Posts Placeholder

You can compare Mercedes Benz to Kia Motors, or the Ritz-Carlton to Motel 8, or Payless shoes to Jimmy Choo’s, or Tiffany jewelry to that from K-Mart’s. The list of similar comparisons in this world is endless.

You have mass market products and you have those that are tailored to a different, more elite customer. Designer brands exist for the wealthy or those who aspire to seem wealthy. If you need a ride to the store and it’s raining, you aren’t going to care if you get the ride in a brand new Mercedes or an old jalopy Ford, as long as you get there and stay dry. If you are interested in function, that’s different than if you are interested in elegance, or exclusivity, or uniqueness. A custom hand made violin is going to cost a lot more than one made partially by machine manufacturing, but not everyone wants or can afford custom hand made instruments. But, there are some brands that are so exclusive, most people never hear about them. The people who know about them don’t want them to be known.

So, too, is it with singing lessons. It is a world of “let the buyer beware”, all the time, everywhere. There are no licensing bodies for teachers of singing, there are no “voice police”, there is no New Yorker magazine list of the Ten Best Singing Teachers in New York. You are on your own.

Therefore, if you are a novice, or if you have little experience, you are an easy mark. You wouldn’t know you were being sold a bill of bogus goods until you had bought those goods for a very long time. I have had people come to me who have been studying singing for 6, 9, even 12 years with one person, who had learned little or nothing about vocal production or basic singing technique. Seems crazy, I know, but absolutely true, and also very sad.

It’s like buying anything you do not know about……cars, insurance, appliances, electronics, vacations. You either jump in and take a chance for a while and see what you get or you don’t do it. Now, of course, there’s the internet, a great resource, but it also gives you oceans more information that you have to plough through, and not much help about knowing what, if anything, in that information is truthful or useful.

We come then to rely on the pieces of paper that put letters after someone’s name. If you have those letters (MFA, MA, PhD, CCC-SLP, etc.) we can assume that you went through some kind of training process involving others who had to pass judgment on your various skill sets. If nothing else, it at least means that you went to the trouble of trying to become a bonafide expert
at something. It does not mean, however, that you actually are an expert, or even very good.

Right now, there are dozens, maybe even hundreds of courses, DVDs, videos on YouTube and who knows what else on line that promise to teach you to sing. Some of them say “immediately”, other’s claim that they have discovered “THE way” to be a great vocalist, still others use famous people who endorse their approach to “prove” how good the teacher and the methods are. These “products” serve primarily one purpose and that is to make money for the seller. There’s nothing wrong with having something to sell. We live in a free market economy. It does mean, though, that you might spend the money on someone who has lots of famous clients who doesn’t know that much but has a “big footprint” in the media.

People tend to equate cost with quality. If you had a fantastic meal at the local diner that cost $12.00 and then had the exact same meal at a fancy up-scale restaurant for four times the price, the meal might seem like it was “better” at the more expensive place. There are studies that prove such. That’s how people are, they usually think– expensive is better.

We do that about popularity, too. If something is popular, it must be because it is “better”. Without evidence, there might be no reason to make that assumption, but we do.

If you are interested in quality singing teaching, don’t spend too much time on line. Don’t invest a lot of money in courses that you accidentally find on-line unless you know someone personally who has used the course and gotten good results from doing so. If you don’t know how to be “an educated consumer”, spend some time with singers you like and ask questions until you get answers.

Somatic Voicework™ may someday have “products” to sell to the general public. Right now, however, there are none and that has been the case for FORTY years. If you want to find me, you can now do it through this site, but you won’t find me through any advertising. If you are looking to learn to sing in 4 DVDs, I’m sure you can find that on-line somewhere and good luck to you. I can tell you that the most well-respected, most well known singing teachers here in NYC do not advertise, do not put out publicity using their famous students as a draw, and do not walk around claiming to have found “THE WAY”.

But if you are looking to be an artist, to use your voice with deep conviction, emotional truth and personal uniqueness; if you are looking to investigate the depths of the human condition through the discipline of becoming a great singer; you will not find any map on line. If you want to find a Mercedes Benz of singing teachers, you will not find him or her hanging out with the masses on the internet with the Kias. Never.

Let the buyer beware. The most expensive isn’t always the best. The most popular isn’t always the most useful. The most famous isn’t famous because he or she has re-discovered the vocal “wheel”. If a singer is not telling the truth in his or her singing, then the words will not ring true nor move the audience. You can’t learn that from some DVDs you bought on line. You can’t even try.

Be careful. THINK. Ask questions.

What, exactly, is a master class?

A class taught my a master, no? Seems to make sense.

I have seen my share of master classes, unfortunately, by people who have not, themselves, mastered anything.

One memorable one was taught at Juilliard by a very very famous accompanist who had worked with all sorts of important opera singers. This gentlemen was truly a master at accompanying but his style of doing the class was to bounce around all over the stage, waving his hands and making remarks that were sometimes clear and sometimes not, sometimes helpful and sometimes not and spending a lot of time talking about his own experiences as an accompanist. There is nothing wrong with any of this, of course, but only some of it seemed useful to the students.

Then, at the end, out came a counter tenor. I don’t remember what he sang (this was probably over 20 years ago) but it was an early music piece full of ornamentation and the young vocalist was very secure in what he did and how he did it. The master teacher was clearly not tremendously familiar with this material, but instead of admitting it out loud, he boldly rushed in, (and the angels are right in that they fear to tread in such circumstances) and asked the young man to do something with a phrase. The singer said as politely as possible, “but that would be wrong to the style of the music and to the way period embellishments are performed”. The master teacher quickly brought the session to an end. It wasn’t the student who looked bad.

I have countless other stories like this but I also have seen master classes that were truly brilliant. Classes in which the master teacher was able to find something vital, something special and important, and in the flash of an eye make the moment seem like a miracle. The audience could tell, the singer could tell and the master teacher quietly knew as well.

There is no specific way to learn to be a master teacher. You are asked, eventually, by others who perceive that you are a successful artist who might have something to teach rising young singers (or instrumentalists, if you play). There is no guarantee, however, that you will be able in 15 or 20 minutes, to say something that is profound, or even useful and specific. If you do enough of them, you will likely improve but I think some people will always be better at it than others.

In a recent “belting” master class I witnessed, the teacher said things to the student that the student tried hard to understand and use. You could see and feel his earnestness. I wrote a few of the teacher’s comments down. Here they are:

You see the G and you get tight. It’s totally mental.

You have to breathe into your cheekbones.

You are hooking into the low space.

Make more space in legit.

Connect to the sound.

The jaw should never be active. It’s useless. It should always be out of the way.

You are closing.

Feel the burn in your solar plexis.

Connect through the middle.

Think “droopy gooey” more.

Get rid of the jaw. You “hook” into the jaw.

Belt is an upside down triangle.

The jaw should not be part of the equation.

Use your “superbelt”.

If you activate the jaw you will be in trouble.

Move into a mix.

Use more resonance up there.

Don’t disconnect the chest.

Don’t disconnect from the support from the solar plexis.

By and large, most of these phrases are meaningless, in that, if you were to present them to an untrained but good belter, he or she would have no idea how to interpret them. Without precise language, coupled with an understanding of the vocal function of the mechanism, you might as well go back to the old ideas of vibrating your sinuses and supporting from the diaphragm.

This teacher also considered “mix” a “resonance strategy” (many men think this way) because he, himself, doesn’t really change vocal quality to get into a mix. (I didn’t think his belting was very belty. He was obviously a classical tenor). To this man, belting is just changing vowels. Sometimes, in the male voice, this is enough. In a classical female, one who is head register dominant, however, it is not. If the student can’t “move into a mix” how do you get them to? How do you even convey what a mix is?

And, unless you are in some kind of accident or have jaw cancer, you have a jaw. Without it, you wouldn’t be able to swallow or eat, and it would be very hard to talk. You can’t help but use it when you sing and if you want to “make more space” one of the most accessible ways to do that is to open your mouth by dropping your jaw straight down. The jaw is interconnected underneath the mandible to the muscles of the tongue and the larynx is hanging off those muscles in the front of the throat. Therefore, if you do not move your jaw, you can’t move much of anything else. Instructing someone to act as if a vital part of their vocal production machinery was not there is crippling instruction.

Sophisticated classical singers can keep the back of the mouth (velo-pharyngeal port) open with the mouth closed, like a ventriloquist, and this can be very effective. Belters, however, never sing with a closed mouth. NEVER.

Fear, of course, is a factor in singing. No one wants to sing something that is unstable and unreliable, lest the voice go off on its own and do something you don’t want. That does cause fear. In most beginners, it is always present and it is the teachers job to make it go away by improving the skill set of the student. If you are taking a baritone into higher pitches (a G is a very high note to a baritone) and you are a tenor, who can sail easily through a G, you do not understand pitch in relation to range and tessitura. Yes, you can make a person yell, that usually works, but it doesn’t sustain as a viable method of actually singing the pitch, in a mixier manner, because that is something that has to be achieved gradually, through training. If the student knows beforehand that he is going to crack, yes, he will be afraid of the “high note” but blaming him for that fear is as useless as blaming him for having a jaw. If I took you to the edge of a cliff and you were afraid of falling and then I stood very close behind you and leaned over your shoulder, unless you were very unusual, I would frighten you. It would be an appropriate response and I would be the reason you had it, not you and not the cliff.

I could go on, but you get the point.

Master teachers are few and far between. If you go to a master class, ask yourself if what you see and hear was actually useful to the student. If it was not, blame the teacher.

I believe that new opera, written by living composers is indeed alive and well. Sometimes new interpretations of old operas can work, too.

While in Berlin I saw a performance of “Orfeo” (by Gluck for those who are not operafiles) in which the Orfeo was a rock guitarist and Euridice was his drug addled girlfriend. He had to go to the drug lord’s den to find her. This was in German without subtitles. I cringed to think I was going to have to sit through this weird evening but, after the first ten minutes, I was enthralled. The Orfeo (a countertenor) was superb. Every note was expressive. The rest of the cast was the same. The set was not overwhelming and the orchestra/conductor was scrupulously respectful of the music. I came away just delighted that I had been there.

I understand that new interpretations can sometimes work and that the current crop of opera directors have been given a great deal of leeway to do whatever they want (thanks a lot to Robert Wilson) with any work. I think, though, that with no restraints at all, the practice of “trashing” a production in order to make it “relevant” has gone too far and that no one wants to say “STOP!” lest they seem pedestrian, fussy, or ultra-conservative. This, I think, has made the audiences feel blackmailed, since it is frequently so that they will boo a production team, but that distaste is totally ignored by those in charge of hiring. Quite some time ago, I saw Lohengrin at the Met with Deborah Voigt (while she was still heavy), and Ben Hepner done by Robert Wilson. The singing was great but the production was hideous. At the end, when Wilson came on stage, the whole place erupted into loud boos and hisses, more than I have ever witnessed in any production ever anywhere. Nonetheless, Mr. Wilson continues unabated to do his thing all over the world. In the program notes he stated: “I do not have to pay attention to the music or the lib retto, because I am there to put my own stamp on the work.” His stamp is to make the costumes look like something from Star Trek, the movements look like vampires stalking their next victim, and the overall point of view in each production, no matter what it is or where, the same. I am under the impression that Peter Sellars can be guilty of this kind of excess as well, but I haven’t seen his work so I only know about it, not of it, and that would make a difference to my evaluation, so right here I won’t say.

Clearly, people somewhere must like “Euro-trash” or whatever it’s called. I assume it is a small group who, like Wilson, either don’t know or don’t care about the music or the libretto. They must also be the people who give a lot of money or hold powerful positions within opera companies. It most certainly is not the audiences that are calling the shots.

There are no “opera police” but I can’t help but wonder if Callas really would have been OK with being the queen of a hive of bumblebees, or if Placido would really feel comfortable as a space alien or vampire.

I believe that everyone can learn to appreciate opera in whatever way the opera was done the first time by whomever created it. I don’t think people need the old operas to be “refreshed” or “re-done” just to bring people into the houses. I think that people will come when they are educated to do so and that is something that has been systematically stopped in most educational institutions for nearly three generations now. I learned about classical music in public school and it changed my life. If I were in the same schools now, I wonder if I would have the same kind of music education. I also believe that people cannot discriminate good from bad without musical education or life experience in a musical family with sophisticated tastes. How many people have either now?

The “operaization” of American musical theater is another topic, but one not so far away in principle. If you are going to do classic musicals, it seems that they deserve to be kept going without changing them just because they can be changed. I agree that sometimes the changes are fine, particularly if they leave the music alone. However, when the changes make the opera unrecognizable, and make you laugh where there isn’t anything funny going on, and make you cringe because what is being done is so far away from what the lyrics and music are communicating, and make you fall asleep because it is so unbearably dull, then things have gone too far. At that point, especially if the composer is no longer alive, there should be someone who can come along and say “OK. That’s it. You have killed this piece and now you must go someplace to do re-hab!”

I think it takes a great deal more skill and creativity to make something old new again without tampering with its basic ingredients. It’s like baking a chocolate cake. Most people who bake would say that you can make a good one with simple ingredients. It doesn’t mean that people won’t keep trying to come up with new, exciting recipes for chocolate cake but finding a new way to do something which has been done so many times by so many people takes a lot of creativity and motivation. And making a final product that is absolutely delicious can be harder than it appears. Still, people do it successfully every day.

I know, I know, silly wishful thinking about all this, but I can’t help myself.

The decline overall in respect for all performing arts is ever more apparent in the arts themselves.

If you do not educate children to understand and appreciate the performing and fine arts, including the classics, you end up with people who have not had a chance to develop discrimination and what has to be called “good taste”. The deconstruction of all the operas, turning them into ridiculous travesties, and the proliferation of fine art into glorified junk with a very high price tag, has been accelerated by two (now almost three) generations of people who were not given an arts education in school, sometimes not even in expensive private schools, and who therefore cannot discern the profound from the profane.

The death of humanities courses in schools and colleges reflects the death of the enduring values of any society, most particularly one that is interested in those experiences that illuminate our humanity. Pop art is fun and can be refreshing. It can cut through stodginess and pompous excess but it is not and should never be a substitute for the kind of art that has endured through centuries and even thousands of years. Art that transcends time and place, reaching out across the barriers of peoples and cultures, illuminates us to our common heritage as sentient beings living on one planet and also to our profound uniqueness as we grapple with the joys and struggles of everyday life.

If you are part of the so-called “middle class” in this present age you may indeed have had no exposure to art in any form while growing up. I have encountered students who have had not one course in music or art through their K-12 years, and not in college either. This is hard to accept for one who was raised in the 50s in a public school system that had excellent music and art courses. I would not be a professional vocal musician and actress had it not been for my public school courses which opened both my eyes and ears to what music and performing was. It grieves me to think that young people do not have this opportunity but many do not. It isn’t likely that this situation will change in the near future.

The arts are not “extra”. They are not “for elitists”. They are not for “snobs”. If, however, it becomes the norm that those who enjoy the arts are labeled in this manner, that alone makes it even harder for enthusiasts to share what they love with those who do not understand why that would be the case. And, if we allow individuals with little background to rise to a place of leadership in both the arts and in our socio-political system, we are inviting further decay and destruction of the arts in general and society overall.

A society that loses sight of its own enduring values has no legs to stand on in times of crisis. A society that praises crassness and lewdness, that elevates criminals and thugs to become “entertainers” and tolerates the constant depiction of violence in myriad forms as a way to “pass the time,” is very troubled. It is generating the seeds of its own destruction and it does not have the foresight to make the connection between the proliferation of such events and attitudes and its own future well-being.

If we cannot find individuals who have the education, experience and life exposure to the arts in their highest and most enduring forms to be in positions of leadership, we will all pay a serious price. Indeed, this loss is already apparent to those who are observant and it is all the more tragic that speaking up about this issue often incites rebuke. Mocking those who step up to say, “How dare you?” to stupidity and ignorance about this artistic demise (and there are few who have the opportunity who take it), creates an environment of fear and rejection which only those who are brave directly address.

I, for one, have had enough of operas in which the male chorus is made to wear bumblebee costumes (Trovatore in Europe) or where Despina runs a diner (The Met in NYC). I have had enough of opera singers “classicalizing” music theater shows (see previous post). I have had enough of music directors of Broadway shows choosing actors for roles WRITTEN FOR GREAT VOICES AND SINGERS being given to those who can barely do either because they are “famous” on TV or in the movies (see previous post.) I have no interest in and no tolerance for those who would “update” and “make more relevent” the works which were successful in the first place because they were brilliant. (Ditto) I am not ashamed to call a spade a spade and say ENOUGH!

New, yes. Fresh, different, yes. Current, of course! But not instead of knowing what constitutes greatness and what is just cheap show. I am sure there will be a day when someone will decide that the Mona Lisa should be “updated” and for that decision to be greeted by the populace as being a “great idea”.

I am a traditionalist but I am also someone who is a revolutionary. I want to change the present but KEEP the past. I want to know what was, so that I can respect it and learn from it, even as I re-create what is. I do not want to trash that which has a respected tradition in order to go forward to something new that breaks with tradition. If you cannot produce an opera, a musical or any other long-standing work in the performing arts as it was meant to be done, that is a reflection not on the work but on you. If you want to create something “new”, create your own piece and see, then, if you are as good as the person whose work you would dare to “improve”. See if your new work would stand the test of time or whether, in fact, it would be just a passing light breeze, as forgotten as you will be, in just the blink of an eye.

If we who are in the arts do not fight and fight powerfully to keep our traditions intact, who will? If we do not pass on the next generation the spark of life that lives in every great work, how will they know its greatness? If we do not take responsibility to protest that which is demeaning and senseless, that which is done out of ignorance and arrogance, who will? If we are to enrich our heritage as a people, and honor our roots as a country where education and the arts (both fine and performing) are always regarded as being vital to our lives, then we must speak up and speak out whenever and wherever we have the opportunity to do so. Not taking this responsibility is to abdicate, shrug our shoulders and give in, and then, we will have only ourselves, not those outside our arts community, to chastise.

Do not bother to see the last few performances of “Annie Get Your Gun” with Deborah Voigt at Glimmerglass Opera House in Cooperstown, NY. Truly, save your money.

Ms. Voigt is a genuine operatic star, and deservedly so, singing the big gun operatic roles, but she should stay there. She may have done music theater in high school (like Renee Fleming sang jazz in college) but both of these women should stay in their home turf at the opera house.

Ms. Voigt could perhaps have sung Marian in “The Music Man” and done a nice job. She could probably have done a number of other music theater roles written for classical soprano from composers like Rodgers and Hammerstein and Lerner and Loewe, but she should have had her head examined for trying “Annie”, a role written for Ethel Merman. Mr. Tommasini was very kind to her in his review in the NY Times. He should not have been so careful.

Singing alongside Klea Blackhurst, a real deal of a fabulous belter, Voigt was outclassed vocally. Her singing inhibited her in the role, making Annie seem gentler and sweeter as well as more haughty and phoney than she should be. As Frank, insofar as his singing went, Ron Gilfry was awful. The acting was OK, but his “opera” singing is forced, manipulated, stiff, unnatural and he sang interpolated high notes that were done simply for show (very bad taste) and modified everything above middle C. His pronunciation was oh-so-articulated and completely out of character for a country cowboy. It was just stupid singing in every way.

Ms. Voigt can take her chest voice up to about an F or maybe a G above middle C. Although this part, Annie, is rather low (it was prior to rock and roll’s influence of “screaming” the high notes, belted up as far as a throat can manage) it certainly should have been possible for her to sing in a chest mix instead of a head mix. Especially if someone who knew what that was had taught her how to do it properly.

The songs like “Doin’ What Comes Natur’lly” were an insult to Mr. Berlin and Ms. Merman. Here is an unschooled country woman saying she can’t read, saying she is from simple roots, using an effected “cultured” tone in her song about illiteracy. The sound had NOTHING whatsoever to do with the character and, as such, it breaks a sacred “rule” of theater, which is that you must always be in character and authentic. Annie would never had been able to make the sounds that came out of Ms. Voigt’s throat. Further, you can barely hear Moonshine Lullaby (the show is not amplified) since it is low. This is because it lies too low for her head dominant sound to gather steam, but is also too high for her to sing in chest. She was stuck in nowheresville, and stayed there throughout the show. She warbled back and forth across her obvious break in every song. Since I saw this last night, meaning the run has gone on for a long time, and should have by now had time to figure out what to do with these pitches, but clearly she did not. She is afraid to take her chest voice up too far, lest it “hurt” her voice, when, in fact, singing Annie has already had an effect on her technique. The one high note she interpolated (again, very poor taste) was wobbly and slightly flat for a bit. Sticking in high notes “because you can” to show you are an opera singer!!!! I can imagine Gilfry, Voigt and Zambello justifying these little “insider” moments. “Maestra: After all, the audience knows you are opera singers. They expect it!”

Since she had no specific way to train her voice to make the appropriate sounds for this role, she clearly did not have a way to train herself to get out of those same sounds so she could get ready for her Brünnhilde. Too bad. The lack of a clear vocal approach inhibited her performance and it was preposterously silly for the character.

Add to this that Francesca Zamballo had no clue whatsoever about this show. The set was static and she did not know how to use the stage space effectively. The jokes felt flat (her fault) because there was no timing to them. The orchestra had no clue, either, thanks to the conductor, about how to play the rhythms of these wonderful energetic tunes. “There’s No Business Like Show Business” without the beats on the words was an uphill battle for the rest of the talented cast. And the operatic chorus (especially when they were singing as “Indians”) was also inappropriate.

What’s wrong with these people? Do they not respect Irving Berlin? Do they not respect music theater? Do they even KNOW that music theater has a history?

It’s not a new problem or attitude. It showed up way back when Donna Murphy sang “Anna” in “The King and I”. Ms. Murphy, a wannabe belter (who has improved over time) sang the entire role one-quarter tone flat in a speaking voice that was totally inappropriate for a cultured, educated school teacher from England in that era. She sounded like a washer woman. Her performance was magnificent, but her singing was dreadful. No one cared. The same can be said going far back to Michael Hayden as Billy Bigelow in “Carousel” and Sophie Hayden in “The Most Happy Fella”. Neither of them could sing but they were wonderful actors, and all three got Tony’s for their performances. Awarded to them by their peers. Their PEERS.

Think maybe singing comes second to acting on Broadway? Naw.

Stephen Sondheim recently wrote about the lack of respect for a music theater work in his letter replying to a Times article about the present version of “Porgy and Bess” which is being “re-done” by three women who think they know more than Mr. Gershwin and his collaborations. These women, Diane Paulus, Suzan-Lori Parks and Audra MacDonald, suffer from the same thing that allows Broadway producers to bring in “stars” for musicals who have no experience in theater, who cannot sing or dance, but are famous from TV or movies. This is a very common practice now and is tolerated because it keeps the shows going. The list of actors cast in shows for which they had no talent, aptitude or even similarity to type is very long. It is always a disservice to the work. Of course, it’s as bad or maybe even worse in opera, thanks to the “euro-trash” stuff that is popular with those who are “cool”, (not so much with audiences, but with people on the opera Boards or with high level musical people who are very “sophisticated” about such things). These people suffer from an abundance of arrogant ignorance. They do not think they need to know anything about the work, the composer, the lyricist or their intentions, and they do not think the audience matters. I can hear them saying, “They won’t know the difference. It’s such an OLD work. Our ideas are so much better.”

Yes, art is always changing. Yes, art is open to personal interpretation. No, there is no such thing as “art” that everyone agrees upon. But if there is no respect for great works, be they fine art or performance art, then there are no traditions and nothing to pass on. Everything is just a narcissistic personal expression of whatever is happening in his or her psyche at the moment and the rest of the world can just “get over it”. No.

Theater works when it is grounded in tradition. Sometimes because it is grounded in tradition you can do things that are very very non-traditional with great success. You can go far afield and illuminate a work because you have delved into it and its power has touched you deeply. If, on the other hand, you regard the work only from the surface, and you think you can have your way with it, because you are famous, and no one will stop you, SHAME ON YOU!!!

Ms. Voigt, I was embarrassed for you. I was embarrassed for Mr. Gilfry and for Maestra Zambello as well. I would have thought that you would all know better. If you have no one around you who dares speak to you directly and stop you from making such a frightful mess of yourselves in public, then you need new friends and professional colleagues. Ms. Voigt, if you think that Wagner, Strauss and Verdi should be respected and that a dramatic voice is required for the roles you do in the works these composers have written, why would you not accord Irving Berlin the same respect? Does he not deserve to have his works sung with the kind of voices he had in mind? Would you put a lyric coloratura in Brünnhilde, say Diana Damrau, because she is excellent singer and has a solid reputation? Would that make it OK? Of course not. You would take into consideration the whole role and the tradition of that role and of the composer’s intentions.

American musical theater, written by Americans, deserves the exact same respect. It deserves to be taken for what it is without apology, without distortion, without cheapening, without “adapting”, without “adjustment” and without condescension. If you can’t sing it the way it was intended to be sung, STAY AWAY.

It’s all about perception. It’s about your point of view.

What we argue about, what causes strife and even wars, are different points of view. When you are attached to your point of view as if it were LIFE ITSELF….uh oh. If you can’t see that what you believe and what you think and how you feel is just that….a set of beliefs, thoughts and emotions, you will stuck with them as surely as you are stuck with your height.

Changing one’s perception of something is more than just changing one’s mind, although it can be that and only that. Changing perception usually requires changing more than one thing, sometimes all at once.

That’s where information and education come in handy. In order to change one’s point of view about anything, you have to encounter, either deliberately or accidentally, something that causes you to realize that you HAVE a point of view, and frequently that experience is one which also causes you to question that point of view or perception because you have been presented with new information.

There is ample research that people respond to peer pressure in regard to perception. If enough people think that something is so, it can build up a kind of “critical mass” and become the belief of a large number of people, maybe millions. It can be something that is believed for decades, hundreds or even thousands of years, but, then, suddenly, it will begin to shift. The world was flat for a long time and it took a while for people to believe it was round, but eventually, most (not all) accepted that. The determining factor was new information and the dissemination of that information to a larger and larger group of people.

Perceptions that become laws or strongly held rules that cannot be challenged eventually lead to problems. It is always good to investigate what you believe (and why you believe it) as if it might possibly be not the only perception that is valid or maybe might not actually be accurate or useful at all. That way, you are free to change if you find a better way to go. That’s why lawyers can challenge the interpretation of the law. If they can come up with a new way to “read” it, it might have an impact on how it is seen in the larger world.

In contrast to what I wrote yesterday about “caring too much” being a good thing, being attached to what you care about is a deadly trap. In the end, the world goes on long after we are not around, so caring, up to and including the idea that people will die for what they care about, can be a point of great contention. The Catholic Church will make you a martyr if you die for your religious beliefs. Others might just perceive such steadfast faith in the invisible and eternal as just a bunch of demented foolishness.

If you think that classical singing training will miraculously prepare your voice to sing any kind of music, no matter what it is, and you believe that everything is about “style” and not vocal production, you would not be alone. Many people think that “classical training” is a requisite for good vocal behavior. Never mind that “classical training” is a meaningless phrase, because there are no official codified guidelines about what that is, how it should be taught or what it will give you, anywhere. There are opinions about what it should be, but they vary from person to person, author to author. There is a general consensus about what classical singing sounds like, but it is very hard to put into words, and there is great disagreement amongst classical singing experts about who personifies great classical singing and who does not. And, if you think that you can study classically and then sing metal rock without any adaptations in your training regime (and maybe that would be possible), good for you.

If you want to make your beliefs about this topic into a war, you wouldn’t be alone. You could really get your back up and make it a big deal to show how right you are. People have. I have been accused of this, but I know better than to think any philosophy about singing is always “RIGHT” with a capital R. I might argue passionately, but I live my life knowing that there are many roads to Rome. I just expect that people will explain things about singing in a way that is based on actual function and not pink clouds of mist.

SO

If you look at classical singing as a specific kind of perception about vocal sound-making, and you are willing to regard other kinds of singing as different kinds of sound-making, you might end up with a different point of view about both.

It’s all in perception. Worth fighting over? Not worth fighting over? You decide.

I have frequently encountered research done on college students. It has been such that the work implies that what was done on these college students applies to everyone. I venture to say it does not.

I attended the PAS 4 conference in San Antonio a few years ago. One of the presenters had dozens of research articles about choruses on his resume. He was very secure in his statements about what “choruses do”. But when I queried him as to how many adult professional choruses he had studied he indignantly said “none”. So, why then, did his research not make it clear that the data was about college choirs only? Don’t know.

I have heard singing teachers talk about “what singers do” based on long years of observation, sometimes several decades worth, but what they are really talking about is “what college singers do” and even more accurately, “what classically trained college students do”. The differences between a college population and a professional adult population are significant and should not be ignored. Research done only on students is skewed unless the data is meant to apply only to other college age students.

Professional singers who have been working regularly for twenty or thirty years are NOT like college students. Their bodies are different, their minds are different, their skill sets are different. Without having a baseline of adult professional subjects in any voice research that is about professional level performance, no conclusions should be drawn about what “singers do”. And certainly no conclusions should be drawn about what “professional classical singers do” in contrast to what “professional CCM singers” do, because they can be vastly different things in each style but quite similar things within the style.

Since most research is done at colleges and most of the people available at colleges are students or faculty, it stands to reason that this population is the most common group on which research is conducted. It is not, however, the most representative group and that can be dangerous. College teachers who decide (based entirely on their own personal experience) that something “is” a specific way may never have a chance to test out their pronouncements in a non-college environment.

One example of this is as follows: A noted area college teacher says that women breathe differently than men. He also says the soft palate doesn’t go up. He says that because these things are what he has seen in his experience. He has not compared notes with other teachers to see if they come up with something different because he knows he is right, smarter, and better educated about such things. He is right. Scary.

I have known people who have taught at a college for 40 years. They did not teach a wide variety of people of all ages, backgrounds, types and ability levels. They did not encounter people who could barely match pitch or people who could barely stand up straight, or people who have been singing for decades professionally and now have a problem. They may not have been on a professional stage in 40 years either. It matters, because it keeps you aware of how vulnerable all vocalists are when they are singing.

So, if you are conducting research, be sure to stipulate that your population is mostly college students, if it is, and that they are classically trained, if they are, and make sure your “conclusions” are for college aged students only and not for all people. Remind yourself that long term professional singers might have very different behaviors and that you can’t judge those professionals by what you have discovered in your college populations.

A ballet dancer would not do the Swan Queen in Swan Lake at the age of 18, even if she had been taking ballet classes since she was 3 for hours every day. A vocalist is not likely to sing Brunhilde while only 18 even if she has a great big beautiful voice. A weight lifter isn’t going to go for the heaviest weights when he has just been training for a few months. All of these activities do better after the person was doing them for a long time…..years and years, even decades. When you read a vocal pedagogy article, be sure to check to see what it says. If it isn’t useful, let them know.

Caring too much ……. a lyric from “Falling in Love with Love” from Rodgers and Hart’s The Boys From Syracuse — it is a lovely song.

I always wondered, how can you care too much? I’m Italian. I yell because I care. I don’t understand passivity.

I know, being tranquil is good. Staying calm is good. Not making waves is good.

But have you ever known anyone that got anything changed by hiding and being peaceful? When and where in this world did being passive ever make things different?

If a chick has to break open its eggshell to be born, using what little strength it has to peck it’s way through the shell, it needs to be really motivated, not passive. If a flower wants to burst forth from the spring ground to bloom, it has to really want to push through the soil towards the sun. If a baby wants to be fed or changed, it can’t just lie there smiling and cooing all the time, now, can it?

All of life is changing, every moment of every day. Change is movement and movement is change. We resist this. We want things to stay the same, to stay familiar, to not be different. Foolish, we know, but we want it anyway. We don’t like upheaval. We don’t like things that shake us up.

So, we try not to make waves. We try not to be too disruptive. We try not to do anything that will get us noticed. In the end, we do what is the least we can do and live as quietly as we can.

But an artist cannot be this way. An artist is a creator. Creation is not about passivity, or quietude, or just hanging around waiting to see what happens. Artistic creativity demands that we make and to do that we must have a desire, a need, a reason to take what was one way and make it into something else that’s another way. We must be compelled to pull something out of the air. We must want to see or hear something different just because we want to see what happens when we do.

The joy and satisfaction of dismantling something and building a different something is significant. The stimulation of digging in and re-ordering something into a new and more dynamic form is exhilarating. Artistry is not for the shy. Being an artist is about being bold, trusting yourself, riding on your own currents of inspiration and vision. Talent is fueled by creative artistry, by exploring what is personal, what is meaningful to us in a unique manner, and melding it with skill to forge an artistic product.

For those who are not familiar with this process, I have great compassion and sympathy. Not to know this is just sad. For those who have access to it and do not use it, I also feel sad, but it borders on pity. Such a waste! For those who live with it on a daily basis, I have encouragement. Be brave, wayfarers, as you sail your artistic winds! You never know what you will find as you make your journey.

If you are an artist, how can you care “too much” for your art, your work, your vision? How can you not be fully passionate and dynamic about that which drives you to rise in the morning with joy and enthusiasm? How can you not be filled with gratitude for this impulse, this force which surges within? No, “caring too much” is not a juvenile fancy. It is what we who care expect and even seek. I care, so I yell. I yell because I care. I care because I can’t not care. Isn’t that true of all artists? Isn’t that true of all humans?

Singing teachers listen for a living. Most of them have not been taught to listen.

One of our participants in the most recent Somatic Voicework™ training said that she had been “waiting to respond” instead of actually listening. I think that’s typical. We are busy thinking up a response and not actually hearing, taking in, thinking about, being present with and generally absorbing what the person who is speaking or singing is actually communicating. In singing teachers, it can be a serious flaw to “not listen”.

However, in all the workshops, seminars, presentations, lectures, master classes and discussions put on by the profession, how many of them have ever offered anything devoted to listening skills? How many of them have ever discussed that being listened to changes how we communicate. If we know that we are being listened to (as in an interview), what we say and how we say it is absolutely going to be different than if we know that no one is ever going to hear our communication and that, in fact, it really doesn’t matter what we say.

Further, listening has many levels. We can hear the words. That’s the surface. We can hear the meaning of the words. That’s a bit deeper. We can hear the implication of the meaning of the words. That requires that we comprehend what was said and give it some thought. We can hear the tone of voice of the person saying the words. That adds another layer of depth to the communication, sometimes revealing irony or sarcasm. We can also listen to the sound of the voice for other clues. This is the most important thing a singing teacher can do, because a singing teacher has to listen for FUNCTION. The sound is telling the listener what, exactly, is being done in the throat and body while the sound is being made. Make no mistake, the sound has every ingredient in it that you need to know about how it was produced.

If you want to teach functionally, one thing you MUST accomplish is to learn to listen for function. You must also learn to listen to the singer before, during and after the lesson as he talks about his experience of making sound, having a voice, learning technique and achieving his goals. If you do not do that, you will not be very successful, no matter how good you may think you are and no matter your level of education.

I wrote this in a post on this blog in 2006. I was asked to explain further but I did not. It’s a little late, but here it is.

You cannot “resonate” the voice, the sound, the tone, or anything else. You cannot resonate a piano or a horn. You cannot “resonate” anything. Resonance is a result of something, not a cause. We have all been lead to believe that we can resonate and change resonances and that that is what singing training does. No.

This is not correct.

What you can DO is sing a pitch at a certain volume or SPL or intensity (decibel level) on a given vowel sound (a/e/i/o/u, etc.) for a certain length of time. PERIOD. If you do that in various specific ways you will get enhanced kinds of acoustic response in the vocal tract (resonance) but it takes a lot of practice to balance pitch, volume and vowel sound (because there are infinite ways to shape vowels). Every sound you make out loud has resonance or it would be inaudible. Enhanced resonance implies that you are picking up some kind of combination of vocal tract response (formants) and boosting the harmonics by matching them up. It isn’t THAT hard to do. Many “untrained” singers learn to do it. What is hard is to put in all the other parameters that singing entails such as pitch change, consonants, volume change and vocal quality control (breathy, nasal, clear, noisy, chest, head, mix).

It is like saying that you can hit a home run as a result of holding the bat a certain way, swinging a certain way, having enough power in that swing, making sure you have good eye/hand coordination and that you will hit every time. No. Doesn’t happen. Even really good professional batters miss more than they hit. Above 40% of the time is almost impossible, no? They do not try to hit home runs, they try to bat effectively and if they get really good, the likelihood that they will hit more home runs increases.

I suppose, if you try over and over to hit home runs, without caring about anything else at all, and you have years and years of unlimited time, you could, eventually, get pretty good. People have done that. BUT these days, they have super high speed film to show the batters (or golfers, or tennis players or divers ) exactly how they swing, hit or dive, down to tiny micro movements that could make the difference between winning the game or the medal. In sports, they pay attention to the HOW, and assume, rightly, that if the how is consistently excellent and accurate, then the what will be there more often than not.

If your goal is to make a clear tone, undistorted vowels, solid volume, and accurate pitches, sustained over a length of time, you will create resonance, and it could be a lot of resonance, depending on where you are in pitch range and what register quality you are singing with.

And, if you are taught to sing by “feel” or “memory of sensation” you have to hit the right target (by trial and error or accident) in order to generate this magic “resonance” and hope that somehow or other remembering the feelings and sensations of the sound (after it is over) will linger in your mind so that you can replicate it over and over and make it happen in wherever it is that you feel it (sinuses, eyebrows, forehead, cheekbones, hard palate, etc.). If you are singing softly, however, like a jazz vocalist or someone singing a pop ballad, there isn’t much to feel, in terms of bone vibration or sensation, and not much way to remember the sensation, other than it was comfortable. Then what? Do you have to learn to feel resonance first and then get it “turned down” in order to sing correctly, consistently or healthfully. You can spend a lifetime looking for all this and get nowhere in a hurry.

OR, you can sing with an understanding of register quality (chest, mix, head) and work to get good, clear, undistorted vowels, and work on coordination between ribs and abs, and guess what, you can teach your throat and body to get better and better at these things and the “resonance” will show up all by itself, without you having to worry about it at all. What you will get in the meantime is control over the sound you WANT and in the way that you want it. There will be nothing to remember, just replicate. (Which is why you have to know which exercises do what and how to apply them). None of my students “remember” sensation, they don’t need to. They do not try to create resonance (it just shows up) and they do not have to vibrate or feel anything, although sometimes they do and then I ask them to describe to me what that experience is like.

Actually, unless you are singing opera, in an opera house, over an orchestra, you do not need a “singer’s formant cluster” because you will be electronically amplified. You can make a warm sound or an edgy sound, a belted sound or one that is soft and breathy. It’s up to you. All of them work. They will all have some kind of resonance (acoustic efficiency) but only as a side effect, not as a cause.