Vocal Myths Dispelled, Part I: Singing is Easy!
Musicians are an oft-misunderstood bunch. Most people do not realize the amount of work it takes to be a musician - the hours of practice, the years of lessons, the personal and financial sacrifices. Or if they do realize it, they don't see the point. They wonder why we put up with it all.
Perhaps my instrumentalist friends would beg to differ, but I believe that no type of musician is more misunderstood than the singer. It doesn't matter if you sing opera, Broadway, or contemporary music - people think that singing is natural and easy, and that all you have to do is open your mouth and release the beautiful voice you were born with.
People also seem to think that, because singing is so "natural" and "easy," real vocal and musical training aren't required. In fact, it is somehow seen as more impressive and authentic if a singer can appear to sing well or have a successful career with absolutely no formal training at all. Think about shows like American Idol and America's Got Talent - while there will be the occasional contestant who has had some amount of training and can perform well, most of them are just really good imitators of the pop/Broadway/opera star du jour. And the public just go ga-ga for it, because they don't know any better.
Now, not knowing any better is usually not their fault. How can they discern the difference between good singing and bad singing if no one has ever shown them?
That's where you, the trained singer, comes in. Even if you have only been taking voice lessons for a few months, or even if you've only done a semester of chorus in school, you probably know more about singing than they do. And it's your job to educate them.
This next series of blog posts will deal with common vocal "myths" - misconceptions about singing that have somehow made their way into the public's collective mind, or weird/incorrect technical "advice" that you may have been given by a well-meaning but woefully ignorant individual.
So the next time you are at a family gathering and Great Auntie Mildred asks what you've been up to these past couple months and you say "I've been taking singing lessons" and she says, "But why do you need singing lessons dear? Singing is easy and anybody can do it," you'll be armed with all the accurate information you need to correct your dear old aunt.
So, as you might have guessed, today's "myth" is:
Singing is natural and easy!
Now, in a way, people are sort of correct when they say singing is "natural." It is true that humans are born automatically knowing how to produce sound from their vocal folds. It's pretty incredible, if you think about it. From our very first cry as babies, our brains tell us to inhale, and then exhale, causing our vocal folds to vibrate and create sound in the process. As our brains and bodies develop, we learn how to produce a myriad of different sounds at different pitches and with different inflections. Eventually, most of us learn how to sing a tune. In this sense, singing is a very primal thing.
However, if you've taken voice lessons before, or even been in a choir or participated in a show, you know that there is WAY more to good singing than just opening your mouth and letting the sound come out.
I mean, think about it - if the logic is "we were born with vocal folds and an innate knowledge of how to produce sound, so singing must be easy," then we could just as easily say "we were born with legs, which we eventually learn how to use for walking, so running a marathon must be easy."
SNORT.
As any singer can tell you, singing is hard. The reason for this is that you are taking a process your body does very naturally - using the air you take in to produce a sound - and re-training your brain and body to do it in a very specific way. Because we have been using our voices our entire lives without giving it too much thought, we are constantly working against habits that have crept in and built up over time that make good singing incredibly difficult or downright impossible. If you've struggled to correct slouchy posture, clavicular breathing, or tight muscles in the throat and/or jaw, you know exactly what I mean.
Singing is a veritable balancing act for your brain. You're thinking about proper body alignment, the various components of breathing (the inhale, the amount of air and air pressure needed to sing the phrase, how slowly to release the air, etc.), resonance (is the throat open? the soft palate lifted?), vowel formation (what position should my tongue be in? Are my vowels consistent?), and tension release (is the neck free? the jaw released? the tongue relaxed?) - and this is just the technical stuff! On top of that, we're also thinking about the pitches, rhythms, and words to our song (which often have to be memorized), how our melody interfaces with the piano part (which may be completely different from the vocal line), not to mention musical interpretation and the presentation of the character.
Anyone who thinks that singing - and I mean real singing - is easy has probably never tried it.
So, what do you say when someone dismisses your vocal training as unnecessary? How do you correct them without sounding like a snobby jerk?
Here are a few guiding principles:
1. Put it in terms they can understand. Most people understand the challenges of singing better if you equate them to regular exercise. Your vocal folds, just like any other muscle in your body, have a proper, efficient function, and need to be trained specially to maximize that function. Just like you wouldn't run a marathon without training first, you wouldn't consider embarking on a singing career without any idea of how your vocal muscles work.
2. Explain that voice lessons are necessary for maintaining a healthy voice. You need the guidance of a professional to ensure that you're not damaging your vocal muscles through overuse or bad technique. Again, use the exercise analogy - weight-lifting with improper form, over time, can cause a lot of damage to your muscles. Singing frequently with bad technique will cause damage to your vocal folds, no matter what style you are singing, and no matter how talented you are.
3. Explain to them that singers are musicians, just like someone who plays the piano, the violin, the saxophone, whatever. Just because your instrument is naturally built into your body doesn't mean you don't have to learn to read music, develop musical precision, and know the musical lingo. Explain that acquiring these skills takes years of practice and at least some level of formal education.
4. Along these lines, when they point to Talented Star X from Talent Show Y and say, "But he/she has had no formal training, and look how good they sound!", explain to them that while having talent certainly helps, Talented Star X probably doesn't have much in the way of actual skills. "But how can you tell?" they might ask. Well, look at their technique and their performance. Incorrect breathing, epic amounts of tension, and/or weird tics in their performance are clues that Talented Star X probably hasn't taken the time to develop his/her skill set. Explain to your well-meaning friend or relative that "talent" will be of no help to TSX once his/her poor technique completely trashes his/her vocal folds. Skill, however - in addition to giving you the knowledge you need in order *not* to ruin your voice - will carry you beyond where talent can. Skill is a huge part of what's necessary to "make it" as a professional musician, and a truly skilled musician can detect an unskilled one from a mile away.
5. Invite them to your next performance - a recital, show, choral concert, or whatever. Give them a chance to see good singing in action. Or, invite them along to see a professional show or concert with you. Try to engage them by asking what their favorite shows or pieces are, and see if there's anything playing in your area that's similar.
Hopefully, your well-meaning friend or relative will be open-minded and see where you are coming from. If not, then just try graciously to change the subject. In that case, you've at least planted the seed with objective facts and and attempted to engage them in the topic.
What other misconceptions about singing have you encountered? Did you say or do anything to set the record straight? Let us know in the comments!
And stay tuned for our next myth-busting blog post!
