ET TU, VOCE?: PART DEUX

Guys, look what I friggin found. You gotta see before you draw. Bam!

ET TU, VOCE?

I have a few students who can sing whistle tones like Mariah Carey. When I try to compete with them, it's totally impossible and I look like Kermit the frog when Miss Piggy is hugging him too hard.
I'd like to be able to sing that way and I can verbally articulate what I'd like to be able to do, but the notes just don't come out no matter how much I hope they do before I open my mouth.  The stubborn Irish/Italian girl in me doesn't allow me to listen to any Mariah Carey recordings, by the way.  She tells me I should just be able to make these sounds without listening or having any point of reference whatsoever because I'm a proficient singer and I should know how to do it without help. When I inevitably fail, I get aggravated in my Irish/Italian way about how my brain doesn't make a noise that high.  I know what you're thinking: "You mean your voice can't make noises that high."  Take a seat on the carpet! It's time for a story, children!  

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There was once a young Italian painter. He had a palette of beautiful colors, and ceiling-high stacks of canvases covered in passion-filled strokes lined the perimeter of his teeny apartment. The painter painted every waking hour. There was nothing he would rather do than paint the Tuscan sunset or countryside with its beautiful flowers and Cypress trees. But the poor, young painter rarely sold a painting.

After several days of living on but crumbs and water, he went to the town marketplace to find what food he could afford. There he saw many of his friends from painting school. He found his friend Giancarlo selling his famous paintings of dogs wearing hats. He found Franco selling his famous paintings of dogs wearing hats and he saw Stefano selling his famous paintings of dogs wearing hats. Paintings of dogs wearing hats were all the rage in Tuscany and they were flying off the easels before the young painter's very eyes. Giancarlo, Franco and Stefano counted their Lira while the young painter scrounged for a measly apple.
Giancarlo approached the young artist with glee and said, "Take a look at our dog paintings.  You must  paint dogs wearing hats so you can eat and be fat like us."
The young artist nodded his head in agreement but wondered if he could paint a dog in a hat.  He had only learned about landscapes in painting school and had never tried to paint such a thing.

On his way home he shouted to God in his thick Italian accent, "Why-a, God-a? I paint-a such-a beautiful-a landscapes of the Tuscan-a countryside with-a such-a skill... such-a panache...and nobody will buy a single painting! If I must-a paint dog picture to eat, then I must!"

When he got home, he picked up his palette and nervously held his favorite brush in his hand.  He put the brush on the canvas.  He closed his eyes and began to paint.  To his surprise, he felt his hand making swirls and circles and thought, "This surely must be the best painting I have ever painted!"
After hours and hours of swirls and circles, he shouted, "And now I open my eyes to see my painting." The young painter opened his eyes. His jaw dropped in awe. It certainly was the best painting of his career thus far, but to his dismay, he had not painted a dog with a hat.  He had painted the Tuscan sunset over the countryside covered with verdant, green Cypress trees and red and orange poppies. The young artist's eyes filled with hot tears. "This is the ugliest painting I have ever painted! I will never eat again!  My brush, you have betrayed me!"
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Because Musical Theater is not only an art, it is a business, we can't always depend on the gorgeous landscapes we have in our back pockets to make us money even though they're fun to paint and they make us feel like real artists. Sometimes the sounds in demand are, unfortunately, the dogs wearing the hats.  For instance, high belting is a sound that is in demand right now.  Do we all do that naturally?  No, of course not, but we need to be versatile if we want to work more often.   On the same note, many of us Musical Theater people have a hard time singing pop music. We close our eyes, take a deep breath and just hope whatever we're singing comes out authentically pop/rock enough for the casting director to buy it.  I know, personally, I didn’t understand for a long time what made pop music poppy or rock music rocky.  Finally, a genius named Sheri Sanders published a book on how Musical Theater artists can cross over into pop/rock.  To supplement what she writes in the book, she suggests listening to some pop singers on Pandora to get accustomed to their styles and to hear a variety of new songs you wouldn't have heard otherwise.  Once I forced myself to sit down and take notice of what these singers were actually doing and stopped myself from trying to reinvent the wheel, I finally got a grasp of what I was supposed to tell my voice to do and not what I should expect my voice to be able to know how to do on its own.    (As a side note, if you have not read this book, then you need to read it immediately: )

Rock The Audition by Sheri Sanders (featuring Tom Burke!)

When I was 12, I did a production of Into The Woods.  It was my first show and I was cast in the ensemble (... I was seriously the only ensemble member... I basically WAS the ensemble....) but luckily the girl playing Florinda quit so I got bumped up to Florinda.  The girl playing Cinderella was maybe 16 and she had a great voice. I tried to sing Steps of the Palace at home and it just wasn't happening.  It was way too high for me and it only went up to a D.  I remember asking her after she stepped off the stage from a rehearsal with the piano, "How do you do that?" and she said "Do what?" I said, "Sing that high!" and she said, "Oh, that's not that high!" I was stunned.  It sure felt high to me!  I went home, switched my Irish/Italian attitude to that of a Scotland Yard detective and really practiced my ass off from the time I was 12 to the time I was 14 without the help of a teacher. I got a full octave under my belt just by listening really hard.
Looking back now, I couldn't actually “visualize” those notes with my ears , similarly to how I can't hear those Mariah Carey whistle tones with my "mind's ear" now. I've listened to Musical Theater repertoire every day for the past fifteen years so now I know what to do. I can hear it in my head before I open my mouth. But I certainly haven't listened to enough Mariah Carey to really understand what the hell is going on up there.  (My friend Norman, on the other hand, HAS listened to Mariah Carey every day and he CAN hit those notes. And he's a guy. So there's something to be said for THAT.)

While learning how to paint dogs in hats, we need to understand what a dog in a hat looks like before we put the brush on the canvas.  We can't just close our eyes, hope to God it looks right and then be disappointed when we open them and we didn't get our wish.  We can't blame our brushes (or voices), either.  They're just the tools.  We're the bosses.   We've got to have a plan and we've got to come prepared.  What kind of dog?  What kind of hat? What size brush? Which colors?

Maybe if I really sat and listened to Mariah Carey every day like Norman does I could come close to hitting some of those whistle tones, but I just haven't done that! I can't be mad at my voice for not knowing what to do when my brain doesn't even know! Nobody wants to listen to a Jackson Pollock vocalist. That's a mess.

This guy is a great multitasker... 
he can also balance on a thing!

Here are some things to think about:

• Don’t get distracted by the acting.  Use your left brain to take notice of the technical things that have to happen aside from the dramatic aspect of it. Then when you've got some muscle memory...
• you can use your right brain! But I am begging you-- don't turn your left brain back off!!! Don’t negate all the technical vocal work you’ve just done.  It’s like the tummy rub, head pat thing.  You’ve got to multitask!!
• Don't get frustrated with yourself. It might not be that you just can't do it... it could be that you just don't understand it yet. When you go on a trip, you know your destination and hopefully you look at a map to figure out how to get there first. Teleportation doesn't exist yet. Don't let the stubborn Irish/Italian girl who lives in you deny you your right to the map.
• Try not to compare your work to your friends' work, and recognize that just because your work isn't what people want to hang on their walls right now doesn't mean it's not amazing. The painter wanted to quit just because he wanted to paint a dog but could only paint a tree. The tree is great! Keep the tree! Bring the tree to the marketplace and convince people they need the tree! Just keep practicing the dog!
• Record, record, record!!! When you get it right and you don't have it recorded so you can go back and see what the hell you did ... I will kill you!
• Take a look at your landscapes and see if you can find any little dogs in hats sneaking around. You might already be accessing the sound you're looking for without even realizing it... and the pressure of making that sound in THIS particular song is freaking you out. I swear to God, when I am fooling around and singing Beyonce songs in the shower I can hit certain high notes, and then in the context of a Mariah song I just cannot do it. I need to teach my brain not to get freaked out when I think of it being a Mariah note. It's the same freakin' note! Just not in a Beyonce song!

In closing, I promise to listen to some Mariah Carey over the next couple of weeks and I will report back. Holy Jesus, here we go.  Sorry, new neighbors!

[**The story about the young artist may have sounded like Hans Christian Andersen could have written it ... but I actually made it up.  All rights reserved.  ;)  ]

I PRACTICE WHAT I PREACH!

RECOVERY TIME CRACKER

My poor dad had to babysit me when I was recovering from a surgery.  I guess all my noise was grating on his nerves after a while!  I call this: 

LET'S BE PSYCHOANALYTICAL OF THOSE WHO ARE TOO CRITICAL

A couple of years ago I was in a Dirty Rotten Scoundrels kind of mood and I was doing some Youtube surfing.  I watched tons of videos of girls singing the same song from the show (Here I Am) and was just mindlessly listening until I came across this video.  I took a screen shot and have had it saved on my computer ever since.  Take a look at this picture:

There are so many things about this picture I would like to address.  So I'm going to make it like a football game for you and make all those crazy lines and circles on your screen indicating where I would like you to look. 

First Thing's First:  

This girl was clearly having an awesome time and wanted hits on her video.  She used tags like the name of the show and the name of the original singer, so it is clear that she wanted people to find and watch her.  And the first comment she gets is "Flat."  How rude is that.  A one word comment AND it's negative.

The singer thanked the critic and asked for them to elaborate!

The critic writes back: 

Ok now.  Let's go through the critic's strategy play by play:

A specific instruction:  "If you open your mouth more..."  

Is that even possible?  I think if this girl tried to open her mouth any more her jaw would snap. 

An esoteric instruction:  "...Reach a bit above the notes you'll end right on top and on pitch."  

So the critic would like the singer to constantly think of singing sharp so that she will meet herself half way right ON the pitch?  That sounds like fun.  And I'm sure she can be a great actor within her song if she's constantly preoccupied with trying to be sharp to compensate for her alleged flatness.

A backhanded Compliment: "The whole song is flat but otherwise nice."  

Wow.  

Validation of self:  "I played Christine at ----- theatre, we closed on Sat."  

The critic's recent experience in the role obviously makes her the authority on this song and all singing, for that matter.

Now, maybe this song was flat.  Maybe if this critic had a chance to work with the girl in person and literally unhinged her jaw, it would sound better.  (In my opinion, it was probably flat because her mouth was TOO open, but this girl can think what she wants to think.)  Or maybe YouTube is making her sound flat!  That is entirely possible.  Regardless, we need to remind ourselves that there are idiots out there in the world who are in (sometimes self-elected) authoritative positions and they will offer us criticism and/or feedback... and a lot of the time they don't even know what they're talking about. 

What I think this girl did right:

She thanked her critic and didn't defensively lash out at the person.  To the girl in the picture: If you are reading this blog by some weird chance, I commend you for your CLASS.  

She asked for a specific example of what the critic was talking about!  Brava!  When someone gives you a note that is so general it hurts, ask for a specific example of what they mean.  A lot of times they probably can't even give you specifics. 

On the same note, ask how they would advise you to fix it if you are in a class setting.  Again, a lot of the time they probably can't even tell you.  They'll probably even be taken aback and start stumbling on their words because they'll realize they don't know what they're talking about.   Then question whether this person is even worth listening to if they're that inarticulate.  

The girl kept the video on youtube.  It is still up. 

She deleted the comments!  Get rid of that shit! Who needs it!?

Unfortunately we run into people like this critic a lot.  They might make us want to die in the moment when we read their comments or hear their notes after we've worked so hard on a song and presented it in a class or on a stage, but those people are destructive and not worth our energy.  My instinct is that the critic probably has some issues, don't you think so?  If she were so confident in her own performance she would be repeatedly watching a video of herself and not ragging on other girls on YouTube who didn't ask for her opinion in the first place.

I did a little more Youtube surfing and this is what I found on someone else's video of the same song.  The 16 year old singer was asking what people thought of her possible college audition song (Here I Am).  Looks like someone has a negative commenting fetish:

So, to quote my great Aunt Pinky: "Consider the source!"  (I know, I know.  You're so distracted by the fact that my aunt's name was Pinky that you can't even take me seriously anymore.  Her name was really Madeline but we called her Aunt Pinky... When I was three years old she pushed me in the pool when I didn't have swimmies on, and then she claimed she taught me how to do a swan dive and the backstroke. I was totally drowning but it was like a hazing. She did that to every single niece and nephew at some point.  Here she is:

Ok enough...  But really...   Her famous motto was right.  "Consider the source!")  Who exactly is making this comment? Is it someone who really has the capacity to make an impact on your life? And even if they do happen to be someone semi-important...  does this person really have you in their best interest by making a negative comment?  Take a look at what this person is putting out there in the world and ask yourself if you want to be a bi-product of their negativity.  If not, move on and find someone who would be happy to help you become what you want to be without inserting their own insecurities and resentment in the process.  There are too many things for us to worry about in our own lives.... we don't need other people's crap, too.

Give all you've got... accept what you get back with grace... and consider the source.   

And I leave you with this:

FOCUS AND PREPARATION ARE PRETTY IMPORTANT - UNRULY CLIENT

This puppet doesn't know what the hell he's doing. Needless to say, he will not book it.

(Chris Cooke is the puppeteer here. The quality of this video doesn't do him justice because it is out of sync and blurry, but he is very skilled and talented.)