Installment #3 - "Get Off the Bandstand"

CHAPTER ONE
Who Do You Think You Are, Anyway?

If you wish to be viewed as a serious artist, or even at the very least, a singer who obviously loves the music you are freely sharing in the world, it becomes necessary to put away your ego and realize what it is you really have here. What exactly is it, this talent of yours??

Did you invent it? When? How old were you? What was the original idea for this brilliance of yours? Is there a blueprint around we can examine?

Hardly, right? Obviously, if you look closely, you can see that you DID NOT create your talent. It’s a gift, pure and simple.

It’s a talent that was given to you, most likely at birth, for which, in a perfect world, you in turn, say “thanks” to your Creator by offering it to others with the same intensity and profound love with which it was given to you.

Do You Get That?? Does it make sense to you?

It’s a talent that was GIVEN to you, most likely at birth, for which you are more or less encouraged by your Creator to SHARE it with others with the same intensity and profound love with which it was given to you.

You do NOT use it to glorify yourself in arrogance, and self-promotion, although it’s certainly not a giant leap for the EGO to deduce that you must be special indeed to have been given a gift of this magnitude! And of course…you ARE…as are all of God’s children, including your audiences, your fellow musicians, your housekeeper, your mechanic, your enemies…(see where I’m going with this?)

Now, I can hear you, singers! I hear you yelling back at me, “But , what are you saying, Chrys? That the only way to demonstrate how grateful we are for our talent is to humble ourselves when we perform? Shouldn’t we be strutting our stuff instead? What’s with all this humility…we’re not monks!!”

Well, yes…and no! It would depend on what your definition of strutting is.
If you mean showing off in a manner that suggests a message of
“Look at me, you losers! I’m special, and you are NOT!”.
Then, I would think that THAT was an ungrateful demonstration of your talent.

But if you mean by strutting that you sing with zeal and passion, and celebrate your talent AND your ability to use it to turn people on with the joy you feel in your heart, then, okay! Strut away!!

I sorta prefer the term “gravitas” to more clearly describe the quality I am talking about. It’s more of a dignity than a swagger. There is a certain substance or weightiness, or even a lordliness in the kind of person who walks in a glow of self-confidence and gratitude for what he has.

In a performer, it’s magical, and majestic! It’s the power to look into your eyes and go all the way to your soul…”Killing You Softly with His Song”.

You can’t strut that kind of a gift. You really cannot!! It is this humble author’s view that this gift has to constantly be treated with honor, adoration and reverence. Come on! You DID NOT CREATE IT! It was GIVEN, and you DISCOVERED it inside of you! Bravo for THAT! Wow!! And THAT is why you share it, right? It truly IS! Look!

It’s like when you were a kid and you happened upon a shiny marble on the sidewalk. You couldn’t wait to find your friends and say, “Look at this! Look what I found! Isn’t it fabulous? Let’s play with this for a while!” That’s not swaggering or bragging, it sharing what you found with people that matter to you. And when you perform from this perspective, you are sending vibrations of love all over the place, and you are showered with the stuff in return.

Performing from this space in consciousness cannot be faked, singers! You have to mean it. That’s what I’m talking about when I tell you singers to establish a relationship with your audience, and to find something special about them and to love them.

And you also have to love your musicians.

The feelings that travel among each of you on stage becomes PART of the songs you are singing so you HAVE to love and respect and admire your musicians.

Let me tell you a little story to more correctly make my point on this particular issue about loving your musicians.

I was traveling around the country several years ago with a big band, and when I say “big band”, I am talking about a particular genre of music called “Big Band”. It refers to the 18-piece bands of the 40’s and 50’s like Glenn Miller, Woody Herman, the Dorsey Brothers and people like that.

I traveled with the Les and Larry Elgart big band back in the early 60’s and also with Si Zentner’s Band, and The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra under the direction of Sam Donahue for several years.

There were occasions when the band was backing up a big name singer in Vegas or Reno, or somewhere, and on those occasions I would get the night off. I never stopped being totally star struck by some of the big stars that were backed up by the bands I was on…singers I grew up adoring, like Mel Torme, Johnny Ray, Nancy Wilson, Connie Francis, and people like that.

So, even if I had the night off, there was no way I wasn’t going to stand in the wings and watch these people I loved perform, and dream about reaching the heights that they already had attained.

99% of the time, my “idols” did not disappoint…except for this one time…

TO BE CONTINUED

Get Off the Bandstand! (The Rules of Behavior for the Aspiring Jazz Singer) PART TWO

Previously…I compared being a working professional singer to a tennis player…each making a living and a life by doing what he or she loves to do, and while they dream of stardom and fortune, they play by the rules of the game of the present moment.

In Tennis, there have only been 6 players in the history of the sport, who have won all 4 Grand Slam Tennis Events. And only 2 of those 6 have won on 4 completely different surfaces! Those 6 players are well-known all over the world, while there are thousands more players who make a good living playing tennis, and while they will win a tournament here and there, are not widely known.

Good, all around tennis players, just like good all-around singers can make a living doing what they love, and what could be better than that! Not everyone’s gonna end up at the top of the game or in the record books, and that should NOT be the goal anyway. The goal is to do what we LOVE more than anything.

This book is geared toward Jazz Singers and Singing, which is a specific genre and has with it very specific set of rules that the singer should follow to be considered a true pro!

And, by the way, when I talk about singing Jazz, I am not referring to what they call “Smooth Jazz”, or “New Jazz”.

I don’t even know what that is, but the songs and styles I hear, either of which are referred to with that moniker are NOT Jazz in this author’s humble opinion. Elevator renditions of a Jazz standard, played by John Tesh is NOT Jazz!

When I talk about Jazz, I am speaking with reverence about an art form created, in the cotton fields down south by singing slaves; nurtured by the melodic stylings of Louis Armstrong and the chaotic expression of Ornette Coleman, and continuously expanded in its rhythms and harmonic patterns by people from Scott Joplin at the start of the 20th century, to Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, John Coltrane in the mid-20th century, and Chick Corea, and Wynton Marsalis into the 21st century! And does not include anything played by Kenny G or Yanni!

Jazz is one of America's greatest exports.

It is the first truly American musical genre, and was recognized by Congress in 1987 as a national treasure.

Thanks to countless performers and innovators over the course of centuries, jazz has risen to become one of the most respected musical genres in the world.

And if you wish to sing jazz and be called a singer of jazz, don’t just learn how to scat…study the history of jazz and connect with its soul.

It’s more than technique, it’s so much more than dexterity, It’s a pure and unadulterated American Art form to be respected and to be proud of!

And there are rules that don’t exist in other musical forms…rules of behavior on the bandstand, rules of understanding the particular language of jazz, and well….that’s what this book is about!

I’ve been a voice teacher for 30+ years. There are literally thousands of us in the world, and, as in any educational field, some of us are better at it than others.

I don’t claim to be the best voice teacher out there. There are better technicians than I for certain; many classically-trained vocalists who understand the anatomical aspects of singing far better than I do, and whose methods, I think, should definitely all be attempted by the aspirant to see which works best for him or her as a student of voice. Trying on singing methods is much like trying on songs to sing, or trying on coats for that matter. You try different ones on until you find the one that FITS!!

Learning from a teacher is totally subjective. The bottom line is, if you “click” with your teacher, you are able to learn from that person. If you don’t “click”, then it doesn’t matter how accomplished he or she is, how many famous clients he or she has taught, or how expensive or inexpensive the fees are.

The fact remains that you cannot learn and get better as a singer with a teacher or coach with whom you just don’t connect.

Personally, I spend just about 6 weeks training voices to sing, the reason being that 6 weeks is the maximum amount of time it takes to put certain principles of singing on auto-pilot, such as; the breathing, the sound creation, (diaphragm control), the body’s resonation centers, and the Seven Deadly Sins of Singing which are to be avoided.

That’s pretty much all of what I teach to beginning students. I leave it up to the individual singer to practice the drills I design for each specific concern he or she may have about his/her voice. If the student is dedicated and seriously committed to his/her singing, the 5-10 minutes a day of drilling is not much to ask, and the results are amazing!

But, almost any decent voice teacher can do that for a student.

Where my joy and fulfillment lies is in the performance aspect of singing…and in helping a singer to discover his own voice, his sense of musicality, purpose, and ultimately, his total power through his vocal performance to alter Energy, and subsequently, Matter!

And while I am no scientist, everything I teach, write about, or talk about with my students is based on empirical knowledge, that is knowledge which has been informed by my own personal experience.

So when I say that a performance can move energy, I say it because I’ve seen it happen…and often!

This principle is widely known and accepted in the world of sports, where a particular athlete’s performance can so move the observers’ that they in turn will literally send him or her the positive energy required to accomplish the goal at hand.

This is true in almost all sporting events, but most easily understood when a single athlete is performing a feat, like playing tennis, golf, diving, or standing at the plate with a bat. The crowd becomes a “partner” in the process of achievement and each member of the observing crowd will literally feel the joy or agony of the result…as deeply as the athlete himself.

In tennis, for example, when a player is an audience favorite, the opponent will want to start the match with a flair of winning points, specifically to “take the crowd out of it”, meaning to quiet their cheers and leave the favored player with no energy with which to fight except his/ her own.

Baseball fans are celebrated as the “10th man on the field”.

And for a singer, there is nothing more meaningful and deeply felt than the audience’s applause, that symbol of love and devotion that all artists crave. For some, once they have experienced the feeling of a standing ovation, they can never be satisfied with anything less ever again.

There is, however, a price to be paid for that kind of love!

Or perhaps a more appropriate way to put it is…there needs to be a certain reverence shown to the art form itself for its ability to produce joy, and sadness, exhilaration, and despair, hope, and love that nothing else can produce.

We as singers of song, need to be profoundly and utterly grateful for this gift we have been blessed with by the creator of all that is.

We didn’t invent it. We didn’t manufacture it, and we can never take it for granted or treat it with egotistical arrogance or stupidity!

And I have written this book to demonstrate what I believe is the appropriate way to carry this gift and cherish it, treasure it, and guard it, lest it be taken away in a flash!

So we’ll talk about how to work with musicians, writers, producers and promoters in a way that honors your talent…but also theirs!

In addition, we’ll be covering some helpful hints on dealing with fans and customers. (This section will be quite amusing, and sometimes scary, so be sure to stick around for that!)

And we’ll discuss your ability and willingness to adhere to the rules of the road on a bandstand…in other words the things you need to know…which are so much more than just the song you’re singing.

So off we go…into the world of the professional singer/musician!

TO BE CONTINUED…

Happy August, Singers!!

Been away a long time, huh? Actually, I've been putting the blog on another site for the past 7 months or so, and if you'd like to read any of the ones you missed, they may be accessed at www.singyourlife.com/blog/.

Hope your Summer, wherever you may be is giving you an opportunity to rest and appreciate all the great things in your life. I truly believe that it’s that appreciation, that fuels the continuation of those great things.And don’t I get more and more philosophical each month???

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this blog…its value as entertainment as well as my own seemingly endless pontifications on the subject of singing and all its aspects.

My sister forwarded something to me a few months ago by an author named Sara Davidson. It was in a blog format, but it was actually a story in serial form and each month her blog would be a continuation of the story she was telling.

While I actually found the story a little silly, something about love and sex after the age of 50, and why even at that age, a woman cannot seem to identify a DOG when she sees one, I kinda liked the idea of the serial format.

So….I have decided to serialize my next book for you, my loyal readers. You get to read it way before it even goes to the publishers, and your comments will really help me when the time comes for final edits, so thanks in advance for that, singers.

Here’s the first installment of “Get off the Bandstand”, OR (The Rules of Behavior for the Aspiring Jazz Singer).

Introduction:
This guidebook is designed specifically for those singers who wish to pursue, or are already pursuing a career as a Jazz Singer. It doesn’t apply to any other vocal genre. And that being said, let me take a moment here to explain why that is before getting on with this book.

It is widely understood in the world of Tennis, that in order to be considered a complete player, one who is rated among the very best in the world, year after year after year, the player must be able to perform on a variety of surfaces.

In other words, the player should be as comfortable on a grass court as he or she is on a clay court, a hard court, or an indoor carpeted court. Each court demands a completely separate set of skills from the player because each surface creates different challenges.

For example, the ball will tend to bounce differently, lower, or end up in an unexpected position on grass where there are dips and even holes on the surface, than on a hard concrete court where there are none. Or, while one needs to be able to run to the ball on a grass court, he will have to perfect a sliding technique on clay to be a consistent winner.The thing is that to be a truly consistent and top rated player, one must be able to negotiate all surfaces accurately and play according to the protocols inherent in each surface.

And it’s the same for singers. Every gig is different. A singer cannot perform at a wedding the same way he/she does at a cabaret gig. And let me tell you ladies that if you try, you’ll probably never work a wedding again. Why? Because “stealing” the spotlight from the bride is a big “no no” in the wedding reception business. The guests are not at all interested in the singer’s little self-aggrandizing anecdotes. They just wanna dance!

And while you may be sitting there reading this and thinking, “Who cares about that? I will never work a wedding gig. Those are lame. I’m too good for that”, let me tell you that playing weddings can pay your rent for a year or more while you’re perfecting your scatting, building your book, or practicing your instrument.

Every Gig is Different!

If you get a call to sing back-up at a recording session, this is NOT an opportunity to try out your audition piece for American Idol. You see that, don’t you? Singing backup requires something different, something subdued, without too much vibrato that might make you stick out, because that’s the job you’ve been called to do.

How about a restaurant looking for dinner music? Is this the appropriate venue for a loud, bombastic “Come to the Cabaret”-type number, or maybe your stories of childhood and how you learned the song you’re about to sing?

When a restaurant owner says he wants dinner music, he means SOFT…elevator-style, the kind of music that people can converse over in levels no louder than a whisper.Additional factors distinguishing the differences inherent in singing jobs are not just the venue differences, but the genre differences.

There are experienced, competent singers, who work consistently, who pay their bills on their earnings from singing, who never become a famous celebrity, but who make a living AND a life doing what they love.They are as comfortable in an high class private country club with plush, elegant furnishings as they are in a bar with sawdust on the floor. They can sing in a variety of styles, like requests put forth by the customers, be it a 40’s big band tune, or a country song, or a bossa nova, or even a show tune, or a jazz standard.

These artists, and called Journeymen, (that is any experienced, competent but mostly unknown and uncelebrated performers).

There are thousands of journeymen in the music business, including guitar and keyboard players, saxophone and trumpet players, bassists, flutists, harpists, violinists, cellists, drummers, and yes, singers, all doing what they love for a living, and loving what they do every day.

These are the working professionals of the music business, and while they…[we] understand that every gig is different, and while it remains the dream of every one of them [us] to just DO OUR ACT, stand up there and express our deepest feelings, with our favorite songs, the ones that perfectly express our essence and which are arranged exquisitely, the way we want them; and our warm and witty stories that hold the audiences attention in an utter delightful magnetic clasp that only releases them when we are through, and the perfect venue where the plates and glasses make no noise when we are on the stage, and where the lighting is perfect and the sound system is set to the most attractive equalization for our voice, and one where every eye in the house is on US…Aaah YES!

While we dream all of that, we also know the reality!And that is that if we wish to work as professionals, we can almost assuredly count on being called upon to play, (sing) on different “surfaces” (venues), using a variety of strokes, (sing in a variety of genres, like Country, Jazz, Pop, Rock etc.), and need to be competent in every single one!

A working singer’s schedule for just 2 days: (sample)

• Monday10AM – back-up singing gig at ABC Recording Studio, (no rehearsal – need to read it)
• 12:30PM - Give a voice lesson to a student
• 2PM – Ladies Auxiliary Luncheon and Fashion Show
• 7PM – Happy Hour at the XYZ Bar and Grill
• Tuesday11AM – Art Gallery Opening – (may need to emcee)
• 2PM-4PM - Teach
• 5PM - Cocktail Party at the GHI Hotel – Ballroom A
• 9PM – Dance at the VFW, (may go overtime)

Naturally, every single journeyman performer aspires to greatness, fortune, and celebrity. The point here is that although that’s very true, one has to play by the rules of the game that are being played in the present moment!

TO BE CONTINUED…