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I have been deep into research on casting for Broadway musicals going back to 1974. The research is for a presentation that will be given in Philadelphia in early June at the Voice Foundation Symposium: Care of the Professional Voice. It is intended to give voice science researchers a better view of Broadway’s criteria so they will be inclined to ground their various studies in real world values. Especially for those who do research in foreign countries, there is no easy way for them to find out what the theater world is like here in New York. It really is its own universe.

There are some things that you only learn by hanging around this community. It’s the same in jazz or in opera. You learn by being in that specific musical world. Theater people are traditional, they are superstitious, they are competitive and kind hearted. Much of what goes on in that world isn’t written in any book but is well known to those who live in theater. It a surprise, each time, to discover that what is obvious to insiders is hardly known to those who are not in the loop.

The words used in Broadway casting notices are descriptive. For singers, sometimes there is a specific explanation of what the voice needs to be, what pitch range it will cover and what the style of music being sung will be. Sometimes a description also includes aspects of the character’s personality or motivation that will be reflected in the songs.

Let me state emphatically that after going through hundreds of casting notices for professional (union sanctioned) musicals that go back nearly four decades at no time did I encounter the use of the descriptive word “twang” to describe belting. The word used most often was, and is, brassy, like a trumpet. I repeat, the word twang is NOT used on Broadway. It is used in Nashville. A recent album of  George Strait’s, called “Twang”, starts with a song that begins with the lyrics, “Gimme little bit country, gimme little bit twang”. If you teach belting using the word twang, and people do, it is an inaccurate term.

Let me also say that words like belt, mix, and legit continue to appear, alone and in conjunction with other words, here and there in casting notices all along, right up to the present moment. These words are traditional, they have a meaning in sound and they are accepted as universal descriptors in the theatrical community. Which, for those who don’t know, is commercial theater. That is contrasting with not-for-profit theater. Both are artistic endeavors of the highest order, only the legalities are different.

If research is to be done on CCM styles as found on Broadway (and I certainly hope it will be), then it is important to know and accept the criteria established by that community for itself. It is not for outsiders to decide what it is or isn’t. Research conducted on college campuses or in laboratories far from the theatrical world is like research done on animals in zoos or labs — not particularly useful. Animal behaviorists go to the animals’ habitats to study their behaviors in their natural environment. Voice researchers studying singers, not so much. Too bad.

And, as a sidebar, Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts has music categorized in terms of genre. They are: blues, country, gospel, hiphop, jazz, metal, musicals, pop, R&B/soul, rock, US folk, electronic. Others are Latin-pop, raggae, raggaeton, salsa, world. (Classical music is organized as opera and non-opera. (I love it). There’s also instrumental music that’s classical).

If the greatest music library in the world says that there are these different styles and organizes its vast musical resources this way, I think it is fair to say that the idea that there are lots of Contemporary Commercial Music styles is not so strange. And, for those who say “commercial” is something bad, come to Broadway and see for yourself — you don’t know what you are talking about!

There are all kinds of students who want to study singing. There are those who want to sing like the people they hear on TV and on the radio or the internet. There are those who might want to be “in music theater” and there are those who actually like classical music and aspire to sing it. In between there are people who sing at church, in local choruses, in community theater, and maybe at the town coffee house. There are people who have never sung who finally reach a place in life where they have the time and money to learn, and there are folks who sang when they were young and want to return to it in later life. There are musicians who want to add singing to their instrumental expertise and there are actors and dancers who are sometimes asked to sing but who are insecure or inexperienced with it.

Whatever the age of the student, from 8 to 80, all students come with a history (of singing), a relationship to it and to their voices, and a desire of some kind, because without that desire they wouldn’t be students at all.

Sometimes students who are not familiar with the training process find out after starting it that it is too hard and that they don’t have the necessary commitment to study that would be necessary for success. Sometimes the students have unrealistic ideas about “becoming a star” instead of “discovering singing and seeing what happens”. Sometimes the person singing isn’t really mentally in a place where serious study is possible, due to other outside pulls on time and attention. And, each person will have a skill set — anything from a very low level one to one that is very highly developed. Even beginners who have never studied can be “advanced” technically in that they are quite good at the physical process of making sound even without knowing or understanding why. Others, who have studied singing for a very long time, may, unfortunately, have learned next to nothing helpful, or may even have had whatever ability they came by naturally programmed right out of their system. That’s really hard to deal with, but it happens. They remain beginners, regardless of the time spent.

People who are open-minded, curious, willing and diligent, should be able to learn to improve their ability to sing without issue, provided the teacher has something useful to teach. People who are recalcitrant, obstinate, resistant, and controlling, probably won’t learn much no matter what the teacher has to offer. People who have some combination of qualities, plus and minus, can be challenging to teach, and therefore, interesting.

In order to decide what kind of a learning sequence is best for the student who comes to a teacher for singing lessons, all these factors have to be considered at the outset. They can be adjusted over time as the relationship between teacher and student develops, but the teacher must have enough skill and enough variety of approaches to be able to address a wide range of people and their needs. Sometimes, a student get lucky and finds the right teacher who just happens to have what she needs. Sometimes, a teacher gets lucky and happens to have a student who somehow innately understands what he is trying to communicate. Most of the time, however, the situation falls in between somewhere. That’s why, if you are a teacher, you need to keep working at being a better one, for the entire time that you are teaching. You can’t rest on your laurels, your training, your experience or your knowledge. You can never have enough information and can never be good enough at conveying it. Keep getting better. Eventually you will know the right sequence for each person, and you will also know that there is more than one that will work just fine.

 

If we deal in learning concepts, i. e., how we take in, process, organize, and use information, singing is no different than anything else. It is part physical skill, and part several other things. Good singing is a well coordinated behavior that either occurs naturally (in some people) or is cultivated through specific developmental procedures. It involves pitch accuracy (you really can’t sing until you can control pitch pretty well) and a strong desire to sing. I don’t think much else is really a requisite for some kinds of singing. The idea that you want to communicate something should be there, but how and in what form, is up to the vocalist. Bob Dylan and Mick Jagger never sounded wonderful but they certainly have had many fans. Maria Callas deteriorated quite a bit at the end of her career but she kept singing anyway and her many loyal followers didn’t let her vocal troubles diminish their enthusiasm.

Cultivated, trained singing, like cultivated, trained speech is an oddity in our culture. It belongs in a pantheon of things that the average person has no reason to seek. It could be thought of as residing in the same realm as attending a “finishing school for young ladies” or going to a fancy prep school so you can get into an Ivy League college. Not for Joe or Josephine the Plumber, by a long shot.

Cultivated singing (aimed at opera and its sister styles) is only appreciated by a few people in our society, relative to the general population. Classical music has the smallest fan base of all styles and classical singing is the smallest part of classical music. Yet, in our university system, it is still the predominant way singing students are taught. In some liberal arts or humanities programs it could be a way to impart general cultural sophistication, as is the case with any arts appreciation course, but in most cases there is some degree of application involved. Most of the singing training is aimed at teaching students to sing, not teaching them about singing in an historical or anthropological way.

Do we want students to sound trained or enhanced? Do we want them to sound natural or healthy? Do we want them to sound studied or colloquial? Has anyone ever asked you those questions?   : )

What we want is to train students to sing whatever styles they might want to sing in a way that sounds appropriate and is satisfying. We want to have them be recognizable as themselves and as human beings (not sound-making robots). We want them to understand how to sing in a way that is free, authentic and natural when that’s what’s desired and enhanced, strengthened and refined when that’s the goal. It depends, of course.

Generally speaking, we learn one thing at a time. If it is something that is very new, something which we have never encountered in any form, it will take longer to learn it. If it is something that is familiar, even if because we have only heard about it, then it won’t take quite as long. If it is something that is very familiar, it might not take long to learn at all. And, the more complex the behavioral change is, the more time it needs to become clear and accessible.

I have seen lessons where the teacher loads the student with so many corrections, one on top of the other, that the student has virtually no chance of digging out from under them. Even bright, talented students can become overwhelmed and confused and unable to sort out what is being requested. Teachers can assume, incorrectly, that an ingredient in technical training is easy because it was for them. It might not be so with the student, however, and a good teacher will recognize that when it occurs.

If a teacher is to teach sequentially, first the student’s capacities have to be evaluated fairly. What is this person capable of, what is happening when she sings? Does she have any awareness of it, and can she control it? If she is asked to vary it in some way, can she? If not, how close to the instructions can she come and how long does it take for her to get there? If you watch her coordination and listen to her sound, what catches your own awareness? Why?

You cannot even begin to come up with a reasonable sequence of learning if you do not begin with these things as the basis of your evaluation. Literally any sequence, pulled from the sky for no reason, could be useful, but it could also take three lifetimes for that random sequence to help the student and we don’t have that much time.

The sequences have to be easy things, simple things, first. Harder things second. Very challenging things last. If you do not understand what is difficult for all singers versus what was difficult for you versus what is difficult for this particular student, you aren’t going to be able to configure a reasonable sequence for your students. You will just hunt and peck and waste time — both yours and theirs.

In order to give a sequential order to vocal development through exercises, one needs to have a goal for the student’s training overall, a goal for the short term (a semester, perhaps) and a goal for the lesson, one lesson at a time, with room to adjust as time passes. The depth and breadth of your teaching cannot be limited to a rigid approach but must be adaptable in a variety of ways and that is only possible through diligent training, study and time.

There really are things that should be learned first, or early on, and things that should come later, and things that shouldn’t be addressed until the student has quite a bit of skill in a range of capacities. If you have only yourself to go by, you will easily go astray.

We have a Level I training of Somatic Voicework™ in New York in May, in Oklahoma in June, and in Virginia in July. Come join us at any of these locations or come to Michigan in October or Massachusetts in January. If you have only done Level I and it was a long time ago, it’s time to review! Go to my website for details. www.thevoiceworkshop.com

 

In singing, there isn’t really any specified sequential learning. It’s not like learning to read. First there are  the letters to learn — their names and how to write them. Then there are simple words and recognizing the sounds the letters represent. Then longer words and sentences, then building grammar and finally understanding abstract concepts of language.

With singing most teachers begin with breathing. The reasoning behind this, I think, is that a certain amount of air pressure in the lungs seems to help us make sound without straining in the throat. There are all kinds of ways to teach breathing but almost everyone agrees that you don’t breathe “up high” and move the chest up as you inhale, you breathe in “down low”, making some kind of movement in the area of the belly, and that during the exhale, something should continue to happen in the belly muscles. The shoulders should remain relaxed. After that, the agreement ceases.

Other teachers might begin with some kind of sound making, perhaps finding a lighter, higher pitched sound and singing it in some kind of descending pattern. Five note scales going down by half steps, or an octave arpeggio beginning on 8 and going down to 1 are common. There are descending slides and lips trills and other exercises, too.

Some teachers have pages of musical notes to be sung on various vowels or syllables, done in specific musical patterns and sequences, and give them to student to learn. Sometimes they use the same exercises with every student in every lesson and sometimes they change. Each teacher has his own approach.

Some teachers talk about “resonance” right away. They want the student to find “masque resonance” or “forward placement” and spend time looking for that. They may or may not explain “resonance” as a kind of acoustic behavior.

It’s possible to approach singing by learning a song. In doing the song, the teacher might make suggestions that fall into a kind of technical zone, particularly as related to breathing and pronunciation. Then there might be some discussion about what the song means and how to express that meaning.

Any kind of approach can work. In the hands of someone with a clear idea and the ability to communicate effectively, anything can be a useful teaching tool, particularly if the student is talented, able to explore on her own and willing to practice. Sooner or later, if the work continues long enough, and if the information being conveyed makes some kind of physical and musical sense, better singing will emerge. Even approaches that make no logical sense can work, not because of the specifics in the approach but because the person teaching can convey, sometimes through example, sometimes through flowery language, what the desired sounds should be.

There is a body of knowledge, however, in kinesthetic studies that has broken down physical learning, with awareness of how we develop, change and condition motor control, and the psychological or intellectual aspects of comprehension of those adjustments. In order to ascertain where to begin the training process and to determine what aspects of it are most appropriate for the student, the teacher has to have an objective way to assess and measure vocal function and personal characteristics at the outset of training. Not too many teachers have that.

In the end, clarity of intention produces the best result, both in teaching and in being a student, but the intention has to be grounded in reality in order for the results to be truly useful. Sadly, in terms of singing, that is often far from the situation. Learning to vibrate your forehead doesn’t mean you can sing well or even sound pleasant.

More about this topic in upcoming days.

Apparently the idea has grown on Broadway that singing is somehow the third step sister of the triple threat skills. This is a stronger belief now than it was years ago.

I don’t know why this is so, but it probably has to do with money, as what doesn’t? Many of the producers are business people who have money to invest. They like theater, but they may not know much about theater (either straight plays or musicals). They do not understand the crafts involved. They are impressed with the same “circus act” things that wow most people. That may be good for the bottom line but not so good for artistic values. Still, they have clout. They hold the purse strings.

If a dancer is injured, typically you can see that. A limp, a crutch, a bruise, a limit in movement. Acting skills can’t be injured, but the actor can be. His movement capacity or his ability to speak or sing can be decreased. Once in a show you have to be able to speak, but you don’t necessarily have to be able to sing. If you lose your voice and are in the ensemble you can just move your mouth. If you have a solo, and it has been previously recorded, you can mouth the words to your own voice. If you have a big part, you can perhaps manage with increased amplification, but if you have severe vocal problems, you just have to let the understudy go on.

Producers (the people who pay the bills) consider that you can learn to sing “in a few lessons” and that if you can “carry a tune” you can do the job. They don’t really consider the importance of vocal technique because they do not know what it is. The casting people may know and the music director surely knows, but maybe not anyone else who is doing the show knows, including the director. If he or she comes from film or TV, they may not know a thing about singing and that’s a problem. How can that be a good thing?

There are thousands upon thousands of actor/singer/dancers here in New York City. Many of them are not employed at any given time. It seems nearly impossible that the right combination of singing, dancing and acting for any specific role cannot be found, but sometimes that is the case. Then, an individual could be given a part even when they don’t really fill the criteria well. I have seen this done more times than I care to remember. The reasons given for this kind of decision are all over the map but they never make sense to a singer because I know what I hear in my studio. I know, too, that if the decision were left up to me, I would cast the person with the strongest ability to sing regardless of “the look” or the “type” they have.

I remember seeing Michael Hayden in Carousel at Lincoln Center years ago. Halfway through the show two elderly ladies behind me started whispering. One of them said to the other, “Don’t you think they could have found someone to play Billy who could sing?”I nearly turned around and agreed, because Mr. Hayden was a terrific actor but his singing was just above dreadful. Didn’t matter. He was applauded and lauded by everyone.

There are quite a few people on Broadway and Off who can barely sing but get by well enough. Sometimes the show doesn’t ask for really skilled singers. Sometimes the show doesn’t want really skilled singers (a rock show may not want a trained voice). Sometimes the show includes singing as an afterthought. (Oh, yeah, there are some songs in this show.)

If you come to New York City to be on Broadway and you have a really fine instrument and are very well trained, but you are only a so-so actor and can barely dance, you will not do well against someone who is terrific actor, who moves well but can barely sing. That person will get the job before you 90% of the time. Should not be so, but it is.

If the training programs in colleges took that into consideration, there would be equal amounts of dancing, singing and acting in all music theater degrees but that is clearly not the case. Each school, each degree is unique. The only way to discover if what you learn was what you needed to know is after you get here and go to auditions for real work. Then, you find out in a hurry, what you know and what you have and what you missed.

Here, unfortunately, you will find that much of the time, “It’s just singing”, and it’s no big deal. I think that’s a loss all the way around, but the Producers aren’t asking me for my opinion.