Vocally Speaking. "Music Menu" Singing is the last plate on the menu?

It never ceases to amaze me when people are only talking about the actual songs, i.e. how good they are, how original they are, how well produced they are and how catchy they are...

Very rarely, you hear the comments about the singer, for example praising him/her about the strong vocals, about their vulnerability, original interpretation, perfect pitch, and overall perfect vocal performance delivery. How so you may ask? It should be two different commodities-the greatly written and produced song and well and professionally delivered vocals.

Once upon a time, I had a meeting in a Sony building with a prominent producer and a manager to be for one of my clients. After we discussed my client, they told me a story which happened a day before my meeting with them. They, apparently, flew a so called artist from Vancouver, BC in anticipation to record the perfect original tune composed by that artist and then put it on the market. Little did they know...

The so called artist could not sing to save his life. Both producer and manager apparently were ripping out whatever was left of their hair, ("LOL"), trying to pull out some coherent vocal performance from the person who they brought from the west coast and paid for his flight, hotel, food etc.

"Why did you bring him here in the first place if he couldn't sing?" I exclaimed. They said "but he had a very good song, therefore, we thought we got it all made with him. Too bad you did not visit us yesterday. It would be so much easier with your expertise to extract some decent sound out of him". GO FIGURE!

Obviously, their objective was a good original tune, but singing was secondary on their menu, if even at all. In my opinion, the singer is the one who is in the driver's seat. The singer, figuratively speaking, is the locomotive of a train, which pulls the whole train wagons forward. If the locomotive does not move, the rest of the train, evidently, are going nowhere. Also, when we go to a venue to listen to a band, usually we only know one name-the name of the lead singer. Very rarely, people know the rest of the names of the band members, unless they're close friends.

That said why the music industry is always concerned about the songs and never about the singer performing those songs? My presumption is when they are talking about even a mediocre singer; they are praising him/her anyways on the grounds of a good song. In Russian language, we have a saying "Don't mix the scrambled egg with God's gift".

The song should be a song, but the singing and the performance of that song is however related, but altogether a separate matter. In the 1980s and 1990s, there was a popular belief that the singer must write his/her own songs. On that note, I could say that I could drive my car very well, but I have no idea how to fix it or how to teach somebody driving for that matte In this instance, those things also related and somewhat inter-connected, but all those skills require separate expertise.

So if somebody could sing well, might not necessarily know how to write the songs and/or produce the songs for that matter. It does not however diminish those artists as vocal performers. Now 20-30 years later, the music industry became more liberated and I think more understanding.

They took the age bracket away due to the live TV reality shows and they allowed singers to show their talent via cover tunes, however demanding them to be sung in their originality. That said I want to believe that the music industry professionals and humanity as a whole, do still have a hope to be able to separate the inter-related skills and fairly address each and every one of them separately, collectively and in absolute fairness.essentially related to her everyday diet as well. The well-known saying, “you are what you eat”, was indeed present in her case. The body definitely contained a high volume of mucous and yeast. The voice got literally stuck in that heavy and thick muss and was unable to fly out to the surface. So the first protocol was to do the full cleanse of the body and thus, clean up the flora inside of her vocal box.

The second protocol was to identify the source of the high emotional and stressful indexing of her body. The thyroid, upon the definition of the holistic teaching, represents suppressed emotions and hurt. That issue had to be addressed as well. And finally, the voice work begun and resulted in a much clearer, much more understandable, much better pronounced and higher volume voice. Thus, the mission was accomplished!!!

The holistic approach to the person as a whole cured the cause, while scientifically and, nevertheless, naturally addressing the symptoms. In the interim, our toilet was also plunged by a REAL Plumber and now, THANK GOD, is usable again! LOL

Unfortunately, our building management is not addressing the cause of the plugged-up toilets and thus, we do not have an assurance that it will not become unusable again tomorrow or the next day. On the contrary, since we addressed not just the symptoms, but also identified the cause of the persons’ voice disorder, we are certain that if the now former student of ours, will continue her protocol with respect of the diet, more contained emotions and proper use, (as she was taught intensely), of her newly found and recovered voice, she will not necessarily have to come back to us again for a heavy duty work, but maybe, only for the maintenance and for the social visit, so to speak.