How often do you spend your time and energy on discovering your very own sound, color, dynamics and the true connection to your own voice? That takes courage, commitment and fighting your inhibitions. It’s about learning how to bring your own experiences of the emotional content to the words you sing, even if it isn’t || Continue »

Whatever one wants to call it — meet and greet, mingling, networking, exchanging ideas, schmoozing, chitchatting, making conversation, etc. — it often becomes a road block because you feel awkward about joining in a conversation or taking the initiative in starting a conversation with just about anyone you don’t know. Until I learned to use || Continue »

With the advent of social media and its continual sprawling growth, we race into the future, and are forgetting how to be human; what being successful means not just in business, but in our personal lives as well. Every time you are exposed to the “media mirror” of some kind of standard out there, you || Continue »

How often do you practice, start an audition, or performance with thoughts of what not to do? Focusing on what we lack never leads to the kind of flow essential for a great practicing or performance. It does, however, lead to a sense of inadequacy and insecurity. That distracting, unkind chatter we often do in || Continue »

How many singers continually neglect to take the time to put the music into the voice before they stand up and perform? It seems there is more and more instant performing than ever. This process seems to be a lost art. I find it so helpful to take a new piece of music or an || Continue »

Whether President Obama was your candidate or not, did you feel the energy and excitement generated during the inauguration January 20th? How did it make you feel? Did it give you hope and energy? His inaugural speech resonated strongly within me giving me much to ponder. I would like to share some of these thoughts || Continue »

Over the summer I have had many singers ask me the best way to get the emotion, along with their ideas of the character into a role or even just an aria or song so it doesn’t seem contrived or as if they were just acting. They wanted to know how to make a piece || Continue »

Having a beautiful voice, amazing vocal technique, natural facility for languages and an intrinsic instinct for drama are just part of the many skills needed to facilitate a singing career. I have heard from many singers this summer who, even thought they have those elements in place, have run into some real difficulties they hadn’t || Continue »

Ever have a personal, business or career situation where there were words exchanged that didn’t resolve anything, just making the situation even more difficult and uncomfortable over time? Or perhaps you, like millions of others, want to avoid confrontation at all costs! You just let everything slip past you hoping all will just go away || Continue »

Because I have recently adjudicated several competitions in succession, this subject is heavy on my mind. There are so many different aspects, of being comfortable and prepared for each and every audition, that most singers don’t even seem to be aware of. Of course there is the obvious. You have to gather the information about || Continue »