Virtual Workshop Weekend for singers: Sing Joyfully 2020
This year, in the wake of COVID-19 and the uncertainty that it has created for singers getting together, I decided to make 2020 my year of delivering my regular workshop courses online.
Residential weekends at Dartington Hall, form part of my teaching year structure. Situated near Totnes in South Devon, the Dartington Hall ethos provides the perfect vibe for such valuable learning exchanges to happen. The workshop weekends run in March (Love Your Voice) for solo singers, and October (Sing Joyfully) for ensemble singers.
Thanks to the pandemic, I’ve been on a learning curve of my own since March, reconfiguring my music studio, learning more about the tech requirements for teaching, and leading online. Little did I know how eerily on-point my post of January this year, where I welcomed applications for my ‘Love Your Voice’ course at Dartington Hall. This is how I opened the post:
“Teaching is more than imparting knowledge, it is inspiring change. Learning is more than absorbing f...
Technique Tuesday: Did you know ... about vocal support?
One of the trickiest concepts of vocal technique (spoken or sung) to grasp is the delicate question of ‘support’.
What is it? I’m not fond of using that word when teaching actually, because of the picture or feeling that it can evoke.
Usually, that word physically translates to actions like ‘grip’, ‘tense’, and ‘block’ rather than ‘release’, ‘allow’ and ‘enable’.
When you’ve got it, you’ve GOT it, and that word becomes part of the skillset, a component that is so hard to explain. Unlocking the puzzle initially, finding new ways to nudge students along the path of learning is a challenge because different ideas both mean and feel differently to each person.
The infographic below focusses on ‘Expiration’ or the ‘outbreath’.
All singers worry about how long their breath will last, often running out at peak moments of the phrase despite best efforts. Why is this? It’s because their postural alignment and understanding in relation to different abdominal muscle groups is slightl...
Singer's Learning Tip: Trust the wait
A short video note dedicated to a few good singing souls out there: you know who you are!
(Confession: I found this blog post lurking in my unpublished folder. Too good to pass up! It's a year old, but honestly, the advice is timeless. Pertinent to the same degree, right now.)
I have witnessed frustration and even disappointment in students when I am teaching and it's important to give it the space it needs. Every singer is different. Learning how to sing well takes time, you can't rush it. Persistence is key, and it's my job to pave the way for experimentation and experience.
I like to create a working environment where everyone feels at ease - freedom to bring true voices to the fore. Mistakes will happen, odd sounds will be heard but always there must be a feeling of creation, happy trial and error, with true learning at its core. It's a journey and it takes persistence, as do most things of true worth.
American baritone, Thomas Hampson says it all here ... No more words requi...
Stay connected. Let's Sing!
I’ve been teaching online for some time now, and I really enjoy it. It started out of necessity, because I had moved away - relocated - just as a parent had reached out asking me to mentor his son. To avoid disappointment and to see if I could help despite the 165 miles distance between us, I began crafting my teaching business to include delivering lessons and mentoring more online.
That was back in 2012. Technology has moved on a lot since then - of course. If you can handle the thought processes, be creatively curious about how to overcome problems, or embrace new tech solutions, then it’s an exciting way to deliver to students and groups who would normally be separated by geography.
Coronavirus brought a whole new meaning to separation and isolation, with many singers, necessarily cut off from their normal routine - lessons, rehearsals, ensembles, choirs, and performances. All halted.
Technology and the internet, with all its variety and wonder, has been a saviour; the online ...
More than skin deep ...
Actually, it's been another good well-being week. I’ve been really drilling down on food, refining natural supplements, cooking more, choosing to buy organic products when I can, and further reducing the use of plastic in the house. Good digestion and gut health have a direct link to my happy skin, and with focus, it is gradually improving. I soothe my working environment by diffusing essential oils...and I have some rescue and renew bath crystals for a relaxing soak in a candlelit bathroom. Thanks, Sophie, for that tip....
To explain, Wellbeing - always accepted as important of course - has become more than a supportive focus for me, because of an ongoing issue I have with my skin. I could just attribute stress to the cause of the problem. Whilst I readily acknowledge that I tend to be a bit of a sensitive soul, with allergies of various types showing up through my adult life, this latest chapter has at times made me so miserable. I am very visible as a teacher and singer and n
...CODA: final singing notes
Postlude thoughts, given by the singers.
We’ve all just had a week of back-to-normal life routine after our wonderfully indulgent long-weekend ‘Shake Down 2020′, where we did nothing but sing, discuss, cook, eat, relax, listen and work for 4 days. It was idyllic - such good times, full of music, vocal vibration and lots of laughter.
But - how did this re-entry truly feel?
Teaching: freedom to inspire.
“Teaching is more than imparting knowledge, it is inspiring change. Learning is more than absorbing facts, it is acquiring understanding.”
William Arthur Ward
When it arrives, this kind of synergy brings an exciting dynamic to the relationship between student and mentor. If present, the two elements generously combine to create an unwritten contract of possibility.
Where the mentor provides a thought-provoking, boundary-busting structure to learning practices, so the student is encouraged to open themselves up to new ideas and patterns of work.
There is co-operative freedom to inspire. Magical when you experience it.
Dartington Hall, near Totnes in South Devon, provides the perfect vibe for such exchanges to happen and with my next residential weekend in March just visible on the horizon, those of us who have already signed up to be there are beginning to feel the buzz of excitement.
For solo singers, the Love Your Voice weekend workshop promises...
Three working w...
A 2020 note to self: learn to get uncomfortable. NOTICE.
Singing imperfections and the OK Plateau.
It is Technique Tuesday. As a professional musician with a lifetime of technical vocal learning behind me and a trusty ongoing pursuit of future perfection in front of me, I regularly invest in telling my students to be at ease with where they are on their vocal journey. At ease, but not too comfy. To forgive their vocal imperfections BUT also be inquisitive, and questioning about the WHY. Be precise with how they invest their learning time when winkling out precious moments to focus on what they hope to achieve in their learning.
In 2013, I blogged a link to Joshua Foer’s wise words above and thereby also to a fabulous Brain Pickings post, by Maria Popova. It was called: The Psychology of Getting Unstuck: How to Overcome the “OK Plateau” of Performance & Personal Growth. In a nutshell, it seemed to set out everything so clearly and I at once recognised my own vocal-learning journey in there, one which I built over the years around ‘
...Singers: Health as a priority.
So, when during this past week I’d been suffering from fatigue, and a dull headache was making me slow, not for one minute did think something was brewing. Fine summer months and long sunny days had dispelled any notion of colds and coughs. It didn’t dawn on me that my health and immune system were being challenged until I woke with that tell-tale scratchy feeling at the back of my throat. You see, I had totally missed those early signs.
Summer has been deliciously busy. Much of August was taken up with preparations for my daughter’s wedding. Well, making the wedding
...Think on this: The function of Art in every day life
The sculptor is here looking, it has been said, at the human form metaphorically: the figure is as much Nature as Woman, with its supporting arm and shoulder “ shaped like a blunt unyielding promontory”. Moore himself chose the site for the Figure, and his choice caused no little surprise at the time. He wanted it to be looked at against the skyline, in contrast to the common assumption of the time that a piece of sculpture should be discreetly enclosed, whether by building or vegetation.
The Reclining Figure resonates with me every time I stand up there on the high rid
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Voice-works Study: July 2025
As the Voice-works year concludes, the July Study Weekend is set for action! Application for singers is now closed, but I would love to welcome observers to the event. There is something profound about witnessing another singer's journey in real-time. Observers are welcome to apply right up to the event itself. Just click the image for all the details.
