++++ FOR GOD'S SAKE, PLEASE TRY TOO HARD!

THIS, Ben Folds, is the it.

THIS is what I've been talking about. THIS is what I've been doing on this blog. Ben Folds posted a note on Facebook (??) answering the questions aspiring artists ask him about how to "make it." It's so good, it's worth reading all the way through but here's a teeny excerpt on the section entitled...

++ WORK DILIGENTLY TO FIND YOUR VOICE:

Finding your Voice takes a lot of frustrating time. That's a painful period that all artists go through, sometimes more than once. I think that most artists don't want to admit that period ever existed. We all like to pretend we came out special and it all just magically happened. You will eventually find that it takes no effort to just be yourself, but the road to that place can be long and rough. The truth is that most artists would not want you to see the evolution of their Voice. It would be very embarrassing. Imitating your heroes, trying on ill advised affectations. It's all part of the trip. It's why all those Before They Were Stars footage is so cringe worthy. Nobody wants to be seen in that light and so successful musicians do the new generation a disservice by denying their shady artistic past. I for one, will do my best to cover my tracks because I don't want anyone seeing that sh*t!

This blog is my road map. My inspirational treasure map for any of those who might come behind me. Perhaps it could be crazy or professionally suicidal to allow the world to view my flipping, my flopping, my muddling months and years of finding my own voice, of finding my own sound, of becoming an active artist with successful shows and albums. Perhaps there are those friends or colleagues or passing readers who listen to these "rough draft scratch recordings" or read my naked ramblings and feel uncomfortable or embarrassed for me, thinking I just "don't have it" and I "shouldn't quit [my] day job" and all the other know-it-all things we say when somebody else does something that disturbs our own illusions of stability and security and propriety.

But I am a smarty-pants and I do not think so. I know that I will get there and I know the music will be good. And I believe that I am telling stories and writing songs that other people will take comfort or joy in and call home: something I have dreamed about for as long as I can remember. And when that time comes I want the world to know how messy and confusing and terrifying it was to get there. And maybe there will be just one person who, also messy and scared and confused, will see this map and recognize it and take courage to move forward to write that book, make that album, go to art school, launch that company, take on that social justice mission.

AND IT WILL HAVE MATTERED TO BOTH THIS AND THAT STARFISH.

BOOM.

(End mixed metaphor. Now read Ben Folds' entire post because it is razor sharp. Hat tip to Those Little Details for the link.)

I wish I wish I wish I was born a man

Martha Wainwright, as interviewed for the music issue of The Believer:

BLVR: Are you recording as you're writing?

MW: No, I can't stand the sound of my own voice. I can't stand listening back to it. I think it's devastating. Once I think the song is coming together I'll think, OK, let's try it from the top. I perform it for myself, from beginning to end, to make sure that it makes sense, if its' pleasing, or if it has an arc, or whatever. I'm performing it for myself, and I'm listening to myself do it in the room, to know whether it's complete or not. But I don't record it, because when I have recorded, I've listened back and been disappointed by what I've heard.

SK: She has one of my favorite voices. Let that be a lesson to us all.

Oh I wish I wish I wish I was born a man / So I could learn how to stand up for myself / Like those guys with guitars / I've been watching in bars / Who've been stamping their feet to a different beat
To a different beat / To a different beat

I Am the Queen of Night! F6! F6!

I'm not saying that Royal Opera House is going to fly me in to replace Diana Damrau as Queen of Night in its next production of Mozart's Magic Flute (or that I'd be auditioning for any such thing), but this is important (to me): please listen to this aria. Go ahead. It's Sunday night, what else are you doing?

OK, so here's why it was important to me that you listen. You heard those high F's? (F6's to be exact?) Out of the spanking blue I suddenly have that. Yep. I got it. It's allllll mine.

Ten-fifteen years ago when I was actually in classical vocal training/ensembles, I was a very resentful mezzo soprano who always whined about preferring to sing alto where 1) my voice was comfortable 2) I could harmonize = much more fun. Because, after all, my only "training" beyond that had been singing shape note hymns with regular folks in church. (No choral program in my rural high school.) But both of my voice teachers shoved a mezzo version of 26 Italian Songs and Arias in my face and made me sing very uncomfortable things in very uncomfortable ranges. I once, at age 18, sang a painfully strained, gasping version of Samuel Barber's "Sure on This Shining Night" for a recital and thought my voice (sure on my shining life) wasn't built to sing above a D5. Hitting those F5s and G5s was like wriggling and pretending to attempt pull-ups in front of the entire gym class. And I hated it. And I hated singing that way. Such was the case until last summer.

The irony is this happened quite on accident, while working with a pop vocal coach, while focusing on my lower register/chest voice, while on a mission to declassically train my voice. (If you're just catching up, here is the post about how this guy made me cry before my first lesson and another about how he told me why nobody was going to bother to listen to me sing in my second lesson. No, really, it's some of the best stuff anyone's ever said to me. Check it out.)

And here's the story in pictures (click to enlarge! because I want you to!):

This all happened with three voice lessons and regular vocal exercises over a period of one year. All of this focused on making use of my lower register (chest voice) and producing a more me-sounding, unpolished tone. And it's crazytown because, now that I'm not trying to be able to sing arias or art songs, I magically can. And now that I'm trying to unearth a more raw, speech-like quality in my voice, my voice can sound as clear as a bell. So . . . what am I going to do with that? That is the question.

I have some ideas. On that note, I had my fourth lesson today. I'll write about that next.

In Which My Feelings Are Best Expressed by One Abigail Breslin

Yesterday, the generously talented Matt Gelfer (of The New Students) slogged down Slope with fiddle in hand, to do the unbelievable. For the first time in my whole life, I heard one of my songs actualized, played by the instruments that have been swirling around only in my imagination all of these years.

For the first time my music was . . . outside . . . of me. All of this said, my feelings are best expressed in a scene from Little Miss Sunshine, played by Abigail Breslin.

Little Miss Sunshine - I Won  |  Movies & TV  |  SPIKE.com

Sing It So I Believe It

Parents packed and shipped safely home, Alaska and I declared today a day of rest. So, as the "180 minutes" of ALL THREE football games slowly passed, I propped up my socked feet and hunkered down with a backlog of glossies to see what's sleek in this world of ours.

I didn't travel far before coming across Justin Davidson's New York magazine profile on vocal coach to the opera stars, Steven Blier. Here's the link to the full story entitled "Sing It So I Believe It," nicely done: http://nymag.com/arts/classicaldance/classical/reviews/69638/.

It's interesting to see Blier's philosophies up against those of my own vocal coach. While Mark Baxter is busily stripping away my classical training so that I can deliver the message, Blier seemingly maximizes every last drop of his students' training so they can do the same. Different styles, different venues, but plenty of room for intersection. These snippets were particularly apropos to my latest blogvestigations.

Justin writes:

"Over the past 35 years, Blier has become a guru of song, the man who patiently guides singers past their vulnerabilities, who coaxes them to scrutinize and express some tiny grain of meaning in the text, who homes in pitilessly on glints of fake feeling. A mixture of therapist, teacher, impresario, and pianist-for-hire..." 

(Uh-huh...sounds familiar.)

"What separates the [songs] that interest him from those that don’t is not style, but a nugget of emotional intensity. 'A song is the closest thing I know in waking life to dreaming,' he says. 'It’s a coded version of reality. It’s not like playing a scene from Chekhov, where you’re trying to look like you’re having a tea party or a nervous breakdown. Instead, you’re enacting a coded, ritualized version of that moment, and somehow everyone in the hall is dreaming along with you.'"

(Hmm. Hadn't thought of it that way.)

 “'When I roll onstage, I am the song’s messenger,' he says. 'Maybe some other guy can play it better than I can, but I was given the message, and I have to deliver it.'”

(This one's  MOS DEFinitely going up on the bulletin board.)

"In concert, Blier’s emotional curiosity emerges as good humor and tenderness, but it can startle singers, says Sasha Cooke. 'People open up when they’re around him,' she says. 'You enter the room and all of a sudden everything feels very intimate. But some people don’t want to be figured out.'” 

(Do I want to be figured out??) 

 "Vulnerability and determination are the performing artist’s two contradictory but equally essential tools..."

(Those two specifically? Well, I certainly feel vulnerable enough and will even 80 times so when I brace myself and post that first song in a few weeks. Determination? Against my better judgement, perhaps, yes.)

And, on that note, the basement recording session is set for this Friday at 7PM. AUUUGGGHHHHH!!!!

I've Been Wholly Insincere

Yesterday at a power lunch with an incredibly talented and attractive (he's available, gentleman) publicist friend of mine, we overheard a singer at a nearby table talking to his date about His Voice. (Eyeroll. The brass player comes out in me. Blasted vocalists with their scarves and their hot herbal tea and matching mittens and perfect posture and make-up on their faces. Gag me. )

. . .

So let's talk about My Voice!

Prior to my first lesson with Mark Baxter (has it already been 5 months?!), I sent him a few tracks from a piano-vocal demo I made back when I was living in Miami in 2002, along with one single solitary track of my own music, just to give him a sense of my voice. I told him that, for reasons I couldn't quite articulate, I L-O-V-E to sing but have never liked the sound of my singing voice. I told him that I find it boring, uninteresting. Kind of lame. How to fix this? A gal who loves singing more than just about anything but cayen't stayend the sound of it?

And this is how this dude shot me right between the eyes before I had so much as walked in the studio and unwrapped my scarf (kidding! remember, it was June). He said he had listened to the tracks I sent and wanted to tell me something. (Yes, I think. Fix it. Make it sound Right.) And he spent about 10 minutes talking to me about honesty.

WHAM. OK. Well, that was not what I was expecting. I shall now paraphrase (though I could transcribe the whole thing from that cruel, cruel, disc he makes me bring to each session):

Here's the thing, he said. We are all animals. We have a finely tuned sense of whether or not somebody is being straight with us. The moment a stranger walks into a room we have made an almost instantaneous judgment of them: safe or unsafe, trust or don't trust, real or hiding something? And we do that very same thing when we hear someone sing. Singing is primal. We can all tell (or at least we think we can tell) when somebody means it. If they let down their guard, we let down ours. If they let us in, we let them in. Trust. 

 And here's the blow that won the match before it had started:

When I listen to you sing, what speaks loudest to me is not what you are saying, but how careful you are being. How you are hiding behind all of your training. How all of your defenses are up, ensuring that no vulnerability shows through. You are heavily guarded, shielded. I hear someone who is going through acrobatics to sound correct. If that's what people hear, they won't even bother to pay attention to the words because they won't be interested, they'll be bored, they won't believe you because they won't trust you. Is that what you want people to hear when they listen to you?

Jesus. Well . . . no.

For someone who has, on more than one occasion, been referred to as "honest to a fault," this is pretty much the last lecture I was expecting to receive. I mean, for better or for worse, I can't stand talking to someone whose guard is up and who's only presenting veneer. I consider making conversation to be part of my job and I can definitely do it when I'm "on duty" but I find myself counting the minutes and wishing for the moment when the crap is up and the conversation can finally start. And I'm pretty awful at sustaining any friendship that stalls out in facade territory. Boring. Get real. I surround myself with friends who dig deep. To a large extent I don't think I can help it.

BUT - he's completely, totally, 100% right! I mean, he nailed it. And I felt this huge sense of relief! I didn't realize it, but that is precisely why I haven't liked listening to myself sing. I don't even believe myself! How can I expect anyone else to??

I was always frustrated in voice lessons because every teacher I ever had was training me to be a mezzo soprano with 26 Italian Songs and Arias, coaching me on "Sure on This Shining Night" (OK, I actually really loved that one but wished it was about a fourth lower). Those weren't the kinds of sounds I wanted to be making. I didn't want to wiggle my hand to remind myself to use vibrato. I never wanted a big fat lacquered voice. I just wanted to sing what I was feeling, seeing. I wanted to tell the story as I see it. That's all I still want to do. I have all of these words and melodies and harmonies and stories inside that I want to tell. I want to make songs that people can hear and say "Yes! It's just like that! I see it too!" I want to write a song that somebody can crawl inside and call home the same way Sufjan Stevens, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, and Emily Saliers have done for me.

And so, the past few months have been warbly. Unstable. Edgy. I'm making some of the uhg-liest croaking sounds imaginable. I'm flat. I'm sharp. I'm weird. I'm resisting the almost-consuming compulsion to sing like "somebody who knows better." I'm singing "too high" in my chest voice. He assures me the cracking and squawking is no sign of injury, just a sign of a control freak who's refusing to let go of all of her safety nets. Sounds like a hot mess.

But I see signs of progress. There is no correct way to pronounce, to inflect, to phrase. I am discovering the myriad effects a person can get with a single tone. It's endless. It's overwhelming. And each one means something different, totally, slightly. There is no Right. And maybe, so what if my voice cracks?

I don't know. As of now, it doesn't feel like I have any...control...over the sound. As in, how can I convey the feelings behind the words if my voice is bucking around Brooklyn like some freaking startled bronco? I suppose I could only sing songs that are intended to sound haphazard and reckless? Mmm. Still, it's been six months since I started this blog and I ain't let nobody hear nuttin' yet. I mean, if I keep waiting until I sound awesome and everything's perfect then it's never going to happen and everyone's going to lose interest, right?

So many questions. And only two lessons. But I heard Sufjan Stevens's voice almost crack a few times on Monday night and it was heart-breakingly effective. I paid attention because he meant it.

And I mean it. I really really do. I just have to let go and get out of it's way.

sing a cappella wah-oo-oo

One thing that does not come up often in the course of my NYC life is the fact that I grew up in a congregationalist Christian sect that falls, culturally speaking, somewhere between Mennonite and Independent Baptist. Some of the prime markers of this subculture are attendance at 3 church services a week, lace doilies on the heads of some women, a hemline that falls no higher than the knee, no "mixed bathing" (that's girls and guys swimming together, for the uninitiated), no alcohol, no cigarettes, no swearing, certainly no drugs, no dancing (yes, fine, like Footloose), and, perhaps most significantly for this discussion, no instrumental music in worship. That's right, instrumental use is a derogatory term in this community—a scandalizing accusation even. (About the only worse thing you can call somebody is a Baptist. GASP.)

If your mind is blown, let me spin this around for you: church - sings - a cappella - WAH-OO-OO. If you follow no other link this week, please click this one and allow the group "Acappella" to summarize the doctrine in peppy doo-wop style. (If the churches of Christ had a TV show this would be their theme song.)

Now, I realize that this is most unusual. Let me rephrase that: I realize now that this is most unusual. But when I was 5, it didn't occur to me that all the other kindergartners probably weren't actively singing 4-part a cappella harmony from shape note hymnals on a tri-weekly basis. Eh bien, tant pis. Their loss, really. Looking back, it is no wonder my opportunistic band director all but drop-kicked me into a French horn case in 6th grade. Ears!, he thought. Such magnificent ears! While I don't have perfect pitch, I'm a mean sight-singer with serious pitch memory after all those years of reading hymns. Other less musically-useful skills include the ability to recite the books of the Bible in rapid succession without pause, and the ability to know immediately when someone is misquoting/misattributing any Biblical text to suit their own political purposes.

Still, these are my origins. And I may have become a bleeding-heart moderate with a taste for tequila and a nutso passion for salsa-dancing, but to this day I have found no greater experience this side of heaven than harmonious a cappella singing. A couple of years ago I came across this passage from Julia Cameron's The Artists Way that finally brought everything (literally) home for me:

If the demand to be original still troubles you, remember this: each of us is our own country, an interesting place to visit. It is the accurate mapping out of our own creative interests that invites the term original. We are the origin of our art, its homeland. Viewed this way, originality is the process of remaining true to ourselves.

So I invoke the Alabama church camp where I and hundreds of other preteens sat lakeside in the pitch dark that summer, singing hours of hymns from memory, accompanied only by the mesmerizing chanting of cicadas. And I recall the hayrides and bonfires with churchfolk, where men, women, and children of all ages watched the fire crackle and sang: "Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia."

And on nights like this I open my Hymns for Worship songbook, surround myself with the memory of these voices, and I sing, and I sing, and I sing.

Mark Baxter Makes Me Cry; Gustave Flaubert Does Not

I often being my work day, while Microsoft Outlook loads its bucket of e-expectations of me from the outside world, by checking composer John Adams's blog, "Hell Mouth." I read it, not only to prepare myself for the possibility of red exclamation point (!) e-mails from around the industry in cases where he has expressed an opinion, but also because he is one of the few writers of music who also writes a window into his creative process. It's fascinating.

So this morning, I logged on to see a post that begins with a question: "How to write a masterpiece?" He does not presume to know the answer. This is possibly what I find most fascinating about the creative process; it remains a mystery even to those who experience it regularly. It does not matter if you've written giants of repertoire or hit tunes, when it comes to writing your next piece you will always be a beginner. John Adams delves into a lengthy exploration of Gustave Flaubert's writing process, the excruciating and isolating obsession with le mot juste, genius, the necessarily slow gestation period of composition. Toward the end of the post is a caution for young composers, "There’s little to be gained by having a big audience of unsophisticated listeners. The tradeoff entails writing to the lowered expectations of your audience."

Well, I think that depends on what you're hoping to gain.

If you've been hanging around my blog for the past month or so (thank you!), you'll know the impetus behind all of this is to develop my own musical voice. Part of this process has been searching for a vocal coach, and I'm happy to say that I had my first lesson with Mark Baxter this past Sunday. I chose him because, in our very first e-mail interaction, he made me cry.

A timely collision of perspectives and values, this is. With his permission, I'm excerpting his response to my initial inquiry:

What you are seeking to do will not be easy - but not because of some standard applied from a discerning public. It is because you used the word 'audacity' to describe the notion that a stranger would find your thoughts and feelings worthy of attention. All your training suggests you've had it drilled into you that beauty is cultivated. That is true for the fine arts but not for popular culture.

Those who would listen to your songs simply want to know if you feel and think like them. They are unable to articulate their condition so they are attracted to songs, books, movies and plays that best represent their lives. Like you and me, these people are not perfect - so they do not relate to perfection in the arts other than to appreciate the dedication to the work involved. What they want most of all is to know they're not alone in their fears, loves, joys and sorrows.

If you're brave enough to share your stories and observations in a manner that's authentic for you - it would amount to an act of kindness. There's a world full of hungry souls out there unable to make sense of things. If a song of yours touched just one person it would be worth the effort. ... Write those songs.

So in popular culture, does that mean le mot juste is simply le mot authentique? Processes, values, and intentions may vary but in the end I'd say I write what I write because I am what I am and I have to.

Don't we all? Perhaps that's the common ground—the search for authenticity? The mystery?

Ceci n'est pas une pipe

I've been thinking a lot today.

It may seem from recent posts that I've had my head up my horn's bell but I've been advancing on the singing/songwriting front as well. A new song has mostly written itself, though I'm cajoling the third verse into existence. And I've secured a lesson with a vocal coach later this month. One of the questions on his extensive intake forms is "What style of music do you sing?"

Well, good question. And a timely one, too. There's a pretty interesting discussion on The New York Times Arts Beat blog between pop music critic Jon Parales and classical music critic (and opera specialist) Tony Tommasini, regarding Renée Fleming's "this is not a crossover" album. What I find most interesting is that the rules for a singer are completely different from the rules for an instrumentalist.

As a marketer, I completely understand the need to create a brand identity for an artist or band. Faces, fashion, a sonic signature imprinted in the voice. Artists who "cross over" genres are at risk of diluting their brand, confusing the message, or becoming New Shimmer. (It's floor wax AND a dessert topping!)

But as a musician, the implication that a person must choose and commit to one genre description (or "genre-bending!/busting!/defying!" description) for their entire career is absurd. Don't we all come of age in a world full of varying musical styles for different times and occasions? Why should an artist have to pick one? Tons of instrumentalists don't. Mark Stewart, for example, is a founding member of "new music" group Bang On A Can All Stars, and has played with Paul Simon. Is he a (GASP) Crossover Artist?

No, he's a musician. And isn't the voice, like any other instrument, able to be played in any style or genre?

Hypothetically speaking, what if I write a song for bluegrass band and the next song I write happens to be for jazz quintet? (OK, this may not be hypothetical.) Do I have to pick just one musical style to perform? And what if the musical styles pick me?

Because I consider Paul Simon's Rhythm of the Saints and Graceland albums to be the 5th and 9th symphonies of songwriting, I'll go back to him. Instrumentation changes, sonic imprint changes, but somehow his brand became stronger through his explorations. And I don't think anyone associates him with "crossover."