Tag Archive for crossover

Brian Lee | November 19, 2010
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Why I love karaoke

I did karaoke in public for the first time in August. I’ve gone back every 2 to 3 weeks since then. Although I have been primarily a musical theatre and classical singer, I decided that in the 2010-2011 I would pursue some new things. I have been delighted with my karaoke experiences, for some surprising reasons. First off, let me say that it’s not as easy as it looks.

The things that I expected to enjoy are: getting to sing repertoire that I don’t normally get paid to perform, getting to sing things that I think are fun, and trying a different performing persona. The thing that I was not quite ready for at first was how “on the spot” you are as a karaoke singer. When the introduction starts, it may be a version of the song you have never sung with before, or in a key you have not done before, and you have to go ahead and do it anyway.

I did crash and burn on one song a few sessions ago. I tried “Eres tu”, a song I loved from the 70s. I have sheet music for it that was the version that I thought I had learned as a kid, but when the song came up on the screen there were lots of lyrics I didn’t recognize to go with many chord changes I also didn’t recognize. It was almost like those dreams I have where I walk out in front of a symphony orchestra in a packed house to perform a concerto on an instrument that I don’t know how to play.

The first time I do a song with the karaoke track, I don’t know what the arrangement will sound like or what key it will be in, so I have learned to start humming and harmonizing with the introduction before it gets to the singing part so I have a fighting chance of finding my starting note. In a classical or musical theatre audition situation, you bring in songs you know in keys you have practiced, but you are singing in an unfamiliar place with acoustics you have never encountered before. In this case, I know the place and the acoustics, but I don’t know the arrangement in advance. It’s great for getting you to think on your feet, while keeping a calm exterior and selling your song. It makes you appreciate the comfort of knowing the version you will be singing in a normal professional situation.

Another fun thing has been the feedback from the audience. I have been told I sing like Barry Manilow or Harry Belafonte. The Belafonte really threw me. What fun! And people do like it when I ornament or scat on old standards.

I would recommend karaoke to any singer who wants to get outside of a perfectionistic mode or who wants to try songs outside of their usual style. The audience where I go is very supportive and you will never get a bad review. It’s so nice just to get to sing! So many classical people practice and practice and practice and only have a few gigs per year. It is so nice to sing for appreciative people anytime you like, just for the fun of it, and you can sit and socialize while waiting your turn with no daggers in your back as has been rumored to happen (ahem) in the classical music scene. And I think it’s good training for anyone who has to do singing auditions. You are on the spot and you learn to be flexible. I still find it slightly scary yet exhilarating!

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Brian Lee | August 18, 2010
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CCM Institute Report

The CCM Vocal Pedagogy Institute was fantastic. It exceeded my happiest expectations. I took all three units and got my certification, and am using what I’ve learned in my studio and in my practicing to great effect. It was the first formal vocal pedagogy course I’ve taken, and what a start! Jeannette Lovetri is a master teacher and her fellow faculty members also did a great job.

The main things I got out of this were:
- A structure for the lesson. A way to think about and implement the idea of a flow to the lesson that takes into account the student’s vocal and psychological needs.
- Many examples of Jeanie teaching students which showed a very different approach to both the particulars and the overall feel of a voice lesson. Her way of following “branching logic” to offer exercises particular to that student’s needs was very helpful.
- Supervised teaching experiences that helped with how to implement a Somatic Voicework(tm) approach.
- An opportunity to be a masterclass student where Jeanie took me through the steps of how to connect to a song in a more personal way and enable a classically inhibited singer such as myself to develop a much more jazzy approach to a tune that begs for that treatment. I offered “Stardust” and told her that I felt awkward with it and wanted to make it “more jazzy”. It was a fantastic and helpful lesson that had me sounding like a very different singer.
- Some helpful additional exercises and teaching tips for specific purposes.
- Much useful information from various professionals in the areas of vocal health and Broadway career coaching.
- Met many extraordinary teachers, singers, students and PEOPLE. It was such a cooperative, loving experience. So different from most events involving singing teachers! I had so much fun in and out of class with these wonderful new friends.

All of the faculty sang on the faculty recital and most displayed their crossover capabilities in contrasting selections. Kathryn Green’s Faure song followed by her gospel-style number were gripping! Jeanie sang a lovely Mozart aria plus Cole Porter’s Ballad of the Oyster.

This training is enriching my teaching and my singing. The functional approach is right up my alley, and this was a wonderful way to grow further in that direction as a teacher and student of singing.

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Brian Lee | July 13, 2010
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Stretching

This Friday I will be going to Winchester, VA to participate in Level 1, 2, and 3 training with Jeannette Lovetri’s program. (http://www.thevoiceworkshop.com/shen.html) It is an intensive 9 days of the study of vocal pedagogy for “contemporary commercial music”. That term makes me wince a little, but it is probably better than “nonclassical”.

Why? There are two main reasons. I DO sing styles other than classical on occasion, and many of my students ONLY sing genres outside of the classical world. I long ago abandoned the idea “if you can sing classical, you can sing anything”. It’s no truer than to say, “If you can dance ballet, you can be a hip-hop video dancer.” Yes, there is much strengthening and discipline that one learns in the classical arts that is good to have, but there is a “going beyond” that has to happen to sing in these other styles.

When I venture outside of classical singing, it is for old American standards and musical theatre of various eras and types, which I sometimes like to give a jazz or crooning treatment. I’m not saying I’m good at crossing over, but then again, I’m not saying I’m particularly good at classical either! All-about-me aside, it is an interesting exercise to have to prepare two 16-bar cuts for this institute, and I look forward especially to getting deeper into how to train women for belt style. It is definitely a bigger deal for women to cross over than for men, technically speaking. And it is definitely a bigger deal to teach those women than the men. I have had lots of female students tell me that I have helped them with their pop style singing more than any other teacher, and I feel like I know next to nothing! I have used what I know about vocal function and training to help as much as I can, but I could use the guidance of those more expert in these matters.

I have read Jeannette Lovetri’s blog postings which go back several years. She asks the right questions and deals with the issues that concern me. She hits the nail on the head about all the smoke and mirrors and misinformation in current vocal pedagogy. People I know have gone to this institute and recommended it strongly. There will be attendees from all over the world coming to this class. My inner Perpetual Student is excited!

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Brian Lee | May 22, 2010
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Singing and Fluting

This is inspired by Craig’s comment on my previous entry.
As I have dusted off my flute and played it again after very little activity in the last 7 years, I am finding it refreshingly different than previous times that I came back from breaks. I have been fearful of playing flute again largely because I want to enjoy it, and in the past I kept getting into joyless situations. I have had to look at this and try to learn from it.
What has changed? Seven years of intensive work on my singing! Singing is so personal and so much at the heart of everything musical. Taking the time to work on my voice has really given me a new way of thinking about music and performing in general. Some thoughts about what is so different about the way I have worked on singing as compared to how I used to work as a flutist:
  • Control of the voice is indirect. It can never be entirely mechanistic. It is not visible, and it is not under specific tactile control. It is vital to have a clear concept of what you are intending to do, and to continue it to the end of each phrase, to the end of the piece, to the end of the concert.
  • “Technique” goes so much deeper than how fast you can play scales or articulate notes.
  • Everyone’s voice is different. It is an ever-challenging task to reveal more of what one’s own voice can do. If you try to sound like someone or something else, then you thwart your own voice’s possibilities. In fluting, I was too concerned about all the people who were “more advanced” than I, without realizing that even blowing on similar metal tubes, we all can have our own voice, and SHOULD. If I had believed in my own individuality and contribution, I wouldn’t have been so caught up in competition and judgement.
  • In order to sing well I need to feel like it’s impossible to keep it inside. I have to be in, or get myself in, a state where a vocal upwelling is inevitable. This for me is a physical-emotional necessity, or else what comes out of my mouth will not resemble music at all. On the flute, how many times have I blown into the tube and pushed my buttons at the allotted times without getting into the place of expressive necessity?
  • Acting, to some degree, is an essential part of singing. Who was I and what was my “character” trying to say when I played the flute?
There are also some technical issues of singing that have helped the fluting, such as how to breathe, how to start a phrase, and how to end a phrase. These and others have been interesting to play with as well. But it’s the emotional-psychological realm where I see the most important influence of singing on the fluting.
I have a recording of the first time I played flute on a recital, when I was 19. That fall I played the Bach Sonata in G Minor on my old Armstrong flute with my friend Tim playing harpsichord. Looking back, I realize that I didn’t really play that beautifully again until years later. During college, I became so obsessed with technique, competition, and especially judgement, that I couldn’t just let go and play. I could be inspired by others, but I couldn’t play in an inspired way for an audience.
My really big breakthrough was a recital I played at age 32. I prepared music I loved well (Vivaldi Piccolo Concerto in C, Woodall Serenade, Kvandal piece for alto flute, Godard Suite, perhaps one of the Fukushima unaccompanied pieces), I loved my passionate pianist, and I was able to let it fly and hit it out of the park. I had finally achieved something really important to my musical growth. I had proven my “judges” wrong (including a professor who had said “you don’t have the temperament to be a performer”). This was probably about the 30th full concert I had played in my career, and I finally “got it right”. For years I had had something to prove (to myself, to my judges, to the Universe), and I had done it, by finally learning how not to try to prove anything! Right after that was one of the times that I put my flute away for a while. I was tired, and my life as it was then couldn’t deal with starting another mission to Mars.
Dealing with all these memories and feelings in the last two weeks, while getting reacquainted with my silver friend, has been quite a journey. I wonder where it will go next?
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Brian Lee | November 22, 2009
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Legit and non-legit

These are styles, not physiological phenomena. There may be common tendencies in the technical approaches to some songs in some styles, but there are not hard and fast rules. An attempt to try to describe belt as “constricted” reflects a misunderstanding of what an ideal performance of a belt song would sound like. Judy Garland and Ethel Merman and Kate Smith had open throats and clear diction and options available to them that screamers do not have.

Why do I say this? Because the Mid-Atlantic region of the National Association of Teachers of Singing, published the passage below as guidance in helping teachers choose rep for their students to sing in the Musical Theatre division of the NATS Student auditions:

Scientific Characteristics of each style:
OPERA: Moderate subglottic pressure and glottal adduction, moderate jaw opening,
lowered larynx, peak glottal permittance, short closed phase, good visibility
of folds, strong fundamental, strong singer’s formant.
MIXED: Moderate subglottal pressure, moderate glottal adduction, wider jaw opening,
slightly raised larynx, second formant highest (but first was present,) side walls
of pharynx slightly advanced, folds less visible, singer’s formant present.
BELT: 10 decibels louder, high subglottic pressure, high glottal adduction, widest jaw
opening, raised larynx, side walls very advanced, sinus piriform small, no
fundamental, long closed phase, folds almost hidden, low singer’s formant.
TRANSLATION
OPERA: Moderate breath pressure and folds touching loosely, mouth open small amount,
throat relaxed and open, larynx low, “ring” in sound.
MIXED: Moderate breath pressure, folds pressed together some, mouth moderately open, throat slightly constricted, larynx slightly raised, “ring” present but less than in opera.
BELT: High breath pressure and volume, folds pressed tightly together, mouth wide open, larynx raised, throat very constricted, no amplification of pitch being sung,
no “ring”.

complete document available here:

http://www.scnats.org/auditions/pdf/Music_Theatre_Category_Revisions_Information_for_NATS_members_for_website_2008.pdf

If belt numbers were always performed with the “scientific characteristics” attributed to the “belt” section above, I would hate them all. But this is not how good singers in any genre sing! This description of “belt” blurs the distinction between technique and style, and comes off as condescending to those who sing “nonlegit” rep.

I do not think it is wrong for NATS to change the rules to try to level the playing field a bit and require one legit and one nonlegit song for all the MT audtionees, but if they are expecting students to sing the “belt” numbers with a “very constricted” technique, why bother making this change? I am in discussion with some NATS folks and hope to get clarification on this. It seems that the problem is that they are afraid to use the terms legit and nonlegit or belt in the category descriptions and have painted themselves into an embarrassing corner with the “scientific” descriptions of the differences.

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