Reasonable Expectations #1

This one goes out to the many young singers who feel destined for the stage!

Let’s take a candid look at your practice schedule...... how much do you actually sing?

Consider for a moment the hours of a full-time job. On average, 40 hours per week. For the sake of argument, let’s halve that, so 20 hours only. Let’s include the weekend to avoid singing 4 hours per day across a 5-day workweek. So, 7 days of singing a little less than three hours a day.

Now, ask yourself if you sing 3 hours a day, or 2, or even one full hour..... I will, of course, grant you, that a sizeable chunk of the job is spent in the studying of the score and the text. Nevertheless, if you consider your physical skill the basis of your career, it would behoove you to consider how many hours athletes put into theirs. Italian schools of singing from the 16 and 1700s are reported to have had rigorous training that included as much as 4 hours of vocalizing and repertoire practice. Whether this is ill-advised or otherwise, it is food for thought when reflecting on one’s own practice habits.

If you are finding that you struggle to find practice time, create or maintain a practice schedule, or struggle to keep yourself engaged in your vocalism sufficiently to rack up a respectable number of practice hours a week, it might be time to do some serious evaluation of your final goals in singing.

The Digital Pupil.....??

While not a new idea to me, I have recently become conscious of the prevalence of lessons-via-media, specifically the Skype lesson. It seems that they are not just an "option" as they once were. They have apparently become positively mainstream.

      Personally, I am wary of this phenomenon. Perhaps more than wary. In fact I admit to having an actual problem with it. I simply don't think that any teacher should take their standard fee based on any non-live experience of a person's singing. Anything piped through technology is suspect. Not suspect, of course, of any sort of auto-tuning, or the like. But even the simple fact of it having to be transmitted electronically.... It simply isn't the same thing, and I think there is something teetering on unethical about a teacher saying that they can promise to give their full, accurate aural attention and diagnostic capacity to something that is secondary (transmission) or tertiary (transmission & amplification equipment) to the live event itself. I personally do not do it because I feel I can't guarantee the best of what I can offer in the moment.
      I did once offer, at a significantly reduced rate (more for my time than anything else) to do some remote work with an already long-time student on a very short-term basis, and was somewhat relieved when this need did not materialize, as I felt uncomfortable with it from the moment I agreed to it.
      As an audiophile myself, I will be the first person to say that we have amazing recording capacity, and that the technology is impressive. It has brought hours upon hours of listening enjoyment to people. But any person who has listened to their favorite singer on recording at length and then heard them live will tell you.... It just isn't the same. And it is precisely this difference that should make teachers of voice balk before they agree to an arrangement of this sort, when a young singer is trusting their voice to, and giving their money over, into a teacher's hands.

The Great Warbling Primate....

If you ever want to feel small, and lazy, watch a nature program.

Sitting down to watch a part of the BBC's Planet Earth I immediately began to wonder, contrasted with the rest of bustling Mother Nature, what exactly it is that I do with my time... But while watching each animal explained, and how well suited to it's own habitat, I was struck by something:

Humans are an interesting breed in that we do things that we are not meant to do. We are not meant to fly, but we do. We are not meant to survive under water, but we do. We are not meant to go in to outer space but we do. And then there are the things we aren’t designed to do easily: We aren’t swimming creatures, having no fins, flippers or gills, but we do, and at length. We aren’t the most natural of runners, being bipedal and upright, but we run marathon distances. Next, addressing the things we are indeed designed to do in some measure, we find that we take them to olympic proportions. We are verbal, and we get Shakespeare. We are vocal, and we get Joan Sutherland.

As regards Singing; despite being made of reasonably strong psychological and emotional stuff, we are still only flesh and bone, and this can make for a very imprecise instrument. So one of the first things any singer must do, and must continue doing, is to forgive themselves for not being perfect. We will never, ever sing the same thing the same way twice. It is important to strive, in any skill. We have certainly been show that amazing vocal things are possible. But it's kind of fascinating to step back from time to time to reflect. The mere fact that we can discipline ourselves to something even approaching consistency is really something amazing.

First principles..

I suppose that for my first post on the subject of Singing, I should state a bit about my general approach to the subject, and consequently to this blog:

How we think is made manifest in how we act. What we believe is demonstrated by our actions. One may of course be able to come up with examples of cases where we seem to think something other than what we do. It is a natural sort of impulse to defend oneself with this observation when faced with cases of potential hypocrisy. If you normally argue, say, that thievery is bad, and then proceed to steal. Clearly, for you in that moment, Theft is preferable to some other option, or is not quite so bad a thing in your private mind as you would like for others to perceive you to think.  But I would suggest that there are also cases of this sort that can serve to be clarifying moments of honesty about our own natures. If, for example, you are a “singer” who espouses regular practice as necessary for any vocational singer, but rarely seem to find the time to practice yourself.... I will grant you, you may actually, truly believe what you say about regular practice, but perhaps what is just as true is that you are less of a singer than you would like to believe.

Generally though, I would say that the way you think about a thing is the way that you will go. This certainly applies to the field of singing. Because there are direct physical ramifications to your singing action, it is that much more important that one should have their head on straight about Singing from the start. And that is where my mind lingers.

Almost no one comes to the study of singing without some preconceived notions on the subject. And Singing, for all of its physical realities, still has an incredible amount of abstract conception involved and particularly acute kinesthetic sensitivity to parts of ourselves that are typically not accessed. As a consequence of this, it is easy to be swept up by something, be it the glamour of performing, the intricacy of technique, or the benefits of various musical styles, and to seek out what you want to hear or think, rather than what is true. In Singing, with the singer being both the musician and the instrument, it can be hard to extricate oneself from the emotional content or response and take a clear, honest look at progress. But for anyone who seeks to sing with any regularity, be it professionally or avocationally, and especially if they are looking to improve...... honest assessment is necessary.

Welcome and Introductions.....

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Hello readers!

Welcome to my page. This is my first blog ever, and is an extension of my webpage. Let me take a moment to introduce myself....

My name is Brad Jenks. I am a Vocal Instructor in the Chicago area, a sometime singer, and a casual writer. I have been involved with, in, or around classical vocal music at all levels, amateur to professional, for over 20 years, and been a teacher for almost 9 years.

As the son of a minister, choir and regular singing were a normal part of life from very early on. Solo singing was as nervous a thing for me as it is for anyone, but singing was a very natural part of everyday life. I grew up with all the music of the last 60 years in my household, and stumbled randomly into the world of classical vocal music, falling in love with it at an uncommonly young age.

What follows are the stream of my observations on the subject of singing as a craft, born of my last 2 decades of both singing and working; working with singers, working administratively in opera houses and festivals, singing with various colleagues and various groups. And of course, teaching...

Thanks to the wonderful group of individuals I have been blessed to advise, I have also had the opportunity that only teachers know, to learn about singing from the position of having to guide another as they begin their own journey.

I hope that some of my thoughts prove helpful, or at the very least, entertaining!

-Brad