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Used to be we talked about “placing the tone” somewhere “in the mask”. We talked about “vibrating the bones in the face” and “sending the sound forward”. We talked about “diaphragmatic breath support”.

Now, however, people talk about lining up the first formant with the first harmonic and maybe the second formant with the second harmonic or the first harmonic, depending. People talk about using various “resonance strategies”.

Know what? It’s still the same silliness, just dressed up in 21st century clothing.

When Angela Lansbury sang “Gypsy” on Broadway, she just opened her mouth and sang. She didn’t have any lessons. She didn’t study. Neither did Merman or Streisand. How about countless other singers who wouldn’t have known a formant from a harmonic from a hole in the ground like Rosa Ponselle? Think she was busy thinking of resonance when she sang with her sister as a young woman in Connecticut and was heard by Caruso?

Understand, folks, I am a big supporter of voice science (hygiene, research, medicine) and what it teaches us. Discovering something and explaining it after the fact is a vital part of science. We NEED that information. We need to know why things do what they do. But confusing the what with the how is just dumb. Just because you know which ingredients are in your stew doesn’t mean that I will get the same stew if I put those ingredients together in one of my own, but maybe in random order, or in the wrong proportions. Knowing the what won’t help you much with the how. You need a definite recipe.

Science is only useful to us as intellectual information. It cannot substitute for physical coordination and skill. It cannot substitute for excellent ears and eyes. It cannot give us emotional freedom. It isn’t ever going to make us more creative artists. When science becomes the end instead of the means it gets in the way. As I have said here many times, if voice science were the only answer, every one of the people teaching voice science would sing like an angel and that is absolutely not the case. Some of them don’t sing at all or sing very badly.

Beware the people who throw voice science in your face to impress you with what they know. They are hiding behind information, not skill. Beware the people who talk the talk but do not walk the walk. If you can sing and make the audience cry, then it doesn’t matter one bit if you don’t know formants and harmonics and how to “tune them”. It you can command an audience and bring them to their feet, you have something to say and people “get” your communication. If you are very good at bringing the second harmonic to meet the second formant, well, that’s nice. That, and $2.50, will get you on the New York City subway.

Over the decades, in my meetings with other singing teachers, I have been told to my face, twice, “I have a gift from God to teach.” What, exactly, is to be made of a statement like that?

Should I imply that others have that gift or is it unique to the two (unrelated) men who said this? Should I imply that somehow this makes them better than other teachers? (They both think they are the absolute best singing teachers who have ever lived). Should the world give them more credit because they are divinely appointed and are unafraid to say so to anyone who will listen?

In my world, many teachers are in possession of a “gift from God” to teach. They possess a desire to serve, honestly, by putting the welfare of the student and the music over and above any idea of their own personal aggrandizement. I don’t think God is interested in measuring out who gets what in terms of gifts. If you seek to serve, you serve, and you do it with an open mind and heart, to the best of your ability. That’s the gift. Period.

I can never understand why it is that people don’t see through the hubris of characters of this type, the ones in the suits with egos the size of California. Is it so that the average person is never suspect of such grandiosity? In the cases of these particular teachers, who are quick to drop famous names to impress you, do they really believe that such behavior indicates how great they are or does it just point out how shallow their own sense of self really is?

Truly dedicated teachers don’t shout from the housetops about how divinely guided they are because they are too busy meeting the needs of their students, no matter how “lowly”, to care. They aren’t interested in letting you know about their fancy clientele, even if they have one, because they don’t need to capitalize on their famous clients’ reputations to build their own. Still, like Anthony Weiner, they don’t get it in relationship to how that reads to others, because there isn’t much room for others in their consciousness in the first place. How else could they even utter such words directly to another teacher without so much as a blink of an eye?

“I am Oz, the great and powerful.” (Who is that man behind the curtain?) You, too, can try to impress the world with your smoke and mirrors and perhaps be successful because you talk fancy and sell your remedies in a nice bottle with a pretty label. But don’t count on it. Some of us have never bought your particular brand of Un-Kool Aid.

You probably DON’T think since song (blog) is about you, but I surely wish you did!

If a student asks, “Why?” during a lesson and the teacher responds with, “Just trust me”, the student should run away.

Why, indeed, should a student trust you if you can’t answer his questions? On what planet is that a behavior that warrants trust? Trust is based upon loyalty, truthfulness, responsibility, reliability, dedication, and commitment. It doesn’t just show up, it has to be created, even earned. Trusting someone is putting yourself in a vulnerable situation that allows you to expose your deepest self, or, in this case, your voice in all its permutations, and that kind of openness makes a student ripe for abuse.

It is entirely possible, of course, that the teacher has no explanation for the student’s question and that the query has to be deflected because the teacher doesn’t want to look stupid. Guess what? No one has all the answers and there will always be things about singing that don’t fall into a box. A better response, by far, would be for the teacher to say, “I’m interested in why you ask this question. Is there some specific thing that you need to know? Perhaps it will help me give you a better answer.” Then, if the teacher really has no idea how to answer the question she can go out after the lesson and find the answer, somewhere in cyberspace, hopefully from others who have more experience, or maybe even in person. It’s also perfectly fine to simply say, “Gee, I don’t know the answer. Let me find out.” Unless you are divine, you are allowed to not know something, for the rest of your life.

The most frightening thing about the profession is that anyone can put up a sign that says, “Singing Teacher”. Anyone. It is not a licensed profession. If you can’t make a living at Burger King, no problem. You can decide to buy someone’s singing system on line and set yourself up as an “X Method Teacher”. That’s why I am not the latest flavor on the web. You have to have at least minimal contact with me, in person, and listen to me teach, in order to have access to my method.

I’m tired of having people put up with lousy teaching for all the wrong reasons. It seems obvious that you should not stay in any relationship where your needs repeatedly do not get met or even addressed, but people do that every day. The level of competence for teachers of singing has to have a baseline or there are no standards. It isn’t a good thing to be so tolerant that everything is acceptable. Even if there are no rules, there can be guidelines. In a free society all guidelines have to have some degree latitude and will involve group consensus about things that are questionable, but if the majority of people are willing to hold a certain paradigm as being the one that serves the greatest good of the greatest number, and they can hold that paradigm with strength and conviction but not rigidity and force, the welfare of the group will be enhanced. We need standards. I’m going to keep saying that. All the time.

Truly, the vast majority of teachers of singing are doing a good job, and the best they can, all the time, no matter what. They are dedicated to their students, to teaching and to the music, but no one can know everything. Learning is always supposed to be a part of teaching. You have to stay a student if you are going to be a teacher, because if you are not always taking in new information and looking at it with new, beginner’s eyes, you are stagnant and, in short order, you will become useless or, worse, harmful, to your students and, eventually, to yourself. If you are to be trustworthy, you will also stay vulnerable. They go together.

 

 

One of the most deadly things a teacher can say to a student starts with the words “You are…….”

This pronouncement is deadly unless what follows is positive and helpful. The labels given to students by teachers are serious and sometimes stick for life. If they are judgemental (as they typically are) the person can carry around this evaluation as if it were fact for a very long time, sometimes for their entire life.

You like to hold your jaw. Your tongue is too big for your mouth. You have a tight throat. You can’t support properly. You like to listen to yourself too much. You think too much. You are paying too much attention to what you are doing. You don’t release the breath. You are not letting the tone move. You have a poor ear. You are not musical. You don’t have much of a voice. You don’t have a lot of talent for singing.

Endless. Awful. Commonplace.

I have a friend who was told by her truly terrible “therapist” that she had a serious mental disease. Had he been skilled at all, he would have seen how vulnerable and suggestable this person was and how easy it was to influence her. But he was more interested in himself than in helping her and she ended up believing his evaluation of her and became seriously, profoundly worse. She hung on to his diagnosis with tightly grasped hands and proceeded to live by his declaration that she had “X”. I begged her to get another opinion, I begged her to leave therapy with this man, but to no avail. She became, over a period of years, completely unable to have a normal life and now barely manages to get by, even with help. She became his diagnosis, and it was a tragedy to see.

I know someone else who was diagnosed by a medical professional, in fact, several, who was given a dire prognosis for her future. She was unwilling to accept that as her final fate, and through diligent work and persistent determination, she dug her way out of the “incurable” situation until it was just one more thing in her life that she had to attend to, not unlike having your hair cut or your teeth cleaned — not unpleasant tasks, but ones that have to be done whether we like it or not. In fact, I know several people in this category.

Students can easily become what you tell them they are, particularly if they hold you in high esteem and regard you as an expert. Students who desire to sing will pay attention to your opinions moreso than someone else might therefore how you speak to them about themselves, their voices and their capabilities really matters.

Remember that the voice works reflexively and that the conscious mind of the singer isn’t necessarily in charge of what the throat does or the voice manifests for a long time after beginning training. It is always better to speak about the process in the third person, as this allows both the teacher and the student to evaluate what’s going on from an objective place and work to gain greater correspondence between what is desired and what is showing up in terms of the sound.

Your jaw is tight today, let’s stretch it a little. There seems to be some stiffness in your  tongue. Let’s do a straw exercise. I notice you aren’t breathing too deeply. Should we work on that a bit? How do you feel about that sound? Did you like it? Why not?

That kind of language is much more constructive than any other and it isn’t typical of what happens in a singing lesson.

In Somatic Voicework™, we strive to speak with authority based on knowledge and experience but with compassion. We tell the truth but with kindness, and we guide, we don’t demand.

The student could just as well become your diagnosis of something spectacular, but not if you keep telling her about all her faults in every lesson. Be careful.

It’s tough when people in high places think they know something. It’s tough when what they know is outdated or wrong. It’s tough when you can’t easily tell them that their information went by the wayside a couple of decades ago.

I encounter this frequently. It seems like these people, in particular, ought to keep up with things and have a broad perspective, but they do not. And, sometimes the people who have provided the information they are sharing are the wrong sources and they don’t know that either.

Of course, I am writing here about a particular person, a particular source and a particular presentation but I can’t let on. I can only hope that in good time, the presenter will discover that he drank the wrong Kool-Aid and that the person who made the Kool-Aid is a sneaky, slimey creep who fancies himself a messenger from heaven. I shudder every time I think of Mr. Kool-Aid. Icky. Icky. Stickey slickey.

If someone is quoting you a fact from the past that has subsequently been proven to be false and that person is in a position of teaching or sharing information, do you, as a listener, correct that person, pointing out that his/her information is no longer valid? Do you say nothing, lest you embarrass the person and/or yourself? Do you try to obliquely make the inference that things have changed? It’s a very hard judgement call.

If you run into someone at a conference and the person is presenting the information that we all should “sing from the diaphragm” and that we should “vibrate the bones in the head” in order to know that we are singing correctly, should you just sit there? If there are people in the audience who don’t know any better and are begin given information that is old, out-dated and pretty much useless, should you just shrug your shoulders and say, “It’s not my problem!” If you care about the audience members, if you care about the profession and if you care about singing, how can you, in all integrity, sit there and say nothing? People do, all the time. It makes for the continuation of information that is really mis-information and that doesn’t do anyone any good.

Until more people are willing to take a stand for what is known in the present moment about vocal function and vocal behavior, we will have “experts” dispensing information that is not current or correct. Saying nothing makes us culpable for the errors we allow to be perpetuated into eternity.

If people don’t know to check their facts, (and they don’t), and they don’t know to verify with others their opinions on any given topic (and frequently they don’t check with anyone), then anything can happen and anything is possible.

 

F. M. Alexander developed a method of working with the body, through spinal alignment, that was once regarded as being “unorthodox” but over the years, because the approach helped so many people, that opinion changed. Now, Alexander Technique is taught, with great enthusiasm, at many colleges and conservatories in the USA and perhaps also abroad. Of course, if Mr. Alexander were still alive, that might not be the case.

Universities are loath to “endorse” a method developed by one individual, regardless of what that method may be or what it offers. I have been told many times, at various universities, that “we can’t endorse one person’s method” because that’s — fill in the blank…..it wouldn’t be fair to our faculty………it is not our policy…….we don’t believe in that……..we have never done that……..it isn’t what we do………it would be bad for us……..we would upset people……??????

Upset people? Upset the status quo? Force people to take a look at what is being offered in case it might present information they perhaps do not have and do not think they need (when that could be entirely wrong). Well, OK, I guess.

Seems to me, however, that the various colleges and universities ought to take a look at what it is that is being offered and see if it has legs to fly, one case at a time. They should investigate the quality of the information being taught and who is teaching it. They should investigate whether or not the person who has compiled the method CAN TEACH and CAN SING. Wouldn’t that be interesting as an approach? Wouldn’t that make more sense?

You have read here many times previously that I have encountered quite some number of people holding master’s and doctoral degrees in vocal performance who could not sing well. Who, in fact, sometimes sang very badly indeed. I have even encountered people who should not have been given a degree in voice anywhere, even at a bachelor’s level. I don’t pretend to understand the mechanics of how doctorates are awarded but I have been around academia long enough to know that some of the doctoral theses I’ve seen have been utterly ridiculous on topics that made no sense and with information that was flawed and faulty. I’m not saying that everyone is in that category, but, really, if the process worked the way it is supposed to work, NO ONE would be in that category ever. If I wrote here the specifics of what I’ve seen and heard, you would also be just plain astonished.

Why is it then, that there is no kerfluffle about these truly unqualified individuals, representing the highest level of training the professional says it has to offer, when they cannot sing or teach? How is it that a teacher holding a DMA has a pronounced jaw wobble and a vibrato to go with it, as a classical singer, and possesses a voice the size of someone who should sing Despina but thinks she should be working on Donna Anna? How? How is it that a DMA vocal professor at a major university sings through his nose and makes all his students do the same and that this person is regarded by many people in academia as being an awful vocalist? I could go on, because there are many other examples.

But, endorsing a method of one person, even if that person can both sing and teach, and bases their method on science and hygiene, life experience and proven results, now THAT would be foolish.

I’m lucky. I have five universities offering my work. I’m one of the unusual ones, but what about the rest?

Draw your own conclusions.

Back in the mid-80s, when we were searching for something to call the first Symposium done by the New York Singing Teachers’ Association at Donnell Library, we tried Music Theater and Popular Music Styles. That was the alternative of choice then to “non-classical”. A lot of people didn’t like it.

Jazz artists don’t think of themselves as folk singers and folk singers don’t think of themselves as R&B artists, and Bluegrass singers don’t think of themselves as Broadway singers. And popular music was found on the top 40s radio stations of the day, and none of that music had anything to do with the other styles, so what was there to do? Why, of course, go back to “non-classical”.

Remember, in the Mirriam Webster dictionary “non” is defined as follows:

1. not: other than : reverse of: absence of  (nontoxic) (nonlinear)

2. of little or no consequence : unimportant : worthless (nonisssues) (nonsystem)

3. lacking the usual especially positive characteristics of the thing specified  (noncelebration) (nonart)

 

So all the styles of “not classical” music were relegated to being absent, of no consequence, unimportant, and lacking especially positive characteristics. Nice.

Fast forward to 2013 where the term “Contemporary Commercial Music” is making slow but steady headway into the minds of the musical world, both in academia and in the marketplace. In both worlds the terminology is still confused. There is still reliance on music theater as the default catch-all category (and it does cover most styles now), but one university has a new “popular music” program and I am sure there are other things floating around, too. The classical word seems truly shaken by the idea of commercial music. Using the world “commercial” makes them nervous. Some people  really do not know what to make of it.

An ad in the current issue (July) of Classical Singer Magazine talks about “Jazz, Broadway, Gospel, Commercial, Hard Rock and Heavy Metal”. Think maybe this person heard about something called “commercial” but didn’t bother to actually find out what that was? Anyone who calls himself “Professor” in an ad but doesn’t site the school at which he is an actual professor is already suspect in my mind. Whatever.

The young man in Australia who wrote an article in the Journal of Singing a while ago has decided that they are to be called “Popular Styles Music”. I suppose he thinks that his new term is needed because it is. He likes the idea of creating something. (“I will create new terms because I can.”) OK, good. But it doesn’t help us, does it? More words to describe what already is. Now what? Do we know anything we didn’t know before? How has that helped the profession at large?

So, let me say again, the term “Contemporary Commercial Music” or CCM is a GENRE description covering all styles formerly referred to as non-classical. It substitutes, if you will, for “non-classical”. It covers Music Theater, Jazz, Rock, Pop, Gospel, R&B, Folk, Country (and all off-shoots of these), rap and alternative styles. There is no “commercial” style per se, unless you are describing music written for TV or radio commercials. All of it is commercial. It makes much more money than any form of classical music. It is far more successful than classical music because it has many more fans. If you do not like this term, don’t use it. There are no “term police”. Understand, however, that the use of all manner of mish mash trying to corral all the styles born of the common people, mostly here in the USA, under one term’s roof is a daunting task. You can continue to call the styles cited “non-classical” and think of them as being less than classical music, or try calling them “popular styles” or maybe the “plaid group”, but sooner or later you will have to admit that there are more and more people leaving your camp and joining that other one. Your choice.

The teachers’ organization is against certifying people. Why? Why should they care?

In point of fact, if any one individual decides that their training, and theirs alone, qualifies a teacher to work with individual voices as an expert, or says that their method precludes any other method, or that their trainees are restricted in what they can and cannot do with their training, then, yes, certification is a thing to think about very carefully. The world does not need anyone producing even more unqualified teachers of singing. We already have a bumper crop.

On the other hand, if the national organization cannot establish any guidelines about what is or is not correct teaching practice, and will not issue any written parameters about what constitutes a qualified teacher of singing, it is inevitable that individuals will step up to the plate to fill this huge gaping void.

Can we have national certification? You bet.

Yes, some people won’t like it one bit to have to be tested on their skills and pass that test in order to prove they can actually teach singing. Yes, some people will be asked to learn things that, left to their own devices, they would just as soon not be bothered to study, and yes, some people might just fail because they don’t know what they are doing, but too bad. You either have standards or you don’t. You either know what you are doing before you take someone else’s voice in your hands or you don’t, and if you don’t, you should have to wait. There should be large mentorship programs (not once a year for 12 people, but all year long for hundreds of people. There should be established expectations regarding healthy singing in ALL styles and reasonable choices of repertoires, done in the appropriate and correct style, whatever that might be.

Someone has to call for it and someone has to stand up and say, do this! I’m standing up and I’m calling for it, now, here. It’s time.

At voice conferences, teachers of singing are regarded as equals to the Speech Language Pathologists, the medical doctors (laryngologists), and voice researchers in related disciplines, but the criteria for all those other professionals are stringent, codified, and have been around for a long time. As long as we have no established protocols or parameters, we have no standards and if we have no standards, then how are we really the equal of the other professions? Because we say so? What kind of criteria is that?

So while we are waiting for any nationally recognized organization to take action on this huge topic, I will continue to certify people to teach my method, Somatic Voicework™, and that will entitle them to say they have been presented with voice science, voice medicine, vocal function based on science and life experience, and real world knowledge of the demands of the vocal music marketplace in all styles. It does not make “magic teachers”, it sets all teachers on the path towards greater knowledge in many related areas and tells them to keep studying, growing, reaching out, meeting the needs of the students, their voices, and the music with integrity and compassion.

The certification is given around the organization of my materials in my format which is my intellectual property. I interfere with no one. I stop no one. I make no fancy claims of any kind for what my work will or will not do, and that’s not true of all the other people out there.

If you are one of the people who is against certification and you have not been to a certification course, I suggest you try one. They are not all the same.

If you are savvy, you know the rest of that title is….a dangerous thing.

If you only know a little bit, is that better or worse than when you know nothing?

I heard recently that someone was asking on a forum about how to work with a singer recovering from polyp surgery. One response was something like, “it’s good they are not recovering from nodules.”  Really?

At the level of the vocal folds, a bump is a bump. One of New York’s most famous ENTs has been heard to say, we should call them all podules and nolyps. Until you get it out and look at the histology (cell composition) you really don’t always know what you have. Retraining the voice that has had compromised vocal fold response is retraining the voice that has had compromised vocal fold response.

First of all, why is someone who has no idea what they are doing working with someone recovering from phonosurgery? Because the likelihood is that the teacher doesn’t know that it’s not a good idea. Secondly, there may be no one else to help the singer go back to singing, and someone is better than no one (maybe). Third, maybe both the teacher and the vocalist were not discouraged from proceeding by the voice surgeon. Who knows?

There should be criteria here about what is correct and a place to turn to for training to address these issues. At least the teacher was reaching out for help. Where is the guidance for the profession over all? Beats me. We can’t all go be Speech Language Pathologists first. There has to be a better way to learn what you need to know.

There is no good reason why, in 2013, we do not have an over-arching organization to set up objective criteria for teachers of singing and special teachers who work with injured voices. Until there is such an organization, senior teachers with experience and training are left to informally mentor new teachers to help them learn what they need to know. Teachers of singing who are afraid of such objective criteria should go hide. It’s long past time.

I certify the people who take my Somatic Voicework™ training as having completed the course to a satisfactory level. This does not make them experts if that is all they have done as teachers. Even Level III graduates are discouraged from doing “rehab” type work until they do extensive training elsewhere.

It’s important that serious, professional teachers of singing have a baseline of what is to be expected of teachers of singing. It has been resisted for two hundred years, but now is the time for that resistance to stop. Now.

Anyone can take piano lessons or tennis lessons. Not everyone is going to be a Horowitz or a Venus Williams. Anyone can learn to do a sport or take lessons on an instrument. Not everyone is going to be a professional or even reach professional calibre.

Does it mean then that only the very talented should be given the option of having lessons? Of course not.

Years ago, however, the philosophy was “you either had talent and a voice and could sing” or you were “not talented, had no voice, and should never sing” and there was very little in between. If, in addition, you could not readily match pitch, then you were deemed hopeless.

Thankfully, this idea is mostly gone now. Most people who teach singing know that anyone can be trained if the teacher has the correct skills to do so and that most people, if they practice and are patient, can learn to sound quite good, even in classical repertoire, over a length of time, usually anywhere from two to five years.

I have had several adult beginners go from sounding pretty bad to sounding quite good just because they were diligent and dedicated and did not give up lessons or practice. This is no miracle, it is skill development. Perhaps they are not naturally inclined to be easily expressive and emotionally powerful, but that isn’t always necessary, as there is repertoire that is less intense to perform and less challenging to communicate effectively.

Talent is a combination of many things. In terms of singing it means that the sound of the voice itself is interesting in some distinct way. It means being musically expressive easily and also means being able to hear music easily and accurately, even if the singer does not have literacy in musicianship. It can include other skills as well, but those listed here seem to be typical in evaluating “natural ability” and they are certainly good things to have if one wishes to sing. However, many people who have careers are not given great assets in any of these categories and succeed anyway.

The goal of training in singing is to create a bridge between physical skill and artistic expression. It is very frustrating if you have a deep desire to express yourself through singing and you have limited ability to do so. It is very challenging to bring enough emotional truth to the singing to make it compelling without also knowing how to get your voice to stand up to that level of expression, although some people do manage. It is difficult to have a lovely voice with a nice delivery but have not much to say in terms of communication. I have worked with quite a few people over the years who had absolutely no depth as artists and, in fact, didn’t at all understand what artistic depth was, yet they had financial resources to go out and hire arrangers, publicists, and back-up singers and create decent careers anyway. Amazing to watch that, really.

Creativity is unbounded. Human beings likewise. Training not so much. Training has to have a goal, a purpose, a direction and it has to have some kind of organization or else it is really just experimentation, trial and error and guesses. That could work well enough but it could take decades to get anywhere consistent and no one really has that much time to spend before getting to a place that does the job well.

If you teach, build a bridge, but know what kind of a bridge you are building.