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.

The Subtlety of Learning

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.

Hocus Pocus Focus on the Fourth of July

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

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.