Music Notes Blog: Recent Episodes
Stacie Steinke
F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2 I S S U E 6 Whole Notes
Body Breath & Soul Vocal Studio Monthly Newsletter
MAKING AN IMPRESSION
Score on the Audition! pg.2
Preparation
I like to cook. When I know what I want to eat – the flavors, ingredient elements that are calling me – then the whole process is fun. Sourcing the ingredients, planning the cooking process, making the dish, and the finally eating it. It’s all fun and part of the process to go from idea/desire to outcome.
Performing is much the same way. You like a character or a song. Start thinking about what the character or song means to you and grow more interested in bringing it to life. You work through the melodies (Ingredients) and then give it your life/spirit and emotions. Hit rocky spots where the recipe doesn’t seem to be working right. Maybe start over. Maybe improvise something totally different. And then you sit down to eat and voila – the idea comes to life in your mouth. Like a performance, it is all the steps along the way – your preparation that makes the difference.
How you prepare is how you’ll perform.
Audition Prep
It's different than performance preparation
They probably don’t know what you can do. Show your best and what you can offer to the production of group
Take a chance on something that shows your range and gets you excited to perform.
Research what they do and /or what the show calls for. Is it low & bluesy? Rock? Light and fluffy? Comic? Lighthearted? Typical shows have a range of vocal styles they need because that's what creates the difference in characters. There's usually something for every voice type.
Pick material that showcases the best part of your range and emotional vocal style that aligns with what the show has. Find several pieces that can work in different show time periods: 1940s-1960; 19601990; 2000-today. The styles of singing and show content are markedly different in these periods, and all are produced by local theater companies. Need ideas?
I’m happy to help in the search for you.
7034855745 staciesteinke@gmail.com
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The OM & Singing
From Nothing to All things via Vibration
What’s in Your Hum?
Bhramari or Bee breathing is the simple, yet profound, act of inhaling and exhaling with humming. The sound of the hum is produced by when changes in air pressure around the vocal folds cause them to vibrate, creating sound waves which engage with closed lips. Voila – a buzzing sound! It’s fascinating and mind blowing to me that changes in air pressure around a vibrating material can create sound by transferring seemingly dormant breath into energy that Yogis believe is embued with the energetic force of all things – the MM at the end of OM.
Stop and think about this for a moment from the Yogi lens.
Patanjali wrote in his text The Yoga of Sutras.
The basic sound is always vibrating in you. OM represents God in the fullest sense. It is the power to create everything, because it has the seed from which all sounds manifest. Expressing your experience of OM uses different language and capacity.
What is the sound of OM?
OM is the compilation of the primary sounds - A U M anahata (beyond verbal)
Ah – the beginning of language – opening mouth and making sound. It is the CREATION of vibration
U makes mouth space smaller and helps to channel – think sea to creek. It is the PRESERVATION of vibration because its easier to maintain.
M – closed lips It is the CULMINATION of vibration, where we can feel it and bring awareness to it
Anahata – unspoken sound always in you that can never be destroyed.
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Translation and Commentary by Sri Swami Satchidananada
So, sound allows us to KNOW a truth because we sense its vibrations in the body. Sight, on the other hand, can tell the brain many possibilities about an object or experience and, can deceive us because we do not have the direct experience of vibration.
Singers and actors, through the sounds you share, you are on a journey to unearth the truth of a moment in a song or story and share that truth with others. Use your vibrational energy of sound to infuse the specific experience of character and share that with the audience. The audience is also a vessel that responds to the vibration you share, and then connects to something greater than their separateness. How cool is that? So, before your next singing experience, center yourself with OM. Feel the connection to the deeper truth of the experience you are gifted to share. Connect and Let Go.
Truth is one, seers express it in many ways.
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Translation and Commentary by Sri Swami Satchidananada
Patterns: Our Necessary and Escapable Prisons June 22, 2020
We, humans, are pattern-makers. Patterns ease the burden of living and learning. Patterns happen in the body in movement. Once a pattern of movement is repeated enough times the myelin that wraps the nerve cell gets wound pretty tightly. Then the action becomes a habitual or automatic reaction without the thought required to trigger the activity. And then, ahhh, we feel comfortable and confident to carry out the task.
Pattern-making can also be restorative – think Physical Therapy where muscle groups learn new, safe ways to perform actions. It is a conscious process of re-learning.
Patterns can also become prisons if the process of doing something, or the idea of focus doesn’t change or is not allowed to change. No myelin is spun and there is no fluidity in the system. The Challenge is to ride that balance of spinning or re-spinning on patterns, especially when current ones are not serving. Seems easy enough.
So why is it so hard to change? Here are just a few of the change resistors I carry around.
The Currency of comfort. Re-patterning requires work, focus, and vulnerability, and I’m comfortable just as I am, thank you very much.
Change requires a Challenge to my personal authority or power. I do ______ because my experience and knowledge has taught me, and I am supported by the weight & pride of my history. You can’t tear me down.
Or perhaps the change is a Challenge to tradition. Afterall, this is the way we’ve (I’ve) always done it. My personal favorite when something throws change resistance at me.
Why is it Valuable to re-pattern?
As we seek knowledge or skill, we are asking more questions and stimulating brain function
Give attention and focus to something “see” “hear” “experience” more deeply and become more engaged with ourselves and that little piece of the world.
Strengthen or Modify Existing helpful Patterns
In a word, Growth.
With our voices, patterns are learned early and unconsciously with speech, which set us up for wide array of impacts to singing. Pitch, timbre, and emphasis strategies in the speaking voice are heard and assumed in patterns of speech at home or local dialect in our communities. But even these most unconscious patterns of expression can be re-patterned with an open mind to
Hear what is going on (listen without judgement)
Hear and learn how to change/make adjustments to these patterns
As a voice teacher, I earnestly try to encourage new patterns first without “disrespecting” old patterns, and then slowly replace the new with the old. We get a lot from our old patterns and don’t always want to let them go. Sometimes you have to sit with the old ones a bit and thank them for their service – and what they gave you – attention, notoriety, focus. Then Let That S__ Go if it’s not healthy or giving you strength now. So, each day of practice has the opportunity to shift the pattern a bit, if we are paying attention. This keeps us more physically fluid and our mind in the moment, and out of the judgement zone. Most of the time, students have no idea that they could do_____ with their voices. The process of self-discovery is a thrilling gift.
This past weekend I began Yoga Teacher Training in a quest to do a few things:
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- Dive deeper into the physical and mental/spiritual practices of yoga that have enhanced my personal health and well-being
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- Explore how the practice of yoga interacts with and compliments the process and practices of singing and teaching singing.
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- Spend deeper and richer time in the community of yoga practitioners with whom I feel a kindred spirit in our quest for wholeness
Following each weekend of YTT with the marvelous Rachel Miller and a fabulous cohort of practitioners, I plan to share my experience and take-aways. These blogposts will for the basis of an online vocal techniques course that I am currently writing.
Please feel free to share your comments and thoughts on each post.
BlogPost 1 INtention VS ATtention
One of the first things you hear in a yoga studio at the beginning of class is usually a question posed by the teacher:
What is your intention for this time on your mat?
Not what do you hope to accomplish? Not how can you get better today? Not how do you want to feel when this is over?
This intention - word or thought - becomes a guiding principle for the practice. It can be a dedication to someone or something. It can be a desire to maintain or grow in a certain area. It can be a specific focus in the activity. It is an inwardly guiding structure for mind and body in the course of the activity. Over the course of the class, you are typically guided to come back to your intention. It is not judged or evaluated at the end.
Contrast that with Attention. Something you are attending to - perhaps watching over a pot of boiling water; or checking to see if it is right or OK like parents checking on kids doing their homework; or attending a soccer game, being present as a spectator. Attendance at today’s game was over 100,000 fans, which that tells us nothing about the quality of presence for anyone in the space. These are all exterior to thing or experience itself.
As singers we can attend to our performance of a piece by watching to see or hear if we doing x, y, or z? Efforts are pointed AT something. This is implies a right/wrong or not right - enough quality that remains ultimately judgmental. It is working to earn the attention the audience, and always questioning to know if it is enough. We are performing for them, gaining their attention in exchange for our ability to align with what they think is the right or best way to do something. In seeking attention, we lose the spirit of our true presence for that moment of delivery, and the gift of unity of instrument and empathy in performance is lost.
By contrast, when we root our performance in Intention, we learn to become the vessel of the composer’s intention. The performer's first question is what does the composer intend to say with the song? How do you know that? What are the cues and clues in the piece? And then the performer's focus shifts to how can I bring about the composer's intention? How can I get out of the way so that the intention is made more clear? Our intention drives our attention toward a specific element of the delivery, like breathing in phrases that work for singer and text to expose the meaning. We are called to consider and play with the composer's work, and create our own structure to bring it to life. You love the piece and you love the work of bringing the piece to life. Each time you perform the piece is another "inhabitation" of Intent - another moment to share the composer's INtention. Embrace it and then let it go.