Category: Singer’s Advice

What is behind an insult? What is behind a compliment?

There is a vast difference between objective truth and subjective truth.

The truth is, that there is not truth in a subjective viewpoint or statement sometimes.

Should we even bother listening to opinions of others, about our singing?

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then ugliness is also in the eye of the beholder.

What is behind it? 

There are things behind comments. What are they?

• Thoughts
• Ideas
• Opinions
• Knowledge or
• Ignorance
• Experience
• No experience
• Expertise
• Bias
• Prejudice
• Good
• Evil
• Intentions

I remember being a kid and I told my mother something derogatory about me that had been said. Her answer was, “Consider the source.” That was great advice. It still is.

Too often we can be hit with criticism and crumple.

How many times have you quit something or slowed down after having been criticized?

Criticism can be almost lethal.

It can kill a dream.

It can stop you dead in your tracks, never to move forward again.

Criticism can slow you down and make you question your purpose and your ability.

Some people talk about constructive criticism. Here’s an idea.

How about instructive learning and forego criticism?

How To Consider The Source – 10 Ways

1. Who said it?
2. What do they really know?
3. What education have they had?
4. Are they a professional in your field?
5. Are they trying to help?
6. Do they know how to help?
7. Have they helped others that can be verified?
8. Have they criticized you more than once?
9. Do they offer any useful suggestions?
10. What are you going to do about it?

Your Sources For Information And Help

You want a verifiable track record with evidence.

Professionals with licenses are usually good sources.

Professionals in the arts who have experience are usually good sources.

References are good to check.

Experts in various fields can be good sources, but opinions from people who are not experts are best avoided.

Find the best sources that you can. Don’t you deserve that?



Common Truth

Common truth is often rejected by people who are holding on to lies and myths about singing technique.

Common truth about the entirety of what must be known and achieved to be a world-class singer is not so easy to find, but it also is not hidden.

Getting it in one place can be difficult, if you don’t know where to look.

Misinformation is as common as what should be common truth.

Common Lies

The most common lies come from myths.

People who do not know will often tacitly nod their heads in unison, as if they have the inside skinny on the alleged facts of singing technique.

Most people don’t intend to lie, but ignorance can be inescapable.

Common Myths

Here are some common myths regarding singing:

• Sing from your diaphragm. 
• Place your tone in the mask, or forward.
• Send your sound up and over.
• Use more breath support.
• Chest voice and head voice are qualities of tone.

There are many more, to explore or better, yet to ignore.

The truth and the reality of the actuality, to escape this banality as a finality, is found in anatomy books and also in a very few select books about singing technique.

Just remember that you did not learn to drive from simply and only reading about it in a book.

More than likely you won’t make it through the jungle alive without a guide.

Not knowing the law does not absolve anyone of the consequences of breaking a law. Similarly, not knowing the protection afforded by law itself, is simply ignorance and ignorance is dangerous.

People have died from being ignorant or from being rebellious and history is replete with examples of those.

There is much ignorance, misinformation, and missing information around, about copyright and licensing rights and other facts of law having to do with the music business and intellectual property rights protection.

Self-representation is offensive.

You walk into a court and represent yourself because why? You are delusional and think you know how to be a great lawyer, and that you know the law well enough to be capable in a courtroom of defending yourself. After all, you have seen some TV shows, right?

The judge is a lawyer.

He/she went to school and passed the bar.

He/she practiced law.

You insult him/her by pretending to be competent, just as a person pretending to be a doctor can and has caused loss of life.

Pretending to know law is a delusion. It is a recipe for disaster.

Copyright Registration

If your work is copyrighted when you create it, why register it? This is best answered by an actual licensed professional attorney.

Read on.

Anyone giving legal advice does so illegally. My advice is to consult with a licensed attorney and to not act on your own, when an attorney is needed. My disclaimer is that this is not or intended to be legal advice. Seek and use an attorney for legal advice.

You can be held accountable for giving advice, especially if it doesn’t work out well, but giving legal advice is practicing law without a license and is a crime in most places.

This being said, two easy points of reference are from the actual U.S. Copyright office and a written explanation by an actual attorney on a site, referenced below.

You still should consult with a licensed attorney, even after having read the two web pages below. Unless you are a lawyer, you may have misinformation which can bite you one day and the law does have “teeth”. You may not know law well enough to fully grasp the implications in law, unless you are an attorney, yourself.

U.S. Copyright Office – What is Copyright?

From Legal Zoom, written by attorney, Michelle Kaminsky, Esq. –

“8 basic facts every musician should know about copyright law.”

https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/8-basic-facts-every-musician-should-know-about-copyright-law

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You lock your door to your home. You lock your car doors. This is common sense.

If you ever have to prove/defend your intellectual property as being yours, you should want to be prepared. This should be common sense.

Open a book. Look at sheet music. Look at movie credits. Do you find a copyright notice with a ‘c’ in a circle? Do you see the date, also? People who value their works usually protect them through registration of them.

U.S. Copyright registration is done by citizens and also non-citizens of the U.S. Do you know why?

There is a plethora of case law regarding copyright and copyright infringement, which is evidence enough to justify the small fee required for having recorded evidence, in the form of copyright registration, of having created a musical work and including the date.

Your friend, whether a recording engineer, or a butcher, may or may not be a lawyer.

It should be common sense to use licensed people for: medicine, law, architecture, engineering and accounting. Why? They are held to a very high standard of accountability for their advice and their practice. They have not only been to college, but have also had to successfully complete internships and have passed stringent tests, to be licensed.

The licensing authorities do this, not so much to regulate, control and charge fees, but rather this is done for the public good and safety. It is how civilized society maintains a hopefully safe environment for the good of all.

You may need an attorney to help you to understand this and it is recommended to use one, if you are not one.

edx.org has a fabulous course done by Berklee College of Music. It is called Introduction To The Music Business and the instructor is an entertainment attorney. His course is highly recommended,

Sing From Your Diaphragm

The cruelest joke is one which got stuck in a lot of heads, both singers and non-singers.

It is said as if it is something everybody knows or should know, but it is impossible to sing from your diaphragm.

It is impossible to sing from your diaphragm.

Most people don’t know these things about the diaphragm: 

How is it shaped?

Where is it?

It gets worse. The diaphragm has no preoceptive nerves in it. Your arm has propreoceptive nerves and you can feel where your arm is. You cannot feel your diaphragm or its location.

It gets worse still! If you are told to control or manipulate something that you cannot feel, what does that do to your mind?  It sends you into a world of fantasy and pretense and you are out of control. More than that there other issues.

Your diaphragm separates the chest from the abdomen. It is a muscle.

When it contracts, it descends and causes a suction action and air is drawn into the lungs. It is a muscle. It can only contract in one direction, down. It doesn’t have another muscle on top or underneath, to then push out your air. When you are exhaling, which you do when you sing, the diaphragm is relaxed, not flexed, and has nothing to do with forcing out your air.

Abdominal muscles are used to force out the air. Doctors have known this since the 1700s. Where did everyone go off track with this? For may years, singing pedagogues had the idea that mixing science with art would destroy the art. The truth is that ignorance or science has ended or impeded careers of singers who injured their voices from vocal abuse.

Forcing air through the vocal folds, especially if they are hyper-adducted (coming together too hard) can cause irritation, blisters, blood blisters, and later, nodules as the injuries progress.

The air stream is rarely the problem in singers voices. The real problem is actually in the larynx. Working the correct muscles the correct way can free a singer from strain, pain, and will give freedom for artistic expression without it being thwarted by faulty technique.

Diaphragm Key Points

The diaphragm is the muscle for inhalation.

The diaphragm cannot push out your air.

Your lungs contain the air. Air doesn’t go into your abdomen.

Singing from your diaphragm is a myth and a fantasy. It is impossible.

You can use your diaphragm to have more air, when you need it for long and/or loud phrases.