Who dares to blog here?

I’ve had this blog title reserved for a long time but have never put anything up. It has always seemed to me rather presumptuous to assume that people will be eager to read what I write. I’ve read my share of blogs and, putting aside the political writers who have mostly have prestige to back up their words, bloggers talk but often don’t say much. But recently, I have been thinking that maybe I might say something that would be useful and helpful. So I’ll give this a try.

I am a singer and also teach singing in North Carolina, USA. I had a professional singing career (read www.katherineposner.com) and then decided to focus on teaching. There were two reasons for this decision. First, once I had had the experience of teaching, I knew it was something I loved to do as well as, if not more than singing. Second, I saw the trouble that singers were having with their voices, the struggles, and the trauma. I saw voices failing before their time and great singers ending their careers earlier than they should have had to. I was fortunate to have had a couple of teachers from whom I learned that this was not necessary, that singing can be done freely and easily for as long as we desire to sing. I wanted to share this with these troubled vocalists. I have now been teaching more than 30 years (along with keeping my hand in as a performer) and it has been most rewarding.

The trouble with blogs and with email communication in general is that it is entirely too easy to be glib, to just hastily put something down without thought, without concern for how the writing will be interpreted by the reader or correspondent. Which of us has not fallen into the trap of using a well-turned phrase, of which we are no doubt inordinately proud, that has offended someone or been totally misunderstood?

In this blog that I call “Natural Singing,” I shall try very hard not to do that. Everything I say will be what I mean and it will be couched in words that are intended to enlighten, engage and educate – to the best of my ability. If I fail to do this, I hope my readers will call me to task and demand that I expand and/or correct. Clarity is the soul of teaching. Oh, Lord, please let me be clear.

Let us start with a couple of definitions.

1) Natural singing: What natural singing is not is the way each and every one of us sings
now. We hear people say every day, “Oh, she has such a pretty natural
voice.” However pretty people may think a voice is, it is not “natural.”
No one who has ever sung, in my opinion, has ever sung perfectly. And I think
that is what natural singing is – perfect singing.

So my definition of natural singing is using the ideal voice for each one of us.
I believe that natural singing is the state of perfection that we all long for and
which is in total accord with the anatomy and physiology of the vocal mechanism.
So natural singing is what we aspire to. While we may never reach perfection, if
we expect it, we will help ourselves come as close as possible.

2) The vocal mechanism: That is what we sing with. It constitutes one bone, several
cartilages and over 40 muscles. There are plenty of books and online places
where you can read all you could possibly want to know about the anatomy of
the vocal mechanism. This is a good thing for a singer to understand. A lot of

voice teaching goes against the truth of how the vocal mechanism works and
we singers have to know how to protect ourselves against this misinformation.
Singing is a muscular activity and, as such, is subject to the laws of muscle
action. More about this as we go.

I believe in freedom when it comes to singing. Here is a description of truly free singing:

1. The sound starts all on its own, seemingly even before you can finish taking a breath. You do not have to induce the sound to start by effort.

2. You have plenty of breath to sing whatever you want to sing. You are very little aware of using the breath. You take your breath when you decide to and then just sing.

3. You can sing any note in your range easily. This does not mean you can sing any note on the piano. If you are a bass, you probably cannot sing as high as a coloratura soprano, but you can probably sing the same notes as a tenor – they just sound different.

4. You have a wide range of at least 2 octaves (24 notes) and probably 2-1/2 up to 3 octaves (36 notes). (Two to two-and-a-half octaves in men; up to three – or more - in women.)

5. You can sing any note in your range at any volume level you choose, from the softest to the loudest, most powerful sound possible for your voice type.

6. You can make your voice sound very “dark” or very “light” or anything in between. I put these two words in quotes because dark and light are pretty subjective terms. You can convey an emotion with the quality of your voice. Singers call this vocal color or coloring the voice, which you can do at will when your voice is free.

7. You can sing music that is very slow and have lots of breath for a long musical phrase.

8. You can sing music that goes very fast and has a lot of notes and every note is right on pitch and clear as a bell to your listeners.

9. Your diction is excellent. Everyone tells you they can understand every word you sing.

10. You can make a crescendo or decrescendo on any note or phrase (louder or softer) while you sing it. Singers consider that the ultimate technique is the messa di voce. This is an expression in Italian which means the ability to start any note in your range on any vowel softly, swell it gradually out to loud and then gradually back to soft. If you can do this, your voice is working perfectly. If you can do it fairly well, even though not perfectly, you are a good singer.

11. However you want to “sell” the song, you can do it. This means you can
interpret the text and convey the emotion that is in the words with ease, so that
people feel what you are singing.

12. You voice wants to work for you. You don’t have to coax your voice to sound good by endless vocalizing.

13. In your throat you feel little while all this is going on. You are not aware of the pitches changing as you sing or your tongue moving around very much. It is almost like the sound is magic, not connected to your body at all.

I would think this all sounds like something you would want to be able to do. Just another note and I’ll rest from my labors: This blog is about singing in a “classical” way, or as it is unpleasantly called these days, “legit.” What I will be talking about does not apply to pop singing, belting, rhythm and blues, gospel, country or contemporary Christian singing. These require a different use of the voice and the principles I teach and espouse do not apply to those. There are teachers out there who teach these styles of singing. If one of these types of singing is what you want to do, seek out those who teach what you want to learn. I have no doubt there are even blogs about these.

Here we will try to sort fact from fiction about singing. We will try to grasp the principles of free and healthy singing and figure out how to apply them. I will also try to guide anyone who is interested toward teachers whose understanding of the voice is sound.