Treble Voice to True Voice

I teach a young 16 year old girl intermittently. She lives a long distance away and weekly lessons are not a real option. When one does not see a pupil at the regular 7 day interval, it can be more difficult to keep track on where a young and rapidly developing voice is heading!

This young lady, like almost all girls has had a high 'treble-ish' tone quality for the last 4 years, and all of a sudden it is changing quite dramatically.

We all know that boys voices change completely, whether over a few months, or even over night - and I have known that to happen ! I believe that female voices change too, over the adolescent period, and often just as dramatically as with the boys. They do not swap octaves, but once in awhile a teenaged madam will, almost in a trice stop being able to produce high notes, however much they try, or however much they want too.

The top of a girl's voice often becomes breathy, or, as I prefer as a description, 'fluffy', around 15 - 17, but then clears and fattens after 17. The extreme end of this is when the top just vanishes and the middle register becomes as strong as a mature woman's sound.



Young M has this extreme end of the sport that is singing ! One day it is 'Va'doro pupille', the next time I see her it is Buttercup's Song a tone lower than written! Weird or what! So we descend a fifth or more in the less than the time it takes to sing an octave !

Time is the only cure for this curious situation, and lots of TLC for the owner of the new voice who is most likely mourning the loss of the high notes. Finding repertoire which is comfortable and does not stretch more than an octave is vitally important, and this is where my years of teaching in a boy's school have prepared me well. I have a small pile of 'eminently usable for voices which are tiny' and this pile is generally gender free, so M has started on that little library of song. This week she has 'Tis the Gift to Be Simple' in the Aaron Copland arrangement - just perfect and easily transposed into the comfort zone of the week.

Have patience M, it will come back, there is much warmth and strength in a slender five notes in the middle, and a growing bottom !

I would not phrase it quite like that to a 16 year old though - promise!

Laughter, the best Therapy

7pm for 7.15pm - Hurrah !


A lovely and relaxing day off today and then some of my lady students / friends who took and passed exams are taking me out for dinner at a superb restaurant this evening. In fact this has become something of ritual, and a deliciously pleasant ritual.

Getting together is a major ingredient of a good teacher / pupil / group relationship, and makes it possible for a much better musical cohesion in the long term. I like to teach 'people' rather than voices, and sometimes over the years I have simply been unable to make any connection with the personality, and thus I have difficulty in teaching in a holistic fashion, which is my preferred method!

I generally like people, so the openings are already there for a healthy learning environment, and even (as per the last post!) when one has to fight a little, if I feel I can connect and care about the whole person, teaching is a doddle!

Dinner, morning coffee, or an Indian takeaway, it does not matter what the get together moment is all about. Suddenly I become just another person and my pupils becomes just other people.

How the person 'ticks', is my musical sat nav direction into their own learning pathway. Sometimes I think I am part teacher and part therapist.

Actually if we get on as human beings, then I can only assume we get on in most ways. Anyhow, a gorgeous dinner and lots of laughter is better than any amount of therapy in my book, so looking forward to it immensly! Thanks in adavance!


PS Insurance update. Not really an update - if the loss adjustor does not get back to me by 4.45pm tonight it goes to the complaints department, and things progress in a different way - and hopefully a way which will mean I end up with SOME cash at least. It is 3.45pm as I write................and not yet.

Fight or no Fight

The Wedding Song par Excellence

One of my youngsters is going to sing at a wedding in August. She has made such fantastic progress in the last 6 month, in the face of teenaged angst and obligatory rebellion, but her singing has not taken so much as a tiny knock!

She is singing the inevitable Bach/Gounod Ave Maria, much maligned, much loved, and used as a tear jerker in so many old Hollywood films. It does, however always stand the test of time and overuse. To sing well it is tricky. To sing badly or even averagely it is still quite tricky, as not only does it have very long phrases, it also has a very wide range. My young lady is just to say finding her low notes, and playing around with both high and low extremities in her growing voice is one the most exciting moments in a singers life.

I am so impressed how, given the challenge, she rises to it each time. Presented with trickier music, her tenacity and teenaged 'devil may care'' attitude, she tackles these harder songs with real gusto.

Teenagers are so exciting to teach. I can truthfully say that I (almost!) love the fight and grapple with these newly emerging people more than any other teaching.

Now, that said, I have learnt over the last 10 years that late learners are a joy to teach ! No fight, no grapple and much intelligent conversation. Ladies you came, you saw and you conquered !

So the teenagers are now given a run for their money!

Man Talk

Fill it up again Florrie !

Update on the insurance claim.....they want to send a 'preferred builder' of their own tomorrow, so we are back to square 1. It all feels so corrupt in many ways. The job needs doing, a fair price is needed, then they bash it down and down - so what happens to the work.....................most disconcerting, and quite upsetting.

A long day of teaching today, and a super chap I teach came after a break of around 7 weeks. That is including Christmas and New Year, but then N went off on holiday, throwing himself off cliffs with only the aid of an improbably thin parachute and a small mansized mini aeroplane, in Spain somewhere I think. Mad Man!

He is taking part in the Song School, so we are trying to put together enough repertoire for each day and each catagory. He has a fantastically witty and humerous Handel aria called - wait for it - Droop Not Young Lover ! It is so jolly and such fun, full of typical 'bloke' back slapping lyrics, where the chap concerned is telling his lovesick pal to 'get over the girl', and tell her what you think! It has so much in it which is reminiscent of raucous Baroque era pub chat, possibly after a good deal of mead.



I have taught it before and every time I return to it I feel the laughter start to rumble inside me.

Now all he needs to do is learn it ! Men, different animals really. They thrive on the rush of pressure and adrenalin, and usually come through with flying colours - at the moment it is not colours N is flying by - but the seat of his baritone pants !

Do it N, now.

The Mikado and the Insurance claim

That Quote is too high - Off with his Head !


I have almost finished the snappy little arrangement of the American folksong, 'L'il Liza Jane, and as my young and enthusiastic tenor is conducting at the moment, I am writing it for Soprano, Alto and Baritone !

It is fast and bouncy, fairly easy parts with the odd little twist here and there, but they will learn in in a twinkling and enjoy singing it as a concert opener. First job done!

I had a difficult few days trying to chase up the insurance claim for the burst pipe damage - one always believes it will be straightforward, uncomplicated and relatively painless, but ahh... no. I assume the insurance companies are neck deep in claims, and leaching cash at 100 miles per hour, but we pay our monthly direct debits for years and years, hoping the worst will never happen, and when it does suddenly occur they are picky, difficult and recalcitrant. More questions and explanations needed than in an A Level paper from 1975 !

There was a soup and sandwiches lunch today in a local village hall. It was bursting with folk fighting for bowls of delicious Tomato and Lentil, or Leek and Potato soup, fresh baked bread, home made cakes to die for, and entertainment from local traditional musicians. We thoroughly enjoyed the day, and the youngsters who arranged, cooked and worried about it should be greatly pleased with their endeavours. I hope they raised a large amount of money for Save the Children Fund.

It is typical of many of the young, and older Paradise residents. Giving, and charity work is a high priority.

Tomorrow I will upload my arrangement to the computer, and finish writing out the parts for the Mikado Finale, which will be the blistering end to our concerts. It is probably my favourite snatch of Gilbert and Sullivan. The music has a light majesty, and a great sweeping melody which sends an audience home feeling rosy and warm as well as lifted up.

'We do not hear their dismal sound,
For joy reigns everywhere around !'

A philosophy to 'go' for I think, and I will try not to listen to the 'dismal sound' of my loss adjustor ! I think mine is the 'Katisha' of their company, rather gloomy, lacking in a sense of humour, and clearly power crazed !

'The threatened cloud has passed away' - Counting the days until I can whistle that wonderful line from Act 1 Finale, Mikado........................

Shine

I watched the film 'Shine' quite recently. The biography of the genius young pianist David Helfgott, driven by his father and teachers, to a terrible nervous breakdown, which tormented his whole life.

Storyline

Based on the true story of Australian pianist David Helfgott, this delightful movie charts the early and traumatic early years. Telling the story in flashback we see David as he grows up and into a child prodigy while his father abuses him and his siblings with the memory of his childhood in Europe and the loss of his family in the concentration camps. David finally breaks away from his father and goes away to study overseas, he later suffers a breakdown and returns to Australia and a life in an institution. Many years later he is released and through several twists of fate (in reality even more unlikely than film portrays) he starts playing a piano in a bar before finally returning to the concert hall.

During the story there was a sentence said to him by his teacher at the Royal College of Music. He was preparing for a recital, yet in a fragile place, and his professor was magnificently unaware of the delicate state of his mental state.

For a performer, the most difficult thing to cope with is often the sheer 'risk' of facing the public and delivering the goods.

The statement to this poor confused soul was brutal, yet absolutely true.

" Performing, David, is all risk taking, and no safety net ".

Never a truer word, and never a more scary statement. We put ourselves out there, naked, and with our hearts on our sleeve, in the hopes that the listener will be kind, appreciative, moved, or uplifted. Sometimes the listener is not in the least impressed, finds faults and is downright disinterested. This risk can be the breaking of a performer, and it takes many years to build up the rhinocerous hide able to deflect the barbs.

The flip side of the coin is that the very lack of a safety net gives a frisson of excitement, a rush of adrenalin, and afterwards such an elevated moment of elation, it is indeed worthwhile, and one of the most fulfilling of emotions.

Poor David Helfgott was not even close to the stable mental state which allows one to pass through the fear, feel the adrenalin, and consequently the joy on completion.

Most of my performing life, I always thought, whilst standing in the wings about to set foot into the unknown and into the searing heat of the stage lights, 'Why am I doing this, when I could be working in Marks and Spencers ?!' The thought of a job where the fear did not make one feel sick, or the horror of memory problems had no place, seemed infinitely preferable to that first horrendous step onto the stage.

Post performance however, was a totally different ball game. Marks and Spencers faded into the distance, and heady with applause, I always realised just why I did it !

Why oh why did that realisation never happen prior to performing ? I could never work that out. Deep down I knew I could 'do it', I rarely failed, I always achieved a performance which was good / very good / extremely good / even more on the best of days !

Perhaps the 'lack of safety net' kept one's feet on the ground, and one's heart in one's mouth - and maybe that is just how it should be!

Hire, or buy 'Shine', it will move, uplift you and bring tears to the eyes.

Alto can mean fun

The beatific smile of Kathleen Ferrier as she records Father of Heaven

There is a most beautiful aria from Judas Maccabaeus, one of the lesser known oratorios by Handel. It is called Father of Heaven, and has a lightness and tranquility which has rather an un-oratorio quality - especially when this particular aria is for the Alto soloist! Often the Alto solos are on the heavy, and dare I say 'gloomy' side in the great Baroque Oratoria ! They are deliciously melodic and lyrical, but rather dark in quality.

It is such a surprise to hear one which has a feel of a slow Baroque dance, with lots of dotted, bouncy semi quaver runs which give the feeling of an endless toe tripping!


One of my ladies who just passed (magnificently I may say!) her Recital Certificate is singing it, and given that she loves sacred music, it combines every element of a 'soon to be' favourite in her repertoire. It is also not too low, so one does not feel as if one is growling around, darkly and with a sense of foreboding as in 'He was Despised', and were it composed a little higher it could almost be meant for a soprano!

'Joyous' can also be at a slowish tempo, and 'celebration' can also be felt without lots of final top A's B's or C's, and this aria is proof positive.

I forget how lovely arias are that I have not taught for a few years, and it is as if I rediscover them along with the first timer who is learning them. The power of music is so great, and I felt that renewed pleasure this afternoon with this dancing piece of Handel !

I did my Tax return yesterday online, so the cloud is lifted, the accounts are in super apple pie order, and the little patch in my brain which was over loading with maths and £ signs has finally been deleted!

Lets hope that is all that has been deleted !

Digital 1 - Antique 2

Shelves of the stuff.....


The rain falls in torrents...............it is forecast to go on for the next few days, but it is still better than snow!

I had a lovely lunch date today with a friend, as a belated birthday present. There is a superb restaurant in Plockton, about 30 minutes from Paradise, which is very high quality, lots of fresh products, and innovative combinations of flavours. However, I still always have the Cullen Skink, which is, without doubt the finest smoked fish soup in the whole world !

I have ventured into even more technologyon my teaching website. I decided that as one can download almost any song in Christendom from free and paying sites, it was time that my pupils learnt to do just that. I can link a particular song, in a particular key to my teaching site, so all that they have to do is click, buy and print !

In the early days of Schubertline.co.uk the choice was much more limited, but the library of songs has expanded at a rate of knots and there is everything from 1600 - 1930 in terms of genre, so it is a fantastically useful resource.

I chose some songs tailored for each student, so a lovely lady whom I have just started has the Thomas Ford 'Since First I saw your Face', and my fast moving teenager R was given the Bach/Gounod 'Ave Maria', as a possible item for her solo during the registration at a summer wedding.

What a brilliant thing to be able to do. How marvelous that one can put a piece into any key at the stroke of a keyboard button ! The wonders of the internet!

It also gives me valuable thinking time, I do not need to rush the choice of repertoire. I can ruminate and run it around in my brain and decide upon something just perfect for an individual. I do, of course most often use my library shelves, groaning with music, and mostly filed to perfection, so I can lay my grubby fingers on the Vaughan Williams 'Four Last Songs' quicker than one could spell the words!

The digital world of music is an added dimension, and quite fun !

The odd thing is, most of my young trendy Facebookish pupils, my daughter and her peers, all seem supremely incapable of using these sites, and are constantly asking me for the old weatherbeaten books from my shelves ! Guess who pays the postage?

Digital, they say, is like the curates egg......good in parts......!

First things First

.....ready by.......


It was a positive and productive first week of term, although still some folk are either away or suffering from the flu. I'm not sure if it is the dreaded swine flu, but from what people tell me it is pretty horrid, and lasts for a painfully long time.

The first week of term is a good time for making 'plans'. I am Plan Woman ! When I am away so much, and some event is closing in on us, I like to organise my pupils' schedule down to the nth degree. It makes sure that all that should be covered is covered, it ensures that a programme, or much repertoire peaks at the right moment, and it allows me to be away without becoming a nuerotic mess worrying about whether all will be 'done in time' !

The best advice I ever had from Middy was, 'first things first dear'. So simple, so profound. When one has a pile of songs and arias needing to be memorised and polished for different concerts or festivals, it is so easy to be side tracked in one's pattern of study.

I was one of those shameful singers who, unless bullied mercilessly, would always learn what I loved first. I learnt my lesson when realising with deep horror that I had wallowed in some delectable Mozart for weeks on end, and completely forgotten about an oratorio which was lurching towards me in the next 48 hours. I had left it in favour of the beloved Mozart. I had sung most of it before, and in the arrogance of youth I assumed I knew it!

On arrival at the rehearsal on a saturday afternoon (the performance of course being in the evening!), I turned a page during the rehearsal and found 2 pages of recititive which I did not think had existed, it was , of course, a different edition from the last performance ! My sight reading was fair, but under pressure I crumbled. I apologised profusely to the conductor and my fellow soloists, and begged 20 minutes in a room with a piano..................

The performance was fine, but the experience marked me forever - actually I was too ashamed to tell Middy, and for ever after I learnt everything with time enough for illness and a holiday to Alaska before the due date so to speak!

So you see, what comes first in the diary is what one should work on first.

Simples

An Old Broom

For Small Hands.........


My super young baritone came for his first lesson since the heavy snow, which means I have not seen him for about 6 weeks, since he lives in the middle of nowhere and off grid! His Puccini was once again tremendous, and his Faure full of gravitas and emotion.

At the other end of the age range a tiny 'almost 7' year old girl came for her 20 minutes. She is pretty, intelligent and so eager to learn. Teaching such small people is a joy, but I miss Ellie the dog lying quietly under my piano stool, I used her so much as an aid to the smalls 'making Ellie wake up' ! This little girl has a big voice for such a minute frame, and she is really beginning to pitch much more accurately !

Pitch can be a problem with the under 8's, some seem able to sing with a pinpoint clarity, and others find singing more than a 5th wide like travelling from Paradise to Australia ! Little L can sing quite accurately from Middle C to A above Middle C, but outside that range it might as well be as far off as Greenland!

We work gently and persistently in the area which she can work well, never encroaching on the nether regions - it will not improve, until ear and physical developments are far enough along the road.

Finding songs is tricky, but I tend to transpose as much music as I can to keep in her 'comfort zone'. I have a wonderful little Nursery Rhyme book which keeps them all going until about 8, they are not the baby rhymes, just those songs which were so popular with infant school teachers in the 1930's. It is completely perfect for this age group, they love it, yet I know if modern day Primary schools were introduced to it there would be ribald laughter and a fainting moment of ridicule at such middle class songs encompassing subjects as 'Dainty little Kitten' and 'My Big Brother rides a fine black horse', their ultra favourite song being 'Doings'........

With my little broom I sweep sweep sweep,
On my little toes I Creep Creep Creep.
With my little eyes I Peep peep peep,
On my little bed I sleep sleep sleep.

A great little song and tune, and I wish I had written it! My 7 year old grandaughter adores it, and sings it with all the musicality of a sensitive, musical and poetic little soul. It is in the most comfortable head voice register, so just spot on perfect. It was published in 1934, is battered and worn with pages falling out. I have used it all my teaching career. It is a positive heirloom and priceless above rubies!

Winter Wonderland

I took these photos on the way home last Thursday - magic land !
I thought you might like to see them!

My lovely young Mezzo has worked so hard these last two days, we have pushed through Mozart, Purcell, Faure, Schubert and Vaughan Williams. She absorbs information like an artistic sponge, and will hopefully retain all the teaching she has had. Her recital is at the end of the week, so fingers crossed it goes as well as last time when she gained the highest mark in her year. I give her key words for each piece akin to a sort of vocal shorthand. It is such a beautiful programme requiring both skill and stamina, as well as the ability to become a lunatic in the 'Bess of Bedlam' aria by Purcell, called 'Mad Bess'. Eyes wide and staring L !!!

Have done my term dates sheet for distribution, and it seems I do only have 8 teaching weeks between now and March 21st, fitted in around all the adjudication ! The music room is glowing, and fully ready for the teaching enslaught tomorrow, but I hesitate to feel as though I am working hard when chatting to my daughter last night who works something along the lines of 60 hours teaching in her week, and after a long phone call to a much loved old pupil who is now a Headmistress at The Mount School, York, who seems to work from dawn to bed time, with the odd pause for a meal or coffee !

Both tell me they love their jobs and do not mind the long hours.........actually I remember that feeling. Leaping out of bed, excited that I was taking a rehearsal, teaching a favourite aria, or set designing for a show. I am so glad that they have that same musical and professional frisson in their own lives.

Mind you, it is hell trying to get either of them on the phone!

Off We Go

First day back to teaching tomorrow, and then the term fully begins on monday. My talented young lady who travels from Oxfordshire for lessons every month or so is here and will have a satisfying grilling tomorrow and saturday.

She is sparky and bright and a fine young singer, who has, like all of those who want to sing for a career, got to take her time and let nature take it's course in the development of her vocal apparatus. I think she fully realises this, and maybe now can settle to a couple of years calm, when her considerable talent can mature like a fine wine, and thence be ready to face the enslaught of Conservetoire.

This term, like all my Easter terms, will be interrupted by the constant visits to the deep South for adjudicating engagements. I do not quite understand how February and March became the pick of the musical year for competitive festivals, but I would guess about 50% of them fall in the five weeks between the last week of february and the last week of March. So we adjudicators are worked to death this term, and then visit a few others outwith the frenzy that is this term.

In essence, the consequence is that my Paradise pupils will receive 7 or 8 lessons this term, out of a possible 10. Thus, as you can imagine, I rarely use this term to enter any of them for exams ! There is that E word I promised NOT to use for at least 6 months !

So in the next 3 or 4 months I shall be in :- Hampshire, East Sussex, Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire, North Yorkshire with a little County Durham thrown in for good measure ! I shall, in addition to all those competitive festivals be 'nunning' in West Sussex and Cumbria - you can see that my milage will be heavy, but one has to earn one's living !

Actually, the travelling to so many diverse places keeps me alive and young, (if anyone laughs they will be 'forrit' as we say in Yorkshire!). That is because , although onerous, this travel is on my terms, and I can accept or reject engagements according to my needs and wants. Therefore it is rather less stressful than the commuting (appropros my last post!) I used to do, and each traverse is different, a new place, a beautiful city, or a peaceful retreat.

Sometimes, at this time of the year I feel like a character in that long ago comedy film, 'If it's Tuesday it must be Belgium' !

Tally Ho !

The Airport Lounge and memories

I'm on the sofa as I type!


I am sitting in the new No1 Airport Lounge at Gatwick Airport. I apologise for the lack of posts, but I have been visiting family for a few days, and the time simply flew by!

Now, of course, the snow has moved in again to Inverness and thus Paradise, so my plane is stuck at the airport in Inverness whilst the runway is de-iced, and my 7.20pm plane will not be leaving much before 9pm. Hence I treated myself to a couple of hours in one of the lounges. A decadance I realise, but so much more civilised than the open concourse.

When I commuted each week from Inverness to Gatwick, to work at the RAM in London, I purchased a marvelous plastic card called 'Priority Pass', which, for an annual cost of about £100 (a few years ago remember!) I had access to most lounges all over the world.

120 minutes of peace, excellent coffee, a superfluity of pretty sandwiches, tremendous yet unlikely layered cakes in more hues than Jospeh's amazing dreamcoat, and lots of booze - which sadly I did not drink, so it is a bit of a waste on that front! This is a new lounge since I was regularly commuting, and, I might add, very much more up market, the staff make one feel as if one is in First Class, as opposed to Cattle Class, and they are so attentive it is almost unnerving!

It takes me back 5 years in a nano second, all the endless weekly travelling, the waiting in Departures, the 'whoosh' of the taking off of the plane, and the many, smooth, and the few hairy Highland weather landings in Inverness ! Carrying elephantine bags and briefcases of repertoire, and a small zipped envelope of underwear and clothes (fear not, I was perfectly clean, I kept some smart work clothes in the South!), and working out my next weeks' timetable before I landed, so I was already prepared for the following week! Talk about wishing one's life away!

I so enjoyed my time at the RAM, the students were on the whole so enthusiastic, diligent and talented. My colleagues were interesting, highly stimulating conversationally, so broadly talented, it was always a joy and a privilege to be counted among them.

The travelling did for me, however, and in the end I knew that I could no longer face the gruelling weekly timetable, and teach at home. My Paradise pupils were growing in number, and in talent and dedication, and I had to make a choice. My fatigue was growing, and in some ways I felt schizophrenic, in that I lived two lives, and although the lives consisted of the same work, I felt pulled apart - or perhaps pinned on a almost painless, but gently expanding 'rack' ! I was coming apart at the musical seams, and letting go of it was an immense relief. I had given 18 years of my life to the JRAM, and the time had come for me to retire, and new blood to give it a go!


With four of my old pupils now making up the JRAM Voice Department, I felt at peace that the legacy and standard would be safe in their hands, and the top notch name of the JRAM singing faculty would fly the flag long into the future.

Over to you all, with all my love!