Learning Esperanza

I would venture to say that Esperanza Spalding is one of the most virtuosic singers of the time; in any genre. And for this reason, her songs are essentially irresistible to me.

As one always up to a challenge to see how far I can push my mind and abilities, I relish the opportunity to look Spalding’s song Chacarera, in the eye and just maybe, overcome. The song was written by Leonardo Genovese, but clearly intended for Spalding’s facility and skill. Few can sing this song. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to maneuver through it well enough to perform it on stage. But the sheer benefit of studying a piece like this is unmeasurable.

But with a piece like this, how do I attack it? Trial and error. There’s not much out there teaching us how to approach something like this. If we’re not an instrumentalist (and I am enough of a realist that I don’t claim to be an instrumentalist, although my keyboard skills get me through many situations), then we have to look at it in another way. This is my journey through this beautifully beastly piece of vocal acrobatics.

Step one is to acquire the music. Spalding’s site has it for sale in digital form, which you can download and print as you need. I printed the music and placed it tentatively in my “In-Study” section of my binder.

Thank goodness for YouTube. And so, I sit down with a pencil and my binder, in front of the computer and start to listen. The first few times, I’m just struggling to keep up and not loose myself. The thing to keep in mind is that this piece is almost equal parts precision and improvisation. There are these lovely little 2-measure vamps, hugged with repeats, that allow the piece to go on for a limitless amount of time. If you manage to figure out where “One” is in relation to the measure, you can count how many times Spalding and band chose to repeat the vamp. During these lovely interludes, the vocalist is free to improvise, along with the band. Coming back into the written notes is simple, since the rhythm stays the same, and as long as you don’t loose “One”, you’ll just come in when “the spirit leads”, and the band will follow. Or you can do the boring thing and decide in advance how many times you’ll repeat.

But let’s first figure out where we are in this piece of music!

So there’s basically two rhythmic shapes. Four, or three. The band is in six, but that’s too predictable and boring, over the polyrhythmic drum structure. So, we split it into two beats per measure. Okay, now I can handle that. And we count “one-e-and-a” or “trip-o-let” depending on the figure. There are duples, but those can be counted in the shape of 4. If you, as many of us vocalists, are rhythmically challenged, I suggest you take a yellow highlighter and mark the two beats of each measure, from the vocal line, through the piano staves. This will allow you to quickly see where your main pulse is, and it has helped me greatly in counting difficult pieces over the years. Since this song remains in a basic pulse, it’s not so difficult to keep in the rhythm once you use the highlighter trick. I use yellow, because it’s lightest and less distracting, and when you photo-copy the page for your accompanist (should you do so), it won’t show on the copy.

Now, I go through and, as with her other (and considerably more simple) pieces I studied in previous weeks, I indicate each breath she takes. Then I note where she extends or slurs a phrase where I might breathe. Remember, right now, we’re just analyzing what Spalding does, not creating rules of how we have to sing the piece.

Next, I sing an octave low, and while there is a huge range in this piece, I have a wide enough range that I am able to sing almost everything one octave lower. If you can’t do that, your challenge will be greater. And the first thing you need to ascertain is whether you are able to sing this song at all, given the extreme range. But when learning it, don’t strain to reach the highest notes. Indicate where you’ll sing down the octave, and do that when possible.

I listen to the recording, in order to catch the “groove” of the instruments (which is essential in this piece, and you’ll learn why after listening once or twice). And I only try to sing the outline of the basic shape of the piece. What does that mean? I sing the starting note, and the note I’m going to, or just the down-beat of each figure. In other words, I’ll sing the “One” and “two” of each measure (remembering we’re counting in two). I’m singing where my yellow highlighter indicated the pulse is. So in measure 3 (where the first vocalised portion begins), I sing D# to D-natural above that. The next measure I sing C# to the high A, but the rhythm changes, so I sing “trip-o”… and hold through the second pulse of the measure. The third measure of the vocalise, I’ll either “rest” on the “one” and sing the B, or sing “rest-A” on the first 2 beats of the triplet figure, to the B.

Now let’s look at a place where this process is easier and more helpful; measure 47 gives us a shape of 4, with Gb as the first note, going to a shape of 3 with a high F as the first note. Down to a D above middle C, up to a D, etc. Singing the shapes like this, with a metronome, and alternately along with the recording, will allow you to know where you’re going. This will help you to avoid getting lost when you add the other notes.

Next, I’ll take it apart rhythmically, excluding the notes. So back to measure 3 (beginning of first vocalised portion), I’ll give myself a big count of “one-two” per measure. Make it slow so you can be accurate. And then we count, “One-e-and-a, Two-and, Trip-o-(lit, trip-o-lit), (trip)-o-lit, trip-o-lit. Parentheses indicate the held or rested beats, but you still need to mentally count these. Try a metronome, so you actually remember to divide into equal 4 or 3 figures as indicated.

Other than that, it’s going back to the recording. Once you get the basic feel for the piece, listen to it no less than 50-100 times, following along, and notating everything you hear. Decide where you might change things to fit your voice. This is not a study in copying Spalding, but in learning from her so that you can be better at using your unique instrument.

Trust me, after several dozen repetitions, it will start to feel familiar…even comfortable. And once that happens, we start having real fun!

Independent Study

Making the transition from teacher to student; from undergrad to grad-school; from classical to contemporary; from one voice teacher to the next. It’s not easy to know where to focus in order to best attain the goals I’ve set for myself. For that matter, I don’t always even know what those goals are!

I continue to state these things so that I can fully understand them myself. Blogging has been a beneficial exercise in self-enlightenment.

When it comes down to it, there are three specific goals I have in my graduate education here at McNally Smith College of Music.

1. Pedagogical. As a voice teacher, this is probably my greatest area of focus. I’m always looking for ways to improve myself as a teacher. Reading whatever I can get my hands on, and analyzing every singer I hear in order to take what I can from their style. Learning from a mix of teachers has helped me to develop my teaching and communication style so that I can communicate with a very wide range of students.

2. Performance. This is probably my greatest focus currently, but it started out as a minimal focus. Since being bit by the writing bug and getting Consecrated Riff-Raff together, I’ve been spending a lot of time performing and working to be a better performer.

3. Repertoire & general knowledge. In addition to the practical side of this education, there is the information junkie in me that wants to know a little about everything & learn all there is to learn. In order to develop myself as a musician and educator, having a vast knowledge of resources and concepts and styles and such, will help to make me better at what I do. And it also provides me with considerable satisfaction to know that I am gaining a real grasp of the subject matter.

This summer, I’ve made the decision to not take private lessons. I’ll be taking the graduate pedagogy class; as well as a business class, DJ Techniques, and Diaspora of African Music which all go toward the Hip-Hop Diploma program.

Since I’m not taking private lessons, I am working on self-study of literature and artists so that I can be the most ready by the end of summer, to begin with my new voice teacher. How I best study is a systematic in-depth saturation into the subject matter. In this case, I am studying contemporary vocal literature, and focusing on female singers. I am studying the literature, but also the vocal technique of the singer, so my focus is on the musical artist, not the composer (unlike classical, which generally studies a set from a certain composer).

The areas I’ve most been told to work on, include developing my lower register (I’m still processing exactly what that means for my voice), working on phrasing in a natural speech-like manner, supporting through phrases even when it’s quiet singing, developing my use of straight-tone and being able to go from straight tone to vibrato easily & at will. This is not an all-inclusive list, but some of the bigger things that have stuck in my mind.

So I’ve selected several artists that range greatly in their style and voice types. I’ve taken three to five of their songs and I’m saturating myself into each artist, one at a time.

The first artist that I’m studying is Esperanza Spalding. She is a fantastic contemporary jazz singer and composer who has a very high level of technical facility in addition to having a very lovely voice and a great range. I’ve chosen to look at Apple Blossom, Little Fly, and Chacarera, all from her album, “Chamber Music Society”. Each day I sit down with one of these songs (starting withApple Blossom) and I listen. While I listen, I keep a pencil in hand, and I note everything on the score (I bought the full album score from her website, which is why I chose to do all songs from this particular album). First, I look at breath. I place breath marks wherever she takes a breath. I notate elongated consonants such as the [ng] she uses frequently in phrases such as on the word “springtime”, and the [m] on the end of “blossoms”. She also uses the [r] in the word, “marvel”, which provides a rich, conversational color.

The words that she stresses, I underline. While I’m doing this, I’ll also make notes of tricky intervals or rhythms, or things she might take out of rhythm, as well as phrasing choices. For example, on “he greets them fondly”, she stretches the phrase, almost allowing the words to morph into each other rather than separating them from each other.

Her vocal style is very easy and relaxed. Most of the time she uses a very straight tone, but phrases will move into a lovely, natural vibrato at the end. Her vowels are bright and wide (referring to the shape of the mouth), and her resonance has some nasality, which allows the brightness to come through. She is neither “full-voice” nor breathy, but sings consistently “on the breath” (breath fully engaged throughout the phrases), allowing her to sustain a beautiful even pitch such as measure 72, between “apple blossoms” and “As he opened the earth”.

Her head register is light and easy and unrestrained, simply allowing the voice to fly off the top of her head (a visual I give my students when singing into the head register), and it descends easily into the middle voice, using the break to provide color such as on the phrase, “receive her” where she goes from head to middle and back to head again.

Each time I listen to the song, I gain more information and gather new thoughts on how I might best perform the song. It’s a gorgeous song that is not easy to sing well. This is a technique I’ve used for years to learn music, and it has served me well. The goal is that by the time I finish three weeks of study with Esperanza, I will have a better understanding of her voice, my voice, and the voices of my students.

The Hard Conversations

I’ve learned that it doesn’t help to dance around the problem at hand.

Over the past week, I’ve been in the middle of some hard conversations. Two of these conversations were about the “fit” between student and teacher. In one case, I was the teacher, and in the other, I was the student.

Some people can take me, and some can’t. I’m an intensively laid-back person, if that makes any sense: I come across as intense, but when it comes down to it, not much frazzles me or frustrates me. The best thing you can bring into a relationship with me is honesty. With honesty, we can get a lot done.

So while most of my students over the years have “stuck” for considerable amount of time, and others have fallen away because of financial reasons or just life changes, there are situations where I have students that just don’t feel we “click”. Generally speaking, I detect this in the glazed-over expression on their face while we’re talking. And at that point, it’s not really worth it for me to try to convince them that we are a good fit. So seeing the look on the face (I can’t remember a time the “talk” was not preceded by the look, but it might have happened), I am completely ready for the talk to come.

Back in the day, I would take it personally when a student would stop study with me to find another teacher. I wondered what I did wrong. But more often than not, I didn’t do anything wrong, they just needed someone with a different style. Sort of like when you get turned down for the part because they’re looking for a different “type”. Nothing wrong with your singing, it’s just not a good “fit”.

So these days, I generally apologize if there was any misunderstanding or the student felt offended, but other than that, I leave it to, “That’s excellent that you know what you’re looking for in a teacher. I’m glad we had a chance to work together, even for a lesson or two, and I wish you the best of luck. Keep in touch.” And they often do. It’s not like we’re breaking up. They are finding themselves.

Having been on the flip side of that when I’ve had teachers who did not click with me, I know how frustrating it can be when you’reassigned a teacher who you don’t feel respects you or “gets” you. This happened a couple of times in my undergrad studies, but it also helped to make me a stronger person and a better communicator as I sought to communicate with people who I didn’t really understand or who didn’t understand me.

On the flip side, I recently had a talk with my current teacher at McNally. As I’ve gushed in the past, she is a fantastic teacher and I’ve learned an incredible amount from her. However, due the closeness of our ages, it puts an interesting dynamic into our student-teaching relationship. The way that I communicate is something that has to be taken at face-value, because if you try to interpret it, things get confused. So we talked this week about me starting with another teacher in the fall. That is a different kind of hard, when a teacher tells you that it’s time for you to move on. I’ve never done that with any students of mine, other than once when the student was just too young to be taking lessons. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not sometimes necessary. It is about everyone working well together, and I’m thrilled that Jen is able to give me the recommendation to study with one of the other fantastic McNally faculty members.

It all comes down to being humble and letting it go. There is no need to know why someone doesn’t think we’re a good fit. The fact that they think that is valid, and good enough. If the conversation ends with that understanding, then respect is likely maintained, and a working relationship can be fostered in the future. But offense will blind both sides. Defensiveness will make everything seem like an attack, even when that’s not the intention. Sometimes using few words is the best way to communicate. I’m still learning that.

Who says I’m qualified?

Me, around 2006, when I started my "professional" teaching carreer (i.e., I started charging)

At what point do you decide that you’re enough of an expert to charge people to share your expertise?

I fell into teaching. I was in high school and was available, and had enough of a musical ear (sans technical training) to be able to teach people parts and give them a pulse, keeping them together for the most part. After that, people started realizing that I seemed to know something about singing, and had a technique that was unusual in the Spooner, WI area, so they asked me to coach their kids. Of course, I didn’t feel right charging at that point, so I didn’t consider myself a “teacher”.

Later, I started working with my nieces and teaching them. Again, auntie didn’t charge, but the differences in voices provided me a great opportunity to learn to train different voices. One of the nieces had a very “brassy” voice, very much in her nose, and so we worked on opening the space a bit more and singing on a sigh. Another niece had a great voice, but less control, so we worked on support more with her. The third niece had pitch issues, and that’s where I learned to train people at varying degrees of “tone-deaf”.

Throughout my life, I’ve been asked to direct, be a section leader, lead music at church, and teach people music at my level of ability, but I never considered myself a teacher. That is, until around 2006, when I looked back and realized that I had been teaching in one capacity or another since about 1991 (when I was made music director in high school), and I just might be able to convince others that I could teach.

My first attempt at charging was via an ad on Craigs List, and I charged $12.oo an hour, and traveled to my student’s homes because I didn’t have studio space. And incredibly, they came! Every time I put out an ad, I’d be able to pick up another 1-3 students. And they kept paying, so I kept increasing the fee.

But I learned what made me a good teacher, and that is what this is about. My ability to analyze and honestly assess my abilities was respected by my students. There might be a point where I didn’t know what to do about a certain situation, and s I’d go mimic the sound that the student was making, in order to feel where the problem might be. I’d also read everything I could get my hands on, and I used my voice teacher at the time, Judy Bender, as my adviser and mentor. And strangely, I would figure it out, and my students would be impressed…even astonished, and would refer me to others.

Through this, I had the opportunity to teach seminars and classes, one-on-one and group lessons, and even was brought in to teach speaking technique and accent neutralization in a business school class. Had I listened to the voices (some internal, some external) that tried to tell me that I wasn’t able to teach, or I wasn’t qualified, I would never have realized my love of teaching. There’s something about going into a lesson and seeing a student get excited as they learn something new about their voice. Or when they come back, reporting that they, “got the part”. And that is why I do this.

On that note, I encourage you to do it. Go out there and be willing to learn as you teach. But please, remember that you don’t have all the answers. There is no shame in asking for help or advice. In fact, acquiring a mentor who is well-established in your area, will provide you with additional credibility.

But remember, you have a responsibility to your students. You are responsible for everything you say. If you’re unable to confidently put your entire reputation behind what you’re saying, please don’t say it. Ask someone first. Tell your student, “I don’t have the answer right now, but I’ll research it and have an answer for you next week”. They will respect you more, not less, for this.

Learning Music

It’s probably the single most frustrating thing for any singer: figuring out how to learn the music that they need to perform. Whether it’s classical or popular, English or foreign, easy or difficult, the same challenges are there.

I’ve had it fairly easy for the most part, since I am able to pick up music quite quickly. But at this point in the game, I’m well beyond “The Last Rose of Summer”, so It’s been necessary to develop some methods for learning music. And since I tend to be a systematic person, let me share my system with you.

1. Own the music. Whether you have loose sheets (several places online now allow you to buy online and download and print direct, which saves having to buy the whole book, and if you’re the kind who only uses one song out of a book, this can save a lot of money over time). You’re going to make marks in your music, so you don’t want to get in trouble when you return the book to the library. Since I use my books for mys students a lot, I don’t like to have markings in my original books, so I tend to make photo copies and make a note on the copy that the original source is in my personal library. Generally speaking, you have a certain amount of time to produce the original book from which the photo-copy was obtained, if the copyright police show up.
2. If the music is challenging rhythmically, or if you struggle with feeling the pulse of the music, take a yellow highlighter and mark your main beats. I go from the vocal line, into the piano, so that I can watch what she’s playing as well. It certainly has helped me learn rhythms better than most other systems. However, this is about what works for you. If it works better to write, “1 and 2 and 3 and..” or, “1-e-+-a 2-e-+-a…” above each measure, use that.
3. Listen several times to the song. If its a cover you’re doing, listen to the original artist and get thoroughly familiar with what they’re doing. Put it in your iPod and listen to it on repeat. I’ll even listen to it while reading the sheet music, so that I can notice anything unusual, or mistakes in the sheet music (it happens more than it should, considering the price of many books).
4. Next, I work on counting the rhythm. Just go through the music and make sure that your rhythms are correct. When you know that the rhythms are solid, add the words. But just speak the words at this point so that they flow.
5. When learning the words, it helps to speak them over and over as if you’re memorizing a monologue. Perform them like spoken-word so that you get the feeling of the words. Don’t forget the importance of words in the song. Sometimes singers get so carried away with a beautiful melody that we forget the importance of the story we’re telling.
6. If the song is in a foreign language, it’s important that you learn IPA and write it in. If you don’t yet know IPA, write the phonetic sounds while having a native or proficient speaker speak the words to you.
7. Learning notes is different for each person. Often times, for easier songs, it’s enough to listen to the recording while following along with the music. If not, you’ll need to hammer them out on the piano. If your piano skills are bad, you can pay a pianist to play the melody in the right hand and the left hand of the piano while you record it. Use this to listen to and learn the melody.
8. Repetition is the key. I’ve learned that repeating a foreign-language song 50-times will pretty much have it memorized. However, not until around 100-times is it “in my soul”, meaning it is so automatic that I can’t make a mistake (unless I’m on cold medicine that day or otherwise mentally completely checked out). This is the goal, to have the music owned inside of you so that you can be free in how you express the story. Of course, it might be more or less for you, but don’t skimp. It’s better to over-rehearse than to risk screwing up and sacrificing your hard work. When I speak of repeating, I mean simply singing through the song, or even a focused listening, while mentally following along with the sheet music or from memory. Listening to the music while watching TV probably won’t be sufficient. And for English songs, it’s generally a much shorter number of times for me to memorize.

Remember, singing is hard work. If you’re not making an effort, you’re not reaching your full potential. Push yourself to learn and achieve more.