This week I’ll be leading the Duke Body of Voices workshop in North Carolina.  The experience of preparing to lead leaders always affords opportunities for reflection, and while pondering on messages that will help inspire choral directors, I returned to the importance of community.  

It was the end of my sixth grade year, and Field Day was just around the corner.  This was the moment when each home room got a chance to prove their prowess on the athletic field of battle.  My class hadn’t taken any chances.  We were stocked with athletic talent, and wanted the others to cower in fear, so we had special blue T-shirts made up at the local sporting goods store.  I had the words “Road Hog” printed on the back of mine, to be extra menacing.  The hot, southern spring day brought with it the obligatory excitement, but as the individual events wore on, it became obvious that our class wasn’t fairing as expected.  Word slowly trickled over from the gym that our jump ropers and obstacle course racers had come in second or third, my 4X100 relay team dropped our baton in the final leg, giving up a solid lead, and even our shot put thrower, the strongest kid in the school, had flubbed and gotten disqualified.  As we gathered for the mid-day break, we were dejected.  The blunt dullness of evaporated hopes seemed to reach out from each 12-year-old and pat the other on the back as we wandered aimlessly around our corner of the gym barely noticing our popsicles.  

I had gotten there early that day to help set up the course, however, and one of my jobs was to establish the score board.  As I came into the gym at break time, and learned what we had all feared, I was struck by the heaviness of my classmates.  Never one to take “no” for an answer, I began to review the situation.  In that moment, I remembered that the individual scores taken together were fewer points than the three games remaining, all of which were team games.  I made sure that my calculations were accurate by dragging a few of my classmates over to the score board.  Surprisingly, their reaction was much less enthusiastic than mine.  They, I suppose, had settled into their emotional stupor, and were happy to accept the embarrassment of defeat.  As we moved back into the group, however, and I started to spread the news, the zombie-like behavior of our team began to change.  “Well, of course we’ll win the tug-of-war” they all began to calculate, “We’ve got Robbie”.  Robbie was the kid who hit puberty before even many of the girls in our year, so he was an unbeatable anchor on a tug-of-war team.  We turned our sites on the other two team games, then, deciding our strategy and our chances of success. 

The group came back from our break with renewed vigor.  Each point that we scored brought cheers and encouragements to one another as we locked eyes with deepening confidence, renewing the sense of unity that had led us earlier that week to buy special T-shirts.  The first two games down, we had the requisite points needed to put us over.  The tug-of-war was all that remained. . .  

It’s been thirty years since that hot day in May, but I can still smell the acrid punch of the well-used rope, still feel its bite on my hands as I stared around at my team mates feeling one last dose of encouragement before the whistle blew, can still feel my feet slip when I first engaged and the quick panic that led me to leap up and grab the rope with double vigor, and I will never forget the sweat-covered, spent face of Robbie Carruba looking stunned and then slowly dawning on him that we had won the day as our team lept around sharing high fives and awkward tweener hugs.  Moments like that, team moments, shape who we are.

This week Laurel and I celebrate our one year anniversary as Angelenos.  It’s charming, perhaps, that my 6th Grade Field Day experience comes to me every time I feel at loss for community.  We’ve found lovely people in LA, and are thoroughly enjoying settling in to new experiences, but suffice it to say, the kinds of team building that it took to win Field Day don’t happen over night, and we are still settling into our people.

Choirs are teams in the most elevated sense of the word.  They provide us a chance to celebrate the individual accomplishments of everyone, to commiserate on the challenges we all face, and to bond together through a belief in something greater than ourselves in order to win the day together.  What stands out to me most in my memory of Field Day isn’t that everyone did the same thing, or that by subverting ourselves to the whole, we found success, but, instead, I remember the individuals and their response.  It was my knowledge of the points system that sparked a belief in opportunity.  It was the first few others who began to realize the potential of that knowledge and who began to strategize.  It was the people who scored the essential points in the other two team games that kept our hopes alive, and our anchor who pulled us over the finish line in that glorious final moment.  

People are fond of saying that there is no “I” in “TEAM”, but, I’m happy to report that there is an “I” in “CHOIR”, without which you only have a “CHOR” (I know, you need an “e” to really make that work, but go with me. . .).  When we as team leaders allow ourselves to find ways to help each individual explore their personal potential first, we may find that they all fail spectacularly, or they may succeed gloriously.  We may also find that once they have discovered something about who they are, they are much more willing and able to begin to depend upon the collective power of those around them, and that’s where the real magic begins to happen. 

Incidently, just as there is an "I" in "CHOIR", there is an "US" in "CHORUS", with the same "CHOR" to be found without it. The order of recognition is key.  There is no question that when singing in a group, you're surrounded by others. However, knowing that you are working with other people, and feeling as if that group is a team, an "US", are different steps.  In my experience, when each individual feels nurtured and free to explore their voice within the safety of the group, they find themselves wedded to the idea of being an inseparable part of the team. When the “I”s begin to depend upon the "US" from a personal place, we as leaders can start to guide them to become a true team, and that team, by extension, nurtures and feeds those individuals such that they become whole.

~David

There is a debate among vocologists that suggests that voice science is important for teachers to know, but that sharing it with students diminishes the student’s capacity to learn.  It would seem to me that the idea stems from past voice teaching practices rather than from what learning theory teaches us. 

Logically speaking, lack of knowledge, or simply put, "not knowing" is a debilitating factor in learning. So, how can “not knowing” help a vocalist advance?

Knowledge can inhibit learning when preoccupation with knowing supersedes the implementation of action. The knowledge of action, therefore, or "body knowledge", becomes a paramount consideration.  Rather than replace conscious knowledge, however, why not find ways to integrate the two?

Body knowledge cannot replace conscious knowledge, which is so often the instigator of learning. This takes us back to my previous comment about past teaching practices.  Rote imitation represents one of the primary occasions where body knowledge occurs without conscious knowledge.  Rote imitation, however, depends upon a learning process which imbalances power toward the teacher, creating a dictatorial learning model that subverts the student's understanding, and places the burden of learning upon the person whose body will never actually execute what is being learned.

Although body knowledge must be trained through means appropriate to physical/neurological memory, the body needs the guidance of intention. From my experience, when that intention comes from the person whose body must integrate the learning, it advances the learner’s capacity.  Even football down linemen, who are arguably most dependent upon complete mental clarity and advanced body knowledge, study tapes and discuss their role in the system. They know "why" even as their bodies know "how", and they regularly check in to assess their physical responses. 

This is not to say that repetition and imitation are unimportant.  Learning depends upon establishing targets, and repeatedly executing tasks with clear assessment.  Those same down linemen spend the majority of their time reacting to the physical stimuli that they will encounter in the game, as vocalists must spend the majority of their time habituating the reactions they rely on from their voice.  

The presence of a dictatorial learning model may reflect a long-standing reality, but that doesn’t mean that it makes the most sense for learning.  Equally, to replace measured execution with conscious thought about execution disallows the body to become knowledgeable toward the desired goal.  We can hear Bob Marley singing to us across time “Who feels it, knows it”.  A learning process that involves an evenly-paced acquisition of knowledge by the student such that they learn how to create targets based in knowledge while learning to assess them empowers the learner to participate in their own growth.  The instructor’s role becomes that of guiding the student in this process, which also means that there are moments when instruction leans on imitation, but it allows for imitation to be one tool in the box, rather than the full paradigm.  

In my experience, the introduction of vocology into a conversation with people who are unfamiliar with it, or who know just enough about it to be skeptical, causes the conversation to grind to a halt.  I tend to want to excitedly share the new things I’ve found in my research, but for some reason, the mention of research in the voice world is a huge turnoff.  That’s caused me to ponder on what it is that we’re doing anyway.

The most straightforward way that I can think to explain the purpose of vocology is as perspective shift.  We’re all looking through a window at the same scenery.  We can all describe it and offer our opinions on what we see, and those of us who have been describing it for years have well-developed opinions on what we’re seeing.

Vocology, or, all science for that matter, allows us to look through a slightly larger window, thereby gaining a little more perspective on the scene.  To some, this is as exciting as your first birthday!  I can also understand, however, why to others, a change in perspective can be uncomfortable, even unsettling to the point of rejection. 

Ideally, we seek new knowledge in order to one day view an even fuller image.

The basic questions surrounding whether we want research and development in the voice world is:

When we’re offered a chance to shift our perspective, what do we do with it? 

Are we willing to listen to anyone's thoughts, and compare them with our own experiences?

What questions do we ask that help us gain our footing amongst new information? 

How comfortable are we with what we already know such that we can allow that information to be challenged in our own minds by what we are able to see anew?

I’ve been reflecting on the viscerally strong reaction that many voice teachers have to one another – I can’t believe other people teach that way! I can’t believe other people don’t teach this way! Which quickly turns into, I would never send my student to them, or even, I want to go offer that student my card and get them out of that studio.

And lately, I’ve been thinking it actually comes from this beautifully protective, care-taking place. Teachers have such a deep sense of empathy, that we are constantly on the lookout for students’ well-beings, even if they are not our own. The positive experience of every student, feels like our personal responsibility to insure. Even if I’ve never met a singer in my life, I want to hear that they are being treated well and given the instructions and empowerment that fit their goals.

The tricky part is that I can much more easily trust that a student is being given a positive experience if it closely reflects the methods, ideals and terminologies that I personally use. I have never met a voice teacher whose primary goal it was to make their student feel badly or to sing poorly. And yet, when we see traits in someone else’s teaching that do not match our own, our protective instincts kick in and we want to save that student from what we assume is a sub-par or even dangerous experience.

These protective, guttural reactions to another person’s differing approach  remind me of the discussions often found in the parenting community. These online parenting discussions have become so heated, personal and intense the term ‘Mommy Wars’ has been coined.  All the parents in these discussions want what’s best for their children and for the children of other parents, but the different approaches make it seem like some choices are ‘right’ and some are ‘wrong’.

A group of moms in Connecticut responded with a photography movement called “End the Mommy Wars”. You can read the full CNN article here. The goal was to “love more and judge less” with a campaign for Judgment-Free Motherhood. The execution of the message was simple, mothers stood side by side in photographs with signs that stated differing decisions they had made in their parenting-

Other questions to consider –

--What other signs would you hold?
--How has judgment from other colleagues impacted your teaching? When has it inspired change and when has it inspired alienation?
--How do you think judgment in the voice world impacts our ability to have discussions as a voice community?
 
I love this simple exercise: writing down an approach you choose to take, owning it with pride, and standing side by side with a colleague who shares a different approach. It has so much simplicity and yet so much power in it. The power of just saying that we are all here, we all co-exist, we all want the best for our students, and we are all going to make mistakes. And we are all okay.
​
Yes, we are all okay. That needs to be the starting platform for any further questions and discussions we want to have as a voice community. And I am ready for any teachers out there who want to grab a sign and a sharpie. Let’s share these kinds of pictures; I am here to stand next to you.

​
~Laurel 

While reading an informative survey of each of these works in Leborgne's and Rosenberg’s The Vocal Athlete, I was struck by something that I had overlooked in previous examinations of these older works.  The teachers, like today’s vocologists,  responded to their surroundings as if they were isolated within a vibrant, powerful vocal industry.  Their approaches were unique, and as such, they had to prove themselves against the contemporary practices of their day.  Just like today’s vocologist, they drew on others' work as they created their own understanding, but they also had something new to offer, and promoted themselves as such.  It hit me that today’s voice innovators have as much to learn from the way that these giants related to their community as we do from the results of their vocal practice.  

In general, they tended to have very rigid procedures for their students. 

For all intents and purposes, their angle worked.  They gained reputation, had some commercially successful students, published widely-read treatises, and have influenced singers and teachers for decades, even centuries, after their death. 

However, they also left a legacy of isolationism, privacy, judgment, perfectionism, and ultimate confusion based on the rigidness of their approaches.  In fact, one could easily attribute a century of vocal instruction confusion across the board to the intense, unyielding specificity that these very influential pedagogues communicated to their progeny.  When we take a minute to scan today’s voice world, we quickly find their imitators. Individualized methods with specialized (even rigid) procedures that are taught within the secrecy of long-term mentor/disciple relationships abound. Even though today’s vocologist finds themselves far less isolated than the initiates of old, there is always the temptation to feel as if we alone have the necessary answers for all voice users, and to isolate ourselves accordingly.

I’m encouraged by the continually increasing collegiality that has developed in the voice learning community across my lifetime.  I’m also excited by the number of people who seem to recognize the great benefits of our predecessors, while acknowledging that there are other ways to relate to one another.  We have the capacity to create our own approach regarding both the information we know about the voice, and how we present ourselves to people who want to learn.  Perhaps future vocalists will look upon these years as a time when the voice community learned to share more easily, to ask more questions in contrast to providing rigid answers, to strive for inclusion by promoting vocal options, to create clarity for every voice user, and to work together to raise all the vocal ships out there.  After all, if we’ve learned anything, it’s that all people have voices, and they have the right to use them in the ways that they want to.

~David

I recently enjoyed a Radio Lab podcast on change.  They began with the question “do you think that humans will ever stop warring with one another?,” and ended with baboons, transgender mayors, and silver foxes, as Radio Lab does.   It got me thinking that voice habilitation might provide an answer for world peace.  (please notice the "peas" pun below. . .couldn't resist. . .world peas. . .get it. . .?)

Let’s follow this path a little.  . .
 
A vocalist is told “you have a natural voice, one that is beautiful and artful”, but, they are then told “you need me, the voice instructor, to help you understand that voice and how to make it work, and now I'm going to change you.”  What paradigms have been established here?

1. The vocalist has a beautiful, artful instrument.  A lovely thought, but also one that seems like a false promise, since…
2. The vocalist needs someone else to help them get to that beauty and artistry, in fact, they need someone to change them, which….
   
3. Leads them to begin to wrestle with questions of blame like….
4. “Why am I not able to hear the beauty and artistry if it’s there?”, or
5. “Why don’t other people tell me my voice is beautiful?”, or
6. “Since I can’t hear it, what if other people tell me it’s bad, and shatter the hope that I might one day find it, even with help?!” and
7. “What if I never find it?  What will that say about me?!”
8. "Must I always depend upon praise or condemnation from others to know whether I'm fulfilling my natural voice?"
   
9. "Why do I have to change it all the time if it's natural?" etc.
   

And, each change that the instructor asks of the vocalist seems somehow to undermine the vocalists belief in themselves since:

In this context, the message of “your instrument is static or "as is", but you have to change it to achieve its "natural" state” seems far more confusing, and potentially damaging.
 
Yet, it doesn’t come from just anywhere.  We do identify as our voices.  We integrate how our voice feels into our sense of self, we rely on how we sound, and we believe that, as with anything that is essential to our identity, our voice is a reflection of who we are.  And here’s the kicker. . .most of us believe that who we are simply IS.   We, by “nature” are statically “us”.  This thought guides our understanding of self, faith, community, geo-politics, you name it, and so. . .

Here’s an essential truth about the human voice: 

There are multiple ways to get to any vocal solution, and multiple ways to mimic any action. 

The key is believing that we can habituate different sounds that can then become our new “natural”.  If you want to sound like JFK, Bobcat Goldthwait, and Loretta Lynn all in the same sentence, you can, and they, too, can sound like you (the living ones, at least)!  It’s possible because our voices are that amazing.  It might not be easy, but it’s doable.  Yet, on the way, you may equally choose habituation paths that lead you to a “stuck” feeling, because, the amazingness of the human voice comes at the price of profound complexity. 

So, how do we approach the voice’s promise to teach us about self and change, eventually leading to world peace?  Perhaps we can begin by saying “your voice is your own,” and ask people to describe how they feel when using their voice right now, as it is.  Then we can move on to saying “your voice, the one that you feel right now, has the capacity to sound and feel a vast number of ways, and if you’d like to explore some of those, I can help.” And one person, one identity, at a time, we can  help  each other remember that  we  are how we are, and yet so much more that is yet to be discovered.

~David

Voice habilitation presents a number of challenges, one of which is psychological.  Our understanding of our voices provides an essential element to our identity.  When we train our voices, therefore, we accept that on one hand we would like our voices to change, and on the other, that changing them will alter the basic core of how we understand who we are.  That’s a tall emotional task, and is the focus of our first Zine, set for publication this October. 

Another challenge that comes with the “natural” voice model is a belief that vocalists are, by design, confined to certain, specific uses of their voice…that:

Back to the identity challenge:  There is nothing wrong with any of these identifications.  If an actor wants to identify as a Shakespeare actor, or a radio personality wants to vocal fry, that’s their choice, and a choice that often serves them well.  If they identify in this way because they have been told that they have no other options, however, a conflict arises with our understanding of science.

Thanks to the challenges of choral singing, which asks singers to regularly phonate in different styles, I’ve long believed that the voice has multiple capacities, and can be trained to sing or speak healthily in varied ways.  Science supports this fully.  Further, psychological research has shown that people learn faster, actually grow their intelligence and talent, and identify more positively with themselves when they acknowledge that they have a range of choices from the outset.  The focus changes from attention to how they are, into what they can become.  Their goals become measured targets rather than random “what ifs”.

This is a sea change that the voice world clamors for and celebrates, but can’t seem to find a regular path toward.  The answers sit just on the other side of a mindset shift.  The chasm between what we know and don’t know is vast compared to the fissure between what we know and knew.  Taking the first baby step to allowing for possibility will open the voice world to the possibilities that science has proven exist.  We need only to claim them...and begin our target practice.
 
~David

​I’ve been tuning in a lot to this trend of singing pop songs in a ‘vintage’ way, bringing back a no longer current style (1930’s/40’s vocal qualities seem popular) and applying it to modern day songs. It has inspired me to brainstorm on some questions under the HUGE topic of what is the difference between mimicking and communicating.

 
It seems the majority of the way artists get across that they are bringing back a style that is no longer current (I’m still thinking of this 1930s-50s trend) is by using, or overusing, affects – a growl, a scoop, an overly pouty-lipped diphthong. Of course, when these vocal expressions originated in the style, they were tools of communication. But when I hear artists bring them back, I often feel that all they are communicating is ‘Look I know how to do this thing with my voice that fits in this style’  (even when it seems that their goal in earnest is to be emotionally engaged and communicate the meaning of the song to listeners) I’m trying to tease this out because I think it’s wonderful to have a lot of different vocal colors, effects, and extended techniques at your finger tips to mix and match in an artistic way. But I when I listen, I’m often overwhelmed and rolling my eyes thinking, Could you just cut the affects and sing it simply, like you’re singing a children’s song? It’d be so much easier to listen to…..

So I’ve wondered-

Is it that they are simply overusing these affects?  Would sprinkling them about less and saving them for more specific moments feel more genuine and less gimmicky?

Is it the actual way they are doing the affect? If we analyzed the sound of an original artist from that time period, who many agreed sounds ‘genuine’ and ‘authentic’, would there be something in the harmonic output that is missing from the modern day copy cats? Keeping in mind, of course, the difference in recording abilities between then and now.

Is it that artists who didn’t grow up in that time period can’t possibly understand the cultural influences that led to those vocal trends in expression, and therefore will never sound authentic recreating them? Which of course brought me to the thought of something many of us base our profession on – trying to sing opera! Talk about bringing back a style of singing that is no longer current. And we see the same thing with amateurs and professionals in that field – the use and overuse of affects that start to sound gimmicky (stylistic slurs, attacks, messa di voce, over darkened vowels etc.) as if the number one goal is to say, Look I know how to sound like that style!
 
So my final thought was, which I think is the most interesting topic is - for anyone to learn and replicate a style, especially one that is not current in the culture you grow up in, you have to mimic those who have come before you. Imitating, in fact, is one of our biggest learning tools and in some voice instruction, the only learning tool. So when does a bad imitation become a good imitation? At what point does it sound like YOU when you have to start out learning to sound like someone else? At a harmonic output level, could we break down the difference between gimmicky and genuine? What about at an emotional level? And, how do we teach the difference?

~Laurel

 Everyone, at some specific emotional level, is the expert on their voice. 

Have you ever tried offering unsolicited advice to someone about their voice? 

If so, how well did they respond?  The voice is so connected with our emotional center, and so much a part of each individual's identity, that we can appreciate people having difficulty hearing that you know something that they don't about their instrument.  That idea extends to vocal professionals too.  The very idea that a vocal professional might not know something seems to send us into a dark place.  Yet, when we pause to ask ourselves if we know everything, every one of us has to admit that the voice is too complex to be fully understood, and that we are all specialists in very specific ways.  The industry supports the vocal professional's reluctance to admit that they might not know something.  Past instruction practices, a difficult job market, and a cult-of-personality system of private training have created a scenario in which vocal instructors are unwilling to show any weakness.  Yet, the words "I don't know, let's find out" can be so motivating, and empower the instructor to deepen into their community as well.  So how do we open conversations without the power of wizardry?  Maybe magic is the only answer, or, maybe the voice world is developing the power of inquiry and openness to community in new ways so that new knowledge doesn't make us feel like we're being robbed, and help is always just a conversation away.

~David

At VoiceScienceWorks we make an emphatic point that we are not a “method”.  In the entrepreneurial voice world, new voice teaching methods and quick fixes seem to grow on trees.  We wholly encourage people to find ways to articulate their gifts in order to maximize their sharing potential.  Voice habilitation takes a village, after all.  But, we aren’t interested in creating new methodology, rather. . .

We aim to help all vocal practitioners translate the mind-opening power of contemporary voice science into a manageable resource such that whatever their method, they can continue to seek freshness in their search.

Science doesn’t have all of the answers, in fact, science relishes questions more than answers.  What it has is a structured process for how to ask questions, how we build on what is known, and how we include others in the process.

And what do we call it?  Well, the Scientific Method, of course, and here are the steps:

5) Analyze your data and draw a conclusion: “it looks like his upper harmonics are very faint, but stronger on the [a].  I’m going to surmise that if he can make the upper harmonics stronger, that he can increase his volume.  Given what I know about the voice, that may mean that he needs to improve his vocal fold adduction in that range.”

Can you use the scientific method without a voice analyzer?  Of course, the point isn’t that you have special tools or even special knowledge, but that you are open to not knowing the answer, and to taking measured steps to explore potential answers such that you can refer back to them over time.  Scientists like to take good notes too. 

That’s what we’ve done with VoiceScienceWorks: 
taken good notes, and translated them into quickly digestible information so that you don’t have to read everyone else’s long-form research in order to get started.
 
When we choose to approach our voices using the scientific method, we find that our hunger for knowledge increases, and we’re much more likely to look for hard scientific answers to help us build our hypotheses.  Eventually, we realize that there are questions that no one has yet found answers to, and that’s when the real fun starts!
 
And what about the question of emotion?  Can you be a scientist and still offer a sensitive, emotionally-charged performance?  We’ve found that not only can you, but that an organized physical training process such that the scientific method provides communicates much more seamlessly with our emotions. This is because clarity creates confidence so that we aren’t worried about what’s happening physically, and are much more able to focus on training our emotional responses too.