Another good reason singers should avoid looking directly at the conductor

Popular Science: Why it’s so hard to swat flies, according to science.Why it’s so hard to swat flies As a clever singer, you understand that the voice is not an instrument, and that therefore the focus of your vocal education ought to be you. The more you know about yourself, the more you know about […]
New School Fundamentals: position, motion, attitude.

In singing, the last word is the sound.

This story begins at the end It has been some years since my last voice lesson. My relationship with that teacher, David L Jones, began to unravel the day I asked him a written technical question via private messaging. In person, I was easily swayed by his incredibly agreeable charm, and in retrospect I see […]
A video game that will teach you vocal anatomy

The L.A.R.R.I. Project I have always struggled to understand the functioning of my own voice. Over the years, I have struggled to acquire the necessary procedural knowledge to get my voice to do what I want. I often avoided the subject of vocal anatomy and exactly what parts are responsible for what actions when I […]
Singing is pretty much just… goats

Recently I was asked what I meant when I said that the three fundamental categories of skill in singing are position, motion, and attitude. It’s easy to understand what these categories are: position and motion are everything a singer does that you could literally draw or photograph. Attitudes are everything a singer does that can’t […]
Here’s a simple question about how your voice works. Most opera singers get the answer wrong.

Question: How does a vocalist raise or lower the pitch? When I was a university student, I learned how my voice works in “vocal pedagogy” class. The most basic of functions is simply changing the pitch, so of course that was a big part of the first week of class. Like you, I was taught […]