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Posted 1 year, 11 months ago at 10:46 am. 2 comments
This past week my husband took my car for 3 days. Mine gets WAY better gas mileage and he had to go on a road trip, so I was stuck with the minivan for the interim. I love my little car – it gets great gas mileage and I can fit my daughters AND a trip to Costco into it. Who needs the minivan? Plus, I made sure when I got it that it had a standard (manual, i.e. “stick”) transmission.
When I drive a car with an automatic transmission, I just go. I am less aware of my surroundings. I am MUCH less aware of my speed. I just get in the car and drive. Especially in the U.S., manual transmissions in cars tend to be the exception, rather than the rule.
It occurred to me this week that driving an automatic is how we can sometimes be in the studio – we get onto a path and stay there, unless something jars us out of it. We ARE on “automatic.” So, I’d like to pose these questions to you:
Do you make sure you make time in your schedule for exercise?
Do you still take lessons yourself?
Do you give yourself professional development time annually? Quarterly? Monthly? Do you regularly interact with other teachers?
What are your goals for your studio? What have you done lately to energize your student population?
Has your teaching evolved throughout the past year? Why or why not?
Do you take time for your family? Do *they* have time specifically in your schedule?
What are your goals for the summer? Personal? Professional? Familial?
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Posted 2 years ago at 10:42 am. 1 comment
I am odd amongst my local voice teachers in that I DO accept extremely young voice students for private lessons. My studio policy is a minimum of 10-years old and MUST be self-motivated, but I will take (and currently have in my studio) a highly-focused 9-year old. The first question I ask a parent (usually a mother) who says that she wants her young child to have voice lessons is “Do THEY want the lessons?”
Even so, the way that I teach these students is different from the way I teach my “older” students (14-years old & up), largely because of how their brain functions. The analytical skills and the ability to dissociate yourself from your sound are not present in the pre-pubescent brain. My teaching style is generally VERY technically based. I strongly believe that my students need to know exactly why we’re doing certain exercises: how the exercise is affecting the voice, what physical action is occurring in the larynx, what the result “should” be.
In a young student, they just can’t think quite that analytically. Instead, I talk in terms of a “tool-box” where we’ll take certain thoughts and make that a tool for adjusting the voice. One “tool” is the thought of the breath as a stream upon which the voice floats like a leaf, without disturbing the flow. The pedagogical thought behind this is breath engagement and freedom of the larynx so that the chords may freely vibrate. At this age, that’s not something they need to know (information overload!). But, they know that by thinking this thought, the voice moves more easily.
Another thing I do is I will ask in each lesson about something they did in the past week. I will then make up a vocalise using the words supplied. For example, when asked what their favorite part of Thanksgiving was, a student replied, “The gravy.” We then sang “groovy gravy, groovy gravy, groovy gravy, groovy gravy, groo—vy gra—vy.” (5_4_3_2_123454321) The breath flowed, the [gr] combination allowed the sound to come forward in the mouth, helping to make the [u] more focused, and the [vi] sound of the “-vy” combination kept the sound forward with the fricative and the [i] vowel stayed free & easy, instead of getting wide & tight (as is frequently the case with young singers). Now, I’M thinking all these things, but the student is just really enjoying herself.
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Posted 2 years, 2 months ago at 1:26 pm. 1 comment
Well, I haven’t posted for quite a while. Procrastination is SO easy to do, especially with Facebook and Twitter around! I’ve also been working very hard on getting my lifestyle back into shape.
I’m not trying to diet, I’m trying to change my lifestyle so that I can be a healthier, happier me. That this is helping my body be a better instrument is a definite “perk.”
Currently, I am exercising a minimum of 30-minutes daily. I’ve discovered several really great Wii programs with which to do this (so I can exercise and supervise my daughters’ getting ready for school at the same time!), and I’m having a lot of fun.
The Wii programs I love are the Wii Fit Plus 
for the balance board and the EA Sports Active: More Workouts
. They both give me a good workout (the EA Sports more of a gym/trainer type experience), and I can feel the muscles in my body responding. I’ve been doing this for the past 3 weeks (yep – it started as a Lent thing, but I’m planning on continuing it as a lifestyle change). I’ll be trying out 2 new games in the next week or so, and I’ll keep you updated. One game that I tried, on a friend’s recommendation, and just DIDN’T like was “The Biggest Loser” workout
. Yes, I worked out & it took energy, but it ended up telling me I’d only used about 40 calories for 45-minutes of hard exercises, after which I was sweating. Also, the pointer for controller is super-sensitive and jumps all over the place. This biggest problem I had though, was that if wouldn’t let me change the time of day in which I work out. My first session was in the afternoon – I had extra time because of a student cancellation and so felt I could spend time learning a new game. But, after that, it wouldn’t unlock my daily exercises UNTIL the afternoon. As I’ve said, I exercise in the morning, so this was the final straw and, after only a week, I’ve given up on that program.
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Posted 2 years, 3 months ago at 9:02 pm. 2 comments
I received an email this past week with a concerned response to my November blog posting “Judging NATS Music Theater Student Auditions.” We in Arizona are preparing for the “classical” Student Auditions this week, and I suppose this is partially why I received this email at this moment, and not any earlier.
In the email, a colleague who works tirelessly for our local NATS, is instrumental in the organization of our NATS Student Auditions (Music Theater and classical) for the past many years, and for whom I have the utmost respect, brought several concerns to light. This teacher does not read blogs, but my posting was brought to the teacher’s attention by “a concerned colleague.”
I felt that, instead of responding directly to the email (although I will send this posting to my colleague via email), I needed to respond via my blog. Apparently the blog is the cause of this concern. PLEASE, if you have any issues with what I say here, there is a reason that I post in public – I would love to have a dialogue among my colleagues and provoke discussion so that we all become aware of each others’ thoughts and can grow and improve as teachers.
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Posted 2 years, 3 months ago at 9:44 pm. 1 comment
I just got out of La Boheme run-through with Arizona Opera. We have to fabulous casts. All the singers are wonderful. But, one, tenor Gaston Rivero, draws me in and makes me pay attention EVERY time he opens his mouth. For those of you who’ve sat through opera run-through rehearsals (especially as chorus), you know how rare this is.
Last run-through (this past Tuesday night, 1/19/10), I could NOT stay in my “rut” of just reading & waiting until it was my turn to go on. I was drawn into Mr. Rivero’s singing each time he sang. Even in rehearsal, with the chorus sitting upstage of all the action (i.e. the soloists had their back to us), I couldn’t do anything BUT pay attention to his voice. There is something special about this man.
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Posted 2 years, 4 months ago at 1:44 pm. 8 comments
I have had a concern in studio with my singers singing too quietly or, conversely, singing so loudly the sound seems like a paint ball hitting the wall. Too quiet, and the vocal chords can’t engage and create steady vibrations, so the sound is sparse and inconsistent. Too loud 
and the poor little vocal chords are overblown – they can’t handle the force of the air blowing through them. So, I decided to study the WORD “dynamics” to try to gain some insight into my students’ approach to volume, especially loud and soft.
First, I remembered reading one of my favorite books Lies My Music Teacher Told Me by Gerald Eskelin. In this book he makes you take a look at certain “truths” taught to students and question them. In this vein, I decided to find a better definition of “dynamics” than just the volume of the sound. I found many definitions, but chose this as the most complete of the word “dynamic:”
Posted 2 years, 4 months ago at 3:31 pm. 9 comments
I am STEAMING!! I had a new student this week who has had lessons with several other teachers, and he can’t even sing a 5-note scale!!! WHAT have these other teachers been doing? He came to me so that he can learn how to trust what comes out of his mouth when he sings.
The first teacher he talked about gave him daily exercises to do, but then didn’t help him progress during lessons. The student felt as if he was just spinning his wheels and that the teacher was saying the same thing every week.
The other teacher was a Speech Level Singing teacher. My new student stated that she “was very expensive” (I don’t consider myself cheap, so how much is SHE charging?) and that she also told him he should forget the daily regiment his previous teacher had given him and that he DIDN’T even have to PRACTICE between lessons!!
WHAT is up with that? How can ANY self-respecting teacher tell a voice student they don’t have to practice? Your body is your instrument and must be trained to respond, in the way that any athlete trains their body.
If, after months of lessons and two separate teachers, you can’t even sing a 5-note scale (with no problem matching pitches when sung individually, just ignorance of the concept), it is your teachers who are at fault. This kind of story INFURIATES me – there are people out there taking singers’ money who don’t know what they’re doing.
Thanks for letting me rant!! I’m in the middle of a “reasonable” blog post, but I had to take time out to write this. I am blessed that I am surrounded by fabulous teachers who care about how and what they teach, who, if a student doesn’t make progress will willingly refer them to a teacher who CAN help. Luckily, I run across stories like this infrequently, BUT I should NEVER have to hear this kind of tale! I’ll post again soon, I promise!
Posted 2 years, 5 months ago at 10:21 pm. 2 comments
I just spent my weekend judging students of NATS teachers in a statewide Music Theater singing competition. This year I was gravely disappointed. At only one time in the many hours of listening to singers did I get goosebumps. Most of the time, I was giving scores in the mid-80’s. The scoring system is 95-100 Exceptional, 90-94 Outstanding, 85-90 Very good, 80-84 Acceptable, 74-79 Needs Improvement (basically if they failed to show any preparation at all). I believe I only gave out 3 scores of 90 & 91. Everything else was in the 80’s.
Why didn’t I give out scores that were higher? Several of the students sang ONE piece well, but their second piece was unfortunate. Even more unfortunately, many times they BEGAN with the weaker piece and I ended up not wanting to hear more (even though we did hear both of their prepared pieces). Several students were singing completely wrong repertoire for their technical ability. Most students were very inconsistent in their vocal production. Very few students had a “fila di voce” that the voice could “hang” on throughout the register shifts, let alone serve as the basis of a healthy belt tone.
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Posted 2 years, 6 months ago at 6:03 pm. 1 comment
What is my job as a voice teacher?
I have decided to define myself is as a voice teacher. I believe that everyone has the RIGHT to sing. Research has shown that human beings are born to be musical. Even more, humans are born to be singers (see Daniel Levitin’s book This is Your Brain on Music). This means that EVERYONE can sing.
As a voice teacher, it is NOT my job to like or dislike your voice. It is not my place to help you “be famous.” It is not my job to decide whether you can have a career or not.
It IS my job to help you to sing to the best of your physical ability. It IS my job to give you information about how your instrument (your body!) works and how best to affect it. It IS my job to change my teaching style to best suit each student individually in order to maximize their potential. It IS my job to make singing fun and enjoyable. It IS my job to encourage you to let your voice out and be free. It IS my job to give you all the information you need in order to reach both your short-term and long-term goals. It IS my job to help my singers learn how to practice effectively and affectively – what do they need to do in order to teach the body the HABITS of an effective singer?
Singers must be “mental” in order to sing well. The main function of the vocal chords is
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Posted 2 years, 7 months ago at 10:36 pm. 0 comments
The first weekend in October I went to NYC. I was invited by Mrs. Gloria Gari of the Giulio Gari Foundation to attend the Winner’s Gala (the competition of which I was a finalist this past May). Of course, I couldn’t say no – it was basically a command performance. Also, she gave me the names of two different opera Artist Agents to contact and see if I could get an audition.
One agent got back to me and said they weren’t available on the days that I was in town. I was very disappointed by that. I was unable to get a hold of the other agent. The phone number I had rang without answer. The second number I found on the internet was disconnected. So, I went to NYC with only one coaching set up (Jonathan Kelly, coach/assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera: he had played the competition in May and I greatly enjoyed working with him). I got to NYC and spent Friday just walking 
around taking pictures for my oldest daughter (her birthday was one week later). I was feeling very down because I was by myself, in NYC and NOT singing! But…
Saturday morning my teacher calls me just as I’m coffee with my great friend from
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It occurred to me this week that driving an automatic is how we can sometimes be in the studio – we get onto a path and stay there, unless something jars us out of it. We ARE on “automatic.” So, I’d like to pose these questions to you: