I gave myself a rehearsal challenge this past week to spend at least 30 minutes each day practicing. How did that go? Difficult, to say the least. Inertia is really difficult to overcome sometimes. Several days the only thing that made me interested in practicing was the fact that I'd promised, publicly that I would. Having said that, several of those days gave me some really good practice sessions. My favorite being the day I spent 40 minutes on 2 pages of Mozart, with easily half on that on one 5-measure phrase. That level of depth is exciting and fun and frustrating all at once. Or, at least, I think so. But toward the end of the week, it became impossible for me to practice singing. In a way, I was able to keep up the challenge, in that I have two other instruments that I can practice. Why couldn't I sing? Quite simply because I had a sore throat. Rough, scratchy, and very hoarse. Now, I know how to work around that kind of an issue, if I have to. And while I was tempted to try for the challenge, ultimately, I felt it wasn't worth the trouble. Trouble? This is when singing ceases to be a joy, and becomes literally, work. Hard, grueling work. You have to warm-up very slowly and carefully; the placement has to be just right, and the support has to be rock-solid. And, if you're not very, very careful, your voice can be even more hoarse the next day. That's why it wasn't worth the trouble for the challenge. I'd do it for a performance, not for a self-inflicted challenge. But this time of year, everybody wakes up with a scratchy, sore throat. How do you know when it's just morning crud as opposed to something you need to pay attention to? Well, the words "morning crud" are your first hint. If the hoarseness goes away after you've been up for a while, had a cup of tea, and worked your voice for a while by talking to the cat, you can be pretty confident that it was nothing to worry about, and go on singing. If, on the other hand, after all of the above, you are still talking like Tallulah Bankhead, it might be time to put off singing plans that day. (If you don't know who Tallulah Bankhead is, and even if you do ~ check out this video.
It's a very funny version of Baby It's Cold Outside, with Ms Bankhead and Jack Carson. There are several pictures of her while the video is on. If you think ~ as I did, that you don't know who Jack Carson was ~ here's his photo. He was in everything.) Anytime that it hurts to talk, is time to not sing. There. I think that about covers it. Otherwise ~ keep on singing!
I love to sing. Really, really love to sing. If I go for too long without singing, my temper gets a little short and nothing seems to go right. I love to play the piano and the guitar. And yet, I'll let weeks go by without touching one of the three guitars that grace my living room. I'll let weeks go by without singing anything more than I must to get through my lessons. Never really singing. Inertia.
Sir Isaac Newton's First Law of Motion can be stated thusly: I think that about says it all, don't you? (I have absolutely NO idea what that means.) I learned Newton's first law this way: An object in motion will tend to stay in motion unless acted upon by another body. Contrariwise, an object at rest will tend to stay at rest unless acted upon by another body. This is also called the Law of Inertia. So, now let's look at the word: inertia. It is from the Latin: in - without, not; and ars - skilled, art. So, unskilled, artless. I've also seen it defined as: lack of art or skill, inactivity, indolence. Lazy. Hmm. . . I am indolent. Even lazy. But I really resent the lack of art or skill part there. I am very skilled. However, singing, playing the piano and guitar are all use-it-or-lose-it skills. I try to be understanding when my students come to me and tell me that they really didn't have time to practice this past week. I know how busy our lives are; it's difficult to find the time to do anything, even things that we enjoy. That's one of the reasons I made these warm-up videos for my students. Basic warm-up. This takes 1 minute, 52 seconds. I'll round it up to 2 minutes.
This is followed, in my standard warm-up by: Short scale to the 5th. This is the high voice option. 1 minute 26 seconds. Say - 1:30. Do it twice: once on "Ah" and then again on "Ng-ah". There's 3 minutes.
Finish with Arpeggio Scales coming in at 1 minute 13 seconds. So, that's a grand total of roughly 6 and a half minutes. (I really hope these came out in the right order!) 6 minutes and 30 seconds. That's how long my idea of the barest warm-up would take.
There are 1440 minutes in a day. Let's round up our 6:30 down to 6 minutes. This gives us a fraction of 6/1440, or 1/240 of a day. (I rounded down because when I tried 7, the decimal was HUGE!) When I was 12 or 13, I came to a parting of the ways with my piano teacher. She was nuts. And not in a funny, good way. No, this woman was flipping insane. She let her cat sleep inside the piano while you were trying to have a lesson. She'd pace the perimeter of the room kind of like the woman in The Yellow Wallpaper. (If you haven't read it, here it is: The Yellow Wallpaper. I warn you, though: it's really weird. Short, but weird. But back to Miss Fedderer) She'd pace and pace and when you hit a wrong note, she'd scream, and you'd have to stop and fix it. She was the only piano teacher in town, so it was her or no one. At that point, I had a stack of piano books that was almost 3 feet thick. It took me over 90 minutes just to get through everything she'd assigned me for the week, just once. Not really practicing, just running through. In my 30 minute lesson, we'd never get through it all, but she'd keep assigning more and more. Finally, she insisted that if I really wanted to improve, I needed a minimum of 6 hours of practicing each day. 6 hours! I tried to explain to her that with school and homework, there really wasn't any more time in the day, if I was to make my 10 p.m. bedtime. So she told me to get up at 6 a.m. and practice for 2 hours before school. For some reason, my parents didn't think much of that idea. I tried to explain to the woman that piano wasn't my first instrument: voice was. That may have been my last lesson with her. Dad then found me a piano student at the college who was interested in teaching. She carefully broke a lot bad habits I'd been taught, and I began to enjoy practicing again. For a more reasonable hour or so, every day. You see, to me practicing is not just a means to an end. It is an enjoyable way to spend some time. It is cathartic, letting me pour my emotions into the music. It relieves stress. It allows for time to ponder some of the problems that life throws at me. My preferred method is to accompany myself on piano or guitar while I sing away. But, I can work on just one instrument at a time, too. And yet, unless I have something specific to work toward, I tend to just let it all slide. Inertia. So, here comes the whole point of this blog. I need to practice, and so do you. Just warming-up takes under 10 minutes. I've given all of you what I use as a warm-up. You can add to if, if you'd like, but I wouldn't recommend subtracting. Let's work together and overcome inertia! I pledge to spend 30 minutes each and every day this coming week in music practice. Voice/piano/guitar. 30 minutes total. That's not a huge amount of time, but I will do it, and I'll report to you, either on FaceBook, or my new Twitter feed. Don't try this at home: I am a professional. Or, no, do try this at home! But, if 30 minutes seems scary, try 15, or even 10. If all you do is the warm-up every single day, I promise that you will progress faster than you have been to date. They say that 3 to 4 weeks are required to make any new practice into a habit. Maybe we should change the vocabulary. We don't want to practice. We want to habit. Let me know how your habitting goes this week. I will be checking.
(Yes, "habitting" is a word. Stop being a problem.)
So, now we come to the fourth installment of the increasingly ill-named Musician trilogy. Someone commented to me that it almost seems, based on some of my comments in the last few blogs, that I don't even like singers. And that since I am one, and I teach others how to sing. . . what gives? Do I even like singers? I think that my gut reaction would have to be; "No." But, then too, asked if I like children, I'd also say no. Asked if I like people, the answer would be the same. "No." I like a lot of individual children, and a lot of individual people, but taken as a whole ~ not so much. (I've been married to the Nameless Cynic far too long, I guess.) Singers, taken as a whole ~ you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. . . oh, wait! That was Obi-Wan talking about the Mos Eisley Space Port. Wow, he could have been talking about some of the singers I've known. So, what is it? Why can some singers be self-centered, egotistical, swaggering, tin-plated dictators with delusions of godhood? Well, think about our instrument. With pianists, guitarists, violinist, whatever-ists, you can separate the instrument from the player. F'r instance, I have 3 guitars. Irving, the oldest, was a present on my 11th birthday. I remember driving about 1 1/2 hours to the nearest music store, and picking out the guitar. I remember the sales clerk being very condescending. When I got him to actually hand me the instrument, a lovely Yamaha folk guitar, I first checked out the harmonics, and then I started playing House of the Rising Sun, with the guitar riff made famous by The Animals. (I had been playing since I was 5 or 6, this was my second guitar.) (A video version is provided here for your listening enjoyment. Nothing terribly exciting, although, I am impressed - I had no idea that wireless instruments existed in 1964!) Irving has gone on to travel the world with me. I would be devastated if something were to happen to him. But, ultimately, he's just a guitar. He is separate from me. The second guitar lining my wall is a classical guitar. It was purchased either the same day as Irving or we went back the next day. It was my dad's guitar. He liked the wider neck that the classical style gave him, and he preferred the softer sound of the nylon strings. Dad only knew a few chords, but that was all he needed. We'd sit around some afternoons and he'd bring out his guitar, and we'd sing things like My Grandfather's Clock, The Crawdad Song, or The Wabash Cannonball. Whenever I play that guitar, I am reminded of Dad and how much fun we'd have. But, that guitar isn't him. The third guitar was my big brother's. Hal gave me my first guitar, long lost to the rampages of time. He taught me how to play the aforementioned House of the Rising Sun. He was an amazing guitarist, capable of playing any style, all self-taught. When I play his guitar, I feel closer to him again. It's a nice feeling. But, once again, even though this was his instrument, it isn't him. I have a friend who is a violinist. She has many violins, but her favorite is called Frankenfiddle. It is made up of pieces of several broken violins, and is literally held together by duck tape. (It was DUCK tape before it was DUCT tape.) Frankenfiddle looks horrible, but had a glorious warm sound. People would laugh when they saw it, but once they heard her play it, they'd stop laughing. She never took the laughter seriously, because the violin was only her instrument, it wasn't her. Think about what would happen if a woman who wasn't pretty, wasn't well-made-up, was obviously past her prime walked onto a stage to sing. You would immediately dismiss her. Don't argue, you probably would. Many people have. Think about the shock that Susan Boyle was in 2009. In case you've forgotten, or don't know who I'm talking about here's the shortest version of the video I could find. If she had come onstage carrying a flute, for instance, people would have taken her far more seriously at first glance. Since she, herself, is not the loveliest woman imaginable, people are surprised that her voice, her instrument, is so lovely. Other musicians, the instrumentalists, are able to separate themselves from their instrument. Singer can't. Our bodies area our instruments. When I'm teaching, I try to get my students to think of their voices, their vocal folds, as an instrument. That way, when I'm trying to get them change how they sing, they don't feel as if I am trying to change THEM. Once again, think about it. How can I, as a teacher, criticize their voice without criticizing the person. It's not easy. So, the more I can differentiate between you and your instrument, the better. Going back to guitars. I can say that I don't like the sound that Eddy Van Halen gets out of his guitar. I think he's a very talented guitarist, but I don't like the distortion, or whatever he puts on the instrument. There. I have criticized his instrument, but not his talent, his ability, or him. When people gush at meeting him, they talk about how great his playing is, not how great he, as a human being, is. Paul McCartney: a musical legend, a musical genius, a Beatle, a god, has also been called one of the greatest songsmiths of our time. And I think that while he can continue to compose, and play guitar, his voice has gone from being a light tenor to being thin, reedy and quavering with age. Yup, I've said it. Paul should stop singing. I've insulted his voice, his instrument, and himself. However, this doesn't explain why I don't like singers. When people meet Paul, or Lady Gaga, or Luciano Pavarotti (difficult, being as he died in 2007, but stay with me) they gush about how great the performer is. Not how wonderfully they play, but how great they are. Not separating the instrument from the performer. Part of the problem with this is that it can seriously mess with a person's priorities. If everyone thinks you are wonderful simply because of how you sing, then does it matter what kind of a human being you are? (I'm not saying that Paul McCartney, Lady Gaga or Pavarotti are/were not stellar human beings - I just used them as convenient examples.) How much easier is it to take Susan Boyle seriously in this video from 2010, just a year after her debut on Britain's Got Talent? She's now looking more like a singer, with an orchestra and backup singers. Same voice. Same person. Same song. Apparently had some sort of a breakdown following her loss on Britain's Got Talent. She seems to have recovered. I just hope that she's not letting her fame and fortune go to her head. I was with a singer who after ordering hot water to drink at a restaurant, and telling them specifically how to prepare it, then sent it back for not tasting right. They probably did something unseemly to her water in the kitchen. Can't say that I'd blame them, either, if they had. Hopefully, Ms Boyle isn't doing anything like that.
Let's be clear, if you are a singer, this is your instrument: Pretty, isn't it? OK, most singers are fine, good people, and I really do like them. Kids, too. Just not sopranos.
I seem to be writing a series. I think this is the last one in it. It is definitely the third in the trilogy. So, apparently, last week, Han Solo was frozen in carbonite, and this week, Leia will defrost him. Do you think the microwave defrost setting will help?
Cheerful music for your listening pleasure: No video, just music. (This piece is actually rather difficult to play, by the way. Lots of odd rhythms and jumps. I've been practicing it, and it's beginning to come together.) Anyway, I seem to have gotten slightly off track. But only slightly: remember that Star Wars can tell us a lot about music and singing. (So, I'll really be working to bring in this particular analogy before I'm done!) If singers want to be taken seriously as musicians, they need to learn to play the piano. If all you want to do is sing more effectively at Karaoke night, then you probably don't need to add piano to your list of skills. Just about everybody else, though, needs a nodding acquaintance with the piano. Why? Wow, that's a really broad question, with a lot of answers. Let's see how many reasons I can come up with.
How can you be sure if you're singing the right note if you cannot check it on the piano?
Only the piano teaches you how to play both staves: treble and bass clefs. (Some harps do, also, but, no offence to harpists out there, it's really not going to help you with singing)
Piano teaches pitches in a way far more objective than voice. (Middle C is ALWAYS in the same place!)
In a pinch, you can always accompany yourself. (And those tight situations happen a lot!)
Piano teaches the mechanics of music; theory, chord structure in a way that is more effective than voice. (It's hard to teach chords when you only sing one note at a time. Not impossible, but hard.)
Piano playing has been linked to better scores for student in schools.
Piano playing has also been linked to increasing the memory-retention of Alzheimer's patients.
Piano playing is good for your hands. It builds muscles and dexterity. I'm all-but ambidexterous, and you'll find that a lot of pianists are. (Leading to more whole-brain thinking!)
And think what this manual dexterity will do for your video game scores! Playing video games is now linked to better laparoscopic surgery skills in doctors. So playing the piano could help your daughter or son become a surgeon!!!!! (No really, it could. Honest...)
And that list only took a few minutes. I'm sure I could come up with more reasons if I really worked on it. (But I wanted to get this to you today, not sometime next year.)
So, my point here is that while voice is my primary instrument, I also spent years studying the piano. And, yes, I also spent years playing the guitar, but I didn't learn how to read guitar music, either standard notation or TAB, until I had been playing for decades. I was quite happy playing chords, without really studying the form of the music. In piano, that comes with the territory.
When I was a music major, I discovered something interesting. The singers were, as a whole, looked down upon by everyone else. The band or orchestra players had great rhythmic sense, and great intonation, but no idea how to perform. Meaning absolutely NO stage-presence. And they didn't know the first thing about interpreting a piece. Everything that they had done had been in ensembles, with the director ordering the interpretation.
Pianists and singers were the ones who knew something about interpretation and performance. But, some of the singers could barely read music. And some of the pianists only knew about solo performing. The ones with the best musical training had played both a band or orchestra instrument, and piano, and could sing. I only knew one girl who fit that criteria. Out of hundreds of music students there was one. So, the rest of us floundered on something.
But, I also discovered that my years of piano training really set me above most of the other singers (yes, years: I started piano when I was 5 or 6 and at that point, I was 23). The instrumentalists gained a bit of respect for me, and even some of the professors began to take me a little more seriously when they learned that I was proficient on the piano. And I began to look down a little at the poor singers who really didn't have a clue.
But, pianos are expensive! Yes, they are. And sadly, the days of everyone having a piano in the parlor have gone out of fashion. People rarely have a parlor anymore, either. But, if a piano is out of the question, there's no reason that a keyboard isn't. And, no offence to my friends who are actually pianists (I just play the piano, I am not a pianist), but not every piano student needs a piano. A decent keyboard will do for many, and especially if you're just out to play well enough to make sure you're on the right note. But, beware, piano playing can become addictive, you may find that somewhere down the road you need a better keyboard, and eventually you may long for a real 7 ft concert grand piano. And then you'll have to buy and new house to put it in. And that will mean that you'll need a new job, and . . . if you give a moose a muffin. . . For right now, you'll be fine with a keyboard.
And who knows, maybe someday, you'll be able to pull a piece out of the carbonite freeze, defrost it, and find that now that you know a little more, it really wasn't that hard. With a little work, it'll start to come together. Like Han Solo at the Cantina.
Several years ago, I belonged to a musical organization that was offering a scholarship for something or other. There were openings for many different instrumentalists, but no slot for voice. I asked if any of my voice students could apply. After a shocked silence, one woman looked down her glasses at me. "Oh, dear me, no. This is only for musicians." I was still confused. "I'm sorry, but singers are musicians, too." When the laughter died down, I was firmly put in my place - wherever that was. I thought a musician was someone who was skilled and had studied music. And it is. But all too often it is understood to apply only to instrumentalists - people who play an instrument. Why is this? A lot of singers just sing. They don't read music (last weeks' blog), they can't count, they have no concept of anything but singing as high and loud as they can. But, even singers who have studied music often aren't thought of as musicians. I think it has to do with attitude and level of study. You have to reach a certain level in your study to even think about being a musician. But you also have to be willing to place the needs of the music above your desire to show off. I was very pleased a few months later when one of those same women said that I was more than a singer, I was a musician. What had I done? Played a Chopin piano concerto? Performed a Segovia sonatina on guitar? Composed a symphony? Nope. I sang the Bach-Gounod Ave Maria while she accompanied me on the harpsichord. (It turned out to be very difficult finding a good version of this that would show what I want. This is Kathleen Battle with Christopher Parkening on guitar. Notice about 2:09, he has to slow the tempo of the accompaniment down to accommodate her high note.)
This particular piece of music wasn't written by someone with a hyphenated name, but was written by two people. The accompaniment is Bach's Prelude in C from the Well-Tempered Clavier. Charles Gounod wrote a melody to go over the top of this previously existing composition. (Which was not originally intended for voice, or the Ave Maria, but that's another blog!) What had shocked my accompanist, in our first rehearsal, was that when the high note came, I hit it, and held it exactly as long as was written, and then continued the line, not requiring her to change the rhythm of the Prelude at all. (In fact, she started to pause, and had to catch up.) We finished the song, and she sat and stared at me as if seeing me for the first time. "Don't you want to hold onto that high note?" she asked. "Under normal circumstances, yes. But, this song isn't quite normal." "Its not?" Now she was confused. Where was I going? "This accompaniment is a song in it's own right, and even came first. So, I think that takes precedence here, and so staying on the high note becomes completely inappropriate. She sat at her harpsichord, stunned. Then she got up, hugged me, shook my hand and proclaimed that I was not just a singer, I was a musician.
What had I done that was so earth-shattering? I'd put what I felt was the integrity of the music above my own aggrandizement. That apparently put me in a different category than most singers. That saddens me.
I was trying to get into the circuit of funeral home singers here in Albuquerque. I went around town with recordings of my singing, cards, brochures, the works. While I listed myself as "Soprano," I also called myself a musician, mentioning piano and guitar. The only phone call I ever got from any of the funeral parlors was one wanting an organist. I explained that I wasn't an organist, but a singer who could accompany herself on piano or guitar. "But I need an organist!" "I'm sorry, I don't play the organ." "Your brochure says that you're a musician!" "Yes, I am." "Good. I need an organist." "I'm sorry, I don't play the organ." We went around a few more times before he hung up in disgust. Apparently, in this man's mind, musician meant someone who could play the organ.
But, aside from him, why are singers often not considered to be musicians? There are some instrumentalists who don't read music. But, for the most part, if you have reached the level where people are willing to pay you to make music, if you play an instrument, you have studied that instrument for years, maybe even decades. And reading music goes without saying.
Instrumentalists, especially those who played in band or orchestra in school have an advantage the rest of us tend to lack: they can count. Counting in music is vital and is sadly overlooked by a lot of singers. Pianists, too, unless they've played in some sort of ensemble, can sometimes have rhythm issues. If all you've ever done is solo work, you might never have learned the skill of counting.
Solo work. What fun it is to sing alone and not have to worry about what anyone else is doing. Of course, to really not have to worry about what anyone else is doing, you have to sing a capella - with no accompaniment. I've been to a few auditions where people show up intending to sing something a capella and sing their song in about 6 different keys. Unintentionally. I bet they wonder why they didn't get cast. I've had students who at first don't understand why I want a piece of paper with dots on it when I ask for their music. Those are times when I find myself understanding why singers have a reputation as poor musicians.
Music, as in reading music, is written on paper. It isn't played on your iPad. (See least week's blog) A capella is all well and good, but it is something to be approached with respect, after one has acquired an ear that is good enough to not switch keys every few words.
Sing in choirs. Sing in choirs in school, church, wherever you can find one. This tends to be the closest thing singers have to the experience of being in a high school band. You may even have to learn to count!
As a musician, one of the best things that ever happened to me was when I was taken off of first soprano and banished to second. I thought it was the end of the world! I was devastated. But, if I wanted to keep my scholarship, I had to sing in that particular choir. So, I sat down and learned how to harmonize. I had no idea it was so hard! Alto is relatively easy, I discovered. It's always easiest to sing the top note in any chord - tenors and first sops have it SO easy. The bottom note - alto and bass - is a little harder, but once you get the knack, it's a piece of cake. (Why is cake considered so easy? It's rather difficult if you bake from scratch. Of course, pie isn't easy either. . .) Anyway, baritone and second soprano is where true difficulty comes in. Hearing a note that is buried somewhere in the middle is not easy. It took a lot of work, but I learned how to do it. Now, I can sing any part you might feel like assigning me. But, that versatility took work.
Instrumentalists have it easy when it comes to playing harmonies. They're often given music that only shows their notes. They neither know, nor care, what anyone else is doing. If they want to hit an "e," they press down the proper key, valve or string, and . . . there's an "e". Singing is very different. We have to be able to hear what we're singing. We have to constantly gauge our notes against the accompaniment, and all the other voices. Are we the proper distance from each of the other parts? Are we forming the vowel sounds in exactly the same way as the other voices around us? Are we adjusting our vibrato to match that of everyone else? Is the consonant strong enough to make the words intelligible while not too strong to disrupt the flow of the music? And that's just the beginning.
I realize that an accomplished instrumentalist has a lot going on in his or her head, too. Vibrato is an issue with string instruments, and some woodwind. Breathing is important for brass and woodwind. But, singers remain the only musicians who cannot see our instrument. And, unless you are planning on learning Peter Frampton's talk box, we are the only musicians who have to throw words into the mix.
If you plan on performing, and who doesn't? Then you also have to add in acting, movement, and that indefinable something called "Stage Presence." Sometimes, I wonder if the distinction between singer and musician isn't because we are something more than a mere musician. But, then I come back to reality as everybody else sees it. Many singers are not musicians. But I think it's something we should all strive to be. (But maybe, not organists. . .)
It's a very funny version of Baby It's Cold Outside, with Ms Bankhead and Jack Carson. There are several pictures of her while the video is on. If you think ~ as I did, that you don't know who Jack Carson was ~ here's his photo. He was in everything.)
