"An instrument of discovery"

I just read this in a Facebook ad for former U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins' poetry masterclass:

"I think of a poem as a flashlight, an instrument of discovery. I’m here to light the way for you, to show you what I’ve learned, and not just about rhyme and meter. I’ll also teach you about being open to influence, understanding who you are as a poet, and inventing a persona, that is, a distinctive voice that is yours alone. Join me in my first-ever MasterClass."

This resonated with me. If you love song, you love poetry, because that's what we're doing - we're singing poetry. And this is exactly how I feel about teaching singing. I'm here to light the way for you, to show you what I've learned, and not just about breath and resonance. 

I want you to understand who you are as a singer and as a person, to find the distinctive voice that is yours alone.

Join me. Turn on that flashlight.

 

***

Billy Collins' poetry

Money Notes

Wikipedia's definition:

A money note is a music industry slang term which refers to a part of a live or recorded singing performance which is subjectively judged to be very dramatic or emotionally stirring.

Mezzoid's definition:

A note you sing that is so fantastic, that sits in just the right place, that you've infused with so much emotion and strength and power, that people will throw money at you to keep doing it (and is hopefully not the opposite, where they'll throw money at you to make you stop).

Perfection is not attainable. In Power Performance for Singers by Shirlee Emmons and Alma Thomas, the authors liken preparation for singing to the preparation done by athletes. An athlete prepares by practicing, by knowing the field on which they're going to play, by mentally rehearsing the game, by packing their gear. They do not expect to make every shot, hit every ball, catch every ball, but they are going to create the conditions that will facilitate this so that they're going to miss every shot or every ball that comes their way.

Let's look at baseball. Mike Trout plays for the Oakland As and is considered the best player right now. His lifetime batting average is .308 and he has been up to bat 3902 times. This means that he has actually hit the ball almost 1,202 times, or 3 times out of every 10 times he's been up at bat. (Math is not my strong suit - feel free to recheck my numbers).

This doesn't seem all that impressive. But of those 1,200+ hits, 245 have been home runs (money notes) and 660 have been runs batted in.

As a performer, I think we'd all like to hit more than 3 out of every 10 notes right in order to consider ourselves successful. And all notes matter, not just the money notes.

Idina Menzel said in an interview, "There are about 
3 million notes in a two-and-a-half-hour musical; being a perfectionist, it took me a long time 
to realize that if I'm hitting 75 percent of them, 
I'm succeeding. "

That is true. And I think if we're batting .750 as singers, we're doing great.

BUT.

• If Mike Trout comes up to the plate at the bottom of the 9th inning and the other team is ahead one run, and the bases are loaded and he strikes out; OR
• If the note that people are paying you to sing (i.e., the money note and subject of the blog) is not among the 75%;

Both of you might as well have stayed home.

I submit for your consideration:

New Resource for Choosing Repertoire!!

Last week, I added yet another item to my list of things-to-spend-money-on-so-that-all-our-lives-can-be-better!

This resource is MusicalTheaterSongs.com and offers thousands of songs from 1850 to the present day (with the purchase of a subscription - and my NATS membership gets me 50% off of the annual subscription price).

For example - are you looking for a song for an audition for a girl under 13, written between 2010-2016? Just plug those things into the search engine, and voila! Thirty-five songs come up. Click on one of them to find out - let's look at this obscure one:

It's short (1 page?); it has an octave range; it's not too difficult to play; and it's pretty obscure. In fact, it's only available if you subscribe to contemporarymusicaltheatre.com (sigh, another one to check out), which you find if you go to the "find the sheet music" link.

AND you can create a song list of songs that you're saving. Right now, I have one saved for a project I'm going to propose for a conference next year for musical theater songs for women of a ... ahem... certain age.

This is offering so many possibilities! I can't tell you how excited I am. But I'll show you:

HIMYM Barney GIF from Himym GIFs

Spring Forward!

UGH, it's Daylight Savings Time. I hate the transitions both in and out of DST. I feel like I gain nothing in the fall because I wake up too early, and I definitely feel the loss of the hour in the spring. (Spring? It's spring?)

But I do like the idea of "spring forward." Of finding some new things to do and thinking outside the box.

For example, at my church job today, I decided that I was going to put the emphasis on all the prepositions in the hymns and responses. At first, it was a source of amusement (which pretty much sums up how I approach almost anything new), and then I realized it was a way to be really aware of the words I was saying. Too often, responses are on autopilot, and so are hymns (if you're just singing the melody to something you've known for years). But if you put the emphasis on a different word, you have to think about all the words before and after it.

"And also with you."
"Our Father, who art in Heaven."
"Make you to shine like the sun."

I did something like that recently in a cabaret performance of the song, "As if we never said goodbye" from Sunset Boulevard. I have always sung the lyric, "Has there ever been a moment?" with the emphasis on "ever." But in my last performance, it just felt right to put it on "been."

Now, I realize that emphasis is kind of Chandler Bing-esque, but it felt right to me in that moment. It seemed like it made all the other words in the line even more important.

There's an acting game to take a phrase and change the emphasis to get a different point across:

"I didn't say she stole my money."
"I didn't say she stole my money."
"I didn't say she stole my money."
"I didn't say she stole my money."
"I didn't say she stole my money."
"I didn't say she stole my money."
"I didn't say she stole my money."

How would you interpret each of this lines with the different emphasis? Which one might be defensive? Sad? Evasive?

How could you apply this to a song you're working on? Or a song you've known for years? How would it change the interpretation? What works? What doesn't?

Try this and see what happens. And remember....

Exploring Online Lessons

Oh, the weather outside is frightful -
But the fire is so delightful -
And since we've no place to go -
Let's do an online voice lesson! (With apologies to Sammy Cahn)

****

Yesterday, the college where I teach opened two hours late. And then 4 hours late. At which point I said, "I'll bet you they're going to close early. And no one is going to come in during the time they are open.... do I really want to drive in for maybe one student?" The answer was no. So I elected to cancel people; and within minutes, people who hadn't read my email -- what is with kids and not reading emails? -- were cancelling. And mid-afternoon, I received the text message I expected to get: The school was closing at 5, which would've sent me back home in a driving sleet at rush hour. This would've made me cranky.

So today, I elected not to go in either. It was icy in the morning, and projected to rain all day with temperatures just hovering above freezing. And I had students to teach at home. One of whom asked for a Skype lesson.

And I gave her a Skype lesson, and it wasn't perfect - I still have some technical challenges ahead of me, and I'm going to explore Zoom as a platform - but man, was it valuable.

I couldn't play for her while she was singing. There's a delay. Not a big deal for vocalises, but more of a snafu for repertoire. And the sound is still a work in progress. But because I wasn't playing, I was watching. And I was seeing things that I can't see while I'm playing because, well, I'm busy playing. I can't see that your mouth position isn't the same on your /oʊ/ vowel as it is on /aʊ/.* It was invaluable.

Until I get a handle on the platform, I'm not going to start making online lessons a regular part of my services. BUT - if you can't make your lesson one week because your ride has fallen through, we can do a lesson online. And who knows what we'll see. Hopefully it will be something we can address when you are standing in front of me. And maybe we need to bring in a pianist from time to time to play while I watch. Or maybe I need to do more with Appcompanist (once you know your pieces cold) so that I can just sit back and really look at you.

We need not cancel - we have so many options available to us now!

*International Phonetic Alphabet - coming to a studio page Facebook Live near you this summer.

Ch-ch-ch-changes - Welcome to Mezzoid: The Voice Studio of Christine Thomas-O'Meally!

Longer ago than I want to admit, I was in a choir at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception as a paid alto chorister. For those of you who aren't that well-versed (no pun intended) in choral music, mezzos usually sing alto in choirs. This is due to tessitura, rather than range. I'm more comfortable as an alto 1 than alto 2, but definitely not comfortable in S2.

Our conductor, Leo Nestor, was working through a piece, and turned to us and said, "Okay, altoids, let's go over this part," and I said, "Excuse me, but I happen to be a mezzoid." He said "What's the difference?" I said, "I'm still curiously strong, but I sing a minor third higher." (Cue music nerd laughter.)

Since that time, I've gone by mezzoid as an email address, first with AOL (in 1996!), then with wi.rr.com, and for the last 10+ years, with gmail. Then I got a website mezzoid.com, and then a personalized license plate (first in WI, now in MD). It's been my brand. When I check into conferences and workshops around the country, people recognize me from my posts on the now-defunct Vocalist bulletin board and other places.

So I have officially changed my studio name to Mezzoid: The Voice Studio of Christine Thomas-O'Meally (and I've changed the URL to MezzoidStudio). I commissioned a logo (below). I've updated my website and included Mezzoid as part of my identity.  I changed the URL of this blog from omeallystudio to mezzoidstudio.

New studio polices will be "dropped" on Tuesday, September 4, with some clarification of things to expect - from me to you and from you to me. Lots of ch-ch-changes ahead! And this is a good thing, as Martha Stewart would say.

How Would You Want to be Introduced?

Today I went to the Women in Theatre Conference: Empowerment and Connection. It was incredibly empowering and I felt a real connection to the other participants (so I guess it was a successful conference). And something happened right at the very beginning that really struck a chord with me.

A few weeks ago, I listened to a podcast on branding yourself done by my friend Megan Ihnen. In that, she asks you to identify characteristics that you see in yourself and that your audiences see in you (this could apply not only to performers, but to teachers/students or businesspeople/clients). And then think of how you would introduce yourself to people - and then how you'd like to be introduced by people.

The first person to speak at today's conference was the Dean of the Arts and Humanities Division at Howard Community College, Valerie Lash. Although I am about to start my 6th year at HCC, I've never actually met Ms. Lash before. I have heard that she's a force of nature, however, and apparently, this must be the case, because her introduction included these two words:

Indomitable

Tenacious

These are such unique words to describe someone.

Indomitable: impossible to subdue or defeat.

Tenacious: persistent, determined, dogged, strong-willed, tireless, indefatigable, resolute, patient, unflagging, staunch, steadfast, untiring, unwavering, unswerving, unshakable, unyielding, insistent (I couldn't limit myself to just one word).

I didn't know Valerie Lash at all up to this conference. But now, based on those adjectives, I really want to know her better. 

This is how I want to be introduced, both by myself and by someone else:

• I am Christine Thomas-O’Meally, and I am a singer who helps people find their voices, either by listening to what I’m singing or by teaching them to sing. 

• This is Christine. She has made a difference in so many people’s lives with her singing and teaching.

How do you want to be described?