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One of the greatest challenges for any singer is the ability to sing 'legato.' Legato is an Italian word meaning "tied together" but we use today to define a singer who can sing a phrase with no accidental breaks or interruptions. This sounds easy, but is in fact the hardest thing for most singers to execute consistently. Indeed, singing legato is often the easiest way to identify a professional versus amateur singer.
There are numerous 'tricks' to help singers achieve a true legato, but most of the time it involves visualization exercises asking the singer to concentrate on maintaining a consistent airflow. Many voice teachers will ask you to 'sing on the breath' or 'think of the air as a river' - when voice teachers use those sayings, they are working on legato! DWS One of my best teachers, an acting coach who teaches at the University of Houston, had a saying that every young actor and singer needed to "steal" from older, more experienced professionals. What does this mean? And how does it make you a better singer?
In education, cheating/stealing/copying from others are definitely frowned upon. Yet we learn as little kids, as well as young professionals, that the best way to become good at something is to watch more experienced people and to 'copy' or 'steal' them. For actors, this means watching the best and understanding how Meryl Streep or Tom Hanks works a scene - how do their individual actions make you believe they are sad, happy etc...? As a singer, vocal technique is not something you can copy...you need to be in the practice room, taking lessons with a good voice teacher, and working on your voice everyday. But singers can still "steal" by listening to other singers and how certain phrasing and musical choices can make one singer incredibly "musical." Most voice teachers tend to take the view that musicality is inherent and cannot be taught. I do not believe this. Musicality is a function of having great ears attuned to what the music is doing, listening and copying great singers, and studying your music and the composing style. Studying musicality is not a simple "A causes B" affair, but it can be learned. DWS Whenever we are passionate about an activity, we naturally want to see results: Basketball players want to jump higher, track stars to run faster, and singers to sing with more power and range. Wanting to excel and improve is a good thing, which is why I ask all my students to record their lessons so they can hear when their vocal technique improves.
This desire to improve can be problematic if it starts to 'tighten' the athlete or singer. Instead of focusing on the process of improvement (lifting weights and agility exercises for athletes, vocalises for a singer), singers start to focus on their sound being 'perfect,' and when the sound doesn't match that standard, we start to get frustrated, tighten up, and actually make the sound worse because we are not relaxed. This can setup a negative feedback loop that never ends - we get frustrated that our sound isn't right, get tense, which makes our sound worse, which makes us MORE frustrated...you get the point. As a singer, it is critical to focus the process of improvement, and the exercises that accompany improvement, rather than the result. It sometimes takes time for your body and mind to figure out a vocal exercise, perfect it, and then use that exercise to benefit your singing in a song. So long as your voice teacher gives you the right instruction and exercises, great singing will come! DWS It's summertime! While every student (and teacher!) enjoys the summer break, I will also be working on my CD/digital download project for the next school year. Right now, I am currently in the process of going through musical after musical to find those gems no one has heard about (or at least hasn't been heard in Houston!). One of the wonderful books I am using to discover these songs is "Show Tunes" by Steven Suskin. If you love Broadway, this book is right up your alley. He details every show that has made it to Broadway, with a few exceptions. Basically, every musical you have heard of + thousands more.
DWS One of the lessons academic counselors give to high school students is that even if a school is a 'reach' for you financially, you should apply. Most people are shocked by how much aid and grant money schools will find for you if they want you as a student.
As an example, many small, private liberal art colleges are VERY expensive (think 30K a year, and that is before room and board). But these schools, due to large endowments, often have tremendous financial aid packages. Even if you are not interested in music as a major, many small schools will give you money for music if you audition and will sing in their choir (you have to be a great singer, of course!). From my time at Southwestern University, a liberal arts school in Georgetown, TX, I can honestly say that I did not know anyone attending who was paying the full 'sticker-price' of the school. So if you plan on majoring or minoring in music, or even just want to sing for the university choir, AUDITION! You can get some easy financial aid and make money (get the school to partly pay for your education!) doing what you love: singing! DWS Here's the tough reality: if you want to break into the performance industry (acting, singing etc..) the odds are against you. Simply put, there are too many talented people and too few jobs. What you can do is focus on the elements of your business that you can control, and leave the rest to luck and fate. Here's what you can control:
1) Your skills and abilities 2) Your marketing 3) Meeting people 4) Your money and how you invest it in auditions, CD, marketing etc... 5) Your attitude 6) Knowing what you want If you check all these items off the list, you are 90% ahead of the competition. But the rest is left to chance and if you accept that, pursuing music/acting etc...is for you. DWS Texas is blessed to have an abundance of wonderful music schools. Since this is the time of year where my voice students start asking me about where they should get a music degree, I've listed the following schools as excellent for music. You will still want to research the campus itself, voice teachers, relative strength in opera vs. musicals etc....but this is a good list to start with!
University of Houston - a public university that is perhaps the best school in Texas, and a leader nationally, for opera. Southwestern University - a small liberal arts university known more for its academics, but gives you plenty of stage time, has great music faculty, and is close by to the Austin music scene. Rice University - known more for its orchestral musicians, its opera program has really grown by drawing in top-notch faculty. I don't know much about its musical theater program, but I can only assume it is excellent as well. University of North Texas - The best known music school in Texas, it has perhaps the best jazz school in the country and also does well in other genres. Baylor University - Lots of excellent classical singers attend Baylor. And they like to throw a lot of scholarship money at singers, so definitely worth a look. Texas State University - Perhaps the best musical theater school in Texas. And yes, it is known as a party school, but that does not include its singers! This list is leaving out several good schools like UT-San Antonio, UT-Austin, Trinity University, Abilene Christian University, and I'm sure I'm missing a few additional ones. Texas is very lucky in regards to music. I would apply to as many as possible, get some scholarship offers, and then pick and choose. DWS While well-known by classical music lovers, Dvorak's 9th Symphony was, and is, one of my favorite symphonies. I used to listen to it obsessively in college, and always have the CD nearby if I need some inspiration.
The story behind the music is equally impressive. Dvorak was a Czech composer in the late 1800s who visited the USA. He ended up traveling a great deal in the US and found musical inspiration in the spirituals sung by African-American slaves. It also helped a great deal that one of his new American friends, an African-American baritone named Harry Burleigh, sang some of his mother's spirituals for Dvorak. With these songs in hand, Dvorak sought to create a symphony inspired by his visit to the "New World" and shaped by the spirituals he had heard. Dvorak's personal opinion was that the spiritual and Native American music would become the basis for an emerging American style of music. Harry Burleigh, perhaps motivated by Dvorak's attempts to integrate the spiritual into a symphonic work, became a very prominent composer in his own right. And guess what he is best known for? Taking his spirituals and converting them into classical songs that we now know very well. DWS Several years ago, a voice student said that I almost was like a doctor in how I worked with a student in my lessons. I feel a good teacher-student relationship is exactly like a strong doctor-patient relationship.
With a doctor, their job is to successfully diagnose and then treat a medical illness. With voice lessons, things are less serious but similar in approach. A good voice teacher listens to their student/'patient', diagnoses what needs to be addressed vocally, and develops a plan/'treatment' to solve said vocal issues. With a lot of discipline and hard work from the student, the voice becomes much stronger in a few months, and the teacher and student can move on to other topics for vocal 'wellness.' DWS PS My dad is a doctor, so perhaps my doctor-like behavior is simply passed on from him! A month ago, I listed the types of songs you should have in your audition package for both musical and opera auditions. I left out one important caveat, however: you need to consider if the song you pick can be 'sight-read' by the pianist for the audition.
Pianists for auditions have a tough job. They are expected to play well enough for every singer even though there is a good chance they will not have seen a third of the songs they need to play. We would never expect a singer to instantly sing 100 new songs in a day with fair accuracy, but we essentially are asking our pianists to do that...and most professional pianists do a great job. That being said, try to be kind to your audition pianist. For musicals, be careful to pick piano accompaniments that are relatively easy and are not 'too unusual' in their harmonic progressions. Your best bet is to bring your songs to your voice teacher and ask their opinion (or even better, a professional accompanist if they are available). For operas, you tend to have more leeway with piano accompaniments, but it is still wise to pick the majority of your arias from standard audition material. For the record, I have only had two auditions where the audition accompanist did a poor job playing for my audition...both were for operas, and strangely enough, I got hired for both jobs. So even if it is hard to sing with a struggling accompanist, it does not mean your audition will not go well! DWS |
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