Think. Breathe. Suspend. Sing. Release.

How learning to sing can teach us how to live

        Think. Breathe. Suspend. Sing. Release. 

    Those are the five essential steps in singing. Sounds simple enough, and yet, after 20 years of voice lessons and over 10 years of singing opera professionally, I am far from being perfect. With each practice session, I have worked towards perfecting these five steps, so that I may produce my sound more beautifully and efficiently. In the process I have begun to realize that these five steps can be applied in many facets of life.

    Whether you’re standing on the stage singing high C’s, or sailing the high seas on a fishing boat, whether you’re going for your black belt in karate or belting out a show tune on Broadway, mastering these five steps can make the song and dance of anybody’s life more melodious. 

THINK.

    Even before you begin to sing, even before you take that first breath to enable you to sing, you have to think. Am I singing an A vowel, or an E? An O or an U? Or how about an I? Each one of these vowels requires a different position in the mouth. What is the mood of the phrase I am about to sing? It could be joyous or triumphant, disastrous or tragic.

    Maybe you’re going to confront your boss today about that raise you’ve been asking for. If it’s raining, you consider taking an umbrella with you. Prepare yourself mentally and physically for the task at hand.

BREATHE.

    To sing a musical phrase, I need to ascertain just how much breath is required to sufficiently sustain the voice throughout. Too many breaths can be just as detrimental as too few. So, I portray my emotion, form my mouth in the shape of the vowel, progressively contract my internal intercostal muscles in combination with my oblique abdominal muscles -- I mean, breathe -- and start the process of singing.

    Breathing is something we do subconsciously. To be aware of the breath, however, is to live in the moment. Managing the breath gives you more control over the present situation -- before diving into a pool, calming ourselves down when we’re nervous or upset. A simple breath works wonders.

SUSPEND.

    When I inhale, my vocal cords move apart (abduct), and when I begin to sing, they come together (adduct), and that precious moment between those two junctures is called suspension. It’s when the muscles work together in opposing directions to set the vibratory cycle in motion. Dynamic equilibrium. It sets everything up for success. 

    Without suspension -- well, let’s just say a slack tightrope is every funambulist’s nightmare. It’s the suspenseful (pun intended) moment when the acrobat takes her first step on the highwire with her frilly umbrella in one hand and concentration in the other. It’s the exact point in which gravity takes over, forcing the ball you just threw straight up in the air to come back down again. It’s the instant in which you activate your leg muscles in order to parachute out of a plane. It’s the moment of turning the door knob (after you’ve taken a deep breath, of course) to walk in your house and tell your spouse that you didn’t get the raise. The point of no return.

SING.

    This is it. This is the moment you’ve spent an entire nanosecond preparing for. Noise is emanating from your body. You are phonating. You are singing. You are alive. You’re flying in the air, you’re under the big top above a cheering circus audience. You’re having that conversation.

    Sustainment of tone is life itself. It’s how and what you do with it that counts. Think of the hamster running in his wheel. If he stops, even for a split second, he loses his momentum and it’s all over. All that preparation for naught. So sit back, enjoy the sound of your voice, and don’t stop until you...

RELEASE.

    No matter whether I taper off a phrase gingerly or finish with a smashingly loud consonant, swoon for a smelly tenor or skip offstage with the ballet, there’s only one thing I must do to release a tone: breathe. Sound familiar? You got it. With a fleeting moment to think about the next phrase, the whole process starts all over again. 

   Releasing a tone is a wonderful opportunity to recover from all that has gone before. Each successive breath offers a new chance to improve, or even to fail. Louder, faster, softer, slower. Think. Breathe. Suspend. Sing. Release. This microcosmic phenomenon of five steps containing practically everything anyone really needs to know, occurs hundreds of times within any one opera before the conductor puts down his baton, and millions and millions of times within any one lifetime before joining the choir invisible. Hopefully. 

    Think. Breathe. Suspend. Sing. Release. Think. Breathe. Suspend. Sing. Release. Think. Breathe. Suspend. Sing. Release....

Are You Ready to be Heartbroken?

  

 This weekend I was traveling between Düsseldorf and Frankfurt for pleasure, stopped in Cologne for business, and decided to reward, or rather console myself with a nice dinner beside the famous Kölner Dom. Far off on a bulletin board, I saw the words LLOYD COLE in big white letters. After my dinner I walked over to take a closer look. Turns out, he was playing not far from there that very evening. It wasn’t like a bolt of excitement had shot through me, but I was suddenly very certain that that’s where I would be going, despite being wrecked from my weekend and knowing that home was only another hour and a half away. I got a large cup of coffee, directions to the venue, and I was on my way.

    The first Lloyd Cole song I’d ever heard was “Perfect Skin.”  My sister put it on a mix tape for me, which I remember listening to on a long drive to San Diego in 1985. That year was my first year of high school. I don’t think any of my classmates at the time had heard of Lloyd Cole and the Commotions except for me. I scribbled a line from that song on my school notebook: 

“...cheekbones like geometry and eyes like sin, sexually enlightened by Cosmopolitan ....”  

    No wonder my popularity began to wane with the popular kids, who were content with “Footloose” and “Uptown Girl”, and wax with the mods, who were still searching for the deeper meaning of “Blue Monday” and “How Soon is Now?”

“... Jane is fine, always fine, we're unhappy most of the time. We don't talk, we don't fight, I'm just tired, she's way past caring. So we drink Spanish wine, we tell lies, we're killing time and we feel fine. Well, what's the crime?...”

    Lloyd Cole’s songs are often melancholy. Glum rock, it’s been called. For his sake, I hope his songs are not autobiographical. Using the first person narrative, his songs often mention people by name, which makes it seem like he could only be drawing from personal experiences. Sometimes he doesn’t say much at all, and other times he’ll go into so much detail, you feel like it’s some inside joke that you’ll never understand.

“... I was a king bee with head full of attitude and ashtray heart on my sleeve, wounded knees. And my one love song was a tattoo upon my palm you wrote upon me when you took my hand...”

    In some ways, listening to Lloyd Cole is like an inside joke, because you feel especially kindred with people you encounter who also know his work. Actually, as a fan, I feel a little guilty. Having faithfully bought the first six albums, somehow skipping over his first solo album (how dare I?), I stopped after Love Story.  Then again, so did he. By the time his next album came around in 2000, I was working as a full-time so-called professional opera singer. I was distracted. 

    Those three words were uttered by Mr. Cole himself at last night’s concert. As I said, I went to the concert on a whim, really, but a very unvagarious whim. 

“... I was looking for a rhyme for the New York Times when I sensed I was not alone. She said, ‘Do you know how to spell audaciously?’ I could tell I was in love...”

    Although I’ve been to Cologne on several occasions, I can’t say that I know my way around. Hoping to be sitting on the right subway myself, the man next to me asked if I knew where the Kulturkirche (Culture Church) was. Of all the people on that subway, two Lloyd Cole fans were sitting right next to each other. Kindred, I tell you, kindred. The two of us helped each other find our way to the venue. It’s a regular old Lutheran church, in a regular old neighborhood, except for the fact that it’s one of the few neo-gothic churches still standing in Cologne after the bombings of World War II, and that it’s used for cultural events (except for Sunday mornings, of course). While waiting for the concert to begin, my brand new friend and I exchanged Lloyd Cole stories, which turned out to be quite interesting, due to the fact that I knew my way around the old stuff, and he was a fan of the newer albums. I was glad to have met a fellow fan, but when it came to finding a seat, I enjoyed my independence. I left him outside waiting for his unpunctual companions, and snagged myself a sweet single seat in the third pew.

    I was quite surprised at my own feelings of anticipation. When the roadie came out to hook up the guitars, my heart skipped a beat, thinking it was going to be Mr. Cole. Then another person came out to put a small bucket of ice cubes next to the two bottles of evian and hand towel (never did figure out what the ice cubes were for). Other than that little table, there were two microphone stands (one for the singer and one for the guitar), a few monitor speakers, and two guitars. That was it. Then the culture church’s pastor came out to announce the event -- oh why do they torment me so?! The suspense was killing me! Finally it was time. 

    There he was. Not the gloomy face with cold eyes peering up from under a furrowed brow like on most of the album covers. Just an unassuming man in the middle of his life in a black short-sleeved button-down shirt, beige pants and a pair of black wallabee’s. He softly muttered, “Thanks for coming out,” and began to play. I don’t even remember what song it was, or if I even knew it. All I know is that this man, whose music accompanied or created my moods for almost 25 years, was standing almost 25 feet in front of me playing it live. Everything I’ve ever thought or felt since then came rushing back to me in the guise of happiness. I was overwhelmed. The voice is a powerful thing, a very powerful thing.

    I found it very courageous of him to stand up there in front of us, all by himself, reading off chapters of his life. I’ve stood on stage numerous times baring my soul to an audience, but I‘ve always been portraying someone else, and singing someone else’s words, even though the emotions may or may not have been mine. It occurred to me at the end of the concert that he didn’t play any songs from his third album Mainstream, although he played several songs from his first two. Was Mainstream a chapter he preferred not to read aloud? Or maybe he just felt silly at age 48 saying,

“Life begins at thirty, so I have been told. I can easily believe it, the way I’m getting on.”

    Although I hate to hear this myself, I found it charming when he made a mistake. If he would’ve ignored the few mistakes he made, we all would have been none the wiser. But you could tell he was a little disappointed, like when he was 10 seconds into “Pay For It,” when he stopped and said, “I’m sorry. I was distracted,” and told us he’d play that one again for us later. Or when he said, “We’ll do the first chorus instead of the second one” in the middle of “Rattlesnakes.” I only wish I will be famous enough one day to have the luxury to stop before a high note, take a sip of evian and say, “That was going to get very ugly had I not stopped to take that drink of water.”

    The acoustic versions of his songs were arranged in varying ways, and he even strung a few songs together at one point, joking, “You know you’re getting old when you can start playing medleys.” I was amazed at his guitaristic dexterity, and how he could pull so many different textures of sound out of six strings; he used open tuning on one of the guitars, giving a droning depth to songs like “Morning is Broken:”

“... It’s very easy to be brave with your good foot in the grave. It’s very easy to be cold when there’s no one in the world you want to know ...”

Over the years I’ve gathered so many pieces of wisdom from Lloyd Cole’s music. Like I said, I don’t know if his songs are autobiographical, or just inspired by books and other things. It just seems that if I had learned anything at all from what he’s said, then I wouldn’t be able to relate to the music so well. We all have to write our own songs, and make our own experiences. Other people’s songs only provide the soundtrack to our life stories, they don’t write them. He closed the evening with three encores, saving the best for last. 2cv:

“... For we were never close if the truth were told. All we ever shared was a taste in clothes. No, we were never close. ... We were simply wasting precious time ...”

    After the show, Mr. Cole offered to stick around and sign autographs, saying he’d sign anything except body parts, and reminding us that CDs were on sale in the lobby. I would have loved to have bought a CD, but I had spent all my money on the ticket. I felt like such an idiot when it was finally my turn. He was a very humble man standing in front of me, almost smiling. Still, through his pale eyes, I could recognize the dark young man who I found very sultry in the early 90’s, and I felt as nervous as I would have, were I standing before him back then. I said, “It’s not exactly a body part, but I do happen to have my diary with me. It’s the only piece of paper in my bag that I’m not going to throw away.” And with a couple more bumbling sentences, I said, “Thanks for making this day very memorable.”  “What day is it?” he asked, not being able to distinguish one day from the other, being on tour. I told him, then he wrote 4/20/09 and scribbled his name on the front cover of my diary.

This wasn’t a lost weekend for me after all. Thanks, Lloyd.

Public Display of Opera

  Last month I sold my car -- for a whopping 100 Euros. It was a pretty good deal, considering it was 15 years old, and the cost of repairs began to exceed what I paid for it in the first place. Nevertheless, having a car would’ve come in handy this month, which seems to be the most fruitful of my freelance singing career so far, or at least the most travelled. I’ve been commuting back and forth between Frankfurt and Düsseldorf, making day trips to Wuppertal, Mainz and Berlin. All these kilometers were clocked up on the Deutsche Bahn (for more about my travels, go to the archives: Running to Stand Still).

    I haven’t missed the price of gasoline or the stress of theAutobahn, nor the added adventure of trying to find someone to help me push-start my car. One thing I sorely miss about driving, though, is singing at the top of my lungs. I loved surfing through the stations, trying to find the one that wasn’t playing a Katy Perry song. Futile. So then I’d pop in a tape. Yes, that’s right, a cassette tape. I don’t care what anybody thinks - even if I buy a brand new car someday, I’m going to have it outfitted with a cassette deck.

    I have enough cassette tapes to fill three or four shoe boxes. Mind you, most of these are mix-tapes which dear friends have made for me over the years. My friend Todd and I must’ve made over 20 compilations for each other, trying competitively not to repeat songs we’d put on previous tapes, making personalized covers out of magazine clippings. And of course my sister, my music guru, still sends me compilations, albeit now in compact disc form. Without her, I would never have heard of most of the music I love to listen to today -- they don’t play the good shit on the radio.

    The five cassettes I last had in my car were R.E.M’s Acceleration, Duffy’s Rockferry (both gifts from my sister which I put on tape so I could listen to them in the car), a mix-tape from my sister made circa 1986, a mix-tape from Todd, circa 1990, and the soundtrack to the movie Once (also transferred to tape for road-trip purposes).  On that tape is what has to be my favorite song of 2008: “When Your Mind’s Made Up.”  I absolutely LOVE this song. It builds up more dramatically than any operatic aria I’ve ever sung. It’s in 5/4 time but sounds in no way jazzy (like the Dave Brubeck Quartet’s famous “Take Five”) or cheesy (like “Everything’s Alright” fromJesus Christ Superstar). I love singing along, or rather wailing along towards the end, making up a third harmony. In fact, I always like to harmonize. 

    In my car, I was the fifth Beatle, the third Indigo Girl, the sixth Jackson. On the train, I’m just an oppressed freelance opera singer -- especially when I’ve got my ubiquitous iPod set to shuffle and my favorite song comes on unexpectedly. Bursting with the desire to sing backup vocals, I simply have to sit there, at most tapping my foot with a profound smile on my face. 

    Practically everyone on public transportation has some sort of cable coming out their ear nowadays. I once sat next to a 60-something year old woman, and was surprised to see her pull white earbuds out of her purse. I wonder what she was listening to. Helen Reddy? Nine Inch Nails? Was she, like me, suppressing the urge to break into song? It’s really too bad that people don’t just sing out loud anymore. Surely, there was a time long ago where you just hummed a little tune when the spirit moved you. Actually, in Coburg where I used to live, there is a man who has a portable radio on his handlebars. He cycles through town on sunny days, singing along whether he knows the song or not with his very penetrating tenor. You can hear him coming from clear across the town square. But he’s a bona fide nutso and everybody knows it. 

    There’s a time and place for anything, though. You don’t have to be completely bonkers to sing in public. My friend Patrick and I went busking once in Berlin. We both had guitars, singing classic tunes by Bruce Springsteen, the Beatles, the Police, the Rolling Stones, et al, and even that Oscar-winning song from the Oncesoundtrack, “Falling Slowly.” People either walked right on by not registering us at all, some smiled, some even stopped for a minute to listen, and still others actually put some change in our bucket. But nobody thought we were crazy. I decided to see what the reaction would be if I sang something operatic. I chose the shortest, most accessible aria I could think of: “Quando m’en vo” from La Bohème. Apparently, public displays of opera are not as appreciated at the Hackescher Markt as they might be in front of Covent Garden. Not only did the passersby not give me any spare change, they cowered by as quickly as possible, with appalled expressions on their faces. One manager of a nearby restaurant turned up his music even louder to drown out my lyrical outburst. Even Patrick looked as if he were saying, “Can we please go now?” I’m sure they all took me for a bona fide nutso. I thought I sang pretty well.

    This is why I don’t make it a habit to practice on the train, but I am sometimes left with no other choice. Recently, I got a call from a theater to jump in for a role I’d never sung before. With two hours to get there, I grabbed a recording and the vocal score from the library, and with my portable CD player (thank goodness I didn’t throw that away!) tried to find a seat on the train where I could softly mutter along. I’m sure no one thought I was crazy then, because I had the music there right in front of me. Pretentious, maybe, but not crazy. Another theater was considering me for a role in a modern opera and sent me the score along with a recording so that I could determine whether it would be something suitable for me. What with all my gallivanting around, I didn’t have time to study it at home. So there I sat again, on the train, score in my lap, headphones on, humming along as best I could. I wonder if my fellow passengers could appreciate Peter Maxwell Davies’ atonality. 

    

    Last week I had to go back to Berlin to audition for an agent. She expressly stated that there was no place to warm up or vocalize in that building. A month ago, I could’ve warmed up in the car. What to do? Well, I figured, Berlin already knows I’m crazy. Besides, the platforms in the train station are so loud and full of psychos that my little refrains of “iii-eee-aaa-ooo-uuu” probably wouldn’t disturb anyone. The audition was a success, the day was sunny, and after having visited with a couple old friends, I happily rode the train back to Düsseldorf. 

    The next morning I took the bus to rehearsal. Although I was listening to my iPod, I heard a soft melody coming from across the aisle. Lo and behold, I turned to see a man without headphones actually singing to himself - softly, but beautifully and sincerely. I turned off my iPod and enjoyed listening to him sing for the rest of the journey. Perhaps he had just sold his car, too.

Maybe Tuesday will be my good news day

  I like a Gershwin tune, how about you? 

    For those of you not in the know, the title of this entry is a line from the Gershwin brothers’ classic song “The Man I Love.” Well, it’s Tuesday, and here’s some pretty good news:  Barack Obama has taken office as the first African-American president of the United States of America.

    ‘Swonderful... We have overcome so many obstacles to have made this possible. Of course, we have a long way to go. The fact that race was even an issue for some voters is still a crying shame. Most tears shed this Tuesday, however, were tears of joy. I myself got weepy on several occasions during this campaign - from the moment Senator Obama announced his candidacy to the moment President Obama was sworn into office. ...Love walked right in and drove the shadows away...

    There were two moments during the inauguration today which were especially moving for me as a classical singer. The constitution provides that a president’s term begins at 12 noon on inauguration day, with or without oath. At exactly 12 noon, the quartet of renowned musicians were still playing. The piece was a  virtuostic rendition of the Quaker hymn “Simple Gifts,” which brought a peaceful hush over the enormous crowd. President Obama sat there, attentive and appreciative of the wealth of talent playing before him (and for him). The serene smile on his face grew maybe slightly wider when his wife Michelle, at 12 noon exactly, briefly put her gloved hand on his shoulder. One could hear a few cheers out of the crowd, but they quickly subsided until the song finished, at which point the uproarious cheering resumed explosively.

    I was amazed at how polite over a million people could be. After all the hatred, incivility and scornful behavior during the elections, the Americans showed that they are capable of respect, reverence and regard. The world literally turned in a new direction underneath their feet, but they still listened to the music. ...I got rhythm, I got music ... who could ask for anything more? ...

    Then it was time to take the oath. As an opera singer who has flubbed up her spoken lines on several occasions, I winced when the “dialog” between President Obama and Chief Justice Roberts didn’t go quite so smoothly. Of the many conditions under which a slip of the tongue can occur, I’m inclined not only to chalk this one up to bad prompting (an epidemic in some opera houses), but also to skirting around the president’s middle name. The elephant in the room was named “Hussein.” The announcer referred to the president as Barack H. Obama, while Dianne Feinstein, head of the inaugural committee, called him simply Barack Obama, then for the first time during the taking of the oath, his full name was used. The subconscious ramifications of the controversy surrounding this name (controversial, of course, only for the hateful, incivil and scornful people) surfaced in this otherwise innocuous repeat-after-me situation. ...Wadoo, zim bam boddle-oo, Hoodle ah da wa da, Scatty wah! (scatty what?) ...

    George and Ira Gershwin were born Jacob and Israel Gershowitz, sons of a Russian musician who changed his name upon immigrating to the USA. It was easy for them and other Jewish immigrants to change their names and shed some of their Jewish identity in order to fit in -- after all, their skin was white. Would it have made any difference had our new president changed his name to Billy H. O’Brien? I am impressed that he proudly clings to his heritage by standing by his name.  Even if he would change it, it would serve no purpose, because the world still sees him as a black man. Why this should be a problem for some defies all logic, but for now, that seems to be the way it is. ... In time the Rockies may crumble, Gibraltar may tumble, they’re only made of clay. Our (hate) is here to stay...

    The Gershwins were lucky enough to have parents who immigrated to the USA already at the turn of the 20th century, avoiding the strife (to put it ultra-mildly) in Europe during the time when George and Ira were writing their greatest hits. Theirs also being an oppressed race, judged not only on their beliefs, but also the size of their noses and the circumferences of their skulls, they were better able to relate to their black neighbors. They had good reason to be touched by a 1925 novel titled Porgy by DuBose Heyward, which depicted life in the black tenements of Charleston, South Carolina.

    Together with Heyward, the Gershwin brothers adapted the novel into the opera Porgy and Bess, first performed in 1935, featuring a cast of solely African-American singers (with the exception of a few minor roles for whites). In fact, the Gershwin estate stipulates that only blacks be allowed to play the lead roles when the opera is performed in the United States (Not surprisingly, the only all-white production took place in Europe under Nazi occupation in the 1940’s, and few other mixed productions have taken place since then). While I love singing “Summertime” as much as the next soprano, it seems to me a matter of course that Gershwin would have reserved this opera for African-American singers. Am I being audacious to purport that this is their story, they’ve deserved it, it belongs to them?

    Wait a minute. ...It ain’t necessarily so!... The more reading I do on the subject, the more it I learn that this opera is not the pride and joy of the African-American opera community. Apparently, there’s not much appreciation for a story which stereotypically depicts its characters -- impoverished beggars, violent crooks and drug addicts. Still, poet Langston Hughes said of the author, “Heyward was one who saw with his white eyes, wonderful, poetic qualities in the inhabitants of Catfish Row that makes them come alive." And biographer James M. Hutchisson thought Porgy to be the first major southern novel to portray blacks without condescension.” I personally find the music magnificent and challenging, and realize that the authors fastidiously researched the lifestyle and dialect before putting pen to paper.  The opinions on the work are mixed, but I conclude that it is not the piece itself which causes the controversy. 

    I happen to know two people personally who are currently singing in Porgy and Bess, both of them idols of mine. I asked one of them (I’ll call him “Porgy”) what his thoughts were on the subject. It ended up being impossible for him to sum his feelings up in a few words, and I do realize what a big can of worms I’ve opened up just by beginning to write this article. I’ve followed Porgy’s career since I met him in 1998. I was Ines to his di Luna in Il Trovatore.Then he was well on his way to the top, if not there already. I remember him telling me about a discussion he had with a (German) opera director who did not want him to play Rigoletto. Why? Well, the woman playing Gilda (his daughter) is white. It just wouldn’t be believable, he was told. Whatever happened to willing suspension of disbelief?  

    Why do I scoff at the notion of racial discrimination in Italian opera, yet support Gershwin’s stipulation for Porgy and Bess?  I guess it’s two sides of one coin being told you can’t play Rigoletto “because you are black” and being offered to sing Porgy “because you are black.” How many sopranos singing Bess have been denied a Butterfly or a Desdemona on account of their race (even though the real reason is seldom given)? These incidents are rare, I hope, and my friend “Porgy” did get to sing Rigoletto, of course. Why? Because he is an exquisite artist who has studied thoroughly. He is an intelligent musician and an expressive singer who channels humanity itself through his voice and stage presence. 

    I know when I hear sincerity in a voice. It is a sound which also resonates in our new president. Let’s go back now to the inauguration and listen to John Williams’ arrangement ... ‘Tis the gift to be simple, ‘tis the gift to be free... being played by Itzhak Perlman (Jewish immigrant), Gabriela Montero (Venezuelan), Anthony McGill (African-American) and Yo-Yo Ma (Chinese-American). Is this a presidential inauguration or a United Colors of Benetton commercial? Were these performers chosen on the basis of their race? Are we trying too hard? Hmmm... maybe. But they also happen to be the very best in the business, the most qualified for the job.

    Surely we’ve overcome many a prejudice, and we should rejoice in this day. But the memory of all that has come before cannot be so easily forgotten. ... No, no they can’t take that away from me...So, I return to Tuesday, my good news day, and I’ll try to leave race out of it: 

Barack Obama, the man most qualified for the job, has taken office as President of the United States of America.

Ain’-a that good news?