One of my classmates from Westminster Choir College recently posted a Kurt Vonnegut quote that I wanted to share with my wilds4estill followers:

“Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”

— Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

As an artist/teacher living during the time of COVID-19, I have felt the effects of the pandemic on the arts. It’s been devastating. I hope to see a return to lively artistic activity very soon. Artists need it for financial and creative survival. The world needs the medicine the arts provide.

At a time of such uncertainty, I have struggled with making an argument for vocal training at a time like this. I think Vonnegut makes it for me.

If you are ready to nurture your singing skills, and your soul, please contact me. I’d be happy to help you.

One of my must-dos at the grocery store is checking out the out-of-date produce cart. It’s a great place to save money and it sparks the imagination. Yesterday I found some over-ripe tomatoes, slightly-passed cucumbers, and less-than-pretty onions. To these I added a few other ingredients to make gazpacho, a chilled tomato-cucumber-pepper summertime soup, perfect when it’s 90 degrees outside.

Cooking and singing are such similar activities. In both, one combines ingredients for a desired outcome—be it a soup or a voice quality. In Estill Voice Training, the creation of a voice quality is compared to following a recipe. The chef, (the singer), selects and combines ingredients (structures of the voice) to create the desired vocal quality. The more nuanced the ingredients in the hands of a skilled the chef, the more unique the result.

It easily relates to the concept of cuisine, “… a style of cooking characterized by distinctive ingredients, techniques, and dishes, and usually associated with a specific culture or geographic region. Regional food preparation traditions, customs and ingredients often combine to create dishes unique to a particular region.” ¹

Consider the tomato-based dish I made earlier today. To the tomatoes I combined particular ingredients to yield a Spanish/Portuguese-inspired soup. Those same tomatoes could have been the base of an Indian curry or Kansas City BBQ sauce. It all has to do with the choice of and combination of the ingredients.

My own vocal training focused on the mastery of a particular voice quality or “cuisine” rather than multiple qualities. Although this approach served me well, it fell short when I became interested in cooking, vocally-speaking, in other cuisines. It has been my Estill Voice Training that has allowed me to be a chef de cuisine of multiple qualities.

If you would like to learn about the structures of the voice as well as voice qualities, please contact me.

¹ from Wikipedia

The year 2020. Think about it. (Kind of leaves you at a loss for words, doesn’t it?)

It’s almost like the year slapped us in the face and said, “Do I have your attention?” Dazed we make eye contact and numbly nod. “Good,” says 2020, “Well, then, let’s talk about your priorities.”

Literally, with no warning, it was time for a reckoning—a word familiar with punitive or judgmental tones. However, the root of the word, reckon, simply means to calculate, believe, or consider. The year didn’t ask if we were open to the idea of mindful work. It has demanded it of us. 

So, the process began and it’s been uncomfortable to discover my level of ignorance and embarrassing to see it didn’t bother me. Had I become so gullible that I had lost the capacity to reckon the situation, regardless of its size? Now is the time for asking questions. Time for reconsidering. For reimagining. “Just because it’s always been that way,” won’t do anymore.

This applies to the many massive societal issues in our country that demand our involvement. Equally important are decisions each of us makes concerning our short and long-term well-being. What are the “always been that way” ideas, and accompanying habits, that don’t promote flourishing?

In my work as a voice trainer, I often talk to students about mindfulness, “the quality or state of being conscious or aware of something”¹. I regularly urge students to pair knowledge with intention, particularly as it relates to how they work on their voice away from lessons. Unless the student has clear goals and action steps, the work done can be less than fruitful. Remember: habits create muscle memory irrespective of quality of the habits. You withdraw what you invest.

Speaking of the work done by the student alone, what do you call it? Warming up? Practicing? Vocalizing? These words are ubiquitous but let’s think afresh. What IS happening? What SHOULD BE happening? Have we forgotten the importance of reckoning the moment? Is “doing what I’ve always done,” building the habits that will take you beyond what’s “always been?”

If you would like help instilling knowledge, intention, and mindfulness into your singing, please contact me.

¹ from Oxford Languages 

At some level, all singers realize singing is work. But what are the laws or science that informs that work? Jo Estill wanted to answer this question in the belief that understanding would, as she said, lead to “vocal empowerment for all.” Learning to sing with “most comfortable vocal effort”² is possible when one approaches singing ergonomically. This allows the singer to understand that the voice “should be under control so that the voice user knows the possibilities and restrictions of the voice as well as the risks that may threaten it.“³

If singing with “most comfortable vocal effort” is your desire, please contact me.

¹ Middlesworth, Matt. Ergonomics 101: The Definition, Domains, and Applications of Ergonomics. (Ergo-plus.com)

² Estill Voice Training concept

³ Sala, Eeva, & Rantala, Leena, ed. Voice Ergonomics: Occupational and Professional Voice Care.(www.cambridgescholars.com)

At this particular moment in America, its citizenry is engaged in a large-scale drama. There were no auditions. No one asked if we wanted to participate. Everyone got a role—whether wanted or not. As in any epic, we have antagonists a-plenty strewing obstacles every which way, with new ones landing all the time. Act one seems to be lasting a really long time. We assume there’ll be an intermission. But, when?

Since there’s no respite in sight, we have to press on against an host of foes. But with so many actors—some 332 million—and without clear direction, we struggle to move in unison with strength. The result is each player is left to decide the right thing to do. But as we have witnessed, wrongs can go on unimpeded while “rights” busy themselves butting heads.

One’s responses—to all aspects of living—reveals a working metanarrative. According to Oxford Languages, a general definition of a metanarrative is “an overarching account or interpretation of events and circumstances that provides a pattern or structure for people’s beliefs and gives meaning to their experiences.” Although commonly associated with religions and various -isms, the idea of a metanarrative governing one’s habits, choices, words, and actions is widely embraced. The way Americans are responding to the unprecedented, on-going events of 2020 is a window into the varied metanarratives alive in its citizens.

One’s metanarrative isn’t just functional during extraordinarily challenging times. It also informs everyday activities. Things like growing a pot of geraniums next to your front door or not throwing litter out the window as you’re driving. Both are actions that promote and protect beauty in the world. They also recognize others as deserving access to beauty no matter how small the effort.

The illustration reveals a metanarrative which holds the value of all people and the presence of beauty in the world in high regard. I would argue this is one of many reasons why people sing: we love to give people beautiful things—especially when beauty is hard to find.

If you would like some help refining the gift that is your voice, contact me.

”How am I doing this?” This is the question that Josephine (Jo) Estill, the founder-teacher of Estill Voice Training, sought to answer. Although she could have been satisfied with having had a successful singing career, she spent the last four decades of her life as a voice science researcher and teacher, in search of the answer.

Discovering “how” something works has multiple benefits. Take a hand-held can opener for example. One may be taken with the overall design of the tool or even ponder the laws of physics at play in its mechanics. However, that information alone won’t silence a growling stomach. An understanding of how the tool is made and how it works is required before a morsel of the can’s contents can be enjoyed.

What Jo Estill wanted was evidence for how her voice worked. It is because of her determination to know, along with many other voice scientists and researchers around the world, that we have an ever-increasing level of evidence of how the voice works when we speak and sing.

Evidence-based practice (EBP) has become the standard for many occupations and professions. The medical profession was first to embrace EBP in the belief that scientific evidence should inform practices. What is surprising is the fact that this mindset has only been around since the early 1990’s. YES. For only three decades.

Researcher Matthew J. Leach explains why: “The movement towards evidence-based practices attempt to encourage…professionals and other decision-makers to pay more attention to evidence to inform their decision-making. The goal of evidence-based practice is to eliminate unsound or outdated practices in favor of more effective ones by shifting the basis for decision-making from tradition, intuition, and unsystematic experience to firmly grounded scientific research.”¹

It is my privilege to provide my students access to lessons in singing that are evidence based. If you would be interested in learning more about evidence-based singing, please contact me.

One final word. Look around the world today. Where could the adoption of evidence-based practice be helpful in solving societal problems?

¹ Leach, Matthew J. (2006). “Evidence-based practice: A framework for clinical practice and research design.” International Journal of Nursing Practice. 12 (5): 248-251.

My journey of re-educating myself about the human voice has reminded me that many aspects of vocal production remain a mystery. Due to the relentlessness of voice scientists and researchers, we are learning more, little by little. Research published over the past ten years is providing voice teachers with some ground-shaking information that—if known and embraced—can move voice teaching as a whole further away from mystery.

When we use the word “mystery,” we‘re generally referring to something hidden from our understanding. In addition, an archain meaning of “mystery” is the contraction of the Latin word ministerium or “ministry.” Although strongly tied to religion, “ministry” broadly refers to an act of service to another.

These two definitions have provided me with some fodder for thinking about the role of the voice teacher in the life of the voice student. It is my conviction that my vocation is to serve my students in the solving of any mysteries that rob them of their joy in singing. I believe my job is, as Estill Voice Training says: “Replace mystery with knowledge.” I often tell my students, “My job is to equip you with a foundation of knowledge so that you can identify problems and find solutions on you own, thereby not needing my services on a continual basis.” It is my pleasure to minister/serve my students in this way.

If this approach to voice training sounds interesting and exciting to you, please contact me.

Since last week’s post, my vocal re-education has given me new ideas about where to locate the effort and energy needed for belting as well as ways to reduce nasalence in the voice. Contact me if you’d like to know more.

But the events in this country over the past week hang heavily in my thoughts. To be honest, how can I possibly make a case for singing at a time like this? What can singing and music-making do?

After a couple of hours searching articles related to music and psychology, I found Music, Empathy, and Cultural Understanding by Eric Clarke, Tia DeNora, and Jonna Vuoskoski.(https://www.music.ox.ac.uk/assets/Cultural-Value-Music-Empathy-Final-Report.pdf)

The report contains the following quote:

“the case has been made for different perspectives on music’s capacity to afford compassionate and empathetic insight and affiliation, and its consequent power to change social behaviour. These diverse research strands all point to the crucial role that musicking plays in people’s lives, to its transformational capacity, and to the insights that it can afford. There is no single window onto ‘what it is like to be human’, but musicking seems to offer as rich, diverse, and globally distributed a perspective as any – and one that engages people in a vast array of experiences located along dimensions of public and private, solitary and social, frenzied and reflective, technological and bodily, conceptual and immediate, calculated and improvised, instantaneous and timeless.

Indeed, some theories of the evolutionary significance of music highlight the
importance of music’s empathy-promoting aspects, suggesting that a fundamental adaptive characteristic of music is its capacity to promote group cohesion and affiliation.”¹

¹ Cross, I. & Morley, I. (2008). The evolution of music: theories, definitions and the nature of the evidence. In Stephen Malloch & Colwyn Trevarthen (Eds.), Communicative musicality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 61-82.

There are no easy answers to the problems in this country today, but I would argue that an increased ability to display more and greater empathy would help. So, keep singing and making music as a means of getting there.

I’ll admit it. When I hear the phrase, “Learn something new every day,” I think of Martha Stewart. The phrase was used over and over on her television show. The phrase sticks in my memory because I watched the show—a lot. No, I’m not ashamed. I probably learned more about cooking from her than anyone else.

But the phrase is attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson:

“Knowledge is when you learn something new every day. Wisdom is when you let something go every day”

With no credit to Emerson, Stewart borrowed and added to create:

“If you learn something new every day, you can teach something new every day.”

Both of these quotes summarize where I am on my COVID 19-inspired journey of re-education on all thing about the human voice. Since last week’s post, I have learned new things about the projection of the voice. This new knowledge gives me the courage to let previous information go. The best part is I get to teach this to my students.

If you would like to know what are the benefits of ring and twang, and how to produce both, contact me.

I don’t know about you, but it took until the start of May for it to finally sink in—life is gonna’ be different for a while. Before that I think I went through the days, and then weeks, like the traveler whose flight gets delayed, and delayed, and delayed again. You just hang and wait. There’ll be a plane soon, right?

Well, no plane arrived. So, now what?

I took inspiration from the quote in my first blog post. It was time to turn to learning.

Beside rereading parts of my Estill Voice Training System course instruction manual, I am also watching video lessons on the site Get Vocal Now (http://get vocal-now.com and resources at the site Integrated Vocal Pedagogy http://integratedvocalpedagogy.com.

I was drawn to these because I’m a voice geek but primarily because my chief mentor on my Estill Voice journey has been Kerrie Obert, MA-CCC/SLP, who started these sites, with the help of colleagues.

My first lessons have been instructive about the tongue and the misinformation often communicated about this vital part of the human body,

I’ve also been revisiting my good friend twang and its creators, the pharyngeal constrictors. In addition, Kerrie has helped me get a better grasp on ring in the voice and role of the root of the tongue in creating it.

Bottom line in my learning so far: you can’t know enough.

If you’d like help learning more about your voice, contact me. I’d love to help.