As a singer for 35 years and a teacher for nearly 20 years, the experiences that I have daily are truly rewarding. Yes, it is true that some clients can be difficult, frustrating and just plain hard to reach. But when I see a light go off in their head and they get it and more importantly, they love it. The question comes forward, how do young singers breathe?
Once they learn to breathe, they are free!
The very first thing I do when I meet a client is ask them to explain to me how to breathe, show me, teach me. I am continually surprised by the number of clients that have never been taught, or perhaps haven’t gleaned this very important idea… “breathing or singing on the breath”. I will get much pushback, as I see so often posting about not needing any more air to sing than for speaking… well first of all, I work with people in the corporate sector on speaking in public… many people don’t have any training in their speech because we are all amplified in the public, in meetings in schools in churches. We are given so little training in elocution and yes, I said it, grammar, but that is another story. So my point is, we are not trained to use our air for speech either. I have been a professional opera singer for many, many years, and there is no way I could have accomplished the performances I have, and still continue to give these performances, without tying into a direct connected breath and support. Using all of my voice, loud, soft, high, low and middle, all the colors that can be attained when breath is in your control. This is the first and most important thing to me.
Many clients come in and they want a fast way to employment and they have studied hard and networked, but they don’t understand why they aren’t getting hired, but I have tell them the machine is not in order. If they aren’t in tune and don’t have an ease from one part of the voice to another, they will not be able to rise to the top, and certainly not sustain it.
There are many nay-sayers in the music world today, there always have been. I don’t find that very productive…but I do believe in being honest, breath is life, we need air to live and to sing.
So lets breathe and sing!
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