Have you ever done any high-intensity sports? I ran track and cross country in high school. When we would warm up for the afternoon workout, we’d start with an easy jog. Not a 100-meter sprint; not even a half-mile run. We would start with an easy jog around the football field. Why? You know […]
Do you find that you can sing well in practice, but when you get on stage, you blow it? You can’t hit a high note except in falsetto, or your mind goes completely blank, or your throat is so tight you can barely sing? I was a nationally competitive waterskier for many years, and found […]
Ready for a little basic vocal technique today? One of my favorite exercises, which functions as a warmup, troubleshooting, training, AND recovery exercise, is simply humming. But not just any kind of humming. It has to be done the right way. Here are two ways to think about humming: 1) Go “Hmmmm…” as if you […]
Do you feel musically alone? Last week I visited college friends in California’s San Francisco Bay Area. The theme of the week was intrapersonal musical influences and connections. I used to feel very alone in my search for a music career as little as five years ago, but how rich, abundant, and connected the landscape […]
I got a call at 2pm last Friday from That 80s Band. Their lead singer had just come down with the flu. They had a gig at 9pm that night and needed a vocalist. Was I available? Although I had to cancel some plans, my answer was YES! I performed with this band a couple […]
Improvisation: singing without prior preparation and planning; choosing what to sing in the moment in response to circumstances or inner feelings. Improvisation is very hard to practice, especially at first. You are likely to sing a lot of notes that don’t sound good. And if you don’t play an instrument, it’s even harder practicing something […]
Christmas is six weeks past, but I’ve used this technique three times in the last week with students, so I thought I would share it with all of you on the newsletter. You have probably heard many times that singing is all about breath support and airflow. And you may think you’re singing with good […]
A couple weeks ago I recorded some vocals for someone I recently began working with. The trackbed had some very slight misalignments between the drums and the rhythm guitar, because of some kind of side effect of a filter he had used during mixing. But I recorded the vocals anyway. I probably spent a total […]
Melisma, in music, is the singing of a single syllable of text while moving between several different notes in succession. Music sung in this style is referred to as melismatic, as opposed to syllabic, where each syllable of text is matched to a single note. [ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melisma ] In current music, we hear a lot of […]
In high school, my best friend and I planned the most exciting trip we could imagine: we were going to drive the six hours from Phoenix, where we lived, to Los Angeles to see our favorite artist play a concert. We had recently turned 16, so we could drive, and we felt free and excited. […]
