http://www.artistshousemusic.org/people/Phil+Frohnmayer The taxonomy view with a depth of 0. http://www.artistshousemusic.org/articles/fantasies FantasiesMany young people head off to college to spend huge amounts of their parents’ and their own money having no clear idea of what they eventually will DO. I was one of them. I began university thinking I would eventually end up in law school. I enjoyed reading and writing, so I majored in English history and literature. I received excellent training, and I imagined that the intellectual rigor of my studies would prepare me well for the law. The trouble was I discovered I didn’t want to go to law school after all. I decided to become a professional musician, and eventually, that’s exactly what I did. I’m all for changes of career when they’re well considered, even though such changes now can be vastly more expensive than they were in my day. After all, the professions we enter mold our lives and usually take up far more than the advertised forty hours a week. If you don’t like what you’re doing, maybe there is a better way for you to make a living. I’ve not regretted for an instant that I forsook my original career path to pursue music full time. Because I spent some years and considerable energy headed in a slightly different direction, though, I had fantasized about what my life would be when I FINALLY could do what I felt called to do. What happened to these fantasies? What were they, and were any of them fulfilled? In my case the fantasies and realities have blurred over time. I’ve had my share of wonderful performances, some of them in great surroundings with superb musicians; I made recordings, won some contests, and found love and family. The life of delicious excess about which some famous artists have written (their hard work being intermittently rewarded with indescribable pleasures) I did not have. There is one fantasy which I still entertain, though, and I hope it never dies. That is to have the luxury of time with serious colleagues, making music together and conversing about music in a way that leads to mutual growth. It is never too late to see a masterpiece in a new light, or to discover practice tools that increase your capabilities. The truth is that both the performing circuit and the academic life afford surprisingly few opportunities for this kind of dialogue. Mundane matters tend to dominate our interactions when we’re not practicing or teaching. When I was singing in Germany offstage conversation often revolved around compensation, length of breaks, and who got to sing what role and what an injustice that was. In academia the lunchtime conversation, particularly in post-Katrina New Orleans, often doesn’t get beyond the flat tires we’ve all had from running over roofing nails. But all is not ashes. I’ve been thinking about a remark my musician friend Tom Hunt made over dinner at his home a few weeks ago—we had gone to Iowa at his invitation to sing a recital and a joy it was. “Audiences aren’t particularly concerned about WHAT happens during a performance,” he said. “But they’re vitally concerned with WHEN it happens.” A wrong note may escape notice, but if you and your fellow musicians don’t arrive at the same place at the same time everyone is filled with unease. Or perhaps you put pieces in the wrong order on a program. You’ve left no room for the audience to experience the delightful sense of expectation for what you as a performer will then deftly fulfill. And so on. Part of what I think my friend was talking about is that music, at least western music, takes place within the context of worldly time. Rhythm is at the heart of it, and we the public are conditioned to expect a kind of arc in our listening experience. There will be tension and then there will be release, and it will occur in a way which the composer and performer have the power to determine. Something has to HAPPEN in the listening experience, and WHEN it happens is crucial to our ability to leave the event feeling that we have been fed. Last weekend I worked with a young singer in a master class on a justly famous song which used to be known as Handel’s “Largo”. It is an aria, “Ombra mai fu,” from the opera Serse. A quick Google search of the Italian title yielded 1,780,000 results, so to find a recording of it shouldn’t be too difficult. It’s short, only two pages in most editions, and great singers of the past, Swedish tenor Jussi Bjoerling among them, often opened programs with it. There’s a long introduction and then the singer enters with a beautiful descending phrase. The melody does not much exceed the range of a folk tune, but the opportunities for expressive singing within it are unlimited. My young singer was hampered by that fact that she didn’t know the meaning of the aria’s Italian words. I could help her with that on the spot. What proved more difficult was that she had not absorbed the music’s pulse into her body. She wasn’t sure how long each note was, especially when she came to one that felt good in her voice. She didn’t arrive at the right place at the right time, so her audience couldn’t feel that she was in charge as they listened to her. We walked around the stage in rhythm, saying the words aloud as the pianist played the accompaniment until she could feel when things were supposed to happen. It was a simple task, but up to that moment she hadn’t done it. I expect she went home and practiced doing exactly what we had done—that would be my hope. I wonder if this talented young woman had a fantasy of how it would feel to sing this great aria in public before the class took place. Fantasies and dreams fuel our work and lift us beyond the mundane. There are useful fantasies and futile ones, but they sort themselves out in good time. To fantasize that you will have wild approval from an audience when you don’t know your piece is not helpful. To explore the depth of your emotional reactions to the music you study and then to imagine how you may make yourself truly understood as you sing for your audience—that’s like gold. Last night we attended a gala performance, “A Night for New Orleans,” a fundraiser for New Orleans Opera. Placido Domingo lent his name, his generous presence and his voice to this concert, as did a host of wonderful young singers and instrumentalists. The event took place in New Orleans Arena, a sports venue. The size of the crowd exceeded expectations. They were not disappointed with what they heard. Everyone felt the warmth coming from the stage in what could have been a rather cold place. I doubt that anyone who was there will forget it anytime soon. I don’t think I had fantasies about what this concert would be before I attended it. As it turned out I had no need of them. Those on the stage had done that work for us, and transmitted their joy in singing great music to an art-starved public. We will never lack for the mundane. The life in music which I had fantasized years ago for the most part does not resemble the life I lead. I do have the singular good fortune to be married to a musician with whom I can constantly talk shop. I think I’m right to cling to some of the old fantasies, though, hoping they might be so. Dreams and fantasies have great power, and sometimes, dreams can inform reality in wondrous ways. WHEN fantasy and reality happily coexist, even for a moment, we’re all privileged to be there to witness the event. PBF, copyright March 5, 2006 http://www.artistshousemusic.org/articles/fantasies#comment Learning Opera Phil Frohnmayer Voice Mon, 30 Jul 2007 10:23:22 -0700 tessa 8003 at http://www.artistshousemusic.org/articles/returning Returning“I didn’t want to come back at all,” my violinist colleague said to me over the coffee machine this morning. “I didn’t want to witness the sadness.” But come back we did nevertheless, most of us faculty at the College of Music. And fortunately, so did our talented students, old and new. We drove in to New Orleans just over two months ago, right before Christmas. Now Mardi Gras is upon us. What’s it like to be back? It’s strange. I feel duty bound to read the local newspaper each morning, but it’s not always an aid to digestion. Then there are the stories one hears over lunch or coffee with friends and colleagues—they have a FEMA trailer in front of their house, but no electricity for it. The insurance company refuses to pay for ruined pianos (insured by a separate and expensive policy) because the damage to them was from flooding, not wind. Neighborhoods have formed associations to try to rebuild, but turnout at the meetings is poor. Relationships are tested—one partner has lost his/her job and is living elsewhere, perhaps indefinitely. People who are here are working hard, and perhaps playing hard, too. I wouldn’t know. At the end of the day, I want to go home and shut the door, and for the most part that’s what my wife and I do. Katrina t-shirts with colorful slogans—some too colorful to print here—testify to the resilient good humor of area residents. I’ve seen more than one that made me laugh, but I wouldn’t feel right about wearing one—I didn’t lose a house, a job, or far worse, a loved one. My teaching gives me great pleasure, and I’ve sung, with joy, both for myself and for others since the storm. “So why aren’t we getting chapters of your book?” someone asked me the other day. I didn’t think anyone had missed reading the installments of my work in progress. The truth is I’ve been unable to write. I had no idea how dependent I’d become on the pleasant and peculiar amenities of my life in New Orleans with its established and agreeable routines. Nothing here is as it was, and it’s hard to envision the future. For some reason since I’ve returned to post Katrina New Orleans, though, I’ve thought a good deal about grumpy old teachers I had at various times during my early career in music. Many of them had lived through World War II in Europe; some had been forced to leave their countries with only the coats on their backs. They were conductors, voice teachers, coaches, and they weren’t NICE. Once I made a word mistake in a Mozart aria when I was singing for one of these old curmudgeons. He stopped me, corrected it, and I sang it once again, wrongly. “Well, I cannot work with you on this piece if you do not KNOW IT!” he said nastily. The accompanist came to my defense—“that’s how it’s printed in his edition”. “Oh,” he said. He crossed out the offending word and replaced it with the correct one, offered no apology, and said, “Sing it again.” I did. I left the session that day having learned a great deal. My teacher had studied his craft with all his energy for a lifetime. He was superbly equipped to pass on his knowledge to me. The fit of pique he had over my word mistake I remember with amusement. These pre and post war refugee musicians of whom there were so many were tough. They didn’t care if they offended those with whom they worked. The good ones knew that music must be mastered in every detail before it can be enjoyed. They had no time for NICE when it came to their art. NICE didn’t get the job done. Hard work, constant scrutiny and attention to detail did. They left their homes bereft of possessions, but not of skills. Their life of practice and study in a great art equipped them with the tools to survive in a new and unwelcoming environment. It’s understandable that their first allegiance would be to great music. It was more important to them that music be served than that they win a popularity contest. Disasters, natural and man-made, leave behind them a legacy of incomprehensible material and spiritual destruction. Rebuilding and regrouping after wars and hurricanes will tax the most patient and energetic among us. The process of recovery is slow and full of frustration. The study of great music, by contrast, is an orderly pursuit which requires time and full concentration. Progress may be slow, but the journey yields many immediate rewards along the way. “I can’t believe Schubert could have put so much in two pages of music,” said one of my students after singing “The curious one” (Der Neugierige) from The Lovely Miller’s Daughter or Die Schöne Müllerin. Yes, and the more we look at these two page masterpieces, the more we’ll find. Some of what we discover Schubert might have written in a state of full artistic awareness, knowing exactly what effect he wanted and how he would achieve it with the formidable musical tools he possessed. But such was the depth of his genius that much of what astonishes us he probably didn’t even think about—it simply flowed forth, unimpeded for us to discover and admire two centuries later. Post Katrina New Orleans is a mess. Great music isn’t. And if you study it, play it, sing it, or hear it, at the very least you’ll be glad you did. It will strengthen you for much in life which is tedious. I can’t say the same for talk radio. PBF, copyright February 20, 2006 http://www.artistshousemusic.org/articles/returning#comment Classical/Opera Phil Frohnmayer Practicing Voice Mon, 30 Jul 2007 09:08:38 -0700 tessa 8002 at http://www.artistshousemusic.org/articles/going+to+work Going to WorkIt’s the end of July in New Orleans, and, predictably, it’s hot. So far, we haven’t had a hurricane and people aren’t really talking openly about the possibility of one. Maybe I just avoid the people who do. If we don’t talk about it, perhaps we’ll be spared. We’ve bought some new, nice furnishings for the living room. I’m also contemplating a trip to my favorite men’s store to buy new clothes to wear should we have to leave—the t-shirt and flip-flops from last year’s enforced exile I’ve thrown away. Purchases such as these ought to diminish the chances of a storm, or at least a direct hit from one. We all get a little light headed from the heat down here. Mostly what we’ve done this summer, though, is work. The University paid its faculty during the Katrina cancelled semester, but in return expected us to teach through the summer without additional compensation. Some of my colleagues thought this a great injustice, but I haven’t minded it much. The summer enrollment wasn’t so large, and those students who did stay on were wonderful to work with. The atmosphere was relaxed yet productive. My teaching ended yesterday, though, and I’m ready for some time to do my own work. We had work to do in Arkansas, at Opera in the Ozarks last weekend. It’s a long drive, and I decided at the last minute that maybe we ought to fly there instead. Although we were seated in an exit row and the flight wasn’t particularly long, I was in a middle seat and am big enough to feel cramped. At 6’5” the man to my right was definitely out of his comfort zone. It was reason enough for us to start a conversation. We didn’t exchange names, but I learned he owned a construction company, headquartered in Houston, but with projects in New Orleans. I told him I taught at a university. “Do you plan to retire,” he said. Ask me something easy, I thought. “I don’t ever want to retire unless I have to,” he continued. An African-American, he was the youngest of seven children whose mother lived to be 97 and worked most of her years. At age 63 he had taken good care of himself; he looked a great deal younger. His mother had shown him the value of hard work and it had agreed with him. I love my work and haven’t thought much about retirement. I know people who are retired, but I know no one who is idle. If I loose my wits and the acuity of my ears I certainly can’t go on teaching music. I can’t say how many more years I’ll sing in public, but I’m hoping I’ll know (and that close friends will tell me!) when the time is right to stop doing that. My work gives my life meaning—I get to sing great music, and work on it with talented students and colleagues. I meet interesting people with new ideas and old ones that I haven’t yet heard. I travel. And during the past year and a half, I’ve been writing these essays. The nature of my work allows me quite a lot of freedom in the conduct of my affairs. No one sits in my lessons, criticizing and telling me what to do. I sing my scales in private with the door closed. I’m in my office alone on a Saturday morning writing these words. (For once, I hear nothing but the sound of the air conditioning—and a thunderstorm.) Nevertheless, a singer isn’t sufficient unto himself. You need pianists, orchestral musicians, other singers, an audience, patrons, and the like. And you need good leadership for all of the above. I have learned that teaching and performing allows a large major of independence for those of us who do it, but that it also matters a great deal WHO is in charge. I am sad to report that a very small number of those in leadership positions have the capacity to nurture and encourage the artists whom they lead. This is tragedy for both artists and society because poor leadership squanders that most valuable of resources, creativity. Leadership in the professional musical world is of two kinds. Symphonies and opera companies usually have an artistic or musical director—a conductor or an individual with extensive musical training usually occupies that spot. Then there may be a general director whose responsibilities are financial and logistical. One of these usually is more powerful than the other and has the ultimate say in decisions crucial to the enterprise. Most all arts organizations have a board of directors who contribute their time, money, and energy to the cause. Sometimes the board president and his colleagues decide to become directly involved in the everyday running of the organization. In my experience, this last arrangement has the least possibility of success. Within academia, one person, a chairman or a dean, leads a faculty of specialists within their respective areas. When my wife was a student at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, the director of the school was the eminent pianist Rudolf Serkin. In addition to his impeccable musical credentials, he had a gift for administration and could attract superb faculty to the school. Although most universities can’t boast leadership with that level of career experience, the best deans and chair people have strong musical credentials and the ability to recognize excellence within their chosen field. How could I describe a fine leader in my profession? Entire books have been written on this subject, and this will not be one of them. Let me begin, though, by identifying some personal and professional qualities that our ideal leader should NOT possess: arrested emotional or intellectual development; poor judgment; abundant vanity or arrogance; deficient listening skills; lack of balance or fairness; indolence; foul disposition. Liars also need not apply. The operatic world in particular operates from one crisis to the next—an old friend refers to this syndrome as “the catastrophe du jour”. There’s never enough money, personnel, or time to complete the enterprise at hand. Conductors, stage directors, singers and managers are a volatile mix. When the curtain goes up SOMETHING has to happen—that’s pressure. I’ve witnessed many an angry off-stage scene and aria before or during a performance and it’s never a pretty sight. I admit to having had an occasional snit in the workplace myself. A fine leader can handle these daily crises and take them in stride. He or she will need a few of these qualities: vision; discernment; maturity; thorough knowledge of both his subject and his employees; high standards; the ability to arrange priorities and then act decisively; diplomacy; selflessness in the face of the job at hand. Such individuals foster the conditions under which their charges can do their best work. Superb leaders can sometimes even transform those who oppose them into useful participants in an artistic enterprise. As I write this, there is much talk in the United States about the value of democracy. I regret to say that democracy in music does not always produce the best results. Gifted people who have had extensive training in their field certainly have a right to have their opinions heard. But though the rehearsal period may admit a wide spectrum of ideas, those performances are best in which a single vision prevails. Conductors, especially in the past, were often brusque, autocratic, and demeaning during rehearsals. To those who sang or played contrary to their wishes, they were simply not “nice”. Yet when they stepped to the podium before a full house the results could be magic. I experienced this myself and forgave the bad behavior when music was truly served. Both the public and the musicians feasted and came back for more. Unfortunately less talented leaders mistook the screaming and abusive behavior as essential to what transpired. They spawned generations of dreadful imitators who continue to exercise their dubious skills even now. I have never found abuse to be an effective tool in teaching. In the short term it may appear to produce results, but far more often the abused rebel, either by passing on their own horrible experiences to others or by leaving the playing field altogether. Much superb talent has been lost in this way. I like to go to work and I’m disturbed when circumstances beyond my control rob me of my joy in what I do. Katrina has been far more than a “catastrophe du jour” for New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. We’ve not had the kind of leadership at national, regional, or local levels which a true disaster requires. I’ve had the good fortune to have a boss at the College of Music who has (through an exercise of his gifts and self control I’ll never understand) protected most of our program from harm. Others in our community and elsewhere in New Orleans have fared horribly. I’ve learned, though, that while I lack the power and influence to change my immediate environment, it is up to me to see that I take pleasure in the work which I have always loved. This way I can still be of use to my students and colleagues. I expect that this is a decision I will need to make, seven days a week, for the foreseeable future. PBF, copyright July 23, 2006 http://www.artistshousemusic.org/articles/going+to+work#comment Careers Classical/Opera Teaching Arts Administration Opera Phil Frohnmayer Voice Mon, 30 Jul 2007 08:44:09 -0700 tessa 8001 at http://www.artistshousemusic.org/articles/conversations+i+never+had Conversations I Never HadWhat do you do when you don’t know WHAT to do? “Concentrate on one thing,” an adult student of mine said the other day. “I’m trying to help get the public library system back on its feet,” she added. We are, of course, still speaking of post-Katrina New Orleans, where the pace of recovery could aptly be called glacial despite the hot dry weather conditions here. There’s so much to be done and so few to do it that a kind of lethargy, intellectual and physical, can set in. We work hard, but we can’t see the progress. I had a chance meeting with a writer friend over coffee a few days ago, and what could have been a five-minute conversation expanded to three quarters of an hour. I was deeply grateful for that time together; there was such positive energy in his words. I explained that I could teach, practice and sing in public, but that my writing had stalled a bit since coming back to New Orleans. “Everyone has lost something,” he said (he had among other things severe flood damage to his house). He returned to New Orleans very soon after the storm and was asked to write a series of articles for the New York Times about conditions in the city. It was like pulling teeth to get started, but he did it. “I know how to write an article,” he thought, and proceeded to sit down and do it. My friend is not lazy, nor am I, but sometimes we simply need to remind ourselves that we can trust that huge repository of ideas which we have stored within us. We can depend on that reservoir because we have spent a lifetime of disciplined practice within our field of endeavor. As a singer, I’m forever pursuing the perfect scale. That would be the one where every note rings freely into the next one; where there are no abrupt shifts of physical feeling or resonance as I go from one note to the next; where I can start softly and crescendo to my biggest tone and come back again to a thread of voice on each note of the scale. I can do all of this on any vowel I choose, and then introduce into the vowel the emotional color which my imagination offers me. When did I last sing that scale? I haven’t yet, actually, but I try most every day of my life. After I have pursued my (possibly) attainable perfect scale, I make friends yet again with a piece of music which I have practiced a great deal, and which I love. Lately I have been singing Handel’s Dove sei, amato bene from Rodelinda. Within it I know where all the bodies are buried, so to speak. I remember phrases I sang with ease and those where I had to solve problems, and my body recalls the sensations produced by years of good choices. Soon my practice becomes physically and emotionally pleasurable to me. I am ready to attempt something more challenging, because I have become reacquainted with an old friend who will stand beside me as I confront new difficulties. The entire time I haven’t had a thought about national, state or local politics or the myriad goings-on within the university. My sense of possibility has been rekindled, and I can accomplish tasks which ten minutes earlier seemed impossible. Burnout-- a sustained period of creative paralysis--scares anyone whose living depends on the ability to write, play, sing, paint, act. History books are full of stories about a promising career begun and then stalled for years (the composer Jean Sibelius would be an example). What causes these profound silences? The circumstances of living can provide ample grounds for interruptions. The death of a spouse, or close friend, or the loss of affection from friends—all these can make us want to go into hiding. All the more reason to practice regularly every chance we get. On the stage, for instance, sometimes there is no time whatever to think. We can only react when someone skips a beat, or when we forget a word, or someone’s cell phone rings during a quiet moment. We must then rely on our hours of careful practice to guide what we do, so that the audience remains undisturbed by our momentary distress. And such is the power of our reactions during a bad moment that our creativity may be reawakened. It is, perhaps, our only hope. Some years ago I had a brief conversation with the late composer Paul Cooper. We had known each other over a period of years, and he had given me a manuscript copy of his song cycle, From the Sacred Harp. I performed those songs many times with great joy. “How have you been,” I said. “Oh, you know my wife, Christa, died a few years ago. We were such soul mates; I just couldn’t compose a thing. But now I’m working again, and it’s good!” “What allowed you to start writing again,” I asked. He explained that made a visit to his primary teacher, the American composer Ross Lee Finney, who was quite elderly at the time. “In that afternoon, he unlocked my creativity,” Paul said. I wasn’t able to continue the conversation beyond that moment, and not too long after that Paul passed away. I’d love to have been in the room, watching and listening during that mentor-student interchange. Was it the profound knowledge and love that the old teacher had for his student which provided the safety for Paul to resume his mind’s playful activity through music? Was there one particular thing his teacher said? I might like to try to write a fictional account of what happened that day. In fact, I have already done so, in my head, many times. But such ramblings are best reserved solely for my own use. For the present time, though, I depend on my well-established routines to awaken my creativity during a dry spell. And if I pay close attention as I go through my daily dozen, my imagination will be in operation as I take each breath, and start each phrase. Who knows? I might become sufficiently inspired and never want to stop practicing. PBF, copyright June 17, 2006 http://www.artistshousemusic.org/articles/conversations+i+never+had#comment Learning Phil Frohnmayer Practicing Voice Mon, 30 Jul 2007 07:54:24 -0700 tessa 8000 at http://www.artistshousemusic.org/articles/conversations+continued Conversations, continued“Love unspoken, faith unbroken, all life through”--so goes a familiar English translation of the final waltz duet from Franz Lehar’s The Merry Widow. The original German words, “Lippen schweigen,” or “lips are silent” convey the same message—there are times on stage, and in life, when we must stop talking and let the music take over. In this famous operetta it is the moment when our lovers (whom we think will never get together) finally declare themselves, with a beautiful duet, a kiss, and a brief dance to an unforgettable melody. Many operatic performances today (even those sung in English!) receive the assistance of super titles. Sometimes I watch them along with the performance and sometimes I don’t. If you’re looking at a text crawler on the seat in front of you or above the stage, you’ll miss a bit of what’s going on. Certainly with foreign language performances some explanation of the action on stage is appropriate. But for the singer who takes the trouble to pronounce his text clearly and beautifully, and who is filled with powerful intentions as he sings—the audience is bound to come along with him, even if they don’t speak the language being sung. As a professional singer and teacher of singing, I’ve spent a lifetime working with text and music. I think the audience has a right to understand what you’re saying. Excellent diction is certainly a good place to start. As I’ve gotten older, though, I’ve become increasingly interested in that which is left unsaid, or unspoken. As musicians we’re all trained as to respect the silences, or rests, which composers notate for us. During these silences so much can happen. They allow time to reflect upon what we’ve just heard, and to anticipate what might come next. Singers ALWAYS need to take time before a cadenza, for instance, so that they may create an expectation in the listener and then playfully fulfill it. But what about that which is unspoken when you’re actually singing? “When Frau Schneider sings,” said one of the conductors at the opera house where I had my first full time contract, “I think about my laundry list”. Frau Schneider had a beautiful voice but gave you nothing. You understood every word but didn’t care that you did. So in order to make your performance compelling, there must be volumes of feelings and intentions, unspoken ones, underneath every line you sing. We must see those feelings on your face and in your body. We must hear them through your unique shading of every vowel and consonant on each note of your perfectly tuned scale. How do you get so you can do this? I return to the idea that during difficult times we must trust the accumulated wisdom which we have acquired through a lifetime of disciplined practice. Before we can move others with our song, we have to know it perfectly. There can be no conscious thinking of what note or word comes next. We can’t sing a song in a foreign language and realize mid-phrase that we were ignorant of the meaning of the text that just came out of our mouths. I often speak my text aloud, without music, trying different inflections to see how the meaning changes. Sometimes I play the piano part alone, and see what emotions surface when I hear only the music. I just spend TIME with the music and words, and as I do so, I start to react to what I say and hear. I begin truly to listen. The luxury of practice allows me to sort through a large variety of feelings in a relatively short piece of music. I may even explore emotions that might seem slightly inappropriate or unrelated to music and text. Then in a performance, if I’m lucky, I can choose on the spot which directions I’ll explore according to the feel of the room, the energy of the piano or orchestra, and the response of the audience. I have to trust that the unspoken, or unconscious part of my being will lead me to the best possible decision at that moment. I’ve never been disappointed when I’ve been able to do that. About ten days ago my wife and I and our pianist colleague Dane Evans gave a concert on the “Thursday at Twilight” series at City Park in New Orleans. The series’ organizers, old friends, said it was a great place to sing a lighter program. The hall is lovely, with one side of windows facing the rose gardens and the other looking out on a fountain in front of a huge live oak tree, the tree somewhat diminished but not daunted by Katrina’s fury. “Pre-Katrina the crowds were good,” Thais said. The hall opened at 5 and they sold wine and mint juleps, and bowls of jambalaya. What’s not to like? The post Katrina crowd, it turned out, was every bit as good as before. We had great joy in the performance. I’m not sure how light our program was, but it had lots of variety. We began with Mozart and Donizetti duets and Lieder, then went to an all-English language second half. There was no off stage area, so I sat and listened with the audience as my wife sang “Through the Years” of Vincent Youmans, a song my mother must have accompanied at the piano for her singer friends a hundred times. I sang Cole Porter’s “Begin the Beguine” among other things. Afterwards one of our close friends, an architect and musician, said, “I never realized that these old popular songs were so sad.” “They do seem sad, don’t they?” I replied. They speak of experienced shared, fondly remembered, but in the past: “…And now when I hear people curse the chance that was wasted / I know all too well what they mean.” (Cole Porter) New Orleans is a place where we all have been robbed of the illusion that life is full of certainties. For those of us who sing, if we’ve done our work and can open the valve to our unconscious minds, as artists must, our performance will be colored by our recent, and in many cases, harsh experience. The old songs may seem a little sadder, for us and for our audience, but how nice to hear them, and what comfort they bring. PBF, June 24, 2006 http://www.artistshousemusic.org/articles/conversations+continued#comment Classical/Opera Learning Opera Phil Frohnmayer Practicing Voice Mon, 30 Jul 2007 07:44:08 -0700 tessa 7999 at http://www.artistshousemusic.org/articles/growing+pains Growing PainsWhen young people turn 23, they all seem to develop a PROBLEM,” lamented my wife’s teacher, the late Margaret Harshaw. I believe Ellen had just walked into the studio for a lesson at the time. “What’s yours?” her teacher continued imperiously. Fortunately for my wife, I don’t think she had one just then. This conversation took place some years ago. I’m not sure that I could affix 23 as a particularly vulnerable age right now. But I’ve been in the business of educating young people for many years, and I have a sense of what Ms. Harshaw might have meant. Most music students finish their undergraduate training at 22. Only in rare instances are they are ready to enter the professional world immediately thereafter. They’ll need to continue their education. Their choices might include study abroad, apprenticeship programs, or graduate school. A successful audition might land you a spot in any of these situations with a subsidy, but the money is never enough. A continuing student will need financial (and emotional) support from other sources for some time to come. The graduate years usually provide less formal structure for students than the undergraduate school did. Less time is spent in classes and ensemble rehearsals; there are often no required courses to take which lie outside a given specialty. But more is likely to be expected from those fortunate enough to be accepted into a prestigious program. The instructors can be tough, arbitrary and unforgiving. You must know how to plan your time so that you show up fully prepared for all your obligations. If you’re getting outside work, playing or singing for money, you have to practice for those dates, too, and see that they blend seamlessly with your formal study. Students beyond the undergraduate level are expected to start acting like professionals. Many young people at this point might begin to feel that they come up a bit short on commitment for the life they’ve signed on for. They question their gifts. They can’t afford much; they have no time for family and friends; recognition for their labors may not come as fast as they’d like. Figaro’s ironic but accurate description to Cherubino of army life may resonate all too well for these young people: “molto honor, poco contante!”--Much honor, little cash… Mozart’s Figaro then continues:”ed invece un fandango, una marcia per il fango”….and instead of dancing a fandango, you’ll get to march through the mud! Is it any wonder that at 23 you could develop a cold? Real talent, however, includes the qualities of perseverance and robustness. And those in their early to late twenties will need it for that fixture of career advancement in music, the competition. I’ve written about contests before. I’ve been a competitor and a judge and I’ve succeeded and failed at both jobs. I’ve just witnessed a weeklong international piano competition held at Loyola by the Musical Arts Society of New Orleans. That the competition took place at all post Katrina is a tribute to the hard work and generosity of the contests’ patrons and organizers. A good-sized public was there, too, ready and eager to hear young talented musicians play their hearts out. I can happily go to a piano contest and enjoy it; for me it’s more like a concert. I know the repertoire and love it, and I don’t have to get nervous because I’m not a pianist. I haven’t taught the contestants and for the most part I don’t know them. Since this year’s event is fresh in my mind, though, I’ve tried to glean some tips for singers by watching what the pianists did. Whatever you can do to present yourself well to the public, you should do. You’ll be performing serious music, the learning and performance of which requires hours of study and practice. Your appearance—clothes, hair, posture, demeanor—should reflect that same level of care. Take time to step before your audience in a way that invites them to listen. You can sing with great passion and involvement, but your public won’t pay close attention to you if you look undisciplined in any way before, during, or after you sing. Learn to accept the compliments of your listeners with a gracious smile, a firm but not bone crushing handshake, and a thank you, whether you’re happy with yourself or not. It’s tedious to say it, but it’s much easier to step out under the lights if you practice the skills you’ll need on stage in your off stage life. Remember to breathe. Keep your body fit. Make eye contact with people when you talk and listen to them. Dress well—that does not mean you have to spend lots of money. If you lack an eye for fashion, get help from someone who has one when you go shopping. The repertoire for voice is varied and vast. It’s important to pick pieces to sing which you love and which show your particular strengths. Choose songs and arias which you can sing well when you’re nervous or even indisposed. Learn them flawlessly in every detail, cultivating your own unique and powerful emotional response to every note, rest, and piano or orchestral interlude. If you have strong intentions in your singing and great mastery and love of the material, your commitment will shine through even on a bad day. Set challenges for yourself as you enter each contest, but not too many of them. I learned to avoid contests where I didn’t get enough time to sing in a first round. I was high strung and I found out it took me a while to settle down no matter what I did. I don’t think anyone helped me very much with this; as I look back I know now there are lots of things I could have done to be more grounded when I walked out on stage. Most of them would have involved a kind of practice which integrated the breathing process into my vocal and musical ideas more fully. True performing knowledge, however, still comes with experience for most of us. I’m fairly certain I was impatient with my voice and psyche and didn’t treat either one with the care I do now. I often advise young singers to begin with a piece which has a strong and involving recitative before the aria, or tune begins. The recitative can set the mood. It allows you to establish your artistic persona and test the acoustics of the hall without immediately challenging your voice. By the time you get to the aria or tuneful part, you’ll have a feel for how your voice is that day and how much you can expect from yourself before the big moments present themselves. Use the recitative as a vehicle for displaying your mastery of dramatic context. You can show a different mood or color in each phrase. If you’re singing in a foreign language, you can demonstrate that you have fully absorbed its syntax and meaning. All of this takes your mind off your voice and allows it to report your deep feelings without undue pressure. Mozart, Handel, Purcell, Gluck, Bizet, and even Verdi all composed brilliant examples of this kind of piece for every voice type. Find one which suits you. When I taught at University of Utah in the mid ‘70’s, I was blessed with wonderful pianist and singer friends, all older than I, from whom I learned a great deal. I was getting ready to sing a number of contests. Naomi Farr, in her inimitable fashion, said “Darling. Why don’t I invite a few people in and you can sing your contest pieces for them?” I can’t tell you how many times I did this, with her late husband Lowell at the piano, or another great friend, Paul Banham. Both of these men played wonderfully, and were very distinctive and different musical collaborators. I learned how to interact musically with both of them. I took risks during these performances. I continue to do tryouts of important new material in the homes of friends to this day, and when possible, I offer the same opportunity to my students. There’s also a retirement home in the vicinity here which loves to host programs by students and faculty and even has a little bit of money to pay them. The response of an audience to your performance is never to be despised. They may like things you’re not so crazy about and be left cold by the gems you particularly wanted to display. Reflect carefully on that information. Perhaps you need to rethink your program, or the order in which you present it. A piece that was right for you a year or two before may not suit you so well now. Seek the advice of just a few trustworthy individuals, though. Too many opinions can confuse you and cause you to lose your center. Remember, you’re giving YOUR performance, not the one someone else thinks you should give. The results of a contest frequently discourage both competitors and the audience. Roger Vignoles, an English pianist who accompanied me in a contest years ago said something that stuck with me. I believe the jury in the contest was very large—10 judges or so. “Why is the opinion of ten people any better than the opinion of one?” he said. (I had placed, but had not won.) I think he had a point. I’ve sat on search committees where the final recommendation we made was based on a numerical balloting system. There were three candidates and each committee member rated his or her choice 1,2, or 3. The result was usually a consensus candidate—the one whom everyone found acceptable but was few people’s first choice. This is another area in which democracy may not be a good fit with artistic endeavors. The value of the contest, simply said, may lie elsewhere for the competitors and the audience. Nobody makes career on the basis of one contest result. A contest is an opportunity to perform. Who knows who might hear you and give you work even if you don’t make the finals? For those who don’t win but perform well, they can prepare better for the next contest. They’ve gained experience under harsh conditions. They will receive good advice and bad advice, and learn to distinguish between the two. 23 turns out to be a dangerous age after all. Life seems to stretch out in front of you, and where are you along the way, exactly? The artistically fit keep their eye on the prize, which in the arts is usually not the money. Everyone will have moments of doubt. My stage director colleague David Morelock tells a story about a gifted young man whom he coached at a summer festival some years ago. The young man asked David whether he thought he could make it as a singer. “You can answer that for yourself,” David said. “Would you rather be in a practice room, studying your music and working on your voice, or do you prefer to be down at Cannon’s drinking beer with your friends?” The twenties are critical years. They are years to consolidate your learning and expand your gifts. If you can be a student during those years, you may make financial and social sacrifices, but you are nevertheless enjoying a great luxury—the luxury of time for STUDY. You may never really have it again. PBF, copyright August 2, 2006 http://www.artistshousemusic.org/articles/growing+pains#comment Careers Phil Frohnmayer Voice What it Takes Mon, 30 Jul 2007 07:19:09 -0700 tessa 7998 at http://www.artistshousemusic.org/articles/connections Connections“But there’s no connection,” said a soprano named Carol, sitting next to me in Lehmann Hall at Music Academy of the West. We’d just heard someone sing a Brahms song—a soprano of imposing demeanor whose voice wasn’t very stabile. This was the summer of 1974, in Santa Barbara, and I was experiencing career bound opera singers for the first time. I wasn’t sure I knew what Carol meant. Do all these singers speak in code, I wondered? “No connection”; “that’s not it!” or “that’s not what it is!”—What sort of language is this? “What it is” will have to wait for a future installment. Connection is for here and now. I came to understand the word as it applies to my craft. Let’s return to the physical building blocks of singing. They are simple enough, and like most simple things they can occupy the industrious for a lifetime. Stand well aligned, inhale deeply and quietly, and guide your exhaled breath to meet your voice by using muscles in the back, the belly and the abdomen. Pronounce clearly, and allow the breath to join the voice in the form of resonant, ringing vowels, at the physical point where you wish to experience the sensual thrill of your instrument. This is where the connection part comes in. We, the singers, and we the listeners must always feel this essential relationship of the voice to the breath. We must know that this energy comes from the middle of the body. Without it we sing from the neck up. Our singing is unconnected, and probably will not convey those emotions that we may well feel with great intensity. We’ll not be able to train the muscles surrounding the larynx to stay out of the way while we’re singing. We’ll perform our manual labor far too close to our voices, which function best when left alone. All of our work will be short circuited at the level of the throat. Why would a singer allow such a destructive thing to happen? I don’t think anyone sets out to sing badly. Most singers I know want to sing well. But even people who sing beautifully can acquire bad habits for very good reasons—perhaps they’ve had a series of performances when they felt unwell. Nobody likes to cancel, and we usually can do more than we think we can. But singing sick or emotionally upset means you don’t have your whole instrument at your disposal. You’re obliged to make choices which will get you through that night. If left unattended, over time these choices will be physicalized as bad vocal habits. Most singers have deep emotions, which they want to convey to others through music—it’s why they sing. Listen, though, to a couple of folk expressions which describe very real feelings: someone is “choked with rage,” we might say, or “that fellow was paralyzed with fear”. Neither of these conditions would have a felicitous effect on the old voce. A shrewd singer has to relocate such feelings and others like them, all of which occur in song, to a place in the body where they can be experienced without injuring his instrument. That place would be the abdominal area, and the breath can be used to accomplish the move. Between engagements in Germany I was grateful for my involvement with an opera group specializing in performances for schools—we’d call it educational outreach in the States, and it most certainly was that. The particular vehicle the director, Eberhard Streul, chose, was The Magic Flute. His idea--a good one--was to do an interactive version of the opera for children. Papageno, the baritone, would be the narrator and tell the story from his point of view. He organized the children and gave them specific tasks during the performance. They played the dragon at the beginning and received appropriate costumes for each scene. At the end they became Papageno and Papagena’s children. A soprano doubled as Pamina and Papagena, the tenor as Tamino and Monostatos, and pianist and a flutist served as the orchestra. It was a wonderful show. My wife and I performed it nearly forty times. The responsibility of playing Papageno was immense. My German had to be idiomatic and easily understood by the children. My character had to invite them in; if I failed it was bedlam. I’d done Papageno in the States, in English, but my existing concept of the character simply wasn’t right for this production. Streul, the director, was on my case from the start. I was double cast. The other Papageno, an older German singer, had done the role many times, and of course his German was perfect. Why me, I began to think? Well, I needed the work, for one thing. When I say Eberhard was on my case I don’t mean that he was unhelpful. He wanted an earthy, natural Papageno and I was working way too hard to suggest anything of the kind. He said one day, almost in passing, that I needed to decide what emotions Papageno would feel and find the place in the body where those emotions lived. Papageno was a good laugher, I thought. I’ll try breathing into the belly muscles, expanding and contracting them as I would in spontaneous laughter, for five minutes or so before I come on stage. I practiced this by myself for a day, and came to the next rehearsal as if transformed. From then on I had much joy in the role and missed it greatly when I no longer had a chance to perform it. I’d like to suggest that a song or even an entire operatic role might be reduced to a single kind of action or feeling experienced during the taking of the breath. I understand from Chris Thompson, a former student of mine who did graduate work at Guildhall School in London, that the Swedish soprano Elisabeth Soederstrøm gave an example of this during a master class there some years ago. A soprano had just sung Schubert’s Gretchen am Spinnerade. “Meine Ruh’ ist hin…” –“my peace is gone, my heart is heavy. Since I’ve met him, Faust, I’m forever changed”—thus writes Goethe for Margarete or Gretchen. Soederstrøm listened to the young woman’s performance; thought for a moment, then let her head sink as she emitted a long series of profound sighs. The students were mystified. She then looked out at the class and spoke: “this is what I am thinking and feeling as I sing this song”. I don’t believe she said much more. Look at a song text, or an operatic role and decide which emotion you feel is central to the character. Then try taking a breath that embodies that crucial feeling. Your exhalation can have a vocalized sound—a groan, a laugh, a sigh—whatever you like. There can be no grabbing at the throat, though. If there is, keep taking the breath, gradually letting go of any tension in the upper body, but retaining that effort which lives below the rib cage. The goal here is to unite the taking of breath with the emotion you wish to express, ridding yourself of entanglements at the level of the voice. Try this, and when you have achieved your goal, immediately sing the first phrase of your music. I think you will like the results. “Only connect,” E.M. Forster has his main character say in the novel Howard’s End. The statement is immense—connect sadness and joy, squalor and wealth, one person to another regardless of situation. I loved the novel when I read it in undergraduate school; it was filmed and popularized as was its more cynical successor, A Passage to India. The statement is now oft quoted and much mocked. The ability to connect, both technically and artistically, though, is one of the great benefits of musical study. A singer through intelligent practice learns to experience connection between breath and music. His range expands along with his ability to project his emotions. Limitations which he thought he had turn out to be perceived rather than real. He has learned from his experiences and will use the tools he acquired during this journey to meet future challenges. I close with a heartbreaking story, a father speaking of his late daughter who died in her 20’s from problems relating to addiction. “She unfortunately had no ability to learn from her past experience,” he said to me over lunch one day. “She kept thinking she could combine the same friends along with the same substances which had almost killed her some years before. But the next time the outcome would be different”. I do not think the failure to look unflinchingly at cause and effect is limited to individual behavior in today’s world. I know that in the area of singing no good thing comes by persisting in random, ungrounded behaviors. Stay connected. PBF, copyright January 22, 2005. http://www.artistshousemusic.org/articles/connections#comment Classical/Opera Learning Breathing Opera Phil Frohnmayer Technique Voice Mon, 30 Jul 2007 07:00:58 -0700 tessa 7997 at http://www.artistshousemusic.org/articles/simple+gifts Simple GiftsIn adversity there is opportunity, or so I’ve been told. Some have found this to be true in present day New Orleans, but to cite examples of those who have enjoyed it might not be edifying. We read of fraudulent claims, price gouging and the like. It’s possible any day of the week to encounter an old friend or acquaintance and hear more bad news in a few minutes than you’d normally get in an entire year. “Don’t read this article,” someone said to me this morning over coffee; I was leafing through the newspaper. “It will be bad for your digestion.” And so it was. I can, however, point to an unexpected storm related benefit for arts inclined residents of New Orleans. One of the local cable access channels which used to broadcast school board proceedings now has very little to report. I’m not sure if the school board even convenes regularly. Only charter and private school education exists in New Orleans after Katrina. So instead of the 2-4 a.m. airtime the ARTS cable service previously received on channel 76, wonderful video clips taken from live performances of opera, symphony, and dance can be viewed several hours at a time, day and night. Insomnia is no longer a prerequisite for the improvement of mind and spirit. I find the televised performances by singers active a couple of generations ago to be particularly interesting. Many of them are drawn from weekly live broadcasts of “The Telephone Hour” or “The Voice of Firestone”. I remember these programs from their radio versions. Television was late in coming to Medford, Oregon where I grew up, and my parents were loath to purchase a set. They considered television to be both a waste of time and an unwelcome distraction in a busy household. They were probably right, but when my brother John announced that his coach was going to write test questions based on the assumption that everyone was SEEING the World Series, my parents’ resistance was at an end. There was also the not inconsiderable matter of having a family of six regularly descend on close friends who owned TV sets in order to watch must-see programs. It was, after all, a small town, and friends were a valued commodity. A few weeks ago I was watching ARTS at some hour of the day and saw an arresting performance of the folk song “Loch Lomond” sung by the Welsh-American baritone Thomas L. Thomas. It’s hard today to find out much about him; he’s not listed in the standard musical encyclopedias nor did an Internet search yield more than a few sentences about him. I remember seeing his picture sometime during my childhood in one of my mother’s copies of the magazine Musical America. Musical America listed artists who would be available for the coming concert season. It had pictures, reviews, and gave the artists’ management information. I’m not sure if Mr. Thomas sang in Medford on the Civic Music series. At any rate, the clip from “Voice of Firestone” showed an agreeable looking man who wore his clothes well. I had no idea that he would sing so beautifully. Early television offered its artists little in the way of dramatic enhancement. Some high school proms of the day probably boasted better scenery. Cameras were cumbersome things, and I’m not sure how many of them were used in this broadcast from July of 1952. It seemed that if you took two or three steps to the left or the right, you would get out of camera range, so most of the soloists simply stood still and sang. Whoever engaged the singers for these programs obviously knew which ones could make an impression given the constraints of the medium. These were, after all, shows with a sponsor who hoped the programs would increase sales of their product. If you did not show some spark of the sacred fire in your performance on “Voice of Firestone” you surely were not asked back. What was it about Mr. Thomas’ singing which still speaks so powerfully more than fifty years after it was recorded? He stands still, holding a prop, a tam o’ shanter (a form of Scottish headgear) and sings for the most part straight into the camera. He doesn’t act. Occasionally he wiggles his jaw very slightly (as singers used to do, even on stage) to assure its freedom. He declaims the text with absolute clarity and fidelity as he sings. By this I mean that he makes no singerly concessions in his diction. The vowels are absolutely pure and true regardless of where they occur in his voice, and his chosen key is a high one. This means that the “ee” in “sleeping” is an “ee” and not some muddy compromise which blares “I am a SINGER” to his public. His voice carries the entire weight of his emotional response to his material. He possessed a high, unforced baritone of great beauty. It speaks with the simplicity of someone who might have had no formal training at all, which I am certain was not the case. He’s never short of breath. His account of this simple folksong--which tells a tale of separation and loss--peals forth with such immediacy that one can only be filled with gratitude that the performance has been preserved for posterity. “Loch Lomond” sounds as if the singer spontaneously composed it in front of the camera. I was curious enough to track down and order a VHS tape devoted entirely to this singer. All the performances on the tape originated from “Voice of Firestone” broadcasts recorded between 1949 and 1952. He sings well in every selection, in music drawn from the repertoire of musical theater, opera and folk song. The broadcasts had a fine professional orchestra and chorus, and a resident conductor, Howard Barlow, who also did some of the arrangements. An announcer concluded the evening by listing the next two months of guest artists, all singers, who would appear on these Monday evenings. They were among the best singers of their times—Eleanor Steber, Jussi Bjoerling, Patrice Munsel, and Rise Stevens to name a few. It’s inconceivable to think of such a program in today’s cultural climate. In the late 50’s and sixties popular music started to move away from so called classical music at a steady and inexorable pace. The audience on network television for a slightly highbrow musical show simply ceased to exist. We are all the losers for it. I find it impossible to believe that the public doesn’t need to hear a beautiful voice. I might add, though, that what the public frequently hears now in classical music is a beautiful voice, well schooled and equalized, which can no longer communicate text with any immediacy. When the goal is simply sound and text loses its primacy there is no real singing. Every one of the successful singers I saw listed on the “Voice of Firestone” sang words, not a reasonable facsimile thereof. When I hear them I don’t struggle after the text in a single phrase. A night or two after I’d heard the “Loch Lomond” of which I’ve written, ARTS broadcast a recent televised performance of the Letter Scene from Massenet’s Werther. This music surely counts as one of the meatiest opportunities in operatic literature for mezzo-soprano. I’ve seen the opera in Paris and New Orleans. I’ve taught this scene to several mezzos; one delivered it unforgettably. Marcia and Mira, superb mezzos in my own family, sang it. I love every note, every word. Charlotte’s epistolary victimization by Goethe’s Romantic hero, Werther, would play very badly in today’s politically correct climate—she is a married woman and his attentions are both inappropriate and sadistic. It seems not bother him that he never declared himself to her when the time was right. His highly charged letters cause Charlotte great pain; she knows she should destroy them, but instead rereads them constantly. The quite gifted artist who sang Charlotte in the clip I saw vocalized the aria excellently. She was lovely to look at and beautifully gowned. I don’t remember a single word or phrase she sang. Perhaps I needed to be in the auditorium; the audience seemed to like it. On television, though, the performance didn’t leave the screen. It pains me to say that classical singing today has become needlessly complex. Your heart can be pure and your intentions honorable, but if in any way your technique speaks more loudly than the material, you’ve failed as a singer. The best schooling would be that which sounds, as Mr. Thomas demonstrated, like no schooling at all. There are no vocal contrivances which obscure the song’s meaning for the audience; all is simple, direct, and true. What’s happened to us? I believe that singers today have become afraid. We’ve developed a system where aspiring artists stay in school too long and too many authorities tell them what to do with their voices. Perhaps it was destined to be so; many of them haven’t ever heard the music they’ve come to study. Never has the music which young people download been harmonically more primitive or its words so insignificant. To move from Cole Porter or George Gershwin to art song or opera wasn’t a huge stretch—both kinds of music assumed a high degree of both textual and musical sophistication for effective performance. Because their instruments are linked to physical maturity, singers often come to formal study late; primary music education in schools is all but gone. There are more singers competing for fewer spots. Singing still has the power to get you hooked if you study it. It satisfies physically and spiritually as few things in this life do. Small wonder that so many want to sing and get paid for it. But they’re afraid to take risks and be naked with their voices before their public. Who knows why? Perhaps recordings by a few stars have standardized taste for a diminishing public’s ears. Display a uniquely timbred voice that might have a flaw or two and Project Runway style rejection can become your life. I don’t think that the world from 1949 to 1952 was any less frightening than it is today. World War II had ended with an atomic blast. More than a few built bomb shelters. People saw communists everywhere--the arts community was terrified by the attentions of the House Un-American Activities Committee. The Korean War raged and colonialism’s end filled the world with enduring hatred. Racial issues in this country had yet to be addressed. But a good classically trained singer (who wasn’t airbrushed and cautious) could still speak to a reasonably wide public who would were eager for more. And to paraphrase Cole Porter, composers of popular music took that music seriously. Fear today is everywhere. It can ruin your life. We’re at war and the hurricane season is far from over. We all have our contrivances to escape the anxieties of the day—I’ll not bore you by listing them. When it comes to singing, though, I want my ration served neat. I’d turn handsprings if I knew I could come home Monday evening, turn on network TV, and hear Messrs. Thomas and Bjoerling and Mmes. Steber and Stevens or their like sing me a simple song. It would be a gift. PBF, copyright August 25, 2006 http://www.artistshousemusic.org/articles/simple+gifts#comment Classical/Opera Arts Programming Opera Phil Frohnmayer Voice Fri, 27 Jul 2007 12:04:45 -0700 tessa 7976 at http://www.artistshousemusic.org/articles/i+practiced+today I Practiced TodayHow do you practice when you don't have a performance coming up right away? Good question. Sometimes I don't practice at all without the pressure of an upcoming engagement. Every other task seems to take precedence over practice, even cleaning up your office, or answering an e-mail that doesn't necessarily require a response. Some things in life, however, always need attention. We all have our daily chores, and practice is one of them. The quality of our experience in attending to our daily duties may change, but the tasks remain the same. Once again, it is advisable to treat our voices with respect, listen to what they demand, and have joy in their care and maintenance. I don't have a performance scheduled anytime soon, but I like to demonstrate in lessons and would prefer not to sound like multiple numbers of dogs affected by the lunar cycle when I do so. So what did I do today? First of all, I exercised vigorously before I sang a single note, and then allowed myself time to cool down a little bit. I took inventory of my body. Was there tension immediately surrounding the vocal apparatus--neck, shoulders, upper torso--which required me to stretch and release slowly for a time? Were the muscles of my lower torso flexible and responsive when I breathed? Then I started with a series of spoken, or intoned vowel sounds (oo to begin) and tried to find that point where my breath met my voice without any interference from the throat. Today my voice seemed to want to do rapid scales rather than slow ones, so I did those first, in an unusual pattern--sixteenth notes in 1-5-4-3-2-1 (do-sol-fa-mi-re-do) on different vowels, as if it were one gesture. Then I increased the range as things became fluent and easy. This took around 5 minutes. I have a "touchstone" piece in my repertoire. This is an aria that’s challenging, but the problems in it are most always solvable for me. If I can sing it-- Handel's "See, the raging flames arise" from Joshua--I can sing most of my repertoire. I warm up on it frequently. It's good to have pieces like this, which you have gotten to know intimately over a long period of time, and still are a joy to sing. I had a significant period of illness this past summer and it was hard to get back to singing. I didn't want to sing and then have an extended coughing fit which would increase my healing time. So I trained with my body alone first. Then I did very simple things, limited in range, where I was comfortable. Eventually my full voice returned to me, and the process of exploration in getting it back made me glad once again for my choice of vocation. I had been ill, but I did not embrace illness as my condition. I desired to get well, and part of the healing I accomplished through singing. About that time I read of a professional football player, in his early twenties, who had shown up for his first training camp around 50 pounds overweight at around 385. He professed not to know how to control his weight. This is someone whose yearly compensation might exceed what an average musician earns in a lifetime. His business, like ours, necessitates that you know and respect your body because it is your instrument; without it you can do nothing. I can only think that in some basic way he didn't want to play football, or maybe it wasn’t really his idea to do so. What a pity. Any fundamental life decision always has a shadow side. The truly gifted performer might have an easier life if he chooses not to exercise his gifts. But what is meant by "easier"? I can get through a bad day, or maybe a bad time in our country's history, because I have learned the joy of giving myself totally to my work when I am able and required to do so, acknowledging the possibility that my efforts might go unnoticed or uncompensated. I have the joy of music, and the pleasure of my practicing, and that's a great deal. PBF, copyright November 18, 2004 http://www.artistshousemusic.org/articles/i+practiced+today#comment Learning Phil Frohnmayer Practicing Technique Voice Fri, 27 Jul 2007 11:41:43 -0700 tessa 7975 at http://www.artistshousemusic.org/articles/fear FearOne thing leads to another, and so it is with these letters. The issue of fear is vast--it can truly be a life sentence. As I said in the last letter, though, facing it head on can lead to extraordinary discoveries and tremendous growth. So here's another fearful issue. My late singer friend, Debria Brown, said her first question to anyone wanting to pursue a career in music was this: "how do you handle rejection?" There will be lots of it, make no mistake, and it's not pleasant. It’s easy to think of our voices as that symbolic rendition of ourselves which we offer up to the public. We can expect to have strong reactions to rejection because we are so identified with our voices. It would make sense, then, for us to address any obvious errors in presentation that are within our power to correct. Pick appropriate repertoire, deal with vocal issues and imperfections and solve all the problems you can. Perhaps (shudder) our physical appearance needs work. In the area of opera, it's not such a good idea to present an outrageous or disturbing appearance at an audition. How can you represent a character on stage if your appearance suggests that you already are one, and not one that fits comfortably into standard repertoire? It's best to walk on stage from a rather neutral place, allowing your feelings to flow naturally into the material you sing. This week, however, I've encountered another form of fear, and it may be the most crippling of all. I'm speaking of the fear of exploring emotions which have been absorbed into the body and spirit during early childhood. These can be expressed through a variety of abnormalities, both physical and behavioral. I had a student some years ago whose body alignment had to be corrected every 20 seconds or so. He carried his head well forward of his shoulders, which effectively short-circuited any connection with his lower body when he sang. I grew tired and frustrated with the need to bring it to his attention. I still wonder what his habitual posture meant. I have no doubt that it was deeply rooted in his early emotional life. It functioned as a dam would, holding back feelings of every sort. Another student who has responded to these letters asked me to write about his experience with an aria he was to sing with orchestra at a prizewinner’s concert. The piece, a Bellini aria, should have been a perfect fit for him, but somehow it never went well. The text expressed a bittersweet nostalgia for a time and place experienced during the character’s youth. Lower male voices in opera often sing this kind of music--they are the fathers, the older and wiser folks. It became clear that it was the emotional content of the aria that stymied this extraordinarily gifted young man. In the aria he had to express fatherly emotions, and his relationship with his own father had given him no positive, loving model from which to draw his feelings. His resistance to a necessary act of emotional discovery created significant physical tension in his singing. Once he made the courageous decision to explore his relationship or the lack of it with his father, he was able to sing the aria with great power. I have found as a teacher that it will not do for me to share my students’ fears in any way. If I also am afraid, I cannot help them. Certain issues in singing nearly always have an emotional basis: unsteadiness in the transition, or passaggio area of the voice comes immediately to mind. Most singers possess a weak note or two as they approach either extreme of the voice, high or low. These areas are troublesome for teacher and student alike. We go to elaborate lengths to "protect" such places because we feel vulnerable and naked when we’re in them. But there are nearly always solutions to technical problems for those who truly desire them. Teacher and student will require courage, patience, and effort to work on these trouble spots so that they disappear. An actor colleague of mine gave me a powerful analogy this week to demonstrate the power physical tension has to block access to our emotions. Consider trying to dampen a towel that we first twist as tightly as we can. Run water over it, and then untwist the towel. There will be large patches of the towel that remain dry--the water didn’t get to them. So it is if we bring unnecessary effort to the act of singing. We prevent ourselves from gaining access to our true feelings; the tension forms an insurmountable barrier to them. If music doesn't seem to be an appropriate or safe place to explore your feelings, you may be in the wrong line of work. You may also need additional help in addressing some very difficult things. But the stage should be a safe and sacred place. Nobody will guess the exact life experience you’ve had which fuels the performance you put on stage. But the public will certainly know if you're giving them nothing. You may need to find a different teacher if the studio situation feels consistently uncomfortable for you. But you won't get away with dodging the "feeling" bullet for long. It's at the heart of what artists do. PBF, November 10, 2004 http://www.artistshousemusic.org/articles/fear#comment Careers Opera Phil Frohnmayer Voice Fri, 27 Jul 2007 11:32:51 -0700 tessa 7974 at