Topher Talks: Recent Episodes
Topher Keene
Topher Talks is an ecclectic podcast featuring longform professional development from Music Educator Topher Keene, Director of Education for the Grammy Award Winning Phoenix Boys Choir. Learn to improve your music teaching in general music, choir, and musical theatre classes with training in music literacy, vocal technique, expressive performance, conducting, educational psychology, brain science, and more!
If you're reading this we probably met at the Voices United conference in Virginia.
I'll be presenting a session on Aural Literacy on Friday, you can learn more about it by watching my session from 2012 Massachusetts Allstate
If you didn't catch my session, I'll have the video posted here shortly, along with a PDF of the handouts (over 20 pages of content) and a video companion to the handout in case you don't like to read. You can get those goodies by heading over to my Patreon Page and checking out the content stream.
Please feel free to reach out at TopherKeene@gmail.com if you'd like to connect, I'm always up for a quick chat on Skype, and I'd love to hear about what's lighting your heart on fire.
I am so excited to be launching this project.
For years I have dreamed of devoting my life to creativity, passion, and human potential. I've worked with young people for most of my adult life and I've seen the power and inspiration that lives inside each and every child.
Every child is a genius.
Every child is an artist.
And every adult is just a big kid.
Through years of study and mastery in singing, I've found that the people who are most stuck and unhappy in their lives are the ones who have shut the door to their creative potential. The ones who look at painters, dancers, singers, speakers, writers, and other artists and say "I wish I could do that".
You can do that.
Over the last decade I have spoken, taught, and performed at hundreds of schools, colleges, churches, conferences, and community events and I'm here to tell you that anyone, ANYONE, can learn to sing. It's not just singing, I fully believe everyone is capable of expressing themselves in all art forms, but I'm still working on taking poetry and photography and dance and painting classes to prove I walk the walk.
As for singing, I've seen 4 year olds sing their hearts out until an adult told them they weren't good enough.
I've seen 70 year olds tell me about when they were in school and someone told them to "just mouth the words".
I've seen my grandmother in tears singing next to my mother in an audience of over 1000 while I stood on stage leading the song.
I know that the arts, and music, and especially singing can help open up parts of ourselves we thought were closed to the world.
I want to help you - and everyone I can - to open to the beauty the arts have to offer.
And the world has changed just enough in the last decade to make it possible.
Through this blog, short ebooks, full-length books, podcasts, videos, and live events, I'm embarking on a journey of delivering as much art into the world as possible. With my voice and my words and my heart and my soul I will give all I can give in hopes of making a difference in your life. The look on a student's (or an adult's) face when they say "You changed me, my life will never be the same" is worth more than all the material wealth in the world.
But what about that?
It's nice to talk a big game about living a creative lifestyle and contributing art to the world, but how do you pay the bills?
I've done full-time work and part-time work, I've work in and out of the public school system, I work one-on-one with a highly select group of loyal clients, but just recently something has happened that has allowed me to take the leap.
You can learn more at http://patreon.com/TopherKeene but here's the gist:
You know Kickstarter?
This is Kickstarter on steroids.
Patreon allows people who love artists to support their work, just like the Patrons of days past.
I watch every Pentatonix video
I read Zach Weinersmith's comics every day
I now have a way to contribute to them and allow them to continue making their art.
With just a few dollars a month, I become a Patron, a supporter, a believer in their art.
And now, I'm building a tribe.
You can join me at http://patreon.com/TopherKeene and become a Patron too, and as more of us gather, some amazing things can start to happen. When we reach certain milestones, time becomes divorced from income and the freedom of pure creation is released. No longer does a project need to worry about what will sell and what won't, instead an artist can make their art and share it with the world without barriers. Patrons get some exclusive content and more access, including monthly Google Hangouts over video, but everyone in the world gets the art. The blog posts, the book chapters, the podcasts, the videos, the live events all go out into the world for free.
I'm so excited to launch this next stage.
Join me?
I recently came across a forum post of a young artist asking for help freeing themselves from the perfectionism and fear preventing them from putting their art into the world.
Here's the best advice I've got, I hope it may be helpful when you face the dark terror of producing art.
I've worked with many artists, especially in their late teens early 20s, who are TERRIFIED of going out into the world without something perfect. They listen to the best artists out there and compare themselves to that highest 1% of history while their own work is still developing.
First, watch this, the most important 2:00 of your day:
http://vimeo.com/24715531
Now watch it every day before you start your art making
Then, I have an assignment for you, but only if you're ready to be a real artist.
You have one problem.
It isn't a lack of perfection.
A lack of skill.
A lack of ability.
It is a lack of FAILURES.
You haven't failed enough to be good yet.
You may have failed a lot, but go out and make them big and public.
Your assignment?
100 Crappy Pieces of Art.
Songs, pages, blogposts, whatever.
You MUST produce BAD art.
You might get lucky, fail once or twice, and produce something kinda good.
You might not.
But you'll learn to overcome your fear of shipping and putting real art into the world.
Good luck, PM me anytime, and go make art!
This post is a preview from my upcoming book:S.I.N.G. A 4-Step Process For Finding Your Voice
This is your wake-up call. You need to make a decision right now. You’ve come this far. You’ve committed to getting this deep into the program. You’ve done more than most people ever will. You’d be amazed how many millions of books are bought each year as trophies to sit on a shelf, never to be opened.
You stand at a crossroads. When you start the next chapter, you’ll be singing every day. It won’t be a lot at the start, just a few minutes here and there, but you may feel very uncomfortable for a while. You are starting the journey to literally rewiring your brain in a number of ways.
First there is a part of your self-image that references your ability to sing. We’ve already talked about how you probably consider yourself a “non-singer” or just someone who “can’t sing very well” or “doesn’t sing”.
Exercise: Take out a piece of paper - a journal, a napkin, something! - and answer the following questions: “Am I a singer? Can I sing? Do I sing?”
Be completely honest, it’s okay to write “I’m not a singer, I can’t sing, I don’t sing.” You may feel some or all of those things right now. The following chapters will allow you the chance to retrain the part of your brain that says those things and open up some new options.
Now look at your answers and reflect: “Says who?”
Who is that voice that tells you singing just isn’t for you? Is it you? Is it a parent? A sibling? An old teacher? A childhood friend? Who told you you can never sing, you should never sing?
Once you’ve decided who says you can’t sing (even if it’s you!) there’s another question to ask: “What qualifications do they have?”
I’ve worked with thousands of singers for over a decade, including dozens who were what many would call “tone deaf”. I myself was a terrible singer all the way through high school, and if you heard me in those days you’d ask why someone would record a bunch of puppies being stepped on. I’ve worked with many vocal coaches and read countless books, studies, articles, and dissertations on the voice and singing. I’ve studied the CD and DVD singing programs and taken all I can from them. I have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless hours in my musical education. I’ve led singing with four year olds and ninety four year olds. I’ve stood in front of crowds of over a thousand people folding their arms and looking at me with that “I can’t sing” face, and I’ve won them over and had them singing together in glorious harmony.
I don’t say this to brag, (okay, maybe a little) but to ask you if I’m more or less qualified to judge your singing potential than the person who decided you can’t sing.
Ask yourself what (if anything) they knew about the human voice. Are they really qualified as an expert to judge whether or not you can gain this skill with years of study and practice? Are they psychic?
Without even hearing you once, I can tell you without doubt that you can learn to sing. You are the result of millions of years of human evolution, and your brain, body, ear, and voice are absolutely incredible devices capable of more than you ever imagined. There’s a 90% chance you are a better singer now than I was in middle school, and in a few short years I learned to sing quite well. If you’re in the 10%, I guarantee I’ve had a private student worse off than you are. I’ve had students take years to learn to match pitch. But they learned.
More importantly, I learned from them. After working with each “non-singer” who came to me, the next one learned a little quicker. You, my friend, are benefitting from the struggles of these “tone deaf” strugglers who took a leap of faith and asked for help. What took them years and months will take you weeks and days because you will have a clearer path.
Thank the voice in your head for its honest opinion, and let it know that you asked someone a little more qualified, and he said it’s worth a shot.
Can you sing, do you sing, are you a singer? The answers may take a long time to change, but there is another question you can control the answer to.
This is the last question to answer before you turn the page and commit to S.I.N.G.
Exercise: Write your answer, make sure to date and sign it: “Will I sing?”
When you find the strength to write “I will sing”, you are ready to read on.
I am proud of you, let’s learn.
This post is a preview of content from my upcoming book:S.I.N.G.A 4-Step Process For Finding Your Voice
What is S.I.N.G.? S.I.N.G. is the acronym we’ll be using to give structure to the process and help you find your singing voice. I’ll give you a bird’s eye view (macro) then dive into the details (micro) and finally come back up and summarize all we’ve learned (macro again).
First you will Sing daily, so you can see where you are and gauge progress as you develop. Second, you’ll Invest, Integrate, and Iterate, devoting time, effort, and money in coaching, classes, audio or video programs, and other resources that will not only accelerate progress, but hold you accountable while making singing a part of your life and improving over time. Third you will develop Natural technique, taking the best strategies from many sources and finding what works well for your individual voice and body. Finally, you will Grow steadily, maintaining the progress you’ve made so far and expanding on it in new ways. By focusing on small wins and getting just a little better each session, you will be amazed by how quickly you can see results.
First, you must Sing daily.
Now, it may seem a bit presumptuous for step one of a singing program to be “sing daily”, but take a moment to consider it. As much as we want to convince ourselves that singing is a magical gift from above, it is an action performed by our bodies. It is impossible to develop physical actions without performing the physical action and adjusting over time. Once you have begun the effort it’s easy to adjust and make improvements over time, refining your actions and getting better day by day. Without daily action, you have no chance at true improvement. The greatest danger in this program is not hurting yourself, embarrassing yourself in front of others, sounding bad, messing up, or being ridiculed. The greatest danger is that you will read and read and read and after having read, feel so much better with your nice pile of knowledge that you won’t feel the need to ACT. You will sit and recite vocabulary, spout off tips, and share insights with friends, but you will never open your mouth and actually sing. My biggest fear is that you will get halfway or even all the way through the process before starting to sing. This is in complete opposition to the philosophy and approach I promote, and if you are looking for all the answers before you have to do anything, you are looking in the wrong place. There is a big difference between knowing what to do and doing what you know, you may not know much right now, but you do know that you won’t get any better at singing by not singing.
Once you’ve established the daily singing habit and become mildly self-aware, it’s time to Invest, Integrate, and Iterate. By reading this post you’ve decided that singing is something worth investing your time in. When you invest your time, you are literally giving away a piece of your life. If this endeavor is worth giving away some of your life, let’s get the most out of it. Investing means giving time, energy, focus, and money to the goal of learning to sing. You’ve started this already by beginning to sing every day, and you may be spending a substantial amount of time, energy, and focus on it already. If not, you’ll learn later to take your singing time to a different level by investing full attention each time you sing and seeking out resources to help guide you to proper singing. There are many sources of knowledge and skill, from coaches and teachers to choirs and classes, to books and audio programs and video programs and more. The act of investing in this process, and any other resources you choose to pursue, will help motivate you to develop your skill. Humans love to gain things but we fear loss far more than we seek reward. When you’ve made a considerable investment of time, energy, focus, and cash in learning to sing well, you will have the added motivation of knowing that NOT learning to sing would mean LOSING that huge investment. At this stage it’s also worth making your commitment public. The reason that is terrifying is not because it’s embarrassing to admit you want to be able to sing and can’t do it yet (although that is part of it). No, the true terror comes from remembering how many New Year’s resolutions, new diets, job opportunities, new relationships, and other life changes we’ve tried to make happen, told our friends and family we were going to make happen, and then didn’t make happen. We remember the burning pain of that loss like it was yesterday, even if it was years ago, and it keeps us from wanting to commit fully to new ventures in the present. You are not the same person who failed before. You now have that experience to lean back on and learn from. Use your past to fuel your future and decide that in this relatively small thing, learning to sing, you’re willing to change the pattern and finish what you start. Invest yourself, invest a small piece of your life, and see how far you can go. In this section you’ll also learn how to integrate singing more into your normal life, and integrate the habits and practices of healthy singing into your non-singing time. Even professional singers spend very little time each day actually singing, compared with the time they spend not singing. However, you are using your voice almost all day, and the processes for speech are very similar for singing. If you can integrate your singing technique with your speaking voice, you’ll find yourself gaining hours of practice time each day, and your progress will explode. You;ll also learn to integrate all you’ve learned from the many singing sources you’ve invested in. You must take the best tips and strategies from each book, CD, video, class, lesson, coach you work with and put them together into a method that works for you. The final stage of integration is taking your newfound “singer” identity and integrating it with the rest of you. You’ll adopt singing as a part of your whole self and begin to welcome a new way of interacting with others and the world when it comes to singing. You’ll listen to music differently, attend concerts differently, and bring new insight into conversations about popular singers. Finally, Iteration will give you a way to get from where you are to where you want to be. Iteration is the process of refining repeated actions over time to improve results. You’ll take the daily singing habit you built in section one to the next level by introducing small changes and experiments in your singing, keeping what works while ditching what doesn’t. Iteration holds the key to combining all steps in this process and setting your voice free. You sing daily, integrating natural technique learned from your investment of time, energy, and money, and by iterating over and over, you grow steadily until you reach and surpass your goals.
At this point in our overview we’re about halfway through the system and still haven’t really talked about how to sing. An odd choice? Maybe, but let me explain. Singing, like any other complex skill, is made up of countless smaller skills which must be mastered together to make a fluid whole. Think of learning to ride a bike or drive a car. Where do your feet go, what does each foot do, what do your hands do, where do they go when you want to turn, where should you be looking, what do you need to check and do before you even start moving? If you try to think of all of these at once, you’ll go mad. Working on skills slowly and individually lets you stay relaxed and improve steadily. On the flipside, singing is an art as well. Like any art, there are an infinite number of correct ways to do it. At the end of the day, if you are expressing what you intended to express it is good (if not healthy) singing. In private teaching I shy away from too much technique at the outset. Most students find it impossible to remember everything, but will try anyway and end up stressing themselves out. For too many, comprehensive technique too soon leads to less enjoyment when singing, and singing should be something you enjoy every step of the way. I offer my suggestions on technique knowing that there are many other ways of doing things correctly. I hope you’ll try out my suggestions and keep the ones that work for you, letting go of the others in favor of better strategies you may learn from other teachers or from experimenting on your own. At its core this process is not “how to sing well”, but “how to see yourself as the type of person who sings”. I’d rather have you skim through the posts and start to feel more comfortable singing badly with the radio in your car than have you finish the process and know everything there is to know about singing technique (you’d have to learn it elsewhere, since I certainly don’t know everything) but never open your mouth for fear of doing something wrong. Let go of the idea of right and wrong and give yourself permission to experiment, fail, and have fun as you learn.
In the third phase we move to Natural technique. This is a name I’ve given to some core concepts in singing that I’ve found to be mostly universal. You’ll learn a bit about how your body works. You’ll begin to see how your brain, ears, lungs, and vocal folds (we’ll talk about why ‘vocal cords’ is a misnomer) work together to produce healthy singing. I won’t propose to teach a particular style or type of singing, instead focusing on what works for opera, rock, country, musical theatre, punk, and pop singers alike. Whatever style of music you enjoy singing, the basic natural techniques in this section will serve you well. The primary concern here is health. I want to make sure you can sing comfortably until the day you die. I’d rather have you become the kind of grandparents who sing lullabies when you babysit than become a pop star. By the time you reach this part of the process you’ll have invested time and resources into your singing and you’ll have integrated singing into your daily life. At this point you’re ready to tackle the elements of natural singing technique one at a time, carefully paying attention to the results you get and adjusting along the way. I teach a continuum of technique moving from body to breath to ear to voice. With simple strategies for approaching progress in each of these four areas, you’ll be able to take your singing to a new level while staying healthy.
The final phase of the S.I.N.G. process is Growing steadily. You’ll take the habits, skills, and knowledge you’ve gained along the way and develop a plan for consistent improvement until you surpass your goals. We live in a culture that reveres rapid changes and overnight success, but the true champions in all fields know that lasting success is never achieved overnight. You will feel much better about yourself and see far greater progress if you commit to getting 1% better every day, instead of waiting to get 500% better ‘someday’. Author and behavioral psychology expert Ramit Sethi tells a story about a woman who emailed him saying she’d like to run three times a week. He asked why she didn’t run once a week. She said she didn’t see the point in running only once a week. Sethi says it’s ridiculous that she’d rather dream about running three times a week than actually run once a week and see some results! This is the way our brains function as human beings. We are entranced by dreams and lofty goals: losing a hundred pounds; running a marathon; writing a novel; starring in a movie; finding our one true love; becoming a singing superstar. These dreams make us feel better than the small actions that will truly help us accomplish them. What if we were to try: eating a little better today; running a mile today; writing 1,000 words today; doing one audition today; going on a date today; singing at the karaoke party today. Commit to small improvements every day. If you were to grow by 1% every day, you might think at the end of a year you’d have gotten three times as good (365%), but as Einstein said, “Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world”. When you improve 1% on the second day, you are also getting 1% of that 1% you gained on the first day. This seemingly insignificant increase compounds over time and by the end of a year you end up with an increase of over 3700%, that’s 37 times where you started! Do you believe you could get 1% better than you are right now? If that’s true now, what stops it being true tomorrow? There’s nothing stopping you from getting just a little bit better each day, and that progress compounds because you bring to each new day the cumulative growth of the days before. Invest a little every day and see your results skyrocket.
The process: Sing daily; Invest, Integrate, and Iterate; learn Natural technique; Grow steadily. You may feel a temptation to skip to the meat of the process now, or even just skip ahead to the technique section thinking that’s all you really need anyway. Resist this temptation. This is the voice of fear that has kept you from fulfilling your desire to sing all these years. It feels safer to get right to the “how to”, try it once, then throw up your hands saying it won’t work. Your fear loves an excuse and an easy scapegoat.
I don’t want to be your scapegoat, so we’re going to spend a little more time clearing out the cobwebs of your mind before diving into actual singing. Here we go!
This post is a preview of content from my upcoming book:S.I.N.G. A 4-Step Process For Finding Your Voice
Do you sing? We live in a culture filled with “non-singers”, people who claim they don’t sing, or hate singing, or can’t sing, or just won’t sing. In my years as a professional singer, choir director, and vocal coach I have run into thousands of people who make these claims the second they hear what I do. I once introduced myself at a PTO meeting in a new school district and was immediately greeted with three parents saying, “You won’t make us sing, right? You’re not going to make us sing. Just so you know, I can’t sing.” While most of the others shared similar fears in hushed tones.
How interesting that singing is at once a joy and relaxation for many, and a terror for others. We can hardly make it ten feet or ten minutes in the modern world without hearing song, whether on the radio, television commercials, youtube, iPods, elevator music, or any of the dozens of popular shows featuring singers from Glee to American Idol to America’s Got Talent. We hear singing all day long, we teach it in schools, we used to do it in church every Sunday, we did it around the campfire as kids and on the bus on the way to summer camp. What happened?
I don’t believe in people who can’t sing. I believe there are people who can’t sing yet, but I’ve never met someone who had tried the books, audio programs, choir, classes, and lessons for a few years only to still have no ability whatsoever. I have met people who can’t ride a bicycle yet. I have never met a healthy person who has been taught for weeks, months, or years how to ride a bike, slowly shifting from tricycle to training wheels to the big time, who still fell every time.
I’m more likely to believe in people who don’t sing than people who can’t sing. However, I’m suspicious of these as well. Let me tell you the story of my brother, a first rate army medic and a classic bro.
Tim loved racing fast cars, snowboarding, dirt-biking, getting into fights and hitting on girls. He still does. He wanted to be a firefighter for a while, eventually deciding to enter the army, and is now the top medic in his squad. He went from almost flunking out of high school to actually flunking out of college to earning top scores on his medical exams and being recommended to the West Point Academy.
Tim was the man’s man (and a bit of a ladies’ man too). I was polar opposite. To this day we look nothing alike, sound nothing alike, and act nothing alike. If our mom didn’t insist on showing the pictures to anyone who will look, I wouldn’t believe we were born of the same woman.
He loved sports, I loved drama and music. He struggled with math and spelling, I had near perfect SAT scores, perfect AP scores, and qualified for MENSA. He went to all the parties and was the popular kid, I was mostly home playing video games or memorizing lines. He was in shape, I was 300lbs (luckily that changed).
All this is to say we could not be more polar opposite. My singing was always demonized by him, he hated music, thought anyone who sung was a disgrace. I never heard him sing a note through our entire time living together. He was the classic “non-singer”.
Then one day we were driving across the state together, talking about pretty girls (the only topic we share an appreciation of) and listening to the radio, and I notice something odd. As some popular songs come on, there’s this monotone drone coming from the driver’s seat. I asked cautiously, without any judgement, and found to my surprise that he admitted he would sing along with the radio sometimes, and when he’d party his friends would all belt out the chorus like crazy.
This paired with my “non-singer” mom and grandmother singing their hearts out at a concert I put on, showed me that people who say they don’t sing often mean they won’t sing.
It’s not that they can’t sing, it’s that they can’t sing yet.
It’s not that they don’t sing, it’s that they don’t sing in public.
It’s that they won’t sing unless it’s totally safe (i.e. In private, at a loud club where they can’t be overheard, or when they’re drunk enough not to be held accountable).
In the last several decades I’ve worked with dozens of people who call themselves “tone-deaf” or some variation. There is some truth to it, some people have more experience and ability with matching pitch than others. If you are one of those people who “can’t carry a tune in a bucket”, rest assured, I have never found a person who couldn’t learn to sing decently in a matter of months or at most a year. If you are free from severe physical or mental disabilities, know that you can’t sing yet, but you can sing.
And if you say you don’t sing, I’m not sure I believe you. Never? Not even once? Not in the shower, or the car, or the club, or happy birthday for your son? Not even when the whole crowd screams the “ba ba ba’s” of Sweet Caroline?
You do sing, you just don’t sing in public or on your own… yet.
If you won’t sing, that I believe. I have seen the crossed arms, pursed lips, angry expressions, and “just try to make me open my mouth” eyes on children, teens and adults when they find out what I do. If you won’t sing, know that there is light at the end of the tunnel, that I understand your apprehension, and that you can slowly break out of the shell and find your voice again.
Why won’t you sing?
Every “non-singer” has a story, it might be one moment, or a series of comments that led up to the decision to never sing again. We all sang as kids, children of all cultures are observed to make up their own songs while playing and often just sing things to themselves during the day. These children’s songs share a lot of interesting similarities which are starting to be explained by advances in the science of music and acoustics as well as study of neuroscience and how the brain processes sound. Suffice it to say, kids are musical, and chances are good you where humming and mumbling tunes before you were speaking.
When did that change? For many it was before school even started. An exhausted parent shouting at you to keep your mouth shut. A brother or sister telling you to cut that awful noise. A friend laughing when your voice cracked or didn’t sound right. For many it came later, most boys never sing again once their voices start to change and they lose control of the sound. Many girls get very shy in the adolescent years and refuse to risk embarrassing themselves in front of peers (or worse, in front of boys). Some of us were told by the music teacher to “just mouth the words in the concert, you’re not a singer, honey”. Some auditioned for the choir or the musical and didn’t get in. Some forgot the words on stage once and never sang again.
What was your moment? When did you decide singing was a thing other kids did but not you? When did singing become something to listen to but never do?
Gordon McKenzie worked for Hallmark Cards, and his story is often told but worth repeating.
He’d often visit schools to talk about being an artist. After introducing himself, he’d ask the students, “How many of you are artists?”
In kindergarten almost every hand shot up immediately. A few less in first grade. About three-quarters in second grade. In third grade there were a few hesitant hands barely lifted from the desk with eyes on the floor.
By the time he got to sixth graders, the story goes, not one of them raised a hand. Being an artist had become “uncool”, art was a thing to look at, not do.
I’ve replicated this experiment with singers, and the results are much the same. You still get the occasional kid in the choir, the star of the musical, or the one who’s been taking lessons since before they were born. The vast majority, though, decide by middle school that singing isn’t for them.
This doesn’t mean they don’t want it though.
Earn a person’s trust, and ask in confidence if they would say no to a magic genie who could make them sing well in an instant. You’ll never get a no.
The hitch is that our culture believes there are “singers” and “non-singers” and that it is mostly genetics and luck. The media perpetuates this by showing us the top 1% of amazing singers and the bottom 1% of absolute embarrassments (Often decent singers deliberately sounding terrible to get on TV). If all you see are the top 1% and the bottom 1%, over and over again, for years and years, it doesn’t take long to forget about the 98% in the middle, where most of us (you included) lie.
I know you are a 98%er. You must be. If you were a top 1%er you’d be out touring with Beyoncé and Pink. If you were a bottom 1%er you’d have had your moment of fame on the American Idol blooper reels by now.
Realize that your view of singing is warped by the singers that you’ve been exposed to. If you haven’t regularly sung in choirs, musical theatre, garage bands, or other informal gatherings, you’ve likely only heard the polished studio recordings, the live concert professionals, and the absolute train-wreck national anthem performances on YouTube. You have yet to be exposed to a singer like you. One who hasn’t sung much but who can learn with a bit of practice and guidance.
I can’t provide the practice, you have to be willing to put that in, but I can provide the guidance.
S.I.N.G. is a strategy for bringing you from never singing, rarely singing, or poorly singing to the level of a decent amateur. I’m not making claims to make you the next pop sensation, get you a record deal, or even give you the ability to win the next karaoke contest.
If you follow the S.I.N.G. process, though, I can promise you will feel more comfortable singing on your own, have a new fun hobby, and probably gain the confidence along the way to branch out and sing with others. People watch movies without becoming film critics, cook meals without becoming chefs, play flag football without getting signed by the NFL. You can sing without worrying about being a star, and you’ll probably enjoy it more than the stars do.
A recurring theme in my teaching is the concept of "leverage points".
Leverage points are actions that give you a big bang for your buck, a high return for the amount of energy you put into them, and there is usually a major reason why they work:
Most people don't do them.
I'll cover more leverage points in the coming weeks, today, I want to share how a really simple tool that you already possess can make you a much better musician almost immediately.
If you are reading this post, you are doing so on a computer or a smartphone, either of which likely has a built in microphone and camera. In an ideal world we'd have studio quality sound and HD video but let's bootstrap it and get started with what we have.
You're thinking "Record myself? I sound/look awful on tape, and I hate listening to it, this is stupid and it probably won't help at all"
Everyone thinks this.
That's why it's a leverage point.
When you pay for coaching or lessons, what you're really paying for is a body of knowledge attached to an objective set of ears/eyes. The sound you hear in your head when you sing, and the way you think you look when you conduct, and the way you think you sound while you're playing is not the way your audience perceives you. This is why a coach is so invaluable, they can see what you can't, and provide guidance in correctly glaring errors and improving performance.
The problem is that, for most artists, you have 1-2 hours a week of objective observing happening, and you aren't even in control of it!
Have you ever had a relative or a friend hear their own answering machine message, or a random video of themselves and say "I don't sound like that!"
You know that they really do sound like that.
So do you, when you listen to a recording of yourself.
I know it's painful, I know it's hard, I know you cringe and want to convince yourself it's not that useful to do anyway.
And that's why no one does it.
And that's why if you do, you'll have a huge advantage in your field and grow far quicker than you would otherwise.
Recordings allow you to freeze time, analyze deeply, listen objectively, and really hone in on your strengths and weaknesses. If you have a coach, you can look for the concepts you work on in lessons "Is my vowel shape correct? Am I breathing properly? How's my posture? Was that left-hand cue as clear as I thought it was? How's my eye contact? Am I really that breathy on my top notes? Why is my left hand half a second behind my right hand when playing chords?"
This sort of self-analysis is the key to sustained growth in music. Over time you will learn to get better at doing it without a recording, but if you want to shave a few years off the path, invest a few minutes a week in reviewing videos of yourself. This time pays off in so many ways, and as much as it will continue to hurt (I've been doing it for a decade and it doesn't get any easier) it will give you a huge advantage in music.
Now that doesn't mean you need to make these videos public, no one needs to see them except for you. However, one day you may have a really good performance and just happen to have captured it so you can put it out in the world, through your website, youtube page, resumé, or some other channel. Now when a big audition comes along, you can look back and boost your confidence by comparing how you used to perform to how you're doing now, and remind yourself of your most common errors. And you may get lucky and have a great recording you can use for promotion and applications for years to come.
Check out www.youtube.com/user/ChristopherGKeene for several dozen videos of my conducting from many angles and many years and many different choirs. I can list 100 errors in each video (even the 2 minute ones) and watching every one has made me such a better conductor. I know that watching them after the concerts has also made each member of my choirs a better musician.
Facing objective feedback isn't easy, but if you have the bravery to take on the task, you can leverage your effort and accelerate your growth as a musician.
Lofty title, I know. Bear with me, as this will be a brief primer of deeper material to come.
I have trouble with the term "reading music", as no one really agrees on what it means. When a teacher says that they teach their students to "read music", most of the time this translate to "they can look at notation on a staff and identify the letter names, sometimes with accidentals".
I don't consider that reading. That's like looking at the opening to the constitution and saying "that's a w, and then an e, then there's a space, and a t followed by an h and a e", even being able to say "We the people..." doesn't mean you know what it MEANS.
When I think of "reading" English, I don't think of sounding out and identifying letters, or even of saying words correctly, I think of looking at symbols (writing) and HEARING the words inside your head and KNOWING what those words mean.
To translate to music, this would mean a "reader" can see the symbols (notation) and HEAR what it will sound like (audiate) and understand the MEANING of the sounds (pattern/tonality recognition)
I know, big words, and I'm not defining most of them, did I mention I need you to bear with me?
Music literacy encompasses so much, but at the end of the day I believe the most essential skill is audiation. When you visualize, you create visual input in your head when it's not present in reality. When you audiate, you create aural (sound) input in your head when it's not present in reality.
Let's try an experiment to see if you can audiate:
"Sweet Caroline...."
If you heard "BAH BAH BAH" in your head immediately after reading those words, congratulations! You're audiating!
When I say that my students are learning to "read music" or develop "music literacy", the measurable skill I am referring to is audiation, to ability to create sounds in your head without them being present in the real world. When they see a sequence of pitches on the staff, they have the tools to decode those and know what they will sound like. Not what the letter names are, but the actual musical sound, because we are reading music, not letters.
I think knowing letter names is important, and I do cover it as well, but I think 90% of students forget this skill the minute they are out of our classrooms. What they won't forget (at least not immediately) is the increased skill in ear-training and music reading that result from proper aural training.
Here's the core of it: We don't have time to teach everything.
If my students can learn only one thing while in chorus, it's going to be how to hear.
The best tool that I've found is handsign solfege, with a movable do
I have never seen letter names help a musician without years of lessons learn how to actually hear and reproduce pitch without an instrument.
More to come, stay tuned!
A parent of my student asked what her daughter can do to start preparing for an A Capella group audition. Below, inspired by my reply , is a three step plan for improving your audition skills. It's not easy and it's not quick, but the most effective things rarely are.
Learning to audition is a tricky process, as it is mostly an experiential thing, You can learn all the technique in the world and practice every day, but when you are in the moment there is the element of stage fright which is so difficult to overcome.
As a professional musician and coach who has trained hundreds of musicians and performed in hundreds of concerts, I still feel that nervousness and anxiety each time in front of an audience. In my experience, and in the experience of the countless professional musicians, actors, dancers, speakers, and other performers I've asked, it's not that the feeling goes away as you progress. What happens is we learn to take that feeling and reinterpret it as excitement, passion, or some other positive emotion. Intellectually, I know that the buzzy feeling I get on stage today is the same one that had me shaking before auditions in high school. Emotionally, it feels like excitement and anticipation, and it tells me I'm ready to go out and give it my all.
"That's all well and good, but what can I do to get there?"
The first step is to do the audition NOW, don't wait til next year or the next show, just giving it a shot and saying "I won't get in, I won't get the lead, but I'm doing this to get better at auditioning". Honestly, the only thing that makes you better at auditioning is doing it more often. I am pretty good at interviews and auditions now because I've done hundreds of them, and I'll still do them even when I don't want the part. In fact I regularly interview and audition for new choir positions even when I know I don't have the time for them, just for the experience. When I actually need a position, I bring not only my skill and experience to the table, but the dozens of interviews I've done as well.
Beyond that, daily singing will help to build skill more than anything. Consistent technique work will do so much to improve a singer. You can download a free CD of vocal warmups and exercises from my website. What you can improve which will very much impress judges is ear training - the ability to sing in tune, pick up a part quickly, and read music. This comes first from a large amount of listening and singing.
After the listening/singing foundation has been laid, musicians need a systematic way to approach deciphering the language of music. I've written on this before, and will again in the future, for now you must know that the scientific literature states that all systems of ear training (fixed/movable solfege, numbers, letter names, intervals) work about equally well, the differentiator is the instructor's mastery of the method and teaching ability, the amount of time students devote to practice, and the outside work of the students. Pick a system and stick with it, get a coach, or buy an audio/book program.
In the broader scheme, stage fright is stage fright, and working on it in any context will help to improve in auditions. So public speaking, running for office in a club, reading a passage at church,auditioning for anything and everything that comes up, performing in front of family and friends, trying out for a sports team, doing announcements over the intercom, giving a speech in class, etc.
Getting over the fear of being judged by others and feeling totally comfortable standing up and showing your stuff in a relaxed way is incredibly difficult and takes a lifetime to master, best bet is to get started now and just practice it in the real world whenever you have the opportunity.
Action Step: Google auditions in your area for your artform, pick 3 that fit in your schedule (even if they are way out of your league or genre) and put them in the calendar today. Good luck, though if you audition enough, you won't need it.
There are several strategies for aiding the memorization process. While many singers just sing through their songs over and over again until they know them, and this certainly gets results, it is not the most efficient way.
I suggest you not even think about memorization until you have mastered the musical elements of the piece, so that you can sing the pitches and rhythms accurately and expressively, with good breaths and appropriate dynamics. Once that is secure, focus on the text. Our brains attach musical pitches and rhythms to words easily, so once the words are memorized, it is very likely the pitches and rhythms will come along with them (provided you learned the pitches/rhythms thoroughly first).
The first step is to take out your music and copy down the text in your own handwriting. Doing this with paper and pencil is important, as it has been shown in countless studies that physical writing leads to greater retention than typing. When you write you engage yourself kinesthetically (physically) by moving the pencil, visually by seeing the words form from your hand, and aurally because it is impossible for humans to read and write words without hearing them inside our heads. This is the process of ‘audiation’ that I often bring up in discussing solfege and music reading.
Use your own handwritten copy to refer to as you rewrite the text as least 3 times.
The second step will seem odd but this is where you will start to really make progress memorizing. Take your handwritten copy of the text and on a new sheet of paper copy down just the first word or two of each phrase or sentence of the text. Once you’ve finished copying only the first word of each phrase, flip over the full text and try to fill in each phrase by memory. This should be harder than step one but much easier than remembering the full text on your own. More often than not, it is the first word of a new phrase that trips us up, and once we get that word we can get the entire phrase with little to no problem. This is a trait singers share with actors, as you’ll often find forgetful actors saying “line” and once they get the cue of the first word, they will rattle off a monologue of several pages.
Now that you’ve seen the power those first words of a phrase hold, again copy down just the first words of each phrase. Now repeat just these first words out loud, in order. Do this several times, until you can easily and effortlessly recite the first words of each phrase of your piece one after the other.
Congratulations! Now that you’ve memorized the start of each phrase, you have likely memorized the entire text. Grab a blank sheet of paper and test yourself. If there are still areas of difficulty return to reading aloud to polish those sections.
You are now ready to return to the music and attempt to sing the song from memory. I caution against going to this step too early, as many singers rely on the music to remind them of the text. If you don’t learn the text separate from the music, it is likely that with the butterflies in your stomach and the stage lights on your face you will blank on one or more words throughout your performance. Put the time in to learn your text and you will feel incredibly confident going forward.
"I have to go to class, work, take care of the kids, clean the house, and find time to sleep don't have TIME to figure out 'who I am'" One of the most beneficial things you can do for yourself is work on your identity.
Dr. Joyce Brothers says that "you cannot consistently behave in a way that is inconsistant with how you see yourself"
What this means: if you see yourself as a "fat person" you will not be able to consistently exercise and eat healthily. Those behaviors will only become consistent as a result of seeing yourself as the kind of person who behaves that way. Will power alone is not enough.
What would it mean to you to be able to save hours every day and years of your life in the long run to spend on whatever you choose?
In the 2000's, time is a valuable commodity. We are all stretched thin, and most of us are doing more than we can handle already. So why take a large chunk of time you could be getting things done and explore your identity?
The truth: Your identity is ever-changing and far larger than you realize.
What you do is part of who you are: teacher, lawyer, CEO, salesman, etc. But there is SO much more to you, and it is worth exploring it all.
Once you have a clear idea of who you are, it will change over time, don't let that stop you though, you can always spend more time exploring later.
Knowing who you are allows you to check what you do for alignment. I'm currently working 11 separate jobs which constitutes over 60 hours a week of "working" time. I also volunteer, write, exercise, practice singing, go out with friends, and clean the house, shop for groceries, etc. I don't havea lot of "free" time because I am passionate about what I do, and I devote "free" time to tasks I enjoy.
Because I have a good idea of my identity, I am able to make sure the time I spend is spend on things that bring me fulfillment, and mercilessly cut activities that don't match up.
In the last year alone I've left 4 jobs, parted with several projects and volunteer organizations, and turned down high-paying clients and employment opportunities in order to keep aligned with my identity, and the result has been hours upon hours of time to devote to things that still bring in money, still get the job done, but leave me feelings refreshed, energetic, and enthusiastic for most of the day.
Time is distorted when you are happily engaged in productive work, this state of 'flow' has been extensively researched and documented, it exists, and it makes it feel like you have all the time in the world.
Align with your identity and you can start to feel you have all the time in the world, even when you're working 60+ hour weeks.
"All those weird words just get in the way, just look at the notes and sing them!" It is very common in discussions of ear training and music teaching to find professional musicians who feel that all forms of sight singing training relying a syllables (solfege, numbers, letter names, etc.) is a waste of time or even detrimental.
There is a reason for this.
When you have spent your whole life speaking only one language, say English, and then try to learn another language, say French, you go through three steps for each new word or phrase:
1) Hear/See the French word
2) Translate it to the English word
3) Discern the meaning
For example:
You see the word "chat"
You translate that (in your head) to "cat"
You see the image of a cat in your head
Mastery of language doesn't come until you can see/hear "chat" and immediately see the image of a feline in your head WITHOUT the intermediary step of thinking the English word "cat"
There are many philosophies of language education, and of music education as well. Many language teachers agree that it is helpful for some students to learn how to translate the foreign language into their native tongue.
This is where solfege (or any sight reading method) comes in:
You see the note
You translate it to a syllable (do, re, mi; 1, 2, 3; A, B, C)
You hear the pitch in your head
OR
You hear the pitch
You translate it to a syllable (do, re, mi; 1, 2, 3; A, B, C)
You see the notation in your head
The problem is that many professional musicians learned music without an intermediary step (Like learning French without knowing English) so the process of translating makes no sense to them, and seems like an unnecessary extra step.
If you can see a pitch and immediately hear it in your head, or hear a pitch and immediately know what the notation is, then these systems weren't created for you.
They are for those of us who grew up without the language of music, and could use some assistance translating it. Want a free lesson in solfege and music reading? If you live in the Boston area you can come to my studio, and if you don't, I do online lessons around the world via Skype, the first lesson is always free! Let me know in the comments, or check out www.ChristopherGKeene.com
"I'm just not as talented as he is" In the first weeks, months, and even years of competition between peers in any field, the advantage goes to the 'naturally gifted', the 'talented', the 'gifted'.
We've all seen it: the highschooler who gets every lead in the musicals, the young salesman that consistently outsells his coworkers, the kid on track team that no one can seem to keep pace with.
But what happens 10, or 5, or even 2 years down the road?
Let's take our imaginary "talented' youth, say they are a gifted dancer, and name them Billy.
And let's take another, shall we say "less gifted" (read: clumsy) dancer, named Zoey.
For at least the first few years of their dancing lives, Billy will consistently outperform Zoey, that's just the way things are, some people are better than others, and you need to accept there's always someone better than you.
But what does Billy learn about dance by being so good?
In many cases, Billy learns that dance is easy and requires no work or discipline. While others in the studio must practice for hours to master a move, Billy practices for 5 minutes and nails it. While other students need help from dance teachers and coaches, Billy thinks he's already got it all figured out and doesn't listen to the voices of experience. Even when Billy is more amenable to instruction and hard work, he rarely learns to spend the kind of daily practice time most professional dancers do. Billy started out as a 8/10 dancer, and after 3 years is still a solid 8/10.
Zoey on the other hand, sees that while she is not fantastic, when she practices (a lot) she gets better. With proper encouragement and a supportive environment (good teachers and parents) she is rewarded for dedication and hard work, and has the intrinsic reward of getting better at something she loves. She starts out as a 1/10 dancer, and every 6 months gets one level better through hard work and discipline. 3 years later, she is a 7/10 dancer.
Zoey is still not as good as Billy.
At this point a lot of Zoeys give up, and are encouraged to do so by well-meaning parents, friends and teachers that say "it's just not your thing, find a safe career".
BUT THIS IS THE TIPPING POINT
This is the moment where, if the dedication continues, she will start to match Billy's ability, and soon OVERTAKE him.
Zoey CONSISTENTLY improves, and eventually that will ALWAYS win over "natural talent"
Now the topic of whether or not "natural talent" even exists is a whole other blog post, I personally don't believe in it, but even if you do, take solace in the fact that with hard work and dedication, you can surpass any "natural" at anything. What did you used to be terrible at? What have you worked your butt off to improve on? Share in the comments!
"I'm pretty introverted and low-key, but once I get to know you, I start to come out of my shell" This line always gets a laugh.
I use it in every interview, and often use it when meeting new people, it's a crowd pleaser.
Why?
Because I'm the highest energy person you will ever meet in your life (including 5 year olds, I wear them OUT)
I constantly hear from friends and colleagues: "How can you be so full of energy!?"
What would it mean to you to achieve a consistently high level of energy? What could you accomplish?
Here are some concrete strategies I use to maintain an irrationally high level of energy in all that I do:
1) Get More Sleep Than You Need: I often sleep 10+ hours on my days off. On days I work I will sneak a half hour nap before dinner. The sleep adds up, and while I burn the candle at both ends while working, when I take time off I frequently am awake less than 5 hours a day. No one can run on all cylinders forever, take the time your body needs to recover and store energy, then give it some more.
2) Be Physically Active: When Richard Branson, one of the world's most successful businessmen, was asked how he stayed so productive, his two word answer was "work out". It's paradoxical, we don't want to believe that something that makes us tired can give us more energy, but in the long run, the vitality and buzz you get from being active and having a body ready to respond to your desires is worth every ounce of sweat.
3) Give Your Body The Right Fuel: My personal dietary choices are rather eclectic and I believe that everyone's body is unique and you need to find the nutritional path that works for you. That being said, you wouldn't put diesel in a Prius, you wouldn't put jet fuel in a Harley Davidson, and you wouldn't put vegetable oil in a Aircraft Carrier. Different vehicles require different fuel, so do some reading, talk to a doctor (preferably a healthy one) and figure out what works for your body, then give it the absolute best. As a general guideline, whole foods treat the body well, when in doubt: drink more water, and avoid putting things you can't pronounce in your mouth.
4) Interact With Young People: Children and young people have insanely high energy levels, especially considering the fact they live on cheetos and almost never sleep. Being around them every day keeps me on my toes and keeps my energy at a peak level as long as they're near. Find a way to interact with kids, if you don't teach then volunteer at an afterschool program, coach a soccer team, babysit for a friend, or get busy making some little energy enhancers of your own.
5) Find Your Passion: This is an entire blog series and book of it's own, but when you find something to do all day that rewards you not just financially but emotionally as well, you'll find yourself anticipating the alarm clock rather than dreading it. When I know i have a group of passionate musicians waiting to sing with me every morning, I wake up ready to go and with a skip in my step, even with 3 hours of sleep. Finding work you are so passionate about that it feels like play is the true secret to having high energy in every part of your life.
6) Love Everyone: Try to find something to love and compliment about everyone you meet and interact with. It starts an unstoppable reciprocal cycle and you will soon find that every interaction you have shifts from draining to empowering. The smile on a friends face when they thank you for the letter you sent, or the satisfaction of seeing a coworker blush at your praising words to their supervisor, or the look on a kids face when they learn something new from you and you let them know how proud you are of them is the kind of energy that is long-lasting, sustaining and life-building. Caffeine ain't got nothing on love.
Don't bite off more than you can chew, choose one suggestion and commit to it for 21 days (the scientifically proven sticking point for a new habit)
If you make it that far, it should be automatic, and you can come back and try the next tip, I guarantee if you aren't already doing them, any one of these will skyrocket your energy levels and you won't want to turn back.
Which tip are you going to try? Do you have suggestions of your own? Share them in the comments:
"Let me sleep on it" It's the bane of salesmen everywhere, because they realize it is a thinly veiled replacement for "I don't want your services but I don't want to make you feel bad by saying no"
Let's look at it in a new context though.
Brain research at major universities shows that we tend to retain what we study in the half hour before we go to sleep.
This is because the brain will fixate and work on anything we put before it in those moments before slumber.
What do most people do with these valuable learning moments?
They fret about the day they just had and what Susie said and what Bill did and why Johnny reacted that way. And they fret about what will happen tomorrow.
So in this rich active brain time called sleep, their brains are wracking and wrecking themselves trying to come up with ways to explain or justify or rationalize these situations, and they wake up just as stressed as when they slept.
The amazing thing is, the brain doesn't just retain and review what we feed it before bed, it works on the problems and creates new solutions, if we give it the tools it needs.
This is amazing news.
Comedians often sleep with a pad of paper because they know some of the funniest jokes can come in a stroke of inspiration in the middle of the night.
Successful inventors, business men, writers do the same.
What could your brain accomplish if you gave it something constructive to "sleep on" rather than it's normal diet of gossip and stress and other people's problems?
How about reading something to expand your mind, and leaving your brain to bask in the glory of literature, or ponder the great questions of philosophy, or seek a deeper understanding of human psychology?
How about isolating a creative task you'd like to accomplish in your life and fixating on it before bed each night, a concrete goal, writing a novel, losing 100 pounds, running a marathon, recording an album, landing a leading role?
If you work on something 1 hour a day, in a month you have 30 hours of work.
If your brain works on it every night as you sleep, in a month you have 240 hours of work.
That's 10 FULL DAYS a month of work on ANYTHING YOU WANT TO ACCOMPLISH. Don't flush it down the drain!
Activate the power of "sleeping on it" and you could find your progress accelerated 100 fold!
Assignment: Pick a concrete goal or a solvable issue in your life and fixate on it before bed tonight, focusing on getting out of the way of the solution. Keep a pad of paper and a pen nearby, and write down anything that comes to you in the night. Thank your brain in the morning.
What are you going to sleep on tonight? Share in the comments.
"I'd love to sing, play the piano, write a novel, paint, dance but it's too late to learn" There was a time when the average human lifespan was 35, in those days, your late 20s may have been too late to start something so ambitious and be truly great.
but if you are under 40, you still have (on average) about half your life left.
If there are people your age doing amazing things, you have as much time as they've taken to become great to become great yourself.
And if you're older, you have so much more experience and knowledge and resources to bring to bear on what you want to achieve. An 84 year old man recently climbed Everest, what are you doing lately?
The thing is, technique, the actual physical mechanics of doing whatever it is you want to do, is not that complicated in any field.
Even the most complex fields can be mastered technically in a matter of a few years.
The trick is the art.
The "music" of whatever you do.
Einstein wasn't great because he was better at math and physics than his peers, but because he had a vision for beauty and art in what he did, and while many were searching for complex explanations of natural phenomena, old Al saw that the universe was beautiful, and any explanations must be beautiful as well, he knew that a solution wasn't quite right until it was beautiful in it's simplicity and form.
Find your beauty.
Find in your eye and ear and heart that unique perspective on the world.
Then find the medium to express it in.
We need to see what you see, hear what you hear, share in your beauty and art.
We need your music.
Jobs.
Dating.
Auditions.
Anything you want in life.
Do you want it bad enough to keep playing until you've played enough to win?
We all win the game we play, it's only a matter of time.
The only way to lose is to stop playing the game.
Joy?
How frivolous, students don't need 'joy', well, maybe they do, but they need knowledge, skills, expertise!
I agree completely with the second half of the previous statement. I have long felt students in most fields of study these days show a surprising lack of mastery of the basic fundamental skills and knowledge in their field. You see music students who can't name notes, history students who can't name nation capitols, math students who can't reliably add and subtract (let alone multiply) two digit numbers in their heads.
How does joy factor in?
The key is to impart these core fundamentals to students, you can't rely on teachers to teach every abstract scenario or application of a topic. Rather, when teachers focus on fundamental core skills and knowledge within the field, students are given the tools to find the answers to specific situations on their own.
The problem arises with the concept of "teaching" anything.
I don't believe in teaching.
Odd thing for a teacher to say, eh?
Education, and educator, come from the Latin 'educare' meaning 'to guide'
One who educates, such as myself, guides one who wishes to learn to the knowledge and skills they seek.
This may sound like an exercise in semantics but it is so much more.
We do not 'teach', we guide, we show the knowledge and demonstrate the skills, and uncover a path that can be followed to attain them, but the action and the choice is in the hands of the learner.
So the key to education is not the knowledge, or the skills, or the teacher, or the degree, or the method, or the book, or the technology.
The key is the learners desire and dedication to learn whatever is to be learned.
Here is where joy comes in.
Where there is no joy, there is no desire to learn.
exception: fear can substitute in a pinch, one who is afraid of dying if they don't learn to pull the emergency cord on a parachute will likely learn it, regardless of the absence of joy
Our primary job as educators, as guides, is to do all we can to help foster a joy for the subject in the learner.
I teach singing, and if I spend 45 minutes of an hours lesson experiencing laughter, curiosity and joy with the student and imparting NO KNOWLEDGE OR SKILL WHATSOEVER, the 15 minutes I DO spend imparting skill will be more effective than hours of instruction given in an environment of boredom or apathy.
I know, I've been on both side of the desk, as an uninspired student and an uninspiring "teacher"
I'm not saying I spend 75% of my lessons or classes cracking jokes and ignoring material. On the contrary, my students will often tell you we work on more advanced concepts and that I demand critical thinking and personal responsibility for demonstrating skills and knowledge to a higher level than many AP courses. However, I am able to do this by building a foundation of joy. It is the fertile soil from which all learning springs.
And here's the secret: Lean in close. Even if joy doesn't affect learning, what's the worst that can happen if every learner you encounter remembers their time with you as a time of joy? Teachers are one of the few professions remaining where we are paid well to do what we love all day long, let's not forget that, and let's let our students in on some of that goodness. They deserve it.
Do you feel differently? Have a core of knowledge and skill that came along with no joy whatsoever but you still learned it extremely well? Or maybe you (gasp) agree with me? Tell me about it in the comments:
"But I'm awful!" "I'll never get it right!" "I'm the worst!" "I Suck!"
How often have we heard and said things like this about something we wish we could just be PERFECT at the first time?
Why doesn't life work like that? I decide I want to be a football player, or a beat boxer, or a judo master, author, pianist, chef... and I should be able to wake up the next day and be awesome at it, or at least decent, right?
The world doesn't work like that anymoreThere was a time when your only competition was the tribe you lived in. There were 15 boys and 15 girls, and only certain genders did certain things (hunting vs. foraging, cooking vs. eating, etc.)
On top of that, history went back as far as the aural tradition could hold.
So really, to be the best Mastodon hunter EVER, you really only had to compete with the 14 other guys in your tribe (some of which are old and frail and some of which are infants) and the few dozen ancestors people can remember off the top of their heads.
For centuries, to be the best singer ever you merely had to be the best in your province, then the best in your nation, then the best in your continent.
In the 21st century, your competition is THE ENTIRE WORLD. And if you don't believe it, you are stuck in a mindset that will hold you back more than you could possibly believe.
Take a peek at youtube for 5 seconds and tell me that each singer/comedian/artist on there isn't competing against every other one in their field in the entire world.
So now that we know the playing field, take a second to let this fact sink in: If you want to be great, you will be awful, until you are perfect.
There is too much competition out there today, there is no more "good enough", it's AMAZING or it's crap. That's the world we live in today. If you want to present what you have to the world, accept that a lot of people will think it is crap because it is not absolutely perfect, and it will keep being crap until it is absolutely perfect.
Have you ever heard Pavorotti sing a wrong note in concert? How about Sinatra messing up the words on a CD? How about Johnny Depp screwing up a line on screen?
It's not good enough, and it doesn't happen much anymore, at least not in the public eye.
You need to learn to allow yourself to fail strategically, on your own or in a supportive environment with people that are okay with you being terrible for a while. No great concert pianist played it perfect the first time. No CEO was a perfect manager the first day on the job. No amazing parent made it through the first few years without letting loose a few choice words in front of the little ones.
Decide to fail, and to fail brilliantly, and give yourself permission (or even, a goal) to fail, because you will be awful until you are perfect (and that never really happens).
Once you are comfortable failing by yourself, try failing in front of others. Go out with the INTENTION of messing up and being imperfect. If you go out hoping to be perfect you'll never achieve it, if you try to be imperfect, you might surprise yourself, and worse case scenario, you are completely successful in what you struck out to do.
Intentional failing is a common theme with me, and you'd be amazed at how much of a big deal failing is in your head, and how little it matters in real life. Most people avoid failing by avoiding any action at all, and in so doing, avoid success.
Choose to fail...
And you choose to succeed.
Between July and September 2011, I received over 10 separate job offers ranging from Maine to Boston to Chicago to Canada, from elementary schools to high schools to professional organizations to television studios to churches and more.
Thing is, I never sent any of these people an application or a resume.
That's not to say I didn't send out applications (I did, over 30 of them) however, not ONE of the applications I sent out turned into a hard job offer (one turned into an interview, with no call back)
Imagine how happy you'd be next time you're job hunting to have dozens of jobs come to you and compete for you instead of begging and pleading
How would learning this process change your life?
The trick is a simple word gleaned from the sales world: Referrals
In sales there are 2 main kinds of clients, "cold clients" - the kind you call or find out of the blue, (usually you can sell to about 10% of these people) and "referrals" - the kind referred to you by someone they trust (percentages climb to upwards of 60%)
In the job market, cold clients are jobs you sought out, sent an application and resume to, maybe gave them a call one time, maybe you even got an interview, but you are a simple piece of paper to them, along with the 40 or 100 or 1000 other pieces of paper they got, good luck beating out every other one by being the smartest, best qualified, most awesome candidate.
Referrals on the other hand, happen when someone who knows you hears about a job from a friend or colleague, and says "hey, ____ would be great for that, here's their info".
This type of interaction holds so much more weight than you realize.
Organizations don't hire people.
Get that through your head.
Organizations. Don't. Hire. People.
People hire people.
The person who hires you will be a real person and needs to be thought of and treated as such, they are not just an extension of the place they work for.
Since people hire people, you need to think like people do, and people do nice things for their friends.
Here's a scenario: you were looking for piano lessons for your daughter, and your best friend said "hey my brother just moved to the area and he teaches piano, I think he'd be great for you, here's his card"
Are you more likely to go hunting through the yellow pages, or call your friend's brother?
Exactly.
So how do you do it?
1) Give before you expect to get - No one ever moved forward in this world by being selfish, in the world of referrals it comes back to haunt you. Start by looking at the people around you, those you care about and those you are just meeting, and seeing if you can help them in some way, if they tutor math maybe you can help connect them with a faculty member at a local college, if they need a mechanic maybe you can give them the number of yours and call him and ask him to give them a deal. The more you do for others, the more they will do for you.
2) Eliminate Humility - I'm not saying become and insufferable arrogant braggart (like me), but I am saying to make sure everyone you meet knows what you do and that you are good at it. You shouldn't have friends that are surprised to find out after 8 months that you are a computer programmer, you never know who has an uncle in HR looking for a new recruit. When the inevitable "what do you do?" conversation comes up with a person, feel free to express your passion and drive and skill in your area of expertise. On a similar note...
3) Let People (Subtly) Know You Are Searching - No one likes to be beaten over the head with requests for help and pleas of "why can't I find a joooooob?" However, people need to know you are looking, so find subtle ways of slipping "I'm in the market for a new position" or something similar into your conversations, particularly with people in positions of power in your industry.
4) Stay In Touch With Your Network - This cannot be emphasized too strongly. Over the years (particularly in college) you will meet dozens and eventually hundreds and thousands of people in your field. Those who become fond of you should be getting a visit or a phone call or at the very least an email from you every few months. Just a chance to catch up, say hi, see how things are, and update them on your life. This will keep you fresh in their mind when job offers and opportunities come about. If you think your college professor will still be recommending you for jobs 5 years after graduation when he's mentored another several dozen students that are younger and more recent in his mind, you're dreaming. Keep. In. Touch.
By using these simple steps, you can go from living in your parents basement to having 10 separate jobs competing to give you the best package, as I had.
Now, living in Boston and taking advantage of 4 of these opportunities and the added pay, flexibility, and benefits that come from them knowing I could walk away for other job offers, I realize (as my phone rings with another part time job opportunity) that I may never have to send out applications again.
Reframe your life with referrals.
Having trouble getting started? Have a referral success story? Share it in the comments!
Many singers and speakers fail to realize what a great impact their food choices have on their voices. Below find some helpful information and tips for keeping your voice at it's shiny best.
STAY HYDRATED. No seriously, if you don't have to pee right now, you aren't drinking enough water, go drink a gallon and come back to read the rest later.
Disclaimer: Your body will react differently to most foods, these are general rules. Your allergies, intolerances and body chemistry may vary.
Foods that affect your voice will generally fall into 2 categories:
Mucus-Inducing Foods: These include all dairy products, as well as most sugary processed foods and candies, as well as chocolate. They will tend to produce a coating of mucus (or "slime") on your vocal folds, generally making it more difficult to sing/speak, though sometimes desirable if you are feeling particularly dry/raw/horse.
Drying Foods: These include salt and foods that emphasize it (nuts, chips, etc.), citrus foods (oranges, lemons, limes) and spicy foods. They have the pleasant effect of relieving the intense mucus of the previous category (also caused by allergies and food intolerances). However if not properly hydrated (do you have to pee yet?) it's best to avoid these foods near performance time.
In general avoid eating within an hour of performance to avoid losing the ability to properly support your tone from your core. If you aren't "peeing pale" then you aren't drinking enough water. And try to get your 5 servings of fruits and veggies a day, it will leave you feeling refreshed and energetic and give you the stamina to approach the major roles. Professional singers and speakers are athletes, and need to respect their bodies.
How have you noticed particular foods affecting your voice? Tell me in the comments.
"What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?"
This classic Bible reference leads us to a discussion of what truly constitutes success.
It is our definitions that decide what we can accomplish in this world.
Ask yourself: "Is it true that, without knowing what the word 'success' means to me, I will never be able to know whether or not I have it?"
The first step of true success is knowing what success means. "Success" to the starving man in the Congo looks very different from the "Success" of the struggling actor/waiter in LA, which also looks quite different from the "Success" of the five year old trying to convince his parents he's not a child anymore.
But the discussion of how to find your "Success" is better left for another day, I want to give you a framework for using once you have started to hone in on your true purpose, to avoid one of the most painful experiences possible in life:
False Success
The definition: when we get everything we thought we ever wanted, and feel hollow inside. When "Success" isn't all it's cracked up to be and we end up feeling worse than we did before.
Here are three tools I've discovered for avoiding False Success
1) Your Success MUST be your own. Much of the False Success in the world is the result of people fulfilling goals forced on them by parents, friends, colleagues, teachers or lovers.
2) Your Success MUST be good for others. False Success is common when it comes at the expense of others. You may think you can live with the guilt of all those you stepped on in getting to the top, but at the end of the day you will sleep more soundly at night knowing your Success is truly helping people.
3) Your Success MUST have an extension to the future. Ah, my favorite point. This is where I have experienced False Success most painfully. There's a story that when the first astronauts returned from the moon, they faced massive depression and psychological problems. The loss of the goal had shattered them, even though they'd achieved it. Astronauts now are immediately given new projects of great import as soon as they return, so they have a new idea to focus on. You must have a plan ready for the 'next step' after you achieve, and always move it a little further away.
Join me in a future post to work through your definition of Success, and remember, when you think you have it, to make sure it is true to YOU, that it HELPS others, and that it GOES ON after you've achieved it.
Think there are more types of False Success? Let me know in the commends
I want to become a better writer.
In today's world, written expression is becoming more and more important each day. From resumes to professional emails to essays to proposals to online dating profiles, society is demanding you learn how to write well. Unfortunately we live in a culture obsessed with instant perfection and highly critical of any first fledgling attempts at skill building.
"I wasn't born with it"
"I just don't have that talent"
"I don't have a knack for it"
"I'm not lucky to have a natural flair like you"
We've all heard these sayings a million times, whether it's about writing, starting a business, singing, teaching, sports, or any other field where excellence is rewarded (hint: every field)
This is categorically UNTRUE
In reality, no one became amazing at what they do overnight, and no one has done it without hard work and practice and (here's the shocker) PLENTY of the F word.
No, not that, this F word is much more scary: Failure.
Even the stereotypical example: Mozart, the born prodigy, the child genius, put in thousands of hours of hard work and practice before writing his first real lasting work. His early compositions are mostly transcriptions and arrangements of other composers works, and in fact, his first well known composition wasn't written until his early 20's. Considering how often he practiced (his father enforced this strictly) and that he was writing music from such a young age, it actually took him far LONGER to become a success than most composers!
So what does this have to do with you, and how can you improve your skills?
Do it. Every day. And fail brilliantly.
When I last sent out a round of job applications I didn't do so with the goal of getting a job. Odd, yes? My goal was to get rejections. I can hear you now: "who WANTS to get rejected?" Allow me to explain.
When my goal was to 'get a job' I spent days crafting the perfect resume, writing and rewriting and editing and changing templates. At the end of two weeks of "job hunting" I had sent out one application. One BEAUTIFUL application, mind you, though not beautiful enough for them to fire the guy they hired 4 days prior and give me an interview.
So why the goal of getting rejections (specifically, 10 rejections in one week)?
It's harder than you think to achieve.
I had to put out at least 10 applications, and I had to do it quick. Once i found a lot of places weren't responding at all, I had to put out even more applications, and call back, and email, and show up in person, until I had a solid rejection. I had 6 or 7 solid rejections pretty quickly, but then an amazing thing started to happen, I got interviews. And I got second interviews.
And I got job offers.
Over half a dozen of them in a span of 2 weeks. The SAME amount of time it had taken to send out ONE application and receive ONE rejection when the goal was "get a job".
In the end I failed BRILLIANTLY. I have a label in my gmail inbox called "Failures" and as of this check, there are over 30 rejection notices from that round of applications, not counting the phone and in person rejections. While you can choose to focus on the pain of those rejections, I choose to focus on the beauty of having my pick of several fantastic competing offers in different areas of the world.
So how do I intend to improve my writing?
Do It. Every Day. And Fail Brilliantly.
Think this post was a brilliant failure? Let me know in the comments below:
I am blessed to be able to conduct the University Orchestra for a section of each of their rehearsals this semester. Last Monday was my first time in front of them, and it was fantastic. There were (as always) several flubs but nothing that required me to stop the ensemble. I was able to keep them together by giving them rehearsal numbers and clear cues. I conducted the second movement of Dvorak's New World Symphony, number 9. It is beautiful music and I could feel that the musicians respected me and were giving their best effort to the reading. I feel the success I had is due to the amount of preparation I put in studying the score, as well as the time I've spent in conducting study over the past years working on instrumental technique as well as choral. A lot of conductors say there is no difference, and in the essential framework, or 'home base' of gestures, there isn't a real difference. Beyond that, however, I feel a distinct difference between directing instrumentalists and singers.
The biggest difference is in the amount of musical training. The average orchestral musician has been studying their instrument for at least a decade, if not more. Many of them have been playing for longer than I've been alive. Some twice that. The average singer may have been singing since they were young, but for most it is purely recreational, and coincides with little to no training in music reading, technique or expression.
So the first road block to me as a choral guy in front of an orchestra is that many of the people I am to lead have far more experience, knowledge and musicality than me.
The other big problem is that orchestral conductors on average are far more skilled than choral conductors. This is undeniable and directly tied to the number of orchestral and choral conductors in this country. Almost every church has a small volunteer choir, most schools have at least one if not several choirs, and most universities and colleges have between 2 and 10 choirs. Many schools have bands but not orchestras, the days where churches had orchestras attached to them are just about dead, and even large universities have at most 2 orchestras with 1 being the overwhelming majority. With so many fewer spots for conductors in the orchestral world, obviously the ones with positions will be more talented than the plethora of choral conductors in the country. Many church choirs are led by people with no more musical training than singing in choirs for a few years (one of my conducting students directed a church choir for 2 years while in high school, never having had any conducting training, and having sung in church choirs for several years).
I don't think this is a bad thing, as the more people we have actively engaged in music making instead of passively observing the better. What it does result in is the (correct) notion by instrumentalists that the average choral conductor is not as skilled as the average orchestral conductor. So my big roadblock here was knowing that a large portion of the ensemble will automatically be looking for me to be a poor conductor because I'm a vocal guy. This is also a possible advantage however, because when people assume you suck, it's relatively easy to impress them.
In the end it went very well, I had a large number of players come to me afterwards and compliment me, and I had several people tell me the best thing a choral guy in front of an orchestra can hear:
"You were clear and easy to follow"
I've noticed a lot of hits on my blog coming from people searching the term "Solfege Hand Signs" or "Kodaly Hand Signs" so I thought 'why not make a post specifically about it?' Before I spent the last two summers in Kodaly training at the New England Conservatory I spent 2 years teaching myself movable solfege. There were not any teachers at my school who specialized in this method and certainly none that advocated handsigns, so I was on my own. I got every book I could and watched youtube videos and scoured the internet to find all the help I could get, and after two years of hard work, became rather proficient in both movable do solfege and handsigns.
Movable do solfege focuses on the tonal relationships between pitches, assigning a syllable (do re mi fa so la ti do) to each pitch based on its location within a particular key and relation to the tonal center.
In a similar fashion, the handsigns give a physical and spacial representation to the pitch based on its location and relation to the tonal center. The syllables and handsigns do not correspond to absolute pitch names (C D E F G etc) but rather to scale degrees (the 1 2 3 etc of a key). Each syllable has a specific handsign that relates to it and the height of each handsign helps to show the direction of movement. Do is located at the belt-buckle, so is located around the chin/mouth, and high do is located around the forehead. Below is a wonderful site where you can find a chart showing all of the handsigns
http://www.classicsforkids.com/teachers/training/handsigns.asp
I hope this has been of some help to those of you who show up here, thanks for visiting!
I love thunder storms. We've been having this surge of flash storms, intense pouring rain and earth shattering thunder for only a few minutes at a time. It's so beautiful, a ravishing sensation for all the senses. The colors of the lightning, mixed with the rapidly shifting and darkening clouds is absolutely gorgeous, and the roaring drumming of the rain drowning out every other sound, until that moment - you can almost feel it a second before it happens - when the sound of the heavens ripping open tears through your body. Ah, it's amazing.
I could sit outside in the pouring rain listening to the thunder and just being for hours on end, every day, and never grow tired.
Maybe I'm just exhausted, but I love this weather, and I love being alive, and I love being me.