Yoga and Jogging Impact Singing But a Singer's Gym? Where you can work out all the glitches with other singers....

Yoga and Jogging Impact Singing But a Singer's Gym?  What a unique concept and it actually exists. Classical Singer featured a Singer's Gym in an article in June 2009. It is an intense audition only program which accepts 10 singers for 4 weeks to workout an aria and scene with other singers. It is intense and not something we all have time for, but we can learn a lot from it's model.  I am intrigued by its concepts are valuable tools to increase the authenticity of a performance

The Singer's Gym is a place to "work out, try things, experiment, fall and get up, and do it better the next time.  These are the things you need to do as you're strengthening yourself as a performer."  Ben Bernstein, co-director of the Singer's Gym in San Fransisco.  Why do we not create more of this opportunity on a smaller scale in studio workshops?

Think about it; as a performer, we have to learn to do each and every one of these things.  We should learn to do it in front of others besides our teacher and learn how we will cope with the learning process.  College environments provide a version of this opportunity to most voice majors through weekly masterclasses for each voice studio.  There is an opportunity to perform the song you are working on in front of the other students in the studio and feedback given by your teacher that day in front of the other students.  You work a little bit on the suggestions the teacher gives and get to watch others do the same.  This is a modified and skeletal version of the Singer's Gym, but a start in the process.  

Many students in private voice studios do not get this opportunity.  Sure the opportunity to perform in a recital is present, but the idea of a 'masterclass' is foreign to many.   As we guide our students in their singing endeavors, I think it is valuable to add masterclass opportunities either by means of a Saturday group class once a semester or an additional workshop which they can sign up to do.  By taking extra time to work on pieces in front of others you can do 2 things:  1. Get performance experience and 2. Get an opportunity to work on being engaged in what you are singing.  It is easy to say, pretend you are singing this love song to an imaginary character.  It becomes real when you actually put a person there to sing to.  When you add real people to the mix who are working on some of the same things, the dynamics and ability to really communicate the meaning of the music changes.  It is all about connecting with the musical piece you are singing and working it in different ways to truly express the music with your voice and your experience.  

In preparing music for performance (especially in my summer program), I try to incorporate some activities to help students truly connect to their songs from an emotional standpoint.  Research the opera, art song, or musical theater song so you know your character or poem.  Look at the text and find a descriptive word or emotion for each section.  Repeat that sentiment to yourself first before you sing each section and then internally as you sing each section.  Bring your own interpretation to the song- how can you make the topic something you can truly relate to?  All of this guidance is easier said then done.  Sometimes doing it with a group makes it easier.  I may try it in my next masterclass.  

The model of the Singer's Gym is in depth, but deserves some merit to include in our studios and encourage our very serious performers to explore.  In summary, each of the 4 weeks has a focus and involves individual and group work to truly get in touch with the character, meaning, and performance of a piece of music. Week 1 is devoted to studying the score and everything the composer put in it.  Week 2 is spent on 'space' and learning the awareness of the space around you and your function within it.  Week 3 is character work, including how to find and embody your character and week 4 focuses on onstage relationships.  The psychology of relationships of characters and of the individuals doing the work comes into play as to how the music is sung.  The whole program focuses on "grasping the idea that you have to know not only what happens in the aria (song), but what happens the moment before and the moment after, and in the accompaniment or orchestration.  Interpretation from their own distinct voice and person." Kathryn Cathcart.  

When we sing we are communicating something and need to spend time on that aspect of performance. It is directed by the instructions of the music written by the composer,text of the song or aria, and placement of the song within the larger overall work, but artistic license should allow for individual distinction and exploration.  The end result of spending this kind of time and dedication to preparing a performance equals one thing- an authentic and enjoyable performance.  Happy Singing!

Yoga is good for singing, but is jogging? How do you know what exercise you do is good for your singing?

Yoga is good for singing, but is jogging?  How do you make sure what exercise you do is good for your singing too?  Last week we discussed the many ways that yoga and finding balance are good for singing.  So is cardiovascular exercise including jogging, running, or fast walking! As long as you are generally in good health, now is a perfect time to add jogging to your exercise and singing regime.  You can add it outside to get that much desired fill of nature in spring!

Jogging is cardiovascular, it gets your heart and lungs working, increases circulation, lowers your breathing, and give you a positive outlook on life as a result of released endorphins.  All of these things take care of your overall health and have a positive impact on singing.  The better your lungs work, the better your breath control.  The stronger your overall body is, the better your endurance in performances.  The more positive your outlook on life, generally the more productive you are in practice, rehearsal and performance.

How do you make sure you avoid any negative affects of starting a jogging routine?

1.  Make sure you generally are in good health.
2.  Buy good running shoes.
3.  Jog on unpaved surfaces as much as possible (outdoor track, grass or stone paths, treadmill)
4.  Breathe through your nose!
    * The nose is a natural filter of dust, dirt, and pollen.  It reduces irritation of the lungs and upper respiratory system.
    * The nose filters air and adds humidity to your system.
    * Nasal breathing triggers the lungs to expand more fully and easily.  It encourages you to use deep   breathing that we need to sing.
    * If you have a stuffy nose, it generally opens up after a little bit of running due to adrenaline in your system.
5.  Embrace the emotional component or 'runner's high'.  Your brain function increases, your thoughts are clearer and you feel better about life!

After you run, try singing.  You should find that you are breathing easier, can sustain phrases well, and have a positive and creative attitude towards solving any singing puzzles you may encounter.  Not only are you doing something good for your physical and mental well-being, but your singing too!

Please let me know your thoughts about adding running to your routine and how it impacts your singing!

Yoga and Balance are synonymous. But how can yoga and balance related activities help your singing!

Yoga and balance- a synonym for those who do yoga.  But how can yoga and other balance related activities help your singing?

As an avid yogi, I often discuss the benefits of yoga for the singing voice to my students.  It calms your breath and nerves, opens up the body to breathe better, elongates your spine for better posture and therefore breath support.  A myriad of benefits.  Lets look at the science as to why!

In Make Your Unstable Life Work for You, Claudia Friedlander describes the science of how the balance of yoga can really help your singing!  I was fascinated with how she described what I use often in my studio.  I highly recommend what she has to say!  Let me try to explain it with a few references to her words (in italics):

Stand up and find your balance on one foot, bringing your other foot up to your calf or above your knee, and raise your hands above your head (tree pose).  Feel how you find balance and how your leg, hip, ankle adjust to keep the balance.  It is a series of continuous, incremental adjustments.  Find a sustained phrase from your repertoire that is challenging and sing it while in this pose.  You may find that this passage is now much easier to sing.  WHY?  Finding this balance has put your neuromuscular system on high alert making all motor activity that you engage in benefit.  It cannot lock up like your knees might or stop and start as the breath might because everything is going in to you keeping your balance.  This makes total sense.

As Friedlander states, Singing, like balancing, is a continuous activity.  The more you think about locking up a part of your body to balance, the more possible it is for you to fall over.  The more you think about holding pitches rather than continuing the breath through them, the more difficult they are to sustain.  Find activities that promote stability through continuous movement such as tree pose, walking the phrase, or pretending to throw a baseball with a slow follow through.

Balance and stabilization can:

- Enhance body awareness (improve your mind/body connection to your voice)
- Promotes good posture (free larynx, improve resonance, coordinate better breathing)
- Make you more comfortable and graceful moving on stage
- Stabilize your joints so that you can safely exercise and maximize your stamina (cardio and strength training)
- Teaches your neuromuscular system to create stability through continuous movement that impacts all of your physical activities

Singers should have a workout regimen that includes stabilization training to balance their muscles. Challenging your ability to keep your balance and maintain good posture throughout a series of movements prepares your body and your nervous system to perform movements requiring greater strength and fine motor coordination.  (Fine motor coordination that is essential to quality singing).

How do you do this?

A variety of activities but specifically Yoga, stability ball activities, and functional strength activities (keeping your balance on one foot while manipulating small dumbbells in bicep curls) are a few ways to get started.  As you exercise in these ways, you are challenging your body and brain to stabilize through movement.  This works on the neuromuscular control necessary to develop stability both physically and in your singing.

Secure vocal technique is characterized by stable, consistent tone production.  This requires superb coordination and balance of everything that contributes to singing.  Until you find this, you are tempted to lock up and stiffen things.  Like physical stability, vocal stability is the result of continuous directed movement.  The way to get it is to expose the instabilities in your technique so that you can improve overall balance in the voice rather than gripping.

In other words, use balance related activities and workout regimens to help you truly balance your vocal technique and release tension.  Give it a try, it's pure genius!

Continuity is the key to success in singing and music, but how do you find the balance?

Continuity is the key to success in singing, but how do you find the balance of practice, lessons, and the rest of life?

The key to success in any art is continuity, especially in music.  You fine tune that talent over and over to make it perfect.  Your muscles and your brain remember what to do to make that perfect sound and how it feels to truly make it the best it can be. Continuing lessons on a consistent basis and regularly practicing in between lessons paves the road to success.  But how do you balance that with the rest of your life?

There are two types of singers that should be addressed:  the voice student (young high school, middle school, college or adult student) and the professional singer.

The regular pattern of practicing and always making time for lessons in a weekly schedule can sometimes seem daunting to a singing student.  The continuity of lessons is pertinent to singing success. In addition to regular lesson attendance, one must practice in between lessons what the teach assigns (both exercises and songs) to maximize improvement.  If the student merely shows up on a regular basis but does not work on the vocalise or repertoire in between, progress slows.

It sounds tough I know, but you can find ways to schedule practice time into your daily routine. Write it in your planner.  Put a reminder in your phone for the time you said you would practice.  Schedule it as a break for studying for that math test.  Promise it is the one thing you will do for yourself that day as a busy mom.

Of course life happens and you have a busy week or intense tests at school or you need to help a family member.  That is expected.  But, make regular practice a part of your normal routine and let NOT practicing be the exception to the rule.  If you can't practice one week, commit to go to your lesson and let the teacher know.  There are still things that you can do and so long as it is not a regular occurrence, most teachers appreciate the honesty and work from there.

The instability of performing for a living can also be very tough to manage.  Finding the time to practice when you have very long rehearsals everyday or are travelling.  It can be intense, but there are things you can do.  Look at the music and hear how you sing it in your head.  Map out the breaths, analyze the text, make it a part of you mentally so then you can make it a part of you physically in rehearsal. Record yourself in practice (especially when it is a good one) and listen to it again and again so you know you are remembering it and 'singing' it correctly.  Work on learning the melody of new music by listening to it.  There are things that can be done, sometimes we just have to get creative.

How does this affect the rest of our lives?  Make time for other things that are important to you too.  It is essential to have balance in your life.  Exercise, spend time with family and friends, or doing another activity you enjoy.  It is all important.  Sometimes we have to make sacrifices as a musician and cut the time with friends down a little bit, or workout for 30 minutes instead of going to that 1 hour class or playing the whole game of baseball.  Find the balance that works for you that still enables you to get in your lessons and your practice time!  Music is something you will have for the rest of your life!

There are different ways of finding balance in your life with your practice, be creative and you will figure it out!  Stay tuned next week for how you can find vocal stability and fix instabilities in vocal technique through finding physical stability.

Musical Theater Productions Abound- What can YOU do to make sure you are a part of it next time?

High school and Middle School Musical Theater Productions are happening all over the place right now.  'Tis the season.  Go and watch them if you are not in them.  Practice and have fun if you are performing.  It is a fun season of the year and can get you motivated to work on your own singing!

What can you do to make sure you are a part of them (or a larger role in them) next year? Work on your TRIO of talents:  Singing, Acting, and Dancing.  All 3 combined make the balanced musical theater artist who will land that big role! One may be your forte or strength and then you focus and dabble in the other two when you are not in a show or over the summer or in between semesters in college.  Find a time when you can add an intensive program, camp, or add some lessons in the other areas.  If you are primarily a singer, take an acting class or dance class over the summer to learn more about a different aspect of musical theater performing.  If you are primarily an actor, research a way you can put a little bit of singing training or movement/dance into your year.  Perhaps you take singing lessons all year and take acting in the fall and dance in the spring to get it all in.  Of course doing all 3 would be great, but time is short with the quick pace of our world.  Explore how you can learn a little of each to improve your skills.  Many summer programs include a little of 2 or 3 of the talents.

We all have one strength out of the TRIO of talents, but all are needed to be a successful performer in musical theater (at schools and on Broadway).  You really must work the whole of the 3 part package for maximum success.  Have fun and happy performing!

Reasons Why You Need to Sing Everyday!

A student of mine sent me this link and I love it enough I made it the next blog topic!  We need to sing everyday for multiple reasons and here are some great (and funny) examples!  I agree with most as those who love to sing are always looking for excuses to do it!  Some are not medically founded, but beneficial to think about anyway!

According to 15 Reasons You Need to Sing Everyday. (Article on Buzz.com- Click and read this link for the humorous take (and videos)


Here is a summary of why to sing everyday (with commentary):

1.  Singing releases endorphin's making you happier.  (Absolutely)
2.  When you sing, you release oxytocin , a natural stress reliever found to also help depression and loneliness  (Both I and my students agree on the stress relief!)
3. You will sleep better because you will be less stressed  (Sounds good!)
4. Tests show that singing reduces heart rates  (Especially when singing something slow and soothing)
5. When singing with someone else, your hearts can synch together (choir anyone?)
6.  Your posture will improve and you will build confidence as a result (Most definitely!)
7. Your feelings of safety and confidence grow when singing with a group (I have seen it many times!)
8. It is a good workout:  you work your lungs, improve circulation, and build strength in your abdominal muscles.  (Our body is our instrument, so it needs to exercise!)
9.  Singing can boost your immune system. (Not sure if this is true, but wouldn't that be great!)
10.When already sick, if you hum a little tune, you can open your sinuses and respiratory tubes (Try it!)
11. It is good for your brain. It enhances mental awareness, concentration and memory (Yes and research documented!)
12. You develop healthier breathing patterns (lower relaxed breathing) (Amen!! If only we did it during the rest of the day in addition to when we sing.  It does enable you to calm down quicker)
13. It can be used as a natural way to treat chronic pain, dementia, depression (also music therapy) (Yes!)
14. You may live longer!  (What a wonderful thought!)
15. So raise your voice and start singing!  The possibilities are endless.  (Singing is a pleasure to you and to those with whom you share your gift.  So HAPPY SINGING!)

Enjoy the singing and let me know your thoughts on these and other reasons of why we should sing everyday!

Cross Training the Voice- "Bel Canto Can Belto" Point of View

What to my surprise did I see when I looked at the most recent Classical Singer Magazine (March 2014)?  An interview with Mary Saunders-Barton, head of the Master of Fine Arts in Voice Pedagogy for Musical Theater whom was mentioned in my most recent blog, Cross-Train Methods are Different for All, But There are a Few Models and Ideas.

An up and coming degree for what we are experiencing to be the need in singing today! The M.F.A. was "developed for teachers with a wide range of understanding and tolerance for different styles who want to develop from the ground up" Saunders-Barton.  In other words, a degree in teaching the cross-training of the voice through experience themselves!

Much to my pleasure, the article not only talks about the degree, but the HOW of cross-training from Mary Saunders-Barton's point of view.  After seeing her run a masterclass at a NATS competition a few years ago, I was intrigued by her point of view added to the Jeannie LoVetri Method.  There are many similarities and a few differences. The importance is that cross-training and teaching Contemporary Commercial Music (CCM) is being studied by many and a science being developed to support teaching a variety of singing styles!

When one thinks of cross-training the voice, opera and musical theater come to mind as the 'theater forms of singing' and are not completely different places.  CCM is "an add-on, this awareness that you can use your voice in other ways", M. Saunders-Barton, which we will continue to explore. A singer must sing, act, and dramatically convince the audience of their character.  The main difference is truly amplification.  Musical theater allows microphones and opera does not.  We still train the musical theater singer to produce the sound through acoustic use and classical voice technique and adjust it to musical theater from there.  It is important to keep the resonance and not solely depend on the microphones!

Saunders-Barton also believes (as do I)  in a vowel-resonance based technique.  Pure vowels carry the acoustic waves of sound the best in both classical and musical theater technique.  Imagine calling out "Hey You!" on open vowels ('ah', 'eh', 'uh') and then closed vowels.  Which one carries further?  Apply the same thing to singing "Hey You!" on open vowels and then closed vowels.  Which resonates more? Open vowels.  According to Saunders-Barton, girls make the most noise F#-B-flat or C and boys the most also F#-C an octave lower.

When asked the frequent question, Is Belt Mixed?, Saunders- Brown answers "Yes, because it is a balance of good healthy function that is a belt quality above the passaggio".  Exactly!  A mix is a balance of healthy and resonant.  Boys need to learn mix as they move to sing higher and higher to keep the resonant quality and not have an extreme break between 'chest' voice or normal voice and falsetto. Girls can really only have an open belt up to D5 and then it sounds like a scream.  We can teach how to get there in a healthy way by learning how to keep the breath in tact and resonance in the right place in the head.

You can indeed belt if you are classically trained.  It is all about the cross-training and developing a well-balanced instrument.  Belt uses the different muscles of your vocal cords in varying ways than classical.  When well trained, they can work well together and compliment one another (just like a runner also needs to do yoga to cross-train muscles).

In summary, we need to pay attention to 4 things:  1. Acoustics/Amplification 2. Vowel Modification 3. Going back and forth between styles 4. Create a belt/mix

The technique of how to cross-train effectively is still developing between PSU' and Shenendoah University's work, the Lovetri Method, scientific study by Voice and Speech Therapists such as Wendy LeBorgne, and a variety of other books and methods.  The demands are there in the music being written, so we must figure out how to get there in a healthy way.  It is all about developing strong, healthy singers to sing the music being written.  Thank you to all who are researching and teaching and sharing your knowledge with other singing teachers so that we can be the best we can be!

Other Books and Sources:

Bel Canto Can Belto Classical Singer Magazine, March 2014

"So You Want to Sing Musical Theatre?" by Scarecrow Press (NATS website audio and exercises)

The Vocal Athlete by Rosenberg and LeBorgne

What are your thoughts and contributions on teaching cross-training?