On Performing...

Make it sound easy, when you sing. Make it sound like it takes no effort and no thought. Make it sound like pure feeling and as if the words were written by you. Don't break character. Have most of your attention on the audience, not on how you sound or how you look or how you move.

 If you don't perform like that, the audience feels ignored, neglected, and even cheated. They feel as if they have been lied to. Are you there for them or for yourself? That sounds simple, but if you are not there for the audience, why are you there?

 Bare your soul. Drop your inhibitions and tear down your walls. You are just singing to people. You have nothing to hide. Your past doesn't matter. You can't change anything about the past. Future hasn't happened yet. The only thing that matters about the future is what you do in the present. That will directly affect your future. You should have learned from the past. Keep you attention on the audience and on the present moment.

 Do you know what the past is for? It is the place to make your mistakes, learn from them, and to get ready for the "now". The past is part of preparation. It is why you are who you are. You are not your mistakes. When would be a good time to let go of the past? Next week? Tomorrow? How about now?

If (while performing) you make a mistake, instantly let go of it and make the rest awesome. Make the next part better or prettier or more intense, if appropriate. Most people remember the awesome parts. The critics, who hang on to the mistakes, should just stay at home and keep out of our way, if and until they learn to be artists. So, if your attention is on what others are thinking, it is actually on yourself and your anxiety about that. Give all you have, as if everyone is NOT a critic. The truth is that very few people are critics. Most people go out to have fun and enjoy, instead of trying to destroy others. The critics can go out and fight the wars while we make our art.

 If you think everyone is critical, maybe you are critical. It takes no special talent or hard work to notice what is wrong. It takes very special talent to be great.

When the effort is put forth and added to the talent, the magic begins. Prepare to deliver. Deliver. There is joy in performing, unlike any other joy. Don't let others take that away from you. Others need to find their own. It is not about proving anything. It is not about showing off. It is not about being ignored when you were a little kid, so now you are making up for it. It is not about competition. It is about the best of you, unmitigated, unadulterated, and your bare soul is shining through while people bask in its light.

 There will never be an absolutely perfect performance, but there are performances which are absolutely artistic.

MOMENTUM- GET IT, THEN DON'T LOSE IT

MOMENTUM! P=mv The product of mass versus velocity. What does physics have to do with the motion toward a goal? Only mostly everything. Let's say you are not practicing very much. You can expect that the reaction to your action will roughly be equal. Not practicing very much=not advancing very much. Do you have any power? What is power? It is the rate at which work is performed. The slower you go, the longer it takes to get somewhere. POWER is also the rate at which energy is converted. Where are you putting your energy? Since there is RATE in both parts of the definition of POWER, speed must be involved. It is possible to move so slowly toward a goal that you are dead before you reach it. Harsh? Physics is harsh. Physics is the observed motions, masses, and tendencies, not politically correct or incorrect. The laws of physics are immutable, but if they are used as guidelines, instead of barriers, they can put you at an advantage. In so-called "billiard ball mechanics", there is the law of inertia, stating that an object at rest tends to stay at rest, unless acted upon by an outside force. As people, most of us resist or resent outside forces acting upon ourselves, much of the time. We could modify the word "outside" to "inside", thus arriving at a new equation. Picture yourself in a huge 10' diameter beach ball. You walk; it moves. Inside force. Your car has an engine or a motor and it is within the car and that is another example. An object in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. OUTSIDE FORCES...hmmmmm Gravity? Friction? Time? Space? Resistance, such as air or water? How about your life? Gravity- Are you or somebody else holding you down, slowing you down, or stopping you? Friction- Are you getting along well with others? Time- Do you have enough time? Are you efficient with the time you do have? Space- Places to travel or too much distance involved? Is someone in your face, giving you no space in which to move? Resistance- that can come from you, friends, family, bosses, or anyone. You can find more examples of your own, if you wish. It takes more force to start moving than to keep moving. You may have to overcome your inertia and other forces. Once you are moving, it doesn't take much to keep moving as long as you keep moving. MOMENTUM is one of the keys to progress, perseverance, and accomplishment.

DOES YOUR VOICE CRACK?

Voice cracks or voice breaks are curable. If your voice is not fully developed, you may feel like you have a high voice, a low voice, and a space between where the sound abruptly changes. You can sing above the break. You can sing below the break but you cannot sing at the break. The break is not actually a break, or even a crack. It is the passageway between chest voice and head voice (and vice versa) but maybe you haven't learned to navigate that treacherous passageway. In the passageway you feel you have no control and you have to flip up or flip down to get to a place of stability and control. It can be really frustrating! I used to have that problem. I know how I felt. Hated it!!! So, if you yell or scream out the notes you might have so much swelling that you have no voice the next day or even in the same day. I had that happen once. It was terrifying. I couldn't make a sound. The following day, it still wasn't right. If you're real unlucky, you'll blister your vocal cords (vocal folds) and blisters can turn into callouses and those are called nodules. Those bumps keep your vocal cords from closing properly and then you have NO high notes and you sound raspy until you do something to handle the nodules. Some people call them "nodes", but that is not the correct word. Nodes are glands, such as those in the body's lymphatic system. If you do not retrain your voice, even after a long vocal rest (or surgery), the nodes can come back, so to speak. You actually just make new ones. Surgery may leave scar tissue and it does not vibrate the same way as normal tissue. So, you've been forewarned. There are some singers who have just sung through their cracks. (Not their butt cracks!) Or, they have sung "across" the break and they make it work. It's not my preferred sound, but they did okay with it. One is Phoebe Snow and the other is Sarah McLachlan. You'll hear some country singers do this, but if you try this in most other styles, goodbye! Yodeling is singing across the crack, back and forth. When you have learned some coordination and control, you can control your voice so that it feels and sounds like you have one voice, not two or three! I paid $175 an hour to learn to stop the break in my voice, comfortably and effortlessly. How many hours? It was about 100 lessons. In the 70th or 80th, it was obvious it was going to work. Stability took a little more time. These were not weekly lessons. Many were every day. There is a man in Hollywood, who is said to be charging $400 an hour. Is it worth it? To go from a lame voice to one which can leap and dance about a song, it could be worth it. To have a professional career that lasts for a lifetime it could be worth it. One lesson won't get you there, unless you are an Italian man, but that is a whole different story. Maybe next time.

BREATHING!

BREATHING! There has been a huge amount of emphasis put on breathing, as regards singing. Why? It's obvious that you MUST breathe in order to sing. It takes life to sing. It takes breathing to keep alive, having carbon-oxygen "machines" for bodies. Why might breathing be an issue? If a person has little or no effective lung capacity, singing will be difficult as far as doing long phrases or sustaining notes. If a person is hyper-adducting the vocal folds (smashing them together too tightly, in effort to not crack), that person will have to increase air pressure to even make a sound. Otherwise the vocal folds would pinch together so tightly that NO air can pass through. Your air, at a molecular level, is analogous to a violin bow. You vocal folds (vocal cords) are analogous to violin strings. The air molecules set the vocal folds into vibration. Air is important, there is no disputing that face; but, it is not ALL important. Some people over-breathe. They fill up completely and then, of necessity, do something unnatural to hold back the air pressure. This can cause unwanted tension in the body or can cause the person to hyper-adduct using the vocal folds as a valve, so to speak. Some people under-breathe and that results in being short of air or having to take many short breaths. Most of the time, you do not want to split a phrase. You almost NEVER want to split a word and grab a breath or you will sound like a rank amateur. Exceptions? If you choke on saliva in the middle of a word, you have to do what you have to do. I have breathing exercises I recommend that are good for two issues: 1) breath control and 2) lung capacity. If your air comes out jerky, your tone quality will be jerky. If you can't get through a phrase, you might consider improving your lung capacity. I cover these things in lessons.

TONE DEAF?

I keep hearing singers on American Idol who are singing flat. For those who do not know what that means, they are singing under or below the note they are trying to sing OR SHOULD BE TRYING TO SING!!!!! For some reason it is even more irritating to hear a singer sing sharp (above the pitch) and this is, fortunately, more rare. Back to the flat-ness. Why are they singing flat? Can they not hear themselves? Can they not hear, in the musical sense, the relationship between the accompaniment and their own voices? Are they staying under the pitch to avoid the passaggio, where the untrained voice will crack? Some trained, or should I say mis-trained voices crack. I have been cursed with a condition called "perfect pitch" and knowing that a person will sing flat, to avoid cracking, doesn't help the fingernails-on-the-chalkboard affect that this has on me. I can sympathize, but the feeling of sympathy does not ameliorate the frustration of knowing how they could be better with just one little PHYSICAL adjustment. That adjustment is NOT using more air, or "pushing" or flexing the abdominal muscles. Then there are those with, shall we say, under-developed musicianship. In teaching a few thousand singers, I have discovered that there are those who can match pitch with a voice but NOT with an instrument, such as a piano. Some of them can match pitch with a saxophone, however. This gets into the ability, or lack thereof, of being able to differentiate one pitch from another. Some people would say such a person is tone deaf. I've discovered, through experience, that it "Ain't Necessarily So". (That is a song, for the uninitiated) There is a condition called atonality. It ranges from absolute inability to match pitch at all to being able to get very close, but not on the pitch. Some people have called atonal singers "tone deaf". Although the term tone deaf is descriptive as to the singer's response to a pitch generated outside of him/herself, being atonal is not the same as being truly tone deaf. A study from Harvard gets into this. There have been several studies at other universities regarding atonality and tone deafness. One done at Stanford University suggested that the truly tone deaf are those who have had brain damage. This may be further substantiated by the conclusion of the Harvard study on the subject. http://esciencenews.com/articles/2009/08/18/neural.pathway.missing.tone.deaf.people In the meantime, American Idol is on my TV, I hear the intonation, the judges praise the singers (most of them) and I get exhausted from cringing and running out of the room to regurgitate. Neural pathway missing in tone-deaf people | e! Science News esciencenews.com Nerve fibers that link perception and motor regions of the brain are disconnected in tone-deaf people, according to new research in the August 19 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. Experts estimate that at least 10 percent of the population may be tone deaf – unable to sing in tune. The… Neural pathway missing in tone-deaf people | e! Science News esciencenews.com Nerve fibers that link perception and motor regions of the brain are disconnected in tone-deaf people, according to new research in the August 19 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. Experts estimate that at least 10 percent of the population may be tone deaf – unable to sing in tune. The…

WHAT ARE THE MOST COMMON PROBLEMS OF SINGERS?

What are the ten most common problems of singers? There are ten, but when some subcategories are added, there are actually 21 PHYSICAL common problems of singers. In addition to those, there are mental, spiritual, and emotional problems to deal with. The easiest problem to handle will usually be the one of posture. If you haven't been to or if you haven't observed a ballet class, then you haven't been exposed to ballet posture. A teacher will tell the dance student to "pull up", meaning as if there is a string attached to the top of your head and that is being pulled up. What does this effectively do? This part makes your rib cage rise slightly. This is great for singing because with your ribcage slightly raised, your lungs have more space to inflate and expand. The secondary effect of ballet posture is that your abdominal muscles are slightly flexed. Too much flexing of the abs is as deleterious to a good tone as too little flexing. When we breathe, we do not fill up air into the abdomen. Your lungs terminate at approximately bottom of your ribs. If you had air in your abdomen, you would possibly be in extreme pain. You also need space for your inhale muscle to contract into. Your inhale muscle is the diaphragm and you CANNOT feel it. You can watch your abdomen bulge as it contracts downward and presses on the organs below it: the stomach, the intestines, the liver, and a few others. The significance of this is nil EXCEPT if you have eaten a large meal and have to sing with a full stomach. That can be a minor problem and can also be uncomfortable. Does good posture "fix" your singing problems? No. It is one of 21 factors, some of which are related to each other, which is why we can call these the 10 most common problems of singers. Look for problem number 2 coming soon :-) Bad posture can interfere with singing or with the ease of singing. It is a good idea to make good posture a habit, so that you can have your attention on the art, rather than on your own body.

AGE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT

If you are singing "correctly", you won't get hoarse and you will have no problems with endurance. Your voice doesn't have to "get old", either. I heard the proof of this last night. A guy born June 16, 1952 did a concert at The House of Blues last night. He sounded the same as he did when he was in his 20s, except he may have been even better. He had fame in the 70s and 80s and the looks and the voice to go with it. He doesn't move like I had expected. He moved like a person who was 30 or 40 years younger. There was no hint of his age in his voice. His vibrato was still the perfect speed and depth, no change since he was in his 20s. He got his first recording contract at the age of 16 with RCA. He was NOT in a competition TV show!!!!!!! He drove to RCA and walked out with a recording contract. He was born in Montreal, Canada. It turns out that his father was a big band singer. His father told him that "it wasn't that easy" to get a recording contract. He proved his father wrong by getting one. My father told me, very bluntly, that I was going to fail, regarding putting my band on the road in the 70s. I proved him wrong. This doesn't mean that fathers do not know, they just don't want their children to go through the pain and disappointment of failure. There is no disputing competency. Careers that last a lifetime are built upon competency. Professional is professional. For me, there was never any reason to not be professional. Even if I would sing for charity, it HAD to be professional. Nothing else made any sense to me. My standards continue to rise. I have two viewpoints on my singing. One is that I know that I can sing anywhere and anytime and that it will be unquestioningly professional. I can say that because I have worked hard enough and long enough and have enough professional experience to have attained that. My other viewpoint is that I am NEVER 100% satisfied, thrilled, happy, or ego maniacal and I know there is always room for improvement. There are things with which I do not and will not compromise. I do not perform without monitors. What is wrong with things being their best? Oh, the man in concert last night was Gino Vannelli.

Amateurs will remain amateur until they learn to practice like a pro. A friend of mine (John Boice), who played trombone in Buddy Rich's band then later in Ray Charles' band, came to a little jam session in a small theater in Las Vegas one night. He was polite and friendly when he walked in. He and I had known each other a few years and had listened to each others compositions and had even played with some Jamey Aebersold 33 LPs. When I was in the stage band at Marshall University, playing both lead and solo trombone, we played a song written by John Boice called "Something For Willie". John had a friend named Willie, for whom he had written the song. John also arranged for Buddy and others. Back to the session. John sat down his case and opened it as if it contained something very valuable. When he reached in to take the bell of the horn out, he looked as if he was a great surgeon and deftly removed and held the bell section of the horn. Then he got the slide, swiftly put it together with the other section and tightened the "nut" which held them together. It looked as if he had done this a million times but he made it look as if some very serious work was about to happen. He had a professional "attitude". This was his life. This was also his most joyous activity, but it was professional. I was also a pro, having worked for 10 years in various bands, but I learned a lesson just from watching. T. Harv Eker said, "The way you do anything is the way you do everything." I met him a few years ago at an Enlightened Millionaire weekend. Even though he wasn't speaking to musicians at the time, the idea is valid, to a great extent. John Boice warmed up before he played. He and I both studied with Dr. Donald S. Reinhardt of Philadelphia. I seriously got much more from private study than from all of college combined. I wasn't taught how to warm up or how to practice when I was in college. I did learn a lot about it from Dr. Reinhardt, John Boice, J.D. Folsom, Art Sayers, Debra Bonner, Seth Riggs, Ralph Pollock, Dr. Paul Balshaw, Dr. Paul Whear, Charles M. Oshel, George Slicer, Bob Massie, Robin Romanek, Bill Davidson, John Novello, Dick Groves, Bobby Tate and my sister Barbara, who is a phenomenal pianist and was, in my opinion, a child prodigy. I learned quite a bit from my father, who was professional at practically everything. "Practice with a purpose" - J.D. Folsom This sounds simple, but it is an expansive thought. Tony Robbins said "Repetition is the mother of skill." The problem is that mistakes can be repeated and reinforced, so this needs to be carefully applied. I learned from John Novello that there is something you do BEFORE you practice. To practice with a purpose, shouldn't there be some planning and other preparation? How about the most efficient use of your time? How do you do that? In professional rehearsals in the showrooms of Las Vegas, entire songs would not be rehearsed for the headliner. If a musician made a mistake in rehearsal, the conductor did not go over the song again. Why not? A real pro will not repeat the mistake. You will not hear it again. Period. True. I got a call from local #369 for a New Years gig on trombone one year. It was at the Riviera Hotel. I played lead trombone. The other trombonist was a member of Henry Mancini's band. The sax section and the trumpet section had played for Woody Herman. The drummer had been the drummer for Stan Kenton. There was no rehearsal. We showed up. We read the charts. Nobody made a mistake. Nobody. It is just a higher standard. Get it right and play it with conviction and feeling. Simple enough. Everyone has their own personal challenges with music. There also are different learning styles from person to person. Singers and other musicians are not all the same. Some people are more visual or thinking or feeling or tactile or whatever else. The practice methods need to fit the individual to get the greatest and fastest gain in improvement. There is plenty of advice around for how to practice, but the methods need to be effective for the person. Perhaps they need to be customized. Dr.Reinhardt had analyzed and categorized specific types and sub-types of embouchures, tongue, jaw, teeth, and made a science of using the natural anatomical make-up of an individual to best use what they were born with and to their best advantage. The same thing applies to singers and it applies to practicing. Some advice is applicable to any and all, such as practice problem areas rather than the piece in its entirety over and over. So-called "garage bands" tend to run through songs over and over, start to finish. it might be fun for them, but there are more efficient methods than that. There should be pre-practice, practice, and post-practice. These are going to be showing up this year in a book which has been 16 years in the making, but based on a few hundred years of my and others professional experience.

HOW IS YOUR MUSICIANSHIP?

How is your musicianship? Can you write down what you hear? Can you identify scales: major, natural minor, harmonic minor, melodic minor? Do you recognize modes? The ionian mode is a major scale. The aeolian mode is the natural minor scale. Here is an example of those two: the C major scale is an ionian mode. Starting on A and playing each white key in succession is the natural minor scale in A. C major has all white keys; A minor (natural minor) has all white keys. This is why we say that A minor is the relative minor of C major AND it is related for the above stated reason os sharing the same exact notes, but in a different order AND it is the Aeolian mode of C major (as an aside). Get to a piano and check this out, if you haven't already. What else can we deduce from this? If a major scale is 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8, the natural minor is 6-7-8-1-2-3-4-5-6 (relative minor), then this will work in all keys. What else? Are you a songwriter, looking for contrast in the chorus, following the verse? You might try shifting from major, if in a major key, to its relative minor going from the verse to the chorus OR if you are in a minor key, try the relative minor when you get to the chorus. There are also other modal relationships, which may be explored. Other devices, so to speak, are using common tones of chords as pivotal points to change keys. An example might be that if you are in the key of C major, you can go to an A flat chord, such as is in an Adele song. What else? You can use the V chord of the key a half step higher from your original key to make a smoother modulation, avoiding the possibility of parallel 5ths. The reason that it works so well is that the 1 of the original key is common to the 3 of the V chord, so we have the built in sense of familiarity as we ascend to our new key, a half step up from the original. I have used this in arranging and in writing and also can hear chords and even the voicings of them. Why? Playing, writing, transcribing, ear training, and arranging. Musicianship is extremely important for the highest levels of singing for many reasons. Singing is a hearing art. The less you can hear and identify, the less professional you will be. Guaranteed. You may not know the name of what you hear, BUT if you cannot identify, differentiate, and relate to the music you sing with, you will sound like many of the TV competition show singers who sound like they have an allergy to pitch and have trouble being in tune.

MUSIC BUSINESS IS BUSINESS

Many professional creative people, whom I have known in music, have ignored, or had an aversion to business. I have seen some fabulous talents, who should have "made it big" but did not. I've seen headliners in Las Vegas shows, world class level musicians, and fabulously talented amateur singers who never made it past the little last step to achieve greatness in the music business. Bob Proctor calls this difference "the razor's edge". Now, what does that mean? He meant that the difference between success and failure can be as thin as the sharp blade of a razor. It has always been a huge disappointment to me to see people who had so much to offer fall short of their potential. There are multi-factorial reasons for the failures I have witnessed: Some did not want it. Some lacked in imagination regarding their art. Some avoided getting help from others with vocal or musical technique. Some had little or no work ethic. Some had no sense of personal ethics. Some had no balance in life, to the extent that they lost focus or couldn't maintain focus. Some had problems with personal relationships. Some had problems with communication with others. Some had bad business sense. Some refused to learn what was needed to succeed. The good news is that all of these things are rectifiable. Where are you lacking? It is easy to compromise and lie to yourself and say that you don't have what it takes. It is harder to do a little introspective look and use the list above to discover your strengths and weaknesses. Then you have to decide, do I strengthen my strengths or work on my weaknesses. You also may need to find people who love doing the things which you are not good at, and delegate that work to them. I have had CPAs for over 20 years. I have access to many professional musicians, who play instruments that I do not. I am talking about world class musicians. Can I play drums, guitar, piano, bass, violin, trombone, trumpet, banjo, and various percussion instruments, including a vibraphone? Sure I can, but I know my strengths and weaknesses in those and would hire others to do most of those jobs. The three main reasons for failure among talented musicians are: 1) Ignorance of which they are unaware 2) Bad work ethic and 3) Little or no business acumen. You cannot be great at everything. You can be great at many things. Make a list and maybe you will give yourself a better chance. If you think you have nothing unique to offer the world, you are probably lying to yourself. If "friends" and family are telling you that you are wasting your time, while at the same time professionals are telling you about your virtues and potential, wake up to reality and make a decision. Are you worthy of success in the music business? Are you living to please others to the exclusion of yourself? It is your job as a creative person to create. It is your job to hone your "craft". It is your job to realize your potential. Let business people handle business and let managers manage. Let the musicians, writers, arrangers do their jobs. Focus on your art and if you are so fortunate as to find someone who truly believes in you, you have a shot at it. Or you have the option to pretend you are not good enough or unique enough or that the world doesn't need your voice. You can always go teach your language in a third world country instead of doing music. However, you will never escape knowing that something else could have been BUT you, yes you, let it slip away.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Fresh start. Clean slate. New Beginning. These are the things that we pretend are true as we commence our new year. Nothing really changes. It is a demarcation in an eternal now and that is all that it is but we do not look at it that way. Somehow we forgive ourselves for the shortcomings of the past year. We reflect back on the things which were not what we planned. We look at the things, which are in our minds, the failings and the transgressions against ourselves and others and we repent and forgive ourselves. Then we move on. We make decisions about how it should be and about how it is going to be. We call those things resolutions. We resolve to do this or that or to be different in some way. The truth is that the same ruts we have been in lie before us but we want to try to get out of those ruts, those patterns, once and for all. There is a way to do this. You first have to see the ruts and recognize them as being undesirable habits which are not getting you to your desired destination. We don't want to give them omnipotent power and they don't have that because we, ourselves, made those ruts. Therefore, despite their width, depth and breadth, we have the strength to get out of them. It takes some time to stay out of them and to not slip back in. Picture an old dirt road, muddy from the rain in the hills of West Virginia. Cars before us have passed, leaving deep grooves in the road. It is hard to turn the steering wheel and get out of those ruts. But not impossible. If you're good, you can ride the ridges and stay out of the ruts, but you have to constantly watch as you steer clear of them. Here's the thing. They don't fill themselves in from the next rain. Somebody has to do something about them with some heavy equipment and maybe even some gravel. So, how do we get out of our self-reated ruts? You might try this plan: Make a decision. "To decide means to cut off from all other possibilities." Notice how decision looks similar to incision, a cut. (credit to Tony Robbins) If we can literally cut ourselves off from all other possibilities in thought, word and deed and maintain that, that will be enough to get the job done. It may be an uphill battle, though and we may backslide. What do we do about that? First we have to know that we went off course, like a ship or plane does while traveling. We need some instruments to measure if we are on or off course. We need to instantly realize we veered off and, as quickly as possible, make adjustments to get back on course. We also have to have made the decision to persist, or we won't notice or won't care about little minor diversions. Figure out your guidance system and keep your eyes on your road and your hands on your steering wheel. Hey! You do this when you drive so just do it with your life. Habits may get in the way and it will take a month or more to change those habits. They may try to come back later but your guidance system can help with that. Addictions are another story. These are not necessarily drug addictions. Games, both electronic and games we play, consciously or unconsciously, may pull us off course. Addictions are deeper and harder ruts. They may take more effort, attention, or tools to overcome. There are two things you need to pull you through the obstacles you will encounter. One is a goal that means more to you than anything. You'll have to make it such that you maintain or create a balance in your life and not only you, but also everyone who means something to you will benefit from the attainment of that goal. It is like getting to the destination of a fabulous vacation. But this is not a vacation. It is your new life, the one you have been starving for forever, it seems. The other thing is your purpose. Why are you dedicating your life to your goal? Some of the ideas stated here are attributable to having read or heard the lectures of Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, the partners who are behind the Chicken Soup For The Soul books. This is from Mark (I have met him and shook his hand. He IS real!): Write down 100 reasons WHY you must achieve your goal. 100 Reasons. Those will be your fuel, your guidance system, and your power to keep you on your "straight and narrow". WHY? Whose life are you living? Who are you making wealthy? Anybody? Maybe it is your turn to be wealthy, healthy, wise, and happy. You want to make a resolution, to resolve to do something OR do you want to do it? Decide, write down your 100 reasons, get into motion, and don't beat yourself up if you stumble or fall. Don't blame others and don't make excuses. This is how you can really give yourself a chance at success. Will it happen? Will you persist long enough to get there or will you turn around at the first red light and go back home to those familiar comfortable ruts? The wheel is in your hand. The ball is in your court. Run the race. Play the game and if you are real smart, you will enjoy the process. It's not luck. Build your strength and your skill. Learn what you don't already know. There are potholes in the road sometimes but you can steer clear. Your new life is waiting for you. Go get it.

NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS

If you haven't made a goal (or goals) for this year, and you like to do the "New Years Resolutions" thing, today is your last day in 2012. I have a few suggestions. I'll be following these, too, so we can keep in touch and share our successes and our challenges along the way. Michelangelo had an interesting perspective, which is in this quote: “The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.” ― Michelangelo Buonarroti How many of us have achieved our mark that we knew was beneath our talents and abilities? This quote will mean much more when you read about the life of Michelangelo and how he pursued his artistic creations. He was prolific. Another quote: “If you knew how much work went into it, you wouldn't call it genius. ” ― Michelangelo Buonarroti This one shows humility and the reality of what it takes to do the highest level of your abilities. People who are doing their art with a backup plan for life will do the backup plan, almost without exception. There are exceptions, though. Some people are able to do "both", are able to have "both" but make no mistake; they did not neglect the arduous road to great art. The singers who do not put in the time with musicianship, vocal technique, and artistic imagination have set their aims too low. It doesn't sound like genius because too little time and too little effort went into the preparation. There have been many variations on the idea of a person reaping what he/she sows. Michelangelo's was this: “AS YOU GIVE OUT SO SHALL YOU RECEIVE.” ― Michelangelo Buonarroti For those of us who have lost our edge by being overly critical, there is this advice: “Critique by creating.” ― Michelangelo Buonarroti How good can you get? If you hear the faults in others, that does not make you a genius. It makes you a critic. It does not make you an artist. If you look for the bad, you WILL find it. Congratulations! You have moved over to the dark side, if you mostly focus on the bad. If you want to be a true artist, use the things you do not like in others to motivate you to try harder and to be better, not to make others "wrong", but rather to move yourself to a higher and higher standard of artistic creation. There is a story of a young coed who met Albert Einstein for the first time. She asked him what he did. He answered, "I am a student of Physics." She replied, "Oh, I took that last semester." Einstein profoundly understood that he did not know it all to the extent that he recognized that learning is a lifelong endeavor and that no one can know everything. Without putting himself down, he called himself a student. I am also still constantly learning and studying music, singing, the medical side of the voice and still consult with physicians to learn more and to verify my own theories having to do with the safe utilization of the voice and the elimination of myths and other false premises. My last Michelangelo quote: “I am still learning.” ― Michelangelo Buonarroti With all the work completed at the time of that quote, he was so brilliant as to state that he was still learning. Keep his wisdom in mind as you make your New Years Resolutions and may it be the best year yet.

80/20 RULE

The reality of being a vocal coach is that it is like a so-called "80/20 rule". Have you heard about that? 80% of something gives you 20% of something else. I've heard that 20% of your efforts give you 80% of your income. I've heard that applied to a few things. We'll get back to that 80/20 rule in a second. There are vocal coaches who use the full names of their students in their advertising and in their books. They SHOULD be very proud to have had the honor and privilege of working with those people. A successful "track record" is wonderful; it can't be denied. I am not disputing it. I will say this, though. Some people think that all the students of a vocal coach are GREAT because of the vocal coach. The reality is that the majority of the students of the famous coaches were successful and famous BEFORE they studied with the famous vocal coach. They (99% or more) had singing careers dispute problems and issues with their voices. I found the best brass teacher whom I think was the best in the world. I traveled over 500 miles to get to this man. It was worth the drive. I had already been playing professionally. I had some playing issues not unlike issues singers have. I was a pro, but some things were not easy. I had excellent range and excellent endurance but had some problems with extending my range and with some of the finer points of playing. I knew this but the audiences never knew it. He and I spent a few Saturdays together through the years and on the last one he showed me exactly how he analyzed an embouchure. We shared a pizza that day. On the first lesson I ever had with him he told me that my progress was going to be the result of practicing what he had taught me. He said that 80% of the results would come from my doing the work and 20% would be from what he had taught me. There is that 80/20 rule again. The point here is that he did NOT take all the credit. He knew he was an expert. His books are used to this day (probably by people who do not fully understand then) but even though he was pedantic and even dogmatic, he gave credit to the musician. I had a younger student ask me about a famous vocal coach the other day. She asked where he was located. I will say that she was not making the progress that she should make but I will also say that she was practicing 15 minutes or less a day and inconsistently at that. Her progress has been slower than I would like, but she still has progressed. The famous vocal coach would tell her that she needs to practice 3 or 4 hours a day. I have heard him say that. For a high school kid, up to the eyeballs in honor classes, there are not 3 or 4 hours a day to spare on practicing. She has the talent to be a professional but not the time and certainly not the passion. It definitely is a combination of hard work and long hours BUT on practicing the right things the right way at the right times and also knowing HOW to practice, which will produce the fastest and the biggest results. The credit really goes to the singers who "take the ball and run with it", ignoring the other players in the field (obstacles) long enough to get to the goal. Here is an interesting video of a singer/trombonist in famous group called the Four Freshman. The singer/trombonist is the late Bob Flanigan. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETo_XFEGl24

HOW TO APPROACH A NEW SONG

HOW to approach a new song is always an issue. Do I stay as close as possible to the original singer? Do I change it a little, a lot, or in between? There are many things to consider, including the audience. I'm not talking about "selling out" or "doing karaoke". Remember the thing called musical maturity? You don't scat sing to a country song, you don't sing classical like it is country, and you also do not sing 50 riffs in every line of a song to show off your prowess in velocity, accuracy, and "creativity". I once saw a performance by two of the most famous female singers ever and it was more like a fight than a duet. It was a battle of riffs and lost musicality, emotion, and I was embarrassed for them. They seemed like enemies instead of friends. The most stupid thing is that there is no real competition among people who are great. There is plenty of room for them all. The point is, know how to use the spices, when you cook, and don't overwhelm the dish. You also have to find the balance between emotion and musicianship. There can be manic emotion, over the top and to the moon to the point that pitch goes off, the voice cracks, tears flow, blood spurts out of the eyes, veins pop...you get the idea. Too much feeling can interfere with control to the point that a song can look like a psychotic break to the audience. Volume can be used, meaning dynamic contrast, but are you singing or in a hog calling contest in West Virginia (where I grew up)? If your audience is conservative and expecting "pop music" and you give them anything else, do not expect much from them. If they are into R&B and you sing country, the may walk out. I played a gig once with my wife on a cruise and there were two audiences, depending on the song we were doing. The dance floor would literally empty and refill if we did popular on one song and R&B on the next. It was almost funny. You cannot please everyone. So what does that leave you? Regardless of everything else, you must have artistic integrity. You do your absolute best no matter what. In other words, you always do your absolute best no matter what. You have to have this standard because everything else will make you less of an artist. You will not love yourself if you: do less than your best, hold back, be too overly "careful", do not connect to the song or the audience. It is your job to connect to the song. What does the message say? Who could benefit from the message? Are you trying to make people feel better or feel worse? If it is worse, get out of the business. There is this thing which most songs have in some form or fashion-the concept of something having to do with love. Even the angry ones are expressing that love did not work. Everyone in their right mind wants it to "work". Artist integrity is about a quality and a responsibility. That is how to prepare a song. Dig down deep as you can into yourself and bring out true feelings and be honest with your audience. They know when you are lying to them. If you are paid for your performance, you would be lying and stealing from them at the same time. If this sounds intense, it is. Who wants to hear a wimpy singer? Show intense skill and emotion and have the sense to do it in a way which reaches and audience and will have the impact that greatness always has.

CRITICISM

One of the easiest things to do is to criticize singing. If you have perfect pitch, know style, form, dynamics, interpretation, emotion, and acting, you may well have a lot to say about a singer's performance. There is also a thing which I call "musical maturity". What is that? It is having the judgement to know to not show weakness, to not do something stylistically out of the "character" of the style, to not go for the note which will be flat or splat or break or to do something else which detracts from the art. My wife, one of my best students, knows I hear EVERYTHING and is sometimes a little nervous doing a new song in front of me the first time. Still, I am not harsh with criticism. When I hear things which are "off", I know why they are off. I also know what to do to improve them whether they are: transition issues, vowel distortion, breathing issues, melodic interval problems, lack of perception of harmonic structure, misunderstood lyrics, lack of connection to the song or to an audience, trying to "hide" and to sing at the same time, articulation issues regarding consonants, not practicing enough, not knowing HOW to practice, having illness (physical or mental), and much more, too numerous on a post on Facebook. Some people have no idea precisely what they are hearing and know far too little to analyze it. Most people DO have the ability to notice if something is bad or good, so be good for goodness sake! Be careful about criticism. Giving it and getting it can be harmful to your artistic health. NON-artists' criticism is sometimes very destructive. If something can be used to aid in improvement, use it. If not, DUMP IT!

INFLUENCES IN YOUR LIFE

Happy Birthday to one of the most complex, talented geniuses I've ever known. He did nearly everything at a professional level. Professional at golf, pocket billiards, baseball, engineering, architecture, piano, and the list could go on and on. I haven't met anyone else like him. Was he perfect? No one is. He was passionate about enjoying life, was intense at times, had been the gunnery officer on a naval destroyer, ranking second to only the captain of the ship. He supervised many projects, which he designed. The construction costs of those, we added up once and it was over half a billion dollars (60s, 70s, and 80s dollars). He left his mark on the world in buildings at universities, hospitals, schools, industrial projects (including a 60 million dollar steel mill), and was licensed in at least 7 states. He sat in with Duke Ellington's band, twice. First time was on drums at the age of 21 in NYC. The second time was on piano at the West Virginia Governor's Inauguration Ball. He would have been 87 today on 12-12-12. His favorite singer would have been 97 today, Frank Sinatra. My father taught me chords on piano, architecture, and engineering. He also taught me an appreciation of 40s music. I got to play lead trombone in big bands in Las Vegas with some people from those famous bands. Wouldn't have happened, had I not had the influence. He pushed me harder than I needed to be pushed, but I think he never full realized his own strength. He took his genius for granted. Many do. Who are your influences? You might look for successful ones. Acknowledge them by learning and doing. Appreciating them and thanking them won't change your life. Being grateful is a great thing. Demonstrate your knowledge and your skill. Doing something effective; well, that's another story!

STUDENT TYPES

There are several types of students: ELEPHANT-gives you a twig to try to push it. ROPE - and you are supposed to PUSH it up a hill. NO ROOM - Do not enter the dojo with your cup full, there will be no room for anything new. SHIRLEY - This is like an actress who has been into EVERYTHING and this type gets advice from EVERYWHERE and most of it is either wrong or useless. CAKE BAKER - Learn the secret in one lesson and go after it! Do NOT try this with flying lessons! PARTICIPANT - this type tries a little, but not enough to ever be excellent. ALL IN - This one learns, applies, works, has self discipline, a powerful goal, awesome purposes, strong work ethic, and trusts in and has faith in the process. I've seen one of those get a recording contract and tour. Another one sang in the Broadway play touring group of The Producers. The odd thing is that the differences look huge, between those who do and those who won't, but it is amazing that a little more time and a little more effort than average can often lead to miraculous results.

A few years back, a couple of guys had other people sing for them while they lip synched (moved their mouths but were not actually singing). This became a huge scandal They dropped out of the music business even though a valiant effort was made to save them. The most famous vocal coach, Seth Riggs, worked with them and made public statements that they were, in fact, able to sing. This was too little, too late. Perhaps they could sing, but were they good? The whole mess was considered a fraud, a sham. TODAY Today, when you hear an album of a singer, they may have put a thousand hours into the vocals. The vocals have been altered electronically in many cases. Having done some recording engineering, I have experience with pitch correction and a nearly infinite number of possible tweaks, which can be done to enhance the sound of vocals. Many, if not all, of the same effects are available for live performance. What are we actually hearing in performances? If the singer sounded great on the original CD or download and then he/she sounds worse or terrible, is that less of a sham than Milli Vanilli? If it is less, not by much. YEARS AGO Years ago a singer had to have developed the art to a level of near perfection and without the aid of equipment beyond the singer. There are still some great singers around, but in the past, there was no assisting an amateur level singer into sounding as if the time was put in to be great.

Change your voice, change your life!   Ask any true artist if this is true.

Whether a singer, actor, speaker, a business person, a doctor, a lawyer, it doesn't matter.

It is part of a first impression.  It is THE impression in the long run.  Your voice is your expression of yourself, your being, your soul.  What you say or sing and how you sound are an extension of YOU!  

Does your voice need an adjustment, an overhaul, or exercise?

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