My generation bore witness to extraordinary social progress. It is traumatizing to now see those with status, power, and money leveraging their resources to vigorously and viciously reverse that extraordinary social progress.
Free, expressive singing requires both skill and focused, uncomplicated conviction. I would argue that the conviction part is more significant than than the skill part.
Resistance training is a dance with gravity. Practiced mindfully, it can enhance the quality, power, range, and expressive potential of all our movements.
If you are unaware that something horrific is being done to you, you cannot defend yourself. You cannot advocate for yourself, or advocate for change. Your only option is to numb yourself against the misery while weaving stories about how everything happens for a reason.
It’s one thing to know about anatomy in the abstract, but quite another to apply that knowledge to the training of someone else’s anatomy, given that each of our bodies is unique.
Imposing learning on students does not lead to strong retention and integration of whatever it is you want them to know or get good at. It also does not foster a love of learning—quite the contrary.
Grades reduce learning to a common denominator and rank students against one another, creating a situation where external validation by a teacher and comparative success over their peers become more important than actual learning.
When someone seems to have a naturally beautiful voice, all that means is that they intuited how to move their articulators in a way that provides for more expansive, consistent resonance. It absolutely does not mean that what they intuited cannot be developed—it can.
When you want to improve a particular type of coordination, remember that you’re not bringing a blank slate to the process. At least some of the coordination you have already habituated is likely to be at cross purposes with the new coordination you wish to develop.
Singing is a process of musical expression that is facilitated by internal physical movements. As a voice teacher, part of my job is to help singers condition their vocal anatomy, which includes improving range of motion, continuity of movement, and continuity of sensation.
Singing is a fully embodied musical experience. In retrospect, my difficulty learning to sing came from an inability to feel a functional connection between different parts of my body.
There is tension, and then there’s Tension, with a capital “T”. The creative tension I experience preparing to write a blog post is one thing. The kind of Tension that you urgently need to get rid of because it’s messing up not just your singing but also your life, is something else.