that’s good. Society needs to make room for younger people and new ideas but in singing, the wisdom of the body isn’t going to change much from generation to generation. What changes is the demands made upon the voice and the type of music written that creates those demands.

Sometimes, as in the case of an applied skill like singing, older and wiser makes sense. In fact, it makes the most sense.

The key is always, how does any expert who teaches sound when they sing, what kinds of music do they sing, and how do they communicate to others about what that process should be? The ability to understand science (as I keep saying) does not mean you can either sing or teach, it might mean that you can explain, but maybe not. Pedagogy is only useful if you have lived long enough to establish that you know that you know.

Some of the discussion that takes place on the social media websites devoted to various topics of singing and the teaching thereof is astounding in its profound ignorance. Many of these individuals have read nothing, understand little or have sparse life experience, yet they will put forth their point of view alongside that of others (sometimes of their own mentors) with impunity. Those who “know the right way” are the worst offenders. There is no such thing.

In the really old days, there were apprentices and they stayed with the Master Teacher for years before they were ready to go out on their own. Today we have a NATS Master Teacher Intern Program that lasts only 9 days. It is an excellent program, but it’s just 9 days. And, yes, I have been a Master Teacher in that program twice.

Before you decide to teach singing, remember that you need to think seriously about going out on your own as an “expert” teacher. You are taking someone’s throat in your hands and in so doing you are also taking their mind and their heart. Learn to be humble, grateful to your own teachers and be willing to listen to those who are “wise with age”. Most of all, respect those that have come before you and who generously offer their life experience to guide you. It isn’t something you can get in a college program.

I have been, since 1978, a strong advocate for voice science research. It’s application to vocal pedagogy has been a very strong ingredient in helping us all understand how the voice works and what the mechanism does when it is functioning optimally. My own work rests on knowledge of voice science, vocal health and medicine and vocal use in healthy singing.

Sadly, voice science has utterly failed to make sure that voice science concepts are applied in a viable manner to actual singing and training for singing. This is profoundly disturbing, especially since there is no resolution to this issue.

I am aware,  keenly aware, that there are people who teach singing who went into a lab and “researched” themselves, wrote the research up, had it published, and went on to use it as a tool to market their brand. Think about that. Read that sentence again. One would hope that these teachers sang well, that they had long life experience singing a certain way in the music marketplace. One would hope that the premises of the person originating the method had been examined by those who were NOT part of his or her own studio. These would all be false assumptions.

At no time did anyone who vetted this research examine whether or not the person who did the self-research was a good vocalist in any style, and none of what was studied by anyone was compared to accepted vocal pedagogy by singing experts. Please tell me what good it does if crazy people have the money and time to go into a voice lab, stick a scope into their own throats and make terrible sounds, call them singing, and write about it afterwards. Explain to me how it is that these same people should then go into the world and say, “My method is proven by scientific research.” How is this different from the soda companies hiring researchers to “prove” that sugar isn’t so bad for you after all. There are many examples of “scientists for hire” who have been paid to prove that a certain thing was true, even if it wasn’t. Singing methods have not been immune to this kind of pseudo science. It has been around for decades and continues to the present moment.

I recently saw a very long pitch on PBS that touted a way of getting the brain to improve its function. Research was cited to back up this claim (selling books, CDs, courses, etc.). My husband, a research chemist for 41 years, immediately looked online to read the research only to discover that mainstream science has not in any way determined that there is validity to this one doctor’s crusade for his own studies. There are, as yet, no accepted ways to avoid any kind of brain dysfunction, as he claimed, but there it was on PBS!  PBS did not vet this man’s work in any way. Let the buyer beware!

There are at least two very successful methods of singing teaching used internationally that are based on very faulty concepts. They are faulty because they violate the body’s hard-wired need to inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide freely and easily. Squeezing, holding, pushing, pulling, retracting, constricting and all other manner of direct manipulation of the inside of the throat while making sound violates the freedom of the larynx as a joint and will never, ever be useful in any kind of vocal production even though  people can make these gestures and still manage to squawk out a sound anyway.

It is wrong, yes, wrong, for voice science to continue its deliberate refusal to hold responsible those who do “research” with a personal ax to grind. That’s NOT research. Further, the profession of teaching singing is a contributor to this lack of responsibility because it has steadfastly and with vehemence been unwilling to license singing teachers or even provide a modicum of guidance about acceptable professional parameters for teachers.

I ask again and again what good is research if it gives credence to people whose singing is horrid, whose idea of being a singer is severely skewed and who have no clue about whether what they do works with or against the body over time? If all you scrutinize is statistics (and that is all that is scrutinized) how can this contribute to vocal well-being? It cannot!! This is how you end up with books that say you can teach someone to belt by looking for a certain formula of formants to harmonics. Nonsense!

In the end, no one cares. If you purchase a course that tells you the best way to sing is to constrict your aryepiglottic sphincter or retract your false folds or curb your larynx or add edge to your vocal folds, and you think this is just fine, they you are a victim of PT Barnum’s phrase: “There’s a sucker born every minute.” It’s your tough luck that you end up sounding like someone is crushing your  foot while you sing. If you end up with nodules, oh well.

Singing, after all, is no big deal. Any kind of singing is OK as long as you become a star and make a lot of money. All the methods, particularly for CCM styles, are the same, right? The best ones are the ones that use voice research as a selling tool. What kind of science? Who cares?

If you happen to be that unusual person who doesn’t want to go along with all this hooey, and you are also someone who might like to think about something a bit deeper when it comes to singing, if you are interested in singing training and performance that is more authentic and grounded in the real world of making voiced sound, you might want to investigate what else is available in the field of vocal pedagogy.

I attended a performance a few nights ago. It was in a small theater, probably an old Vaudeville theater that had been revamped. The show was “Hair” and it was decently done, although it seemed a bit chaotic. The biggest problem was the volume. Although the band was in a space high above the stage in the back, and the performers were miked, I suspected the actors couldn’t hear themselves as they spent the entire evening shouting. It got worse and worse and in Act Two, it was all I could do not to hold my ears.

This problem made it nearly impossible to understand lyrics, it also killed some of the artistic finesse in a few of the songs that help give the show some ups and downs. Just because it was a 60s rock musical doesn’t mean that all the music should be screamed.

It was a first performance. Who knows, maybe it will get better? There are only a few performances scheduled.

I come to events as a singer and singing teacher. My head, my mind if you will, wants to hear singers sing. I do not object outright to actors whose singing isn’t terrific but I do object to pitch issues, unintelligibility, and consistently ugly sounds that do not have to be ugly to convey something unless what is being conveyed is meant to be — ugly. Sometimes it’s as if the people who deal with the music are “voice deaf”. They do not know what a well-trained voice sounds like or how it works, and, what’s worse, they don’t care to learn…….after all they are already in charge without knowing. I’m speaking here, folks, of well-trained pop-rock vocalists, not opera singers or legit music theater voices. There is such a thing as singing any kind of music well. It not only cuts down on the possibility that the vocal folds will be injured or fatigued it actually facilitates the clarity of the text and the impetus of the music to move the drama forward.

The people in the show were, for the most part, professionals. The presentation certainly was meant to be done as professionally as possible. Why, then, pay zero attention to the singing? You can assume that the people in charge didn’t think it was worth paying attention to.

We have lost the idea that singing has parameters having to do with real life. Screaming, in life, is a sign of alarm. If the music isn’t meant to be alarming, why scream? Happiness, joy, exuberance or surprise can be loud, but that loud should sound different than anger, fear, or sadness. These days, you can’t tell anything in a sound because so much of everything is loud for loud’s sake.

What’s worse, quite a few young people do not know what they are missing. They don’t know what the experience of hearing someone sing well  in a live performance without screaming, particularly one that is acoustic, is. How can they fix things they do not know are wrong or could be better? They can’t and they don’t and they won’t unless somewhere along the way they wake-up.

Education derives from the word “educare” which means ‘lead out’. It is related to educe that means  to bring out (as something latent). If you are not educated by someone who leads you out of the darkness and into the light (in this case of singing) you can be in the darkness and not know you are there. That is a tragedy.

When I taught last April in Chicago, a group of four classical singing teachers attended and on the second day they informed me that the course was “beneath them”. They understood everything in the course already, they told me, and that it should be only for beginners. This was based on the idea that they had heard about “chest and head” for years and what was the big deal with that, anyway?

I’ve run into this before. A quick glance, a decision based on a surface evaluation, and then, a dismissal. I’ve had people come in for one or two lessons and then say, “well, I’ve figured out what this woman has to offer, ” and then walk away. I know a Professor at a very famous music conservatory who sat in my studio for an entire day, furiously writing down every exercise I did. I have had some of her former students since then. She got the exercises all wrong, but that happens frequently. This woman, like many others, never bothered to clarify if she had understood what I was doing and why, or when to apply one exercise versus another. She never had the interest to take a lesson herself or wonder why any of the exercises were necessary in the first place. She got her “few points” and ran away. Of course, she had a Doctoral Degree in classical literature and was teaching students in music theater to belt. Right.

I find this fascinating. Since I have many elite professional singers who have studied with me for 10, 15, 20 or even 30 years, how is it that they haven’t decided that they don’t need any further training? Wouldn’t they, by now, have gotten past the basics? Wouldn’t they have understood what it is I teach?

Registration (the various vocal registers) result due to changes in the behavior of the vocal folds. Balanced registration is the basis for “appropriate” sound in both classical and CCM styles and it makes correct resonance not only possible, it allows it to show up almost without effort. Register balance not only allows the larynx to rest in a comfortable, steady but flexible adjustment, it allows the vowel sounds to be undistorted and the management of the breath and body to be a natural expression. If you think that “chest register” (or whichever of the many other terms to describe this same thing you like best), is just about low notes, or loud sounds in your lowest range, you absolutely do not understand its function. Register balance allows you to expose technical problems and their location in the throat and body. How? How indeed! Maybe it might take a bit more probing to understand that a surface glance isn’t nearly enough.

In fact, misunderstanding registration is the single biggest blind spot classical singers have.  Because of that, they struggle to get the “placement” right, and to get the “breath support” right, without bothering to get the source of the sound situated in such a way as to make both possible in equal measure with little muscular struggle.

Somatic Voicework™ is simple but it is not simplistic. It is accessible but it is not a quick fix. It is based on the body’s function (it needs to breathe in and out as easily as possible) and the throat’s responses to stress, (the fight/flight mechanism) but it is not a series of manipulations you need to do while singing. It’s only “beneath” the people for whom singing is, itself, a surface activity, and who regard singing as something you have to manufacture, not something that arises out of your heart. It is only “too simple” for those who are, themselves, unable to plumb the depths of human expression in the human voice. Those singers don’t get what I do because, in fact, it is over their heads. Or maybe I should say, under their feet, as in “beneath their ability to perceive.”

I once heard a singing teacher say that Leontyne Price, one of the greatest classical sopranos of all time, couldn’t sing. I heard another one say that Dietrich Fischer-Diskau was boring. I have heard others say that Puccini is a hack composer. These are people who consider themselves experts, although I wonder how they decided they deserved to give themselves that designation. My opinion of them is probably best if I don’t mention it here.

No matter who is teaching you, or what they are teaching, if you cannot look below the surface to the long-term value of what is being offered, you are a poor student. No one can decide after a day or two that they have figured out a person, a methodology or an approach to anything. You can’t really even do that after 5 months or two years. The process deepens only if you allow it to.

Be careful what you say. Sometimes it backfires and just makes you look like someone who is clueless.

Integrity? In 2017?? Really?

The Merriam-Webster definition has this example:

She had the integrity to refuse to compromise on matters of principle.

Here’s what Wikipedia has to say:

In ethics, integrity is regarded by many people as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one’s actions. Integrity can stand in opposition to hypocrisy, in that judging with the standards of integrity involves regarding internal consistency as a virtue, and suggests that parties holding within themselves apparently conflicting values should account for the discrepancy or alter their beliefs. The word integrity evolved from the Latin adjective integer, meaning whole or complete. In this context, integrity is the inner sense of “wholeness” deriving from qualities such as honesty and consistency of character. As such, one may judge that others “have integrity” to the extent that they act according to the values, beliefs and principles they claim to hold.

It’s very easy to say “I have integrity” if no one ever challenges you. The only time this quality shows up is when you are being asked to participate in a behavior that will ask you to do something that isn’t in alignment with your values. That assumes, of course, that you have values. Some individuals do not. If you think that having values means doing whatever you want just because you can, you are truly clueless. 

Here is what one highly regarded university has to say about “integrity” in their policies:

X is a learning community that fosters the pursuit of knowledge and the transmission of ideas within a context that emphasizes a sense of responsibility for oneself, for others and for society at large. To preserve the quality of education offered to students, the university is responsible for maintaining academic integrity and protecting all those who depend on it, including the community partners and institutional affiliates. Violations of academic integrity, in any of their forms, are, therefore, detrimental to the values of this university, to the students’ own development as responsible members of society, to the pursuit of knowledge, and to the transmission of ideas. All members of the university community share the responsibility for creating conditions that support academic integrity(1).

If you know that your behavior is “slightly untrue” and you have to “put a spin on it” in order for it to be successful; if you knowingly do something that will harm another who has been good to you and just don’t care; if you act without scrupulous personal honesty, absolute self-examination or the ability to stand alone towards the good in your actions, even when others deride you for so doing, you have no integrity. Even if you do something by accident and find out later that your actions were out-of-integrity, you still have an obligation to be responsible, make amends where possible, and apologize.

If you claim that you have been doing something for a specific number of years when it has really been far less, if you copy something successfully created by another because you are unable, on your own, to create something uniquely your own;  if you go behind a person’s back to operate in a deceitful manner and then act if what you have done and are doing is “no big deal”; then you are like all the others who have no courage and no decency. You are dishonest.

If you ride on someone else’s reputation because you don’t have one of your own and then claim that you are the reason for your own success, you are essentially lying and a liar has no integrity.

These days, most people not only don’t care, they don’t even think at any time, “Do my actions have integrity?” I really believe they never contemplate the question.

We live in a world in which acting without integrity is often rewarded. That doesn’t make it right. Certainly the POTUS is an example of someone with absolutely no integrity in any area whatsoever who was rewarded with the most powerful job on earth.

Many people who consider themselves “spiritual” or “good people” will act without integrity to make money, get something they desire, make a reputation or crush someone else to surge ahead. They will make excuses, they will justify, they will be casual, dismissive and flippant. They will go to their religious services to show their piety. They will donate to charity, be nice to kids and take the dog to the vet. They will still lack integrity.

If you are an instructor, you cannot ever, in any circumstance, violate your own integrity. You cannot act in such a way as to harm another person, institution or ideal to benefit yourself.  Even if others don’t know, you do.  You think you can get away with it, but you will pay a price. You will never have a free conscience.

If you cannot, as the above quote says, maintain academic [my words added here: or personal] integrity and protect all those who depend on it, you have no values. If you cannot tell the absolute, honest truth when under fire, you have no worth. If you are afraid to do what’s right and then act in a questionable manner because you can,  you have no character or moral fiber.

Be very careful how you behave. You cannot purchase integrity. Without it, you are truly worthless.

(1) name of university available upon request.

The topic of formant/harmonic tuning is a very hot one in voice science circles these days. It explains a lot of what we hear as sound in various vocal qualities and gives us clearer guidelines about how the vocal tract is functioning acoustically.

Knowing, however, isn’t doing. Knowing is learned through trial and error by listening and feeling over time, hopefully with educated eyes and ears nearby to guide you. Only singing can teach you to sing, just like dancing can teach you to dance, playing can teach you to play (an instrument or a sport) and acting can teach you to act. It isn’t possible to be good at anything by knowing about it. It’s not like arithmetic (which doesn’t change and can be learned from a book) or by any of the hard sciences which are definable by math, geometry, physics or the laws of the universe as we presently understand them.

The same can be said of music. You can learn to play or sing notes, you might even learn to make them louder or softer or sustain them for a longer time. You cannot learn to be musical or expressive by making pitched-based noises. There is an element of sensitivity required that might be cultivated but in some people it’s just how they react naturally. Someone like me, who never worked on being expressive with any coach or teacher, who had to learn to control my reactions not develop reactions, is a natural in the sense that the music does a lot of the work. Singing in this way is not difficult, and can be very fulfilling.

Can I line up my formants and harmonics? I suppose so. If I have the right equipment and I understand what I’m doing, could I align them in specific ways? I guess. Do I need to do that to be a good singer? Nope. It’s good to know and to understand. It’s useful to grasp the material world’s functional parameters including those that occur in the body. Does that help me sing? No. Does it help me avoid stupid explanations about what happens when I sing? You bet!

If you understand registers as both feeling and sound, and if you can adjust the shapes in your throat and mouth, including your face, your jaw position and your lips, all you need to add is volume, pitch and duration. Being artistic, however, is not found in those ingredients nor is it to be discovered in formant/harmonic tuning or open/closed quotients. It’s found in your body, your heart and your imagination.