Posts Related to: Performance

One of the biggest problems that musicians face is holding on to their own musical identity and integrity. It’s often tempting to bail out on your own direction and capitulate to an agent, an audience, a label, or society in general.
Even with my experience in this business, I continue to be surprised by how a …

Practice is necessary to develop the skills required to pursue music successfully. But practice can also be a crutch – a delay tactic. Just as many people continue their college educations to avoid the necessity of getting a job – of facing the real world. It can be the same in music. You’re “never” ready. …

Bill Evans has always been my favorite jazz musician. Despite the fact that I play guitar, there has always been something about Bill Evans the man and the artist that fascinates me. His harmonic sense was legendary. His ability to swing – unparalleled. But the depth of this jazz artist and how he thought was, to …

I have many sweet and amazing young clients, and I adore them. But I was moved, deeply, watching the Carol King and James Taylor concert “Live at the Troubador” on PBS recently. I’ve never heard either one of them sing better, or even as well, as they did on that show.
And check out Tina Turner, …

I work with a lot of songwriters, and I love helping them deliver their songs through their voices authentically. To do that, you have to know the difference between your songwriter and your performer voices – which are not the same thing.
Here’s the short answer: Songwriter voice is internal. Performance voice is external. What do …

There is a subtle psychological shift you can make to take your next performance out of the ordinary and make it leave a memory in your listener’s heart. I call it “singing from the soul” instead of just from the head. Let me use an old familiar tune to illustrate.
How many times have you sung …

This post first appeared on The Eloquent Woman blog. I earlier wrote about Denise’s decision to take up the guitar, for the first time, at 50. Denise is a public speaking coach.
“You can’t stop when you make a mistake,” he said. “You’re pausing to think what you did wrong and how to fix it. But you’ve got …

Jeanne Kelly is a professional singer, conductor, and pianist who has worked for many years with major opera companies and symphonies in the Washington-Baltimore area, where she lives. In 2001, she was directing the Levine School of Music’s Arlington, Virginia, program when Dr. Gene Cohen approached her with an idea.
Dr. Cohen, who died in 2009, …

Note from LRG: This is a condensed version of a post that first appeared in AllAboutJazz.com.
Traditionally, the smoke filled jazz club seemed part of the “charm” of the venue. I seriously doubt, however, whether that holds the same allure as it once did. I find the club/restaurant jazz scene to be extremely disruptive to the …

Cut time is a source of confusion for many musicians. In this post, I’ll break it down and explain it; it’s not as daunting as it seems.
Cut time is used in Broadway music, sambas, polkas, bluegrass, classical, many ethnic forms and anytime the tempo gets so fast that it would be unwieldy to count and …