Crossing Over

Many classical singers these days are looking to “cross over” into musical theatre and indeed, more and more opera companies produce a musical theatre piece in their seasons.  As the opera world shrinks, it is more necessary than in past eras for singers to become proficient in other styles in order to expand their opportunities to earn a living.  Though musical theatre is the closest cousin to opera, there are important differences, and I’ve compiled a list for classically trained singers (like myself) to help them successfully audition for and perform musical theatre.

Choosing rep:  Choose a song that showcases what you do well.  If you do not belt or mix, choose something “legit” from the golden age of MT (Rodgers and Hammerstein, Lerner and Loewe, etc.).  There are a few contemporary musicals that have that legit (head-dominant for women) quality such as The Light in the Piazza and Bridges of Madison County.  Look at rep sung by Audra McDonald, Kelly O’Hara and Rebecca Luker. 

Research: You’ve got to know the era and style of show the song is from (is it a classic legit musical, a traditional song-and-dance musical comedy, a jazzy piece, a rock musical?).  Research the plot, the character and the scene and know what happened right before the song.  You don’t have to use the exact same circumstances but you have to know the original intent. 

Personalize:  Use either the imaginary circumstances of the show or something similar from your life and make decisions about who you are, who you are singing to and what you want them to do when you’re finished.  What just happened (use your imagination) to impel you to sing the song?  Make strong choices that excite you.  Personalize every person, place, thing and event that you mention in the song – in other words, relate it to you and your life. 

Strategize:  The song is what you “do” to get what you want from the person you’re singing to.  At different points in your song, you might charm, bully, persuade, taunt, show off, tantalize, seduce, berate, scare – all action words.  We keep switching tactics or strategies to get what we want.  If you achieved your objective with the first verse, it would be a very short song!

Focus:  Place your imaginary scene partner center in your line of focus and sing to them.  You don’t have to stare them down – your eyes can look off when you’re trying to think of the next thing to say, or in memory, or can be looking at what you’re mentioning in the song - just as they do in real conversations. But you continually bring your gaze back to the person at center.  Are they getting it?  Have you convinced them? 

Chew Rate:  Even in very “legit” musical theatre singing (that is, singing  largely based on classical technique), there is less time spent singing on the vowels and a little more spent on consonants and the second part of diphthongs.  Some voiced continuant consonants can be sung on as well such as the nasals (m, n, ng) and l’s.  MT singing is speech-based and often should sound like talking on pitch. 

Tell the Story:  Words are primary in MT, the sound of the voice secondary.  There are more terrific actors with less-than-stellar voices than great singers who can’t act on Broadway - and always have been. 

Listen:  Listen to as many actors sing the material you’ve chosen – and other material like it – as possible.  Listen to cast recordings.  This is how it’s done – don’t assume you can do it better by singing more legato with more vibrato, rounder tones and longer lines.  That ain’t the style! 

Get off the Page:  There is not as great an adherence to exactly what is written on the page as in classical music.  Rhythms may be altered, lines may be back-phrased and in general the effect should strive to be conversational in terms of the stresses of the language.  You need to know, though, which composers it’s OK to do that with.  Sometimes eighth notes are supposed to be swung and if you don’t know what that is – find out!!  Again, it depends on the composer and time period it was written.  It can be very instructive to be looking along at the sheet music while listening to a recording (see above) to compare what’s written to what the performer is actually doing.

Movement:  In an audition or competition, it’s OK to incorporate a little physical movement in your song.  For instance, you could make a short cross (just 2 or 3 steps) on a diagonal when you have a change of thought (tactic).  Cross back to center (again, when your thought changes) to finish the song, making sure not to cross back upstage but down on a diagonal.  Gestures are used as they are in your everyday conversations.  Hands glued to your sides reads as nervous and unsure. 

I hope you find these guidelines helpful.  My further advice is to get yourself to an experienced, professional musical theatre vocal coach.  (And if you want to try your hand at belting, find a savvy voice teacher to help you with that.)  Trying to incorporate all of these pointers on your own could prove rather challenging, but being aware of them will save you time, money and lost opportunities. 

Open Letter to Musical Theatre Majors

Just thirty years ago, majoring in Musical Theatre in college was not much of a possibility.  Little by little, though, due to overwhelming interest, it has become one of the most popular majors in colleges and conservatories across the country. 

Not to date myself, but when I was coming up as an aspiring singing actor, we had to get our training willy-nilly as best we could.  In college, I majored in piano since classical singing held little appeal for me then.  I took all my electives in the dance and drama departments.  In NYC after graduation, I sought out further training in acting, weekly dance classes, voice lessons, coachings and auditioning classes.  I took a weekend seminar on The Business of Singing, which taught me how to attract a manager or agent, how to do my taxes (so important to know what you can deduct!!), and basically how to run the business side of things.  I haunted the Lincoln Center Performing Arts library taking out scores and listening to original cast recordings.  I bought a book about getting the right pictures and resume.  I educated myself in MT history by seeing shows and reading books about theatre artists of the past who interested me.  And most of all, I learned by doing.  I got a tremendous education by actually working – and learned from colleagues, directors, friends, and the experience of being “on the boards.”

Now that I am on the faculty of two college Musical Theatre programs, I am sometimes jealous of all the training and information the students get – seemingly handed to them on a silver platter and tied up in a neat little bow!  I’m embarrassed to say that it wasn’t till I was past my teens that I even knew (no youtube or wikipedia back then) that Richard Rodgers had a partner before Oscar Hammerstein III!  There was no course in Music Theatre history.  I didn’t really know how to dress appropriately for my type at auditions.  I didn’t know how to put together a viable “book” of music.  It was a lot of trial and error!

You have a tremendous advantage.  Yes, it was a great adventure when I was coming up, but you are so much better prepared for the business than we were.  By the time you graduate, you will not only have great training, but you’ll have a good, organized book, professional pictures and resumes, have done at least one agent/casting director showcase and have benefitted from the collective wisdom of all your instructors, most of whom are professionals in the field.  “I wish…”

Now I’m not saying that you MT majors should all be abjectly grateful, nor am I saying it doesn’t still take real work on your part.  But I am strongly suggesting that you really take advantage of all the training and opportunities available to you in such a systematic way all under one roof in your college years! 

This doesn’t mean your learning is at an end once you’re done with school of course.  You will continue to learn throughout your performing life – there is so much to know and experience!  But also be aware that every year, newly minted MT graduates pour into NYC (“another hundred people just got off of the train…”) who have a similarly polished level of training and knowledge, so the whole playing field is at a higher level, and competition is fierce.  It’s up to you to figure out how to stand out from the crowd, how to be a unique talent, how to reveal YOU through all the skills.  I can’t wait to see how it all unfolds for you!

Singing – the Big Picture (Part 1)

I was recently contacted by a young man who won 5 voice lessons with me at a silent auction for a charity I donated my services to.  He will be going away to college in the fall as a theatre major and knows that there will be voice work and some singing and he has no experience (although his father told me he’s got a “good voice”).  So he’s hoping to get a leg up. 

Five lessons.  That’s quite a finite number.  It got me thinking about how I could best explain the basic principles of good singing so that, besides beginning some actual singing training with me, he’ll have some kind of context and understanding to take with him as he enters into his acting training.

For an actor, a good way in may be to explain how singing differs from speech.  I’ve broken it down as follows:

·        In speech we use spontaneous inflections for expression; in singing there are specific, prescribed pitches

·        In speech we can vary our rhythm at will; in singing the rhythm is laid out for us

·        Speech is limited in range; singing needs to encompass a much wider range of pitches

·        Speech is fleeting; singing is extended, stretched out over more time and sounds (mostly vowels) are often sustained.

 It may also be useful to know that the elements of the vocal system have other functions for us as human animals, functions that are more primary than the secondary function of singing. 

·        Our respiratory system obviously keeps us alive by moving oxygen in and CO₂ out 

·        The tongue and muscles in our throat are used for swallowing 

·        The vocal folds themselves are valves sitting atop the windpipe (trachea) that open to allow breathing and close to avoid breathing in food or other unwanted matter.  They also function as a pressure valve for heavy lifting (note the grunting among weight lifters) and defecating. 

It’s useful to understand that some of what singing training is about is overriding some of our natural reflexes with regards to this system.  For example, the swallowing muscles are very powerful and need to be relaxed for optimal singing.  Likewise, the ribcage will naturally want to relax back down and in after inhalation, but in singing we need to resist the collapse of the ribs and the quick exhalation of air.  There are other differences such as opening the mouth more than normal and gaining some awareness of and control over the muscles in the back of the mouth (soft palate).

In my next post, I will talk about the basic principles of good singing.  Feel free to leave any comments.  Thanks for reading! 

Perfectionism

When you’re a child, singing is natural and joyous and spontaneous.  No child thinks to consider whether he is a “good” singer – he just sings.  For many of us who have chosen to become professional singers, the act of singing takes on other meanings.  And sometimes we can stray very far indeed from the spontaneous, joyous outbursts of our youth, especially if we have taken singing lessons.  
 
In lessons, as we try to become the best singer we can be, we may focus on breathing, on how we are using our lips, jaw, tongue, neck, vocal folds.  We listen to the sound critically and judge it less than perfect.  The flaws are pointed out to us in order to fix them.  We start worrying:  about every little sniffle we get, every dairy product we eat, every noisy, smoky or over-air-conditioned room – so many things can affect the optimum condition for singing.  We compare ourselves to others:  we may notice that some other singers sing with more ease, or more beauty of tone, or more technical proficiency.  They may be more charismatic.  We bump up against the professional world:  we may audition for roles or gigs and be rejected – not good enough!  And as we embark on a lifelong journey of discovery of our own true and best voice, we realize how much there is to learn, how much we don’t know.  Even with a very supportive, encouraging teacher (and they are not all that way, believe me), we may slowly lose sight of why we wanted to sing in the first place.  We may lose confidence and spontaneity.

I didn’t notice that over the years I developed the belief that any performance I did had to be my absolute best.  It’s easy to see how perfectionism could lead to performance anxiety and sub-optimal results, yet I wasn’t aware of it. 

In May of this year, I unexpectedly lost my beloved nephew at the age of 21.  He was an artist in the truest and highest sense of the word.  After a period of acute grieving and family time, my life had to resume.  Although still grieving this monstrous loss, I had my teaching commitments.  I also had some upcoming performances.  But my practicing had come to a stop.  And when I haltingly resumed, my time was still split between family matters and work, and I could not practice as much (or as well) as I normally would before a show.  Suddenly I was struck by the novel idea that it would be OK, because it had to be OK.  I had to trust that all the singing, studying, practicing and performing I’ve been doing my entire life would carry me through and that it would be enough.  Not perfect and probably not my best, but … enough.  And enough would be good enough.  I had to believe I had the right to sing.  I had to trust in myself and the universe and simply LET GO.  I approached my last-minutes coachings and the performances with this utterly new attitude and, to my amazement, the performances were some of the best, freest singing I have ever done.  Something let go and I felt unfettered.  I felt joy.  When I told my sister about this, we agreed that my nephew, her son, was still teaching me something about being a true artist.

What other words can I say?  If you are a singer and you have lost your joy, think about how you felt as a child.  Remember why you wanted to become a professional singer in the first place.  And if you are surrounded by negative feedback, get yourself to a different place – even if that feedback is your own.

PRACTICING

Unless you come from an instrumental background where training generally starts at a younger age, you might be confused about practicing.

Let’s start with what practicing is NOT.  Singing in the shower, singing in your car, singing along with your iPod in your bedroom, singing through a song or two – while these are all fine activities, they do not constitute practicing.

Practicing involves setting aside a dedicated chunk of time and working in a focused and systematic way.

Ideally, you have a quiet, private space (bedroom, finished basement, etc.) where there is a piano, keyboard or pitch reference of some sort (pitch pipe, smart phone app) and maybe a mirror.  That’s all you need in terms of environment.

How long should I practice?  If, in our hectic and multi-tasking world, you wait until you have an hour to devote to it, you may never practice!  Twenty minutes twice or even once a day is good for starters – everyone can find twenty minutes!  Even ten minutes is better than nothing.  Know, though, that it is the quality of your practice rather than the quantity that makes a difference.  Going through the motions while watching TV, thinking of your big date or being otherwise distracted is not useful.  Five minutes of focused, intentional practice is better than a half hour of rote, mindless singing.

The brain can only concentrate for a short period of time.  If you find your mind wandering, try to bring your attention back to the work.  If it wanders again, walk away for a minute.  Get a drink of water, eat an apple, stretch your body, look through your music binder.  Then come back with renewed focus.

How frequently?  Every day is ideal.  Work and school schedules, family obligations and other aspects of quotidian life sometimes conspire to make finding time to practice a challenge.  Aim for every day and the inevitable breaks in the schedule won’t be tragic.  Practicing 5 or even 4 days out of 7 is OK – you tip the balance to practicing more days than not! 

 
How should I practice?  I mentioned “systematic” earlier.  Here’s what I mean:

·         Start with two minutes of physical exercise to get your body warm – running in place, jumping jacks and arms swings are all good. 

·        Begin to vocalize gently and easily – lip or tongue trills, short scales, hums, etc.  Get your vocal folds vibrating and the breathing system activated for singing.  Focus here on relaxation and ease.  Notice your posture and make any small physical adjustments to get rid of excess tensions.  Then start to expand your breathing by singing longer phrases and exhaling more vigorously.  [Side note: unless you are physically disabled, there is no sitting down while practicing!]  Now you're getting warmed up.

·         Next, go to the vocal exercises you did with your teacher in your last lesson.  What were you working on (e.g., strengthening, legato, smooth register transitions, clear vowels, flexibility, extending range, etc.)?  Repeat the lesson exercises and see if you can achieve the desired result, or get closer to it.  This is where you are building your technique.

·         Now you are ready to work on your repertoire.  Singing your piece through from beginning to end is useful – once.  Then the actual practicing begins.  Go back and fix what you didn’t like.  What were you working on in the lesson in this piece (could be the text, phrasing, mastering difficult technical passages, etc.)?  Start sometimes from the last page of your song and work backwards so that the first page isn’t always the most well-rehearsed. 

If you are unsure of what to practice, or how, listen to your lesson recording (what, you didn’t record your lesson?!?!) to refresh your memory.  You can even sing along with the exercises, especially if you are a new singing student or have a new teacher. 

 Why should I practice?  Ah, we might have started with that one, but I wasn’t sure it was necessary.  Your teacher, if you are lucky enough to have one, can only be with you an hour or so per week.  The rest is up to you.  I have to reluctantly admit that I’ve actually seen students improve slightly with very little practicing in between lessons.  HOWEVER, if you want to master something, it takes real practice.  The now-famous 10,000-Hour Rule claims that the key to success in any field is, to a large extent, a matter of practicing a specific task for a total of around 10,000 hours.  This is a guideline based on the work of Dr. K. Anders Ericsson and popularized by author Malcolm Gladwell.  “In a study published in the Harvard Business Review in 2007, Ericsson said excellence is not just based on practice, but deliberative practice: ‘Improving the skills you already have and extending the reach and range of those skills.’ That’s why mastery requires practice, observation, refinement, and more practice. Ericsson recommends hiring coaches and finding mentors to improve your skills.” *

Your teacher is your guide, and a second set of ears.  No one can be inside your body, feeling the sensations when you are singing.  No one, not even a great teacher, can GIVE you the keys to becoming a great artist.  That is up to you and you alone.  Ultimately, we are all our own teachers. Think about that - it is empowering! 

 

* http://www.forbes.com/sites/carminegallo/2013/01/17/steve-jobs-ashton-kutcher-and-the-10000-hour-rule/

Nerves

Did you know that fear of public speaking frequently ranks above fear of death in surveys?!  Unless you’re made of stone, or unless the stakes are so low that you just don’t care (and who wants to see that performance?), nerves are bound to plague you at least some of the time.  The great Laurence Olivier is reported to have suffered severe stage fright mid-career and as a veteran performer myself (OK, old), I can tell you that nerves never completely go away with more performance experience. 

That’s the bad news.  The good news is there’s a lot you can do to mitigate your nerves and deliver a strong, professional, expressive performance to be proud of.

The body has a very real, physical reaction to perceived fearful situations, called the “fight or flight” response, summoned by the body’s sympathetic nervous system.  Sufferers experience symptoms including racing heartbeat, rapid or labored breathing, stomachache, nausea, diarrhea, sweaty palms, dry mouth, tight throat, and trembling hands, knees and voice.  Not very conducive to singing, right?

A TWO-PRONGED APPROACH

First, change your thinking.  There are problematic ways of thinking that contribute greatly to nerves. 

Needing to Impress:  As a colleague, a former Metropolitan Opera mezzo-soprano, tells her students, “don’t impress, express!”  Fantasies of wowing your audience with your amazing talent is a form of delusion of grandeur which sets the bar too high (pressure) and leads to crashing disappointment. 

Competition:  If you’re constantly comparing yourself to others and your sense of self-worth is derived from your perception of how you measure up at any given moment, you are letting yourself in for an unpleasant roller-coaster ride.  There will always be people better than you and there will always be those not as “good” as you.  Let that go.  You can’t control that.  What you CAN do is work hard and be the best YOU that you can be in the moment.  In fact, a great way to combat that competitive feeling in any situation is to make the other people your comrades and allies – root for each others’ successes and you have an instant support system. 

Being Judged:  An audition is an opportunity to make and develop relationships with people in the industry.  If looked at that way rather than with an “I have to win” attitude, every audition can be a positive experience.  The auditors WANT you to be good – they want to fill their casting needs as quickly as possible.  At a performance, an audience – whether paying or consisting of family and friends at a student recital – is there to enjoy themselves.  They are rooting for you because they want to enjoy the program and, if they are YOUR family and friends, because they love you.  They will not know the little mistake you may have made or how much better it sounded in rehearsal.   Which leads me to another important factor in combating nerves:  preparation.

Preparation:  Did I mention preparation?  That means practice.  You practice not until you get it right, but until you cannot get it wrong.  Say your text over and over in your head throughout the day for weeks.  Write out your lyrics and memorize them as prose.  Know a shorthand of how each verse starts.  Practice the last section first sometimes.  Memorize all the counts before your entrances.  Pay attention to the accompaniment so you know how it fits with the vocal line.  Get the technical aspect into your muscle memory.  You can only do that with repetition.  Remember, the French word for rehearsal is répétition!  

The Unknown:  To minimize the unnerving effect of unknown variables, try to get all the information you can.  If it’s an audition, who will be the pianist?  Who will be hearing you?  What is the space like?  Try to go early to see the layout, sing a phrase or two to check out the acoustics.  Same thing for a performance if you are unfamiliar with the space. 

Not Good Enough:  Many of us have a tape looping in our heads constantly whispering (and sometimes shouting), “I’m not good enough.”  No matter how many compliments you receive, how many schools you get into or how many roles you garner, the rejections and negative reviews resonate more because they feed into the nagging suspicion that you’re no good.  That’s a toughie to change but not impossible and you can certainly soften it.  Recognize those thoughts when they come in and laugh at them – “there it is again”.  Know that the tape may be very, very old and may not even be YOUR tape but something you picked up along the way.  Know that it is not true.  You ARE good enough.  Here is a partial quote from the legendary modern dance pioneer Martha Graham:

"There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.” 

  

Second, physical practices to counter symptoms. 

Breathing/Meditation:  When the sympathetic nervous system is activated, the first thing that’s affected is the breath.  Do lots of quiet, slow, deep breathing, taking the breath low into the body.  Beyond breathing exercises at the moment of maximal nervousness, it’s valuable to have a daily meditation or breathing practice you can call on at this time. 

Physical:  Running or other vigorous activity can divert some of the excess adrenaline.  Also, there are some comforting yogic physical postures, such as child’s pose and other forward bends that are calming.  Yawn/sighs are helpful to release the larynx and breath.

Chemical:  I’m not qualified to discuss medical interventions.  Anti-anxiety drugs and beta-blockers are used by some performers.  These should be seen as a last resort because of side effects, including throat dryness and numbing of affect, not to mention the potential dangers of abuse and addiction. 

This post got LONG.  There’s so much information available on this topic of interest to so many.  Here is a link to WedMD that is informative:  http://www.webmd.com/anxiety-panic/guide/stage-fright-performance-anxiety

Let me know if you try any of these suggestions and how they work for you.  Toi, toi, toi and merde!

Finding a Teacher - A Primer for Parents

This is the first of two articles on finding a teacher. The second article will be geared for professional performers as well as adult avocational singers.  This one is for parents of school-age students.

It might surprise you to know that, while there is government certification for all types of professionals – from doctors, lawyers, accountants and school teachers to plumbers, electricians and contractors to physical trainers, acupuncturists, psychologists and manicurists – there is no certification for music teachers.  Anyone can hang out the proverbial shingle (or website) calling himself a guitar teacher or piano teacher!  There is no monitoring agency, no oversight whatsoever, for private music teachers. 

Yup, anyone with an undergraduate music degree (or less), a season in the chorus of the local opera company or a few community theatre productions under his belt can claim to be able to teach your child to sing.  I mean, how hard can it be, right?  So how do you find the best teacher for your child?

The best place to start is with personal recommendations.  Ask other parents, any musicians you may know, your church’s music director and the school band/chorus or general music teacher.

Ideally you will want someone with both professional performing experience themselves AND some pedagogy background (pedagogy = the art, science, or profession of teaching).   A highly seasoned and acclaimed singer, no matter how many years she may have spent at the Metropolitan Opera, may have little idea how she does what she does and little ability to pass useful information on to young singers.  By the same token, a young teacher with a masters or even doctoral degree in vocal performance or vocal pedagogy but who hasn’t had real world performing experience may not have had good training himself (or else why isn’t he out doing it?) and have little idea what it takes to succeed as a performer. 

Next, see if you can hear some of their students.  Maybe you can attend a recital or sit in on a lesson or two.  Do the students sound like they are singing well?  Do they seem to be straining?  Some teachers publish success stories of students who have worked with them – performing credits and competition winnings, etc.  But beware:  some teachers claim students who may have had only a couple of lessons with them; and some teachers may only accept very talented students in their studios. 

Good teachers are interested in upgrading their knowledge.  Are they members of some of the music teacher or singing teacher associations (National Association for Music Education (NAfME), Music Teachers National Association (MTNA), National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS), New York Singing Teachers Association (NYSTA))?  Do they attend workshops and master classes (or present them)?  Do they associate with other singing teachers and musicians?  Annual continuing education credits are required by law for doctors, lawyers, speech pathologists, etc. and should be for voice teachers too.  There is a ton of exciting research in voice science and pedagogy being done these days. 

Another question to ask is whether the teacher offers performing opportunities – does he present recitals and/or does he send students to local competitions or talents shows?

There is a lot of confusion out there about terminology.  What’s the difference between a voice teacher and a vocal coach?  Again, these terms and activities are not defined by any oversight body.  But in the professional worlds of opera and musical theatre, there is a clear distinction.  A voice teacher is one who teaches vocal technique and will usually help students with repertoire (songs) as well.  A teacher may have any level of piano/accompanying skills, including next to none.  A vocal coach is usually an excellent pianist who specializes in repertoire and interpretation.  They will have musical directing or conducting experience and, if opera coaches, be well versed in languages and diction.  In the pop music world, however, the lines are more blurred.  So be specific about what you are looking for. 

Just a note on prices.  The best I can tell you is to find out what the going rates are in your area.  There will be a range, with younger, less experienced teachers charging less and more experienced, name teachers sometimes much more.  I do want to suggest that you not use price as your sole criterion. 

These are guidelines.  Perhaps a teacher you’re interested in or that has been recommended does not possess all of the above attributes, but he should have some of them. 

By all means, go with your child to the first lesson and meet the teacher.  Some may allow you to sit in on the first lesson, some may have you wait in an outer area.  But you want to meet the teacher and make sure the teaching studio is minimally a clean and safe environment. 

Along with all the above criteria, there is always the human element.  Despite all good intentions and qualifications, not every teacher is for every student.  There has to be a rapport, and the teaching style has to be a good fit.  I will try to follow up with some advice on what to expect from lessons. 

Peace out.