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

Ensembles Open House

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

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

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!