After attempting to resurrect my ancient Studio blog on WordPress and managing to lose the entire thing several hours later (sigh), I recalled I had established this even more ancient Blogger blog over a decade ago. The main photo is of me in my current 2025 teaching digs in Huntington Beach.

I've been settling in amid some remodeling and such for many months and teaching mainly on Zoom. As I've been regrouping, I've also been rethinking my teaching practices. I've decided to return to teaching the way I teach best and not trying to be all things to all students. This means that those who might opt to study with me may be an even more select group than they have been in the past. By that I mean the students will be selecting themselves "in." Those who want what I have to offer will be the Studio "elite," if you will. This will be their designation, and not mine.

So, what do I mean "teaching the way I teach best?" Some back story is required. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, before social media and the Internet, before Star Search and America's Got Talent (I feel my English teachers rolling about in their graves. How about America Has Talent?), before popular music and the Rock stars so absorbed everyone's consciousness, when vocal music education was more concerned with education than stardom, when times were possibly more innocent, a certain young lady who found her natural voice found the favor of her teachers and others who thought she might do well in voice lessons. This was me.

At 15 my high school choir director introduced me to my first voice teacher. Lessons involved vocal exercises, the Vaccai method book, Italian Art Songs, arias, and musical theatre selections. This was traditional training. And I ate it up. When I asked that teacher if she thought I would become a professional opera singer, she told me she thought I might, instead, become a teacher. I was actually a bit disheartened by her comments. But, on second thought, I decided teaching in a college setting might be especially nice. I did manage to sing as a professional chorister with two opera companies years later and snag some recording work and a year as a section leader/soloist with the Crystal Cathedral Hour of Power Choir, among other professional jobs.

Over several decades I studied with more than ten voice teachers, coaches, and repetiteurs. As I learned, I collected vast stores of teaching techniques and valuable information - all in the classical or traditional vein.

I officially began leading choirs and teaching in 1973 with a California Standard Designated Subjects credential to my credit. It was a nice entry into teaching.

As we entered the mid-1980s and 1990s, however, I started noticing significant changes in the way students took to my teaching. Rather than finding their natural voices as a basis for their singing, students defaulted to more cosmetic, unnatural, and forced techniques that I assume they presumed were the sounds their favorite artists were making. They were less satisfied with lessons because they were working against themselves and the training. And the quest for fame and fortune, in some cases, caused them to be anxious and interested in quick fixes and immediate improvement or solutions to vocal deficiencies. The techniques I had learned and honed over many years and the voice-building materials I had been employing were of less interest. Singers were more interested in becoming copies of the latest contemporary artists than they were in discovering their own unique voices and musical styles that complemented their personalities.

Into the first fifteen or so years of the 2000s, some of the younger singers studying with me still had an interest in music education. But most of the adults wanted lessons for after-work therapy, karaoke, or for other more recreational reasons. The "serious" business of developing technique through the practice of exercises and technical studies, singing voice-building repertoire, and finding a beautiful resonant tone had waned for the general public who take lessons. Only singers aiming for college degrees in Voice or professional operatic careers opted for the rigors of voice training. I also credit the decline in interest to busy lifestyles and a general lack of knowledge as to what traditional voice lessons are - were - all about.

So here I am. A traditional voice teacher looking for those rare individuals who want to explore singing the way it has been taught for generations. This is what I do and what I will continue to do in my new digs as much as possible, working with those who are so inclined. And, by the way, traditional training does provide a good foundation for any style of singing. Those cosmetic approaches are best added on when singers learn how to care for and manage their own unique, individual voices. That said, there is traditional training and there is traditional training. Steer clear of a desired studio sound akin to the sound of the wonderful 1980s dog trainer Barbara Woodhouse saying "Walkies!" or cooking expert Julia Child saying just about anything, and teachers who ask students to speak in an artificial voice.

Droplets of Consciousness

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.