Judy Rodman

Using your voice requires something you may not have considered: courage. Here is a list of questions to help you determine your level of courage. Are you brave enough to:

• Commit to the connection to your audience?

This means you would actually “look ‘em in the eye” so to speak — not just go through the motions or hold back in an insecure, guarded stance — but actually focus your communication like an icepick to move them emotionally.

• Allow a real part of yourself to become known?

To effectively connect, your audience needs to be able to tell that you are really with them. This requires that you truly give them a glimpse of at least part of who you are. There is a time to guard yourself… being onstage is not one of those times.

A consultation with a media expert or performance coach will help you determine what you will and will not expose about yourself to your audience. And a side note… you can keep part of you to yourself. The public does not own you or have access to you at all times. They just deserve an honest part of you while you perform, if you want to reach them.

• Let someone know you’re having trouble?

If you are having vocal strain, stage fright, difficulty connecting or numbing out in performance, trouble hitting notes or controlling your voice, substance abuse or eating issues, there is help. In this competitive music business world, there is a temptation to hide all weaknesses, and indeed in some quarters you should do so.

But you need to have safe places to get real, and friends/professionals to whom you can confide problems. Oh if only Elvis, Michael Jackson, Kurt Cobain, et al, had known this, we would still have them with us. And many other singers and speakers would not have fallen silent.

Real singing and public speaking is not for the squeamish. But when you gather your courage, get problems fixed, commit, reveal and connect – it’s a blast, believe me… and bungee jumping can’t compare with that rush!

Judy Rodman is a singer, songwriter, producer and vocal instructor in Nashville, Tennessee. In the 1980s, she topped the country music charts with the number one single “Until I Met You” and won the Academy of Country Music’s “Top New Female Vocalist” award in 1985. Her recorded songs include LeAnn Rimes’s number-one hit “One Way Ticket (Because I Can)” (co-written with Keith Hinton). Judy has developed Power, Path & Performance
a vocal technique she teaches and sells.

Steve Burks

The book Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else by Geoff Colvin helped me get over a misguided obsession with age and temporal starting points. Developing musical skill is about how effectively you practice and how much time you put in. Neither of those factors is obstructed by age. Focus and time. That’s all it’s about. Here are some excerpts from the book:

“One factor, and only one factor, predicted how musically accomplished the students were, and that was how much they practiced.” (pg. 18)

” … as most of us understand ‘talent,’ meaning an ability to achieve more easily … ” (pg. 19)

” … such findings do not prove that talent doesn’t exist. But they suggest an intriguing possibility: that if it does, it may be irrelevant.” (pg. 23)

” … talent is looking like an odd concept if it hasn’t made itself known after six years of hard study.” (pg. 24)

“For nearly two hundred years many people have believed that [Mozart] had a miraculous ability to compose entire major pieces in his head, after which writing them down was mere clerical work … based on a famous letter in which he says as much … The trouble is, this letter is a forgery …” (pg. 27)

” … a large mass of more recent evidence shows that memory ability is acquired, and it can be acquired by pretty much anyone.” (pg. 45)

“Many scientists and authors produce their greatest work only after twenty or more years of devoted effort, which means that in year nineteen they are still getting better … evidence showed clearly that people can keep getting better long after they should have reached their ‘rigidly determinate’ natural limits.” (pg. 62)

“Deliberate practice is characterized by several elements … it is activity designed specifically to improve performance … it can be repeated a lot … feedback on results is continuously available; it’s highly demanding mentally … and it isn’t much fun.” (pg. 66)

” … becoming significantly good at almost anything is extremely difficult without the help of a teacher or coach, at least in the early going.” (pg. 67)

“The great performers isolate remarkably specific aspects of what they do and focus on just those things until they are improved; then it’s on to the next aspect … Only by choosing activities in the learning zone can one make progress. That’s the location of skills and abilities that are just out of reach.” (pg. 68)

“The best performers … are in effect able to step outside themselves, monitor what is happening in their own minds, and ask how it’s going. Researchers call this metacognition … thinking about your own thinking.” (pg. 118)

“Deliberate practice activities are so demanding that no one can sustain them for long without strong motivation.” (pg. 134)

” … too much familiarity with a problem blinds a person to innovative solutions.” (pg. 160)

” … becoming world-class great at anything seems to require thousands of hours of focused, deliberate practice.” (pg. 171)

” … the brilliance of what has been achieved blots out any sight of what has been given up.” (pg. 178)

” … excellent performers suffer the same age-related declines in speed and general cognitive abilities as everyone else – except in their field of expertise.” (pg. 180)

“Landing on your butt twenty thousand times is where great performance comes from.” (pg. 188)

“Teresa Amabile of the Harvard Business School … proposed a simple hypothesis: ‘The intrinsically motivated state is conducive to creativity, whereas the extrinsically motivated state is detrimental.’ ” (pg. 191)

Read more about talent here.

Steve Burks is a graduate of the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Currently, he’s a vocalist and keyboardist in the International House of Blues Foundation’s “Blues School House,” a live musical presentation for 5th through 12th graders that traces the history of blues music and its influence on other forms of contemporary music.

I wrote this little script and sent it to the amazing Betsy Streeter, who created this amazing video.

Rick DiBiasio is the author of The Affluent Artist. His latest project is MiddleAgedCrazy.com.

Judy Rodman

Vocal embellishments, colloquially known as “vocal licks,” can enhance or detract from a vocal performance. When used correctly they:

• Make the sound of the singing more interesting
• Heighten emotional connection and response
• Make the voice feel better, not worse, by throwing off tension.

When used incorrectly they:

• Make the delivery of the song sound fake
• Flatten emotional connection and response
• Cause vocal strain just attempting them.

Here are some tips for doing them correctly:

• Learn to support and control your breath pressure! Not enough – or too much – breath pressure will sabotage any vocal lick, because it will not allow the tiny controlled movements of the diaphragm, which are necessary to power the vocal lick smoothly and accurately.
• Learn to use your hands, arms, other body parts to help accomplish licks.
• Learn how letting your tongue base, jaw hinge and soft palate relax enough so they can make the automatic, fine, quick movements necessary for creating the licks. Learn to “pull off” air pressure for certain licks much like the guitar “pull off” technique.
• Only do vocal licks where they – create interest/emotion in the language of your genre or - de-stress your cords.
• Get feedback from trusted source(s) about how your performance makes the listener feel.
• Learn the typical types of vocal licks, and where/when they are put in songs, of other master singers in the musical genre you are interested in singing so you can ‘speak the language.’
• Practice “scat singing,” a phrase that means just throwing some random vocal syllables around. Scat singing is typically performed over a song’s instrumental, tag or fade, but here’s Ella Fitzgerald scatting a whole song “One Note Samba”…

What has been your experience with vocal licks, embellishments, runs, flips, scats or whatever you call them?

Judy Rodman is a singer, songwriter, producer and vocal instructor in Nashville, Tennessee. In the 1980s, she topped the country music charts with the number one single “Until I Met You” and won the Academy of Country Music’s “Top New Female Vocalist” award in 1985. Her recorded songs include LeAnn Rimes’s number-one hit “One Way Ticket (Because I Can)” (co-written with Keith Hinton). Judy has developed Power, Path & Performance
a vocal technique she teaches and sells.

Musician and songwriter Doug Larsen is president of Completely Oblivious, Inc., which makes Pointless Picks round guitar picks.

Recently a friend of mine and I had a long discussion about how music historians will document the creative period of the 1960s and ’70s that produced what came to be the “Classic Rock” genre of music.

While I certainly respect the generation that decided they were not going to automatically adopt the belief system of their parents, I cannot help but believe that great music did not end with the untimely deaths of Jimi and Janis.

In most cities in the U.S. where I have traveled, when I scan the FM tuner in my car from 88-107Mhz, mostly what I hear is classic rock. If I hear the opening chords to “Bad Moon Rising” or the outdated chorus to “Under my Thumb” one more time I’m going to…

Of course there are options for music listening that include satellite and internet radio but that is not really the point. As great as playing and listening to classic rock is, there’s another option. Why not try your hand at writing songs?

I am not going to say it’s easy to write a great song because it is not. However, it is fairly easy to write a song that is meaningful to you and likely will be to your own group of  friends. You likely have many interesting life experiences  that need to be put into songs of your own!

There are a great many ways to improve your songwriting skills, including: carrying a notebook with you at all times to jot down fleeting ideas that might be otherwise forgotten. Parceling a little time, several times a week, for writing also helps improve your skills.

Morning seems to be the agreed-upon best time of the day for writing by many writers and poets. Studying the lyrics of your musical heroes can also uncover invaluable insights. And consider imitation. It is a well documented fact that early in his career Bob Dylan not only adopted the songs of Woody Guthrie but even also adopted his okie dialect and speech patterns.

Songwriting, like any skill, takes time to master and only gets better with practice. Patience with a difficult song is also important. Consider that Leonard Cohen had written approximately 80 verses to Hallelujah over a 5-year period before he considered the song finished. So, there’s no time like the present. Grab a notebook and pen, a glass of wine, your mojo, and your instrument – and start writing!

Doug Larsen is President of Completely Oblivious, Inc., makers of Pointless Picks®. He is also an avid musician, songwriter and fisherman who calls Highland, Michigan home.

Judy Rodman

I want to thank my friend, singer-songwriter Robert Anderson, for something he said in a phone conversation that has led to this blog post. Robert is also a master of martial arts and one of my blog readers. He said that his method of digesting one of my posts is to apply a Bruce Lee principle of training is to…Go for mastering 1%, not 100%.

I thought about it and actually find this principle of simplicity to be a secret of effective vocal improvement. I would change the phrase a bit and call it…Go for mastering one thing, not 100.

There is so very much that goes into the workings of all our vocal instruments. Teaching voice has really opened my eyes to “stuff that can go wrong.” I feel like Sherlock Holmes especially at initial assessment lessons… I must sleuth out the sneaky weakest link culprits sabotaging the voice of my client. I also like to move people fast… increasing vocal ability as rapidly as possible. However… like a computer with too many programs open, the brain can only operate on so many levels without “freezing.”

There is, as my students know, an incredible synergy to Power, Path & Performance vocal training. Applying the method correctly to one vocal technique will help the improve others. I may give you more than one thing to think about at your lesson or in my CD courses, but as part of the training team you must ask yourself ‘what helped me the most?’ That thing is your – one thing!

My job for you is to discover your most important ‘one thing.’ Your job is to act with passion and persistence on re-training that one thing. That way we can get on with the next thing!

So what is your one thing to work on? Here are some possibilities:

• Not enough breath
• Lack of breath control
• Pitch problems
• Pushing your sound
• Tight throat, jaw, lips, shoulders, neck, upper spine
• Holding a mic wrong
• Hanging your arms heavy
• Too much or too little articulation
• Performance numbness
• Physical illness
• Tense, stiff body language
• Inefficient nutrition, sleep, or exercise
• Too much weight training of shoulders and neck
• Bad back, upper or lower
• Fear
• Trying too hard
• Perfectionism
• Drug and alcohol addictions
• Smoking
• Stage fright

Tell me your one thing, or add one, in the comments below..thanks!

Judy Rodman is a singer, songwriter, producer and vocal instructor in Nashville, Tennessee. In the 1980s, she topped the country music charts with the number one single “Until I Met You” and won the Academy of Country Music’s “Top New Female Vocalist” award in 1985. Her recorded songs include LeAnn Rimes’s number-one hit “One Way Ticket (Because I Can)” (co-written with Keith Hinton). Judy has developed Power, Path & Performance
a vocal technique she teaches and sells.

Judy Rodman

I just read a post at the Lowry Agency blog by artist Sass Jordan titled “Developing Your Own Style.” It’s a good post; however, I have one issue with it. She mentions an artist who jokingly quips “I can’t sing in tune. It’s my style!” I beg to differ.

No matter what your style, you can and should sing in tune. If you have pitch problems your listener will be, to some degree, distracted by the dissonance. This doesn’t mean you have to hit every note purely with no slides up or down or bends. Much like a truly brilliant steel guitar player (Robby Turner, Sonny Garish come to mind)… your sliding has to have a “center” of pitch that feels like you know where home is!

Sass makes some great points about style, and I love that she ends with the fact that your should never think about competing with another singer when developing your style. However, neither should you accept your inadequacies as “style.” With vocal training, you can do things you never could otherwise.

In this present atmosphere of tuners and digital editing, you can no longer get by with out of tune singing. Sing with excellence.. .very time and every place. Then you’ll need no excuses. And by the way… lordy, Sass Jordan can SING!

Judy Rodman is a singer, songwriter, producer and vocal instructor in Nashville, Tennessee. In the 1980s, she topped the country music charts with the number one single “Until I Met You” and won the Academy of Country Music’s “Top New Female Vocalist” award in 1985. Her recorded songs include LeAnn Rimes’s number-one hit “One Way Ticket (Because I Can)” (co-written with Keith Hinton). Judy has developed Power, Path & Performance
a vocal technique she teaches and sells.

Judy Rodman

Some of my most eager vocal students paradoxically sabotage their progress by over-thinking their vocal training. This is a common saboteur in other kinds of training as well – musician, sports, acting, crafts, etc. As a vocal coach and producer, I find it particularly vexing because I know my client is getting frustrated “trying” so hard to get it. This is the way I help them get around this brain-tangle:

The key is the word “trying.” The voice has too many “parts” that activate it. If you try to apply too many new vocal technique changes manually-consciously, your voice will freeze as frustratingly as a computer with one too many apps working.

“But Judy,” a student may say, “you’re telling me so many things and I’m trying to remember to do them all – how can I do that?” Fair question, and a common one in my studio because I try to move people along fast.

Here are some points I will share that may help make this process of changing your vocal habits understandable and less frustrating… in other words: more “let” and less “try”:

• Vocal training is a process. You should be able to see some instant progress, but not expect to get it all and be able to remember it without spending some time integrating the training.
• The voice runs primarily on “auto.”  That means you will experience a bit of frustration because you will have to “think” in order to do something differently, but you must practice this new way enough that you no longer have to focus on “thinking it” and can just trust your new instincts. This is what vocal exercises, done with excellent form, should do for you. That’s why…
• Vocal exercises will probably be physically and mentally frustrating and energy intensive… in order to do them in a way that will strengthen and coordinate…not strain…your voice.
• When training your voice, stay present in the moment. Don’t live in the past, thinking about what your vocal coach just asked you to do, but instead trust that you will integrate the previously suggested change along with the new suggestion. Trust that if you get the previous thing wrong, your teacher will let you know, and will help you re-correct that one thing. Or, as I used to tell my son, don’t try to re-order the whole room instantly, just “pick up the sock closest to you.”
• The good news is that Power, Path & Performance
  is “synergistic.”Meaning integrating breath, open throat and communication techniques will ensure that if you get even one small area of vocal techique better, it will start to positively affect other areas. So relax. Let yourself learn, much like a baby learns to make vocal sounds.
• Bottom line: Don’t try. Instead, let. For instance:

1. Don’t try to make yourself stretch… instead, let your jaw, shoulders, upper back, face, etc., be relaxed, stretchy and flexible.
2. Don’t try desperately to project sound to your audience… instead, let your single-minded, focused intention to communicate with passion cause the body language necessary to resonate sound that causes rapt attention.
3. Don’t try to breathe. Learn how to let go of that which keeps you from good breath support and control, and you’ll have all the breath you need.
4. Don’t try to be a perfect singer or speaker. Let yourself learn, being kind and nurturing to yourself as you do so your voice can trust itself.

Does this make sense to you? What is frustrates you in vocal training you’ve done?

Judy Rodman is a singer, songwriter, producer and vocal instructor in Nashville, Tennessee. In the 1980s, she topped the country music charts with the number one single “Until I Met You” and won the Academy of Country Music’s “Top New Female Vocalist” award in 1985. Her recorded songs include LeAnn Rimes’s number-one hit “One Way Ticket (Because I Can)” (co-written with Keith Hinton). Judy has developed Power, Path & Performance
a vocal technique she teaches and sells.

Judy Rodman

It’s morning and I’m looking at a physical training session in my schedule today. Why do I do this to myself? Partly for my voice!

My recommendation to all singers and speakers is that you do some physical activity that strengthens the body’s core muscles. Without this strength, you cannot apply enough breath support and breath control to your voice to have it work optimally.

Health, weight control, bone building, mental clarity and endorphin release makes you feel so great… all these are fabulous side effects of regular physical training. (Only a vocalist would put it that way…). I’m very busy, but the truth is that I have a physical body that my voice cannot do without.

Find a trainer who understands the special precautions needed by someone who values their voice. For instance, when exercising:

• No grabbing at the glottis (vocally straining or grunting).
• Be very careful not to strain neck and shoulder muscles; strengthening is great, but not straining.
• Be careful not to overtrain and tighten muscles with too much weight lifting.
• Concentrate on core torso strengthening and flexibility (stretching).

Judy Rodman is a singer, songwriter, producer and vocal instructor in Nashville, Tennessee. In the 1980s, she topped the country music charts with the number one single “Until I Met You” and won the Academy of Country Music’s “Top New Female Vocalist” award in 1985. Her recorded songs include LeAnn Rimes’s number-one hit “One Way Ticket (Because I Can)” (co-written with Keith Hinton). Judy has developed Power, Path & Performance
a vocal technique she teaches and sells.

Judy Rodman

There are lots of things blooming in this area of the world (Nashville). Beautiful, but for a singer sensitive to those particular flowers – scary.

What do you do when you greet the morning sounding like a frog? Well, because many allergy and cold medications dry the throat and vocal cords out, I recommend trying these non-medical suggestions first (but if in doubt, check all this out with your medical professional).

Nutrify
Start with a drink of lemon juice and water, then I would really recommend a freshly juiced ‘green drink’… put in (as long as you are not allergic to them and can digest them) things like lettuce, carrots, celery, beets, tomatoes, apples, pineapple, asparagus…you get the picture.

Then eat a light, non-mucous forming, protein-rich breakfast. What is non-mucous forming? It varies with the individual, so start to keep a journal of how foods affect your mucous thickness. Should you drink coffee? Observe its effects on you. Even black tea can feel dehydrating to some. Watch how much dairy you consume; this usually encourages excess mucous, as do rich and heavily sugared foods.

Here are breakfasts I eat that my voice likes:

• A fruit smoothie. To a frozen fruit mixture I add soy, rice or whey protein, or a supplement I particularly love called “UltraInflamX.” I add a little orange or other 100% juice and water to cover before I blend.
• Oatmeal with vanilla soymilk, nuts and seeds (especially pomegranate) , raisins and bananas. I sometimes add half an avocado.
• Fresh avocado, pineapple and orange slices, plus fresh nuts and seeds.
• Eggs scrambled with loads of sauteed veggies. I’d call it an omelet but I use more veggies than eggs. Instead of heavy bread, I accompany it with a rice cake with tamari sauce.

Then, I like to:

• Steam…I like to take a hot bath or shower and really breathe in the steam. Then using my Neti Pot helps get rid of whatever is irritating my tissues.
• Exercise…This is a morning you seriously need to warm your vocal cords up if you are singing that day. Warm up slower and longer than usual, and don’t forget… form is everything when doing vocal exercises if you want to make your voice better and not worse! Your vocal exercises should be stretching your sinus openings so they drain… a sign that you are doing it right. I also like to do a physical workout to get the junk in my chest moving out.
• Hydrate heal…I add cayenne pepper and lemon juice to a glass carafe of water and drink it throughout the day, or my ginger tea concoction. I definitely up my water intake, and even bring a shaker of cayenne with me if I need to eat out. This may sound strange, but cayenne is a healing herb for the mucous membranes!

What about you? What’s your favorite way to wake up a thick voice?

Judy Rodman is a singer, songwriter, producer and vocal instructor in Nashville, Tennessee. In the 1980s, she topped the country music charts with the number one single “Until I Met You” and won the Academy of Country Music’s “Top New Female Vocalist” award in 1985. Her recorded songs include LeAnn Rimes’s number-one hit “One Way Ticket (Because I Can)” (co-written with Keith Hinton). Judy has developed “Power, Path & Performance,” a vocal technique she teaches and sells.