autumn
Sink into autumn with my listening playlist, full of autumn inspired music from the world of classical music.
What’s your favourite season? I know a lot of people would say autumn (or ‘fall’ in the US). Would it surprise you to I love every season and the changes between them?… sad to see the previous season go, and to welcome the return of the new season like an old friend.
There are many depictions of the seasons in art and music, so I thought I would add a few here and link it to a youtube playlist for you to explore more.
Feel free to add your favourite pieces in the comments section below if I’ve missed something out! You’ll see I’ve included a range of instruments/emsembles/styles/periods and I hope a few that you enjoy exploring for the first time as I have.
1 Chant d’automne, Faure
Sung by soprano Mary Bevan, accompanied by Joseph Middleton
2 Four Seasons, Autumn, 3rd Movement Allegro, Vivaldi
Played by Voices of Music, with solo baroque violin from Carla Moore
3 ‘October - Autumn Song’ from The Seasons, Tchaikovsky
Solo piano Olga Scheps
4 ‘Now the Leaves are Falling Fast’, from On This Island, Benjamin Britten
Sung by Peter Pears, Accompanied by Benjamin Britten
5 ‘September’ from Das Jahr, Fanny Hensel (Fanny Mendelssohn)
Solo piano Diana Sahakyan
6 ‘The Fall of the Leaf’, Imogen Holst
Solo cello Amily Airhart
7 ‘September’ from Vier Letzte Lieder, Richard Strauss
Sung by Renee Fleming, at the Proms, in 2001
8 The Seasons: 1. Autumn, Thea Musgrave
Solo clarinet Concerto played by Victoria Soames Samek, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Conducted by Thea Musgrave
9 Pensee D’automne, Massenet
Sung by Huguette Tourangeau, Accompanied by Richard Bonynge
10 Autumn Gardens, Einojuhani Rautavaara
Played by the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy
Choir
Whilst singing as a soloist is always enjoyable with many benefits to us - today I’m exploring and celebrating group singing and why you should consider searching for your nearest choir and joining!
When new pupils come to me for lessons I like to chat to them about their previous experiences in music. Many have sung before, some have had lessons, but ALL of them will have some prior experience of group singing or singing in a choir.
Many pupils tell me of wonderful memories in choral societies or as a child - but unfortunately there are often some negative school experiences that have put people off. I am here today to tell you not to let that experience get in the way of a very warm and fulfilling pastime that has many benefits to you as a singer, and as a human being.
Firstly, I encourage ALL my pupils to take part in group activities like theatre, choirs, A Capella groups, or school activities. It’s an easy way to add regular singing to your life, while learning vocal technique, muscianship skills, and new repertoire/music styles.
Secondly, singing with a group of people with similar interests as you is a wonderful bonding experience. Many new friendships and relationships are made at choir rehearsals. Remember that you may have to do a little research to find the right choir for you - but once you have found it you may be a member there for some time! It’s worth the research time.
Some Benefits of group singing:
helps forge social bonds
is effective for bonding large groups
excercises the brain
beneficial for improving breathing, posture and muscle tension
reducing the stress hormone cortisol and boosting the Immunoglobin A antibody, helping us sustain a healthy immune system
is universally accessible - anyone can sing! (yes, really!!!)
is cognitively stimulating and helps with memory
it’s cheap! We all have a voice in our body waiting to go, without any investment needed
Sometimes I have pupils asking for help to build their skills for choir auditions or to help them sing with more ease at choir - and I am always happy to help you with this. This doesn’t have to mean long-term lessons, get in touch with me or your local singing teacher to discuss your goals.
As always, comment below if you have any thoughts on this subject, and follow me on social media for more quotes and information about singing and performing.
perfume
It is helpful to think of and use all our senses when we learn to sing and perform. Perhaps one that is sometimes overlooked is our sense of smell.
There are many songs that describe scent particularly of flowers, but let’s explore some other ways we can use our sense of smell to help us.
Read ‘Surprising Facts about your Nose” in this link:
Memory
If you use a certain scent during studying, it may help you remember those facts later. You could try this with learning words and text, to see if it helps you recall the work you did in the practice room.
Resonance
Your nose and sinuses are used to help your resonance. This is why if you have a cold or suffer from hay fever which blocks your sinuses your speaking and singing voice sounds different, or sometimes it feels uncomfortable to make certain sounds that require resonance in the areas that are inflamed/blocked.
Resonance due to emotion
If you take a breath in when you laugh (let’s call this ‘true emotion’), you make sound resonance from different areas than if you are faking a laugh/not happy. Have a little experiment and see what feels different to you?
One way to access these resonance areas/areas that describe joy or love is through scent/imagining smelling a rose or similar. This may help you to act/sound with your voice a certain emotion.
The science says:
‘Spontaneous laughter is often higher in pitch, longer in duration, and shows spectral characteristics that differ from voluntary laughter; voluntary laughter, on the other hand, is more nasal than spontaneous laughter. Perceptually, spontaneous laughter is perceived as more authentic than voluntary laughter, and as more positive and higher in arousal.’
Performance Practise
When you are performing a song or an aria, try to ground and build your character using the senses including sense of smell. Where is your character? What surrounds them?
Are they by a stream with the smell of wet moss?
Are you singing about a flower with a perfume?
Is your character in a hot dusty place?
Anserwing these sorts of questions and deciding on this in advance will help you more easily create a sense of place and setting from which to communicate your poem/emotion of the character.
Putting this into practise: Smell the Rose
One idea often suggested by singing teachers is to imagine you are smelling a beautiful rose before you sing a passage that is very beautiful/shows love/has warm and legato phrasing. The way we breathe in a delicious beautiful smell will open into different areas and therefor resonating areas than when we smell a horrible smell.
Sometimes I suggest a pupil thinks of something they particularly like - sweets, ice-cream, marmite… whatever helps them think of that nice slow breath in and helps change the resonance to colour the voice differently, and communicate the emotion needed.
As always, feel free to comment below and add your experiences of using smell to improve your singing and performance communication.
birds
Learning to float and soar with your voice.
Birds are a continual fascination and inspiration to us - hardly surprising in music when their birdsong is so admired!
In particular, I’ve found that some people wish to emulate the soaring feeling of a bird in flight in their own singing. They enjoy the feel of ‘soaring’ or floating through the music they are singing, like a bird does. So what is that, and how can we create that in our voices?
“The birds are the opposite of Time...They are our desire for light, for stars, for rainbows and for jubilant outpourings of song!””
When you see a bird soaring above, floating almost effortlessly above the earth, what are you really seeing?
The bird has flown from a perch on/near the ground, risen to a height where it feels the support of the wind that allows it to stay in the air. The view we have is of no effort, when actually some rather complicated physics and effort has helped the bird get there.
Here are the things I suggest pupils think about and use to achieve this with their voice:
Mind
Support
Breath
Reduce the feeling of weight or pushing
Repeat and experiment
Know where your strong beats/words are, and therefor the lighter beats and words
An inflexible voice that is pushed or feels heavy will not float or feel light. How much ‘play’ and ‘give’ do you have at your disposal? Could you find more?
As ever, if you have questions get in touch below, book in for a lesson, or work with your teacher to discuss some of these and how they work in your voice.
“Birds have always had the ability to bring me out of a dark space and provide relief in bad times.”
grow
growth as a performer and why it is good for us
“Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still”
In our blog today we are thinking about growth. In an attempt to allow balance in my work and personal life I have enjoyed trying to reflect the seasons more. I am learning to accept quiet times and use them for learning/technical work, planning (usually the dark winter months) and enjoy them knowing that busier times always come, particularly in the warm sunny summer months. Some people try ‘wintering’, a sort of modern-day hibernating - is this something you have tried?
So as we are now in spring, I am thinking of growth. What is growth in our performing life? Why is growth important? How can we grow?
What is growth?
We’ve all felt that nagging feeling that we are ‘stuck’, failing to progress, or being given work that does not stretch us - and felt frustration from those feelings! We don't always feel that we are in a position to progress at a pace we are happy with. So taking some ownership is helpful to plan your own development.
So what can you do? It’s a case of ‘Show: don’t tell’. Don't waste time telling people, find ways to do it!
Why is growth good for us?
Having a growth mindset means believing that effort and skill development will better your life.
As humans, having a ‘growth mindset’ is linked with higher levels of wellbeing and better mental health.
Those with a growth mindset are found to have better ability to cope with stress and anxiety.
Have a quick google to read more about growth mindset and how it might help you!
Tips to grow
Choose new repertoire, research something you haven’t yet learned. Perhaps if you are a singer you could brush up your language skills, or learn a new song cycle?
Tackle the technique you have been having difficulty with. We all come to a point where we need to address something that has been causing us difficulty - maybe there is someone who can help you do that or you can ask your teacher to help you find ways to work it out.
Work with someone new. A new accompanist, a new group of musicians, a new teacher, a new coach, a music course… Get a fresh perspective and ask their advice.
Be brave. Challenges help you to figure out the true extent of your abilities. Experimenting in lessons and with teachers is a safe space to try.
Remove the fear of failure. If you try something in a safe space, failure is not a problem, and growth is more likely as you will not be holding back.
l’amour
Exploring different types of love as depicted by the Greeks, and how this relates to classical music
“Every heart sings a song incomplete until another heart whispers back.”
In this months blog I’m tackling the complex idea of love and its different forms as categorised by the Greeks.
Within the world of music, opera, and lieder, we are asked to understand and portray all these forms of love. Here is my summation to help you fast-track your research.
By being able to distinguish which type of love you are portraying, you will have a clearer idea of motivation, whether your character is experiencing a deep and powerful reason for the action in the aria, or perhaps a surface and poorly thought out reason.
Do you agree with my different suggestions of opera characters and which are experiencing which type of love? Let me know of any other suggestions in the comments below. Most operas include the tension between Eros and Philia, for instance, and I think sexual passion is probably the main one in most operas!
Eros (sexual passion) - Carmen, Semele, Romeo and Juliette, Turridu for Lola: Cavalleria Rusticana, Manon, La Traviata, La Boheme, probably most operas!
Eros (ἔρως érōs)
(from the Greek deity Eros) is passionate love, with sensual desire and longing. The Greek word erotameans in love. Plato refined his own definition. Although eros is initially felt for a person, with contemplation it becomes an appreciation of the beauty within that person, or even becomes appreciation of beauty itself. Eros helps the soul recall knowledge of beauty and contributes to an understanding of spiritual truth. Lovers and philosophers are all inspired to seek truth by eros. Some translations list it as "love of the body".
Philia (deep friendship) - Nadir and Zurga: Les Pêcheurs de perles, Cosi fan Tutti
Philia (φιλία philía)
dispassionate virtuous love, was a concept addressed and developed by Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics Book VIII. It includes loyalty to friends, family, and community, and requires virtue, equality, and familiarity.
Philia is motivated by practical reasons; one or both of the parties benefit from the relationship. It can also mean "love of the mind."
Ludus (playful/flirtatious love) - Papagena/Papageno: Die Zauberflöte, Cherubino: Le nozze di Figaro
Agape (love for everyone, empathetic love) - Violetta: La Traviata
Agape (ἀγάπη agápē)
love in modern-day Greek. The term s'agapo means I love you in Greek.
Referring to a general "pure," ideal type of love, rather than physical attraction suggested by eros. However, there are some examples of agape used to mean the same as eros. Sometimes translated as "love of the soul."
Pragma (longstanding love, committed companionate love) -The Merry Widow,
Storge (unconditional, family love) - Ilia for her family: Idomeneo, Romeo and Tybalt, Nurse for Juliette, Aida
Storge (στοργή storgē)
natural affection, like that felt by parents for offspring
Mania (obsessive love) - Lady Macbeth
warm up
warm up and get ready to sing
Here I am, in my sunglasses, ready to help you warm-up your body and voice to sing. Are you ready to start work?
Here are my top tips for a successful warm-up that will help you sing your best.
Schedule
Begin by scheduling in the time to warm up and practice. Make sure you leave yourself enough time to fit in what you want to achieve - or change your practice goals for that day.
Make sure you know how many times you want to practise this week, or even just to warm up your voice. Too much or too little will affect your goals and your muscle memory.
Prepare your space
I can't concentrate in an untidy room. Maybe you don’t have this problem - but I like the room to be clean and tidy, so I have as few distractions as possible! This helps create a calm space to work and I always feel more relaxed about my work.
How are you?
Before singing, take a moment to check in with how you feel today. Do you have a headache? Are you getting over a cold? Maybe you ache from exercise? All these things may affect how you will warm up and practice. Make sure you are making realistic and safe goals for the voice you have woken up with and not overdoing it.
Stretch, and Connect
We want our voices to be produced from a warmed-up neutral body that has no tension, pain, pulled muscles, or illness. We want our whole body to feel energised and yet relaxed - so begin with your favourite stretches. Choose a few positions that you may know from yoga or pilates, like roll-downs and Downward Dog to focus your mind and body.
I ask my students to do the same stretch I do. Reach up to the ceiling and pause, then gently lower your arms back down, feeling your shoulder blades slide down their back. This with a few gentle back rotations really helps me with my shoulder tension. Be aware of your own body and what it needs today.
Start at the very beginning
Be like Maria in The Sound of Music, and begin with gentle exercises of a few notes, before working up to longer and more complicated exercises. The voice should be treated gently.
Expand
Once you have completed the gentle exercises you are ready to expand and sing higher, and lower. You want to warm-up beyond the lowest notes and highest notes of the pieces you are working on in your practise session.
Add emotions
Even though your scales and arpeggios may be without words, experiment with adding emotion and meaning. Sing a scale as though very happy, very sad, angry, in love. Spot how your voice changes. Do you have a favourite emotion? Is the scale easier in one of these emotions than the other?
Isolate
Finally, you might want to take a phrase from your pieces that needs technical work and work on it in isolation from the whole piece.
Or, you may have a favourite piece/part of a piece you sing really well and you feel helps ground your voice in the right place. You might find it useful singing this before heading into the main part of your practice.
I hope you’ve enjoyed these tips - which do you find useful? As always, feel free to comment below, or share with your friends.
Learn to Sing
Learn to sing - what happens in singing lessons?
In my blog post today I’m going to take you through the benefits of taking singing lessons, and what happens in lessons with me. I’ve rarely met anyone who hasn’t dreamed of having singing lessons or working on their voice - but what do lessons entail? What happens in a lesson when you are a pupil, and what will you gain from lessons?
“The only thing better than singing, is more singing”
Why do people take singing lessons?
There are a number of reasons people take singing lessons, here is a list of some of the main ones I’ve encountered.
For enjoyment. Singing is enjoyable, and it makes us feel good. Many pupils take lessons simply because they enjoy the chance to sing and make music together. This is something I love sharing with my pupils.
To improve confidence. Many people feel vulnerable or self-conscious when performing, but lessons can help to give you confidence. Some people use lessons to help them learn and have more confidence to join or audition for choirs, musical theatre groups, sing with their guitar, or to join their local opera or Gilbert and Sullivan groups.
Sometimes pupils feel more confident presenting and public speaking in their jobs through their practise performing in singing lessons.
To gain qualifications through exams - school exams or College/University/ABRSM/Trinity/etc exams that progress through grades.
To learn more about technique. The human voice changes throughout our lives, so even the most experienced singer will continue to work on their technique. Lessons can help to ground your warm-up and practise with up-to-date information and ideas to help you with whatever stage you are at.
To explore different sounds. We all have the capability to make different sounds with our voices - and make different decisions about how certain phrases or songs should sound to communicate what we want to the audience. In lessons we can explore different sounds and choose which one you would like to use.
To problem solve. Some pupils have experienced difficulty doing something with their voice, or conquering a certain technique or repertoire. Lessons can help you work towards your goals.
To work on the performance or repertoire. Having a second person in the room can be useful to give you another perspective on your performance. Your teacher can guide you through portraying a character, showing journey, and making musical choices to ground that portrayal.
What happens in my singing lessons?
Firstly, I’ll invite a new pupil to sit and we will have a chat. I’ll introduce myself a little, and I ask about your previous experiences learning music (if any), your understanding of music, the body, and reading music, and your goals for lessons. I may make notes to remind myself - for instance if you can read music a little I know you can find your own note to start in your practice. If not, we will find other ways to help you.
I will ask how your voice feels today, check you have no illness, allergies, or feel tired. All these things may affect our lesson and what we sing together.
I will sit at the piano because I can play/accompany you for your lesson. Sometimes I use recordings for you to listen to/sing with, but for live performance practise and technical work I prefer using the piano as it gives us more freedom to stop and experiment.
Warm Up. We will sing a general/easy warm up of several exercises aimed to gently warm up your voice, and introduce the sung sound into our session. I know this can be a nerve-wracking thing for a new pupil (I’ve been there too!) so I will explain that these noises are for ‘play’ and experiment. They are not meant to be judged - in fact that isn't really my job at all!
I will choose exercises depending on your voice type, how comfortably you are singing in our lesson, and if you mentioned something in your goals you wish to work on.
We will sing a song. Either you will have brought music to sing together, or I will have music for you to learn. In regular lessons you may work on more than one piece for each lesson. The pieces you are working on will probably contrast - different emotions, different characters, different languages, different historical style etc. This avoids singing with the same style as it makes you sing out-with your comfort zone and make new muscle memory, helping you grow as a singer.
What will I gain from singing lessons?
This will depend entirely on you, and your goals!
You will enjoy singing with a live accompaniment, learning a song from an unknown piece of music up to performance standard
You will learn new ways to use technique and your voice to alter the sound you make
You will learn how to negotiate different phrases to make them sound the way you want them to
You will learn a variety of repertoire, including songs you may never have heard of before, broadening your knowledge and understanding of your voice
You will learn to think about the interpretation and performance of your music, and develop your skills as a communicator
You will become more confident in the sound you make from gaining better understanding of your voice
You will learn a skill, with many different aspects that shows development and skill attainment. This will give you a sense of achievement and pride, regardless of whether you sit exams or learn for your own enjoyment
You will learn a skill that you can share with others whether at home, with your friends or family, or taking part in performances
You will learn the skills of how to use your voice so that you can problem solve technique and work on music yourself
I have a broad experience of teaching and have taught people with different learning styles and approaches, so please let me know if there is anything you would like to share with me about you before your lesson.
I always aim to teach in a way that helps each pupil achieve and succeed in their own goals, and I am open to altering our lessons to help you do this.
positive
Staying positive
‘Where you tend a rose, my lad, a thistle cannot grow.’
-Frances Hodgson Burnett, ‘The Secret Garden’ -
In life, it is often said we fall in to one of two camps: optimists and pessimists. You probably already know or have an idea which you are! It’s not entirely the whole truth though, as many of us are a little of both, switching between the two.
In the arts we are often very hard on ourselves, and being self-employed we can feel the loneliness of working by ourselves for long stretches between gigs. I’ve heard of one artist describing success from one in ten auditions - so how do we handle the rejection, knock-backs and self-belief if we work in an industry by ourselves. And why should we be positive? There is a romantic fiction that performers are notoriously depressed, sarcastic and negative off stage…
Firstly, and most importantly, being positive is good for us. It not only makes us feel better, it is good for our health overall in many different ways.
The Benefits of having a Positive Mindset:
Increased lifespan
Better stress management
Lower rate of depression
Better cardiovascular health and reduced risk of death from stroke and cardiovascular disease
Greater resistance to illness
Lower levels of distress and pain
Improved creative thinking
Stronger leadership skills
Have I convinced you yet? It’s a fairly conclusive list. These health benefits would make you better at performing as your body would be better at processing stress and recovering after.
Positive emotions actually widen our span of attention and it also changes our perception and focus on more of the “we” instead of the “me”
(Goleman, 2013. p170)
Well that covers the problems performers can have focussing on our own issues instead of thinking about the bigger picture.
So steps could we take to think more positively in our every day life and our life as performers?
Keep a practise diary and look back on past goals to acknowledge your progress. Slow progress is still progress, and is usually longer ingrained.
Visualize success. Not always winning first prize/the part, but singing your best, feeling connected in the performance, engaging with the audience, portraying your character well.
Being grateful. Maybe there are parts of your work that are hard, but do they allow you to work with great colleagues? Can you work from home and reduce travel away from family? Has a job unexpectedly led to another job that you love - maybe that will happen again?
Make plans. Treat your job like a business and do a full plan assessing where you are, and where you want to go. What are the ways you can get yourself to those end goals? Are there some in-between steps you can take to gain experience? Remember to book a six month assessment into your diary to establish what has worked and what you will change.
Remember past successes. How did that make you feel?
Read stories about the heroes in your industry and their journey to success. There are very few stories of instant/easy success, most artists strived and struggled through difficult times, having to find their way through multiple issues.
Exercise and diet. Ensure you are giving your mind and body the fuel it needs. Find someone to help you with these if it keeps you motivated.
Acknowledge your struggles. Being positive isn’t about pretending and living your life as a lie. Be real, but don’t allow that to pull you down and become your only reality. Deal with your sadness, anger, frustration, and move on.
As ever, these things can be talked about with your teacher and incorporated into your practise routine. If you feel your issues run deeper, seek professional help from a professional. Professional help will be a sound investment in your career and life.
If you have any comments or tips on how you stay positive, feel free to comment below.