Playing and singing!

[littletune]

Well I kinda decided now that I will post myself singing  I guess I kinda wanna know if someone thinks there is any hope for me  like that I could learn to sing well 
I played Edelweiss on my keyboard... and in the sheet music there is a student part and a teacher part... and I recorded on my keyboard first the student part twice (in two different octaves) and then I also learned and recorded the teacher part which was a lot harder that's why the whole song is very slow  and sometimes it's not like all exactly at the same time  but well... and then I was also singing...  so I'll just post it now... if anyone has any advice about my singing and playing too... well I hope it doesn't hurt someones ears   

[m1469]

hmmm ... I forgot that we can post mp3's as part of the message in other areas of the forum ... mua hah ahaa.

If only I could get my "hands" on you ... haha.  That's, btw, as a pianist, one of the strangest things about singing ... you can't just put your hands on the mechanism.  You have to somehow "see" it and "handle" it with an entirely different sense than to be able to move somebody's hand for them on the piano.

I think it's funny that you wonder if there is any hope for you  .  I know, I know, you got a little confused at some point because of something that your teacher once said.  But, to me you clearly do have much hope.  As I told you before, I have seen/heard enough cases where there were actually some major "problems" even in their singing apparatus (problems that you don't have), and then those individuals bloomed into quite a surprise!  

Anyway, I won't give a big detail at the time, but the immediate things that stand out to me are your sense of pitch center (which is a little different for singing or violin playing than what the piano allows), as well as just your musical sense.  You have a pretty sound with a kind of edge to it (which is nice ... it's something like having a clean and cut jawline). Your actual singing voice is thankfully mostly unaffected and is already a true reflection of your actual personal sound, which is not easy to come by these days for many indiividuals (especially if they don't have much actual training and take all their tips from pop singers).  And, really I feel I hear quite a bit in there that already can come further out than what you seem to allow yourself (very understandable).  Right now, the more edgy part of your voice is more prominent than if you were using your entire apparatus more, but you want that edge still, because it will give a kind of definition to your overall sound that brings layers to the sound (and layers are a good thing).  There is no way to give an actual lesson through posts like this, but there is a whole section of your body that you aren't currently using to its fuller capabilities, but I feel like I can hear that you are quite capable of using it in a short amount of time, actually, and it would already make quite a difference for you in terms of vocal quality (your quality is not bad, btw, but there's more to your voice already than what you are using) as well as your sense of comfort with bigger leaps and upper register singing.

That's it for now .  Thanks for posting!  You should look into vocal lessons in your area (but, you need the right teacher) .

[goldentone]

That was beautiful, Littletune.   There is much beauty in your voice.

[littletune]

Thank you very much m1469!!!      Thanks for writing about all that!   

And thank you very much Goldentone for saying that!!!     

I'm happy you both liked my singing!  Today at music theory I was a little less scared to sing! (cause I read your comments before I had my music theory)      so that was cool! 

[m1469]

You're welcome, Littletune.  I started choir in 5th grade and had the same director in middle school through highschool, even.  I learned some things from him, but something that stands out to me the most regarding singing in his ensembles is how he would tell us that if we were going to make a mistake to make it big.  I haven't actually thought THAT much about it on a daily basis, and now that I'm typing about it I'm thinking about it extra (and now I'm wondering if he was actually trying to use reverse psychology??) ... but anyway, even though I definitely would NEVER want to feel like I was making a huge mistake like that, I believe the spirit was to go ahead and sing out.  I do understand that not every ensemble will allow room for mistakes, but in those younger years, I think it's important for individuals to not feel too timid about singing.  You know?  In some way that definitely helped me emotionally anyway. 

Happy if you are gaining some confidence .

[birba]

That was great!  I can't figure out why your teacher didn't want you to sing in the chorus during the competition.  Your voice is in tune, it has a nice fresh quality and yet it vibrates like a real singer.  I think you should continue with it.  And the fact that you had the courage to post it here means you also have that necessary "show-off" quality that is so vital in singing and performing!

[littletune]

Thanks again m1469!!   Well one teacher from my music school was telling us something like that about the mistake too He's not a piano teacher but a guitar teacher but when we all had a recital last year and we were waiting and we were all scared he was telling us all the time that it's better to play loud and make a mistake than to play really quietly and play everything right. And he was saying that we have to make at least one mistake cause if we don't it won't even be ok and noone will even remember what we were playing but if we make a mistake then they'll start listening and they'll remember   

Thank you Birba!! Well... I don't know I'm not sure... maybe then I didn't sing in tune yet  I was always thinking that maybe I wasn't very good at being in tune and all that because I had a hearing loss till I was about 5 and a half and I thought maybe that's why I wasn't that good at music and listening and all that... so that's why even now I can't believe that I can sing in tune and I always think what if I'm singing wrong and I don't even know it and I'm always so scared of dictations because I can never believe that I can hear all that... and then even if I don't have any mistakes at all I always think that I was probably just lucky and that next time I'll get everything wrong and it's just like that with singing... I always start thinking that I'm probably not singing right...  But I'm really happy that my singing doesn't sound bad That's why I felt a lot better yesterday at music theory    And we were singing really a lot!   

[birba]

Thanks again m1469!!   Well one teacher from my music school was telling us something like that about the mistake too He's not a piano teacher but a guitar teacher but when we all had a recital last year and we were waiting and we were all scared he was telling us all the time that it's better to play loud and make a mistake than to play really quietly and play everything right. And he was saying that we have to make at least one mistake cause if we don't it won't even be ok and noone will even remember what we were playing but if we make a mistake then they'll start listening and they'll remember   

A teacher of mine once told me that she was always happy to make that first mistake in a concert, because then she felt she had paid her taxes and could continue without any further worries. 

[elspeth]

so that's why even now I can't believe that I can sing in tune and I always think what if I'm singing wrong and I don't even know it and I'm always so scared of dictations because I can never believe that I can hear all that...

I had a similar problem to this - I couldn't sing in tune because I didn't think I could. In my case I spent a long time with a school music teacher who told me consistently my voice was flat (in pitch) - and I ended up believing it, so guess what, I was out of tune.

It turned out that this teacher was simply giving me music which was pitched too high for me - I'm an alto and she was trying to make me sing soprano lines, of course I couldn't do it. It wasn't until I went for some voice lessons with a very talented teacher that I got over that and a big part of it was simply believing that I could sing in tune. I'm a flute player by training and when you play woodwind seriously you develop a very accurate sense of pitch to keep your instrument in tune as you play - so once I stopped beating myself up about the quality of my voice, the rest was fairly simple!

[littletune]

Thank you for the comment! Well I think maybe then when the teacher was testing our singing  (before that festival) I was sooo scared that maybe I couldn't even sing right anymore cause I was so scared. Cause it was really scary and everyone had to sing by themselves and there was really a lot of us so I was waiting like the whole afternoon because I was the last one (cause I wanted to be the last one cause I was so scared) and then I couldn't even sing right anymore  ... and then after the teacher said I shouldn't sing I REALLY couldn't sing at all anymore...  so I'm really glad I started singing again now!  
Thanks again everyone for all the nice comments!!!     

[pianowolfi]

Hey littletune, very good! Congratulations!
Of course I can't add anything to m1469's excellent comments (to me she is an absolutely fascinating singer herself)

I realise more and more how much important singing can be. I had a wonderful experience last weekend, with a very experienced choir conductor, who really brought out the best in us, with a few simple exercises, a few simple hand movements, and through a very encouraging guidance

Like many people I thought for years that singing is nothing for me and I don't have the voice for it yadda yadda. Plus when I were young (like 22 or so) I have had a bad experience when my voice just got somehow blocked, and crampy when I tried to sing. But this has certainly changed and I could sing for hours and hours without even getting tired

Now I'm sure that I will join a choir as soon as I have enough time for it

[littletune]

Thank you Wolfi!      I really started wishing I could sing in a choir again too!!!!! Or have singing lessons! I hope I can sometime! We'll see...   

[momen]

Ah! Your voice is so soothing 

[littletune]

Thank you very much!     

[m1469]

Hey littletune, very good! Congratulations!
Of course I can't add anything to m1469's excellent comments (to me she is an absolutely fascinating singer herself)

Thank you, Wolfi.  It's still a pretty new experience for me to be articulating these things.

Like many people I thought for years that singing is nothing for me and I don't have the voice for it yadda yadda. Plus when I were young (like 22 or so) I have had a bad experience when my voice just got somehow blocked, and crampy when I tried to sing. But this has certainly changed and I could sing for hours and hours without even getting tired

I think that most of the time (and it's my theory that in fact it's ALL of the time), that there are actually no ugly natural voices.  That our natural vocal state, when it's just our natural sound resonating, isn't the thing that causes a voice to be "bad".  I think it's rather things that are in the way of the natural sound which causes a voice to sound like something we think we don't want to hear, like tension or affectation.  What's tricky though is getting people to have their natural voice sounding.  I wonder if much of that is psychological for people?  Whether people think "now I am singing, I must act a certain way and treat my voice a certain way" or whether people just feel it's so personal and can't bring themselves to let what feels like their soul be heard?

I've been thinking about this quite a bit, both as a singer myself and as a singing teacher.  For me, the piano is like letting my soul sound, and while I feel mostly connected with my singing voice, strangely I feel (in most circumstances) like I can personally hide behind the sound ... as though I am not actually transparent to people (whereas piano is pure transparency for me).  It's often a bit strange to me to hear people describe singing as our most natural self-expression or so, and to have singing people inform me that as a singer, I am letting myself show whereas with piano I can hide behind the instrument (to reiterate the point, I in fact feel just the opposite).  I do feel that singing has helped me quite a bit in my piano playing and with my musical sense overall, and I have been greatly enriched with the ensemble experiences I have had as a singer.  In these ways it's definitely been very important.  Ideally, I would require all of my piano students to also take serious voice lessons, as well as my voice students taking serious piano lessons.  Ultimately, I believe art comes from more or less the same place within us no matter the medium (or instrument), at least when we are truly making art.  More and more, I feel a connection between voice and piano that is impossible for me to explain, and I suspect that the more I come to learn and know about both of these, the further this connection between them will grow.

Something I've been thinking in the past few months goes something like this ... "just because at the piano we use our hands instead of our diaphram, and just because the sound waves pass through steel chords instead of vocal chords, and resonate in a wooden body instead of a personal body, who's to say it's not singing?"  Maybe that doesn't make sense to anyone, but I believe artists have a voice.  I have come to realize in this last week that my singing voice and pianistic voice have the same personal chracteristics.  I feel drama in music, for example, and that is reflected in both my singing voice as well my pianistic voice.  It's what I feel internally about life and music.

In any event, I certainly encourage people to sing .

[elspeth]

I do feel that singing has helped me quite a bit in my piano playing and with my musical sense overall, and I have been greatly enriched with the ensemble experiences I have had as a singer.  In these ways it's definitely been very important.  Ideally, I would require all of my piano students to also take serious voice lessons, as well as my voice students taking serious piano lessons.

I certainly believe all woodwind players should take serious voice lessons. I was already a technically accomplished flute player when I started having voice lessons, and specific instrumental technique aside, it was the single most important thing I did to improve my playing.

[m1469]

I certainly believe all woodwind players should take serious voice lessons. I was already a technically accomplished flute player when I started having voice lessons, and specific instrumental technique aside, it was the single most important thing I did to improve my playing.

Yes, I would imagine it's a HUGE benefit to take serious voice lessons as a wind player, even as a violin and other strings player.  It's the most natural musical expression we can make ... wait ... I hate that!  But, okay, in any instrument there is a huge benefit in learning better breath support as well as bodily support.  In Bel Canto singing, I have learned to take the deepest breaths ever (even though that means I have to relax my stomach during intake in front of a huge crowd ... it makes me look pregnant  ) ... but, can still take deeper.  It's amazing to learn about how the muscles can work for us, and to take that over into piano playing, too.  There is a woman in New York (I don't know her name) who teaches my teacher, and this woman apparently had a dual career in both singing and piano (Concerto in the afternoon, Opera in the evening ... hee hee ... me wanty wanty   ) and she teaches crossover techniques (so do I  ).  I've been invited to go out there and stay with my teacher, even, and study a bit with this woman while I'm there.  Sometime I will , maybe soon .  Then I'll come back and hold a thread on the forum ... haha ... that's a joke.  

Anyway, lungo vive la voce ... e il pianforte e musica!  Ay aye aye aye aye!!

[pianowolfi]

Thank you, Wolfi.  It's still a pretty new experience for me to be articulating these things.

I think that most of the time (and it's my theory that in fact it's ALL of the time), that there are actually no ugly natural voices.  That our natural vocal state, when it's just our natural sound resonating, isn't the thing that causes a voice to be "bad".  I think it's rather things that are in the way of the natural sound which causes a voice to sound like something we think we don't want to hear, like tension or affectation.  What's tricky though is getting people to have their natural voice sounding.  I wonder if much of that is psychological for people?  Whether people think "now I am singing, I must act a certain way and treat my voice a certain way" or whether people just feel it's so personal and can't bring themselves to let what feels like their soul be heard?

I've been thinking about this quite a bit, both as a singer myself and as a singing teacher.  For me, the piano is like letting my soul sound, and while I feel mostly connected with my singing voice, strangely I feel (in most circumstances) like I can personally hide behind the sound ... as though I am not actually transparent to people (whereas piano is pure transparency for me).  It's often a bit strange to me to hear people describe singing as our most natural self-expression or so, and to have singing people inform me that as a singer, I am letting myself show whereas with piano I can hide behind the instrument (to reiterate the point, I in fact feel just the opposite).  I do feel that singing has helped me quite a bit in my piano playing and with my musical sense overall, and I have been greatly enriched with the ensemble experiences I have had as a singer.  In these ways it's definitely been very important.  Ideally, I would require all of my piano students to also take serious voice lessons, as well as my voice students taking serious piano lessons.  Ultimately, I believe art comes from more or less the same place within us no matter the medium (or instrument), at least when we are truly making art.  More and more, I feel a connection between voice and piano that is impossible for me to explain, and I suspect that the more I come to learn and know about both of these, the further this connection between them will grow.

Something I've been thinking in the past few months goes something like this ... "just because at the piano we use our hands instead of our diaphram, and just because the sound waves pass through steel chords instead of vocal chords, and resonate in a wooden body instead of a personal body, who's to say it's not singing?"  Maybe that doesn't make sense to anyone, but I believe artists have a voice.  I have come to realize in this last week that my singing voice and pianistic voice have the same personal chracteristics.  I feel drama in music, for example, and that is reflected in both my singing voice as well my pianistic voice.  It's what I feel internally about life and music.

In any event, I certainly encourage people to sing .

This is one of those posts which I'd like to return to every once in a while, and read it again and again
I discovered it just today and somehow I tend to feel sorry for not having been able to comment on it yet (because I was really busy).

[goldentone]

I agree with Wolfi, it is a wonderful post.

You said:

Something I've been thinking in the past few months goes something like this ... "just because at the piano we use our hands instead of our diaphram, and just because the sound waves pass through steel chords instead of vocal chords, and resonate in a wooden body instead of a personal body, who's to say it's not singing?"  Maybe that doesn't make sense to anyone, but I believe artists have a voice.  I have come to realize in this last week that my singing voice and pianistic voice have the same personal chracteristics.  I feel drama in music, for example, and that is reflected in both my singing voice as well my pianistic voice.  It's what I feel internally about life and music.

In any event, I certainly encourage people to sing .

I know that your soul comes out in piano just as when you sing.  Whether in piano or voice, the soul can probably be blocked in each case for psychological reasons, as you mentioned, such as not having confidence in oneself.  My voice was affected by that.  I think singing and playing offer a different experience of the same soul.      

[m1469]

This is one of those posts which I'd like to return to every once in a while, and read it again and again
I discovered it just today and somehow I tend to feel sorry for not having been able to comment on it yet (because I was really busy).

Thank you, Wolfi, that's very nice of you . And you, too, Goldy .

I know that your soul comes out in piano just as when you sing.  Whether in piano or voice, the soul can probably be blocked in each case for psychological reasons, as you mentioned, such as not having confidence in oneself.  My voice was affected by that.  I think singing and playing offer a different experience of the same soul.

It may be true that my soul can be heard, I can understand why it would seem that way.  But, for some reason with singing I haven't felt exactly shy about that in the same ways I have with piano.  On occasion it's been the case and I can pinpoint it to a couple of specific circumstances, but there's almost always been something more revealing-seeming to me with piano.  As though it is something more meaningful or deeper for me, and as though I have to actually actively hide myself to an extent.  Recently, I have not hidden myself while I play and it's been some kind of huge, life-sized relief of my soul, especially the first time I did that.  But sometimes I wonder if I just haven't found the one particular teacher yet with voice who brings more out of me than I am willing to admit on my own, and more than the teachers I've had have ever brought out.  With singing, it most of the time feels more like it's just sound vs. my soul, and that's why I've felt I can hide behind it, I suppose.  Most of the work I've ever done with teachers in voice has never even come close to the kind of spiritual or inner experiences I have with piano, and sometimes in my piano lessons.  Except recently, in my last singing concert and the rehearsals leading up to it, I had a breakthrough along those lines because in a moment I related it to a certain thing as I think in piano playing, and suddenly I was more connected from my soul.  It's not been as scary for me though as with piano playing, regardless.

The confidence issue is an interesting one.  Sometimes for me, "confidence" is mostly just a matter of grasping the difference between various experiences that I'm already having, or grasping more fully what the expectations are and how "the game" works.  Once I know how to do something, I don't feel I actually lack confidence in my ability to do it, but if I'm unclear on expectations or how to fulfill them, that can be problematic for me.  I suspect it's actually similar for most people.  Once a singer, for example, starts to recognize the difference between their natural sound and an affected one, then they start to be able to reproduce it and as they do that, they seem to naturally grow in confidence.  As a teacher, a big part of my job is pointing out when there are in fact differences in sound and which ones we want vs. the ones we don't need.  Some people catch on right away to the differences and others take longer for one reason or another.

I agree that singing and playing are different experiences of the same soul, but there's something in the very middle of the their individual expressions which they somehow seem to share.  I don't think that thing in the middle is just my actual soul, it's like it's a kind of active mushy spot with a bunch of options of avenue, but the outer crust, the actual manifestation is in fact different or experienced as something different by one's outer ears and perception and by most other witnesses.

[m1469]

You know who I feel transparent with as a singer, and who I've felt actually shy with a bit (sometimes more than a bit) and as though my soul can be heard in my voice (I can't seem to hide)?  My three most influential piano teachers.  They have and do help me sing more than they even know.  Somehow they listen with different ears, or that is at least how I feel.  

[m1469]

[edit] @_

[birba]

What is it with this edit snail thing?!

[littletune]

I think m1469 promised Bob that she would put a snail (not just a dot) when she deletes her posts. In the snail thread https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=36265.0
m1469 when you delete a post do you copy it and save it somewhere at least for yourself or you just delete it for ever?

[birba]

Great idea!  Because you can't delete your message if you have second thoughts about what you've written.

[littletune]

Great idea!  Because you can't delete your message if you have second thoughts about what you've written.

Yes it's cool   will you post a snail too next time you want to delete your post? 

[birba]

Yes, I already did.  I didn't want to start a big discussion over nothing.