Vocal Compass

Learning to do the Slow Work is Slow Work

2012-01-02T15:34:00.000-08:00

It’s resolution time, again. It’s the time when people all want to lose weight, tone up and take voice or piano lessons. It’s also a time when people who have not been living authentic lives for years and years, for reasons good and not so good, are looking for an escape. People want to be beautiful. They want to look younger. They want to do glamorous things – like sing onstage. They want to reclaim lost time. And they want to take crash courses so they can reclaim that lost time instantly.

It doesn’t work that way.

Nothing happens instantly, no matter what the ads on TV will tell you. Sure, if you spend every waking moment exercising and watching ever morsel of food you put into your body, you can make significant changes in your appearance. I doubt that you can count on developing that six-pack or those bicep muscles, though, in six months or a year. If that were the case, there would be many more people wandering the streets looking like models and weightlifters. Think about the number of people you know who have resolved to lose it and tone it. Have they? If they did manage to make changes, did it last?

And you can learn to play a few songs on the piano with a down and dirty course where note names are placed inside each notehead, and you have a library of a handful of chords that you can call on to harmonize pop songs (though you might not know that those things you’ve been playing are called chords, or what a chord is if you were to trip over one, for that matter). You can limp along, with no technique, playing stiffly and non-musically and maybe even enjoy the experience. But allow me to be one of the first to raise my hand to tell you that you have NOT learned how to play the piano. You are doing self-limiting, surface-level “busy” work.

The person who succeeds at weight loss usually is one who has made the decision over time, not because January 1 is upon them and, whew, all of those holiday goodies finally have been consumed (until next year). The decision is made based on appearance AND on health, longevity, or because career and overall lifestyle will be enhanced. It might have something to do with a medical condition, or caring what a spouse thinks. It might have to do with a number of factors that all figure into a change of lifestyle and a new mode of operating. When the decision to lose weight is made over time it is, perhaps, a bit easier to deal with the long course of exercising and monitoring of diet that is necessary to make a permanent change.

Personally, I think that calling it weight loss is one of the problems. Who wants to lose anything? We should call it size adjustment, or something more innocuous and less emotionally disturbing or negative sounding.

The point is there is a shift in thinking that precedes the successful shift in acting to effect change.

On the other hand, learning to play the piano is a positive thing. You are adding a skill to your existing inventory of skills. You aren’t losing anything. But the problem with learning to play the piano, or learning to sing when it isn’t something that you’ve considered thoughtfully, over time, is that you likely are resolving to do it, in part, because it seems so removed from your reality, unattainable. This already sets you up for failure. If you make playing the piano (perfectly) or singing (like a superstar) something you must do in order to alter your drab, unsatisfying life, you’ve put in on a pedestal, in an ivory tower on another planet in an undiscovered galaxy, somewhere. Part of you wants to do it because it is something that other people do. It isn’t something YOU do. Great! So, let’s get down to lessons!

I don’t think so. How can you possibly succeed?

The person who does well with piano or voice lessons is the person who has reasonable but less than grandiose expectations. As with learning any new skill or habit, the successful music student recognizes that (as Aesop said and one of my young piano students recently remarked) “Slow and steady wins the race.”

Cut through the buts and make the “onlies” lonely.

Our little demons will try to speed up and shortcut the learning and changing process by throwing “but” and “only” at us. Sometimes I feel like a Ninja, deflecting a barrage of buts and onlies from a student. The mind is quick to try to find another solution when the slow, difficult process taxes our patience. When the first solution is nixed, the mind quickly runs another direction.

Piano student: But I have to move my bottom from one side of the bench to the other in order to play all the high and low notes.

Me: No. You don’t. You need to adjust the distance you sit from the keys and your arm and wrist and finger positions and allow your upper body to move with your arms, in the up or down direction, as your arms and the music requires.

Piano student: I would do that, only my arms aren’t long enough, and my wrists naturally bend this way.
…
Voice student: My tongue doesn’t want to go there (to the front of the mouth, the tip resting lightly behind the bottom teeth).

Me: First of all, your tongue has no mind of its own. You are in charge. Second, it will go there, if you work to relax the jaw and the tongue. (There is much more to this. But you get the idea.)

Voice student: But, maybe my tongue isn’t long enough.

Me: It is.

Voice student: (upon successfully finding the tongue position, allowing for a resonant tone). Wow! If only I could do that every time.

Me: With time and repetition, you will.
…
“I’ll try” is another defeating statement that the brain sends to the mouth and the mouth sends back to the brain. Don’t try. Just do.

“One Day at a Time” – Alcoholics Anonymous Slogan

It’s natural for human beings to try to make things easier than they actually are. But a person who really wants to learn something, really make changes that can make a difference in their life, must work hard and slowly and steadily to develop an evolved way of operating and thinking. Changing a habit, developing a new skill; these things are accomplished one step at a time, one day at a time. Complete dedication and regular maintenance are critical components. The person who means well often doesn’t do. The person who does well has moved beyond mere intention, to action.

In case you haven’t already considered this, or discerned it from this posting, learning how to do the slow work is, itself, slow work. Developing the mindset that allows you to jump on the scale, day after day, after having worked out like a fool and dieted as prescribed, only to see the same dumb number – or a HIGHER number – staring you in the face. You just keep plugging away at your workouts, in spite of it.

Developing the mindset that keeps you going to the piano, not minding the clock, and going over and over an exercise in a meaningful way, until you play that particularly important repetition and make that discovery that changes one teensy-tiny part of your technique. Then you applaud yourself and go have a cookie, um, unless you’re also doing the weight loss thing.

Don’t expect an external reward, by the way. In fact, expect others to punish you for your efforts and achievements. Take their laughter, denials, ignoring you altogether… as your rewards. And please ignore the sad truth that people with lesser skills may be rewarded even though you may feel you are more entitled and even though you may, in fact, be more deserving of a reward. That’s life. As my significant other always says, “Those people are put here by the devil just to upset us.” People will be threatened by your success. They may be embarrassed by your talents. They will be jealous of your accomplishments. And, chances are, they won’t even be aware of their thoughts and their behaviors around you and toward you – because they aren’t as evolved as you will have become.

Your work and your progress are your rewards. Get used to it. When you are thinking through your master plan to lose weight, shape up, play the piano or learn to sing, think, “If I were alone with this new physique, or this wonderful skill, on a desert island, would it still make me happy?”

What a great desert island! Hmmm. Now, if only I had a piano. Good thing I’ve lost all this weight and I’m looking so marvelous on the beach. Now, if only I had a mirror… or a really handsome lifeguard.

So much for the desert island.

Teaching Singing My Way

2011-10-09T19:13:00.000-07:00

There can be huge differences between what different voice teachers offer and what those interested in taking voice lessons expect from lessons.

Here is a general overview of what I offer and what I do best.

I HELP YOU to do the following WORK (because a teacher is merely a guide, an extra set of eyes and ears and a knowledge source)

1. Finding YOUR true voice/sound - not a voice that imitates or mimics other singers

2. Balancing your voice throughout its entire range and all registers (because a singer who wants to sing comfortably and reliably unbalanced -- adding audible breaks, breathiness, etc. -- needs to know how to sing balanced, first)

3. Accessing all available notes in your voice (because you can't add notes to your range that don't pre-exist in your voice, you can only learn how to access them -- and they usually number more than you think they do)

4. Establishing a resonant voice technique that can allow you to sing unamplified and be heard in a reasonably friendly acoustic environment. For those who work hard, they may be able to develop a voice that can carry over an orchestra with ease. This is my goal for all singers. You can always sing and be heard with a microphone. Techniques are slightly different. But techniques that allow you to sing on a mic are easier to master, in my opinion, because they tend to be more cosmetic, than are the more varied and subtle principles of freely-produced and properly supported tone required for singing audibly, unamplified. A microphone can be an aid. It can also be a cheat and a crutch.

5. Removing affectations that keep you from developing your own voice. Getting rid of the breathiness, screechiness, the squeeze, the press, the push, the breath holding, the choked and muffled "cooking lady" sound, the added vibrato that doesn't sound as good as you think it does, the bleet, the uncoordinated vocal wobble...

6. Developing a flexible vocal technique that will allow for artistry -- rapidly sung passages, dynamics, vocal colors, legato (flowing, connected) singing, staccato singing...

7. ...which brings me to musicianship. Teaching sight-singing, music theory, rhythm, etc. I don't believe in learning songs solely by ear. The visual aspect of learning your music and understanding how your particular voice relates to the notes on the page is critical to your vocal development and understanding.

8. Teaching piano for singers. If you want to sing and you have no desire to minimally learn to play the notes of your songs on the piano in order to learn the music, I wonder about your initiative.

9. I help you to NOTICE things, so that you can own your technique and not remain teacher-dependent. I teach you to see and feel what's going on, because listening to yourself from the inside doesn't work.

10. No apologies. No excuses. I may be a dinosaur. But I prefer working with singers of classical, semi-classical and other legit or legit-related forms of music. Some new age and alternative music fits into this schematic. That said, I am pleased to work with singers of all genres of music -- musical theatre, pop, rock, jazz, rhythm and blues, folk, and so forth. Keep in mind, I am not an interpreter of all of those genres (though I do pretty well working with some of them). My background is opera, classical, art song (Lieder, mélodie, British and American song), assorted forms of religious music.

Again, my strength is helping you sort out your voice, establish a strong, healthy, acoustically sound, intelligent foundation technique and your personal sound. What you do with it from there is your business.

I may edit or add to this list along the way.

The Subtlety of Learning

2011-08-27T09:57:00.001-07:00

It's been too long since I last blogged. I live in awe of those teachers who are able to teach, take care of their business, participate in numerous other activities and pursuits and manage to find time to blog about it all.

As fall approaches, and I begin rallying my school-aged singers and pianists in preparation for the NATS Student Evaluations, performances, a studio recital, The Achievement Program (Carnegie Hall-Royal Conservatory) and MTAC Certificate of Merit (whew), I am reminded that too many of these students have little to no idea of how to study... how to deeply learn material... how to prepare their minds for the subtle aspects of becoming an artful musician, how to look for and then notice small improvements that lead to big changes, how to stop trying to "do" things that only interfere with the process, and how to focus on process over product.

Me: "Listening over and over again to someone sing the song is fine. But you also need to sit down at your piano and play the notes for yourself, learn to sing the song your way - not as a copy of a recording, speak the text, checking every word for pronunciation..." etc.

This is not what today's average singing student seems to want to hear. Deep learning and subtle learning aren't on their radar. Deadline for testing learning is what they get in school. Facts are crammed into their brains at the last minute, only to be forgotten after the test. This kind of learning does not produce artistry.

With all of this on my mind, I just stumbled upon this news story having to do with properly learning to meditate. There are interesting parallels to my teaching practice and philosophy. This article reflects the kind of teacher I aim to be, the kind of student I prefer to teach, and the kind of focused, self-less artists I hope to prepare for a world that is desperately in need of a few genuine, humble artists.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeanne-ball/transcendental-meditation-teacher_b_935655.html

Hocus Pocus Focus on the Fourth of July

2011-07-07T11:48:00.000-07:00

The July 4th holiday offered me an opportunity to do anything other than teaching-related work. So, what did I do? I put on my teaching hat and wrote a lengthy response to a thread in a singers' forum. A singer was complaining about a quick fix offered by a voice coach to a friend of a friend and referring to it as hocus pocus. The friend's friend changed her posture and was able to produce a high note that was previously unattainable. My response may or may not have stand-alone merit. For what it's worth, here it is.

It would be interesting to see if this altered posture helped the singer to sing the notes slightly above or below the high note in question. And it would be interesting to be the fly on the wall at this coaching session, to see if the singer 'cared' about singing the notes slightly above or below. My first guess would be "probably not" in both cases. Quick fixes aren’t usually good fixes. And, in my experience, the vast majority of individuals taking lessons/coachings tend not to question. I have to dare to bore them with the information.

Some teachers and coaches resort to hocus pocus for many reasons -- none of them good ones.

Broad generalizations follow.

Singers expect to learn everything there is to learn in a few lessons/coachings. TV shows and contests make it seem like the progression is 1) audition, 2) stardom. Some Ts&Cs go with that. It's easier than fighting the singer to try to help the singer. People think that singing doesn't require the same foundation work as ballet, ice skating, golf, baseball... what have you. (In reality, it ranks right up there with skills like ballet in terms of training for strength, flexibility, control, nuance, total body involvement, life commitment...) People don't realize that, once you find something that works for you, it requires ongoing maintenance. You don't just learn to sing. Resting on those laurels stagnates a singer and wastes a voice. Good Ts&Cs know all of this. It requires a complementary class to teach it these days. And nobody would take the class (except for those who are somehow enlightened already).

People like quick results. People don't like to wait for things. People don't want to do the grunt work and look for answers themselves. They want everything handed to them. People believe what they want to believe, instead of seeking truth. Survival of the species, no doubt. How many young girls think they have modeling figures, because no one tells them otherwise? They don't see themselves clearly in the mirror, and those who would profit from the girls' desire to become models willingly take their money.

People want to be appreciated. They don't necessarily take coachings to learn anything. Years ago, a young lady came to me who needed lots of help. This was before I learned to cushion the obvious truth. After hearing her, I suggested a couple of things she might work on, to help her change the way she was singing. She stared, dumbfounded and said, "I don't want to change the way I'm singing." Silly, literal me. (She needed to change the way she was singing.) My next thoughts (to myself, for safety reasons) were why are you here? and what can I do for you, then? I had only been exposed to the "pat on the head and you're a star" school of teaching in what I thought were very unfortunate settings.

In another instance, a manager brought an actress/singer to my studio for lessons. She had a recording session set for two weeks from the date we met. (This happens a lot.) So, I asked the woman to sing a couple of notes right around Middle C. She couldn't. She couldn't sing those notes, or any notes. She couldn't sing a song, or hum a tune. ...

For a short time I worked with a brilliant woman who, until then, could do anything she set her mind to. When she had trouble with singing, she resorted to a throaty voice that would not have held up for long, and that wasn't giving her range, etc. Finally, frustrated, she asked me how long she would be able to sing the way she was singing. I told her I couldn't predict. I said, a year, a few years, 5 or 10 years... She said, "That would be long enough."

Learning to sing, improving one's technique or approach to songs... takes openness, trust, trial and error, willingness to fail, additional work on the part of the singer, immersion. Hopefully, the professionals training the singer are ethical and skilled enough to offer something of value, and to be worthy of trust.

The change in posture offered by this coach may have been a necessary integral component of producing an efficient sound for this singer. Very possibly this is a skilled coach with a good eye and ear. I wonder if your vocalist friend's friend knows why this change in posture helped. What were the mechanics? Did this person record the sound to see if it was something she wanted to keep producing in this way? Was she able to align her posture the same way and produce the same tone the same way, again? How can this change in posture contribute to her over-all singing? These are just a few of the thoughts that instantly flood my mind.

People who want to "do" singing generally are happier and sometimes more successful in the long haul than are people who want to "be" singers. Just another observation.

If I’ve gone a bit off topic, please pardon my purge. Yes! Good luck out there, indeed. May no singers find themselves in circumstances that would limit or detract from their ability to do (key word) the thing they love doing.

Remembering Working with Natalie Limonick

2011-04-12T21:43:00.000-07:00

The late Natalie Limonick was my mentor. She was a coach and a guide. She was artistry and musical intelligence incarnate. The day I first sang for her back in 1980-something, she wasted no time telling me what was deficient in my technique. But she gave me very specific solutions. Diplomatically, she commented that I was very musical. That could have meant something. Or it could have meant nothing. Naturally, my ego led me to believe it was a compliment. In the next breath, Ms. Limonick told me that my Italian was awful. Actually, it seems to me that she said something more like, “Your Italian stinks.” She went on to say that it was to be expected. I was a little taken aback. But I had to agree with her. After all, I’d had one semester of Italian in college. No singing, diction or language teacher had ever worked with me on the intricacies of pronunciation.

Way back when I was in high school, I had worked dutifully through most of Vaccai (memorizing and singing one every week or two, which is not the prescription for mastering the technique they contain) with my first teacher, and had studied Italian Art Songs and Arias with her and with several other teachers. No one had every corrected my pronunciation – closed /o/ or open, and so forth. And that was just the vowels.

Suddenly, under the tutelage of Ms. Limonick, the truth about my status as a singing musician was revealed to me. Funny thing about the truth. We usually already know our truth. It’s just more convenient to ignore it and push it deep into our psyche where it’s much less likely to surface and cause us to have to acknowledge painful reality. Of course my Italian pronunciation wasn’t my worst problem. I had been singing professionally with some success, even though I was experiencing vocal problems. Top notes were becoming problematic. There was more of a break than ever in my lower passaggio. I never really had a low range – except when I sang lower pop songs, which I sang in a way that didn’t allow me to bridge into my middle range with the same quality. My voice was difficult to operate. It didn’t feel smooth. Because I was still attempting to employ a technique I had learned along the way (and that helped me to win a contest), I frequently lost my voice and wouldn’t be able to sing for a day or two afterwards. I had read books on voice production, but I was never able to apply the information from the books to my own voice production. There was a disconnect somewhere.

Working with Ms. Limonick everything that I had read suddenly made perfect sense. In short order, I learned that my concept of how to produce a free, supported tone was way off-base. My idea of what a good tone should sound like was way off. My breath and my voice weren’t even connected. Ms. Limonick introduced me to subtleties of singing that were never even hinted at by previous teachers and coaches. And, most important, she showed me how to make the appropriate changes.

One story I tell my students is my experience with learning the free, focused tone from Ms. Limonick after more than 15 years of singing and lessons with other teachers who never taught it. Ms. Limonick helped me make a few mechanical face, tongue and jaw adjustments, and she taught me a more settled breathing technique. The tone that resulted was so different. It hummed. It felt like it was completely out of my control. It didn’t even seem to be coming from my mouth at times. It was so flexible, I felt like my voice was on autopilot. This new way of producing the voice connected the voice, top to bottom. I found additional notes on both ends of my range. I took my new sound home and practiced it at least twice a day. I didn’t want to lose it! The next week, I went to my lesson ready to show off my new sound. So I thought.

“No,” Ms. Limonick said. Apparently I had lost the right sound somewhere along the way. She helped me re-establish the sound. Oh! Of course! What a huge difference! I went home and practiced. Back to my lesson. “No,” she said. We found it again, and I trotted back home to try to make it stick. This happened at least three times before I was able to produce the sound on a regular basis. When I finally could do it, I managed to do it only on an A-flat in the middle of my range. Gradually, I transferred the technique up and down by half-steps. Even after I could recognize the difference, if I didn’t practice regularly, the sound again would escape me.

Most of the singers and teachers I’ve known who had experiences with Ms. Limonick seem not to have been completely fond of her. One teacher said that she wouldn’t trust a teacher who treated singers the way Ms. Limonick had. (This was in reference to my telling the teacher of my experience with Ms. Limonick critiquing my Italian pronunciation.) I feel just the opposite way. I wouldn’t trust a teacher who would let me believe all is well, when it isn’t. These days, teachers are expected to say several good things for every one comment that might be construed as critical. It’s a formula that’s used to humor and pacify people. But, in a private lesson, when a singer is expecting to be offered thoughtful, meaningful assistance in exchange for a fee, I think that a teacher downplaying technical issues and sidestepping the truth is terribly manipulative and more than a bit demeaning. What needs to be said, needs to be said. The flow might be more skewed toward criticism than praise, if the moment calls for it. But honest criticism always should take precedence over less than genuine praise, as long as the criticism is accompanied by suggestions, solutions, and some kind of helpful, well-intended input. Praise is great, too, when praise is appropriate. Ms. Limonick never put me down or made me feel that way.

If you want me to sing like a professional, be a professional and treat me like a professional. It’s called respect.

I worked with Ms. Limonick some 25 years ago. I’ve worked with teachers and coaches since then. But none of them has come anywhere close to being as musical, knowledgeable and insightful as was Natalie Limonick.

In the film, Copying Beethoven, the composer rudely critiques the composition of his copyist, Anna Holtz. She is rightly offended, but she realizes how correct he is about her work. She meets his offensive behavior with a better composition. He acknowledges it is better, but tells her that she is copying his style of writing. If he had just left it at the comment that her work was improved, she might have gone on happily and, possibly, successfully copying the style of Beethoven, never going through the wonderful, miserable process of becoming her own artist – her own composer.

In one of her Juilliard master classes (pick any one of them for a similar story), Maria Callas told a young singer that she had no trill (an integral part of the aria), and that she had to find her trill. Callas said that she didn’t care how the girl found it, but that she would have to find it in order to sing the aria. Callas was right. But the trill the young singer was using could have been passed off as a trill. I’ve heard much less proficient and apparently professionally acceptable trilling in my lifetime. Other comments were equally cutting and true. Even the less than knowledgeable listener clearly would hear the difference in the depth and wisdom of Callas’ vocal examples, in comparison to the singing of the student. I would want to be offered awareness and given the option to upgrade my skills. I would rather aspire to a proper trill, an informed performance, precise diction, and the rest, than be patted on the head and told, “That’s nice.”

Written in memory of the great Natalie Limonick 1920 - 2007

Ensembles Open House

2010-12-09T12:14:00.000-08:00

January 22 is the International Day of Collaborative Music – a part of the Music Teacher’s National Association Year of Collaborative Music celebration. The time has come. Let’s all start making some beautiful music together!

It has long been a desire of mine to bring musicians of all flavors together for ensembles reading sessions, or "woodshedding" get-togethers, where instrumentalists and singers can experiment, have fun and learn. I am opening the studio for several hours for an invitational ensembles open house on Saturday, January 22, 2010. The exact time will follow. I would like to see and hear musicians of all ages and playing abilities… singers and instrumentalists. You would need to bring your music, including parts for other players/singers to read from.

You don’t have to be part of an ensemble to participate! I will build ensembles based on who responds.

Seasoned musicians who would be willing to play with less proficient musicians are particularly encouraged to contact me. I’m all about education. You would be doing a great public service.

How do you get invited? (I will have a guest list.)

Email me your interest. Tell me what you play, how well you play, what music you have (and the instrumentation). If you wish to participate but have no printed music, you may still be able to participate. Don’t let no music stop you from contacting me.

Make sure you want to play or sing as part of a group – not as a star with a back-up band.

Duo pianists, vocal duets and small groups, strings, reeds, brass, recorders, what have you. Classical/jazz/folk/mixed media, etc.

Instrumentalists will need to be able to read music to some degree. Again, beginning is OK. Alternately, you will need to be an impressive improviser with a very keen ear, depending upon the genre of music you play.

Singers who don’t read music should learn your parts of the songs in advance. (And you should learn to read music!)

I have no room in the studio for a drum set or tymps. (You should be aware that my studio is upstairs in a commercial building and there is no elevator.) But small traps/hand-held rhythm instruments are great! Also, if it needs to be plugged-in and/or requires an amp, not this time around. Sorry. Another time, in another venue. More than five or six players in one ensemble at a time, same situation. Not this time. Maybe next time.

Please email soon. Ask whatever questions you like. The success of the open house is completely dependent upon your participation. Let’s do something "different." Let’s have some fun!

A Singer Sings

2010-08-29T19:44:00.000-07:00

I wonder about young singers who turn their noses up at an opportunity to sing because they feel that the audience or the venue or the event isn’t exciting or important enough. The way I see it, an opportunity to sing is an opportunity to sing. An opportunity to share my music and my love for my music and my singing is a golden opportunity. If my singing gives pleasure or comfort to others, that’s a bonus.

My memorable performances:

Singing with my high school choir for the Los Angeles Veterans Administration Hospital patients. Most of the patients assembled there were in wheelchairs. It was difficult to tell if they were enjoying our singing. I remember fighting back tears. I realized how important it was for us to be there, to bring youth and music to these people. I realized that we could be those people in the future, and they were us once. I grew up a little that day.

Spontaneous Christmas caroling with my high school friends at LAX. Something that couldn’t be done today, what with all of the airport security. We sang at gates and at curbside baggage checks. I’m not sure, but I think I recall us singing over a PA. There was a huge, flocked tree in what used to be the Continental Terminal, and the BEST acoustics. We made a few people smile. And we got a big kick out of our musical maraudings.

Also in high school, competing in the contest at Shakey’s Pizza Parlor. Incredibly, I was able to coax a phenomenal pianist to play for me. I sang a Burt Bacharach song and an Italian aria. Those two tunes complemented by pizza might have been enough to cause indigestion. I would have been happy just to sing. But I won! I still have the $25 savings bond. (It wasn’t about the money.)

In my 30s, singing the soprano solos in The Messiah for a small Seventh Day Adventist Church. I wasn’t prepared for the group, “Amen!” that followed the Rejoice Greatly. I almost burst out laughing. I must admit that I enjoyed the ‘cheer.’

Many of the Sundays I sang for various churches, because of what I saw on people’s faces.

In my 40s, singing as part of an (until then) all-male doo-wap group for a bar mitzvah. I was a last-minute emergency replacement singing a middle part with four other ‘guys.’ I remember singing “Splish Splash” with choreography. Me ‘taking a bath’ with the four of them had to look pretty funny.

Singing for my hometown Women’s Club when I was a senior in high school. There were only a few people there. My footsteps echoed as I walked across the almost empty room to the piano. The junior high school principal found out about my recital and showed up. I felt so special.

I was Tuptim in THE KING & I in a local recreation center production when I was 16. Breaking the silence at the end of my poignant love song, a child’s voice asked, “Is it over yet?” Ah, my public!

In my 50s, I believe, singing karaoke at Dimples in Burbank at my acting teacher’s (Steve Eastin) birthday party. I sang something ‘legit’ from a musical. Steve told me that while I was singing a friend leaned over and said to him, “At least SOMEBODY here can sing.” I’ve only sung karaoke twice in my life. The other time was in my 40s at an agent’s party. The only tune on the list that I was sure I could pull off was God Bless America. It kept going and going… I was so exasperated by the end of the song that the phrase, “God Bless America.” took on other than its intended connotations. It turned into a bit of a comedy routine.

I was about 18 or 19. I needed to sing and there wasn’t an outlet at the time. So I put together a recital. My mother helped me paste-up a master for a flyer with stick-on letters. The photography teacher at the high school took a ‘publicity’ picture of me. A friend from high school was my accompanist. My friends at the recreation center let me use the auditorium and the piano (on which I had taught myself to play whenever I could sneak in and use it). We sent word to the local paper and they printed a notice. I think there were 5 people in the audience. Among them was one man who I didn’t know who had seen the notice in the paper. My dad was there. He didn’t attend my performances as a general rule. I have a photo of me, my mom and my dad from that day that I treasure. Oh. I sang my heart out. Naturally. It was a chance to sing.

Other performances as I recall them…

Those Crazy Scalenes

2010-08-16T12:43:00.000-07:00

The scalene muscles along the front and sides of your neck can make singing difficult if they are too tight. This has been a major issue for me in recent years. In the never-ending battle against the effects of aging and gravity, I knew that keeping a decent posture and working to tone my abdominal muscles – particularly the lower portion – were important work, if I expected to keep my voice in decent operating condition. But I didn’t realize the importance of stretching, or the importance of keeping the entire vocal muscle support system in tip-top shape.

Last year, after a battle with some strange temporary arthritic ‘event’ I underwent some months of physical therapy. Fortunately, my wonderful PT gave me some neck exercises that really seemed to open up my voice. This was an added benefit! I really wish that medical types would be a little more forthcoming with information. I would have loved to know the names of the muscles she was targeting when she was helping me. That was one of the very few questions I didn’t bombard her with. My HMO PTs are in big demand, and their time is limited. I learned that asking more than a couple of questions per session was not exactly de rigueur.

Apparently tension in these scalene muscles is very common. Sitting incorrectly at a poorly configured computer workstation (as I tend to do) and sitting at a piano (which I do so many hours of the day) are major contributors to the problem. My keyboard is electronic. With most acoustic pianos the music stand is placed higher. I tend to look down at the music. I’m still working out the ideal solution to this problem.

Car seats and backrests that don’t accommodate women’s bodies are a problem. This makes perfect sense to me. I’ve always said that somebody needs to create a ‘baby got back-rest’ for driving. (Someone please take the idea and manufacture one – soon!) My bottom pushes the backrest up, so that it no longer provides support in the lumbar area. We women need a backrest with an (ahem) ‘space’ for the cheeks to meet the back of the seat. Car seats with ‘no’ backrest are worse.

Driving and craning the neck in a forward position to check for traffic is problematic. I’m particularly tall. In fun, I’ve compared my shape to that of Big Bird on Sesame Street – pear-shaped, Nefertiti neck. The only difference is that my legs are longer. And I’m not quite as yellow… or feathered. The muscles of my upper body have always been weak. A sports chiropractor once tossed-off that I had no muscles in my back. (Talk about starting from zero and having to get up to 60MPH!) He also mentioned that women with my body shape tend to have problems when they gain weight. I’m up about 25 lbs. and I now see his point.

A note about dropping weight. I’m down about 7 to 10 lbs. over the last handful of weeks. It is critical to stretch and exercise while the body is readjusting to the weight loss. Also, we have to be careful not to lose too much weight too quickly, or the body will try to burn the muscle. (I am not a doctor. I’ve been told this over and over again. If it is incorrect, blame a doctor.)

Dependence upon backrests can be a problem. This makes so much sense. If we depend upon a thing to do the work, our muscles atrophy. Exercise, posture, stretching. We have to do it ourselves. Besides, chairs that really support cost over $1,000. That’s probably a laughable very conservative figure.

You might not feel the pain from the tense scalene muscles in the scalene muscles. The pain might manifest in the upper pectoral region (as it did for me), as tension headaches (me), and between the shoulder blades (me). This also explains my having one cold hand and occasional numbness when I spend too much time behind any keyboard.

Beware the mouse! Keep the chest high, the head on top of the neck, on top of the shoulders. Don’t cave the chest, curve the lower back outward, jut the head forward and reach for the mouse. Recipe for disaster.

The scalene muscles serve the breathing system. If they are tight and not functioning well, breathing suffers. If breathing suffers, singing suffers.

As I mentioned, the upshot of working on my neck muscles was that freeing the muscles seemed to free my voice. I recorded the sound, just to see if I was imagining things, and I wasn’t! My sound was rounder and ‘cleaner’ than it had been.

Keeping the scalene muscles in check is a never-ending process. But it is so worth it to feel better and to sing better as part of the bargain. What a deal!

Droplets of Consciousness

2010-07-25T10:34:00.000-07:00

Perhaps 'droppings' of consciousness is a better title. But I don't want to go there.

Twitter and Facebook have taught me how to think and write in small snippets. My teaching style has taken on some of this quality, as well. I blurt out directions to my students in short bursts of only enough words to 'fit in the window' of opportunity. I'm even slurring words at times, because I feel like I have to sneak all the information into a nanosecond. I heard myself do this the other day, while working with three young sisters who are exploring singing for the summer. All four of us stopped in our tracks to try to translate what it was that I had tried to say. On the other end of this, more and more my students expect immediate, precise, concise directions from me. If I can't help them make an adjustment in two or three words, they can't wait for it. Sometimes more than a couple of words are required to make a point about technique. Students seem to have no time for or interest in entering a work mode, a focused flow state. They want surface comments to help them make cosmetic adjustments. If students are working as they should be, my comments should be something that they hear, but don't consciously pay attention to. The work pre-exists. The comments are like putting finishing dabs of paint on an already painted masterpiece. (Ah! The old Patricia begins to shine through the acquired habit of exhorting snippets of blah-dee-blah. Feels good.)

As a person who used to write a weekly arts and entertainment column for The Daily News, I find this acquired, disjointed way of expressing myself distressing. I realize that my first blog entries are rather robotically composed. I'm hoping that my blogging will help steer me back toward a smooth stream of consciousness and away from this chronic dripping of tiny tidbits of thought.

That said, here is a loosely developed rant based on the one- or two-liners that recently have buzzed through my brain.

I find it very hard to find suitable song material for very young children (5 to 7 years). By suitable, I mean educational, range-appropriate, not some kind of bippy-boppy, playground voice, yelling, hyper-active car songs or kid pop tunes. Clearly, newer children's music is a response to hyperactivity. If the children are hyperactive, we won't try to settle them down into a learning state of being. We'll just meet them where they live and feed that agitated state. We wouldn't want to take away all the craziness and the sugar. Nobody wants to deal with an addict in withdrawal.

Interesting side note having to do with sugar. I have a bowl of treats in the lobby containing individually wrapped dried plums and chocolate candy kisses. My students of all ages from OTHER countries opt for the plums over the candy. American moms go so far as to tell their children not to bother to try it because they won't like it. Get a grip, America! If a child is curious, let them try it. And YOU have a plum, too, because it is soooo tasty!

Songs for children. I've bought a few books of children's songs that seemed worthy. But most of the books contain camp songs, very babyish songs or saccharin, cheesy texts. Newer composers appear to be stuck on one particular syncopated rhythm. It replaces the need to actually compose something of merit. In the past, I've adapted choral music for children. Recently, I worked with a 10-year-old boy whose sophisticated taste was Weird Al Yankovic. I found one McCartney/Weird Al song that was useable. And I adapted a Bob Chilcott choral piece titled, City Songs.

I don't work with children younger than 7 or 8, as a rule. That said, I have found myself working with an adorable 5-year-old boy. I have scrounged up all of my old Orff-Schulwerk material from over 20 years ago. And I have scoured the countryside looking for more material. There have to be more American Indian chants than the couple I've found. Those are great for teaching rhythm and meter. The range of notes in the chants I've found is small, which is a good thing. A 5-year-old range is somewhere between B next to Middle C and the B one octave higher; however, the usable tessitura is a very limited range within that octave. Inexperienced pre-school and elementary school teachers often sing inappropriate songs in a low range (sometimes down to E or F below Middle C), thinking they are helping the children. But, if the children aren't able to sing the notes, the children will be satisfied with missing the notes. We have to teach children songs that their 'instrument' is capable of playing.

My search goes on for acceptable material. In the meantime, I pulled an old Level 3 Exploring Music book from my shelf the other day. I buy used books like they're going out of style. What a wonderful, wonderful book this is. As I leafed through the pages, I remembered singing these songs in elementary school. I used this book! I wonder how many other people my age remember, "Dip, dip and swing. Dip, dip and swing." Yes! That's the Indian canoe. This edition was published in the mid-1960s by the California State Department of Education. I am prompted to ask, "What has happened to this kind of curriculum, CSDE?" Well, I'm prompted to ask, what has happened to classroom music? So many questions. So few good answers. At any rate, I found one song in a limited range in the book that I can transpose to a slightly lower key and give to my 5-year-old charge. I'll have to alter one note to make it singable. The song is My Farm (Mi chacra), an Argentine Folk Song: repetitive notes and rhythms, animal sounds, introduction to Spanish. THIS is called music education, folks. Are the people who write and publish children's songs listening?

An interesting side note. This Level 3 book includes the national anthem. Children in third grade were given the Star-Spangled Banner with an F as a top note. Great time to introduce this to children! Young voices are able to access an F. A few years later, when the voice is changing for girls and for boys, this note may seem 'temporarily' out of reach. But it will come back (for girls and, naturally, as a lower high note for boys) IF THE CHILDREN HAVE BEEN EXPECTED TO SING IT AND HAVE BEEN GIVEN AN OPPORTUNITY TO SING IT. Ha! I'll bet those composers and publishers and educators are listening now! Not.

On the Anthem

2010-07-19T12:19:00.000-07:00

We need to keep our national anthem. It isn’t difficult to sing. The tune was sung by everyone when it was just a drinking song. Well, it was sung by everyone who drank wine, anyway. It’s odd that when it accompanied the act of imbibing the song was considered easy and fun to sing. But, later, when the tune was attached to something more sobering, the fun of singing it and people’s ability to sing it were diminished.

To be fair, when the tune took on more serious connotations it also moved into mainstream America. The song praising wine suddenly no longer was exclusive to the barroom or parlor. Mainstream is a dirty word in my vocabulary. The surest way to lessen, water-down and common-ize anything is to mainstream it. But that’s an open sore to be dealt with another time and, maybe, not here.

The range of the anthem is 12 tones. A human adult who learns how to use the voice in a natural way should have access to that many notes. Most military bands play the tune in the key of B-flat. Sometimes we hear it in the key of G. Since most women are sopranos, the B-flat key (taking the voice up to F, just before the register shift) should do nicely.

One of my favorite outings is to the local Scottish Highland Games. I love bagpipes. I usually find my way to the stadium for the entry of the mass pipe bands. After they enter, the national anthems of the United States and the British Isles are played and sung by all the people in the stands. Not surprisingly, a large number of attendees are from Scotland and England. I remember the first time I heard all of these individuals singing the anthems together in the stands. It was like a movie musical. What a beautiful sound. No one had problems negotiating any of the notes. Why would this be? It is because these people have more of a tradition of singing folk melodies, and more of a tradition of music education and singing in schools than we do. It also has something to do with the pitch level at which people speak in Britain, and with the way people use their speaking voices, in general, though the younger generation is losing some of this. The memory of the first sound of those lilting voices in the stadium stands remains in my ear to this day.

If elementary school children were encouraged to sing folk-songs and other level-appropriate and range-appropriate song material in their regular classrooms on a daily basis, and if all schools had quality elementary choirs, we would have a country populated with natural singers who could sing the anthem with no problem. (This is another open sore/soapbox topic with me.) Read it this way: TURN OFF THE POP AND ROCK and turn on a little of everything else. We have such a rich heritage of folk, jazz and classical music in America. It’s a shame we disregard it so.

The way I see it, our national tune is dynamic, stirring, noble and strong. It starts with a definitive 5-3-1, and builds right back up the octave. (Nothing can keep us down.) Then we touch on the 10th, only to return to the interval of the 10th more definitively, then our 8-5-3-1, once again, with resolve. Then, we repeat 5-3-1 (ever stronger and more resolute in our patriotism). Then we depart to the 10th, and hover above the strength and grounding below us between the 10th and the 12th, still strong regardless of this departing flight, because we are rooted to the top octave. We finish the song on the top 5th (because battles of honor remain to be fought and won and our work, like our country and like our spirit, is not finished). And that’s just my interpretation of the music. Add the words, and the Star-Spangled Banner can’t be topped.

The words of the anthem provide us with a glimpse of history and, unfortunately, still speak of the bombs and rockets inherent in times of war. The text is current. I think it beats “To Anacreon in Heaven” by a major long shot.

More on the origins of the National Anthem may be found here http://www.colonialmusic.org/Resource/Anacreon.htm
and here http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trm065.html

Taking Care of the Rest

2010-07-18T21:43:00.000-07:00

When my students vacate the studio en masse for their summer vacations, I find myself periodically involuntarily idled as a voice teacher, which is a bit of a blessing in disguise. The time off from teaching gives me an opportunity to work on my other projects. And the gaps between students provide me with generous buffer time for my own vocal practice, which I consider to be quite a luxury.

The art of singing suffers a little in this busy world. I used to suggest to my students that they take a walk before their lessons and their practice sessions, to clear their heads of work, school, problems and the rest of life, and to prepare their minds for singing and for developing their artistry. Reading in a quiet room for an hour or taking a power nap for 20 or 30 minutes are also good lesson preliminaries. Studies have shown that nappers are more focused, more receptive and better able to retain information. And quiet time is important. We need to remove ourselves from the din in order to refine and re-set the ear.

My elementary school students dash into the studio at the last minute from school or some other activity, already dressed in soccer uniforms for the practice that follows the voice lesson. Their minds are on where they were and where they’re going next. The lesson is just a blip in a jam-packed day. The rest of the week, daily practice usually is edged out in favor of whichever activities take immediate precedence. There isn’t enough time to learn to sing at all, let alone to learn to sing well. There most certainly isn’t enough time to prepare for the singing experience, to experiment while practicing, or to reflect on it afterwards. If they continue with lessons, these children will become the teen and adult students who chronically offer up reasons for not having practiced.

This past week a young student proclaimed proudly that she had practiced her song twice, earlier the same day. Well, that’s something, anyway. Later, I learned from someone else that her two run-throughs of her song took place silently in my waiting room. The most distressing part of all of this is that the girl has stretched the truth, and she thinks that this stretching of the truth, and what constituted practice in her mind, are acceptable behaviors. The girl is cheating herself of a complete experience in one endeavor in favor of multiple incomplete experiences in multiple endeavors. Unfortunately, she doesn’t realize that.

I’ve long since given up the idea of suggesting to my students a walk or a nap before lessons. I no longer recommend that students arrive a few minutes early for lessons, even though my policy states, “On-time means ten minutes early.” No one can spare the time, it seems. Few take the time to digest the policy. People would rather arrive all anxious and on the dot than arrive leaving themselves a little time to acclimate.

At least I’m enjoying my found free time. A friend (actually the wife of a former student) who works at the travel agency in my building found me walking between the buildings one day. She must have recognized that I was in some other mental zone. She cocked her head in curiosity and quizzed me. “What are you doing?” “Just wandering,” I answered. Eventually, I returned to the studio and decided to sing through the first half of the Vaccaj exercises. Because, why NOT?! What a treat! Time for me. Time for music. Time for practice. When I was through singing, I sat and read a little. Then a student arrived and it was back to my other passion.

So take a nap. Take a hike. A little R&R will help you to take care of all the rest.