Are there any Voice Police?
I wish there were. They would write tickets for singing violations and make sure that all the singers are obeying the law (of vocal function). Wouldn’t that be good?
No, probably not. We need diversity in this world and we need the messed up, the troubled, the difficult and the truly shoddy in order to appreciate the really beautiful and amazing. This is a world of dualities and we need contrast in order to understand things. We learn often by comparison……what we like, what we don’t.
I am so critical as a person. Those who know me know that I am too talkative, too opinionated, too over-extended, too bossy, and too much most of the time. That’s how it is with people who are Alpha Dogs: driven, passionate, forceful, overbearing……I have been accused of being a bulldozer, but no one has ever described me as being “laid back”. We are the people who shake things up, get them to change, make a difference and we always encounter resistance, difficulty, retribution, and sometimes direct attacks. But if you know you want to be a revolutionary you have to also know that by being a catalyst for change you will also be a target for the wrath of those who don’t want to change, especially those who do not want to be WRONG.
I gripe about a lot of things and I have a clear picture of how they should be, most particularly in relation to singing. I hold my beliefs strongly and am not afraid to say what’s on my mind. I understand, however, that no matter how strongly I feel, the feelings are, in the end, just mine, just emotion, just energy, and not any more “right” or “significant” than what time I had lunch or whether it’s raining outside. I am not my opinions, I have them but they do not have me.
So, even when I write or speak about the things that need to be improved overall in the profession, or of things that are out of line in any particular vocalist or performance, and when I sound like I think I am the “voice police”, I know that the world is the world and that nothing ever stays still or remains balanced. That would not be in keeping with the cycles of life.
My desire is to have our profession, that of singing and of teaching singing, particularly for CCM styles, but for any style, be all that it can be. I want it to serve the needs of singers, of teachers, of the music, of the public who listen, and the larger world where music and singing can be a healing force for good. I want teachers to seek what’s serves the student’s well-being, and I want singers to seek the truth that resides within until it can be expressed in the way that most satisfies them.