An inquisitive and articulate colleague of mine recently brought up some great questions about how we frame our experiences. It was a pretty interesting angle. She asked this question: If we say that we learned to be better teachers because of having bad training or other adversity to overcome, is it because it’s true or […]
Tag: health
Piling on Adele’s vocal issues
In the forums, people are blaming Adele for ignoring healthy technique and ruining her voice. Folks, this is so not cool. People are acting as if she has a vocal death wish. Look, it’s not our business whether she was singing like a bad girl or whether the exhausting tour schedule got to her, or […]
No voice stays the same forever
Nobody sounds exactly the same at 75 as they did at 25. This is not bad, it just is. I heard Leontyne Price in a recital around 1982 where she sounded quite rough. I heard her again in 1987, and it was wonderful. Retiring from opera in the early 1980s was the right step for […]
Food for the voice teacher’s soul
If you teach, coach, or conduct singers, you probably inspire people to greater achievement and dedication to their art. What do you do to get inspiration and rejuvenation for yourself? Attending workshops, classes, concerts, and shows may be part of your refueling plan. Taking voice lessons and getting coaching on your own repertoire can keep […]
Singing should feel good!
There is no way around it; you must get to know your body well in order to sing well. You need to find out how to treat it as best you can and how to listen to it – how to be with it, cooperate with it, and use it to the fullest. It’s important […]
The “Edge Mechanism”
In Singing: Personal and Performance Values in Training, Peter T. Harrison quotes Husler and Rodd-Marling and then gives further definition of the “edge mechanism”: We come therefore to the very heart and soul of the singing voice, the coup de grâce, if you like. I refer to fine muscle-bundles and fibres that Husler and Rodd-Marling […]
Recordings as Models – Danger!
A recording is not the same as a live performance. Specifically, the sound you hear on a recording is not the sound you would hear if you were in the same room with the singer as they recorded. When we listen to a recording, the singer’s performance is changed a lot or a little by […]
Issues that affect the voice
Voice, being a phenomenon at the intersection of body, environment, mind, emotions, and expressive intent, can be affected by many, many things. Some teachers are too nosy and involved with their students, and others perhaps not enough! Students and teachers need to communicate with each other about issues or changes in the following:
Teach to the market place?
“Every singer should study classical repertoire and technique.” Many teachers have claimed this. The argument for this is something like: If working “classically” can lead to greater power, flexibility, and stamina, it must be good for all singing. We want those as options, don’t we? A singer can always scale it back. This idea could […]
Coming back from a break
Physically, singing is a kind of athleticism, and will benefit from a program of exercises that works on flexibility, strength, registration, and vowel quality in daily practice. If you have had a break from singing and want to get back into it, it is important to start practicing easily, and gradually increase difficulty and duration. […]
Getting off the train
Sometimes you just need a break. Don’t feel bad about that. It can be restorative to take a week or two off from your musical routine. As a music major in college, it is ground into us that we must work, work, work. More is better and there’s never “enough” or “too much” in such […]
Who are we without our electronics?
There are so many ways to distract oneself, to fill every moment with some activity. We wait in line at a retail establishment, out comes the phone, checking for something we might have missed, maybe looking for something to want. It’s there whether real-time contact with others is available or not. Many people now behave […]