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Human beings are capable of being unselfish up to and including giving their lives for the sake of others. They are also capable of the most unspeakable atrocities committed without the smallest bit of remorse or sadness. Most people do things unconsciously, meaning they don’t really examine deeply the motives for their behavior or actions. Some people think about or notice what their actions might do or are doing to others, but others are completely oblivious. This is the cause for some of the greatest strife that has ever occurred throughout history.

The vast majority of humanity lives in a stream of unconsciousness. These folks do not plan one single moment of their lives, but bounce from event to event reacting to those events as they occur. When pleasant things happen, they are OK and when unpleasant things take place, they are not. Frequently, after an unpleasant event, the reaction of some folks is to blame something or someone. We all know that placing blame is a righteous honor in many places. Being a victim garners pity, sometimes a lot of pity from others and righteous indignation in the victim. It can start in childhood but sometimes escalates, rather than diminishes, as people age. That is not the only reaction possible. If there is no blame, there is sometimes, instead, denial. This is another easy behavior tolerated well by societies all over the world. The bad thing wasn’t so bad after all, or maybe never even happened, and whatever it was or might have been, I’m fine and that’s that.

The idea that the world can be divided up into opposing forces is exemplified by the life we live on a day to day basis which can be seen as “duality”. The real world is day/night, water/land, fast/slow, up/down, on and on endlessly. We learn, “this is bad, don’t do it” and “good girl, nice job” almost right from the crib. It takes a certain amount of something special, then, to “wake up” from this world and make a conscious decision to take a look at it. It takes a lot, really, to look at something and say, maybe the world is actually not a series of opposite happenings, maybe everything is relative to my perspective of it. This is, actually, closer to the truth. Day fades into night, water laps onto the beach, hills rise up from the flat land, etc. Even being born takes some amount of time.

“Waking up” to life is a big deal. It requires constant diligence and quite a bit of motivation. It is very easy to “fall asleep” into either blame or denial, and it is very easy to “keep on keeping on” without ever questioning one single thing or probing deeply into the psychological or emotional reactions that seems so automatic in all of us. Most people not only don’t care about “waking up” they may have no clue that is it possible or have ever been around anyone who has that type of thought process and behavior. They may not understand how much choice is available over their own “automatic” reactions to life and the events in it, or even how much their own behavior and thinking can contribute to what shows up in their life experience.

The primary way to become aware of one’s own situation is either to have a startling “awakening” or to begin asking, and answering, questions that start with the word “why”. Probing for answers can be slow, tedious, frustrating, frightening, daunting, exhausting and painful, but NOT probing can be much worse. Only knowing, understanding and then choosing something different can break the patterns that bind. You cannot change what you do not know exists.

When I was young I did as I was told, never questioned anyone in authority, trusting that they knew more than I did. I was taught to do this and commended for it. I was not asked to discriminate, I was not encouraged to evaluate, I was not expected to pay attention, just to follow orders. It took me a LONG time to dismantle this behavior but I had some help. Something “mystical” happened to me when I was only 22 that shook me to the foundations of my soul. It started me on the process of asking questions.

One of the questions was “why is there only one way to learn to sing”? “Why can’t I learn to sing like Connie Francis instead of Joan Sutherland”? This was a question that had no answer except “because this is the way it is”.

Everything I have ever written, said, spoken or taught, about singing has underneath it the awareness that what I am putting forth is my opinion and only my opinion. I always understand that each person is on their own journey and that each of us has the experiences we have to learn from life whatever there is to learn. Each of us has a choice to turn life’s unpleasant experiences into a way to close up, become negative, pass judgement, and blame the outside world, or not. Each of us has a choice to look at what has happened with the possibility that there is something to learn in it, something that may be valuable not only to ourselves but perhaps also to others, or not. Each of us has an opportunity to open up and grow when life doesn’t give us what we would have most liked to have, or not.

I question the way CCM is taught, thought about, dealt with, regarded and approached. I question it most with the teachers and since most teachers are in schools, I question academia. I question the values of various kinds of music and singers to attempt a deeper understanding of the similarities and differences between them. I search for patterns, associations, conflicts, assumptions and philosophies that impact them and the extent of that impact. I choose to do this because I think there is value in it and because it has been my experience that this has been done almost not at all or only in a very limited manner.

This is selfish on my part because it makes me feel that all the confusion, frustration and sadness I experienced while I was trying with all my heart to learn to sing was worthwhile. It takes away some of the disappointment that I wasted so much money and time on empty studying. I could see this as a justification for why I did not have a great famous career as a singer. It has been seen as a way for me to make myself well-known, better than other people, a know-it-all, blowhard, diva queen, and maybe all of that is true.

But if there is anything unselfish about it, then it is because I would like to give something to other young singers that no one gave to me…….information, guidance, and the right to QUESTION what training they are being given. I would like them to know that it is more than OK to wake up to the “WHY” questions. Why should I sing like this? Why shouldn’t I sing like that? Why should I listen to this teacher? Why should I be feeling this or hearing that? Why is there no answer to my questions when I ask them? Why would this person be an authority on singing when he or she CAN’T SING??

If you read this blog to come away from it questioning me, and then questioning yourself, I have succeeded in my intention. I have perhaps been a seed in your own vocal “awakening”. If you read this blog to see what blowhard LoVetri has to say today that makes her feel important, well, so be it. It probably does and you are probably correct, but I wouldn’t want to be your student.

Until very recently, we did not understand vocal function. Training for singing was based upon observations by people who lived as long ago as a few hundred years and on each individual singing teacher’s personal subjective opinion. This situation is, thankfully, going away, but it is far from gone.

Recent issues of Classical Singer magazine have had 2 articles discussing vocal pedagogy that try to combine singing training with voice science. Both articles contain misconceptions and mistakes. Apparently, Classical Singer does not run the articles past actual voice scientists to see if they are accurate. They wouldn’t be able to get away with this if the general populace of singers and singing teachers absolutely knew vocal function. The average reader, sadly, probably has no idea that the material contains errors. This same thing happened last year when Opera News published an article about belting that was so ridiculous that it set the CCM world back an entire generation. (Oh well, it’s just about belting, so who cares, really).

I’ve encountered more than a few singing teachers who have read a couple of articles, taken a couple of courses, and then simply teach what they THINK they understand, without actually running it past an expert. Some of what goes on in the production of vocal sound isn’t easy to grasp, especially as hard science, and it can take a while for someone to fully digest charts and graphs unless they are inclined to like them. Writing to incorporate something new into something you already know can be dangerous. Those who write should think and think again before allowing themselves to submit something that, once published, will demonstrate exactly how confused, not how knowledgeable, the writer is.

It really is true that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Seems like, in some ways, we had less to worry about when people were talking about the “pink mist in the back of your throat” or “drinking a glass of water” to “make the sound more creamy”, as at least then we knew the information we were being given was pretty much from Mars. Now we get something that sounds like it is REAL except somewhere in there we are still being told that we need a masque in order to sing opera…..so how come the Lone Ranger wasn’t singing at the Met?

If you have a voice and can use it, be thankful. If you have a voice and can sing, be deeply thankful. If you have a voice and can sing well enough to stand up in front of an audience, rejoice in your gratitude. If you sing well enough to do it in front of an audience and get paid, shout out your appreciation from the housetops. And if, by some miracle of miracles, you sing well enough to be paid and become well known for your singing, then find a way to express that gratitude every single day.

There are people in this world who lose the ability to speak through injury and illness. There are people who would give anything to be able to sing “Happy Birthday” to their child but can’t “find the notes” and are embarrassed to try. There are people who sing in the kitchen and the shower but would never sing alone anywhere someone else could hear them. There are people who would love to do a solo at church but are never asked. There are people who would love to be paid to sing at a local bar, coffeehouse, or community theater but are too afraid to try. There are people who get paid to sing but not enough to even cover their own costs of getting to a gig. There are people who are asked to perform in public, who get paid, and who are locally recognized, but can’t get to the next level professionally. There are people who sing who do it for a living, make enough to live well, are recognized but not famous and still have to push hard to keep their careers moving. And there are the few who are famous, who have a following, who make lots of money, and whose voices are recognized immediately by throngs of fans, who worry every day about vocal health, the stress of travel, the need to keep singing well and a million other things.

Whatever state we are in, there are many reasons not to be grateful, but none of them are valid. If you are alive and can sing, even if it is just in your mind, you have great reason to be grateful.

On this day of giving thanks, join me in being grateful for song, for music, and for all of our (internal and out loud) voices. Many blessings to all!

The meaning of the word educate comes from the Latin educare, which in turn came from educere, “to bring out” or “to lead”. The word teach comes from Old English and means “to show, point out” or “declare, persuade, warn”. To learn is also from the Old English and means “to get knowledge, be cultivated”, from a base of “finding the track”, or from another source, “having knowledge gained by study”. Finally, guide means “to lead or conduct” from the Old French, and also “to show the way”.

Then, are not all who teach guides, those with knowledge gained by study, who lead the way, and bring out or cultivate something in others? Who then, is a true teacher, who teaches by false knowledge gained from no study, from guessing? Can there be any leading when such a soul has not personally trod the path, gained the way of knowing?

Those who teach with an open heart happily share what they have gleaned through personal experience to lighten the load of another who seeks to walk the same path. They stand as “guardians” “marking the way”, pointing out the pitfalls, the hazards, the shortcuts and the straightest paths, helping those who follow to walk with greater safety, peace and ease. Important, this, the opportunity to lend a helping hand to another hapless, and often younger, traveler. A responsibility and at the same time a precious gift.

Whoa, then to those who pose as guides, wearing the cloak of grandma while they are, underneath, the wolf. Let those who pose thusly, those who would falsely point the way, understand that they will be found out and discovered for what they truly are…….dishonest devourers of innocents. Yea, the very ones whom they mislead will turn against them and say, “I have gone where you have sent me and it does not end in the place that I have sought to be”.

Beware, teachers, of what you teach. Speak only what you have lived and know to be true. There is no other course.

Why do I do what I do when I do it and in the way I do it? What leads me seamlessly from one vocal exercises to another such that at the end of a bunch of them, the student suddenly sings better?

Beats me.

Really. I wish I could articulate what goes on, but it long ago it became a “mindless” behavior, insofar as there is no “word thinking” going on in my head most of the time. I am operating via my own intuition or instinct. I am “listening” to the person’s body and “sensing” the person’s voice. I get my direction from them. I do not live in my head when I teach, and I stay “in the moment”, in each sound as it comes.

I would love to be able to articulate the “why” better. I am working on that. I would love to be able to explain why I do this particular exercise, for this particular reason, for this amount of time, on these notes, at this volume, using this vowel, but as of yet, I cannot do so well enough to be as helpful as I would like. I can only give guidance to teachers to be in the ballpark and have a well educated guess. I can and do explain what exercises do what from a functional place, but I don’t have a grid for helping teachers choose better beyond that. But I will………give me some more time.

The process as it happens to me is influenced by my years of study, work and teaching of psychic healing. I was trained to hear “inner” or “psychic” sound and to direct it through my mind for the “healing” or “well-being” of others. I also taught a voice/healing class for over 15 years, both in the USA and Europe. I know that vocal sound is transformative and that making sound is a deeply healing experience when the sounds can pass through the throat without restriction. It is also deeply healing to hear such sounds, regardless of whether or not they have a musical context.

If you are teaching singing and are not yet fully able to live in your own intuition, be patient. You will if it is your intention to do so. Listen to what you feel. Feel what you see. Look for what you are hearing. Stay quiet and open.

The sound will take you everywhere you need to go. Courage!

I heard recently that one of our most prestigious university music theater training programs here in NYC is going to start training teachers for CCM styles, copying my original and ground-breaking program at Shenandoah Conservatory in some manner. This same MT program is dominated by a young man (who is as old as the length of my teaching career) who has reportedly declared that “the music business will come around” and “follow their lead” in terms of its standards. [Note: this is my version of the rumor I heard. I am wiling to be corrected should I find out that the information I was given is wrong. It came, however, from several reliable sources who have credibility and knowledge of what goes on in this organization]. This is the same program that “does not teach to the marketplace”, meaning they think belting is bad and stay away from it, and from the use of active chest register as if it were a malaria mosquito.

Last I heard, the music business/community wasn’t in the habit of going to schools to seek advice for any reason, let alone to ask about the standards it should have for singing. Broadway producers want to have successful runs and make their investments back. They could care less about whether or not performers voices are trashed or are exalted, they could care less about musical values, or even the well-being of the audience. Only someone who is INSIDE the business would know that. If all you have done in your life is get a degree, sing in an opera here and there, and then get a job teaching so you can pay your rent and have a family, this little piece of information might have slipped under your radar.

This attitude harkens back yet again to the idea that the real world is wrong and the smarter-than-everyone-else academic types know better. It isn’t different than other hollow-headed ideas like “supply side economics” (the rich will filter their wealth down to the poor. That really worked, didn’t it?).

Sometimes I become very exhausted after more than 40 years of dealing with this brick wall, and then I have a day of inspiration that lifts me up and keeps me going. Yesterday was like that.

I lectured at Teachers College at Columbia University for a small class in vocal pedagogy that is classically oriented but was open (thanks to their terrific professor, Dr. Jeanne Goffi-Fynn) to hearing about CCM and its various characteristics. Although some of the students looked as if I was lecturing about life on Uranus, they were taking notes like mad. I thought, “Hmmmmmm, maybe these young people will one day run vocal departments and maybe they will have different attitudes than their predecessors have had.” It was enlivening and encouraging 85 minutes and I am grateful for the invitation.

If you are also toiling away teaching CCM, wherever, and are faced with this same slow-to-go-away issue, be encouraged as well. Each of these small moments is adding up, every day. The facts and life’s demands are on our side. Please keep on keeping on and I promise that I will too!!

It has finally happened that someone who is a chair of a voice department at a major university thought that Contemporary Commercial Music was about jingles for TV and radio. This same person also thought that students of CCM were “playing guitar and doing folk songs”. How out of touch can you be and still be in charge of something? Clearly, a lot.

We might never see the day, at least in my lifetime, when rock and roll is taught with equal skill and acceptance alongside classical music in colleges, but I surely do hope that I live to see a day when we have universally moved forward in our thinking.

I just did two master classes out in Washington State over the past week. At the first, where many of the singers were still in their teens, a few of the teachers were present. I took this to be a good sign. There were some students, though, that presented their songs for me without any real preparation. That made me wonder if the teachers had actually ever been at or in a master class. To have a young singer perform a folk/pop piece, read out of a book, without any clue whatsoever to anything that resembled skill, was disappointing. This young woman, one of the oldest teenagers, was barely audible, did not know what the song was actually about, and seemed perplexed that I was asking her to change anything. This lack of preparation falls into the teacher’s lap. It is difficult, in 15 minutes, to be of use to someone who has no clue of any kind, and if the teacher does not know that the student needs to be prepared, there is little I can do to be of assistance.

On the other hand, there were some young performers, a few of whom had had only the barest minimum of training, who were able to rise to the occasion and work with what I asked them to try. Their individual abilities were no better than the aforementioned young lady, but their attitudes were completely different. This reflected something about the preparation they had had. Even beginners can be prepared for a master class if the teacher knows what to say.

The second master class took place at a university. The college kids were very eager to try things and quite conscious of the changes they made as I worked with them. At the end, 8 of them held me captive, trying to find out if it was “OK” to sing rock music and/or “use their chest voice”. It was clear that some of them had been told that doing either of these things was “bad”….a situation that replicates what was said to me 42 YEARS AGO. What does that say about our profession? Are we the only group in the world that has not progressed in 42 years? Well, maybe not, but even the construction company that is re-doing my kitchen is using lasers for plumb lines and electric screwdrivers for the screws.

Sooner or later the information about what real singing is will be in everyone’s hands. Until that time, we all just have to keep on keeping on. Thanks for helping.

Ever listen to someone sing and come away unimpressed? Of course. We all have that experience very frequently. Sometimes while listening to very famous singers. What is it that impresses us? Why does something leave an impression?

EMOTION. What we react to, what we care about is emotion. Without it, sound is just sound. The power of sound, when backed by emotion, is likely one of the most personally powerful things we have at our beck and call. The problem is the split between our societal need to suppress emotion (if we don’t, we are in trouble) so that we can go along in daily life smoothly and the need to be deliberately emotionally demonstrative while singing. The one situation opposes the other and it is, for most of us, the former situation in which we spend the most time.

So, if you are an emotionally demonstrative person by nature, someone in touch with your own emotional reactions to things, you have an automatic advantage as a performer, provided, however, that you are not TOO emotional, as this will make it impossible for you to deal with all the other things that performing requires, (like traveling, getting paid, and getting out publicity) and provided that your throat and body can handle a lot of raw emotion without overloading.

And, emotion for its own sake can also be limiting, as it gets old quickly. Raw anger is a one note rag. It’s interesting for a while but then we want to understand what caused this anger, why is it so strong, where is it going? Any single emotion gets to be like that. It’s a little like watching a serious car accident — fascinating at first, but then static. We want to know what is behind and underneath the emotion. What is being communicated and why. (Unless, of course, we are watching professional wrestling on TV).

Being a singer means that you know how to be emotional in a way that is deeply personal and connected to meaning and communication of intention. It means that you are someone who is able to deeply feel, in your own body moment by moment, the emotions and sensations of emotionality while you are singing, while remaining in control of the entire process in a deliberate, albeit free, manner. You also have to do this while singing specific pitches and rhythms and words, while breathing in specific places, and controlling the level of volume. Not so easy.

And, not all emotion is obvious. We all know that creating emotional impact isn’t the same thing as being hysterical. Sometimes emotion is couched in very subtle expression. If you aren’t listening for emotional meaning, it might be there and you might miss it. You have to listen from an open and receptive place with a desire to receive what you are hearing in a deeply emotional manner yourself, else you may not even notice your own reactions to what is being sung.

Does most vocal technique training investigate how to express emotional truth while singing? How many people are taught to deeply feel emotion or be emotional while singing vocal exercises? How does one make a connection between being emotional and singing in a healthy manner? Doesn’t most of the “interpretation” given to songs reside only in the mind of the singer? Is it a surprise then, that many singers don’t successfully bridge the gap between what they are thinking and how that thought makes them (or should make them) feel? And is it any wonder then, that many singers are making sounds but not making music? And could that be why we aren’t impressed?

The next time you hear something memorable, something that leaves a strong impression upon you, notice if it is because of the emotion in it. It won’t be a surprise if you ending up thinking to yourself, “This is good”.

This feeling inside…….I get it every time I think about the many great singers who have sung all over the world in styles that have nothing to do with classical music. Over the last 100 years, audio recordings of all kinds of people singing all kinds of music have been made and heard by millions of fans all over the world. Many of these singers have had substantial careers lasting a very long time (like Ella Fitzgerald) or have sung music that was certainly not beautiful, in a traditional way at least, (Mick Jagger), and many of the styles have left a permanent mark on the music world, altering tastes or influencing other artists. Many of them also have managed to sound good, 30, 40, even 50 years into those careers. Isn’t that significant?

It would seem that there is much to study, much to examine, much to understand. Culturally, musically, artistically, and personally, because of the enormous diversity of the styles, there is at least as much to delve into in CCM as there is in classical music. Yet, the amount of interest in and study of any kind of CCM is far less in formal academic circles than is that of classical styles.

Ever think about why that would be? Why has no one questioned this in almost 100 years? Why didn’t the study of our own music seem like a relevant, dynamic topic? Why would we perpetuate the notion that only those who had studied classical repertoire were “trained”? Why is this limited vision of training accepted as being the norm, the necessity?

It is time to really make a lot of noise about this. The time to stop this nonsensical attitude is NOW. When should we look around and say “music theater history” is just as important as “classical music history”? In another 100 years? When should we consider the history of jazz to be equal to the history of orchestral music? In a couple of decades? When should we ask ourselves whether or not the development of country music or American folk music, or gospel, is worth knowing about right alongside of knowing about the lives of Bach, Mozart, Brahms, Schubert, Puccini or Britten? Next year?

If you are someone who can answer those questions with the word, “yes”, in terms of whether or not it should be right now, then stop reading this blog and go do something about it. PLEASE!!!!

NOW is good. Now.

The best way to understand something is to do it yourself. Learning about it is different than learning it, no?

Anyone who has done an activity that requires a high level of physical skill and coordination understands that it takes a long time to develop mastery over that activity. It could be anything…..painting, sculpting, building handmade furniture, creating interesting food, doing a sport, learning to dance, act or sing…..but it is something that involves using the body in any way, it just takes time for it to be done well. To some extent the amount of time given to the activity daily matters, and the level of ability the individual brings to the activity at the outset matters, and the quality of instruction matters (but sometimes no instruction is available, so that may or may not be a factor).

And it matters what the expectations of the world are in regard to any of these activities. If you are trying to be an Olympic athlete, there are stringent and exact requirements, mostly measured by objective means. If you are trying to be a violinist who wants to play in the NY Philharmonic, you have your work cut out for you. If you wish to have your work shown at the Whitney or the Museum of Modern Art, ditto. And, if you are going to be at the Metropolitan Opera, or on Broadway, the criteria are very high, too.

The people who determine these things are those who are within any given discipline. The individuals in modern art don’t decide how someone should sing when auditioning for the Met Opera. The people building furniture don’t determine what should happen with Wimbledon tennis players. The folks who choose the winners on “Top Chef” don’t have any say in who gets to dance at the New York City Ballet. So, even though there will always be disagreement between experts in any field, there must be some kind of consensus in each one, else everything would be chaos all the time in everything. Nothing would have any boundaries or structure.

So, if singers have to live up to certain kinds of criteria, it is important for singers themselves to know what those criteria are. It is also important for those who deal with singers to know them as well. If someone is going to sing country western music and the person evaluating their singing is from opera, how would they know whether or not the singing was any good? If all singing is so similar that it has no distinguishing characteristics, why would we have different voice categories and different styles in the first place? That’s like saying anyone who swims well can also play excellent baseball. Doesn’t happen that way.

The way to truly understand what is involved is to learn to do it yourself. You cannot become a good golfer by hanging around golfers, reading about golf and golfers, or buying equipment that sits in your garage. You have to pick up the clubs and play. You can’t learn about singing that way, either, and you can’t learn to change stylistic parameters without knowing what they are in the first place.

I know we’ve been over this before……it’s just that there are so many people who still don’t seem to have it clear that this is the truth. If only they weren’t out there teaching singing, or teaching anything!