TV Singing Competitions

TV Singing Competitions - Looks like these things are springing up like weeds in a garden! How many are there now? One thing is consistent. Singers who sound bad, fair, or fairly good are suffering from the same disease: Allergy to Pitch. Sure, there are some who have no clue about rhythm or style, but the consistent thing, the common thread running through the bad ones is usually BAD musicianship. The producers of the shows think this is hilarious stuff! What could be more funny than people attempting to create an artistic performance making complete fools of themselves? The same people who think that is funny probably also laugh when people fall and hurt themselves.

WHY? Why do these shows keep happening? It could be the "Rocky Syndrome". Unknown person rises beyond him/herself, finding fame and fortune. Only thing is, how many people actually DO get hurt along the way? As long as people will pay and watch, the sponsors are happy. Makes you wonder how much it cost to watch people get eaten by lions, or to watch people fight to the death. What an extreme analogy! How dare I! Why should I care? It is entertainment. Is it art? Have our standards of art and manners dropped? Take a quick guess. BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ Time's up.

One day there may be a singing competition where the audience votes by opening trap doors under the singers. Seems like there was a commercial like that. Hmmmmmmm Foretelling the future?

What IS musicianship? I wrote about it some time ago and will be releasing more information about musicianship soon. If you cannot define it, how could you possibly have a profound understanding of it?

Not to banter about semantics, but most people have absolutely NO idea what the word "Algebra" means. How many of us took that in school? If you were confused about Algebra, maybe it would have helped to have understood what the heck you were studying. Anyone can memorize and maybe get a good grade OR cheat in class. Where will that get someone? Turn on the TV singing competition shows. OR NOT. Some people like a ballet while others prefer an old fashioned circus. They do not look alike. They do not smell alike!

Several singing competition winners were allergic to singing in tune. Think not? Longevity will usually accompany skill, artistry, and great musicianship. That's it. Sermon on musicianship. Time to study. Time to pray things get better.

Opposites...

Good.
Bad.

Abundance.
Scarcity.

Heavy.
Light.

Weight.
Weightlessness.

Tall.
Short.

Loss.
Gain.

Fat.
Thin.

Beautiful.
Ugly.

Dichotomies (or opposites) form “either/or” thinking and “either/or” value systems and habits. There are many shades of grey between black and white. There may be infinite shades of grey, but we may not be so perceptive as to be able to recognize and to differentiate between them all. Yet, they do exist. Sure, it’s simple to keep it simple but is it the way to arrive at a person’s “best”, to think in such narrow terms?

Everything is not equal. Everything is not opposite, either. The most brilliant minds know this as an obvious truth. The most brilliant singers, artists, mathematicians, engineers, and scientists also are the most aware of the multitudinous grey areas. It is the subtle difference between the “good” and the “great” that the “good” do not notice.

Happy.
Sad.
These are feelings, or emotions. Are there only two?

Angry.
Content.
Are they opposite? Are angry and calm opposites? If put on a thermometer of “anger”, is anger at boiling and calm at freezing? There are degrees and decimals of degrees between water freezing and water boiling on our ‘water’ thermometers. Both Celsius and Fahrenheit are “water state based” temperature measurement systems.

If you are stuck, consciously or subconsciously, in the style of right versus wrong thinking, you are severely limiting your success at everything. Your awareness is barely functioning. You are seeing one, when there are a thousand (or more). Your value systems will also be set up based on opposites and without degrees. The effect of this thinking (or the cause of it) is an illness called “being a perfectionist”.

A perfectionist usually sees things as perfect or wrong. Perfect or imperfect do not enter into the equation. “Imperfect” implies that something may be good or right but a portion is not. A perfectionist does not see or hear or feel things this way. Since in reality there are degrees or increments of things, it is almost beyond the comprehension of a true perfectionist that anything can exist between right and wrong.

In nature, there are degrees of things. There are incremental stages of development. These things have been observed and recorded and verified. In some religions, there is only right and wrong, good and bad, sin and non-sin. When these value systems are in the makeup of a person’s thinking on a subconscious level, very imperfect consequences can result. One consequence is that of being a malcontent-nothing is ever good or right. Another consequence is being hyper critical of self or others. Being a hyper critical person will have an insidious effect, in that the hyper critical person has an immense amount of trouble achieving any goal which requires incremental change. Incremental change is essential to learning and to advancing in art, in science, and in life.

If a person is a perfectionist, he/she will be mostly blind to incremental progress and will therefore discount it as if nothing has improved. God help the perfectionist, if the perfectionist will not help him/herself.

One Lesson

There are people who, in the past, have shown up for singing lessons, took one lesson, never to return. The good news is that this is rare. The bad news is that those same people would not go to an airstrip for flying lessons, attend one class and then expect to fly a plane without getting killed. Singing looks easy and so does flying, when the person “in charge” is very, very good at it. It is silly to think that a highly developed skill is gained through just a little bit of knowledge. You wouldn’t go to a doctor, who spent one day in medical school, to get your broken bone treated.

Anything you have learned in school was learned by consistent attendance, and repetition of studying and (hopefully) applying what you studied. The process is: you get information, you do something intelligent with it, and you repeat this until you have a profound understanding and the ability to utilize your newfound knowledge and skill. Or! You study and memorize, make your “A” and know little or nothing about the subject a month or a year later. What was the purpose of putting in the time, if you gain nothing in the long run?

So, above, we have three scenarios: 1) A person expects to learn a vast subject in a day. 2) A person consistently learns and applies and gets good at something. 3) A person treats life like “school” and goes for the grade but never is fully involved with the subject. The results of each approach should be obvious but evidently are either not obvious or are not important to the student. One of the three approaches results in success. The other two are a waste of everyone’s time.

Practice is where the magic lives. Practice is the time and place where you do the things to cause improvement to take place. If you have the proper tools to get the job done, you exponentially increase your chances of success. Conversely, if you have the wrong tools, you will make no progress, or worse still, you will get worse. I had a student a few years ago who went to a major university in Massachusetts and in a month lost an entire octave of her singing range. Her teacher, (who had a doctorate degree in voice) through tears, told her that she did not know how to fix her and that she was so sorry for having messed her up. At this point she started studying with me over the phone and in a month had all of her range back. You can truly get worse by practicing incorrectly or by practicing the wrong things.

To Be At The Top Of Your Game...

To be at "the top of your game" as a professional singer or musician takes more time than most people would ever guess. You do hit some plateaus along the way. They can feel like stagnation, like you are stuck. Like everything else, how you look at things is vital. When you hit a plateau, it is very likely than you will never get worse than you are on that day. You have reached a level that can be maintained without nearly as much effort as the effort it took to get to that level.


Spending a total of 3 hours a day is common, yet you have to build up to that, if you are not at that level of practicing. Between 3 and 6 hours a day is not uncommon among people who are professional or are heading in that direction. If that sounds outrageous, you can learn to bake a cake in an hour or so and make an edible cake. However, learning to bake a cake is not like learning to be a great singer or musician, because "knowing" and "doing" are not the same thing. You can know how to do something but you have to work on it for many many hours over a period of months and years to achieve greatness in the arts. It is true that in the culinary arts that hours are involved and many great chefs have spent more time in the kitchen than you would in several lifetimes. Practice (or the "doing" of it) is usually done alone and the audience doesn't ever see it, nor would they find it as interesting as the performance.

I have heard that some of the great singers spent 20 hours in the studio on just one song. Multiply that by 12 or 14 for a CD. How much time was spent in individual practice outside of the studio? How much was spent prior to ever arriving at that stage? Most professionals focus on the results of their practice rather than thinking how awful it was to use up all that time. Hell, they could have been watching TV instead, right?

The pleasure derived from being a professional singer is almost infinitely more rewarding than watching even the best that television has to offer, but no one knows this better than a professional singer. The same goes for writing and arranging music; it is hard to put into words the amount of fulfillment and gratification one gets from making music. Is the price paid worth the effort made? Ask anyone who has "made it".

Do you want the reward without paying the dues, so to speak? If so, don't expect anymore back than what you have given. That's the reality of it.

But wait, there's more. Great performers have also spent time in dance class, acting class, and/or working with a mentor or mentors, who can help with these things. To see what happens with those people who did not pay their dues, go out and see your local band who looks like one or all of them is a mannequin, or worse yet, spastic moving things trying to create charisma or stage presence but in actuality are hiding from the audience, disconnected, as if the crowd does not deserve any better. If you insult your audience, don't expect anything better than what you are giving them.

If this sounds harsh, there is nothing more harsh than the sting of failure. Plenty of "has-beens" or "never-weres" can attest to this as they blame everything and everyone, other than the fact of never having put in the time to learn and practice like the real professionals do.

The Pursuit Of Excellence

Whatever happened to the pursuit of excellence? Is excellence someone else's "job"? Many of us have become excellent fans of sports, music, art, dance, but what happened to our own goals?

What if you found out that to be a great singer or a great dancer, that it took as many hours in the day as a great olympic gymnast or skater puts in? Where would all the TV and YouTube time come from? Can you imagine working on every facet of your art and spending six to eight hours a day? Can you imagine 3 hours and 40 minutes on exercise alone, just to be the best as a dancer? Imagine it. It happens.

You get out of things what you put into them. If you want mediocrity as your result, then be mediocre with your practice. Sacrifice a big 15 to 20 minutes a day and, if you're lucky, you can maintain a healthy level of mediocrity. When you practice every other day, which is an "inconsistent approach", you will get inconsistent results. Sometimes things will work and sometimes they will not work.

It is fantasy and self-deception to expect greatness if you do less work than those who have achieved the results you love watching on TV, in concert, in sports, and other areas of life. Make a choice, if you have a passion, and decide to learn the fine art of practice and preparation. The sacrifice will be great but so will the reward.

Excuses

What happens when you find an excuse as big as your goal?

A Case For Private Study

Years ago, people learned things from other people who were masters of their crafts. If you wanted to be a blacksmith, you would find a blacksmith who was willing to teach you to do his work. In exchange for your education, you would also be his helper in the shop and do whatever he needed. At some point, you would be as good or better than the man who trained you.

Before colleges were established, people learned from others as apprentices, even in fine arts and in music. George Frederic Handel studied with various individuals, such as Zachau, the Halle Cathedral organist. He befriended other musicians and composers and studied with them. Handel also had his own music students.

Pablo Picasso, who created over 20,000 works of art, also studied with individuals. In 1897 he studied art for a short time in Madrid, then in Barcelona in 1899, where he became good friends with a group of modernist writers, poets, and artists who met at a café for several years (1880–1901.) Spending time with others of an artistic ilk apparently does have a positive influence.

Ludwig Von Beethoven studied composition with pianist and composer Christian Neefe. He later studied extensively with Joseph Haydn. He studied counterpoint with Albrecthsberger and Schenk. He learned violin from Franz Ries. Singer and teacher Johann van Beethoven, his father, taught Ludwig piano. In 1787, Beethoven's teacher Christian Neefe recommended that he take lessons from Mozart in Vienna, who was greatly impressed by Beethoven's ability and talent, and Mozarts rival, Antonio Salieri.

When Bach was 9, his parents had both died. He had to live with his older brother, J.C. Bach. It is no wonder that Johann Bach was a musician, coming from a musical family. His father was a trumpet player and a violinist. His brother, J.C. taught Johann organ, as well as the maintenance and design of organs. Bach studied privately with Dietrich Buxtehude, walking 400 kilometers (248.5 miles) to get to his teacher. Bach was renowned for his improvisational skill, which ability served him well as a composer. “I was obliged to work hard. Whoever is equally industrious will succeed just as well.” – Johann Sebastian Bach.”

Composers of yesteryear studied the works of other composers extensively. These days many amateur “writers” of music spend little or no time studying others’ works, in effort to be unique. They miss the boat. In being insular, they cut themselves off from the wealth of knowledge and skill of music theory, chord studies, part writing, composition and the result is either low-level mediocrity or hollow empty music, lacking in the various components, which were ignored. Then they blame their failings on everything except the true cause. They did not care enough to learn enough to know the difference between great music and bad music.

It is not the genre or the style which makes music good or bad. It is the lack of understanding of genre and style and the absence of profound knowledge of music that leads musicians and writers of music to failure.

Vocal Cord Surgery

Many times I have said that vocal cord surgery could be very risky, because scar tissue does not vibrate the same way as healthy normal tissue. This is also the case with the lips of brass players. My brass teacher said to never have used on you an electric needle, to close a cut on the lips, as it would cause scarring and scar tissue does not vibrate the same way as healthy tissue. Listen and watch the video all the way through. Here is the evidence from "voice doctor":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUmnqUT20I4

Online Singing Lessons

How good are online singing lessons?

The value and effectiveness of online singing lessons has everything to do with what is being taught. The reason for this is that there is very little standardization in the arts, in general. So, you might be getting a lesson that is fifty or a hundred years behind the times. All singing lessons are not the same. Shopping for singing lessons is like shopping for new and used cars. The differences are vast. You sometimes do not know what you are paying for until you run into the disappointment of having made a bad decision.

Some people say that the most important thing about singing is breathing. Some say that you “sing from your diaphragm”. Not only do they say that, they are adamant about this being the only correct way to sing, as if they are religious zealots. They sometimes get angry when you question this. They let you know that “everybody knows that.” This is simply untrue. You do not and cannot sing from your diaphragm. Physicians have known this for a long time. For over a hundred years, physicians have known the function of the diaphragm. I’ve asked several doctors about this and they all agree that the diaphragm is your “inhale muscle”, not your “exhale muscle.” Ask your own doctor next time you get a chance to visit with him or her. How much is a useless lie worth to you?

Here is a free online singing lesson: “Sing from your diaphragm!” Since this is an impossible thing to do, it is useless advice.

Did you know that your diaphragm does not have propreoceptive nerves in it? This means you cannot feel it, let alone manipulate it in magical ways to make it work upside down.

You could get a lesson on singing classical music. What if you want to do R&B, pop, jazz, or country music? Some classical teachers would say that what you are doing isn’t even music. Some would say there is only one way to sing and that is opera. Some classical singing teachers would tell you that R&B, pop, jazz, and country music is all junk and isn’t even music. There is even a term, which I have heard from some jazz musicians use, calling classical music “legit”, short for legitimate music. What is the rest? Illegitimate? Is that not at least a distasteful term? If you do want to sing classical music, what if your teacher only teaches country?

You could get a lesson on how to place your tone in the “masque” or how to place it forward. You might be able to get your sound all up in your nose but you will find it difficult to place your tone somewhere, unless you have had mechanical placement valves installed by your ENT, along with the remote control mechanism. Who wants wires coming out of their heads unnecessarily? What travels at 750 miles per hour? Sound. How long does it take sound to emerge from your vocal folds (vocal cords), until it exits your mouth? Assuming that is less than a 12 inch distance, try doing the math on that one. Also take a look at some anatomy charts and books and see if you can find placement valves.

Let’s say that you have a specific problem that you want help with. Your voice cracks or you might say that you have a break in your voice. If your online teacher doesn’t know a passaggio from a potato, then you might instead buy yourself some French fries instead of an online singing lesson. Your money might be better spent.

Your voice can be used as a musical instrument. It is a living mechanism with several functions. There are muscles, ligaments, cartilages and living tissue, which can be used, exercised, coordinated and controlled to make some amazing music. It is a great idea if a voice teacher truly understands the function of the larynx. The tongue, lips, the jaw, and teeth are also used for articulation. There are two main types of vowels and several subtypes. There is a safe and effective to warm up your voice before you use it and this can save you trouble and can enhance your performance and your endurance. There are other things you can do which might harm your voice. You do not want to discover these things by accident.

You can find information about singing on my website (www.vocalesy.com). It continues to grow and change as I continue to learn more about the voice from teachers and doctors. It was once thought that if you mix art with science that you will destroy the art. If you ignore the wonderful discoveries in the medical field, you may have a very short singing career.

S U C C E S S

How many times have you heard that lack of success stems from either fear of failure or fear of success?

This never made sense to me but I figured out why. It was stated in a generalized fashion. People feel fear and then go ahead and do things anyway. It might be a good idea to be more specific about the fear.

The fear of failure may actually be the fear of what others say or what is imagined that others may think. The fear may be something which never comes to pass, but instead is a nebulous anxious mess of negative ponderings. It might be a good idea to write everything you can think of regarding your own specific situation.

The fear of success is also non-specific. The fear of losing friends, should you pass them up in personal achievements, in a financial sense, or in some other way could be enough to shut down your efforts. There may be a deeper seated fear here. How about the fear of things which you do not like about yourself getting stronger. I have heard that an abundance of money can make us more of what we already are. Wealth can magnify our ability to do things or to do them more quickly, so it is a good idea to strengthen the great qualities in advance of your 2010 windfall.

What? You're not expecting a windfall? There is a good place to start. Expect it and then step out of your own road and start moving!

WORRYING

"Worrying is the art of augmenting your problems, while diminishing yourself." - Chuck Stewart

MAKE UP YOUR MIND!

Make up your mind. It can only be one way or the other. The choice is yours. This is a decision that you cannot wait to make, if you want any hope for success. This does mean any hope. What is it that you have to choose? You can’t have it both ways. You might have some clever ideas floating around to justify or explain away how you can get by with this but they are never going to work. This is like a “house divided against itself”. It cannot and it will not stand. Mutually exclusive, diametrically opposed, dichotomous intentions, irreconcilable differences, So, if you think you can be an artist and a critic at the same time, you can’t. The more you criticize others, the less of an artist you will become.

Criticism of others will turn on you for many reasons. You may start to believe that others think the same way as you. You may think that people in your audience are waiting for your every mis-step, your every flaw, and hoping to notice every note sung out of tune, every little time that you disconnect from your audience and stand there introverted about your own inadequacy as a singer. If you are so unprofessional as to voice your criticism to others, the ramifications are many: 1) Professionals are offended by criticism of others and the best ones keep their opinions to themselves and focus on their own “craft” being the best it can be. 2) A person who criticizes others is directing attention away from him/herself and probably for a reason known or one undiscovered. 3) You win the label of being critical and most people do not desire to be submitting themselves to such hateful and harsh scrutiny and they will avoid you at all costs. 4) You will appear as if you are difficult or even impossible to work with in a productive manner. 5) You kill yourself off and stand in your own way to any progress or will certainly thwart all hopes of rapid progress because you cannot do anything good enough or right enough to your own critical (as opposed to artistic) standards.

Criticism is not a “skill” or an indication of brilliance or of having superior knowledge or superior talent. Yes, we all do have opinions and we all have some concept of standards or artistry. If we put more attention on working toward being the best we can be, we won’t have time to look around at the things that are so wrong and so horrible about others. Anyone can criticize. But everyone cannot sing as a professional. Yet, professional isn’t even the real standard as much as being able to sing with a high level of aesthetics, of sincere feeling, of knowing that singing is for the audience and it is a gift that is given without expecting something in return.

Being critical causes artistic blindness and artistic deafness. If you find yourself uncomfortable or reacting to the people who praise other artists and you are filled with resentment or jealousy or worse, you might want to take some time and look at “the man in the mirror”. Focus on your art. What is so good about you or so right about you that you can speak badly of others? There is a reason that “the golden rule” has been called “golden”.

Being critical is a symptom of love, right? It is hard to use the words critical and love in the same sentence. Would you expect that a critical person would also be a great artist? Would you expect a critical person to be grateful? Critical people are negative. Negativity and artistry do not mix well. There are many many more career failures of people who are critical of others than there are critical people who are successes. Happiness does follow success but it also precedes success. Look for the good and you will find that there is more good than you ever noticed. But, if you want to be miserable, be very, very critical and you will soon find out where that road leads. Make up your mind. It can only be one way or the other. The choice is yours.

DECISIONS, DECISIONS

You are disarming a bomb. There are two wires and you have to choose which one to cut. The bomb is ticking. It is so old, it isn’t even digital and the incessant ticking is annoying you, as a bead of sweat drips off your nose and onto the convoluted mess of wires. You have figured out that the two wires you have separated from the mess are the two possibilities. Still, you have to make a decision before the time runs out. You have a blue wire and a green wire. If you cut one, the ticking stops and everything is all right. If you cut the wrong one, the ticking also stops but the bomb explodes, vaporizing your head and sending your soul to who knows where. It is a tough decision, to say the least. It is actually the decision of your life. Your training did not prepare you to make this decision. Wait a minute! Green is usually a ground wire, but this bomb may have been built by a madman. Maybe he used a green wire to throw me, you think.

Have you ever been in this situation? This is the old “fork in the road but no road sign” problem. Which way do you go? Sometimes you don’t have enough information to make a good decision. Sometimes you don’t have the right tools, such as a compass, in the fork in the road problem. In most situations, you can gather information and make an informed decision. If you want to make an intelligent decision, you should not only gather information, but also check out the track record and the statistics of success that lie along that direction you will take.

When you make a firm decision, you cut off all other possibilities. A “cut” made in surgery is called an incision and the word incision is related to decision. So, you had better be certain, informed, and intelligent with your decision or you will suffer the consequences. With the right decision, you will reap the reward.

In the 70s, I had three touring bands. In one of these was a trumpet player. A nice guy but he was barely adequate, bordering on inadequate. He was a decent amateur more than he was a pro. Yet, every day he practiced diligently and consistently. He wasn’t on a plateau. A plateau may be temporary. He was hitting a ceiling and never did break through. Why? Whatever he was practicing was either the wrong thing to practice or he was practicing it the wrong way. My lead trumpet player offered to help him but he refused his help. I had to let him go and replace him with someone who could handle the demands of the position. My standards were very high and I could not compromise them because doing so would weaken the band musically and would demoralize those of us who were at the standard that we knew would lead to success.

As a singer, for many years, I practiced the wrong things and the results were: I had a limited range, I strained, I sometimes lost my voice, I had to “sing below my break”, and I couldn’t get rid of the break in my voice. During the eighteen years I lived in Las Vegas, I had friends who were singers. While I was singing in a show, one of my singer friends introduced me to a singing teacher and she taught me the right things, the right way and I handled my issues. The success of handling this and the freedom I gained were a million times better than the frustration that I had all the years prior. My musicianship was more than sufficient to keep me working professionally but I wanted to do more and my head was up against a ceiling until I learned to demolish the old habits which held me back for too many years.

JEWEL

I went with Sheree to see Jewel in concert in Melbourne, Florida last night. The warmup act was an awesome lady dressed in a bumblebee outfit (Halloween) named Meiko. I don't even know if I spelled her name correctly, but she was excellent.

Jewel was onstage with three guitars, an electric and two acoustics. Having binoculars, I saw that she likes Taylor guitars. Understand that it was just her onstage and that she had three guitars, all with very different sounds. Her guitar playing is that of a consummate professional musician now. I couldn't say that about her first CD, where there was some uneven sounding rhythm and time on a song. Now her playing is beyond reproach. Mind you I was in Las Vegas for 18 years and played with and heard some of the best musicians who have ever lived and she is at that high level of professionalism and artistry.

Although her playing was impeccable, her singing was truly phenomenal. There is no one I can compare her to. She is truly unique and before I get into that, I have to say this: If you have not heard Jewel in person, she is light years beyond the CDs of her I have heard. There are sounds in her voice that I don't believe are recordable. Her tone is multi-dimensional. Let me clarify that. It is as if she is maybe 10 or more people at once. The overtones coming through the most pure tones are ultra-rich. She not only can do controlled fry tones, but also can do a thing where I could hear two pitches coming out at once and it was not "throat singing". For the distinction, you might want to check that term out on the internet.

As if her pyrotechnics were not enough, Jewel gets an enormous amount of unbridled uninhibited emotion out of herself. Somehow she can do this without caving in on herself. If you have ever sung and truly felt the emotion, you know that it is possible to become totally overwhelmed and overcome to where you simply cannot go on. She has made it past that point and with an intensity that seems to transcend time and space. I was drawn in and felt her emotion, almost as if it were my own.

Her musicality in singing her songs was far beyond her CDs. The essence was very much there but the new twists and turns were such that you could tell that her improvisational prowess is more developed than any jazz singer I have ever heard. Remember I was in Las Vegas for 18 years and did hear the best of the best. This is something that has to be experienced because mere words pale by comparison to the actuality of her artistic genius.

If you haven't heard Jewel live, you have only heard 1% of what is there.

Between songs she told fascinating stories about her life: Growing up in Alaska, her mother left the family, singing in bars with her father, worked her way across the U.S. and down into Mexico, singing for money the whole way and the whole way back. At one time she was homeless, living out of her car and then no longer had the car. This lady has more than paid her dues.

She ended her concert with two encores and the last including yodeling, which was the absolute best I have ever heard. She first did this at a "normal" speed and was impressive with her accuracy and speed, then she sped it up at a ridiculous speed and ended with yodeling that was at light speed. Obviously, not literally, but you would swear that what she did is humanly impossible.

I have never been so much in the present moment and totally fascinated as I was in this two hour performance that is hard to describe other than as a religious experience. That was the feeling I had, not worshipping her by any means, just lifted up and elevated to places I hadn't known before (and for a full two solid hours of Jewel).

Gotta Have A Break!

"If you want to make it in the recording business, you have to have a break."

"You have to de discovered by someone or you will never make it."

"The odds are so high that you won't make it, you might as well not even try."

"Keep your day job."

Have you heard these things? I have. I've also heard that success happens when preparation meets opportunity. Many people are not prepared for success. They are not ready. If there was ever a holistic thing, that thing would be about a singer who has "made it." A singer has to have preparedness as an artist, a technician, a business person, and also have the emotional maturity and control beyond almost everyone else to be able to not only persevere long enough to get some place, but also to sustain and grow and go from there.

It takes work and dedication consistently to arrive at the point of opportunity in a prepared state. It is more "mental" than you might imagine. Confidence doesn't come from rotely going through exercises or singing songs nonchalantly. There has to be mental preparation prior to practice, during practice, and after practice. It takes a big goal and it takes sufficient faith that it is possible and attainable.

Can you imagine the preparation and the work Michelangelo did to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel? I have been there and stood there and looked up at it, marveling at the work. To see it in person is to appreciate it to its fullest. Seeing it in person also makes this quote from Michelangelo hit with more impact: "The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it."

When it comes to the business side of music, the first thing to know is that it is business. Business has its own set of rules. Many singers may not have had experience in business or finance. This is evidenced by some of the horror stories of personal bankruptcies of singers who (oddly enough) have highly successful CDs. How can this happen? Easily, unfortunately. It is very easy to misunderstand contracts, if you haven't read any before. Attorneys outside of the entertainment field often do not understand the ins and outs of the music business.

It takes a team and great leadership to launch a career in music but it first takes a singer who is mentally prepared and musically prepared. Oddly enough without such preparation, the opportunities seem to either run away or never even show up.

Multifactorial Approch

Singing is made up of several sets of skills.

The primary essential skill is that of musicianship. The strength of this or the weakness of it will always show up (often unbeknownst to the singer) and will be obvious to those educated in music. Education simply means, in this sense, that the singer hears music and his/herself knows what was heard, indentifies it, relates to it, understands it, could re-sing it or even write it down AND this has occurred from having somehow learned these skills. Inadequate musicianship always results in an inadequate singer. This is nor a fatal flaw, however. This is something which can be improved and doesn't necessarily have to take a long time.

There are several skills making up musicianship, some of which were mentioned above. Most music majors in college have a major instrument and a minor instrument. Most singing majors major in voice and minor in piano. Knowing piano is very useful in learning chords, harmony, and music theory. Voice majors take music theory. I teach music theory (I prefer the term harmonic technique because it is more precise and clear). Rather than a broad and general approach to the subject, I teach it from the perspective of a singer. This relationship from voice to musicianship builds more quickly due to the application of whatever musicianship initially exists being built to the expansion of knowledge and skill, as it directly relates to singing.

On Being A GREAT Singer

When you have sung professionally for nearly forty years, have been a vocal coach for 35 years, you have been exposed to a veritable myriad of problems, all of which have begged or screamed for solutions.

Being a student of the voice, music, arranging, composing, songwriting, etc. has been and will be continuously studying the science and the art of the aforementioned. There have been debates through the years as to whether it is possible or even prudent to “mix art with science”. In actuality, one may well discover that the two are inseparable, in that one cannot exist without the other.

Acoustics, being the science of sound, has played an integral part in the development of better wind instruments. They are better in sound quality and in playability. Just ask a true professional musician about the difference between the trumpets of the 40s and the ones of today, such as the trumpets of Chris Botti, Wynton Marsalis, or Arturo Sandoval.

Acoustics as regards voice is alive and well on many levels. The interior of the singer’s pharo-maxo-naso-laryngeal cavities varies from one singer to another and all result in contributing to the unique sound of each singer. Inside are several variables including a unique shape and size in which will be the absorption, reflection, resonance, diffusion, and reverberation of sound. All of these affect the tone quality, timbre, sound level, projection, and the overtones of the sound that is emitted.

We could say that we can ignore all of this because we are “just singing” and that is true to an extent. Definitely we need to ignore specific things as we perform because the distraction will detract from our performance in various ways. When the problem arises of a singer attempting to sound or sing a certain way which is contrary to the natural “equipment” of the singer, a solution or solutions may be addressed and explored. Science may hold some keys to the solutions.

For years anatomy, medicine, and physics were largely ignored by singing teachers and vocal coaches. People’s tongues, teeth, lips and the interior resonating chambers are as individual as a fingerprint. How do you think you can identify the uniqueness of a speaking voice or a singing voice? These factors all play a part. Singers will tend to work for or against the natural equipment they are born with. As a vocal coach who has studied the variables listed above, I can assist in finding the natural road of least resistance to a person’s own unique sound. This is one area where it is not nice to try to fool mother nature. And this is not to say that things cannot be manipulated, such as doing character voices, but there is a right way and a wrong way to do this. The wrong way may lead to vocal injury.

Singing is a hearing art. The audience hears the art but the singer hears so much more. After years of singing, many things transcend mere thought and occur on an intuitive level. To arrive at this level, we may learn several things at a profound level along the way.

Singing is musical. The best singers I have heard know music. They may or may not know the nomenclature or the terminology of music, but they still know music. It is purported that the great drummer Buddy Rich did not read music. This hasn’t been verified but I recommend seeking out some clips on You Tube and listen to his playing. Musicianship can be achieved at a very high level without getting past musical illiteracy. I am not sure if Frank Sinatra could read or write music. If not, that didn’t get in the way of his long career.

Musicianship is a vast subject, when broken down into all the component parts, and therefore is a subject unto itself. It will be noticeable in the results of hearing all the components of music which include: rhythm, time, pitch, dynamics, tone, timbre, style, form, structure and much more. If we could all at once “download” this and the rest of what makes a great singer, I think your head would explode because there is much more to this than what meets the superficial ear and eye. Musicianship is huge. There is no getting around the importance of it as a singer.

Acting may lead to being able to more easily perform as a singer but if the singer doesn’t move past acting, the performance will look like the singer is a “fake”, or even worse, a liar. The emotions have to be freed up and express-able with appropriate levels of intensity. Great singers perform to their audiences and are not a “parody of a singer”. Still there is the factor of “communication”. A great singer will make each person in the audience feel as if he or she is in the conversation, not just observing it. I personally felt this from a distance of perhaps 200 feet. The singer was, in fact, Frank Sinatra. People do not go to concerts to simply listen to a singer. They can do that on an I-pod or with a radio. Something else happens at a live performance and although lip synching may sound about the same, an almost magical phenomenon happens at a concert and it has everything to do with the live performance. You cannot scientifically measure it but you can definitely feel it, unless there is something wrong with you at some level.

The state of mind of the singer can make or break the greatness of the singer. I saw two famous singers one New Year Eve in Las Vegas practically fall flat. You would think that their integrity as professional artists and singers would have been sufficient to not affect the performance but they obviously failed to do their best that evening. It was disappointing, annoying, sad and sometimes even funny to watch them make fools of themselves (in comparison to their usual levels of performance). The disappointment was that the audience paid and the performers were paid to perform. They did perform but they brought the effects of their argument to the stage with them. I felt cheated. I felt that they betrayed the audience. I had seen them many times before but not one time after that ridiculous and immature debacle of a show.

The overall physical health of a singer will affect the greatness of a singer. You can think of examples of this yourself. Tiredness, illness, or injury will all affect singing. I am of the belief that there are levels of health which are above what is considered normal or healthy. There are optimal levels of health which, since we use our bodies to sing, will make subtle or even great differences in our ability to “do our best”.

Talent and intelligence will affect the greatness of a singer because ability and intellect are the areas from which we draw for singing at a star quality professional echelon. We cannot pretend that these factors have nothing to do with greatness. We also cannot necessarily create these things of intelligence and talent if they do not appear to be present. We can work harder at developing other strengths and improving weaknesses, though. If a person has a passion and an ability for singing, many things can be overcome but there may need to be compromises made as to how and where singing is done.

Work which is done in a diligent and educated manner will produce improvement as long as all other factors of greatness are present in the singer. Work done in a slipshod manner will produce no or little improvement. Work done in the presence of misinformation or false information regarding and of the factors of greatness will produce no results or even bad results. Singers can, have, and will injure their voices or if not that, never ever reach their full potential.

Greatness doesn’t take forever but at the same time it doesn’t happen overnight. It doesn’t happen without preparation, correct knowledge, talent, ability, and the application of true, tried and tested techniques. It takes courage to be great and courage to persevere and near perfect discipline to consistently work toward a goal with high integrity to achieve greatness.

TAKE 100%

"Take 100% responsibility for your life." - Jack Canfield

This is enormous. It's not a joke. It's not a superficial cursory assessment. It may take a few days or weeks to get this into perspective, to back up far enough away to get objective. It may not even be possible to do but it puts you in the driver's seat with your hands on the wheel and your foot on the accelerator.

The first thing to let go of is "blame".

If that seems too hard, then start with this: "When you complain, your power goes down the drain." - Yours Truly (Chuck Stewart)

Free Advice

So, you're a singer. Singers sing. Right? Do you sing along with singers you love? Who doesn't? But, how far will that get you to sounding as good as your favorite or sounding even better than her/him?

Granted, you can make some progress by trying to duplicate style, pitch, and so forth, but that only takes you so far. As you know, singers sing with music and they don't have someone else to carry the tune for them. This kind of practice of singing with a singer can act like a crutch and actually put you on a plateau of no progress. The first step on up that mountain is to do a solo flight. First try it with silence. Sing it a capella (with no music).

Speaking of "a capella", did you know that is Italian, as is most music terminology? "Capella" is Italian for chapel. Chapels usually are so small that they don't have pianos or organs in them. So we don't mean to sing small, we just mean to sing without any instruments and we call that a capella. It is a great way to discover what you really know and what you are faking or are mistaking. I just had to make that rhyme!

Philosophy Of A Singer

What are we all after with the art of singing--our singing? In the final analysis, aren't we living as singers to share our art and in doing so to uplift the spirits of others or to take people on a journey through emotions, thoughts, feelings, and ideas which we want to share? We want to do this without it being impeded by our own musical or technical shortcomings. We want to be up to the task. We actually want to have more skill ability, endurance, range, artistic expression, and artistic imagination than what is required to make an impact, to change lives, to bring happiness, or to have others experience or know us to the core of our very souls.

We want to have overcome the impediments and barriers and just be able to thrive as artists and make the world a better place. Isn't that what art is about? Because of these issues, I have created a group on this very site. It is called "Singers Solutions". This group is what that is all about. What are our tools? Which ones are we missing? How do we use the ones we have and gain the others so that we can achieve our goals? Let us explore the possibilities and the potentialities which may lie beyond our present awareness. Let's find the things in ourselves to turn dreams into realities.

How I Evaluate Singers

The number one vocal skill is actually a combination of several skills and is collectively known as "musicianship". If you are lucky enough to have gained it from osmosis, then God bless you! Most people have no idea why they cannot sing in tune, do great riffs, understand style, form, structure and hear and know melodic and harmonic intervals and more. The audience hears that something isn't quite right but may not know what to call it or how to analyze it. Musicianship goes far beyond merely singing in tune and merely having a great sense of tonality. There is so much more!

Sometimes vocal technique has not been fully developed and there are problems with register transitions, or breaks in tone production quality. Sometimes vocal technique is inadequate for endurance or range or even to sing a specific style competently.

Some singers have problems "finding their own voice" or developing a unique style.

Many singers are musically illiterate; unable to read or write music or to sight sing. Such things can be taught and may even be nonessential, if the levels of musicianship with hearing and executing are sufficiently developed. Knowing chords, scales, chord progressions and being able to write music (or at least to do sequencing) would place a singer in the position of more easily interfacing with musicians. Professional musicians may are usually so advanced as to know and perform such things as second nature. Some musicians think singers are not musicians at all and have little respect for them, treating them (in person OR behind their backs) as if they are severely deficient in musical knowledge.

Recording experience is invaluable and irreplaceable because without it, a singer never has complete objectivity. What do you sound like to others?

For the vast majority, the multitudinous skills of singing do not come naturally and do not come without some help and/or without countless hours of practice.

Take a peek at www.vocaleasy.com.

The Economy

The thing to do in a bad economy is to promote and advertise more than is normal. Now is the time to make connections and to have promotional material going out to appropriate places and people. Networking is essential to these times, so be careful about burning bridges. There can be long term effects.

Things are slow but they have not stopped. We may have already hit bottom and the upswing will be gradual at first but our stopping at this point could prove disasterous. The strong will survive this. Be strong.

MUSICAL LITERACY

Literacy has been defined as the ability to read and write and to understand what has been read and/or written. The CIA has a publication you can access online called The World Factbook. It states that 99% of the United States is now literate, being those over the age of 15, who can read and write. The worldwide number is not so good with an average of only 82%. There are more facts and figures as to location and the sex of the indiviuals but the average is 82% worldwide.

I don't believe that the CIA has studied the musical literacy of singers but I have made a few non-scientific observations. I have noticed that some of the great singers I know are also great musicians. One of those singers is a man who sings extremely well in tune and has also written, produced, and performed his music AND is also a great jazz pianist. It turns out that the late Nat King Cole also was a great jazz pianist. I never recall hearing him sing off-pitch, out of tune, "pitchy" or anything less than singing at a consummate professional level and consistently so. I believe that his level of musicianship transferred over from the instrument to the voice.

On television competition shows I hear singers all over the place with pitch and with other intonation problems. You can have all the vocal technique in the world and have a voice which never cracks and never tires and STILL be an average or even a terrible singer. If you can not sing in tune with yourself and with accompaniment, you need help. The help comes in the forms of melodic and harmonic ear training and in learning modern harmonic technique. Most singers are not musically literate enough to even start this kind of training and many singers have no inkling of their own problem, and if they are, they don't know where to even start to straighten it out.

I am compiling the solution to these issues in such a way that singers can handle their lack of musicianship once and for all. Help is on the way...

DEATH OF A SINGING CAREER

What are the things which will potentially kill a singing career? These shouldn't be a secret but you would think so when you listen to all the competition TV shows.

The first is no musicianship (or poor musicianship). What CAUSES singers to sing out of tune, off pitch, or even worse: change keys? You may not know what to call it but it sure does sound amateurish or bad and it is sooooooooo irritating to hear. What is that singer NOT hearing and NOT identifying and why don't they know it?

The second is not being able to use the voice without it cracking or breaking. "Air" is not the answer to this but if you think it is, well...you're going to keep cracking.

There are more factors, but a third one is that a singer has no concept of how his or her own voice truly sounds. This can be emotional, mental, physical, or simply a lack of experience and/or training. Get recorded and try to be objective when you hear the playback

The solutions are not so complicated but they do go beneath the superficial and that is also where a true artist goes to improve and learn and thrive and succeed.

WELCOME TO EARTH!

This is a test! But, it's not only a test. It is a trial. It is an adventure. It is a proving ground. It is life as we currently know it. People will admire you, hate you, love you, judge you, help you, hurt you, so, it is up to you to very wisely choose your friends and associates. Most people will never see your "big picture" as you will also never fully see another's "big picture". So, from time to time, you will be judged and it won't be based on your entirety. It could be that you will be judged on one word or one sentence or one project or on several. You can be judged on how you look, talk, walk, act, think, and on your product in life and even on your production methods, procedures and the expeditiousness of those, or the lack thereof.

All of the above is why friends and family can be so valuable. We need a support group much more than we need harsh criticism. Being a teacher, I have to see as much of the picture as a student will allow me to see or hear. When a student holds back, the student is also not revealing the best. Why the best is also held back never makes any sense. The more criticism a person has been hit with, the more the person tends to hold back or be careful or withdraw or even eventually relinquish the dreams and goals which are so much a part of the person.

How could we handle criticism so that it doesn't squash the very life out of ourselves? We could always prepare and always seek to improve every facet of our life's products. We could always speak as if we are going to see ourselves on YouTube, as will the entire world. We could work on the nearly lost art of good manners and start to have more consideration, tolerance, compassion, understanding, and love for others. If karma is real or if simply the "law of attraction" is real, we may well get back what we give. If your integrity is intact and you have done enough to feel good about how your product measures up to the industry standard, then criticism has little effect BUT be sure that the product IS at the industry standard.

If you run into a person who is mostly or even nothing but a critic, realize that the person most likely could not stand up or measure up to his or her criticism imposed upon others. The most critical seem to also be the least competent. Remember this: It takes a few seconds to criticize but it takes days, weeks, months, and years to be a great artist. When you hear that four minute song, you do not see or hear the time, all of the time, that made it what it is.

E G O

As a teacher, there are many times you learn some valuable lessons. Sometimes these lessons come from the oddest circumstances. There is a saying in Karate that you should enter the dojo (karate studio) with your cup empty. Why is this? Because, when your cup is full, there is no room to add even a drop more, without overflowing. Therefor, you will leave with the same as when you arrived and there will be nothing new for you to take with yourself.

So, how would this relate to a singer? Before I answer my own question, I'll say this: I had a friend when I was a teenager who broke his leg in a motorcycle accident. He told me that "once you feel you have mastered the bike, it is time to stop riding." I had a student recently whose ego was so far beyond the skill level that it had become more than just an impediment to improvement and learning. The student's cup was beyond full and it wasn't water that was in that cup.

What is a teacher to do? Be patient and either the student will enter with an empty cup or will never return and reality will hit hard and painfully, when it is least expected. Sad but true.

What is the student to do? Figure out how to be honest and objective.

You have to have confidence and skill and artistry and even ego BUT when the ego is beyond everything else, you are living in your own "Truman Show" and you can't see the world around you but the "world" is watching and listening to you. It is a hard reality and there is no sugar coating it, no excusing it, therefor, it may be time to reassess

Sense and Sensibility

What is sense and what is sensibility and why should we care? A sensible answer might be the one based on thought, being sense, and on wisdom, being sensibility.

In terms of singing and of taking good care of one’s voice, it might be prudent to first determine where to find reliable and accurate sources of information so that we can make educated decisions on the best course of action. You would not want to do things which would harm your voice. You also wouldn’t want to do things which would make you sing worse than you do and you would want whatever you do to be safe and effective. You wouldn’t want to take forever to reach your singing goal. Forever can mean different things to different people but if we are being sensible, we wouldn’t want to spend the next 10 years preparing to perform if we were already in our twenties or older. Most people don’t want to wait that long and understandably so. That wouldn’t be sensible, would it? So, as singers, we want to be the best we can be and always have use of our voices on which we can rely.

This should be obvious but it isn’t and there are reasons that it isn’t. Here is why: there are people who believe that there are singing methods. There definitely are and some are effective while others are less effective, slightly harmful, and even dangerous. How would a singer make an informed decision? One way would be to examine the statistics of vocal pedagogues. A singer should find out the level and rates of success of the students of a pedagogue, find out the numbers of professionals in the music business (including opera, Broadway, Pop, R&B, Country, etc.) who have studied directly or indirectly with the instructor. Additionally, the advice and writings should be evaluated in relationship to the organizations of singing instructors and even of the medical profession, specifically E.N.Ts (ear, nose and throat specialists).

Why would such an approach not be so obvious as the one to take? Simply because there are several colleges, universities, high schools and lower level schools which are teaching some so-called "traditional methods" of singing, which are out-dated, useless, and some are even dangerous as far as the "catch phrases" they are using. These are over one hundred years behind the times, yet their methods and fabrications are so deeply fixed in their pedagogies that they are never questioned by the innocent, inexperienced, and naive.

If ever a student should find herself or himself in the presence of a teacher who tells them to “place their tone” somewhere, to “sing from the diaphragm”, or to visualize silly things while they sing, they would do well to hold tight to their money and run away very quickly. Many of us have wasted our time with teachers who never had the personal integrity or ethics to study such things as anatomy, acoustics, or physics. Just because they were taught at the university level the things with which they now infect others does not mean that they are correct or that it is a moral justification for so doing. This may sound intense or even harsh but the realities of vocal fold injuries from unknowing abuse can be even more harsh.

WHAT IS EXTRAORDINARY?

From the American Heritage dictionary extraordinary is "beyond what is ordinary or usual." If you look at the first definition of the word extraordinary, that is an interesting concept. As an experiment, I tried doing something that is just a little more than usual and it was quite interesting as far as the possibilities which popped up as a result.

What if every day a person would do just one thing that is above and beyond the usual? It doesn't have to be a big thing or a remarkable thing but just one thing "beyond what is ordinary". What could happen?

Look around where you are sitting as you read this and notice what is there that you had something to do with. I remember years ago being told that if "you keep doing what you are doing, then you will keep getting what you are getting." This is obviously and even painfully common sense when viewed superficially but when observed more profoundly, there lie greater truths to be discovered.

How many times have we all decided that we could set the world on fire with our talents and abilities, only to have the matches taken away for fear we may be pyromaniacs? The solution is to hold on to the dream and the goal and let the purpose be the fuel. Write out the reasons, maybe 100, for why you do what you do that you care about, your goal. When you do that, your grip on your matches will be far stronger than before and when you start the flame going, it will be too big to put out.

BUT where does it start? One match or one thing that is beyond the norm and beyond the ordinary and what do you gain from this? You immediately gain hope. The same thing carried out on a daily basis for a long enough period of time can lead to the second definition of extraordinary "highly exceptional; remarkable." It is almost like STEP ONE and STEP TWO in the order in which the definitions appear in the dictionary.

This is a good place to start because hope can lead to excitement, which leads to more action, which leads to enthusiasm and a new muscle is being developed and disciplne becomes easier and life goes beyond the ordinary. Who wants an ordinary life? True artists, ever seeking to improve, understand this very well.

What little extra thing are you going to do today?

Answers TO A STUDENT PROJECT

Below are the answers to questions for which I participated to help out a student doing a project for school:

1. In your own words, define what singing means to you.

Singing means being able to artistically and musically communicate with an audience while expressing creativity and doing it in such away that there is an exchange between myself and the audience. I give them a song and my attention and they give me attention and a response, when I am finished, and sometimes even before that. It is a very personal "gift", if you will, in both directions.

2. What are the education requirements? (courses you need to take, degree, etc.)

Many great singers have had little or no education. Many great singers have studied voice, either at the university level or in private study. Most singers, who we perceive as amateurish or are "not great" have problems of which they may or may not be aware. The deficiencies can be either a single problem or multifactorial but will lie in one of the following: vocal technique, musicianship, artistry, appropriateness of style, talent, or the level of ability of interfacing and working with others.

Many great singers have studied music in high school and college. All universities are not the same, by any stretch of imagination, and each has its own stylistic bent. Berklee School of Music in Boston, MA is quite different from Juliard or Eastman School of Music. Many universities are geared toward making educators instead of performers.

3. What tasks or jobs are performed?

Singing, sight singing, live performance, recording the voice. Some singers are also required to move and/or dance, such as in most stage performance. Some singers are also songwriters. Some are also arrangers.

4. What is a typical day of work like?

A singer at a theme park has a work day much different from a singer in a Las Vegas show or a singer on Broadway. A typical day would include individual practicing, rehearsals are a possibility, performance may include makeup and costumes. Prior to the performance there is usually some nervousness but afterwards is usually a great sense of accomplishment beyond many other "jobs". A "job" in a theme park can mean having to be present for an eight hour shift but not singing for those eight hours. Shows, once set, usually require no rehearsal after the show is running but there are exceptions to that, A person in a show may have the entire day free and only have to arrive early for the show and is free to do whatever afterwards.

Some singers are recording artists or work in local groups, which changes all the aforementioned variables.

5. What will the future be like for people in this career?

The future for a singer is potentially limited (or enhanced) by the singer's level of performance, the ability to sell, market, do public relations, keep current, find out what is desired by directors, venues, record companies, etc. A career can run for a short time or for decades, depending on the above and the attitude and mental physical health of the singer.

6. What types of advancement or promotions are there?

A singer can go from a local artist to a national or even international artist. Background singers for name acts can advance to solo artists. Most careers are self-directed until signed by a label. Chorus singers in plays may potentially advance to being soloists.

7. What titles could a worker possibly hold?

Singer, singer/songwriter, diva, recording artist, stage performer, chorus singer, singer/director, American Idol.

8. Where does a person who has this job work?

There is work for singers in nearly every city in the U.S. but many singers will not make a living singing unless they learn the business side of music very well.

9. What is the environment like?

The environment is like all work environment but the intensity of emotion may be higher. Every workplace problem can be present and many can be added having to do with sound support or recording equipment technical difficulties or failure, in worse case scenario. When singing is at semi-celebrity level, or celebrity level, the "job" could be one of the most enjoyable in the world.

10. What are the hours?

These can vary around the clock. Most shows are at night but at theme parks can be all day and at night. Some people do weddings (usually receptions) and the time and date are typically either afternoon or evening. Those type performances are between two and four hours.

11. Do you think singers make a good salary for this job?

Singers may or may not be salaried. They can perform in many ways and at many levels, they can (some) teach. Most singing positions are for the duration of a show or for a recording contract. Some singers make many millions and at the bottom of the industry, there are singers who cannot make enough money to support themselves financially and must take other work, possibly outside of music, to be able to make a living.




www.vocaleasy.com

www.singinglessonslive.com

THE BIGGEST LIE

The Biggest Lie
Category: Life


The biggest lie I ever told is, "I am doing the best I can."

How would anyone know their best? The main thing is, is it good enough? Is it better than is required or needed? Is it based upon the effort of one? Is it based upon the effort of many but is organized by and directed by one? Is it a goup activity but I have not put together the group? What is the reality of it, or more accurately, the actuality of it? Things to ponder.

Maybe the best is not what is important as much as: is it enough or is it better than enough? If you look at this as a professional, the 'enough' part is the part that is the standard of the industry or the state of the art. So, how does it compare and what is needed in knowledge or in skill to bring it to the level and beyond? Things to learn and/or things to practice. Are you doing the best you can do?

EFFORT AND BEING CREATIVE

Sometimes we are so caught up in our own worlds or our own lives that we can't back away far enough to get some perspective and be objective. Sometimes seeing something through another's eyes, or in this case another activity of an art, can be oblique enough to cut through the clutter and enlighten oneself. I wrote the following but it is from a different perspective than music but it applies because it deals with the creative process and may well be applied to the writing of a song or a play or even of doing a performance.


How much effort does it take to start something?

When the ideas are fresh and the goal is new, it seems to be the most exciting and things roll right along. Seeing the goal and none of the obstacles is something that should be perhaps captured in some way. Writing about it, describing it, sketching it out, clipping pictures from magazines, or getting pictures from online (non-copyrighted ones) can all go together to make what John Assaraf might call a "vision board". Not a bad idea to go from mental images to the ones that can be seen daily as a reminder.

In architecture, in the design of a house, there may be many sketches, pictures, clippings, product brochures, a plot plan with the survey (maybe a soils test report?) and many written notes in the interview with the client. This is when the excitement and enthusiasm seem to be the highest in this design development phase.

How much effort does it take to keep something going?

The law of inertia, having to do with remaining in motion comes into play. All sorts of friction and resistance may come into play: The worst for me has been lacking information or lacking certainty that the information is correct. Other little things, which are part of the creation, can feel like friction or resistance but may, in fact, merely be part of the process. Sometimes unrelated problems, demanding to be solved, may blind side the project and stop it completely until the "fire is put out". Looking at the game from a broader perspective of it all being part of life can help to not react to the situation as if it were devastating, even though it is just a little bump in the road. Look back at the "vision board" and those wonderful creative feelings will start up again.

How much effort does it take to finish something?

The excitement and the enthusiasm may have waned. The goal may have faded and may have lost some of its clarity. Near the attainment of the goal is the imminent let down like the kind you feel when you are a kid and you are playing outside and the baseball game in the alley is all that there is in the entire world and it is so real in your mind that you can actually see the fans, the umpire, the stands with the crowd screaming for you and you smell the popcorn in the air and the hot dogs and the grass and the dirt on the field itself and you have just run out of the dugout because it is your turn to bat and the crowd is roaring and you are pumped and your mom yells for you to come in for dinner as the reality of the alley smacks away the imaginary one which was so much better but but but... You are hungry and dinner is going to be great! What just happened? You were a major league ball player and your imagination is beyond excellent and yet you are ok. You have a new goal and that goal is dinner.

In a design project, for example, is the goal the finished flawless beautiful set of plans and specifications that the builder will follow to bring the idea from the mind to the paper to the reality of it finished and completed? The final push is the new goal to see the creation of the house as it turns into a home for the people, who are ecstatic to live and enjoy their new environment, which is a work of art both inside and out. When it is up, that house is seeing all the puzzle pieces fitting together and working perfectly for many many years to come.

But wait. There's more. What? A new goal? Right. The new clients are scheduled and they are such nice people and not only do you get to design their new home, but they are also such appreciative people that they become your friends for life. You are their Michelangelo and you are scuplting their home around their ideas and their lifestyle (at least thy think of you that way) and you are very fortunate that your lives interfaced and left a lasting friendship in the wake of the project.

YOUR CHOICE

"If you think you can, you will.

If you think you can't, you won't." - Chuck Stewart

So, it's a choice, it's a decision, it is followed with a plan and the plan is carried out. OR it never starts and another dream dies.

WINNING

What if you try to do something and you fail? Does it hurt? Does it make you want to quit or does it make you want to try harder? What if you fail twice or five times or ten or twenty times? Do you say things to yourself like: I am not cut out for this. I am not good at this. This always happens to me. Who am I kidding? I need to try something else. I need to stop being stupid. Or worse.

Having a passion for something includes perseverance. It includes learning more. It includes being the best you can be and continuing to study, practice, and improve.

There are only two things that stand between us and our goals: Correct knowledge and correct practice. Deficiencies in these will result in failure. Failure is temporary. It doesn't last. It happens and it is over. It is in the past and it isn't permanent. It doesn't have to be a setback. It can be a blessing or a wakeup call. It is a signal to change something. If you are not at the top of your game, forget about blaming yourself or others and get to work learning and doing more.

If you are a singer and you aren't great, you can blame a lack of talent when it is actually what you don't know and that you don't practice correctly or you don't practice enough. When you hear a great singer, you never see the work that the person put into it. If you think it is natural or just happens, then you have bought a HUGE lie.

You can approach life like a winner or a loser and your life will reflect your decision. What would YOU do if you tried and failed 50 times? Fifty is ridiculous, isn't it? Think about that. You try fifty times and you lose each time? What if on number 51 you win? Does this happen? Most people would quit. A race fan I am not but you have to admire Danica Patrick, who lost 50 times before winning once for not giving up. She cried in victory lane. No wonder.

She even didn't expect to win that day. But she did. She must have expected to win at some point in the past. People don't race to lose. They race to win. She evidently gave up on winning or she wouldn't have said she didn't expect to win. But she didn't give up on trying to win or on racing she persevered. 50 losses before a win. Most people would quit. Most people would give up. I do not want to be like most people in that regard. Do you?

Unique Singer Part 1

A singer writes:

I have a question for you. I have heard this comment made by several different people about several different people. The comment is "He/she has a nice voice but there is nothing unique or special about it, it doesn't captivate you." What are your thoughts about this comment? Can this be a valid comment? If it is a valid comment what are they looking for that seems to be missing? Is it something that can be taught or is it something that is just naturally there. If it is not a valid comment then why would someone make it?


This is not a short answer because the questions do not warrant a short answer.

Without hearing the voices the people are commenting about, it's impossible for me to say what the people meant by what they said and what is missing in the voices as is perceived by the commentors. I can make some guesses as to several things but I do know from being around many many working professional singers that nobody is born with it. People never see the huge amount of time singers practice who sound great. Because they don't see it, they assume that the hours and days of consistent hours are not happening.

I had nothing unique about my voice, in my estimation, but I did spend many many many hours singing and emulating and studying and recording on lots of bad to fair to good equipment and sometimes for 3 hours a day. So my voice was unique enough to get me singing in the 2nd biggest showroom at that time in Las Vegas. I did not get fired either. I sang in the show until it closed. BUT Is the comment valid? Again, without hearing the singer, I couldn't say. I have heard non-singers and non-musicians, such as Simon Cowell make statements like that and I usually have not agreed with him. Nothing with singing is natural. Nobody is born singing. Some people pay attention and duplicate the professional things they hear in other singers but they still have to work at it.

If a person sings without any feeling or without any attachment to a song and they sing the words on the correct notes at the correct time, then they might be ok in a chorus but I wouldn't want a chorus to be bland which is filled with that kind of uninvolved voice.

Every voice is as unique as fingerprints are from one individual to another. If a person thinks that they are not unique, then they need to work on style or on dynamics or on emotion or on interpretation. All those things can be and are taught and the results of it are obvious. Part of what is going on with American Idol is that the singers have vocal coaches and the ones with the bad ones don't make much change or or or the coaches are good and the singers are rebellious and don't take correction or they think they know best or they don't work hard enough or don't even know how to practice. The comment is no more or no less valid than a person saying that a person is beautiful--or ugly. It is an opinion. It is not a fact.

Great singers are great because they decided that they would not settle for less than greatness and then they worked at it to make it happen. It isn't innate and it isn't magic and it isn't that God is stopping people from being unique or giving them uniqueness. It takes a decision that leaves no other way out and the decision is followed up with the practice and perseverance to continue until it is achieved. Greatness comes from an unkillable desire and an impeccable work ethic. Then when preparation meets opportunity, great things can happen. But that's just my opinion BUT it's based on experience since 1962. Professional since 1972. Professionals know that professionals practice. We practice much more than the uninitiated could assume.

CONSONANTS - ASPIRATED AND PHONATED

ASPIRATED

C when it sounds like an S
as in grace

F as in friend

H as in hello

K as in kitchen

P as in pony

Q as in quack

S as in silly

T as in took

X as in box

CH as in chuck

SH as in shuck



PHONATED

B as in boy

D as in dog

G as in girl

G as in the 2nd G in garage
(it is like a phonated sh)

J as in juggler

L as in luck

M as in man

N as in none

R as in roar

V as in victory

W as in world

X as in xylophone

Y as in yuck

Z as in zebra

My Policy

Is it finally time to change things? "Holding back" is a bad habit that brings about bad results. "Waiting" is another bad habit that brings about no results. All I have is now. I cannot do anything about the past but I can learn from it. This is what I shall do about it:

Today is the day that I put myself onto the road to being disciplined and shall progress toward achieving my goals and being successful abundantly.

How I will do this:

Resistance.

I shall resist doing the things that kept me from my goals. I shall resist wasting time. I shall resist the thoughts and the people who say I will not make it. I shall resist all distractions, yet will keep a balance in my life.

Persistence.

I shall persist toward my goals. I shall continue in spite of everything that appears to be in my way. I will continue no matter what. I shall keep myself motivated and inspired. I shall reiterate to myself my abilities and my resources and shall use them to their full advantage. I shall continuously expand my resources in great abundance. I shall achieve my goals. I shall plan my actions and shall act on my plans.

Consistence.

I shall schedule my time and take control over it. I shall keep track of my actions and keep statistics in order to evaluate successful actions and to hold myself accountable. I shall remove all obstacles to my goals. When I feel blocked, I shall find the route by consulting the road map. My road map is abundantly full of every possible route to my destination.

Existence.

I shall make it very real in my mind and keep it there until I “go out of my mind” by bringing it into existence in the physical universe. Everything is working. Everything is expanding. My goals are achieved and now exist right here.

Science Of Singing

The so-called scientific approach to singing has been put down or dismissed as irrelevant or unworkable and yet the greatest teachers of voice of all time spent years researching the very sciences of the voice. Anatomy, medical science, physics, acoustics and other sciences all play a role in the understanding of the production of the voice. Things are not necessarily “black or white”. There are shades of differences which span a near infinite scale of that which is optimum all the way down to that which is destructive. Knowing more about the anatomy and the safeguarding of the human voice has come about from research done by several fields of science and the arts.

What is universal and what is individual has much to do with the success of learning from a book or course versus learning from a teacher who is with you and guiding you to be your best and doing so by working with you as an individual, rather than as a statistic or a category.

Vocal ranges, for instance, overlap and depending upon the level of development of the voice, the useful range can vary from one tenor to another tenor. The same is true with other “vocal categories“: sopranos, mezzo sopranos, altos, baritones, and basses. Just as there is a best route for a specific mode of transportation, there is also a best way of navigating the passageway between “chest voice” and “low middle voice”. The same is true for low middle to high middle voices, high middle to head voice, etc.
Some singers do not even have a developed or usable middle voice and instead have a “break” or “crack” or a “glottal stroke”. There are reasons that inconsistencies in tone quality exist and there are solutions to the same.

It is a great benefit to have a person (who is experienced) listening to you as you sing to help guide you through the passageways and to also assign exercises which help with coordination and strength to be able to connect all the vocal registers into a seamless usable voice that sounds like one voice rather than two or three or more. Some people do have multiple “breaks” in their voices. With training and practice these breaks “go away”. Simply knowing how to achieve a great singing voice, unless the singer practices diligently any more than anyone else who has achieved greatness has done so without putting in the time and effort of mastering specific sets of skills.

Another Singing Myth Debunked!

I have never heard the following phrase anywhere but here. It was not used by any teachers I had from 1967 on. It was not used by Seth Riggs, Debra Bonner, Greg Enriquez, Kelly Connelly, or any other teacher I had from W.Va, Las Vegas, Los Angeles nor in Philadelphia.

“Use your pee muscles to help support your sound”.

What?! This phrase is related to a couple of others that sound equally as insane and as Freudian which speak of other body parts in the same general region of our anatomy. I question this “pee muscle” theory because I have had several students who were taught this phrase and seemed to have accepted it as if it had some truth in it. It wreaks of “charlatan-ism” and “guru-ism”. From everything I can find regarding anatomy and several universities’ and hospitals’ websites dealing with voice disorders, this is the most bogus, ridiculous and disgusting phrase I have heard.

I have some books by Richard Miller, who is one of the first singing teachers in our country to seriously pay attention to anatomy and medical science. He doesn’t mention “pee muscles”. And by the way, they are not the same on males and females in case you might be interested; this brings up another point. Fortunately everyone does not know this phrase.

What would a physician (such as a laryngologist or pulmonary specialist) have to say about the connection between “pee muscles” and singing? Have any pee muscle proponents bothered to ask even a general practitioner about this?

Learn to evaluate the information you receive…in fact, question what you hear. Take the steps necessary to protect your “instrument”, which in a singer’s world is YOUR voice!

In my next blog, you will learn what kind of sources to trust and where to find accurate information, about your voice.

IS IT A DREAM OR A GOAL?

The difference between a dream and a goal, is inaction versus action. A dream can be a whim, or a weak passing thought, without any evaluation as to the possibility of turning it into a measurable reality. A real goal is one of the most powerful concepts that there is. When a goal is formulated intelligently, almost nothing can stop it from happening. A goal includes an examination of the resources and abilities necessary for attainment. It involves an honest assessment and comparison between oneself and others who have attained that goal or one like it. A goal could easily include a hundred or more solid reasons why it must be attained and as many resources for reaching it in a timely manner. Can you imagine the power you could generate, if you had 100 reasons to do something that you love doing?

Achievers of goals on a grand scale, have had few doubts and little, if any, thoughts or considerations about doing anything other than attaining that goal. Thoughts alone may just be mere dreams. Goals include the action of the “goal-setter” and whatever team that person assembles to carry it to fruition. Do not think you can do it all on your own; so, keep or get your “people skills” well-developed.

Although many successful people have done things other than their chosen vocation (or avocation), most of the time these were solely survival driven (you have to eat) or were actually part of the plan to reach the goal. Serious singers and artists of other media do not have time for a “backup plan”. It is so time intensive to prepare for a national or international level career, that there are not enough hours left in the day to work on your backup plan.

If you choose to let go of your dream because you don’t have the courage to pursue it as a goal, then let it go completely. Just do your backup plan and be a good accountant, or engineer, or sales clerk, or garbage collector or however else you have decided to sell yourself short. Not that there is anything wrong with those careers, but how do they compare to a successful one in the arts? You would only be squandering the opportunity to be involved in a career that allows you to be creative and express yourself. If this doesn’t make sense, then maybe you are not really a high caliber artist in the first place.

The people you admire as you listen to their music, did not do or make a backup plan. In most cases, it has taken artists several years to cultivate their career. Success doesn’t happen with the snap of one’s fingers; you have to put in the hours. Maybe you are right, and you don’t have enough talent, and you don’t write well enough. But maybe you do, and you will only have yourself to answer to when you are older and you begin looking back on what could have been. It would be pretty pathetic and a waste, if you have to wonder what might have happened, had you not been lazy and had you not given up at the first sign or even several signs of adversity.

Etiquette for an Audition

Prepare your song(s) two ways: 1) work out the problem spots, and apply technique to those and 2) practice performing the songs with appropriate facial expressions and gestures which add to rather than detract from the performance. Seek others’ opinions, from those who have audition experience and who have your best interests at heart.

Some venues expect professional head shots and resumes. There are classes having to do with this at some local (Orlando, Florida) acting and modeling class establishments such as Lisa Maille.

I once had a booking agent who told me that the fastest way to get somewhere is to look like you have already been there. Part of image is looking and acting like a professional. Seek out and observe role models such as Tom Hanks currently or Gloria Estefan or groups or individuals with manners, morals, and ethics.

AT THE AUDITION, conduct yourself with manners and respect for others. Stay positive. Don’t think about any problems and don’t let others’ problems become yours. Pay attention, stay focused and do the best you can. Thank the appropriate people for letting you audition.

We can go over more about auditioning at voice lessons. Just ask.

How to Have a Successful Audition!

This isn’t all there is to auditioning; it is only a primer.
PREPARING for an audition is probably 80% of the game. The other 20% will be what happens at the audition. These percentages do not equate to percentages of time. The percentage could easily change to 99.9% to 0.1% or even more. As a personal note, I spent around three hours a day practicing and recording my singing, for an entire year before auditioning for a production show in Las Vegas. I did not have to work that hard but I had my standards, and I was not about to compromise with them.

HOMEWORK is the first step to a successful audition. You first need to discover as precisely as possible what exactly is needed for the part for which you are auditioning. You may not be able to discover this, but try to find others who have worked for the same organization. If it is a play, find out all you can about the play, the director, the producer, the musical director and so on.

Once you have completed all you can with your research and discovery, you will then know what you should wear or what your image should be for the part you are pursuing. Take a realistic look at yourself and perhaps seek advice from others whom you trust as to your attire and your image.

You need to select your music and practice it well in advance of your audition. Six to eight weeks of practice is by no means too much. You want to feel in control of yourself and your voice as much as possible.

Read my next blog, to find out what steps to take to prepare your auditioning song, and how to conduct yourself while auditioning!

What is YOUR level of commitment?

“Commitment” is not a popular word these days. Perhaps the word is okay, but the concept is unacceptable to many. Commitment is the key to staying on track to success though. There are certainly other factors, but it is the commitment from which an operating policy can be formulated. Your policy as a singer is the thing that keeps you moving toward your goal instead of straying or otherwise being distracted. Positive thinking is a good thing, but it is having an operating policy to help turn thoughts into action.

An amateur singer might have the policy to practice an hour a day. If that singer is practicing a half hour a day, the policy might be made to increase that time, by 5 or 10 minutes more per day until the practice time would be an hour. Policy might include what time of day to practice and even having a schedule.

Professional singers might have policy covering practice, rehearsals, recording sessions, health issues, business issues and issues of their own integrity as artists as to what and what is not acceptable.

If you think of your singing goal as a destination, yourself as the train, then policy would be the track.

Commitment is the fuel that keeps you going, keeps you working toward your goals and not giving up or taking too much time to smell way too many roses along the way. Smell a few, though.

Learn to Use Your OWN Voice, Rather Than Someone Else’s

Whenever a teacher talks in terms of “placing” the tone, that teacher is talking about a result that is sought. The result the teacher is seeking may be what that teacher perceives to be the sound you should make. It may be based on another singer (whom the teacher has heard) who has an entirely different voice from yours. Your natural singing voice is closely related to your speaking voice. When you stray very far from that, you risk strain or even injury to your voice.

If you want a different sound, that sound should be your own best sound, not the sound of someone else. This will be achieved by conscientiously doing exercises to help with the coordination and strength of your voice and with getting vowel sounds to work for you instead of against you.

You cannot “open your throat,” by the way. You can open your mouth, you can open your vocal cords, you can raise your soft palate, and you can move your tongue. Too much of any of these manipulations will result in some sounds that you may not want to share with others. Take a look at an anatomy drawing of the pharynx and larynx and you will see what moves and what does not.

The phrase “everybody knows that” can be a dangerous one because it implies an absolute and universal “truth”. It is advisable to discover the source of our information.

This brings me to the next point, which is, how committed are you, to the improvement of your voice?

Placement of One’s Voice is a Misnomer!

So, how do you place the tone? You get a spoon, and pick up some tone, and move it to where you want it to be. Does this sound ridiculous? If you take the time to look at an anatomy chart or drawing of the larynx and pharynx, you will see that there are things that move and things that do not move.
You can manipulate your lips, tongue, jaw and soft palate. When you do this incorrectly, you are not “placing” your tone; you are only distorting your sound. An inconsistent sound from the bottom of your range to the top is not pleasing. It is irritating. It is annoying. It is an aberration of tone, not an improvement. Many, many mis-trained and ill-informed singers who are the product of our degraded education system robotically sing, with distorted looking faces and mouths and sound very distorted. It is difficult at times to even understand the words being sung even though they are in “English”.

I have seen a tenth grade music appreciation textbook from Italy which had more music theory, music literature, and music history than what is being taught in this country as a college freshman music major in the same specific courses. This is, I repeat, a textbook for music appreciation. I took that course in high school, and it was mainly listening to music from all eras. It was fun, but it was an easy A. I also took it in college, attended 3 or 4 classes, skipped the rest, aced the final and got an A for the course. The point is, in the U.S., we are way behind by comparison.

In my next blog, you will find out how to achieve your OWN sound, and why “placement” is inaccurate depiction of voice theory.

Singer’s Folklore

Place the tone forward.

This is related to the phrase, “put it in the mask”. This phrase is worth looking at very closely. How do you “put” or “place” the tone in a specific spot in your body? I have heard that this singer or that singer sings from their throat or in their throat. But this does not even make sense. The sound is generated in the throat and travels up from there. So, how do we place it somewhere, and why would we want to?

Where does the sound go?

The sound travels up from the larynx, and on lower notes (chest voice) it travels out of the mouth primarily. On higher notes (the passaggio) it shifts direction going behind the soft palate (ideally), and on even higher notes it travels higher into the head.
It is possible for the sound to be forced out of the mouth nearly exclusively, when it becomes a yell or a scream. This is bad for the singing voice though. Most of us have experienced some hoarseness after an exciting athletic event at which we have done some “cheering”.
So, how do you place the tone? The truth is you don’t.
Educate yourself on how your vocal chords function, so that you can prevent vocal chord damage. Read my next blog, to learn more!