Celebrating Independence Day by Adrian Oceguera -- a re-post about Performance Anxiety and Preparation

This is a beautiful missive, and I'm privileged not only to gain permission to share it but to know and work with Adrian.  And as an FYI -- he does tend to be one of my most dedicated and prepared students and cast members! He practices what he's preaching!

I wanted to open up about something that many of you will probably understand and have gone through in your life, and maybe some of the things I've learned can help you.
As many of you know, I've been playing in bands and have been extremely involved in theater the last couple of years, and more recently have been taking voice lessons. It's fun, but that's not the point.
Anyone who knows me, knows I pretty much have always strived to be the center of attention. No beating around the bush, but I try not to be a jerk about it most of the time. In these moments, I was pretty much like a fish IN water. It just came naturally for me to perform in front of people.
Well lately starting in about September, I've been suffering from extreme anxiety with performances. Doesn't matter if I'm giving a 30 second speech or if I'm in a 3 hour musical, I feel it. My stomach turns into knots, my muscles tense up, my heart is racing a thousand beats a minute. One time, I tensed up so bad and that I couldn't sleep and my neck was stiff for 3 days after, and that was for one of those 30 sec speeches.
Feeling nervous is one thing, feeling actual pain is another. So I got scared. I went to a psychologist and had a session just discussing my newfound friend, anxiety.
Here's what I learned:
1. Anxiety is a natural reaction that occurs in everyone at some point in time. It's the bodies' overproduction of adrenaline and reaction to a stressful situation.
When your body gets stressed, it puts itself into a state that is ready to either fight or run. (Fight or Flight) by recognizing this, and making a conscientious decision to fight versus fly, I am able to think rationally through my anxiety spells. Also, finding processes to expel some of that excess adrenaline (like walking up and down stairs) helps as well. At least for me, maybe for you too.
2. This anxiety, for me, isn't a negative reaction to a situation. From what me and my doc could figure out, I'm having these attacks now versus earlier in life, simply because I care more now than I did back then. In previous experiences, it was a fun escape from... Well from nothing really, if we're being honest here. It was just fun. NOW, I care how I sound. I care how I portray a character. I'm finally giving my art the respect it deserves and in return I get this anxiety as a by-product. Awesome right?
3. Preparation is your friend. We are sometimes warned that over rehearsing and over prep can be harmful to our acting and singing, because we sometimes lose that "spur-of-the-moment" intricacies that make what we do fun. We are often told to be careful to not lose our emotional conveyance by becoming stale with repetitive rehearsing, but as a person with anxiety, this prep can be an ally you won't want to sacrifice. Sure, you may become a bit more rehearsed than others, and your lines may come across that way, but work harder. Get past the "my lines are memorized and I'll never mess them up" and get to a point that most dream of and that's the "not only will I not forget my lines, but all my emotions are well rehearsed as well and I'm gonna make everybody cry" maybe not that far, but what I'm TRYING to get at is this:
"A LINE SAID THAT SOUNDS OVER REHEARSED IS BETTER THAN A LINE NOT SAID AT ALL"
Maybe number three applies only to me, because dropping a line is definitely my number one fear, thus source of anxiety, but who cares. This is my post :)
So this is what I've learned and with the support systems that I have in family (mainly Anysah since she's the only one that knows... Oh hi everybody else!), And friends like Chavaleh, Lim, Nicolette, Juan, Bryan and others who are consistently pushing me to be better, I know I'll be fine.
"I will not go quietly into the night!" I will not vanish without a fight! Im going to live on! I'm going to survive! Today I celebrate my Independence Day!

New Vaccai Recordings

Bella prova e d'alma forte:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ILFzKoxhnY

Fra l'ombre un lampo solo:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eM4FULwCTbc

Some Thoughts on Memorization

Memorizing music is HARD!

No doubt about it, no matter how old/young/experienced/whatever, memorization takes some work, and being shaky on memory is one of the biggest contributors toward performance anxiety.

But I have one thing that has helped me and many other people feel more secure about their memory work:  memorizing "backwards."

Now even though I did have one young piano student take this literally in my early years of teaching (!), I mean it loosely! 

The technique:  Start with the last phrase.  Study, then sing/play, study some more, sing/play again until you can't possibly get it wrong.  Then move one phrase back and study, then sing/play all the way to the end of the piece/song/aria/whatever... until you can't possibly get it wrong.  Repeat this process, going all the way to the end each time, until you have memorized the first phrase.

Why this way?  When people start their memory with the beginning of the song, the beginning is the strongest memory work.  But with the "backwards" technique, the weakest phrase is the very first one.  You can go through the work with the confidence that your memorization just gets better and better as you proceed through!

Good luck with your next memorization work! 

What is Greatness? Paper written by student Emma Newcomb

Every once in a while I have a student who just seems to "get it..." 
Emma is one of those students.  She is talented, certainly -- but more importantly, she is tenacious.  When I balked at high belting songs, not wanting to push her too far too fast, she threw a fit... and came in the next week with a gorgeous clear belt on "Let it Go."  (Which was followed by a tenuous agreement not to do it too much at home...)  When she reaches a new level in piano, she brings a piece from the back of the book in the next week, "just to see if she could."  
Emma knows what she wants and she knows what kind of work is required to get it... which makes her a complete joy to work with, even (maybe especially?) when she argues with me.  This paper which she is generously allowing me to share was inspired by an article in Fortune magazine 
that exemplifies the work ethic she is attempting to develop.  Enjoy!

Emma Newcomb

Composition

December 19, 2014

What is Greatness?

Most people think of greatness as fame or success.  Your name known by many people, being on TV, or anything like that is considered great.  Maybe some actors or famous people are great, but not all of them are.  Many people are unaware of what greatness really is.  Greatness is a hard thing to achieve and is not extremely common.  So, what is greatness exactly?

Greatness is working hard to achieve your goal.  You need a lot of perseverance to be great at something.  Say you want to be an amazing singer.  You can work your way up to your goal, but it is not going to be easy.  It will take many hours of practice.  Geoffrey Colvin's "Secrets of Greatness: Practice and Hard Work Bring Success" article informs, "Even the most accomplished people need around ten years of hard work before becoming world-class, a pattern so well established, researchers call it the ten-year rule."  The ten-year rule is a statement that you need at least ten years of practice to be great at what you do.  John Horn of the University of Southern California and Hiromi Masunaga of California State University states, "The ten-year rule represents a very rough estimate, and most researchers regard it as a minimum, not an average."  That means you have to be really serious about practicing.

You can be great and not be famous, but also you can be famous and not be great.  For example, you could be a incredible artist, but not be famous at all, or you could be a famous artist, but not exactly be a great artist.  Some actors and pop stars today are wildly famous, but do not make good decisions.  How would you compare Miley Cyrus to Bono from the band U2?  Bono has been made a knight by Queen Elizabeth II of the UK, participated in worldwide charity events, and won many awards with his band, while Miley Cyrus has questionable clothing and dance moves.

            You may be wondering, how do you achieve greatness?  The answer to that is hard work and perseverance.  Geoffrey Colvin explains, "Nobody is great without work," and also, "You aren't just doing the job, you're explicitly trying to get better at it in the larger sense."  People who are really serious about being extraordinary at something work at it every day.  They are passionate about what they do.  You have to practice your chosen skill intensely, not just normally.  Bethany Hamilton, after losing an arm to a shark, still pursued her dream of surfing and worked hard at it.  I do not mean just doing it every day, but paying attention to her mistakes and constantly trying to improve.  Her brother videotaped herself surfing, and then she watched it later and critically analyzed herself.  Working hard like that is not easy.  It is time-consuming and difficult.  However, it is essential if you want to reach greatness.

It is not just certain people who can be great.  Any person can achieve greatness.  If that is true, then why is greatness so uncommon?  The answer is that not everybody is ready to commit to the hard work it takes to achieve greatness daily.  "If great performance were easy, it wouldn't be rare," claims Geoffrey Colvin.  You can't expect to be amazing at something so quickly and easily.  All great people have to work very hard.  You are not just born with the ability to do something perfectly.  "It is a skill, not a talent," my voice teacher Chavaleh Forgey always tells me.  Some people believe that great people were born that way.  "You do not possess a natural gift for a certain job, because targeted natural gifts don't exist," states Geoffrey Colvin.  I think you can be born with some natural talent, but you still have to learn quite a lot.  For example, Albert Einstein was born not with talent, but instead a learning disability.  His teachers said he would never amount to anything.  Instead, he rose above the average and became great.  So, greatness is not a gift, it is something anyone can achieve.

Just because anyone can be great, doesn't mean that it will be easy.  Geoffrey Colvin informs, "You will achieve greatness only through an enormous amount of hard work over many years. And not just any hard work, but work of a particular type that's demanding and painful."  This is true, but even if you work extremely hard at it, you still usually have to go though failure first.  Many people have failed or have had to overcome a difficult setback before becoming great.  Nick Vujicic was born without arms or legs.  His childhood was very hard.  However, he pushed though and kept a positive attitude, along with becoming an amazing speaker.  His biography observes, “This dynamic young evangelist has accomplished more than most people achieve in a lifetime.  He’s an author, musician, actor, and his hobbies include fishing, painting and swimming.”  Abraham Lincoln failed in business and lost eight elections before becoming a great president.  I think that failure is what motivates some people to keep going, even if they fail multiple times.  In a way, failure is a part of greatness.

Unfortunately, most people give up after failing instead of pushing on.  That is a main reason why greatness is so rare.  You cannot expect greatness to come easily, but some people do, and then are defeated when they find it so hard.  They are discouraged and decide to just give up.  After all, giving up is so much simpler than enormous amounts of hard work every single day.
            Greatness is an uncommon and special thing.  It takes a lot of time and concentrating, and is hard to climb up to.  There are many bumps on the road to greatness, but if you want it you have to get over them.  Anyone in the world can reach greatness, because no one is just born with amazing talent.  It is open to anyone.

Works Cited

"Bio - Life Without Limbs." Life Without Limbs. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Jan. 2015.

"Bono." Bio. A&E Television Networks, 2015. Web. 03 Jan. 2015.

Colvin, Geoffrey. "Fortune." Secrets of Greatness: Practice and Hard Work Bring Success. N.p., 17 Oct.

     2006. Web. 31 Dec. 2014.

"Famous Failures (Motivational)." YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 31 Dec. 2014.

 Emma practicing "Shy" from Once Upon a Mattress 

 

Emma as Cosette in the LCA production of Les Miserable

Emma about to sing "Let it Go" at the Tulare County Fair

Vaccai Method -- Spoken Italian Diction

Sometimes the most difficult thing about practicing foreign language material as a student vocalist is not being quite sure that your diction is perfect -- even if you are listening to a singer that has excellent diction it can be difficult to hear every detail!

So as part of our Vaccai Project we have created YouTube videos of the spoken diction in the Vaccai Method. 

Happy practicing!

Click Here to go to Full YouTube Playlist: 22 Video Diction Lessons

Vaccai Italian Singing Method: Lessons 1-4

My daughter and I have begun a project to record the entirety of the Vaccai book for demonstration purposes.  Here are links to the first four lessons:

Lesson 1: Manca sollecita

Lesson 2: Semplicetta tortorella

Megan Faith, generously donating her voice and skills for these videos!

Lesson 3: Lascia il lido

Lesson 4: Avvezzo a vivere






Some advice for authentic Italian diction: click here

Reading Rhythms Part 2: Introducing Notes

Once it is comfortable to clap the patterns in the previous post, we get to match them with notes!

(The following correspond with the most common meters, also called simple meters:  2/4, 3/4, and 4/4, which we will explain and explore in a later lesson!)

Downloadable worksheet to practice matching notes with number of beats:
(I recommend that students fill in notes as illustrated above and then write the name of the note below as well)
Reading Rhythms Worksheet 1 PDF

Warming-Up to Perform During "Sick Season"

You know that gorgeous feeling when you sing and everything is working?  You are physically healthy, emotionally stable, got plenty of sleep the whole week before, the air quality is good, the humidity is perfect, and every note just feels like Heaven!

It is the best feeling ever! 

I have been performing for 37 years, since I played Gretel in The Sound of Music at age five.  I can count the performances where I had that "everything is perfect" condition on my fingers.  They are so rare that each one still sticks in my mind.

Imagine:  If you are performing in theater, performances occur at the end of a long and exhausting rehearsal process.  Travel or stress may interfere with the perfect night's sleep.  Where I live and teach, the days when the air quality is good are few and far between.  And colds and allergies certainly don't respect our performance schedule!

So what if you *have* to perform under less than perfect conditions?  Since this question is coming up among my students often lately, I thought I'd post my long performance warm up that can generally get a voice from "gunky" to "ready" in the course of 45 minutes to an hour. Back to sight-singing in a couple of days. :)

IMPORTANT!  There are conditions that can't be warmed up out of.  There is a difference between allergy/cold gunk interfering with production or a tired voice needing an extra TLC warm-up and serious conditions where swelling creates potential for long term damage.  Know your voice, be careful, and see a vocal coach or an otolaryngologist if you are unsure.  If it hurts to sing, STOP.  If you start a slow warm up and don't hear/feel gradual but steady improvement, STOP.

1)   Before beginning, drink plenty of water and have a good stretch.  Continue to drink and stretch during the entire process. 

2) Long up and down quiet "sirens" on an "ng" hum.  (Like the end of "sing")  Depending on how bad the day is, there may be big gaps in these sirens.  Don't push, just let the gaps happen.  Eventually the gaps will lessen and disappear.  Be patient, don't succumb to the temptation to do it louder to get through the gaps.  Easy, relaxed.  This bit of the process can take a long time, even up to 15 minutes.  

3) Once all the gaps are gone, start a mid-range descending five note scale on one "Ya."  (Sol fa mi re do)  This is not "good vocal production."  Don't try to have good pressurized breath or sing very forward.  It is quiet and easy, moving air through your vocal folds.  Move down through your comfortable range and back to mids.

4) Now do a long top-down siren (on "ah" for men and "oo" for women and trebles).  There will probably be some small gaps or "rough patches."  In the range of these rough patches or gaps, do a three-note ascending and descending scale on a "lip trill."  (do-re-mi-re-do) A lip trill is the sound that people often make when imitating a horse snort, if you are unfamiliar!  If you cannot achieve the three note scale on a lip trill, use a voice "th" as a substitute. (And then plan to put some effort into your breath connection! This is a tattle-tale exercise!) Move the three note scale around in the ranges that were rough until they are clear, and then repeat the process!  If there is a lot of mucus, it will move around and create new rough places as it loosens and relocates!  Nasty!  What were you thinking choosing your body as your instrument???

5) Now you can do your regular warm-up! 
I recommend focusing on exercises that bring your voice into forward placement.
Some examples here:
Female Warm-Up  
Brief Tenor Warm-Up
Kid Warm Up


During your performance, remember three things-- It is tempting to try to compensate by pushing -- fight that temptation!  Second, sing more forward than usual.  Third, don't be a "breath hero" -- a voice under pressure requires more air for production -- plan ahead to breathe more often. 

Feel free to ask any questions in the comments! 

"Singers" vs. "Musicians" -- i.e. Why is Music Literacy Important for Singers?

If you have ever set foot in a music school or concert hall or a theater you have heard many jokes on the same theme... are you a singer or a musician?

While I often deeply resent the assumption that singers are not legitimate musicians, I have to admit that it can be a deserved criticism.  I have even avoided it myself by claiming my role as a conductor or theorist before that of a singer in order to establish my own skills as a musician.

The fact is, not only is sight-singing more difficult than playing most instruments, with the necessary pre-requisite of "hearing it in your head" more often a skill of conductors and composers, but it is easier to learn music "by ear" as a singer than it is with any other instrument.  This is a deadly combination when it comes to the discipline of learning music literacy as a singer.

However, in 2014, music literacy and especially sight-singing have become a competitive point.  In a business over-saturated with singers that are talented and technically skilled, people rise to the top of their competition in two major ways:  excellent acting skills that transcend the music, and music literacy and the ability to sight-sing.  I know several casting directors that focus on this second point because there is no longer the budget to pay a music director to teach music.  Of course a singer can pay a vocal coach or accompanist to teach them parts but that is not a guarantee -- casting directors and music directors want to see "sight singing/reading music" under a resume's special skills section, and if it is not followed up with absolute skills the singer will not be hired again and could quite possibly be replaced.

So, vocal coaches, if you have never taught sight-singing as part of your studio's culture, how to begin?  Singers that have always learned by ear, how do you turn the tide and become a master of your chosen craft?

I use a very incremental approach that first establishes rhythmic literacy, then note-reading and interval work on a major scale before learning other scales and steps on the already known "ladders" of intervals.  In the next several weeks, I will detail how sight-reading is part of the culture of my studio and my step-by-step sight-reading course.

Step one -- decide that it is important!  Make a decision to put in the work.  Remember that the rewards of not depending on another person to teach you or your students songs are great! 

Next week... A new way of looking at rhythms... clocks and circles of time... first worksheet pages!

Vimeo:  Beginning group voice class sight reading on numbers: https://vimeo.com/89637357