Teachers -- Here Are My $61,000.00 Questions!

A lot of what you see me doing on this blog is going through somewhat of a midlife crisis.  I have been trying to evaluate and determine my vocal situation and goals based on where I'm at in many ways right now.

This morning, I had the impulse to sit down and do the math.  I wanted to see about how much I had spent on voice lessons over the years.  You can see above the rough estimations based on calculations I have made.

$61,000.00!  When I saw that number, I felt shocked.  Many emotions welled up in me.  I felt feelings of despair and anger.  That is a college education!  I ought to have a Cadillac voice right now.  Do I have a $61,000.00 voice?  The answer is no!

Why?  What happened?!?

$61,000.00 ago I thought I was going to learn how to do "it."  $61,000.00 ago I thought the people who knew were going to show me the way. $61,000.00 ago I was informed that building a voice took time, and I was willing to be patient.  $61,000.00 ago, I didn't think I could ask questions because the "expert" knew what he/she was doing.  $61,000.00 ago I was hoping for everything.

I am the type of person who will have the tendency to examine myself first when something seems to have gone awry.  I have been all too willing to take complete responsibility for my mistakes and missteps and try to analyze them and improve and make better decisions and choices as I proceed through my life, carefully avoiding the natural human tendency to look around for someone to blame  And I believe I should continue to take this personal inventory.

In fact, my present voice teacher called students to task when wrote a blog awhile back about how students should "Know With Whom They Are Studying!"  She admonishes students to do their homework and research when they choose their teachers.  She admonishes them to take charge of their education and ask questions and do a little work.  In my own life I've had to do this kind of soul searching and realize my own failings in this regard.

But for once in my life, I'm going to turn around and call teachers to task, something I feel reluctant to do because of my nature.  Forgive me if I use this blog for a little therapy to get over my "sticker shock" at having seen what I have paid (which was also part of my job to have realized it long before this) and shout out some of the things going through my mind.

Teachers!  Do you know how to teach?  Do you really know how to teach someone to sing?  Do you know how to help someone sing like Marilyn Horne?  Or Leontyne Price?  Or Pavarotti?  If you don't know how to teach someone to sing like that, what singers do you know how to teach them to sing like?

Teachers! Have you taken classes in pedagogy?  Have you studied the science behind what you know experientially?  Do your students sound wonderful?  Do your students get to the point where they don't need you anymore?  Are your students achieving their goals?  Or are they going round and round and round in circles getting nowhere?

Teachers!  Do you continue your education?  Do you get together at conventions where there are lots of other teachers?  Do you read books on singing?  Do you subscribe to the journals?  Do you develop yourself and your professionalism?  Do you have many ways to show someone how to do something, or just one way?

Teachers!  Do you communicate well with your students?  Do you challenge them?  Do you confront them?  If they are not doing something you think they need to do, do you risk losing their weekly check in order to tell them the truth?  Do you set healthy  boundaries with them?

Teachers!  Do you sing well?  Do you know how to sing well!  If you don't know how to sing well, why not?  Do you continue to discover and learn about your own voices?

Teachers!  Do you believe in your students, or do you secretly believe they do not have a voice?  Do you know how to identify problems and imbalances?  Can you fix voices that are not naturally coordinated?

Teachers!  Who are your favorite singers?  Why do you like them?  Do you like a bright sound or a dark sound?  How good is your ear?

Teachers!  Do you care about your avocational singers?  Do you believe they need to be able to sing as well as the ones who have professional aspirations?  Or do you secretly think that showing them a few tricks is good enough to get them through their choir practices?

Teachers! Can you teach many different styles?  Can you let go of students when you have brought them as far as you know how?  Can you refer them to someone who can help them when you can't?

Teachers!  Do you know how to teach a student how to practice who doesn't know how?  Can you work with them to devise a practice schedule?

Teachers!  Are you aware that your students are sacrificing to come up with this money to pay you?  Not only that, do you appreciate that, besides your fee, they are spending additional time, money and energy to come to you?   Do you acknowledge and respect that sacrifice?

Pardon me, if I have gone on a bit of a "rampage" today.  Like all rampages, it might have a tendency to be a bit unfair, and later, when the emotions have subsided, I will again go back to just dealing with my holding myself accountable and to task about my own life and my own singing.  I will return to the discipline of "not looking back" and keep my eyes forward and continue to accomplish what I can today.  There are certainly a lot of questions teachers could throw out there for students too, but, as I said, I have put that side of the equation aside for the moment to just get this off my chest.

I have every reason to believe that the way I am working on my voice now, in these past couple of years,  is going to produce the vocal mastery that I have dreamed of having all my life.  That's part of why I am sharing this last push to get the job done in this blog with everyone.

However, I knew nothing about this way to approach things for so many years.  I feel very deeply, knowing my personality and what I wanted to achieve, that had I access to the good instruction and information I am acquiring now, I would have done this much sooner.   There is some kind of lesson in this, and I am working very hard to make sure it is not a tragedy in the end.

Friday Cyberspace Recital - Nina - and Learning to Make a Style Sheet

I have sitting on my lap here a book I'm very interested in called Song: A Guide to Art Song Style and Literature, by Carol Kimball.  I had no idea what I would find inside this book, but something that is right in the beginning is of great interest to me and I am excited to begin learning about it.  The book is introducing me to information about "Style."  The author starts everything off with a discussion of the components of style, and then there is a section that shows a singer how she can make a "style sheet" for a song she is studying.

(By the way, I choose the pronoun "she" often when talking about "a singer" because I think typing "he/she" is cumbersome, and so I have chosen my own self, a female, as the model every-singer, and thus use "she."  Once in a while I'll throw a "he" in there for variety, and when it is not cumbersome, I will use "he/she")

Excited by this new idea of making a style sheet, I had a grand and ambitious plan for today's Friday Cyberspace Recital.  I would study the chapters in the book Song, then apply my new knowledge about style toward making a style sheet for this week's selected Italian Song, "Nina."

Well, it took me a great deal of time to only begin to learn about one of the first components of style discussed in the book:  MELODY.  There was so much information packed in just a few short paragraphs, that it took me a while to digest what I was reading.

So, it appears that the study of style is going to take more than a morning!  (Hmmm, why couldn't I foresee that?)  I really didn't expect to learn everything about style in one morning, I hope you realize.  In fact I didn't even think I was going to learn everything about style from just a few paragraphs in one little book from one little person.

However, I thought I would get an overview that might get me started, and I would be able to make a rough draft of what a style sheet might look like.

What I have discovered this morning is that I have some knowledge of style already, but I didn't know it.  There have been "things" I've been noticing about music all along as I've studied songs. I might not have been able to articulate these "things," but I observe and am aware of all kinds of "things."  I sometimes don't see "things" right off the bat, but little traits and characteristics and components of style have been there, revealing themselves to me, making themselves known to me just by their mere presence.  I just didn't have names for them.

What I have lacked is clear conscious definition of these little musical "things."  What I have lacked is vocabulary and language -- vocabulary and language in which to speak about style.

This book, Song, in its opening paragraphs about the components of MELODY, is giving me some basic vocabulary with which to start off.  This morning, taking out of the paragraphs of the book, I wrote out a melody vocabulary list for myself, words I can now use to explain the musical "thingies" that I see and hear.

I made it into a little picture to make it more interesting than just a boring list.

Just like I was talking about the language of vocal science yesterday, studying a vocabulary of style will help me analyze  my songs better, helping me to understand what is important, which will then guide my choices. (As my singing technique develops, I will have more expressive choices!)

Since it has taken me so long this morning only to just begin to grasp the idea of the components of melody, I have decided to begin my style sheet for "Nina" with solely the "Melody" part filled out. What I have done is grabbed a few of these vocabulary words and tried to use some of them to describe the melody of Nina.

Please remember that even though I am a middle-aged woman, my music level is like that of a young music student who doesn't know too much and is taking a class at school and learning about all this cool music stuff.  My first attempt to try to describe the melodic style may be very immature.  On top of it, I am "homeschooling" and have no professor to look over my work.

Still, I place it here as an example of  how much we can still attempt to learn on our own, even without formal schooling.

To go along with this, I have posted "Nina" in Frescamari's Performance Space.  I was worried, due to the issue of stamina, that this was going to be the first week that I would have to put one of the 24 songs up in two halves.  However, even in just this week and a half, my stamina for this song has improved enough that I was able to post it all in one piece.

For next week, I've gotten a head start on "Alma del core"  Maybe I will be able to go further in a style sheet for that song by next week.
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To hear this week's selection of the 24 in 24 project, click here:  "Nina"
To hear beginning work on next week's selection, click here:  "Alma del core"
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Bonus:  Is "Nina" like "Lazy Mary?"  Italian, but from a different time period and a very different STYLE? I'm a little bit afraid that poor Nina might be dead, but in case she's just lazy, here's her friend, Lazy Mary (have to listen to two verses to get to the "Lazy Mary" verse:

The Language of Vocal Pedagogy -- or - Why is it so Hard to Talk About Singing?

It has been really hard for me to figure out exactly what direction I wanted to take with this post.  In the end, what I want to talk about is a little complex, so this may end up being a long post.

At first, I thought I might give my opinions of the book Head First: The Language of the Head Voice: A Concise Study of Learning to Sing in the Head Voice by Denes Striny.  But that was proving to be a bit difficult for reasons I'll explain below. So next I thought maybe I would like to talk about what is meant by "head voice" and "chest voice."  However, for some of the same reasons I was finding it difficult to talk about the Head First book, I changed my mind again and decided that maybe it would be better write about how hard it is to talk about singing because of how vague the language can be, and how studying vocal science might help us come up with more objective descriptions of what is happening so we can communicate better about it.  Still, another thought was to lay Mr. Striny's book alongside another one I have been reading, Resonance in Singing: Voice Building through Acoustic Feedback, by Donald Gray Miller, PhD, and compare the different ways in which each author uses language to express pedagogical concepts.

In the end, I have settled on writing something about how hard it is to understand what different people are saying about voice, for different reasons.

Giving an opinion of  Mr. Striny's book has proved to be a much more difficult and complex task than I ever thought it would be.  One of the reasons it was hard for me was because I wasn't sure I understood exactly what he was talking about, nor -- even after reading the entire book -- exactly what he meant by the term "head voice." In order to be fair, before I could give my opinion, I felt I owed it to the author to work hard to really understand what he was truly trying to say.  Since it wasn't clear to me what he was trying to say the first time I read the book,  I decided to read it a second time -- this time studying it slowly and carefully -- making a full effort to figure out what he meant when he used certain terms and tried to describe different vocal experiences.

After the second reading, it still wasn't 100% clear to me what he meant by "head voice," even though the appealing title of the book seemed to promise that this was going to be explained to me.

Next, at the recommendation of a singer on the New Forum for Classical Singing (NFCS) message board, I purchased a book, Resonance in Singing, by Donald Gray Miller, PhD, and thought that this book might help me decipher and explain the experiences Mr. Striny was trying to describe in his book.  Perhaps if I knew a little more about the physiological reality behind the singing concepts he was trying to describe, I could match up Mr. Striny's language with the science.

Well, reading Mr. Miller's book and figuring out what he was talking about was as difficult and complex as Mr. Striny's but for very different reasons.  I will have to study Mr. Miller's book slowly and carefully as well, in order to understand what he means.

These two different books represent two very different approaches to talk about singing.  One approach is to make up a language in which to describe the experience of singing and what it feels like.  The other approach is to understand the science behind what is happening and describe with accurate language objective observations about singing.

It is obvious that Mr. Striny has had revelatory personal vocal experiences that have led to his being able to sing in a way that is giving him much joy.  It is clear that he is very excited about this and would like to share his revelations with other singers so that they also, may have this joy.  The problem is that he does not exactly have a language with which to speak of these experiences, so he kind of makes up his own way of describing what he knows.  To a certain extent, this works, but in other ways it can be confusing if you can't figure out exactly what he means.

Mr. Miller comes from the angle of using technological equipment to measure and study the properties of voices that are producing this wonderful sound we love.  The patterns of the harmonics are broken down and measured with equipment that can graph what is happening and be studied.  EGGs measure the resistance in the vocal muscles to give objective information about what is happening during phonation. This information and these measurements can help the singer understand how a better sound can be produced. Terminology is defined and given more precise meaning, pointing to measurable muscular and acoustic actualities.

Yet, whichever terminology is used, the singer who wants to learn to sing better is still left in a state of confusion and still left to wondering: "How?"

Both Striny and Miller preface their books with admissions of this difficulty.

Miller says that singing is "a complex coordination that words cannot adequately capture, even for the simplest manifestation of voice."

Striny says, "In discussing this topic, we have a terminology problem.  The words mean different things to people who have not had the experience."

Miller says: "key concepts of singers' language ... do not capture a widely shared experience, but rather comprise a set of privately understood terms for processes that are felt to be important, even crucial, but which refuse to be laid out for all to see."

Striny says that when singers finally find their "Total Vocal Potential" they will "own it ... understand it .. but unfortunately, they will not be able to converse on any real level with others who do not sing in this way."

However, whereas Striny does not seem to think there is a need to study the phenomena behind these vocal experiences, Miller advocates using the science of what is occurring to help make clear what these terms really mean. While Striny gropes for a language in which to describe his discoveries, Miller makes an effort to specifically define terms and recommends the vocal community come together and  make an effort to clarify what the pedagogical words point to physiologically.

There are so many vocal terms that cause confusion, such as "appoggio," "cover," "placement," "open throat," etc, but because I purchased Striny's book in the hopes of understanding merely one term, "head voice" more deeply, I will mostly stick to that term, along with the corresponding "chest voice" and "registers" to explore why these terms are confusing.  It took me a few hours to gather quotes and compare a little from these two books.  To speak on a broad scope and in depth, as opposed to giving a bit of a sample, would be extremely time consuming and end up being a dissertation of sorts.

So, from my point of view, Denes Striny is an example of someone who comes from the experience of voice. He mentions in his book that he thinks the attempts to understand the science behind how the voice works has harmed people's ability to learn how to sing.  So, he prefers not to try to explain the phenomena behind the experience that he calls "head voice" in his book.

Mr. Striny, the one I say comes from the realm of personal experience, as opposed to objective science,  decides to use the word "texture" to describe the experience of "head voice" and "chest voice."  He says that there are two different vocal "textures" that can be felt, and that one of these "textures" is more suited to opera singing.  He uses the word "texture" over and over again, as if he is, indeed, groping for a word to describe what he wants to say. Perhaps by repeating this word enough he thought it might just cause the reader to catch on to what he was trying to say about these two different modes in the singing voice.

Mr. Miller, on the other hand, describes "head voice" and "chest voice" as two different "modes of vibration" of the vocal cords, and by describing what is happening physically when producing each.  "Chest voice" is produced by vibrating thicker, shorter cords in deep contact with each other, and "head voice" is produced by vibrating longer, thinner cords that are in shallower contact with each other.

What Mr. Striny might call "Texture A and Texture B," Miller might call "Vibratory Mode A or Vibratory Mode B"

Whichever language and description a singer reads, they still don't know how to do it after reading the language.  As a beginning singer I had always been aware of two different sensations I could feel when singing -- a heavier kind of strong feeling and sound I had when I sang low notes, and a lighter, breathy, weaker feeling  I had when when I sang high.  If I had read Mr. Striny's book when I was young, I might have nodded my head when he presented the idea of two different "textures" based on my experience and figured out what he was talking about and started calling my strong low voice my "chest" voice and my higher, weaker voice my "head voice."  On the other hand, I might have gotten confused and thought he was talking about some experience altogether different than the one I had and one I must strive yet to discover.  It wouldn't be completely clear.

But if I had read Mr. Miller's book, I might have said, "Oh, that's what's happening when I feel those two different feelings.  My cords are thicker and shorter and touching in more places when I sing low, and they are longer and thinner and making less surface contact when I sing higher."  Or, I might have said to myself, "I'm not sure I'm doing that.  How can I tell the difference between the two modes of vibration?  What do they feel like?"  Still confused.

Throughout Mr. Striny's book, Head First, I wondered if he was talking about this vibratory pattern of the vocal cords when he spoke of "head voice."

Yet, in other places in the book he talks about the "language of the head voice" and how certain vowels were part of the "language of the head voice" and I then think maybe he's not discussing phonation at all, but describing, rather, the acoustic properties of the head voice.

In the Miller book, Resonance in Singing, these phenomena are described in such language as "formant tuning," and "harmonics," and "tracking."

So, is Mr. Striny talking about formant tuning when he talks about "head voice."  Or is it both?

I personally prefer the more scientific explanations.  It bothers me to have someone make up a word to describe what is happening.  I would like to know exactly what is happening. What does "texture" mean??? But this may be a matter of temperament.  I have read very good reviews of Mr. Striny's book on Amazon.com and in those reviews the singers claim to be singing much better from having read his book.  Perhaps these singers are of another temperament than mine.

In my all time favorite (so far) vocal book, Discover Your Voice, by Oren Brown, he includes a chapter with the science in it for "the kind of teacher and student who want to have scientific explanation."  I feel very validated that he acknowledges that there is this kind of person, and that it's not "wrong" to want to know what is happening physically when people use ambiguous vocal language.

I wanted to dismiss Denes Striny's book after the first reading because it didn't use the language that I am trying to become conversant with, the language of science.  But later -- and this is due to the fact that I am studying with a voice teacher who uses a lot of her own personal language to get these concepts across to me and it is working well -- I thought again that perhaps there is a need for a person to stand between the two worlds of scientific terminology and experiential terminology and find a way to bridge the gap.  When she says "zip up the cords" does she mean "medial compression?"  Or something else?  Is it worth the effort to try to figure out what it all means?

It takes a lot of time and effort, to study and learn what is happening physically when we sing.  To bother to take the time to study these things is a lot of work.  Learning to sing is enough work as it is, especially when you are an avocational singer, picking up tidbits of it here and there as you can squeeze in between tasks of taking care of a family.  And yet, doing the work of learning some objective language to describe singing can help the whole vocal world be able to talk about it with each other by defining terms everyone can understand.  Learning a new language does take time and effort, but it can bring people to more of an agreement about what is healthy, and perhaps aid in developing some great voices for us all to hear.

Singing With an Orchestra Running Barefoot

In my strange Avocational Singer mind, there is a connection between singing with an orchestra and running barefoot.

You've seen me make connections between singing and other subjects, and this one may seem like a stretch, but if your mind operated by the same sort of unusual logic that mine does, you would be able to make a connection between singing with an orchestra and running barefoot too.

Here's how my logic has connected the two:

I would love to sing with an orchestra some day.  It has always been a fantasy of mine.  I came close to that experience a few years ago when I sang the Pergolesi Stabat Mater with Cantigas Women's Choir.  We had a little "orchestra" for that:  A couple of violins, a double bass cello, an organ, and maybe a couple of other instruments.  It was modest, but it was enough for me to get the feel of what a wonderful experience it was to sing with an instrumental ensemble.  I have never forgotten how wonderful it was to have that experience, and, of course, I would hope to have it again.

I also wrote about my fantasy of this in a post a while back "Anatomy of a Dream."

If I was a young singer in my early 20s, to have a dream to sing something with an orchestra would seem like a reasonably attainable goal, something that might be accomplished without too much struggle.   However, to have this as a goal for myself, at age 48, seems a more formidable task. Especially to have this as a goal at age 48 without having quite yet learned  how to sing -- one little detail that seems a bit important to the quest -- well, that does seem to make it seem all the more out of reach.

Nevertheless, not believing that one should rule out possibilities, no matter what the obstacle may appear, I still carry a hope within my heart that I may accomplish this fantasy in some way or another.

Now, here's where I had to stop and take stock and figure out what need to happen in order for me to be able to sing with an orchestra.  Here's where I had to look at strengths, limitations, realities, and come up with a plan.

First things first, of course, I would definitely need to be able to sing.  I have not given up hope of finally figuring my voice out, even at this late stage of the game.  So, lessons are a must, and an absolute dedication to daily training is a must. I cannot predict what success will come of that, but it seems to be heading in the right direction and I can only hope for the best as far as developing a voice with a good technique that can even be heard while singing with an orchestra.

But another thing I decided would be of great advantage was some sort of  "fountain of youth."  Yes, a "fountain of youth" would come in very handy indeed.  You see, in order to avail myself of any opportunity to sing something with an orchestra, I might find myself in the position of having to compete for a spot with someone youthful, and youth could edge me out of any such opportunity. Unless I should come by a fortune from which I could hire myself an orchestra, it seems desirable to find some way to stem the tide of my own aging as I wait for my vocal technique to establish itself.

I looked around, and the closest I could come to finding a "fountain of youth" was exercise.  An athletic opera singer friend of mine, Robin Flynn ("The Athletic Perfomer") just referred me today to an article in the New York Times on "How Exercising Keeps Our Cells Young", so incorporating an exercise plan seems like a reasonable move for a singer concerned with her age to include in her training regimen.

I was already working at Kung Fu, but I felt that I needed something aerobic.  They say that if you are going to stick with an exercise program, you'll have more success if you find something you love to do.

Well, I've mentioned here that I love to run, so, after many many years of intending to get back to running,  I had decided during this past year to begin again.  To help myself along, I signed up for a 1/2 marathon. As I embarked on my 1/2 marathon training plan,  I seemed to be well on my way to stemming the detrimental effects of aging, and keeping some of these effects somewhat at bay.

But a villain arrived on the scene -- the villain of an injury that has blocked me from my fountain -- plantar fasciitis.  I was unable to complete my training for the 1/2 marathon, and am now in the process of healing this injury so that I can begin anew.

In my quest to find a way to heal my injury, I have stumbled upon information about running barefoot. (A favorite new blog: Running Barefoot)   The people that run barefoot claim that our running injuries increased when we put on fancy running shoes that immobilize our feet.  The theory makes sense to me that by putting on these running shoes, we deprived ourselves of the sensory nerve feedback from our bare feet, which is necessary in order to learn how to run with a form that protects us from injury.

I have read anecdotes of people using barefoot running to recover from plantar fasciitis, or at least find a way of running that prevents the injury from coming bak.  I am dying to try this out.  And I have made a resolution that I will give barefoot running a try soon.

So, to put it all together: I've decided that I really want to try barefoot running, so that I can begin training again for next year's race, so that I may preserve some aspects of youth, so that I may one day compete for a spot to sing with some orchestra somewhere in the future of my life.

That is really nutty logic, and some of the assumptions I've got in the train of thought have just got to be faulty, especially since there is no limit to what possibilities exist, and it can't predicted how or why or where I might have an opportunity to sing with an orchestra.

I mean, after all, isn't it hard enough just to learn to sing, without adding all these extra burdens?

But today, I think I may have found a way, finally, to have the experience of singing with an orchestra.  I have discovered opera and oratorio karaoke!  I have been having a blast downloading a few files from the itunes store today, and singing with real orchestral accompaniments.

I have been deeply moved by the experience of singing with these accompaniments.  I am thinking that this may just satisfy my need to sing with an orchestra after all.  Or at least, should I never arrive at an opportunity to sing with live instruments, I have something to cut the edge off any kind of disappointment about not being able to do this.  It may just be the next best thing.

I still plan, as soon as my foot is a little better, to try out all the barefoot running stuff.  But maybe not in order to have a "fountain of youth" after all, but just because I love running and the stuff I read about barefoot running is appealing to me.  No pressure.  Let singing be singing, and running be running.

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Visit Frescamari's Practice Room to hear me singing some Opera Karaoke:  "On a New Karaoke Kick: "Stride la vampa" -- "Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix" -- and "Voi che sapete"

Friday Cyberspace Recital -- More Than I Could Have Hoped For

Little did I know -- when I impulsively thought up the idea of this singing project for myself of learning 24 Italian Songs and Arias in 24 Weeks -- how deeply involved I would become in this project and what a source of learning, development, and joy it was about to bring to my life.

I had no idea -- I simply had no idea how musically enriched I would become by exploring these songs.  I had no idea how much it would develop my singing, what would happen to my pronunciation of the Italian language, or even something like how my flipped and rolled [r]s would improve. I had no idea how musical phrases would begin to tell me things that I had not known about music before.  It's almost as if my voice has been waiting for me to do this, so it could reveal it's secrets to me.  Each day, as I take up the song and find progress on it, I am amazed.  My voice is almost like a child who says, "Watch me, mother!  I couldn't do this yesterday, but look at me today!!  See, I grew a little stronger and taller over night, and I figured it out and now I can do it!  Look at me!"

Nowadays, when my eyes fall upon my Italian songbook, I feel the way a golfer might feel when he lays eyes on his set of clubs propped against the wall in the garage, or a runner feels when she spies her running shoes lying on the mat by the back door, or a chef feels when he approaches his block of sharp and shiny stainless steel knives on the counter.  When I pick the book up, or put it into my lesson bag, I have a sense of love and respect for what is contained within.

This week's lesson is about how much less time I need to pick up a song and learn it.  In fact, things were moving along so well on "Non posso disperar" by the time I brought it to my lesson on Tuesday that my voice teacher suggested I start on the next song as well, "Nina."  So, I am well into learning that song, slated for next Friday, and will probably start another one over the weekend.  I am getting ahead of myself.  That is really exciting!

I am finally healed from the ravages of that head cold I had a couple of weeks back.  It is great to have the voice back and return to its continued development.  I am very happy that I seem to have been able to resume progress right where I left off before catching the head cold.  In fact, it seems like progress was made even during the cold, so I think it was worth the bit of practicing I did while conditions were less than ideal.

My Cs, Ds, and E5s are feeling much more effortless, and I am beginning to find release and space for my F and G5s.  In "Non posso disperar" I had to reach up and just lightly touch G5, but in "Nina" I have to sustain G5.  Two different tasks, and I am grateful to have a smart voice teacher who knows that one task best came before the other.
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Click here to be transported to Frescamari's Performance Space and listen to this week's offering from the 24 Italian Songs and Arias:  "Non posso disperar."
Clck here to listen to work on "Nina"

Friday Cyberspace Recital -- Do You Have Something to Say?

I have been considering a question over and over again for the past couple of weeks, and it seems as if it is cropping up everywhere:  Do I have something to say?  Do I have something to say to the world?

Not only that, do I have something to say with my singing? Am I holding back my emotional truth for when my technique is good enough to finally say something?  Do I need to wait to say something, or can I begin to start saying something now, even when the singing is flawed, even when the dream of what I would like to say does not match the reality of what comes out?

As I write this blog, and read books and articles about how to develop my writing abilities, the topic of whether I have anything to say, what I will choose to say, and how I will say it is very frequently on my mind.  So it seems obvious that a writer has to think about what he or she might want to say.

But does a singer have to think about what he or she might want to say?

The judges of the Metropolitan Opera's National Council Auditions seems to think this is important.  In a television documentary about this event, The Audition, which I watched on PBS recently, one of the judges tells us that this is something they look for in a singer -- someone who has something to say.

This message also popped out of the pages of a book I'm currently reading, The Courage to Write: How Writers Transcend Fear, by Ralph Keyes.  He confirms that, yes, everyone has something to say, and what we have to say is important, but the most important thing we have to say, and what we would really like to say, is often very scary to expose to an audience.  The real things we would like to say are often mortifying.

At first glance, the 24 Italian Songs and Arias appear to be "saying" the same things over and over again in different ways.  The poetry is mostly about love and basic emotional fundamentals surrounding the human experience of falling in love: Unrequited love.  Hope for love returned. The pursuance of love.  The hopes for romance.  The torture and teasing of love. The vulnerability of love. The deep pain of love. On the surface, we think immediately of classic situations: "I liked this boy in high school and I thought he was noticing me but I found out he didn't even know who I was" -- or, "We were going to be married, but then he met her" -- or, "He left me after many years of marriage.  He said he never loved me."   Yeah, yeah, yeah -- unrequited love.  Been there; done that.  I can sing that.

As I've looked at the song "Tu lo sai" I have gone through the usual tasks of examining the language and figuring out what the poet of the song has to say.  As I've examined the music, I have tried to understand what the composer has to say.  This is what I usually do with a song, and I have to admit that I have often hid behind expressing what the song is trying to say, but not thinking too much about what I want to say with the song.

But, bearing in mind the words I heard from the Metropolitan Opera judge, I have begun to realize that as a singer I must -- just as I do when I write -- figure out what I want to say as well. Just as writing can be murky when the writer is not sure of what he wants to say, a singer's performance of a song can be "murky" if the singer is not clear about what she would like to say.  So I must look at the poetry and music of "Tu lo sai" with new eyes.  Can I use this song to express something about me, something I would like to say?

In this case, the answer is yes.  There is a way I could use this song.  I have been struggling with something that is painful to me and I realized today that this song can help me say what I would like to say about it.  For the purposes of learning about this aspect of preparing a song, I'll tell you a little bit (but not too much) about that "something."

I had taken the risk of having made overtures for a friendship with someone I admired greatly. At first I experienced joy as I saw the promise of a response from this person, but my joy turned to pain and disappointment when later my overtures were completely rejected, and to make matters worse, this person will, in a short time, be absent from my life almost completely, so a deep sense of loss is being added to the mix as well.  I have been trying to resolve these feelings, but have not yet been able to work it out emotionally within myself and find resolution and peace. Perhaps "saying something" with a song would be useful in this process.

The language and sentiments -- musical and verbal -- of  "Tu lo sai"  match up somewhat with this personal event of mine.  It is not exact, but it works with my personal experience, and I think I may be able to use this song to "tell" this person how I feel.

You know how much I loved you

you know it, cruel one!

I wish no other mercy

than that  you remember me

and then despise me an unfaithful one!

Usually, a singer would not need to explain the personal experience behind her song.  In fact, it would be safer not to, because when they know, people might listen more critically. This motivation may now be scrutinized. Is the singer succeeding to express her intention?

I think it is preferable to privately use the personal experience to feed the poetry and the music and the voice.  However, I have used it as an example in this blog for the purpose of discussing and illustrating this aspect of a singer's calling and work.

In the above-mentioned  book The Courage to Write the author says he would rather read something honest from someone who had something to say even if the writing was not technically up to snuff.

The more I read, and write, the more convinced I am that good writing has less to do with acquired technique than with inner conviction.  The assurance that you have something to say that the world needs to hear counts for more than literary skill.  Those writers who hold their readers' attention are the ones who grab them by the lapel and say, "You've got to listen to what I'm about to tell you."  It's hard to be that passionate.  It means you must put your whole poke on the table.  Yet this very go-for-broke quality grabs and holds a reader far more surely than any mastery of technique.

I might tend to agree with that up to a certain extent, but it doesn't address that there is a limitation that comes with lack of technique.  The technique is what gives you the freedom to really portray what you're trying to say. Technique gives the ability to say something more accurately and eloquently.

Imagine the frustration of a child who knows what she has in mind, and would like to show you her idea of a tree, but cannot draw it.  The mother looks at the drawing and says, "Oh, is that a monster?"  The child is disappointed because the mother does not see a tree there.

An explanation like this of not having enough technique to say what I want to say could be a way of backing away from my emotional truth.  Do I lack courage? And do I disguise that lack of courage by claiming I don't have the technique yet?  Do I only give you a little generalized version of the story of my painful incident because I am embarrassed by it?

Mr. Keys says of writers, but true of singers as well:

We all have secrets locked tightly in an inner safe.  Writers must unlock that safe and risk letting its contents creep onto the page ...  Exposing that life takes courage

Aspiring writers are often driven to write because there are things deep inside them they wnat to get out.  But after they peer deeply within, few remain sure that they want anyone else to konw the most interesting things they see.

Well, a singer might have to do a similar thing if they want to "say" something with a song.  But maybe singing and a song (and acting and theater) are amazing tools for being able to express the very real and honest experience of a person while keeping a safe and protected distance from the specifics of that private experience.  Can we express our pain as artists without anyone having to know the details?

In the movie The Lord of the Ring: The Two Towers, there is a scene where the character of Eowyn sings at the funeral of her brother, Theoden, and she lets out a crying lament, where her inner pain is definitely present in the sound.  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06f2-IuGJyA)   High levels of vocal technique are not there, but there is enough ability with singing to be able to connect voice with that wail that is born of pain.

I feel that this scene from the The Two Towers is very "honest" even though it is scripted and we are not using the actress's actual experience.  Yet, we guess that she knows what this kind of pain feels like.  We can tell because she is able to "say" it to us through her character.

I can tell by that the way the vocal line works in "Tu lo sai," when my voice is finally free and can use the line the way it wants to, that this is a great piece to tell "my story" about rejection in friendship.  It is also a vehicle that will allow me to express my feelings to the individual, since I'm not in a situation where it would be appropriate to address the person directly and discuss these things.  Singing the song can work the same way writing a letter to a person does, a technique a psychotherapist might use to help people resolve emotional issues.

Therefore, I conclude that this song, "Tu lo sai" can help me say something I want to say, something I need to say.  Just like multiple revisions of a letter that I am trying to get just right, each time I sing a song, each time I develop a next detail of the song, I come closer to the message I want to send -- to that person, to myself, to the heavens, to the people around me, and to the world.

"Tu lo sai" this week in Frescamari's Performance Space, is a working copy of a letter I'm writing.  It's been through a few revisions but is not in it's final state yet.  Nothing is ever perfect, but the writer/singer will know when it is doing a good job of expressing the feeling.  The writer/singer will know when it's "ready, and time to send it off, time to click "publish post" or "send."
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Much progress made, but still stamina issues that cause the end of the song to deteriorate.  Yet I will post this one, since it was the chosen song of the week and I did not prepare another.  Took my very best stab at "saying something with the song," although by the end of the song had to scrap "saying someting," and merely survive.  But that's so okay! Click to to go Frescamari's Performance Space:  Tu lo sai

Not Knowing

I was very inspired by a Tai Chi blog I read this morning, Dan Wujifa's "Why it's better not to know."  I thought this post could apply very much to my understanding of singing and some of the things I was talking about singing in the passaggio yesterday.


In the "why it's beter not to know" blog post, which I encourage you to read, the blog author talks about the difference between "bracing" and "internal strength:"

... Now, the brace idea is basically locking your body into the strongest possible linear structure in opposition to a force, whereas true internal strength has much more freedom and flexibility inherent in it. Brace is strong, but tends toward rigidity.

This applies to some singing concepts in several ways.  One way is the kind of strength needed to withstand greater wind pressure when one is singing higher tessituras.  I mentioned this in yesterday's post at the point where I talked about how the muscles that stabilize the larynx need to be strong so that the larynx doesn't rise when the breath pressure increases.  However, I did not mean the muscles should be rigid or tense, such as what might happen, for example, to a singer who is trying to keep the larynx in a low position at all costs, and tries to lock it into a certain position while singing.  It needs to be much more free and flexible than that.


The same thing goes for the deep internal breath support muscles which must be very strong to tend to the changing breath pressure needs of the singing voice above.  To maintain a little "tuck" in the lower abs, and "brace" one's self so that the muscles of inspiration and expiration can do their work does not mean to be rigid, but rather to be strong and free and flexible.

Yet another example of this, from a singer's point of view, can be at the point of the actual valve controlling the opening at the glottis within the larynx itself.  The muscles closing the gap can be so tense because the singer is afraid of losing the seal.  There can be too much closure because the singer wants a clear efficient tone so badly.  Yet what the laryngeal muscles really need is this other kind of "internal strength" that is very flexible and can keep the valve closed enough while letting just the right amount of air through.  What is optimal is to keep the valve closed without squeezing it shut, but in a relaxed but very strong way.  It actually takes more strength to do this than to squeeze and press tightly..


Another Tai Chi blog, Wujiman Taiji blog -- which is the one that referred me to the blog with the above quote -- gave an example of how "relaxed" this state of  internal strength can be:

I had a glimpse of internal strength when I paid a visit to Rick of Wujifa a few months back.  We were on his deck and he stood up, got on one leg, lifted up one arm in a “ward off” posture and told me to push him. I used both hands and *really* pushed him. He did not budge and was able to ground my push pretty easily...

What surprised me even more was during the push, Rick told me to touch his forearm and bicep. To my surprise, both muscles were relaxed!  I noticed that when I tried to do the same demonstration, with both feet on the ground, my bicep would often feel tense.  Connected. Relax. Not Limp

This is a great illustration of the kind of strength that will be exhibited when the best singing is done.  These are ideals to work toward and to look forward to.  There is strength, but not tension.  There is connection, but relaxation.


But back to Dan's Wujifa blog, however and why "knowing" can interfere with achieving this state.  He explains that

my partner is showing what happens when "I know" starts to creep in. As soon as you commit rigidly to one way of doing something, as soon as you say "I know" and stop paying attention, you get stuck. This is when brace shows up. Saying "I know" locks you in.

So, the mental component of the task is part of the whole picture.  Just like resonance can have an effect on phonation and phonation can in turn affect resonance, the relationship between mental approach and physical are interdependent as well.


My singing journey only began when I first decided that I didn't know anything about singing.  I hear this "knowing" mentality when I hear singers insist that one way to support is "the way."  "You must push out."  "You must pull in."  As soon as the singer decides that they "know," further exploration and discovery get cut off, and then that is the way they do it.  The rigid way.  The same type of thing can happen when a singer decides they know where to "place" the voice, or even if they believe they are phonating correctly, or have fallen in love with a certain way to sound.


The idea of "I do not  know" can open the singer up to flexibility and internal strength and the ability to find and discover. Sometimes, when I am claiming in this way that "I do not know," a friend will say to me, after I have said something that sounds knowledgeable to them, "See, you do know something."  But I fear beginning to think I know something, and I run away from this affirmation, no matter how well intended.  I always get into trouble when I think I've got it all figured out.  I love living in this state of "not knowing" so much better, because it has opened me up to many exciting vocal adventures.
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A quote from Barefoot Ken Bob:

"And keep in mind that we often read what we already believe we know, into what isn’t written."