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.

A Singing Musician

It seems to me that too many young people who see themselves as on the road to becoming professional singers would be better served if they found a road that better suits them, or simply make a bargain with themselves to concern themselves with learning to sing for the sheer pleasure of singing and see what happens.

Youngsters and their support contingent tend to be ill-informed and confused or blinded by the notion that anybody, especially their anybody, has what it takes to make it big. They think that assembling a team of voice teachers and coaches (especially those whose charges have seen major success), recording a demo, auditioning for a TV talent contest and making the right connections are the keys to success. While I believe much of the so-called talent we hear and see is fabricated in this way from the outside instead of developed from the inside, and it may well be that the up-and-comers can make names for themselves by being packaged, produced and auto-tuned with little skill to show for it, the formula performers do not transcendent, unique singing musicians necessarily make. And the greater numbers of youngsters taking on the task of learning to sing and, more to the point for them, attaining fame, are destined to fail.

I remember sharing a lunch not too many years ago with a rather fine singer and instrumentalist who had toured internationally with a well-known group.  He was opening a voice studio in his area. He hadn’t officially taught voice before, though his background, lineage of teachers, and exceptional skill level and intuitive nature set him up to be a fine voice teacher. During our lunch, he rather innocently made a comment about some of the singers with whom he had begun to work. He expressed wonderment over their objectives, since they had none of the inherent attributes of a singer in the making or otherwise. It was a, “What do they think they can do with this?” moment. The gentleman and his area of the country shall remain nameless to protect both of us.

The bottom line is that people who are meant to be singing musicians in the most genuine sense, have certain things going for them. Forget about the pre-packaged pop divas and divos for a moment. What follows is my description of the singing musician, subject to further additions, upgrades and edits.

Singers who are musicians are compelled to make music. Singers who are musicians are driven by the desire to sing and play – even in the absence of an audience. Singers who are musicians make music all the time, everywhere and anywhere.  Singers who are musicians are curious about old styles, new styles, and are always looking for ways to infuse their music with something different, something more.

Singers who are musicians have music spilling from them. It spills over to writing music – which, done properly, requires learning about the structure of music. It translates to playing an instrument to support their singing and just because the temptation to make music by doing something other than and in addition to singing is strong in a singing musician.

Singers who are musicians are like kids in a candy store when it comes to all things related to singing – visiting a music store, viewing a chart, hearing a new song and imagining it in their own voice, actively seeking other singers to listen to and being inspired by their sounds.

Singers who are musicians never wonder, “What do I do next?” Singers who are musicians are always flooded with tunes, ideas, projects, and the desire to work at their singing and expand their horizons. Singers who are musicians generally need assistance in channeling the abundance of musical energy, to help guide them to their goals and keep them from derailing.

Singers who are musicians are daring. Singers who are musicians are curious. They are inventive.

Singers who are musicians make sounds in less than ideal places, in less than ideal conditions, and under less than ideal circumstances. They can’t be kept down.

Singers who are musicians are driven to understand their instrument, the voice, and to care for the thing that conveys their inner being to the outside world. Singers who are musicians pay attention to and learn from sources of information, such as books, magazines, forums for singers and the like.

Singers who are musicians often don’t realize how competent they are. But there is a difference between turning from a duckling into a swan, unaware, and feigning modesty – which is indicative of an unbalanced ego.

What we too easily refer to as shyness is usually fear cloaked in embarrassment over something that has not yet happened, and that is unlikely to happen the way the fearful person envisions it. What is the worst that can happen? Does it even faintly resemble the end of the world? Does it mean the end of the beginning of a career? The answer is, of course, no. A singing musician meets the fear fearlessly.

Singers who are musicians don’t care what the rest of the world thinks of their level of competence. They are singing musicians, regardless.

Singers who are musicians train, and train, and train. Singers who are musicians find a way.

Like any artists, singers who are musicians are not necessarily motivated by or trapped by social and cultural norms or current modes and trends. There is a difference between behaving outrageously, however, and appearing to be outrageous to others because of a behavior or expression that emanates, organically, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, or otherwise, from within.

Singers who are musicians, like other artists, might seem to move through the world at a slower or ‘other’ speed than their non-artist counterparts. Some singing musicians might seem to be detached, removed, distant, unfriendly or otherwise socially lacking. Frequently they are misunderstood. Because they are always working, and learning and growing, they may be labeled nerds, or misfits. They become cool, popular, in demand, when their artistry is sufficiently developed and becomes evident.

That Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 hour thing? (The book is titled, Outliers: The Story of Success.) No-brainer. But a singing musician doesn’t sigh over the thought of the long road ahead, or waste any time counting to 10,000. They are too excited about and busy making music.

Sure. Singers who are musicians are often frustrated. They might worry about the future. They might experience tiny standstills. But they are not allergic to hard work. They know that hard work is the path. They are challenged by mistakes, of which there are none, by the way. Though they may be temporarily sidelined by poorly-delivered criticisms, they soon meet such rejection with rekindled inspiration.  “Never say die!” is the unspoken motto of one who is determined to be a singing musician.

Singers who are musicians entertain regular crises of confidence. But they will kick themselves in the rear end and move forward – or they are not singing musicians.

The crises always stem from some important business that the singer is not taking care of. The crisis of confidence always comes from within, not from the outside, and overrides the higher thought, action, purpose. It is the singing musician’s responsibility, because no one else can or will solve this for the singer, to replace the crisis with better energy – or quit.

If that last sentence stung you, you might be a singing musician. For you, quitting is not an option.

Singing musicians don’t make excuses. They make progress. They make music.

Singing musicians come in all shapes, sizes and personalities, like all other people. While it would be nice for a singing musician to be a wonderful example of a human being, that is not always the case. But, realizing that being a successful singing musician is highly dependent upon working fluidly within the greater community of musicians, and dependent upon building positive relationships with those who might help along the way, the singing musician is best served by endeavoring to become a wonderful example of a human being. However, the singing musician who wastes time worrying about the world’s perception of them and trying to conform is, well, wasting time, etc., etc.

Mel Tormé and Nat King Cole were two examples of fine contemporary singing musicians of their time. Those who are too young to have heard of Tormé may know The Christmas Song (Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…). Tormé composed the tune and co-wrote the lyrics. In this YouTube example of absolute singing musicianship, Tormé sings and accompanies himself at the piano. Later in the clip, Tormé plays the drums while Nat King Cole plays some marvelous piano with his trio and another singer, June Christy. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgxXyZT8vJY 

Pre-teen and teen singers considering auditioning for the various performing arts schools, take note. Increasingly, schools are asking what other instrument you play.  If the thought of learning an instrument strikes you as tedious, might cut into your social or texting time or interfere with soccer, too many theatrical auditions or other activities, you might want to consider an alternate major.

You may now resume singing. Do your exercises. Make exercises of your songs before you add polish. Think time and study time are as important as is actual application time. I applaud you very loudly in absentia. 

Creativity, Discovery & Failing. It works that way.

Frustration is an integral part of discovery. Failure is an integral part of discovering or creating something.

Well-meaning parents often try to protect their children from failure, thinking that failing will defeat them, dash their hopes and dreams, keep them from being successes in life. It doesn't work that way. The protected people who don't know how to fail and get back up on the horse are inclined to quit, to cheat to succeed, to not lift a finger at all, and to expect, as my mother used to say, that the world owes them a living. Those who are given everything don't know how to want anything well enough.

Being required to want and wait to get is what helps us determine if that which we want is worth waiting for. Wanting to "do" something significant is the best kind of desire. Wanting and not getting is what makes us find creative ways to work toward doing or getting what we want. If we aren't interested in working out the scheme, the plan, the details of doing or getting what we want, we don't want it enough. And we are unlikely to be successful at whatever we are doing, or, ultimately, unhappy and bored with the thing that we had thought we wanted. And the enticing, titillating part of the journey to anywhere worth our time involves exploring, taking some wrong turns, making some missteps, getting lost and then finding our way out.

And another thing I've learned in life is that having few things makes us appreciate the few things that we have and the many things that we don't have even more. Having more things overwhelms us so much that we appreciate all of them less. I don't have everything. But I have more than I had growing up. My white elephant shop used rag doll with the nose scuff and the old, broken down piano my family borrowed when I was in high school meant more to me than a parcel of new dolls and a store full of brand new grand pianos ever would have or ever could have meant. When you've had to wait and wish long and hard for a piano, and when you've taught yourself to play (with no piano handy), the arrival of any old piano on the scene is a most amazing event.

Practicing (Oh, there's that hideous word, again, music students), is the means we singers have of getting what we want. Now, practicing isn't necessarily a fun thing to do. But, for those of us who want to arrive at some level of musical competency at some point, practicing is the main tool we have. So, fun or not, rain or shine, we get to our little practice shrines and we do our duty to our art and to ourselves. Sometimes we have little epiphanies on a regular basis. Other times, we work at it and work at it with few noticeable results. But, like I tell my students, the Ugly Duckling was in the midst of his daily transformation into a swan. Because the process was so slow, it was hard for him to see the change on a daily basis. This is why we have video and audio recording in the 21st Century! Well, it isn't "why" we have it. But you get the idea. At any rate, the fun happens on the other end of practice, when we've accomplished some part of the journey. And, if we get into the right mode of operating, the practice, itself, can be fun. It certainly can be an interesting journey.

Inevitably, within a couple of lessons a beginning voice student will say, "I'm afraid of practicing wrong." Or they'll ask, "What if I practice wrong all week?" I tell them they have two choices. They can practice what they think is right, or they can not practice at all – which will get them exactly nowhere. Sometimes this is enough to get them to relax. Other times, I need to add, "If you practice "wrong" the entire world will come to an end." Usually, this is enough to knock the irrational fear out of them – at least until the next lesson.

Some students don't get over this hurdle, or another one of the many hurdles along the way. They quit, or take time off (only to return to come up against the same hurdle again). Others, who want to become the best singing artists they can be, work through the frustrations and the failures. They are also the ones who will pick up a book, or peruse the Internet, or invent their own methods and techniques of practicing to help guide themselves through the process. They want to be proficient singers so much that they are willing to risk failing over and over again. This is how artists are born.

Learning to do the Slow Work is Slow Work

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

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.

Remembering Working with Natalie Limonick

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

Taking Care of the Rest

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.