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Posted 1 week, 1 day 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 weeks, 3 days 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 oepra 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 3 weeks, 1 day ago at 1:44 pm. 6 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 1 month ago at 3:31 pm. 8 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 months, 2 weeks 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 3 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 3 months, 3 weeks 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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Posted 4 months ago at 9:31 pm. 1 comment
As I prepared for my past weekend in NYC (hopefully doing an agent audition – which I made my own: see my next blog post), I worked like CRAZY on the subtleties and nuances of each aria. Where exactly within the beat did that [r] go? What’s the difference in vocal style between Flotow and Cherubini? How do I best translate the text so as to get the most nuance and understanding of it?
I sat in the Gari Foundation Competition Winner’s Gala and heard some amazing singing. I also heard some singing that I know would be found lacking by my teacher and several of my recent coaches. Now, I’m not saying that I am the best singer in the world, but if I’m singing at a Gala with some very important people in the audience and receiving a check for several thousand dollars, wouldn’t I choose to sing the piece that shows me off the best, rather than accentuating my flaws?
There were some stellar performances, there were some stellar voices. There was rarely a combination of the two. The singers who REALLY performed their texts and made me feel they had an opinion on the music were not generally the best singers. Those who sang amazingly were slightly wooden. Has it come down to a choice between the two? We either get great singing or great acting?
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Posted 5 months ago at 6:27 pm. 4 comments
Scroll down for an update, 11/25/09
Yes, I got caught up in the hype around the new Fox TV series “Glee.” I watched the pilot last spring, downloaded it for free from iTunes, and was really excited about the possibilities of this show. It looked like a smart show with good writing that would really relate to kids and how cliques/money issues often work in high school, while being “real” about the not-so-popular kids and how music can really help you survive the emotional and mental stress of being a teenager.
Last night, I eagerly watched the season premier (being thankful for my DVR – opera rehearsal and a coaching DID come first!). I enjoyed how strong the stereotypes were – they come off as natural for the actors, but are portrayed in such a way as to be self-conscious parts of the show. Each actor commits to the over-the-top stereotype so that the CHARACTER really believes who they are, but the presentation is very tongue-in-cheek. I hope that this part of the writing continues – it helps to really define the show & is often how one-dimensional things seem as a teenager. Perspective is NOT common during this stage in life. The show also took on, in its first official
While I will reserve judgment, at this point in time, I see myself quickly becoming disenchanted with the show. It markets itself as a show for the “underdog” and the “loser.” In their terms, the “gleek.” But, all the musical numbers, even songs JUST presented to the group, are polished and highly choreographed. Vocally, the presentation is VERY highly studio edited and the situations are just not realistic. I feel that “normal” high school students may see the show and feel that they need to be able to come up to that level of quality in just a few short hours, rather than the hours of dedicated & focused practice that it does take to come up with elaborate production numbers (both vocally & choreographically).
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Posted 6 months, 3 weeks ago at 6:03 pm. 2 comments
I have a voice student who only communicates effectively through her MySpace account. Emails and phone calls don’t work when trying to reach her.
One student communicates solely through text messages. Her mother I can ONLY contact through land-line (no email, text, cell phone messages – although she has that capability).
When I was in college (early 1990’s!), I would try to call home and the line would be busy – my mother was on the internet! So, I’d send her an email and 5 minutes later, I’d get a phone call. When I graduated for college, one of the running jokes was that we were going to grad school so that we could continue to have an email account (hotmail was JUST in its infancy, Windows 3.0 had just come out and Gmail wasn’t even a thought in Google’s nonexistent eye).
via www.telephoneart.com
Nowadays we have SO many options to reach one another that frequently we are communicating TO other people rather than WITH others. Blogs (like this one, for instance) often tend to talk a lot without having conversations. I am trying to raise my “presence” as a blogger so as to increase my conversations, but don’t want to monetize the blog. I just want to communicate with more people! So, it’s a slow process.
Communication, though, is KEY! Social Media (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, FriendFeed, Google, Delicious) allows you to share and network information throughout your “friend network.”
I use Twitter (via Seesmic Desktop – which integrates my Facebook updates) to find cool information. I’ve found some really amazing people out there who have worthwhile information. I started by following a few really interesting people I’d run across while doing web searches (it started with Chris Foley at The Collaborative Piano Blog). Then, I went through who THEY were following and followed them too. Chris Brogan is the social media guru I ran across through Chris Foley (I’ve subscribed to both of their email RSS feeds for almost 2 years now). Between the two of them, I’m covering a large portion of musicians and social media information. Through this method, I now have over 1000 followers on Twitter (which I’ve only seriously been using since March 2009) and am “following” over 1000. It’s not easy keeping up, so I don’t try to follow everyone.
With Seesmic Desktop, I can do a search for my favorite “tweeple.” I then keep those searches at the side and can pull them out at any time to view what they’ve been saying recently. I also go through my stream at least once daily. I then use an application called TweetLater to send out interesting links that I’ve found at spaced out intervals (I’ll sit down at Twitter for about 20 minutes, but send out links that post on my schedule – I choose about 1 per hr throughout the day). Seesmic then lets me know if/when someone responds to my tweet.
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