Progress Report. Or the effects of 3 acts of God on 1 active songwriter.

To quote Heavy D & The Boyz: "Now that we found [F6] what are we going to do / with it?"

Well, I don't know.

I've been playing around with that upper range a bit since discovering it but I've also been busy digesting new music and writing press releases for projects that I'm promoting this Fall. I mainly went back just to make sure the whole F6 thing wasn't a fluke and that it was/is still there. It is. So strange.

At this point, my super upper range, as with my chest voice, has two volumes: ON and OFF. Fine. I can work with that. Mark Baxter gave me some interesting exercises to build strength in volumes pp p mf f ff:

one          two               three               four               five

I've been working on "you're an old man" such that it ends appropriately on a D-minor arpeggio from D5 up to D6. So there's that.

Otherwise, I feel like I've hit a bit of a lull. I was working on combining two of my songs (january ballet song and la plus belle but I haven't been able to find a suitable transition from one to the other (one as verse, the other as chorus). For that song, I also wanted to visit and possibly record a class at a ballet studio but, after asking around and emailing Dance New Amsterdam, I've waited for weeks with no reply. I did find a potential translator/collaborator for the French lyrics and collaborating sounds like fun. This feels broader in scope than other songs I've recorded so far, and I'm feeling like I need to equip myself with some composition lessons in order to actualize what I'm envisioning. The same goes for the 4-part hymn "i will grow old and grow apart from all that's dear to me." I got my first copy of Sibelius and started learning it but an earthquake outside of my home county happened in the middle of my tutoring session, then my dad had a bunch of surgeries, then there was a hurricane, then my fall PR projects started. I'm feeling like I could use some guidance. [HELP ME.]

Meanwhile, I've circled back to "laundry" and "you're an old man" because they are more straightforward -- me + guitar or me + ukulele. That'll do for homemade demos, at least.

If I record both of those, that'll be 6 completed demos with about 13 songs still to finish/demo, and about 13 beyond that that I think I'll just let go of. My vocal coach says about 30-50 songs are typically written for each album of music, only 12-ish make the cut. 10 core songs + 2 novelties.

Also worth noting, watching Season 1 of Mad Men is so much easier than writing music.

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.

On Doing "It"

Again, speaking with my biz partner (who henceforth will be known by his NPR name, Stenven Rheinsberg) after an event, (this an intimate gathering hosted by Sō Percussion with Tristan Perich's glorious and sonically brilliant number for crotales and electronics (Observations), Daniel Wohl's graceful and lyrical St. Arc — I heard Bach Cello Suites infused with Webern — played by the darling Ashley Bathgate, and Sō Percussion's thumping Extremes, which only renewed my commitment to incorporate drumline elements into my own songwriting) we were talking about the generous composer commentary on my previous blog post, especially Matt Marks's brutal but liberating philosophy.

I always thought that songwriters, composers, and professional musicians were so because they were either born with marks on their foreheads or because, at some point between the ages of 6 and 16, someone had emphatically dubbed them so. And since neither seemed to be the case with me, I subconsciously surmised around the age of 17 that I was not one of them and that my only option, as a music lover, was to teach music.

But in past months, as I've made the decision to take my music-making seriously, I have discovered a miraculous truth: there is no mark or naming — songwriters are self-appointed. They take their own ideas seriously. And the real dividing line, the absolutely critical distinction between those who are songwriters/composers/performers and those who are not is this:

Those Who Are Doing It / Those Who Are Not

(Just like high school. (Nevermind.))

Because, if you are doing it then you are taking it seriously.  You may be overwhelmed but you are getting your questions answered. You are racing, and pacing, and plotting the course, fighting, and biting, and riding on your horse. You are setting up whatever lessons, performances, networks, framework, studio space, funds necessary in order to make the music you want to be making at the highest caliber possible/necessary to succeed. Maybe that means studying composition formally, maybe that means vocal coaching, maybe that means moving, maybe that means finding people who've put out a successful album and asking them how they fundraised, found a producer, dealt with the brass, etc.

And the amazing thing is, now that I have appointed myself a songwriter/performer, friends, acquaintances, critics, and fellow performers seem quick and happy to call me that as well.

I AM DOING IT.

Thank you, you sweet puffy white sheep

One year ago this week, I posted my original blog entry on Spotsylvania's Marching Knights, stating my intentions as I launched a journey into my own musical voice. Oh! the places we have gone! The adventures!

From dragging my old wooden Holton horn case through Times Square for rehab lessons, to using the Google to find a vocal coach who strips away the lacquer and makes me cry time after time, to the moment when I realized I needed a major lifestyle change, to the flow chart I created in order make the Big Decision, to the announcement that I was leaving my job.

Tracing my origins, I easily uncovered my own musical homeland: marching band, a cappella hymns (in the shape note tradition), and acoustic singer-songwriters from the 70's and 90's.

I got brave and took a baby step by posting some lyrics about Justin Bieber's news cycle in July and about my husband's laundry in November, before admitting that I'd been wholly insincere for months.

Then I put my Courage Tights on and posted my first-ever recorded song (newgrass!) in December. It was enough to make me want to do it again, so I cataloged my existing 30 songs or so, and was in the process of getting a band together (we look like this in stick figures), when a blues tune called My Baby's Gone to Vegas wrote itself at me last week, so I just went ahead and recorded it even though I don't know how to use the recording software or play the ukulele.

In all this, I'd braced myself for the viper's den but instead landed in a barrel full of puffy white sheep. Within two days of posting my first song, I was contacted for a hometown press interview and realized I need to learn how to speak in better sound bytes. Most importantly, however, I got sweet personal notes from all over — friends and friends of friends far and wide — who heard my song and were moved by it, touched by the words I wrote all those years ago. My parents cried, my in-laws cried (!), one of my super tough lady grandmas listens to it every day and cries (!!), my older brothers finally admitted I'm not adopted . . .

And that is all I've ever wanted. So thank you. Super extra thank you. And this is the year that I intend to get a band together to play a real live show, so please stay tuned and hold on to your ******* hat. (Period.)

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.

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?

Let Me Google That for You

Looking for a vocal coach in New York City? Let me Google that for you.

(The handy passive-aggressive link above comes to us via Amanda Ameer via Ronen Givoney.)

This week on Let Me Google That for You (LMGTfY), we are searching for vocal coaches. Those mysterious and often hard to find characters who aren't so much focused on training a person's voice to sound Classical or Jazz or Broadway, as they are focused on finding the healthiest natural expression of a person's voice and style. (I need this.)

Here are the front-runners from my search.

Wendy Parr
www.wendyparr.com
Hmm, I do like Nancy Sinatra and Regina Spektor. This teacher doesn't oppose glottal stops, so that's fun.

Mark Baxter
www.voicelesson.com
Definitely has the most tricked out website; this man is running a real business. Clients range from Steve Tyler to Aimee Mann, to cast members of RENT.

Don Lawrence
Apparently a veteran who has done loads of work in gospel and R&B. Also a producer, writer, arranger? However, it would appear his contact information is only transferred by secret code whispered at after-parties.

Melissa Cross
www.melissacross.com
Wrote The Zen of Screaming, extremes of the human voice. Um no.

Deb Silver
www.debsilver.com
All I know from visiting her website is that it was designed in 1994 and that she's a jazz singer/pianist from London. That does not tell me anything about her coaching style or clientele.

Greg Drew
Another one who's contact information seems only available to those who've shaken the hand of someone who's shaken the hand of someone who knows him. There was a nice article about him in The New York Times in 1996, and his (former?) clients include Lenny Kravitz and Avril Lavigne.

Bob Marks
www.bobmarks.com
He looks nice, and has tons of Broadway credit. But will he coach me to sound too technicolor? I don't want to be all bright vowels and glitzy vibrato. Unsure.

Katie Agresta
www.katieagresta.com
So, PM Dawn, Annie Lennox, Queen Latifah, Jethro Tull, and Dave Matthews walk up to 88th St...

This is terrifying. I think more than all of this I need a therapist. Meaning, I need a vocal coach who is also willing to be a therapist. Perhaps they are the same thing.