Cookies

What could possibly be more important than the quality of your own moment-to-moment experience? The cookies you bake are one thing—the quality of experience you had while baking them is another.

Emerging from the Dark Aether

Hello, my friends! I’m happily still among you, and I am grateful to finally feel ready to share some updates and other thoughts.   I remain pretty astonished by the condition in which I now find myself. Back in December, I had plenty of ideas and ambitions about what I

What Did You Learn In School Today?

Singers, what did you learn in your most recent voice lesson? Teachers, what have you successfully imparted to your students so far this week?  I’m inviting you to reflect on these questions because the greater our clarity about what is successfully imparted and actually learned, the more valuable the

Why You Hate Exercise

This blog post is dedicated to all of you who think you should be exercising more than you do. Or believe you should be enjoying it more than you do, or wish you were getting better results. All of you are officially off the hook. I’ve been a certified

What Do You Need from Your Voice Teacher?

Some years ago I became aware that within our vast and varied constellation of voice teachers, I was regarded as a technique specialist.   When I asked a prospective student why they were interested in working with me, they often replied with something like, “I‘ve heard you're great

The Liberated Voice Version 2.0

This post launched the second incarnation of my blog when the old Typepad interface became obsolete. It’s time to transplant and reboot my blog. My reasons for the refresh are logistical as well as philosophical. I dubbed my practice The Liberated Voice when I first launched my blog in

The Needs of the Many…

I am a voice teacher, and I believe that classical singing is a skill set that can be taught and mastered. Our educational institutions, by and large, do not. On the face of it, this assertion would seem to be not only outrageous but also senseless. After all, our opera

singers are musicians

Singers are Musicians Too!

To sing accurately, your body has to know where the pitch you want to sing is and find it for you. The more mysterious and organic it feels, the more likely the resulting sound will be beautiful and free.

Reverse Engineering: The Master Singer’s Technique

As I have related, I was accepted into a performance MM program with a substantial scholarship on the basis of demonstrated potential, having previously had little formal instruction. Throughout my time in graduate school, the opera department cast me in leading roles and I earned excellent grades. Then, prior to

The Master Singer, Part 2: Instrument Design, Coordination & Integration

In my post Towards a Gold Standard in Singing, I stated that in addition to evaluating a singer’s sound, we must also evaluate the quality of their instrument, the quality of their coordination, and the quality of mind/body integration that enables them to simultaneously be artist and instrument.

master singer inspiration from instrumentalists

The Master Singer, Part 1: Drawing Inspiration from Instrumentalists

Professional instrumentalist must be able to do pretty much everything that it is possible to do on theirinstrument, and very well. For a professional singer, comprehensive mastery is also essential.

Towards a Gold Standard in Singing

stand·ard /ˈstændərd/  1. a level of quality or attainment 2. an idea or thing used as a measure, norm, or model in comparative evaluations I’ve lost track of the number of times a member of my studio has expressed a fear that they’re on their way to