Wednesday, October 26, 2011

...But My Voice Won't Let Me

For the first time since I was sixteen (when I was too young and dumb to appreciate it) I went on a vacation to Europe, specifically Paris, Tuscany and Rome. It was crazy, wonderful, and inspiring, but halfway through the trip I was laid low by the worst chest cold I’d had since I can remember, which ravaged my vocal cords and left me with less than a whisper for several days. It has now been almost three weeks and I’m just beginning to be able to croak out a couple of notes.

I’ve heard that Frank Sinatra would fall into a deep depression whenever he got sick and couldn't sing. Me, I just get thoroughly pissed off. Not being able to sing is like temporarily losing my left pinkie: I can manage without it, but I don’t feel whole. Plus, it takes awhile to build up vocal strength, and regaining that after an illness, especially a longer one like mine, takes more than a couple of days. So laryngitis and dealing with colds is on my mind. A few thoughts:

• Some singers have asked me if they should still sing when they are sick. I had a voice coach who told me that unless you have strep throat you should do your warm ups, but I think that’s insane. If it hurts to sing you should probably rest your voice if you can. If what you have is mild allergies or a head cold that is sitting in your nose and not your throat, then you can probably sing through it. It’s when the cold has irritated your cords that you could further the irritation by singing.

• If you’re sick and have a gig or rehearsal that night and the show must go on: rest your voice, drink fluids, inhale steam, hum. Unless you are really sick, the adrenaline of performing often will knock out most your cold symptoms for the duration of the gig. You can try rubbing Preparation H on your adam’s apple since it shrinks tissue and may shrink some of vocal cord inflammation.

• What do the famous singers do when they get sick and have a huge concert that night? Some get steroids shot right into their vocal cords. This reduces the swelling enough to get them through the show, but the next day there’s a slap-back effect and they lose their voice for the day. I’ve been told by someone in his inner circle that Marilyn Manson used to book his tours as a series of three days on and one day off: He’d scream through the first two days of shows, lose his voice and get a steroid shot to make it through the third day, then lose his voice the fourth day and wait for it to come back. Then the cycle would start again. This is not a plan I’d recommend!

• What about tea, honey and lemon? Honey is soothing. Citrus will dry your vocal cords. So will tea, though not as much as citrus. Theoretically, if your throat is full of crud and you figure out the right cocktail of tea and lemon that dries it out but doesn’t overly dry it, it could help. But it’s the steam in tea that really can soothe. I’d vote for herbal tea and honey just to be safe.

When your voice is starting to return:

• Breathe, breathe, breathe. We all get pooped and breathe more shallowly when we’re sick, so the first thing to get back are those good, full singer’s breaths.

• Go slow. Your vocal cords have been roughed up for a chunk of time and probably are still tender. Start with easy warm ups and songs.

If you, too, have a cold, you have my sympathy. No one likes getting a cold, but singers are hit especially hard. Let’s all get and stay healthy, then let’s make a vow to wash our hands more and cover our mouths when coughing and sneezing to reduce the spread of germs. It'll help reduce the amount of grouchy sick singers pacing the earth, waiting for their voices to return.

Monday, August 8, 2011

More Thoughts on Stage Fright

I recently did five shows in the space of a couple of weeks, so I got to revisit my old friend stage fright. Most of the time I did fine despite my nerves, and occasionally did more than fine. A very critical friend I've known since fourth grade, an excellent singer who never gives idle compliments, saw me sing in LA. When he told me after the show that he’d never heard me sing so well I knew I’d done a decent job. So I suppose it's possible to sing and play well and be super nervous. But it’s way more fun to conquer the nerves, really be inside your body during a show, and own the stage.

I’m a Nervous Nellie, as are many singers. In the nineties I had a deer-in-the-headlights goddawful bad experience on stage, from which it took me years to recover. So when students tell me about their abject terror at the idea of singing in public I’m right there with them. During the years after my horrible stage experience I explored every stage fright cure I could find, enough to put in a book. But every time I perform I either learn something new, or relearn some points I should remember by now. Most of the following are additions to what I already put in the article I wrote about stage fright that's posted on my site. Hope they are helpful.

Stay warm
Apparently I have acclimated to Nashville’s long hot summers. I was freezing at a house concert in California in July. I was gabbing with guests outside right up until showtime and didn’t think to grab a sweater. And, to be honest, I didn’t want to cover up my outfit with a sweater. So due to vanity and stupidity I started the show freezing cold, which seemed to take what had been garden variety nerves into “Holy moly, what are the chords and lyrics?” territory. I’d be singing a line and have no idea what the next chord or lyric was, until at the last nanosecond they’d reveal themselves. Being cold is no good for the vocal cords, either. Since pre-performance nerves can make you colder, bundle up and wear scarves until you walk on stage. If the venue is icy bring a decent jacket to wear on stage-- the audience will love it when you take it off after a few songs.

Take a minute (or five) to get centered right before the show
Some of my recent shows were attended by people I hadn’t seen in several years, and I wanted to catch up with as many of them as possible. At one show I happily yacked away until the moment I was called onstage. Bad idea, resulting in bad focus that lasted for a few songs. After many years of performing I’ve developed a pre-show ritual involving yoga and visualizing that serves me well. If I’m time-crunched I can reduce it to a couple of minutes. But if I don’t take the time to get centered before I walk onstage I can spend part of the set catching up with myself. Lack of focus plus nerves are a terrible combination.

When you think you can sing your songs in your sleep, practice even more
All of the aforementioned songs for which I couldn’t remember the chords and lyrics had been very well rehearsed, or so I thought. I’m always amazed at how a bit of stage fright can give me amnesia. If I had stayed warm and taken a moment to get focused I may not have blanked out on those songs, but it sure wouldn’t have hurt to put in even more time practicing. I don’t believe that you can over-rehearse a song, you just learn it more deeply and build more muscle memory to carry you through any stage blank-outs.

Put an easy song up front
If you’re like most performers your nervousness will be worse at the start of the show. Knowing that’s true for me, I put an easy belter first on the set list. I prefer belters early on, since I can channel nervous energy into them. I save ballads that require more control for later on in the set. Partway through my mini-tour I changed things up and put a different song first, a non-belter. Bad idea, resulting in a less than strong beginning. I switched back to my belter for the rest of the shows.

Assume that you’ll be nervous onstage and prepare for it
At one show I felt perfectly calm before I went on, so I skipped my usual pre-show calming rituals. As soon as I began singing I felt the nerves descend, and though I soon worked through them I never felt like I was really in my body during the show. Develop a pre-show regimen and stick with it whether you have pre-show jitters or not. If you are happily nerve-free for any show, a pre-show regimen will still help strengthen your focus and performance.

While practicing, plan for distractions
My husband was playing a short set before me when in walked a friend he hadn’t seen in many years, sporting never-seen-before bleach blond hair. Tom laughed, promptly forgot what he was doing and actually had to stop his song mid-performance to recover. When you’re practicing for a show, audition, whatever, try to imagine sudden distractions happening so you can strengthen your focus. You can even ask friends or band members to try and distract you as you rehearse. Sounds crazy, but you never know when an old friend with new bleach blond hair will arrive during your show.

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Swimming and Singing

I learned early in my vocal studies that swimming and yoga are two of the best forms of exercise for singers. Whether you’re swimming or doing most yoga poses, you’re stretched out with your rib cage lifted, and you pretty much can’t help but breathe deeply. I used to run (before my knees told me to permanently stop), and back then I discovered at one point that I could breathe pretty shallowly and still run. I find it next to impossible to take a shallow breath while doing yoga or swimming.

But it’s the summer, so It’s swim-time. I swim in the winter, too, but it’s way more fun to swim when it’s hot outside and I can swim at an outdoor pool or the occasional lake, do the backstroke, and watch birds and planes fly overhead. I’m not a gifted nor a strong swimmer, just a devoted one. The bonus happens later when I sing: my breathing and posture are better, and as a result my tone is better. Everything feels easier. I almost always sound better after a quick voice warm up and a swim than after a longer vocal warm up and no swim.

Notes on singing and swimming for all you swimming singers.

1) It doesn’t really work to do them at the same time, but I’ve tried.

2) While swimming I can:
a. Memorize song lyrics
b. Mentally rehearse songs
c. Think of clever things to say in-between songs at a show
d. Write and rewrite songs
e. On rare occasions: stop thinking and analyzing for once and just be

3) Fins are like having little foot motors, and they make swimming laps way more fun.

4) The only goggles that fit me and don’t leak leave welts on my face. I have to leave time for my face to recover if I have a show that night. Don’t write me about your amazing goggles, please: I’m hard to fit and went through over a dozen pairs before I found ones that worked.

5) I’m often ravenous after swimming and crave junk like jelly bears and pork chops even though I don’t eat sugar or red meat. I should bring apple or power bar to the pool with me.

One hot summer evening I was doing laps at 7 PM , enjoying the many birds soaring above me. There were many more than usual, and they kept flying closer to the pool. Suddenly one of them dive-bombed the pool, then another, then another. They avoided me, but were splashing close by. It was like a scene from the movie “The Birds”. Finally I called out to the lifeguard “Hey, what’s with these weird birds?” She said “Those aren’t birds, they’re bats. They’re diving for bugs.” Which bring me to point #6:

Watch out for bats.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Fear of Flat Notes

Sometimes I think that the single greatest fear a singer has is singing flat (more singers go flat than sharp when they sing out of tune.) Which is crazy, since it really is easy to sing out of tune, when you look at the forces that can pull you off pitch: lack of sleep, allergies, menstruation, no breath support, and bad sound systems, to name a few. I know all this and I don’t care: I just want to sing in tune all the time.

Maybe it’s a spiritual thing, maybe that magical locking in of voice to instrument in perfect tune is akin to living life perfectly gracefully. But life ain’t perfect and neither is my intonation. I know when I’m singing or listening to other singers that soul, heart and feel are paramount. Still, if I hit a flat note I expect the earth to open and swallow me for my sin.

Let’s talk about auto-tuned vocals. There may still be a few of you who are unaware of it-- it’s a technology by which out-of-tune vocals are fixed digitally. Sometimes you can hear that the vocal has been processed, sometimes you can’t. For awhile the overly auto-tuned sound was a fixture only in pop music, but now the overly auto-tuned sound, with that weird robot frosting on it, is everywhere. I expect to hear it on classical recordings any day now. T-pain singing Aida, anyone?

When I listen to great singers who lived before the advent of auto-tuning, singers like Marvin Gaye, Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, I hear them each hit a clunker now and then. Not the end of the world. They’re still magical singers. But now the vast majority of recorded vocals we hear are processed and perfectly in tune. Our ears are used to it, and we’re starting to expect that kind of perfection from everyone. It’s not just from the Beyonces of the world being auto-tuned. That down and dirty scratchy voiced soulful indie singer-songwriter you love has probably had a few notes “fixed in the mix” as well.

Used to be that all the pitch correction happened after the vocal was recorded. Now on-board pitch correction allows someone singing live to be pitch corrected before the voice goes out through the speakers to the audience. I wonder if soon there will be a little neck implant personal pitch correction device, so we never have to worry about singing out of tune, whether we’re singing at a stadium or in the shower. I’m afraid I would rush out and get one immediately. Because I’m as obsessed with singing in tune as most singers. I freak out when I hear my recorded voice singing a flat note, and I rush to auto-tune it away before anyone else hears it. The knowledge that technology can fix my occasional out note is no comfort, it’s more like a like a slap in the face. I know that I must be a lesser human being because of my reliance on technology.

Last year an astrologer gave me a free reading to thank me for a singing method of mine that he’d gotten from the library. In the middle of the long, detailed reading, while he was telling me something about my health, he suddenly blurted out “...And you, know, just go out there and sing, and so what if you hit some flat notes, it doesn’t matter, just go do it!”

So I will heed his advice, after a reasonable amount of practicing, that is. I will go out in the world and sing, and hit some clunkers, and sing anyway.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

My dog, the diva

    My dog Artie howls when I sing. He is very discerning. It’s only when I sing, no other singers live or recorded move him to vocalize. It’s only on certain warm up exercises and songs, but the list is long and ever-growing. He howls on Lean On Me, Over the Rainbow, The Lion Sleeps Tonight, Can’t Help Falling in Love and many other standards, plus several of my own songs including I Can’t Fix You and Finally Love. It sounds like he’s in agony and wants me to stop singing, but sometimes he wags his tail at the same time. Occasionally, if he’s feeling lazy, he’ll stay on the bed at the other end of the house and howl while I’m warming up in the kitchen. My friend Lauren says on those occasions he’s just phoning it in. But usually he trots to wherever I’m singing and starts his earsplitting caterwaul. If he hears me singing on CD he howls, too. He has great breath support: he howls from the diaphragm with impressive volume and endurance. Darn it.
    I adopted Artie in 2003, he started howling in 2004 and hasn’t stopped since. At first I thought he just wanted attention, so I tried an experiment. I changed the verse of one of the songs that set him off and instead sang lyrics about how great Artie is. He stopped howling for a minute and I thought I’d found the solution, but then his howling started up again. Then I changed one of my warm ups exercises so I now I sing “Artie is the best boy in the world”. That one makes him howl louder than the others. My other rescue dog Ruby just sits there listening when I sing, thank God. As soon as I stop singing Artie stops, too.
    I know it sounds cute, but it’s incredibly annoying and makes it very difficult to practice. I love Artie a lot, but not his howling. When the weather is warm I can put him outside, and sometimes that distracts him enough so he forgets to howl when he comes back in through the dog door. But lately he’s onto me and won’t go outside when I’m singing. I’ve tried howling along with him, giving him treats, and on a dog trainer’s recommendation, walking him around the house to distract him. He continues to howl.
    In frustration I contacted an animal psychic --go ahead, mock me. She told me that Artie thinks he’s a much better singer than I am and is trying to drown me out. It’s not that he thinks I’m a bad singer, just that he’s much better. So we’ve got a Black Swan situation here, my beloved dog wants to be the top diva in the house. At least I have an excuse if  I hit a clunker at a gig-- it’s Artie’s fault for disrupting my concentration during rehearsals.
    Think I’m exaggerating? Go to my site here and listen to exhibit A.

Monday, May 23, 2011

I feel like singing. Well, sometimes.

    When I was a teenager I sang all the time. When the cute guy in algebra nodded to me I sang for joy as I walked home. When I was miserable (no nod that day) I locked myself in my room and sang my blues out, which was a joy of a kind, too.
    Now I’m a grown-up and I sing every day, whether I like it or not. I don’t always feel like singing, or more often I’m so busy that I don’t even know if I feel like singing. But I’m not one of those singers who was born with a fabulous voice, who chirped something out at age five and was praised to the heavens, who just “had it”. There are those singers out there, I’ve worked with many of them. The halfway decent singing voice I have now came from lots of lessons and hours of practice. If I don’t warm up and practice enough, and regularly, I lose the bit of control and tone I’ve acquired.
    One of my teachers, the late Judy Davis, taught me years a go that the vocal cords are a muscle, and muscles begin to atrophy after 24 hours of non-use. She said that the only time singers shouldn’t warm up is on their birthday or if they have strep throat. I don’t agree with her on that point. I think if your voice is thrashed from bad allergies or a cold or screaming at the Knicks game, and it hurts your throat to sing, you shouldn’t sing. And stop screaming at Knicks games. But if your cords are in decent shape, sing.
    There’s the spirit revival side of it too. Native American teachings say that to stay sound in mind, body and spirit, we should sing and dance for an hour every day. I’m still working on the dancing part. But I try to sing daily, warm ups and songs both. If I’m in a bad mood it cheers me up. If I’m in a good mood it’s a joy. If I’m feeling somewhere in-between, well, at least I’m keeping the old cords in shape for when I feel like singing for real.