What Makes Amy Lee (Evanescence) Great?

Amy Lee, to me, is an artist that embodies vulnerability, strength, fragility and power. But how does she manage to incorporate these seemingly contradictory qualities? What makes Amy Lee great.

Technique

Tone

Amy Lee’s tone is smooth, warm and distinctive. The first thing I wanted to show you was how her voice has developed throughout the years. She has maintained the essence of her tone, yet it has matured. The first clip we will listen to is Bring Me To Life; Evanescence's first big hit when she was just 21 -years old (2003) and then a clip from the more recent Synthesis album (2017).

In the younger years, her tone has a lot of higher frequencies in it. Her voice sounds lighter, more fragile, more piercing in those high belts. It was this sound that first drew me to her. It embodies my unsure and emotional teenage experience. 

As she gets older, her voice warms, and this is both due to her voice maturing and a slight change in technique. She is more relaxed and doesn’t push as much but maintains a direct power. I’m not sure if she has done conscious work on her voice or just her becoming more in tune with her voice over the years, but I love how her voice has grown while maintaining her original character.

Range

Amy has a big range with the ability to sing with control in songs from an E3 to C6 . Here is what the lower end sounds like. 

She has control over her midrange with a soaring belt that can be a little chest dominant but generally mixed. She sometimes uses a sorrowful light mix or even occasionally a breathy head voice. She does whatever the emotion needs. You can hear a few of these different approaches on her D5 here

I like the one where she moves from a light breathy head voice into a fuller mix. Difficult. My favourite part of her voice is when she uses a full head voice; her voice is clear, bright, and resonant. It rings. You can hear her top notes in Lacrymosa (2017 Synthesis Album)

Pretty impressive. 

Although she does vary the tone and how she uses registers for expression, she can ascend seamlessly through the registers giving the feel of one complete voice rather than different pieces. It moves from dark at the bottom and gradually lightens to a clear ring at the top of her range. For me, this is the ideal to give different tonal qualities throughout the registers or blend them at will. 

Vowels and Consonants

Generally, vowels are the sung part of the note, and consonants are the stoppers. Amy sings on her vowels, giving it a very “sung” sound with a flowing legato feel and uses very soft consonants, sometimes even making them quite sibilant. You can really hear it in this version of Bring Me To Life (2017)

She often moves vowels towards an “ah” vowel with a wide mouth adding to her direct sound on her belts, although as her vocal style has developed, she rounds this shape more, resulting in a warmer sound. Although this is a little divisive in the vocal coach community, these wider vowel shapes add to her emotional expression. It echoes the mouth shapes people generally make when emotionally screaming.  

Further Technique

We talked about Amy’s unique tone, but how does she produce it? Of course, it is partially down to the general makeup of her instrument, the size and shape of her vocal cords and vocal tract. However, we can all manipulate the shape and size of our vocal tract to a certain extent. It is pretty impossible to tell precisely without doing an MRI scan while singing.

• Twang, Tongue and Larynx - It sounds like has good vocal cord closure on her belted notes and is using twang. People often confuse twang with nasality, when the air travels through the nose. Twang is narrowing just above the vocal cords. Think of a water hose: if you narrow the nozzle where the water comes out, the water will shoot out faster. For the vocal cords, this means more output for less input, the vocal cords can do less work, but the sound that comes through the narrow ‘hose’ will be focused and powerful. It gives the voice a vibrant, crystal clear sound and can help singers reach higher and lower notes with more power and volume. I’m not sure if this ringing resonance is something she is doing purposefully, as she has a lot of this sound in her speaking voice. With some singers, other parts of the vocal tract can also narrow when using twang, for example, the tongue sometimes raises and often the larynx rises. In her early career, I think she is doing this, giving it that more direct sound. However, in more recent live clips, it sounds like she has a lower larynx position and a more relaxed tongue. 

  Although it is interesting to note that twang is technically a narrowing of the pharynx, it is important to note that it won’t feel like narrowing. You are more likely to feel the feeling resonance at the front of your face. If you do go for the idea of narrowing, you are likely to squeeze and get in the way of your singing voice. When things are working well with the voice, it will feel easy and relaxed. 

• Breath Support - Amy Lee has great breath support. This means that she has a relaxed in-breath and a slow relaxed exhale. Allowing her to sing unwavering long notes on her exhale and maintain a full tone. You can hear those well supported long notes here (Lacramosa 2017)

• Piano - And of course, she is a great piano player and wanted to originally be a classical composer. Her love for classical music and her in-depth knowledge comes through in her writing, drawing inspiration from some of the worlds greatest classical composers

Emotional Expression

Amy Lee is a master at expressing emotion, and you all know, I just love singers that can connect emotionally. Here are a few techniques that contribute to this expressive sound. 

Sob & Cry

There are two particular terms used in singing that come from the Estill singing technique. Estill has some useful methods, and I think these sounds describe Amy’s style very well - “sob” and “cry”. 

Sob is a soft and dark quality associated with the sobbing cry of an adult who mourns. Sob is produced on a lowered larynx and thinned vocal folds and releases compression and constriction. Technically this can be an excellent nuance to go to during a highly emotional song to keep tension check, especially if you are dealing with many strong high mixes.  

Cry is like sob with similar emotional connections yet has a higher larynx and can be accompanied by a raised tongue position. Both of these sounds echo the sound we make when we cry. It adds movement through the note and an ebb and flow of dynamic. This is interesting because she did use a lot of cry sounds at the start of her career when she sang with a higher larynx and arched her tongue more often.

Nowadays, she mixes it up, switching between the darker quality of sob and the emotional tension of cry. This mix and match of sound adds to the emotional variety and is less taxing for the voice by continually going back to that release sob sound. Plus, it just sounds wonderful.

Vibrato

Amy Lee paints emotion with her vibrato. Everything she sings connects with emotion, echoing how our voices naturally react to emotional situations. For example, she often doesn’t use vibrato on her belted notes, making it feel more primal like she is calling out or screaming.

She will sometimes add vibrato at the end of particularly long, held notes to add intensity and finish off the end as if it is a final push of emotion. Or soften the edge of an intense note, bringing the audience back to a more emotionally controlled, safe place in the voice.

 She uses vibrato on lower emotional, fragile passages, often combining it with a breathy tone to echo the wobble of a crying voice.

Dynamics, Phrasing and Articulation

Amy’s singing has constant movement, and her dynamics are just incredible. Each note eases in, swells, and falls back again, much like the bowing of a violin. This is partially down to her use of sob and cry.

Her dynamics show in her phrasing, with each phrase having a dynamic swell giving the feeling of waves of emotion. Her writing is dramatic and fluid, following dynamic arcs and combining them with sudden dynamic changes in the orchestration. I can only describe hearing her dynamics as like watching the ocean from the shore; sometimes they are huge rolling waves that crash ferociously against the rock and at other times a gentle rocking sea that laps against the sand, but either way, continually moving.

Her articulation is generally smooth, and instead of using staccato, she often opts for broken up accented notes. You can hear that here in a clip from the new Evanescence album

Social Context

I remember when the first Evanescence album “Fallen” came out. I was browsing HMV looking for something that might be interesting when a shop assistant came up and put it in my hand and told me I had to listen. I had looked at the male-orientated rock genre before and enjoyed the rebellious spirit, but none of the artists had spoken to me directly. To a young woman who desperately tried to hide her emotional nature, it was a breath of fresh air. Amy expressed her emotions so freely while maintaining her strength. Her emotions were her strength. She embodied qualities that had seemed opposite: vulnerability, strength, fragility and power. Her music allowed me and other young people to understand that perhaps these qualities were more aligned than we had first thought, providing an outlet for the big emotions.  

But it doesn’t end there. Throughout the years as I have grown, the music of Amy Lee and Evanescence has matured; taking me through the heartbreaks and social anxiety of my 20s with aching violins and violent drums and guitars towards today’s broader world issues with the newest Evanescence album that came out this week (April 2021). Amy Lees work has paved the way for many young women in rock, in fact, she actively champions women in rock. This has helped allow a generation of young women to enter the music industry without having to subscribe to the ideals that much of the industry expects of women. Allowing people to harness their own creative energy without compromise. I think that is a wonderful gift she has given us all. 

IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS PLEASE GET IN TOUCH OR BOOK A SINGING LESSON HERE

What Happened To Miley Cyrus' Voice and What Is Reinke's Edema?

If you have listened to Miley Cyrus’ recent work, you may have noticed that she sounds completely different - her voice is lower and gravelly, very unlike her early Hannah Montana days. People have varying opinions of this new sound, and there are many theories banding around, but what actually caused it? 

First of all, let’s listen to the change in Miley’s voice. I’ve put together a few live clips so you can hear the evolution of her voice. In the early years, her voice is much lighter sounding and by 2012 her voice is sounding a little more mature whilst maintaining the same tone. A real shift happens in 2013-14 and then the voice stays relatively similar in 2017. In fact, she sounds very strong in 2017. She develops a huskier edge in more recent clips in 2020.

You can also hear it even more in her speaking voice. Here is a clip of a younger Miley on Jonathan Ross

And here is a recent clip of Miley in an interview with Joe Rogan.

What is Reinke's Edema?

Our vocal cords are tiny bands of tissue located in the larynx in our throat. You can find your larynx by touching your chin and drawing a line down your neck with your finger. You will get a bump. For many men, it is the Adam's Apple for other people, a smaller bump. That is your larynx. When air from our lungs passes through closed vocal cords in the larynx, they vibrate, and we make a sound. If you touch your larynx gently while humming, you can feel that vibration.  Our vocal cords are tiny, between 1.25cm and 2.5cm in length. Although they are small, they are made up of layers of different tissue types. Here I am showing you a cross-section of vocal cords you can muscle on the inner layer, two layers of ligament and a gelatinous layer called Reinke’s Space and a kind of outer skin called the epithelium. The fluidity of the gelatinous layer allows the vocal cords to vibrate. 

This layer was discovered by a very clever German Antominst called Friedrich B. Reinke in 1895. Hence this layer often gets called Reinke’s space. However, its official name is the Superficial Lamina Propria. When you have Reinke’s Edema, it means that fluid builds up in this layer, it swells. 

Let’s have a look at some healthy vocal cords.  You can see those white bands of tissue, those are the vocal cords.

Here are vocal cords with Reinke’s Edema. You can see how the cords are much bigger, translucent and bowed in shape. But there is more going on with this. Accumulation of fluid within Reinke's space makes it less stiff and even more gelatinous. The size and change in elasticity mean the vocal cords vibrate more slowly, and the voice lowers.

But why does it make the voice sound gravelly?

When vocal cords are healthy, they can come together fully and vibrate evenly. We hear these even vibrations as a clean sound. A distorted sound happens when the vibrations are irregular. 

So, the characteristic gravelly sound can be caused by a few features of the Edema. 

1. The inability to close the vocal cords fully allows air to leak through, making it sound breathy 

2. The vocal cords uneven shape and size cause irregular vibrations, distorting the tone. 

3. Sufferers bodies will often also use the false or vestibular vocal folds in voice production rather than just the true vocal cord. These are tissue above the vocal cords that are usually used to protect the vocal cords or in extreme vocal techniques like Death Growls. 

As you heard Miley’s voice slowly changed over the years and symptoms of Reinke’s Edema are generally a gradual build. Let’s recap what they could include, they may include:

• Gravelly sounding voice

• Breathy voice

• Low pitched voice

• Reduced pitch range

• Difficulty with increasing loudness effectively

• Effortful voicing

• Vocal fatigue

• Loss of vocal control

• The sensation of airway disturbance 

And, in the extreme, the swelling can be large enough to impair breathing.

Many people love Miley's new found gravelly texture and the dramatic low notes. However, although this can sound cool, it is important to note that it comes with many downsides. One of which was a need to get vocal surgery to be able to continue performing.

What Causes Reinkes EdemA?

Vocal Abuse

The first point Miley makes in her her interview with Joe Rogan is that no one shy ever has this. It is for abuse of the voice. She is right. One of the leading causes is vocal abuse, whether it is from speaking, shouting or singing. That means pushing your voice past its limit, talking or singing on it when it is hoarse and not training and singing or speaking with good technique. And she is also correct. It is unusual for someone so young to have this. It normally develops with consistent vocal abuse over a long time.

Singing Technique

clips, I have seen she seems to sing in a reasonably healthy way throughout her career,  if a little forceful. However, that is part of her style. She puts emotion above everything in her performance, and of course, that is amazing to watch and something I couldn’t imagine her without. This way of singing can be sustainable for some people, not everyone but it requires you to look after yourself. It’s important to remember that singing is a physical act. You have to be a vocal athlete and Miley’s vocal style was a sport it would be boxing, she’s isn’t playing golf. But if boxers can box, she can sing but to sing like that, you do need to condition yourself like a boxer.

Smoking

However, smoking was almost certainly the main factor. 97% of people with Reinke’s Edema are habitual smokers. 

Lifestyle

Miley’s lifestyle would have almost been a factor.  Alcohol and drugs make us less aware of how we are using our voice, if it feels healthy or if it hurts and whether we are speaking or singing can mean we push our voice past where we would normally. Anything that makes our body and/or our mind unhealthy also makes our voice unhealthy. 

Skipping Rest Days

It isn’t just how you sing, it is when you sing, and much like the rest of the body, your voice is muscles, ligament and nervous system, that needs days off.   It is vital to avoid any vocalising while you have a hoarse voice or a tired voice, whether from a night out or illness or tiredness, which is often a luxury top-level singers can’t afford. It is a shame singers, especially younger singers, often get backed into a corner, feeling like they can’t take days off or they will let people down. 

Insufficient Vocal Training

Ensuring your singing technique is healthy is very important in avoiding vocal damage and Miley does talk about now taking vocal training seriously. Training and warming up, like an athlete, is essential in keeping your voice healthy over the long term, especially if you have a singing schedule like Miley. 

Other Risk Factors

And, of course, other risk factors can contribute. For example, chronic acid reflux or sinusitis and severe underactive thyroid have been cited as a reasonably common cause in sufferers. Anything that can chronically irritate the vocal cords can cause this.  

What does this mean for Miley, and how can it be treated? 

Well, first of all, she has stopped smoking. It’s very important for anyone suffering from this to identify the thing that could be causing the chronic irritation, so smoking should be the first thing to go for anyone with symptoms. Early or mild edema may improve with stopping smoking alone.

Mileys case was quite severe, so she ended up getting surgery, and she hasn’t talked about the specifics of what this involved. There are different treatments required depending on the case, but the aim of surgery will be to reduce the edema material and bring the vocal cords back to their natural size before the damage. The most common type of surgery for Reinke's Edema today is called surgical Microlaryngoscopy. During surgery, an incision is made into the vocal cord using either microscissors or a laser and the affected tissue is removed. This is a big decision, the surgery can cause scarring on the vocal cords which can cause problems with their movement and therefore vocalisations. In short, your voice is at risk.

If acid reflux or thyroid is the root of the problem, you may have to look further into those illnesses and seek treatment for them. Whether someone has surgery or not, they will most likely have to go to voice therapy to learn how to use their voice healthily.

If you are experiencing any of the symptoms in the UK, you can ask your GP to refer you to an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist or ENT. In other countries, you might have to go straight to them. They will be able to diagnose what is happening and treat it.

Whether due to vocal damage or not, our voice reacts to our experiences, whether tired or stressed or full of joy and if we damage our body and minds, we also damage our voice. There are going to be a contingent of people that watch this and think, but I want a voice like hers and then another on the other side being overly cautious. Her voice may sound cool, but she will have to deal with that vocal damage for the rest of her life and be all the more careful and diligent now, or her voice could give out on her completely. That is scary for any professional singer. Longevity and feeling in control of your voice are essential when you sing for that many people. However, it is also wonderful to hear her make the most of her new voice and its heaviness. You can’t deny that she has lived the things she sings about because it’s scared into her voice, but she also wouldn’t be able to sing with this voice if she hadn’t come out the other side and started treating it and herself well. People often wonder how to get a voice that feels like you have lived, and of course, I would never suggest damage to get you there - the consequences can be massive. Remember that you are already living. Whether you want it or not, your experiences and personality quirks will leave an imprint on your voice and the way you use it. Maybe your voice won’t sound like hers, but it will sound like you and the unique and extraordinary life that you are living.

IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS PLEASE GET IN TOUCH OR BOOK A SINGING LESSON HERE.

References

Miley Cyrus Interview Joe Rogan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C-U6rtaKJM&t=1s

Miley Cyrus Talks About Vocal Surgery On Howard Stern: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hmaXdNz9uk

Reinke's Edema: http://www.otolaryngology.pitt.edu/centers-excellence/voice-center/conditions-we-treat/reinkes-edema

Voice Foundation: https://voicefoundation.org/health-science/voice-disorders/voice-disorders/reinkes-edema/1328-2/

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinke%27s_edema

Sean Parkers Institute for Voice: https://voice.weill.cornell.edu/voice-disorders/reinkes-edema

5 Easy Rock Songs For Women To Sing

I recently made a list of 5  easy rock songs for men and couldn’t leave out women. People often ask me where to start singing, and rock can seem like an intimidatingly epic genre. However, there are lots of songs you can choose to get you on your way.  When people start singing, they often run into pieces that feel too low or too high. I’ve picked five songs covering different ranges and eras, so hopefully, there will be something for everyone. As people have various ranges, I’ve chosen songs that will be in a comfortable range for various people, so you might have to try them out to see which ones work for you. I’ll link in the entire song and a karaoke track in the description below so you can give them all a go after the video. 

I Love Rock 'N' Roll - Joan Jett & The Blackhearts

Range: (G3 - G4) - Best for Low/Mid Voices

"I Love Rock 'n' Roll" is a rock song written by Alan Merrill and Jake Hooker and first recorded by the Arrows in 1975. It is best known for its 1982 cover version by Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, which is the version we will be looking at. The verse song might be towards the lower end of the range for higher voices. (Don’t worry, I have some pieces coming up for higher voices). But with a range of G3 -G4, it has a smaller range and doesn’t venture too high. It is repetitive and catchy, so easy to remember. The phrases are short with lots of breaks, so you have plenty of time to breathe. The higher phrases can be speak-sung, so if you struggle with pitching, it is a great place to start without singing overly. 

Hit Me With Your Best Shot - Pat Benatar

Range: (B3-B4) - Best for Mid/High Voices

"Hit Me with Your Best Shot" is a song recorded by American rock singer Pat Benatar and written by Eddie Schwartz. In 1980, it was released as the second single from her second album, Crimes of Passion, which became her biggest-selling album. This one is better for mid to higher voices with a range of B3-B4. It could be over the break for some people, so it is worth giving it a go to see if it works for you. This is another catchy song with lots of repeats, easy to remember lyrics and lots of space for breathing. It has one held note at the end, which sounds like it is challenging. However, it is as high as the highest note in the chorus, so don’t be intimidated. If you do struggle with it, the song will still sound great if you shorten the note. 

Knife Under My Pillow - Maggie Lindemann

Range: (G3-A4) - Best for Mid/High Voice

Knife Under My Pillow is a song recorded by Maggie Lindemann as part of her EP Paranoia, released this year in 2021. Inspired by the paranoia you get after watching a horror movie, this song is fun modern pop/rock/emo. This song sits pretty mid-range for mid to higher voices with a range of G3-A4. If you are an alto, it could sit over the break, so give it a try and see if it works for you. It has short phrases with space to breathe. There are a couple of slightly held notes in it which can be a great start to working on breath support. However, if you aren’t ready, you can always cut these short. This one is all about keeping a steady rhythm and making the words crisp and clear, so focus on that, and it will work. 

Celebrity Skin - Hole

Range: (E3 to A4) - Best for Low Voices 

"Celebrity Skin" is the tenth single by American alternative rock band Hole, released in 1998. It is the debut single from their third studio album of the same name and is Hole's most commercially successful single. The lyrics, written by singer Courtney Love, contain several literary references. The line "Oh, look at my face / My name is might-have-been" is directly lifted from the opening verse of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's poem, while the phrase "pound of flesh" originates from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. This one is arguably the most challenging on the list and is better for lower voice types as it dips down to an E3 in the verses. The choruses go up to an A4. However, most of the melody is around the F4, and you can adapt it to avoid that higher note if needs be. This is an enjoyable song with short phrases and space to breathe. It is all about attitude, so although it’s the toughest in the group, it doesn’t need to be sung perfectly to sound great. 

Because of The Night - Patti Smith Group

Range: (F#3- G4) - Best for Mid/Low Voices

"Because the Night" is a song written by Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith that was first released in 1978 as a single from the Patti Smith Group 1978 album Easter. Bruce Springsteen originally wrote it for his album Darkness on the Edge of Town but gifted it to Patti when working in the same studios as him. She recorded it with some of her lyrics, and it became her biggest hit. This one sits in a comfortable mid-range for most voices, but with a range of F#3 - G4 can dip a little below some higher voices range, so if you have a higher voice, give it a go and see if it works for you. This song has fluid, smooth phrases in the verses and short accented notes in the chorus.  It has lots of space for breathing and is an excellent start for understanding phrasing. This song sounds great in most peoples voices and with all of these songs, sing with attitude, and you are onto a winner.

IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS PLEASE GET IN TOUCH OR BOOK A SINGING LESSON HERE.

5 Easy Rock Songs For Men To Sing

You want to sing and love rock music, but all your favourite singers have impossibly impressive rock voices. Don’t worry, I have five no-pressure rock songs to get you started on your singing journey and have you sounding great at the karaoke. I’ve picked five songs covering different ranges and eras, so hopefully, there will be something for everyone.

All The Small Things - Blink 182

Range: (B3 - F4) - Best for Higher Voices

“All The Small Things” is a song written by Tom Delonge, lead singer of Blink-182 for his girlfriend.  Recorded in 1999 and released on January 18, 2000, it was part of their third 3rd studio album ‘Enema of The State’ and is anode to Tom favourite band, The Ramones, who are also on this list. The song might be towards the top of the range for lower/mid voices. (Don’t worry, I have some pieces coming up for lower voices. But with a range of B3 -F4, it will sit pretty snuggly in a tenor voice without venturing too high. It is repetitive and catchy, so easy to remember. The phrases are short with lots of breaks, so you have plenty of time to breathe, and this one isn’t about having a great tone or being perfectly on pitch, so deliver it with energy, and it will work. 

Kryptonite - 3 Doors Down

Range: A3-F#4 with potential to move top note down to a D4 - Best for Mid to High Voice

“Kryptonite" is the debut single of the American rock band 3 Doors Down. It was initially released as a demo but was picked up by several radio stations from November–December 1999 and eventually became a hit. The song was written by the band's vocalist and drummer, Brad Arnold, in a mathematics class when he was fifteen and was one of the first songs he ever wrote. The song has a small range from an A3-F#4, and the melody is relatively simple. Most of the song sits on or under a D4. There is one F# in the piece that can be replaced by a shouted “yeah” or sung on a D4 instead if it is a little high. The song will be easy for most higher singer but could be around the break for mid to low singers, so it might be one to try out depending on your range or drop down a key. This one has lots of room for breathing and can be fun to play around with how he falls off the notes at the end of each phrase. It’s a great first step to playing with vocal style. 

I Wanna Be Sedated - The Ramones

Range: E3 - C#4 - Best for Mid Voices

"I Wanna Be Sedated" is a song by the American punk rock band the Ramones. It is one of the band's best-known songs, initially released on their fourth album, Road to Ruin, in September 1978. I Wanna Be Sedated" was written by Joey Ramone about chilling out after a busy time on the road. This song sits in a comfortable mid-range for most men. It has a lot of space for breathing, a lot of repeated notes and a steady rhythm. He does some interesting flips with his voice which can be fun to play with if you have already started playing with vocal style. However, they aren’t required to make it sound good. There are some small runs at the end of some phrases which might need a little attention. This is an excellent song to take the first steps towards vocal agility. But, if you don’t feel ready yet, don’t worry, it sounds great with or without them. This one is all about having fun and rhythm so if you can keep that steady beat you are onto a winner.

Dire Straits - Sultans Of Swing

Range: G2 - D4 - Best for Mid & Lower Voices

“Sultans of Swing” is a song by British rock band Dire Straits, written by frontman Mark Knopfler. The lyrics were inspired by a jazz band playing in the corner of an almost empty pub in Deptford, South London. At the end of their performance, the lead singer announced their name, the Sultans of Swing; Knopfler found the contrast between the group's shoddy appearance and surroundings and their grandiose name funny. Although this looks like it has a big range, it is partially spoken, and therefore perfect if you struggle with pitching. It can be an excellent start to getting used to exploring pitching your voice without having to sing overly. And if you can’t reach all the higher or lower range, it doesn’t matter. You can either speak those parts or sing them in the lower or higher octave, so there is a lot of wiggle room to fit the song to your voice. 

Knockin’ on Heavens Door - Bob Dylan

Rannge: G3 - B3 - Good for all ranges. Lower singers might take it down a step to avoid the break. 

“Knocking on Heavens Door” is a song by Bob Dylan, which Guns N Roses also covered. The Bob Dylan version is the best one to look at as it is a little easier. It was initially written for the soundtrack of the 1973 film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid and pretty much became an instant hit across the world, reaching the Top 10 in several countries. Some higher ad-libs go up to a G4 if you are feeling extra adventurous. However, these are not required to make this song sound good. The basic melody sits over three notes, so pitch-wise, there isn’t a lot to deal with, and generally, this sits on the upper mid-range for most men. If you have a low voice, you might want to take it down a step, and there are lots of karaoke tracks on youtube that cover different ranges. This song has short phrases with lots of room for breathing and sounds good in most peoples voices and is just a classic!  

What Makes Billie Holiday Great?

Billie Holiday has one of the most distinctive voices of all time; she inspired many artists; Frank Sinatra, Andra Day, Nina Simone, Joni Mitchell, Janis Joplin and Etta James. But why is her voice so relevant over 60s years after her death in 1959? What makes Billie Holiday so great?

I’ve picked some songs that I think show Billie’s vocal journey and explain why she connected to many people. To understand Billie and her voice, you need to understand her journey, so rather than heading straight to her later work, I’m going to start at the beginning.

Riffin’ The Scotch (1933)

At age 17, Billie worked as a singer for a few years in Nightclubs in Harlem. It was here where she cut her teeth, moving between tables, singing for hours and improvising melodies as she went, something that became a feature in her vocal style. Soon she was asked to replace singer Monette Moore at a club called Coven. One night record producer and talent scout John Hammond who loved Monette Moores voice, turned up to listen to her. Instead, he found Billie Holiday.  He loved her. He was a talent scout for Columbia Records, discovering and signing talents like Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, to name a few. When Billie turned 18, he arranged for her to work with Benny Goodman on two tracks. This track was the second of these and was her first hit, selling 5000 copies.

She sounds so different here than on her later records. Although her vocal nuances are less defined than later in her career, you are already starting to hear fingerprints of her fabulous expression at age 17. It has the brighter edge you get with younger voices; as women age, your voice does lower. However, it does not sound like a 17-year-old. She was young, but she had already lived quite a traumatic life by this point, and she has a depth to her voice that defies her age. She sounds like someone in their 30s. You can hear that tone if you isolate her vocals.

Not the voice of a 17-year-old. There are a few nuances here that she is already using that defined her style throughout her career. Her wonderful fast fluttery vibrato gives the sound energy and drive and a little edge of fragility and anxiety. You can hear on the word ‘man’ how she also allows the pitch to drop with it - adding the feeling of “oh dear”. In terms of tone, it’s mostly pretty clean at this point. Billie is known for using distortions like vocal fry, which is this sound. She doesn’t use it as much as later on in her career but there is a tiny bit in this phrase on the word ‘me’.

She also has a nasality that most singers would shy away from, she makes a feature of it in the higher part of her range. It is direct and in your face, and although her voice is not loud, that tone hits your right between the eyes - then she softens the edge by either sliding off the notes or using that lovely vibrato. You can hear it on “breaking my heart” and “fire” here.

She has strength in those higher notes in the early days. She wasn’t known for a big range, but those well-produced stable mixed tone notes suggest that it wasn’t because she couldn’t, certainly at this point in her vocal development. It was because she chose expression as her primary focus.

I also love how she is never entirely on time - something she does throughout her career. The band kept that rhythm driving, and she just sits a little behind it, which some people have very strong opinions on, but it gives it a feeling of ease and nonchalance. You can hear it in this phrase if you try and tap along.

She pushes and pulls that rhythm so much it shouldn’t be right, but it still does feel right. I tried to put this in time as best I could, so I’ll play my “standard timing” and then her timing

This behind the beat feel, influenced countless singers, including Frank Sinatra and Sarah Vaughan, and she was already doing it at 17. How did she develop all these vocal tools by the age of 17?

Billie was born Eleanora Fagan. She had a tough childhood that I think is important to know about to understand her. She was born out of wedlock to Sadie Fagan and musician Clarence Halliday (Holiday was his stage name). She had a tough childhood, had a difficult relationship with both of her parents and spent time in and out of a Catholic “Reform” School for Troubled Young Women. Her mother worked as a prostitute and she eventually became a victim of sex trafficking in a brothel, where she was arrested and sent to labour in prison for five months. Amongst all this horror, Billie found her escape and love for singing by listening to jazz and blues artists Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith. 

““I think I copied my style from Louis Armstrong. Because I used to like the big volume and the big sound that Bessie Smith got when she sang ... So I liked the feeling that Louis got and I wanted the big volume that Bessie Smith got. But I found that it didn’t work with me, because I didn’t have a big voice. So anyway, between the two of them I sorta got Billie Holiday.” ”

— Billie Holiday

How Louis Armstrong Influenced Billie Holiday

Both Louis and Billie recorded the song Yours and Mine. I’m not sure who recorded it first, as they both recorded it in 1937. If my research is correct, Billie probably hadn’t heard his version when she recorded it. However, it’s fascinating to listen to how they both approach voice; the phrasing, articulation and nuances are very similar. Let’s Listen to Louis first.

You can hear how Louis plays with the rhythm adding syncopation and articulation, sometimes in his version, he falls behind the beat but not as dramatically as Billie. He falls away at the end of each phrase favouring rhythm over melody. I’m not sure how the original melody was written. However, I suspect Billie is the one who adapted it, as her version is starkly different.

Billie plays with articulation as well, playing with syncopation and staccato. However, she lands that last note sliding it and using vibrato. I think it is interesting how they both use the attack. One of the tools used for both of them is a glottal stop on vowels, which is where the air builds behind the vocal cords before popping open. It gives a rhythmic percussive feeling. You can hear it one both versions here on the word “are”

They both do a similar thing by letting the air build behind the consonants, sometimes making them crisp and percussive or sometimes using dark or dental consonants by using the flat of the tongue rather than the blade. They both also lean into the ‘n’ sound, further adding to the nasality in both tones, singing on the consonants. And, the distinctive growl in Louis' voice is starting to sneak into Billie’s style here.

Some situations in her life also contributed to her style at this time. In 1937, Billie's father had died after being exposed to mustard gas in WW1. He developed a lung disorder and was refused treatment at a local hospital on account of his race. By the time he did manage to get the treatment, it was too late. She was devastated despite her relationship with him. She dealt with her grief by throwing herself into work, landing a gig with Count Basie, from which she was eventually fired. There are many reasons sighted for her firing. However, it is reported that she refused to change her style for the band. I think you can hear that in Yours and Mine. Although that style is there it is less pronounced, the style is cleaner than both her earlier and later work. She takes this cleaner sound even further into 1938 when she records When You Are Smiling, a song made famous by Louis Armstrong. 

Billie would almost certainly have heard Louis 1929 recording when she recorded this, and at this time, she was working with Artie Shaw as the first black woman to perform with a white orchestra. They toured the South of America, and although Shaw stuck up for Billie, she faced a lot of the realities of segregation and racism.

Here, the sound is clean and bright without distortion. She uses a few of those slides but doesn’t lean into it as she does later in her career. She uses a great singer's trick of modifying vowels, so instead of singing ‘smile’ with a wide ‘i’ sound, she is opening it up to an ‘ah’. Vowel modifications like these make it easier to sing and give a warmer tone.  She plays around with rhythm and consonants, but it's a lot more polite and restrained. Without talking to her, it is hard to say how she felt at this time, but vocals have an eerie way of echoing life and exposing how we think and feel. 

How Bessie Smith Influenced Billie Holiday

Let’s have a look at Bessie Smith and what Billie gained from her. Bessie was the most popular Blues Singers of the 20s and 30s. Nicknamed the Empress of Blues, she had a big voice.  The song we will look at is Tain’t Nobody's Bizness If I Do, first recorded by Bessie Smith in 1923 and by Billie in 1949. I’ll play Bessie’s version first and then Billies. Billie's voice is a little different from everything I have just shown you so far. She had stepped entirely away from any expectations and owned it.

They both have very different tones. However, although Bessie is heavier and warmer, they both use twang and fast vibrato to express. Of course, Billie leans into that tone especially vowels vowels like eh on anyway, and Bessie opens up her vowels to give a warmer tone. Bessie also uses a lot of slides into a note

What does Billie do?Take it further and slide up and down, flipping between her head voice and chest voice until it almost becomes a yodel and, of course, mixing it with some Louis Armstrong style staccato articulation.

I wanted to make sure I show you in the later version the classic Billie Holiday yodel that developed into her voice in later years and is a defining factor of her vocal style. So here are a couple of clips. They are such a fun interesting sound that I haven’t heard anyone do in quite the same way.

But back to Bessie, although they are different singers, they both aimed for the same thing just from different angles - expression. Bessie Smith could certainly command an audience and make them feel; she conveyed emotion through dynamics, power and tone. Although that may have been what Billie originally wanted as a teen, she had a lighter voice. She did what she did throughout her career, take a perceived limitation and make it into a strength by making a feature of her lighter sound. She enjoyed the lyrics. Her expression was equally powerful but focuses on diction, attack of consonants and rhythm. Bessie honours the original piece’s phrasing and structure, whereas Billie pushes and pulls it and plays around with it. Bessies chose songs with feisty lyrics that were controversial for this time. Billie took this further and sang Strange Fruit. 

Strange Fruit

Strange Fruit was originally a poem written by Abel Meeropol as a protest after seeing a picture of a lynching that occurred in the South of America. As an amateur musician, he set it to music. I could make an entire video on him - I recommend you look him up. There are many different reports on how Billie first heard the song, but she decided to sing it because the dark imagery reminded her of her father’s death. If you haven’t listened to this song before, it is provocative, grotesque, dark, but I think it is a song that everyone should hear.

It is still shocking to this day, so I can only imagine how shocking it must have been at the time. Although this was a massive political statement, Billie didn’t see herself as an activist but just wanted to do the right thing. I am going to start with the 1939 version. I wanted to show you her early performance and then her late so you can hear how much her voice changed and how understandably tentative she was. Initially, she was reluctant to perform it out of fear of retaliation.  Once she did, she realised how it connected with people and how important it was. Still, her producer at the time John Hammond, who was a civil rights activist, refused to produce it out of fear of adverse reaction.  Eventually, Commodore records agreed, and this is the initial recording.

As she got older, her performance changed a lot. Billie had been through a lot by the end of her life, and in the later version, she is not limited by any musical rules. If it gets in the way of expression, she throws it out. The songs moved from unsettling to something more in your face. I can only describe it as ugly and disgusting, not as a slight on Billie but because that is what she wanted it to be. And this is the reason it is such an important song. As someone who has never had to deal with racial injustice, I will never fully know what it feels like to live with. Hearing Billie's delivery of Strange Fruit takes me beyond intellectual understanding into the realm of feeling. It makes me uncomfortable, but progress doesn’t come from comfort and apathy. It embodies a terrible history and helps us understand the pain inflicted, and reminds us that we still have far to go.

Interestingly, it made headlines a few years ago when Donald Trump asked British singer Rebecca Ferguson to sing for his inauguration. She refused to perform it unless she was allowed to sing Strange Fruit. He did not accept.

““If you allow me to sing ‘Strange Fruit’, a song that has huge historical importance, a song that was blacklisted in the United States for being too controversial. A song that speaks to all the disregarded and downtrodden black people in the United States. A song that is a reminder of how love is the only thing that will conquer all the hatred in this world, then I will graciously accept your invitation and see you in Washington.”
”

— Rebecca Ferguson

Speaking Voice

I wanted to touch on this because I find singers speaking voices interesting, even more so with Billie as she had no training and therefore sings with much of the vocal tract, tongue and jaw posture that she does as she speaks. So I will ask you to listen to this interview of her speaking and not listen to what she says, but how she says it.

You can hear how she naturally uses those slides to express the phrasing and articulation, the nasality and the way she moves between registers of the voice in almost a yodel. This is her voice later in her career, so you can also hear the hoarseness that points to vocal damage caused by lifestyle and drug addiction.

I wanted to quickly touch on her nasality as it comes from her speech. The soft palate is a portal to the nasal cavity. Nasality is a quality that occurs when we lower the soft palate and send the sound through the nose. A lot of singers feel this as forward placement. When we speak, our soft palate raises and lowers depending on the sound. You can feel it lower on an m sound and raise on a b. Often singers, especially opera singers, are trained to keep in that raised position. Billie's voice is so connected to her speaking voice that she uses the same soft palate position, contributing to her nasality and the thinner sounding high notes. 

I haven’t talked much about Billie improvisation yet, but it is a massive feature of her singing. Unlike singers like Ella Fitzgerald, she did not scat unless she wanted to show the band members what she wanted them to sing. She focused on expressing the lyrics and focused her improvisation around that. 

Here is the original melody from the opera

Ella Fitzgerald also does a version within a jazz style and different key but stays pretty true to that original melody. 

Let's listen to what Billie does. I am going to play three versions from three different points in her career. You will hear how her voice develops but also how she plays with melody. She also changes it to “I love you porgy’ to make it more true to how she would say it.

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Lady Sings The Blues

The last song I want to touch on is Lady Sings The Blues. It is my favourite, written by Billie and Herbie Nicols. She recorded this version at the end of her life. She was not in good health at the time, and you can hear the effects her lifestyle and drug abuse has had on her voice. It’s lower, has lost its range and has a distorted husky range. However, at least some of this distortion is a choice. A feature of Billie's career, instead of choosing to hide a flaw, she leans into the sound it creates and uses it to make us feel.

She is so defiant in how she sings now. She has taken the features that people tried to get rid of in her early career and made more of them. Every note has a texture, an adaptation, a meaning.

I love those distorted lower notes. The cause of distortion is when something disrupts the even vibrations from healthy vocal cords and causes them to become irregular. Although people often think this sound is unhealthy, done correctly, it usually is fine. It’s the husky breathy tone that is the area where she isn’t purposefully putting on distortion, which points to her vocal cords’ health. However, I love how she plays her voice like an instrument. Those lower notes sound to me like a trombone, and her thinner direct tone at the top echoes the sound of a clarinet. In her early days, she was slightly softer in her consonants, using more of her direct tone. She has swapped that for something huskier and more fragile but keeps up that attack by changing how she hits each note. Here she is punching the rhythm, switching between using the flat of her tongue to produce consonants to using the blade to make them defined and crisp.

Billie was one of the first to express fearlessly when this was not the norm, and this fearless attitude and bravery went beyond her singing. She was beyond her time in her vocals and civil rights and stood up bravely against injustice while honestly bearing her soul. Now and again, a trailblazer comes along and changes the space for everyone, and Billie was one of those people. She allowed the ugly and the pain to show, and in fact, made a point of it,  moving the aim of singing from perfection to humanity. She showed us that our flaws can be our beauty and that we might need some uncomfortable truths to provoke change. Her gift leaves a legacy beyond her, paving the way for many of our great artists, giving new generations permission to innovate their own forms of expression and stand up against the injustices they face.

IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS PLEASE GET IN TOUCH OR BOOK A SINGING LESSON HERE.

Why Is Your Voice Deeper In The Morning?

You’ve just woken up after a wonderfully restful sleep. You sit up, stretch and exclaim, “good morning world”. Uh oh. Morning voice - deep, raspy and dry feeling - for some it’s just another reason to avoid other humans first thing in the morning; for others, it is something they wish they could maintain throughout the day. But why does this happen? How can we stop it (or keep it going)?

Most singers will tell you that they don't want to do any singing before midday because their voice is deeper, loses tone, has less range and just feels horrible. It is a phenomenon that most of us have experienced, yet I can’t find any studies on it. Probably because it doesn’t cause most of us any problems unless you are a singer with a dreaded early morning audition. However, there are some theories in the vocal coach and medical world, almost certainly offer us an explanation. 

Our voices make pitch at the vocal cords. When we think of cords, we often think of pieces of string, but they are two pieces of tissue made up of muscle and ligament with a soft outer shell. Considering they can make a massive noise, they are tiny, depending on the person they are from 1.25cm in length to 2.5cm. The size of your vocal cords defines how high or low your voice is. Smaller vocal cords produce voices with a higher average pitch, whereas bigger vocal cords produce voices with a lower average pitch. So the first thing we need to consider is, are our vocal cords bigger in the morning? The answer could be yes. 

During sleep, the tissues in our throat collect fluid; in fact, the tissues in our face do as well; it’s what causes our eyes to look puffy when we first wake up. I find I have puffy eyes and a low voice if I have gone to bed particularly tired and have slept deeply. This seems to be a result of not moving in your sleep. I know some singers who will even sleep propped up before a morning performance to stop fluid collecting. As long as I am in a good sleep pattern and haven’t reached the stage where I am exhausted, I don’t wake up with such a deep voice. Of course, anything that causes the vocal cords to swell will make the vocal cords bigger, less able to vibrate evenly and the voice lower, whether with illness or allergies. A common cause of this is acid reflux, where your stomach acid backs up into your oesophagus. If you have ever woken up with a burning sensation in your throat, you’ve probably had this and it is a surprisingly common thing to deal with. Our vocal cords don’t really like acid on them. Some people are more prone to this than others, but an unhealthy or acidic diet could be the culprit. Late-night eating, drinking alcohol or coffee can also make this flare-up. 

The inability to drain fluids while we are lying down could also contribute to another symptom of morning voice. Often, our voices feel and sound a little hoarse, making us perceive our voice as lower. This could be down to thickened excess mucus that has settled on the vocal cords overnight. When we produce a clean, crisp sound, our vocal cords come together entirely and vibrate in regular waves. Mucus on the vocal cords can stop them from coming together fully and cause them to vibrate irregularly. When the vocal cords don’t come together fully, it gives the voice a breathy tone (another symptom of morning voice), and when they vibrate irregularly, we hear that as distortion - a hoarse voice. However, this can easily be cured. Our vocal cords need hydration to make sure they are flexible enough to vibrate. Keeping hydrated also thins the mucus, allowing it to move away from the vocal cords more easily. Keeping fully hydrated will not just help with morning voice, but helps keep your voice stay healthy in general. Unfortunately, coffee is not the best idea as it dehydrates the body – especially your vocal cords. However, if you are like me, you may have to balance the benefits of caffeine-induced brain functionality with hydration. A hot, caffeine-free drink often does the trick as the steam from the tea travels to vocal cords, lubricating them and loosening the mucus. Standing in a nice hot shower will help it drain, and you also get the steam benefits. Of course, using a steamer or nebuliser can also give you a kick start.  

Dehydration may also be doing something else interesting (and less gross) to your vocal cords. There is another factor in how high your voice can go. Some people with bigger vocal cords might be able to sing higher than some people with smaller vocal cords. Vocal cords are pretty incredible little things. They are strong enough to bang together hundreds of times a second yet flexible enough to vibrate and stretch. We change the pitch by tightening and relaxing the vocal cords, and the more flexible your vocal cords are, the greater the range you will be able to achieve. If we have become dehydrated in the night, it can cause them to become less flexible until they are warmed up and fully hydrated again. There are plenty of things that can cause this dehydration, drinking alcohol, too much salt in the diet or a lack of potassium. However, we don’t need our entire body to be dehydrated for our vocal cords to be. If you sleep with your mouth open, it could cause them to dry out overnight. I know some singers who tape their mouths shut at night. However, if you are going to do this look into the options of how to do this safely or look into a snore belt - a specialise brace that holds your mouth shut gently but also allows you to breathe through your mouth if you really need to.  It is also essential to make sure the room you are sleeping in is not too dry, hot or cold. Air conditioning and central heating can really dry out your voice. If you sleep in a place like this, running a humidifier can be a voice saver. 

It is also important to note that many people perceive warmer sounding voices as lower and more direct sounding voices higher. They may be the same pitch, but the tone differs. To change our voice’s tone, we need to change the size of our vocal tract. You can do this artificially by making a yawning dopey bear sound like this - woo woo. This helps us lower our voice box, therefore elongating the space between our vocal cords and our mouth to create more space. So, the extra warmth added to our tone could be down to the muscles in our neck, our tongue and jaw relaxing while we sleep, allowing our vocal tract to elongate and thus creating a warmer tone. It could just be the result of an excellent restful night’s sleep. 

Most of us will wake up with morning voice at some point. Let’s recap how we can lessen its effects: good sleep pattern and general health; hydration; making sure our diet has plenty of potassium and not too much salt; making sure we don’t eat or drink too late, avoiding alcohol and caffeine and acid foods; making sure we sleep in a humidified room at a comfortable temperature; keeping on top of allergies (damp in a room can cause this to flare-up); and if you are a little more extreme prop yourself up or even buy a snore belt.

If you wake up a little hoarse, it should return to normal within an hour of speaking as long as you aren’t ill. To help it on its way, I recommend hydrating with room temperature water or caffeine-free teas. Vocalzone does a great range of teas for singers (not sponsored. I just think they are great and will put a link below). Have a hot shower and warm up your voice slowly. If you have a big meeting or audition in the morning, make sure you give yourself an extra hour in the morning to allow for your voice to warm up thoroughly. If you feel particularly dehydrated, steaming or using a nebuliser should get you on your way.

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Why Do People Lose Their Accent When They Sing?

The Scottish accent. Lilting, friendly, trustworthy and aggressive on a Saturday night. All jokes aside, as a person who possesses a fairly rare accent, I’m often asked why I don’t have an accent when I sing. And this isn’t just a phenomenon that happens to me; it happens to lots of singers. Many people even feel like some famous British artists not only lose their accent but sound American when they sing. But, why is this?

Accent and how it affects the singing voice is a fascinating topic for me. I give online lessons to students across the world with a vast range of accents from multiple countries. These accents affect each of their voices and therefore what we need to work on in lessons individually. But, the first step to understanding why someone might lose their accent is to understand what makes up an accent in the first place.  

Phonemes (Vowels and Consonants) - The pronunciation of vowels is one of the defining features of an accent (Before we go any further, it’s important to point out that in this video, I am talking about how people pronounce vowels in the English language but there are parallel examples in every language). Think about how people around the world pronounce the ‘oh’ sound in the words like ‘both’. I like this example because it shows there are so many pronunciation variations. Even within a country, one rule doesn’t apply to everyone. These differences are often reduced by the structure of music. In speech, we don’t tend to hold onto vowels for any length of time unless we are in a heightened emotional state. In music, vowels are often elongated. These elongated vowels force most singers to assume the easiest vowel shape to sing on. This is further accentuated on high notes. Here is a clip Ben Platt singing his song Bad Habit (3.32). I want you to pay special attention to how he performs the word “you”.  So, the song’s rhythm means the vowel must be sustained, but something else is happening here, he is morphing the ‘oo’ sound into an ‘ah’. Why is this? We’ll it’s just easier. It doesn’t matter that Ben is from LA, he could be from anywhere and he’d probably still choose the same vowel sound because it’s the easiest way to achieve that high note. In this case, it also helps him connect with the emotions he wants to portray. Here the vocals are meant to echo a desperate cry, and if we were to desperately cry in life, it’s much more likely to be on an ‘ah’ than an ‘oo’.   

So, what about consonants? Consonants don’t tend to mark accents quite as much. There are, however, some notable (though not universal) examples. Americans often pronounce something more towards a ‘d’ in words like ‘water’. Consonants are interesting because they often get in the way of singing, and by their very nature obstruct the airflow that we need to sustain notes. It depends on the aim of the singer and how much they feel diction is important in their communication of the song but sometimes people change the consonants in order to achieve a more effortless sound. Let’s look at another classic accent marking consonant, Americans and Scottish people tend to use a rhotic ‘r’, which is when someone pronounces the letter r at the end of words like ‘car’ or ‘higher’ . In singing people with rhotic accents will often drop it and opt for an easier open vowel like car or highah. In short, people often adapt their consonants and vowels because they have to - to effectively connect emotionally and to make certain notes in a song possible to sing, even if it goes against their native accent.

Intonation (Melody and Rhythm) - I’ve put Rhythm and Melody together because they are so connected. Both of these relate to flow and emphasis or intonation in speech, whether it’s by holding a part of a word or changing the pitch. Many accents rely on melody and rhythm to define them, for example, a sing-song accent like Welsh. Think of how rhythm is changed between British and American accents in the word caramel. Some accents use three defined beats,  whereas some make it smoother and two beats. In some accent the melody goes down at the ends, and in others the intonation rises at the end. In song, the rhythm and melody are more or less fixed, cancelling out the singer’s usual speech pattern and accent unless the song was written to purposefully accentuate it.

Placement/Vocal Tract Posture - Singers talk about Vocal placement and speakers talk about vocal tract posture. With singers, we tend to talk about where we feel the sound in our bodies, and this causes us to make specific shapes in our vocal tract. Speakers come at the same idea from a different angle, vocal tract posture is more about the physical movements you are making, which in turn affects where it feels like the sound is focused. Accents matter when we learn to sing. Our natural placement is often defined by our accent and can aid or hinder our singing voice depending on what we’re trying to do. Think back to Ben Platts ‘you’ from earlier. He’s not just changing the vowel shape but the placement. To get a balanced and relaxed sound, especially over our break and high notes, we generally need a fairly neutral larynx and placement. In Ben’s clip, this is happening at the same time as his vowel change to allow him to hit that high note. 

Expression - I know this isn’t something physiological but I felt it was important to touch on, as it really can also change how a singer uses different aspects of accent. For example, a British ‘t’ can give a clipped, bouncy feel, so a British singer might choose to use that American ‘d’ for a smoother sound. Likewise, an American Musical Theatre performer might use the sharper British ‘t’ to enunciate a word, even if they wouldn’t typically when speaking.

However, the technicalities of singing are actually a smaller part of the story than you might think.

Something I find interesting is hearing people sing ‘Happy Birthday’ because everyone almost always sings it in their native accent, closed vowels and all. Perhaps this is because it’s one of the first songs we learn when we first start to speak, I certainly always revert to a Scottish accent when singing nursery rhymes as well. But mostly I think it is because this song, much like an accent, solidifies social ties, with people singing to another in their community to show appreciation for them. 

But why do British people generally sound American?

Well, first, we need to discuss how singing styles evolve. Before the internet, musical genres grew from the lives, stories, experiences and accents of local people. Styles of singing form because that was just how the original artists sang them, and their singing voices were influenced by their speaking voices.  For an example, let’s look at Opera. Yes even opera - a style that requires pretty unnatural vocal posture. This style evolved to boost specific frequencies to cut through the orchestra and be heard in giant concert halls. But, it’s probably no mistake that Opera began in Italy - the open Italian vowels facilitate the Opera sound. Once the style became popular, then people imitated it in different languages and adapted the vowels of their language towards the Italian when singing. That's why most people find it much harder to sing in English - English vowels don’t lend themselves to that style. So in Opera people sound more Italian than American or at least sing in an “Opera accent'' that is derived from Old Italian. Accents aren’t separate from singing styles, they define them. So, if a style is born from America, then it will also be born out of the American accent and will most likely be easier to sing in that accent. 

But it’s not just down to ease of singing, it could be more to do with culture. Lets look at some genres that are obviously defined by accent, think Scottish folk, reggae or country. These types of music are related to a particular group of people and still exist partly to maintain the identity of those people. This is particularly relevant in these specific styles, but also in the bigger picture. American popular music has had a profound effect on music across the world. Jazz, blues, RnB, rock and roll and gospel, are the backbone of much of contemporary western music. These styles originated in specific areas within specific groups of people with particular speech patterns, intonations, vowel shapes and consonants. When these styles spread to other countries, people with contrasting accents would then adapt to fit the style to be accepted within that genre. 

Of course, some people go against this and use their local accent to enhance their unique style. Combining their own communities identity with other music genres, think artists like Kate Nash, Lily Allen, The Proclaimers or Paulo Nutini.

Can you think of any singers who defy the accent of the genre they sing in? I’d be interested to have a look at them, so please do post some in the comments.

So - do people lose their accent when they sing? Well - sort of! I understand why you would think they do, and I also understand why people think British people sound American sometimes. After all, American music is one of the most influential music cultures in the world. However, people won’t default to American style choices in music that doesn’t originate from America and everyone has to adapt their pronunciation to fit the requirements of the song and genre, whatever country they are from. So, although accents often become less obvious, they are rarely lost completely and only if the singer chooses to, subconsciously or not. 

But what is it really about? I think our accents are all about communication and connection - we sing in the way that communicates the most effectively, even if it means adapting a little. Because after all, the most valuable things in life are the connections we make with others. 

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The Dark History Of Sea Shanties

The viral success of Glasgow Postie called Nathan Evans and his Sea Shanties was another surprising twist to lockdown life. The original video has been viewed over 6m times on TikTok alone and inspired a flurry of community spirit - with other social media users adding harmonies, instrumentation, and remixing it with dubstep, drum and bass, funk and metal. Ronan Keating and Gary Barlow even did their own version. But there is more to Sea Shanties than meets the eye.

The Sea Shanty, whose name is proposed to come from the french “chanter” - to sing - first gained recognition in society in the 18th Century, although it is thought the genre could predate records by hundreds of years. No one knows their exact origin but Sea Shanties are believed to be both inspired by British Folk and the African American work songs sung by slaves. Before most of us worked alone at a desk and could just pop on our headphones and listen to our motivational music of choice, a massive proportion of the population worked in heavy team-based physical labour. Working songs were used to motivate and coordinate these tasks. Merchant sailors and nautical workers were no exception.

Percy Lionel Smythe, 1874 (BHC4163, © National Maritime Museum)

To understand the genre, we need to understand the conditions from which it was born. A merchant sailor’s life was dangerous and gruelling. Seamen lived in cramped conditions close to disease-carrying rats, had low pay, worked in bad weather so were often cold and wet, and often had a poor diet which caused malnutrition and scurvy – caused by a lack of vitamin C. Many sailors had signed up for the job because of poverty without even seeing the boat. At the time, sailors who refused to board could be imprisoned with 12 weeks of hard labour in jail. This fact illustrates how bad the conditions were. In the 1850s, a prison-inspector reported that 3/4 of jailed prisoners in the South-West of England were seamen who refused to sail on unseaworthy, dangerous or inadequately manned vessels. People chose hard labour in jail rather than working on a ship.

Even on well-run ships, mistakes could cost the whole crew their lives, so ship’s officers maintained strict discipline on board, and we aren’t talking about a good talking to. Punishments included being ‘tarred and feathered’. Yes, that means pouring (sometimes hot) wood tar over a person then either throwing feathers over them or forcing them to roll in them. Or being ‘keel-hauled’, a punishment which would at best permanently maim. This was enforced by tieing victims to a rope, swinging them overboard and dragging them around behind or underneath the ship. Flogging was the most common punishment, with either a knotted rope or if you were unlucky a ‘cat o’ nine tail’ which was a sort of whip made of nine knotted cotton ropes. And, of course, a seaman found guilty of mutiny would be hanged.

But, amongst all this horror, where does the Sea Shanty come in? They were vital in coordinating tasks as well as promoting team spirit, keeping morale high and helping seamen  express and process the emotional impact of their gruelling lifestyle. For the ship’s officers, this would mean a reduction of mistakes, mutiny and therefore punishments.

But what makes up a Sea Shanty, and how does it work?

The key to the Sea Shanty is rhythm. Sea Shanties had different rhythms for different tasks, for example, the capstan shanties. The capstan was the machine that brought up the anchor - wooden poles were attached to a central axle and sailors would push them in a smooth circular motion, so a smoother, more lyrical song was needed. The most famous shanty “Drunken Sailor”, was a short-haul Shanty. Designed for tasks requiring quick pulls over a relatively short time, it had a particular structure with 4 pulls per verse.

In Scotland, the 18th Century “dreg song” from the Firth of Forth (A Scottish Estuary) was used on three-man boats that collected oysters by dredging. Two men would row and another would operate the dredge, which was an iron frame with a net attached that was dragged along the seafloor. To work effectively, the boat had to maintain a constant speed, too fast and the dredge would bounce and lift off the bottom and too slow the nets wouldn’t open fully. To keep this constant speed, fisherman developed a song with an asymmetric rhythm. The dredge operator would sing a 5 syllable call, matching the effort it took to the oars to be pulled through the water. The rowers would respond with a three-syllable phrase, matching the effort it would take to bring the oars round in the air. This was so effective at scraping oysters from the seafloor that fishermen believed the songs would charm the oysters from their beds. The first dregs would collect 30m oysters a year at the start of the 18th Century. Side note - this was actually pretty short-sighted and soon decimated the oyster population. The annual catch fell to 9m by 1867 and then to 60,000 in 1877. The dredging industry slowly declined and died, and in 1957 the oyster population was declared extinct in the Firth of Forth. Perhaps the dreg song worked too well!

There are some other features of Sea Shanties that Some other features of the Sea Shanty are interesting because they might point to why they have become popular on social media. Like much of the social media content we consume, a shanty is a quick, concise format to share a story. They follow the form of a classic earworm, I did a more in-depth video on this which I will link in at the end. But in short, they are traditionally designed to be simple songs with a strong rhythm, which makes them catchy and memorable. And it’s not just simplicity that makes it catchy. They are also really easy to sing, spanning a small vocal range and focusing on rhythm, meaning you don’t have to be a great singer to make it sound good. This feature also makes it easy to remix with different genres, fueling the creativity that has unfolded around this revival. And during this hugely isolating time for people, perhaps it’s not surprising to have a resurgence in community song. Shanties tell stories of people working together through adversity. In fact, the song that inspired the viral craze “Soon May the Wellerman Come” speaks of richer better days ahead. Of course, we are facing different challenges today compared to the 18th century but the sentiment still rings true as many of us are hoping for better days ahead after the pandemic.

However, it seems this song has a dark history as well. In the early 19th Century, brothers Edward, George and Joseph Weller owned a New Zealand whaling station. Their employees were known as “Wellermen”. Although most would call The Wellerman Song a Shanty because of it’s Shanty rhythm - it is actually technically a cutting-in song, a cousin of the Shanty. The cutting-in song is a working song that helped nautical workers get through yet another undesirable task. Mostly sung on land, the cutting song was designed to accompany the whale’s slaughter, stripping the whale carcass and boiling the blubber. Although foul-smelling, whale oil was used in soap, mechanical lubricant and candles at the time and was very valuable. Ambergris - a grey waxy substance formed from a secretion of the bile duct in the intestines of the whale was sold as a fixative in perfume. Whalebone was a sturdy but flexible material that could be used in brushes, corsets and umbrellas. From 1833, the Weller Brothers began using ships to sell provisions to whalers at sea. The song’s lyrics tell of how the crew hope for the Wellerman to come, “to bring us sugar and tea and rum.” According to the New Zealand Folk Song website, the workers were not paid monetary wages, they were paid in clothing, rum and tobacco. The working conditions were poor. In the song, the lyrics tell us how the workers are hoping one day to “take our leave and go”. The Wellers also expanded into a diverse array of industries like timber, potatoes, dried fish, Maori artefacts, and even the preserved heads of tattooed Maori people. Yes you heard that right. Preserving heads as death rite was a normal tradition for high ranking Maoris however the trade got a little more grizzly in the 19th Century, with the demand for these heads becoming high the Wellermen helped make “heads-to-order” by tattooing and killing slaves.

Although the Weller business was successful, the collapse of the local area's whale population, led the Wellermen to declare bankruptcy after only 10 years in business.

But there is a nicer point to take away. Over a decade ago oysters were once again discovered in the Firth of Forth, and in 2020 it was reported whale populations are making an astonishing come back around the world. Perhaps this is the final reason Sea Shanties have become so popular, they remind us that although times have been tough, we can heal and recover.

IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS PLEASE GET IN TOUCH OR BOOK A SINGING LESSON HERE.

Resources

History of Sea Shanties: https://www.historyextra.com/period/victorian/a-brief-history-of-sea-shanties/

Sea Shanties: https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/Sea-Shanties/

Life at Sea: https://www.rmg.co.uk/discover/explore/life-sea-age-sail

Life in the merchant service: https://dawlishchronicles.com/life-at-sea-in-merchant-service-in-the-1870s/

Harsh History of Sea Shanties: https://mashable.com/article/wellerman-sea-shanty-history/?europe=true

The Truth About Bagpipes

You know you are in Scotland when you hear the sound of Scotland’s National instrument - the bagpipe - floating over the heathered mountains, lochs and pine forests. The bagpipes are as central to Scottish identity and culture as kilts, haggis and whiskey. But the pipes have an unsavoury history, they were not invented in Scotland and were played by the dastardly English the hundreds of years before the Scots.

Before I entirely rip apart Scottish culture, let talk about the history of the bagpipe. 

Hittite Carving

Before you feel like I’m entirely ripping apart Scottish culture, let’s talk about the history of the bagpipe. It is speculated that pipes came about as far back as ancient Egypt. I’ve read about an ancient Egyptian carving, showing a street musician with what seems like a bagpipe chanter and bag under the left arm. I can’t however seem to find a photograph of this, but did find a carving of this description from the Hittite empire that was around at the same time as the ancient Egyptians but in what is now Turkey. The Hittite did have a lot of trade with Egypt so it could have been passed on from the Egyptians. However, the Hittite although lesser known were great inventors, known for their fast chariots, and could have just invented it themselves. It is widely thought that the bagpipe, whether an Egytian or Hittite invention, was then passed onto the Greeks who then gave it to the Romans.

And that is where the first written records of pipes with bags came from - it is written that Emperor Nero of the ancient Romans could “play the pipe, both by means of his lips and by tucking a skin beneath his armpits”. Here comes the first blasphemous piece of history - in the form of the Legend of Caesar’s bagpipes’ during the conquest of Britain. The story tells of Caesar, in an effort keep the Roman casualties to a minimum, decides to ambush the Celts. He did this by asking his pipers to hide and at the prearranged signal, all play at once. The Celtic horses bolted, threw their riders, and the Roman Army rushed in. The Romans used the original pipe band against the Celts!

Tewkesbury Abbey, Gloucester

Legend says that when the Britons realised what had happened, they believed the bagpipe was divine with magical qualities. Hearing this, the English then copied the Roman instrument. In fact, there is an archaeological find at Tewkesbury Abbey, Gloucester, of a small altar, 2nd century A.D. depicting a figure playing an early type of bagpipe. So, perhaps it really was worshipped. Although this is all myth, what is clear is that the bagpipe became popular in Britain after the Roman invasion in the fourth or fifth century A.D. In fact, England became the centre of the bagpiping world, with Worcestershire, Nottinghamshire and Lancashire producing noted pipers and areas such as Cornwall, Northumberland, Lancashire and Lincolnshire made their own types of bagpipe. Strong evidence indicates that the Irish got the instrument from invading Anglo-Norman armies, while the French and Gaul Celts who lived in France, produced at least 7 types of bagpipes also inspired by the Romans. 

St Martins Cross Iona

The earliest evidence of the pipe in Scotland is on St. Martin’s Cross at Iona from 750 A.D. Looking at it, it is a little of a stretch to say it is definitely a bagpipe. However, it would fit when the Normans came to the island, who definitely did have pipes at the time. The first unquestionable depiction in Scotland is in Rosslyn Chapel and Melrose Abbey’s carvings from the 15th Century. In fact, hilariously Melrose Abbey has a carving of a pig playing the bagpipes! Given the timing of carvings it is reasonable, although probably not a popular opinion, to assume that the tradition came up from the south. However, in 1528 a piper in Scotland witnessed a legal document indicating some degree of social status. From the 16th Century onward Highland pipers are referenced more regularly in documents and literature from the time. In the Scottish Lowlands, pipers became a regular part of bands of travelling musicians, performing at weddings and fairs and soon took over the harpist place as musician of choice. Whereas in the Highlands pipers occupied a more serious position in society, the instrument became more associated with war, replacing trumpets to inspire highlanders into battle. 

Melrose Abbey Bagpipe Playing Pig

But by the 18th Century, it had become an icon of Scottish National Belonging, becoming linked to the Jacobite Movement and later the Jacobite Rebellion where Catholic Charles Stuart (otherwise known as Bonnie Prince Charlie) tried to take the throne from Protestant James II. Bonus Fact, Bonnie Prince Charlie did not take the throne and fled to France. The song “My Bonnie” was written and sung by the Jacobites who could pass it off as a love song when sung around their rivals. 

The politicisation has led to a misconception that the pipes were banned in Scotland. In 1746, The Disarming Act came in to curtail Jacobitism and bring peace to the Highlands. It outlawed people in some parts of Scotland from having

“in his or their custody, use, or bear, broad sword, poignard, whinger, or durk, side pistol, gun, or other warlike weapon”

unless authorised. Two years later, Highland Dress including tartan, was also banned and in 1745 a piper James Reid was captured and sentenced to hang for treason for taking part in the Rebellion. However, the bagpipes never were forbidden, and his death was not to do with his profession. 

Polish Bagpipe

It is interesting to note that bagpipes have been banned - in Poland during the second world war. Nazis threatened by the Polish national identity represented by the bagpipe, ordered the Polish people not to play their version. 

The bagpipe has a vast family, with most countries from India to Sweden to Libya to Portugal having their own variety. Although the Scottish Bagpipe is part of a family, it has developed its unique sound and music through centuries of piping families work and dedication to the art. It has become well known worldwide mostly down to Scotland’s famous Highland Regiments in the expansion British Empire. Many Commonwealth and Ex-Commonwealth Nations now swap their indigenous bagpipes for the Highland Bagpipes in Military events. Thus, the world’s biggest producer of the instrument is Pakistan, where the industry was worth $6.8 million in 2010. The bagpipe’s popularity was also boosted when Scottish Pipers were military trained in the 1st and second world wars. This coincided with the decline of traditional bagpipes throughout Europe, which were replaced by classical instruments and later the gramophone and radio. This has been boosted even further with a resurgence in folk music, and even combining bagpipes and rock in a new genre called “bagrock”. Check out the Red Hot Chili Pipers, they are fantastic. 

But all this got me thinking if bagpipes aren’t actually Scottish how much of our cultural identity is what we initially thought? Is our cultural identity defined by who wins the wars - the Romans or the British Empire? What do you think? Where are you from, and what defines your culture? 

Don’t get me wrong, I love the bagpipes, and I love Scottish music. But I love it, even more, to realise that its development is linked to instruments, music, and people worldwide. That my Scottish upbringing means I am also part of even more incredible world culture - with diverse people, and diverse bagpipes. I realise that both world and local culture will shift and change just as it did in the back in Roman times, or with the Jacobites or with the invention of bagrock. It reminds me that we can try to be as divided as we want, but even something of specific cultural significance would not have happened if it wasn’t for a diverse array of cultures. So wherever we are from, let’s not shut out other cultures because of the differences. Let’s celebrate what distinct and differing cultures have and will bring to the world. Let’s celebrate diversity. 

Resources

Bagpipe History: http://www.bagpipehistory.info/rome-ancient-world.shtml

The Great Highland Bagpipe: https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofScotland/The-Piob-Mhor-or-the-Great-Highland-Bagpipes/

Brief History Of The Bagpipe: https://theculturetrip.com/europe/united-kingdom/scotland/articles/a-brief-history-of-the-bagpipe/

Scotia Pipers: http://www.scotiapipers.co.uk/bagpipe-history/

Bagpipe History: https://www.hendersongroupltd.com/resources/history-of-bagpipes/

Jacobite Rebellion: https://www.visitscotland.com/about/history/jacobites/

Hittites: https://www.ancient.eu/hittite/

The Other Mendelssohn

It was on a warm June morning in 1842 that Felix Mendelssohn was invited for the second time to perform at Buckingham Palace for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. For Victoria and Albert, it was their shared love of music that brought them together - they took their sheet music with them wherever they travelled so that they could play piano duets and sing for each other. Mendelssohn knowing this had a request - would the Queen like to sing? He rummaged about his music producing a set of songs for her to pick her favourite. She chose “Italien”. It wasn’t until after she sang that he confessed that his sister Fanny had written the song.

Fanny was the oldest of four children, including her younger brother Felix. In early childhood in Berlin, she and Felix began to play piano learning from their mother. After studying briefly in Paris, Fanny and her brother received lessons from some of Berlin's top tutors including composer Carl Zelter. Zelter had high praise for her, favouring her over Felix. In 1816 he wrote in a letter

“[Abraham Mendelssohn] has adorable children and his oldest daughter could give you something of Sebastian Bach. This child is really something special.”

By 14 years old, Fanny could already play all 24 preludes from Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier from memory and had begun to write her own music. Yet, it was only Felix performing his first public showcase. Felix soon began touring Europe, dazzling audiences with his compositions and piano. By his mid-20s, he was well on his way to establishing himself as one of the Romantic Age’s greatest composers. Fanny remained at home. Much later, in 1831, Zelter portrays Fanny’s skill with the highest praise for a woman at the time:

“ she plays like a man.”

But, that was precisely the problem - she was not a man.

But, that was precisely the problem - she was not a man. 

In the Victorian era, men and women’s roles became more sharply defined than at any time in history. Although it had been a custom in earlier centuries for men to be granted the right to make decisions, it had been usual for women to work alongside husbands and brothers in the family business. As the 19th-century men increasingly commuted to their workplace, women were left at home to oversee the domestic duties. Fanny Mendelssohn’s father upheld these social norms. Although he also believed Fanny to be the more musical child, he tolerated but did not support Fanny’s work. In 1820, he wrote to her,

“Music will perhaps become his [Felix’s] profession, while for you it can and must be only an ornament, it may never form the core of your life”.

But what about Felix? Although Felix was said to support her music and composition, he was cautious of her publishing works under her own name. He wrote to his mother:

“From my knowledge of Fanny, I should say that she has neither inclination nor vocation for authorship. She is too much all that a woman ought to be for this. She regulates her house, and neither thinks of the public nor of the musical world nor even of music at all, until her first duties are fulfilled. Publishing would only disturb her in these, and I cannot say that I approve of it”.

Forced by circumstance, her dutiful attitude to her father and her intense relationship with her brother she dedicated herself to Sonntagsmusiken - musical concerts set up by her mother in their family home to develop her children’s talent. Initially, of course, Felix took the lead but when he began to tour Fanny took over, seizing the opportunity to develop her musical skills and even building a choir that could perform her large scale works. The entire cultural elite of Berlin visited, with famous artists and musicians such as Wolfgang Goethe, Heinrich Heine, Niccoló Paganini, Franz Liszt, Clara Schumann and Robert Schumann as regular guests. 

In 1829, Fanny Mendelssohn married artist Wilhelm Hensel. Wilhelm was Atypical for the period and In 1829, Fanny Mendelssohn married artist Wilhelm Hensel. Wilhelm was not typical of the period and considerably more liberal than her father and brother. He did not demand his wife stop composing, but unequivocally supported her musical ambitions encouraging her to publish her works. And,even leaving manuscript paper for her to write new compositions before he left to paint each day. But even after her marriage with Willhelm, she could not bring herself to break the publication ban imposed by her father and brother.

When her father died in 1835, Fanny made her first contact with publishers. Felix was not supportive. As a married woman, Fanny was not required to heed her brother’s wishes, but she couldn’t bring herself to go against him. She decided not to publish her work and continued to showcase her talents in the family home only. In the meantime, Fanny could publish some of her songs under Felix’s name. It was at this time she wrote to Goethe, who was supportive of her work,

“It must be a sign of talent that I do not give up, though I can get nobody to take an interest in my efforts.”

It took another 11 years for her to defy her brother’s wishes. After an approach by two Berlin publishers, she decided to publish some of her songs under her married name without consulting him. He finally gave his reluctant blessing writing to her:

“[I] send you my professional blessing on becoming a member of the craft [...] may you have much happiness in giving pleasure to others; may you taste only the sweets and none of the bitterness of authorship; may the public pelt you with roses, and never with sand.”

Later that year she composed and published her Gardens songs for choir. She was happy with her work, but her choice of words in this letter to Felix is very telling

‘There is a very pleasant time associated with these songs, that’s why they are more dear to me than my other trifles.’

Finally, at 41, she has broken free from the restraints Victorian Society upheld by her father and brother. In May 1847 a rave review of her Garden Songs appeared in a prestigious Music Magazine. Could this have been the start of her forging own career? We will never know. That same day, Fanny Mendelssohn succumbed to a stroke while rehearsing Felix’s choral works. Felix was in London when he heard the news and could not get back in time for the funeral. Devastated he could not work and instead spent his time attempting to ensure that his sister received the recognition that had been withheld throughout most of her life. He collected many of the 460 works she wrote, intending to release them to the public through his publisher. However, in November 1847 he also suffered a stroke and died. After his death, his publisher heeded his wishes and began to distribute some of her work although not all. 

Despite Felix’s efforts, Fanny was represented as a ‘feminising’ influence that sapped his artistry in biographies in the 19th Century. It wasn’t until the 1980s that she began to be recognised for the work she did.

Fanny was an incredibly talented woman. I would suggest checking out her work Notturno in G minor and my favourite Allegro molto in C minor. They are some of the most beautiful pieces I have ever heard. I love telling Fanny's story, not just because it is an interesting story from long ago or even because telling it helps right a wrong but because it reminds me to keep evaluating my point of view. What we once thought was common sense from a modern lens seems unacceptable. Felix and Abraham were not bad people but rather a product of their time. We all know parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts with old-fashioned views and understand how those points of view have shaped the world. Fanny's story reminds me to challenge my own opinions, to keep on rooting out the biases that have inevitability built within myself and to forgive myself when I find them, because, like Felix and Abraham, I am also a product of my time. Luckily times change and I plan to change with them. 

Are there any artists that you know that did not get the recognition they deserve? Let me know down in the comments. 

IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS PLEASE GET IN TOUCH OR BOOK A LESSON HERE.

References

Gender Roles in The 19th Century: https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/gender-roles-in-the-19th-century

Fanny Mendelssohn History: https://www.history.com/news/fanny-mendelssohn-finally-gets-her-due

How Fanny Mendelssohn was Eclipsed by Felix: https://tdrks.medium.com/fanny-mendelssohn-in-the-shadow-of-felix-4c3782ba8576

Fanny Mendelssohn: The Other Mendelssohn: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fanny-Hensel-Mendelssohn-Larry-Todd/dp/019936639X

Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel: A Life of Music within Domestic Limits: http://www.kapralova.org/journal9.pdf

You Can Hear Cold

Here in Scotland, winter transforms the landscape - echoing icy lakes and crisp flowing rivers that cut through the silence of the snow. But I am sure you realise I am inferring that it's not just the scenery that changes during the winter, the way that we experience sound is also entirely and distinctly transformed. 

Before we get into this, I want to prove that you are almost definitely able to hear cold. Let's listen to the familiar sound of running water. I am going to pour the same amount of water from two identical cups into another pair of two identical cups. Can you figure out which is hot and which is cold?

Sensory Experiences · Glass 1 - Hot or Cold?

Sensory Experiences · Glass 2 - Hot or Cold?

Yes, the first in cold. In fact, we are so good at hearing cold 90.8% of us will get it right. But what are you actually hearing? 

It seems that this is actually quite a contentious subject, there are a few disagreements on physics Reddit thread on this. So I will give you the most straightforward answer, but if you would like to know a bit more, I'll link the thread in the description. You will see lots of different theories are put forward. I always think the best way to really understand what is going on is to turn sound into a visual. I found a blog by Intelligent Sound Engineering who analysed the frequencies of pouring hot water and pouring cooled water by putting the sounds through a Spectrogram.

Hot Water

Cold Water

Contrary to instinct, it seems that both hot and cold pours produce the same frequencies (or pitches), but different frequencies are boosted at different parts of the pour depending on the temperature. So the colder water actually had stronger higher frequencies at the start and end of the pour whereas when hot, frequencies are boosted in the middle of the pour.

The first theory I found is in line with a famous YouTube video by Steve Mould. When water cools, the molecules move around less quickly, making the water more viscous, dense and stickier. This process is more apparent in liquids like honey, where it is thick when cold and runnier when hot. With water it is a much more subtle difference, one that we can’t see with the eye but can apparently hear. The cold water's viscosity means that the water forms bigger droplets which in turn boost the frequencies at the start and end of the pour. Another theory by Roby Selfridge is that the steam from the hot water could have an acoustic filtering effect. However, it isn't just boiling water that changes the sounds. I have a theory that we can also tell the temperature of water anywhere, even in a stream.

So, whether you are listening to a boiling cup of tea or if my theory is right, a winter stream, it seems that humans have a superpower for hearing temperature. But, it's not just water we can hear.

On February the 3rd 1947 Snag, Yukon, recorded Canada's coldest day ever reaching -62.8C. It is said, that people could hear the hiss of their breath as the moisture turned to ice crystals, the bangs as the expanding ice cracked on the White River and voices from the airport more than 6km away! What was happening, surely this can't be possible. 

We are told in school, that the speed of sound is 343 meters per second or 767 mphl. But this is not entirely true. This figure assumes that the listener is at a room temperature of 21°C (70°F). In reality, temperature directly affects the speed of sound—the speed of sound increases as the temperature increases. On cold days sound travels slower. But this doesn't explain why you can hear so acutely, surely the sound would die out before it gets to you?

Earlier we talked about how water gets more viscous when it gets cold, well the same thing happens for air, it gets thicker. The cold air forms a dense mass that sinks down to ground level. The thinner faster moving and warm air sits above this layer — a weather phenomenon called temperature inversion. Our coldest record day was no exception with temperature on the high ground in Snag recorded at -23.4 C - still cold but not quite -62.8C.

Now here is the fascinating part. Sound waves tend to bend away from less dense warm air toward the thicker, colder air. This means sound waves coming from a person bend back towards the ground when it reaches the less dense air. When it reaches the ground it bounces back up and so on. If the ground is frozen, it works even better. Just like smooth, hard surfaces like glass reflect light, the smoother and harder a surface, the better it reflects sound. This means the sound waves are essentially focused along the cold air level, meaning less of the sound wave is lost and this allows them to travel further. This is compounded because the cold layer of air is so dense, it doesn't move very much, meaning there is no competing noise from the wind. The sound will be crisp and clear.

But something different happens when it snows, and our winter soundscape is entirely made over with silence. Some of the quiet after a snowstorm makes sense, people tend to stay home, there are not as many cars on the road, and wildlife hunkers down in a warm spot. But there is science to this silence as well. Snowflakes are six-sided crystals, beautiful and full of open spaces. These spaces in the structure of the snowflakes absorb the sound waves, and the snowfall coats the surfaces of anything that reflects sound, creating that relaxing silencing effect. But this effect is short-lived. As the snow melts and refreezes the snowflakes change shape reducing the spaces and reducing the noise-cancelling effects. And when it turns to ice, the clarity of sound is restored, reflected and amplified again. 

I found researching this fascinating as it got me thinking about how much time most of us spend relating to our visual world and ignoring the information we take in through our other senses. It seems that when we step outside and take a moment to listen you never know what you might find - you might even find a superpower!  

In the northern hemisphere winter transforms our soundscape, to a place where we can find both silence and clarity.

IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS PLEASE GET IN TOUCH OR BOOK A LESSON HERE.

Resources

What does cold sound like?: https://www.npr.org/2014/07/05/328842704/what-does-cold-sound-like?t=1609788944286

https://intelligentsoundengineering.wordpress.com/2017/05/20/why-can-you-hear-the-difference-between-hot-and-cold-water/

https://blog.weatherops.com/sound-travels-further-in-cold-weather-heres-why

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/science-of-winter-why-your-voice-carries-farther-on-a-cold-morning

Benjamin Franklin Invented The Worlds Most Dangerous Instrument

To understand how he created this intricate instrument, we first need to understand how singing glasses work. If you rub your finger around the rim of a glass, the friction causes the glass to vibrate and create sound waves. In fact, every instrument vibrates in some way to create sound. The wonderful thing about the singing glass is that it vibrates for some time after you stop playing it, meaning it has a long decay time, which is that beautiful haunting ringing sound. 

But why are the glasses filled with water? Well, we hear faster sound waves as higher sound and slower sound waves as lower sound.  The size of each glass defines how fast or slow these vibrations move through it and, therefore the pitch. When you add water to the glass, you add more material for the vibrations to travel through, therefore slowing the vibrations down and making the pitch lower. 

Instead of filling each glass with water, Franklin worked with a glassblower in London to make different sized bowls that vibrate at various pitches used in Western scales. These bowls were then fitted inside the next with cork, colour coded to represent different notes and held together with an iron rod that ran through their centre. This was then attached to a wheel, which was turned manually by a foot pedal. To play it, a musician would dip their fingers in water and touch each bowl’s edge as it turns, producing a sound much like the singing glasses. However, this time you could play more quickly, with more dynamic ability with up to 10 notes at once - an impossible feat on the singing glasses. Plus, once it was made, it never needed to be tuned! Taking its name from the Greek word for harmony, the Glass Armonica was born.

Franklin cherished his invention. He took it with him when he travelled across the world, playing his own compositions or his favourite Scottish tunes to audiences across Europe and the U.S. And, it wouldn’t be long before composers such as Beethoven and Mozart began writing music for it. The glass armonica became one of the most celebrated instruments of the 1700s, it seemed destined for a place in history. But by the 1830s, it was nearly forgotten. What happened?

In the late 1700s, some unsettling incidents began to be associated with the Glass Armonica. Rumour had it that Armonica players became both physically and mentally ill - many complaining of muscle spasms, nervousness, fainting, cramps, dizziness, hysteria and melancholia. And, It wasn’t just the players that were rumoured to fall victim to it. After a child died during a performance in Germany, the armonica was banned in a few towns. Some people even thought that the tones were magical, invoking the spirits of the dead and driving listeners mad. So is this beautiful instrument actually the sound of insanity?

One theory is that musicians were actually coming down with lead poisoning from the lead glass bowls or paint used to colour code each note. However, although lead poisoning was common in the 18th and 19th century, there seems to be little scientific backing for this theory. The lead used in the Armonicas construction would be much less than other sources of lead in 18th century day to day life, such as makeup. 

It also seems there is no actual evidence for people being driven mad at an unusual rate. Perhaps this rumour started because of a fascinating musical quirk that deceives and disorientates the brain and leaves us unsure of the location of the Armonicas sound. Before I start this section I want to give a little caveat, the way that humans locate sound is really complicated and it has constantly changing science, I’ve simplified it a lot here and if you are watching next it might be out of date. However, it is generally thought that we locate sounds by recognising the difference in the time it takes for a sound to reach one ear and then the other ear - the phase difference. As the frequencies get higher and the phase difference becomes less, it becomes more and more difficult for our brain to process, and at about 1kHz it becomes much harder for us to locate sounds using this method. When the sound gets higher (4khz and above), the brain changes tac and uses the difference in the volume of a sound between both ears. So, there is a gap between 1 and 4 kHz, this is the range where most of the pitches of the Glass Armonica fall. Our brains are never quite sure where or what the sound is coming from. It’s probably why people often describe it as ethereal. Our brains can’t effectively process what we’re hearing, so it literally feels otherworldly and perhaps a little disconcerting.This is probably why people thought they could be going mad listening to it.

The idea that the music was coming from somewhere other than the orchestra also informed the use of the Glass Armonica in Opera. In Die Frau Ohne Schatten (The Woman Without A Shadow) by Richard Strauss, the instrument is used to represent the eerie voices of unborn children, further adding to its creepy reputation. 

Franklin himself ignored the controversy and continued to play the instrument until the end of his life with none of the rumoured symptoms. However, the armonicas popularity never returned, perhaps also due to its inability to produce loud enough tones for new bigger concert halls, it’s expense and proneness to breakage. 

Despite the rumours, I think the armonica is beautiful, albeit a little trippy, and it is undergoing a small revival. Recent productions of Opera’s like Lucia di Lammermoor, which dropped the use of the armonica and rearranged it for flute in the 1800s have brought back this magical instrument  in “the mad scene” - of course. 

But it’s not just the armonica that is wonderful, intriguing and has a colourful and complex history. Before we end this video, I want to leave you with a lovely fact about it’s inventor - Benjamin Franklin. Although more than 5000 glass armonicas were made before his death, he did not receive a single penny for its invention. In fact, he was a man who refused to patent any of his inventions, saying:

“As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours, and this we should do freely and generously.”

- that generosity seems a pretty nice note to end on! 

IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS PLEASE GET IN TOUCH OR BOOK A LESSON HERE.

References

How do Glass Cups Make Sound?: https://sciencing.com/glass-cups-make-ringing-noise-6581.html

Science of Glass Cups: https://learning-center.homesciencetools.com/article/simple-water-glass-xylophone/

Glass Armonica: http://johnroach.net/the-evils-of-the-glass-armonica/

The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2009/oct/26/glass-harmonica

Glass Armonica in Opera: http://www.operavivra.com/blog/glass-harmonicas-opera/

Most of us know Benjamin Franklin as a politician, writer, scientist and one of America’s founding fathers. He is lesser known for his musical achievements - a skilled player of the viola da gamba, guitar and harp, he was also the inventor of allegedly, the world’s most dangerous instrument - the glass armonica. But what is it? How does it work? And can an instrument really be dangerous?

In the 1700s, Benjamin Franklin was an American diplomat working between London and Paris. During this period, it was popular for musicians to perform the “singing” wine glasses - where a musical tone is produced by rubbing a wet finger around the rim of a glass. A friend of Franklin’s, Edward Delaval, was one of these musicians who had invented a set of glasses that were more precisely tuned and easier to play. After seeing Edward play them in May 1761, Franklin fell in love with the beauty of the sound. He decided he wanted to see if he could invent a single instrument that embodied this tone but made it possible to play chords and complex melodies. 

Why Do Singers Lip-Sync?

Lip-sync, short for lip synchronisation. It’s where someone matches lip movements with the sound of someone else who is speaking or singing - often to a prerecorded track. In short, it’s essentially miming. By the way, Tom Holland lip-syncing to Rihannas Umbrella and Channing Tatum lip-syncing to Beyonce are the two greatest things on the internet ever. Who knew watching people not sing could be so entertaining! But it is not just used in fun lip-sync battles and drag acts; it is something that your favourite artist might be doing too. People often see it as a negative thing, but is it so bad?

Lip-syncing is a topic that people have firm opinions about, so I wanted to chat about it a little further - explore where it comes from and why people do it. Are some people just not fulfilling their job description? Is it cheating?

Well to find out, let's talk about where lipsyncing comes from.  Lip-syncing came around as soon as the silent movie era was over and a generation of film stars who had never spoken before needed to speak and sing on screen. There are, of course, some fantastic classic movies with incredible singers, but some of your favourite voices might not belong to the people you thought they did. One of my favourite voices as a kid was Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady; I also loved the voice of Deborah Kerr in The King and I. It didn’t clicked until I read an article about it recently, their singing voices are the same person - and it’s neither of them! In fact, they’re voiced by Marni Nixon who also voiced Maria in West Side Story.  Nope, not Natalie Wood.  She has nine uncredited dubbing roles under her belt ranging from 1950 to 1998 - including a few high notes in Diamonds are Girl’s Best Friend for Marilyn Monroe! And we can’t do a video about this with telling the tale of Singing in the Rain -  a film that depicts the uncredited dubbing of a famous movie star.  In the movie Debbie Reynolds character Kathy steps in to provide the singing and speaking voice of a shrill voiced movie star played by Jean Hagan. However, in the scene when Debbie Reynolds' character is dubbing the singing for Jean Hagan, in real life Debbie was actually dubbed - by a woman called Betty Noyes. It’s a dubbing Inception. 

But what about modern movies? Although there has recently been a demand for singers showing their real live voices, with live-action movie musicals, some movies still opt for dubbing. For example, in The Greatest Showman, Rebecca Ferguson isn’t the voice making you weep during Never Enough, the song is voiced by 2012 The Voice Contestant Loren Allred.

But why would they do this? Why not just use Loren or ask Rebecca to sing? Artistically, both of them are undoubtedly great at what they do. Combining them makes a fantastic superhuman performer with world-class singing and acting. Maybe the director's vision was that Loren was the perfect voice but (without knowing her or her acting skills) was just more of a singer than an actor or the other way round. Maybe they just wanted to find a way to make it work with the person they wanted. And it wasn’t the only artistic license taken with this song, for one, the character in the script is a representation of an opera soprano, but not just any opera soprano, Jenny Lind, one of the most highly regarded opera singers of the 19th century. I can’t find any clips of her singing because, you know, it was the 19th Century. However, I really doubt she sang in the contemporary belted mezzo-soprano style we hear in the film! But it’s not just down to artistic licence - people love to see the faces they know. A star-studded cast, whether they can sing or not, is what sells movie tickets and at the end of the day making movies is business. Although both Loren Allred and Rebecca Ferguson are phenomenal performers, I can also understand why some people are annoyed that they don’t cast a person who can do both. Because people work hard on being able to do both! I certainly know of some lesser known performers who can sing and act.

But this is the movie business. It’s different; it’s about creating a story in the most effective way and they’re actors, not singers. What about the music business? Surely that has to be real?

We will get to lip-syncing in live music but first, let's just clear up some things in music videos. Unless it’s a live album with a live show music video or you are Bruce Springsteen who famously recorded the audio for “Street of Philadelphia” live with the music video, these are almost always lip-synced to the prerecorded record. I get the same comment a lot on my reactions “, but they sang it better on the music video” - this is because it is prerecorded and edited! However, lip-syncing, in this case, allows all the cool artistic effects and production to make the end product great in a different way. For example, artists sometimes lip-sync to a sped-up track, to create videos with a slow-motion effect in the final clip, or a lip-sync slow-motion track, to give the opposite effect. Some artists even lip-sync backwards to give the effect that the singer is singing forwards while time appears to move backwards in his or her surroundings. 

Okay, this is the part you want to hear about. Live music. Why would a singer mime over instead of performing live? Is this excusable? Let's first talk about the reasons people do this.

One place people often think in relation to lipsyncing is K-Pop, defined by its high energy dance routines. Singing needs a lot of breath control and heavy dance routines can be pretty unhelpful! If anyone watching has been to a Musical Theatre school, you will know how hard the Beyonce work-out is - where you go for a run and sing at the same time. If you are an artist who does these dance routines, you have to train like an athlete and fans of K-Pop are often as much a fan of the dancing as they are the singing. 

And this style has not been just confined to K-Pop and Beyonce. Artists in the 80’s like Michael Jackson and Madonna set new standards for pop music. Their live shows became spectaculars with dancing, singing, sometimes even aerial acts. It wasn’t just singing anymore, an era was born in which artists recreated the visual spectacle of the perfect lip-synced music video on stage. So much so, that singing in many cases has become secondary to the phenomenon. Remember the 1989 Milli Vanilli lip-sync scandal, where it turned out the two members of Milli Vanilli who in interviews had strong French and German accents did not in fact sing or rap in their distinctly American sounding tracks? I find this act interesting because people loved them until they found out that they had been tricked. Does it make it less valuable if it isn’t real? It’s a really sad tale so that to me says a lot about exploitation in the music industry; it’s worth taking a look.

However, it isn’t just about dance routines. After all, people have been found out for lip-syncing when they are standing still. There could be a couple of reasons for this. They might have loads of shows to do and want to save their voice, no one is superhuman. Recording in the studio is different from live, and people often give better performances and live shows can have all sorts of problems. But in the end, it all comes down to expectations.

People expect to hear what they heard on the record, and nowadays, the production makes singers on records sound so perfect that no human can reproduce that night after night. Artists are in a difficult situation here, vilified if they sing flat or imperfectly and equally vilified for auto-tuning or lip-syncing. Especially for an artist working their way up, it feels like there isn't room for mistakes. Someone like Lady Gaga has now found a new authentic image, flaws and all, and by the way, I think she is doing great work. But it’s taken her years to get to the point of which she can throw away expectations; she might never have gotten to where she was if didn’t adhere to some of the rules of perfection in the first place. The industry and fan expectations have created a culture where you have to earn the right to be flawed in your art. 

So artists are getting up on stage day after day, with all these expectations from brands, their management and fans and you know what doesn’t make people sing better, crippling expectations. That’s when the mistakes happen. Consequently, some artists switch between live singing and lip-synching during a performance, particularly during songs that require them to hit particularly high or low notes. Once the problematic portion of the song has passed, the artist would then resume singing live — this happens in pop, in rock, in musical theatre — all genres.

And it’s not even always the artists calling the shots! It’s the management and record labels and TVs shows and venues. I’ve seen this myself. I worked as a vocal coach for a live TV gig. We did the warm-up with the artist, soundcheck and worked through the areas of the songs they wanted to. We work hard; they sound good. Then they go live. I listen. Perfection. But wait, this is too perfect, not a single nervous shake. They are lip-syncing, and they don’t even know it. They hired me to keep the illusion for the artist! When you are an artist, you are the product, and whoever was calling the shots there wanted to give the customer the perfect product. I would feel terrible for them if they got caught out and had bad press for something they weren’t aware they were doing. 

Audiences often expect perfection, and whoever is calling the shots will try and give that to them. It takes a strong person to fight against these expectations and forge their authentic path. However, lip-syncing and autotune are just symptoms of a broader problem that is trickling down to all of us, and generations after us - the feeling that we all have to be perfect and anything else is unacceptable. We can’t decide what artists do, it’s up to them, but we can create a culture in which imperfection is okay. Imagine how much more creative people could be in that culture! Maybe we can listen to music with a kinder ear, allowing bad days and imperfections to shine through, because when we make mistakes okay, we make space for the brilliantly human, the heart wrenching and the genius. 

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Metal Music Makes You Calmer

In popular culture, the stereotype of a metalhead is less than flattering - whether it’s headbanging, satanism, mosh pits or the decapitation of small animals - thank you, Ozzy Osbourne!  Even within medical institutions, metal has been associated with depression, aggression and antisocial behaviour. But recent studies seem to be telling a different story, that metal music could, in fact, help us emotionally regulate. Can metal really make you calmer? I wanted to take a look…

Most of you will have an idea on what metal music is but for the purposes of this, I am going to give you the definition used in one the studies I will be citing.

“Metal music and anything that is generally categorised in the extreme music genre is characterised by chaotic, loud, heavy sounds with emotional vocals. The lyrics often explore themes of anxiety, depression, anger, social isolation and loneliness.”

So, is it possible that a genre with all these negative themes could have a positive impact on someone's life?

Well, first of all, it turns out that scientists, like the rest of us, can be led along by stereotypes too! Let’s look at a 1991 study that claims that if you listen to metal music, you’re more likely to get admitted to psychiatric hospital. This study was based on scientists contacting clinicians at 12 psychiatric hospitals posing as a worried parent of John, a fictitious adolescent male who listened to heavy metal, wore skull t-shirts and didn’t clean his room. Although concern was expressed when contacting the hospital, it was also clearly stated that John did not do drugs, have any symptoms of mental illness and was even doing well in school. Without having met John or conducting a proper psychiatric assessment, 10 of the 12 services recommended admitting John to hospital. ‘John’ was not advised to be admitted because of actual mental illness symptoms, but because of biased clinical judgement, part of which definitely appears to have come from his association with heavy metal. Of course, psychiatric care has moved on a lot since 1991, and I am sure this wouldn’t happen today!

But, what could have led them to believe this? Let’s have a closer look at the stereotypes; Anger and aggressive behaviour are the first that pop to mind and are perhaps the most pervasive in society.

In 1987, Gowensmith and Bloom ran an experiment and found metal did, pretty uniformly, cause increased heart rate and brain activity, which can be signs of anger. And indeed, some people reported feeling angry. But crucially, it was only those who weren’t originally metal fans. It’s unclear whether the non-fans were driven to anger because of something in the music, or just because they were being asked to listen to something they did not enjoy.

A more recent study by the University of Queensland found that actually, rather than extreme music causing anger, it can help you process it. It was a small sample, but thirty-nine extreme music listeners were asked to recall an event that made them angry. They then either listened to extreme music of their choice or sat in silence. All the people showed decreased levels of hostility, irritability, and stress, including the metal listeners some of which even reported feeling inspired after listening. The interesting part to me is that participants were asked what effect extreme music had in their wider life. 69% reported that they listen to extreme music to calm themselves down when feeling angry. 87% reported that even if the music had sad themes, it enhanced their happiness. For those that are drawn to it, it actually seems that metal music often has a cathartic effect. 

The next stereotype - depression. In 2013, a study of over 500 university students found that heavy music fans showed significantly higher symptoms of depression and anxiety than non-fans. Although again, it’s important to note that this was self-reported in a questionnaire. I was really interested in this so looked a bit further and found a more recent study on personality types and music preference that tells us a bit more. It showed that metal fans tend to be more open to new experiences, need uniqueness and have lower self-esteem. So, although there does seem to be a link between metal and depression, it is also unclear whether metal music causes depression, or are depressed people more drawn to metal music? Perhaps this further strengthens the idea that it is a cathartic experience? 

If metal is linked to depression, surely we will see long term effects? Well, another study from Humboldt State University followed the life experiences of people who were musicians and fans in the 80s, to see if the music had a negative effect on their lives as they got older. They looked at some stereotypical reckless behaviour to see if there was a difference in heavy music lovers and non fans. Turns out, they were no more likely to have attempted suicide, have sex earlier or experience physical or mental problems as an adult. In fact, the “metalhead” identity and social support from the tight-knit community served as a protective factor against psychological and physical ill-health. This meant they were significantly happier in their youth and sometimes better adjusted than their middle-aged counterparts. 

So as you can see, I have found some contrasting studies. But, what if you just don’t like metal? Well, as I said earlier, it’s all about preference.

Musical preference really does influence the music that people find stimulating, relaxing, or soothing. If your preference is for rock music, then despite common thought, listening to classical music might not relax you at all, and it might even frustrate you. Equally, if you love classical music, then something heavy might not be your cup tea! It’s all down to our own musical taste and individual and changing emotional needs.  In fact, our music tastes affect us so much research showed that listening to music you dislike, compared to music that you like can weirdly impair the ability to mentally rotate objects in your mind. Yes, bizarre.

So, what have I learned from all this research? Well, first, we need to consider how we are susceptible to stereotypes and quick judgement. Given everything we’ve heard, I totally understand that some parents, teachers, and health practitioners have been concerned about their clients or students listening to extreme music and what this might mean. If you are not naturally drawn to it, the aggressive content might make it difficult to understand how it could help someone. And it is almost traditional for us to be suspicious of new genres that are different than our own preferences! So much so that it has become a stereotype in itself, that older generations see contemporary music as a potential danger to our moral compass. It is rather amusing to realise the criticisms of metal are closely akin to those made of the jitterbug and earlier, the Viennese Waltz.

Metal music, although being widely regarded as something that causes emotional volatility, actually seems to be really helpful in regulating emotions for those people who like it. So much so, that music-based interventions are now being used in psychiatric care. These music intervention found to be useful in the treatment of lots of disorders that commonly involve emotional volatility, including post-traumatic stress disorder and substance misuse. These days things would go very differently for John from the first study I mentioned!

But this isn’t just relevant for people already getting psychiatric care. Traditionally, we ask people to suppress their negative emotions and then punish people for aggressive outbursts. Perhaps there is another way that focuses more on prevention than punishment. What if we turn our focus to helping people process in ways that don’t impact other people. Allowing people to regulate their emotions via music could be an excellent tool for all sorts of situations and institutions. 

Music tastes are wide and varied because we have wide and varied personalities with wide and varied needs. Perhaps, it is time we cater to those individual needs. We might not always understand another person’s choices or tastes, whether it be in music or broader life, but in most cases, all people want is the freedom to choose what is right for them.

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Resources

Ozzy Osburn: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/6209030/Ozzy-Osbourne-describes-biting-head-off-bat.html

Study: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2015.00272/full

Life Hack Article: https://www.lifehack.org/363348/heavy-metal-can-comfort-you-and-make-you-calmer-study-finds

Humboldt State University Study: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15298868.2015.1036918?scroll=top&needAccess=true

Music and Medicine: http://mmd.iammonline.com/index.php/musmed/issue/archive

https://neurosciencenews.com/heavy-metal-music-mental-health-14642/

Music and spacial rotation: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12144-012-9141-6

Metal and personality type: https://psycnet.apa.org/buy/2013-35730-001

Why Scientists Turned Covid-19 Into Song - Sonification & Science

You’ve probably seen lots of visual representations of coronavirus on the news. But now, scientists have come up with a way for you to hear it. They’ve turned the structure of its famous spike protein into music. But why?

All the sounds in the clip above chart different qualities of the spikelike protein that jut out from the surface of the virus and allow it to grasp onto cells in the human body, using a process called sonification. These protein spikes are made of sequences of amino acids. Scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology assign each amino acid an individual note in a musical scale, converting the entire protein into song. Amino acids also present themselves in different structures, some curling up into a helix and others stretch out flat. Music allows these features to be captured by altering the volume and length of notes, allowing rhythm and dynamics to represent form while melody and harmony represent the building blocks of the protein spike.  

As for the instruments, this was up to the scientists. In this case, instruments like Japanese koto and flute have been chosen - designed to reassure and bring a little comfort in a time of trouble. In fact, Scientist Markus J Buehler, says

"As you listen to the protein you will find that the intricate design results in incredibly interesting and actually pleasing, relaxing sounds. This doesn't really convey the deadly impacts this particular protein is having on the world. This aspect of the music shows the deceiving nature of the virus, how it hijacks our body to replicate, and hurts us along the way. So, the music is a metaphor for this nature of the virus to deceive the host and exploit it for its own multiplication."

But why would you set a virus to music? Surely, it must be more than for the beauty of the music. 

Well it turns out it is. The new auditory format can help scientists find places on the protein where antibodies or drugs might be able to bind by searching for specific musical sequences that correspond to these sites. Conventionally researchers have used visual methods like molecular modelling to study proteins, however some scientists find sonification a more intuitive format that allows them to work faster and with a more complete understanding.

Sonification also allows scientists who have visual impairments to study data easily. In fact, the process was pioneered by blind astronomer, Wanda Diaz Merced, who lost her sight in her twenties. For an astrophysicist, her loss of sight could have signalled the end of her exploration of space data. However, Wanda discovered another way to access, analyse, and interpret it - she listened to it. She soon realised that discoveries can be made and patterns that can be identified by listening and she could uncover connections obscured by graphs and visual representation. In fact, some of her sighted colleagues have been listening to the data to get a more rounded view. It also allows sighted scientists to multitask, a researcher might, for example, write a paper while listening for audio cues in data. 

Sonification also has wider uses than studying viruses and space and some scientists are looking at how they can use it in the broader world. Scientists at  Stony Brook University are looking at how to use data sonification to help people with Parkinson’s disease walk more easily. By attaching motion sensors onto the feet of people with and without Parkinsons they were able to record information on the gait of the walkers. They then turned various aspects of those gaits (how long each step lasts, or the first part of the foot to land on the ground) into music. Though the song wasn’t particularly tuneful they hope to develop ways for Parkinson’s patients to listen to their live data and use that data as a guide to correct their steps as they walk. 

In Anglia Ruskin University sonification data is being used to develop new ways to help athletes perform better and reduce injury. Sports Scientist Dr. Genevieve Williams explains this in a much more succinct way that I could.

"Our brains are 'hard-wired' to understand and internalise this audio feedback in ways much more powerful than visual perception. For an athlete in training, audio feedback can keep him or her on track even when they are not under the scrutinising eye of the coach. Also, patients in physical therapy who need to perform their exercises on their own."

And sonification is not just for scientists! New York City-based data visualisation artist Brian Foo coded a song using the median income numbers from the U.S. Census. It shows the crescendos and dips of wealth as 2 trains travel through the boroughs of New York like Brooklyn and the Bronx, or areas like Wall Street, allowing people to understand income disparity in a more immersive and visceral way.

One of my favourite of Foos works in one in which he explores race and gender in recent blockbuster films. Musical tones are separated into four categories: actors who identify as white men, white women, men of colour and women of colour. It is apparent very quickly that the song is, in fact, pretty dull. It’s lack of dynamics and unchanging nature shows the data set is not very dynamic and unchanging, highlighting a lack of diversity.  I really love this use of sonification, it allowed me to connect emotionally with the data and understand what is going on beyond the numbers. I’d love to know what you thought?

Hearing data, not just seeing it, could be a transformative tool of the future, especially in times of massively multiplying information. I am certainly interested to see if this becomes more common practice. Music is a creative, inclusive and useful way of analysing those piling numbers, allowing us to look at data and the world in a whole new way.

IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS PLEASE GET IN TOUCH OR BOOK A LESSON HERE.

Resources

Musical Score: https://soundcloud.com/user-275864738/viral-counterpoint-of-the-coronavirus-spike-protein-2019-ncov

Data Collection: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130522085217.htm

Wanda Diaz: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/blog/stem-for-everyone-wanda-diaz-merced

Science and Culture: Musicians join scientists to explore data through sound

:https://www.pnas.org/content/114/18/4563.full

Sonified Data in Sport: https://www.geant.org/News_and_Events/CONNECT/Pages/Where-data-sonification-and-sports-medicine-meet.aspx

15 Surprising Christmas Song Facts

It’s Christmas! To get us all into the spirit, I thought I’d share some fun facts about Christmas songs that might surprise you... So here we go, 15 surprising Christmas Facts!

1. Europeans first sang carols thousands of years ago, but these were not the Christmas Carols we know today. They were pagan songs! They were written and sung during all four seasons, including the Winter Solstice celebrations, which usually happens around December 22nd. The word Carol means a dance or a song of praise and joy! 

2. Christmas hymns are ancient though! I tried to find the definitive answer for what the most senior is - but there are quite a few opinions, so I’ve picked out a couple! A definite contender for the oldest still being played today is "O Come; O Come Emmanuel”, which has had quite a journey! Although it’s changed since the melody dates back to the 8th or 9th century. Latin lyrics were then added during the twelfth century, but it wasn’t translated into English until 1851. Another contender is ‘In Dulci Jubilo’. Whilst many of us will have heard the (sped up) instrumental version by Mike Oldfield released in 1975, According to German folklore, Heinrich Seuse wrote the song in 1328 after he heard the angels sing the words and joined them in a dance of worship.  

3. Thurl Ravenscroft, the singer & voice artist responsible for the song "You're a Mean One, Mr Grinch” seen in the classic film ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas' also famously voiced Tony the Tiger, the mascot for Kellogg's Frosties.

4. The Beatles hold the record for most Christmas number 1 singles with FOUR, topping the charts in 1963, 64, 65 and 67. Cliff Richard (1960, 1988 and 1990) and The Spice Girls (1996, 1997 and 1998) have three each.

5. Speaking of the Beatles, many of us probably know that Beatle John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono penned the lyrics for Happy Xmas (War Is Over) as part of their peace activism, against the war in Vietnam. What you might not know is that Lennon was heavily influenced by the melody of another song - 'Stewball' by Peter, Paul and Mary, which is about a racehorse. Have a listen after this video - you’ll see they are pretty similar.

6. Bizarrely, there’s another Christmas song connected to the war in Vietnam. In April 1975, the American military played the music over Armed Forces Radio as a covert signal to evacuate both US soldiers and 6000 at-risk Vietnamese. The coded message went out over the radio: The temperature in Saigon is 105 degrees and rising.” Then, White Christmas played on the radio. In the following nineteen hours, 81 helicopters evacuated approximately 7,000 people.

7. Keeping with the “White Christmas” Theme - Bing Crosby's version of "White Christmas" is the highest-selling single of all time with over 50 million copies. Writer Irving Berlin foresaw its success when he wrote it, telling his secretary, “I just wrote the best song that anybody’s ever written!”
   Bonus Fact - Irving Berlin hated Elvis Presley's version of "White Christmas" so much that he tried to prevent radio stations from playing Presley's cover.

8. Despite Christmas being a traditionally Christian festival, Irving Berlin is one of many Jewish composers who wrote some of the most popular Christmas songs. "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer" "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree," and "Holly Jolly Christmas" were all written by Johnny Marks. "Let It Snow" was written by Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn” and "Winter Wonderland" written by Felix Bernard and Richard B.Smith.

9. "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" was originally written for the 1944 film Meet Me in St. Louis. The director, Vincente Minelli and the stars of the film Judy Garland and Tom Drake both deemed the lyrics too sad and composer Hugh Martin had to rewrite sections to make it more upbeat. This included changing the lines "It may be your last / Next year we may all be living in the past" to "Let your heart be light / Next year all our troubles will be out of sight".

10. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer also has some sadness behind the happy song we hear today. The Montgomery Ward department store created the character as part of a series of holiday-themed colouring books given away by the retail giant back in 1939. They asked staff copywriter Robert L. May to create a poem tho accompany them. He based it on himself, with the red nose representing a feeling of being the odd one out and being picked on as a child. May’s brother in law was Johnny Marks, who we heard about earlier, he put the words to a melody, and Marks recorded it as a song ten years after the poem had been conceived by May.
    Bonus fact: May nearly called the Reindeer ‘Reginald’ or even ‘Romeo!’ - but finally settled on Rudolph.

11. The Christmas Song was written by songwriting partners Mel Torme and Bob Wells. On a hot summer's day, Mel visited Bob’s home and found a few lines scribbled on a notepad starting with “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire”. When Mel asked Bob why he’d written the lyrics, he replied that it was so hot that he had to write something to try and cool off and was imagining Christmas and the cold weather. Mel commented, “I think you might have got something here”, and the duo wrote the rest in just 45 minutes.

12. All I Want for Christmas by Mariah Carey is one of those Christmas songs that makes you get up on your feet and dance like a lunatic. It’s not just us humans who love it, either. A farmer named Angus Wielkopolski has claimed that his goats produce 20% more milk when listening to the track. He discovered through trial and error, first trying heavy metal and then Old Macdonald had a farm, before settling on Mariah. He plays it over and over and admits “The staff are probably sick of it now, but it works for the goats.”

13. Who earns the most royalties from their Christmas song? Well, it’s not just Angus the farmer playing All I Want For Christmas - According to research in 2016 - Mariah takes home just over half a million dollars for it each year! The Pogues only top her with from Fairytale of New York, Slade, who are thought to earn well over a million dollars per year from “Merry Christmas Everybody”. Singer and co-writer Noddy Holder said “It is definitely a pension plan”.

14. We associate "Jingle Bells" with Christmas, but it wasn’t a Christmas song when it was published! It was written by James Lord Pierpoint in 1857 and initially titled “The One Horse Open Sleigh”. It even featured different melody and lyrics! It was renamed to the title we all know two years later and didn’t become a Christmas favourite until Bing Crosby released his jazzy version in 1943.

15. "Jingle Bells" was also the first song played in space! Nine days before Christmas during NASA’s Gemini 6A voyage, the Astronauts gave this report to mission control: “We have an object, looks like a satellite going from north to south, up in a polar orbit.” The report sounded pretty serious but was then broken by the sound of “Jingle Bells” with Astro “Wally” Schirra playing a tiny harmonica accompanied by Tom Stafford shaking a handful of small sleigh bells they had brought along for the space voyage.

IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS PLEASE GET IN TOUCH OR BOOK A LESSON HERE.

Resources: 

• https://www.buzzfeed.com/skarlan/10-classic-christmas-songs-written-by-jewish-songw-82j3#.grP11G4kBk

• http://www.npr.org/2000/12/25/1116021/white-christmas

• http://entertainment.time.com/2012/12/17/yule-laugh-yule-cry-10-things-you-didnt-know-about-beloved-holiday-songs/slide/white-christmas/

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Drake

• http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,1569872,00.html

• http://entertainment.time.com/2012/12/17/yule-laugh-yule-cry-10-things-you-didnt-know-about-beloved-holiday-songs/slide/rudolph-the-red-nosed-reindeer/

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Martin

Why Are There No New Christmas Songs?

It’s Christmas! The time of year when you throw on your dodgy Christmas jumper, decorate your Christmas tree and dance like crazy around your living room to Wham’s “Last Christmas” and Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You”. 

From Bing Crosby to Slade, East 17 to Paul McCartney and Brenda Lee to Wizzard, there’s no avoiding these festive songs, whether you’re feeling festive or not. But if you look a bit closer, you’ll notice they all have one thing in common - to varying degrees, these songs are all pretty old

According to research on regional radio stations published earlier this month by the Performing Rights Society for Music, the most recent song to break into the top 20 most-played Christmas tracks is Cliff Richard’s “Millennium Prayer,” from the year 2000. Even the more obscure festive tracks like 2003’s “Christmas Time (Don’t Let The Bells End) by The Darkness”, date back well over a decade now.

But why has it been so long since a new Christmas tracj has broken through to become a hit? Are we just unable to break tradition?  

Most of us, regardless of our generation, listen to Christmas music dating back to before we were born, whether it is Bing Crosby or for the younger generation Shakin Stevens. It would be easy to attribute this to the songs being better, but that might not be the case. Nostalgia is a powerful force in popular culture, combined with the feelings of belonging and family that come with Christmas. We pass these records on to our kids, we listen to them during magical childhood Christmases, and consequently, these records have this cyclical impact on generations.

In 2017, forensic musicologist Joe Bennett from Boston’s Berklee College of Music analysed the elements of the ultimate Christmas song through Spotify Data during Christmas week. He looked at the top 200 that week and found that 78 were Christmas songs. Of those 78, plenty of golden oldies were in there - of course, Bing Crosby’s White Christmas was in the top 20 -  despite being initially released in 1942. It was joined in the top 40 by Mel Torme’s The Christmas Song (1945) and the oldest of all Carol of the Bells - from way back in 1914! Even newer releases were often covers of older songs, combining classic sounds with contemporary quality recordings - Santa Baby by Kylie Minogue and Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas by Sam Smith were both in the top 40 too. Some classics appeared several times in the top 100, including three versions of 1942’s Baby It’s Cold Outside (Idina Menzel with Michael Bublé, Ella Fitzgerald, and the Cast of Glee).

Lyrically, they all contain something that was either about the home, being in love, lost love, parties, Santa or reindeers, snow or coldness, religion and peace on Earth. In terms of sound, 49% of the tracks feature sleigh bells, 95% are in a major key which typically comes across as happier, and the median tempo of the tracks was 115 beats per minute. And that running theme - nostalgia. Think about ‘White Christmas’, which is the biggest selling song, not just out of the Christmas songs but of all time. All the lyrics are about nostalgia and going back to Christmases in the past.

So, there are clearly some running themes, surely we can use them to create plenty of new Christmas hits? Well, songwriters Steve Anderson and Harriet Green tried! They wanted to use this information to create ‘the happiest Christmas song’ ever. They took all these nostalgic elements and combined them together and came up with – “Love’s Not Just For Christmas”. So how did it do? Well, it didn’t even enter the charts that year, let alone stick around as something we listen to a few years down the line! How could it be that a song that emulates so many characteristics of other popular Christmas songs be a flop? It followed the exact formula! Well, perhaps that was the problem?  Humans love authenticity, without it, it feels like we’ve been tricked into enjoying something, and a little bit of novelty, to spice it up. It’s been proven that something sticks with us that follows a formula but with an edge - something that makes it stand out from the crowd. I actually covered this during my “why you can’t get that song out of your head” video and blog which explains this. So, take that A.I.! You can’t take over the music industry as well! The love of authenticity and novelty also explains why people love my least favourite Christmas song, The Pogues Fairytale of New York. Although I’ve never taken to it, it’s undoubtedly both authentic and novel - I’ll give it that. 

So, you might be wondering why haven’t we got sick of the old classics and thrown them out for something new? Typically, pop hits go through a bell curve of enjoyment, which consists of going from not liking a song, to loving it, to hating it after it’s been overplayed. But we find ourselves experiencing Christmas music in a completely different way. With Christmas music, we don’t usually hear it all year round, so we don’t get the chance to get sick of it, and if we do, we get a break from it for an entire ten to eleven months.

So, will we ever see a shakeup? But will this change? Will there ever be a new wave of Christmas tracks that catch hold? Ultimately, there’s no reason why a track released this year can’t become a Christmas classic in the future. ‘Love’s Not Just For Christmas’ is based on the 1940s to 1990s model of what a Christmas song is. For something to catch hold, it’ll have to be played enough and be popular with a broad spectrum of people. If someone releases a Christmas grime track, it might be unlikely that it gets on to your granny’s playlist! But if you and your friends might listen to it, and again next year, and five years later - and then it passes down a generation - perhaps it could become a classic in the future! But it needs to keep getting played every year, and that takes time. A Christmas song needs years for it to percolate and enter the festive repertoire. Perhaps we’re already on the way to one with Leona Lewis’, One More Sleep which is undoubtedly working it’s way into more Christmas playlists each year! Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” had reached number one in the U.S. for the first time in 2019, 25 years after it was first released, showing even massive Christmas classics really do take a while to become a chart hit.

Now, you might be wondering ‘But - what about Buble!? He has had loads of Christmas hits, and he’s modern!’ Well yes, in that same study of the 78 Christmas songs that appeared in the top songs streamed in 2017, Buble appeared ten times, that’s 13% of the Christmas songs! So, does he disprove the theory? Not really! First of all, most of his Christmas hits are covers of nostalgic classic songs that everyone knows, touching on the idea of older songs in a more contemporary way. The same thing - nostalgia but with an authentic twist. But there’s more to it than that; he works with a really innovative combination of old and new. His classic big band arrangements and live instruments evoke the much-loved Frank Sinatra era of the 1940s or 50s. But at the same time, contemporary production gives the recording a polished and modern radio-friendly quality. He does the same with his vocals, subtly blending old and new; combining old jazz crooner vocal nuances with subtle modern riffs and runs. Christmas is - in normal times at least - a time when whole families get together. So this blend makes him the perfect yuletide artist for families who usually span several generations and all getting into the festive spirit, he manages to include something for everyone.

This leads me onto something I think is really heartwarming about Christmas songs and one of the reasons I love them so much. In the western world, we are divided in almost every way, from musical taste to political views and for much of the Western World, Christmas has become less of a religious festival and more of a cultural event that everyone can get involved in. A successful Christmas song is a song that unites people no matter what demographic they fit into. Allowing friends, families and neighbours to find common ground, perhaps through the dulcet tones of Michael Buble.

IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS PLEASE GET IN TOUCH OR BOOK A LESSON HERE.

Resources

PRS For Music Study: https://www.prsformusic.com/press/2019/so-here-it-is-our-merriest-christmas-songs

Joe Bennett Study How to Make A Christmas Song with Science: https://joebennett.net/2017/12/05/christmas2017/

Why I Am Being Selfish

I love autumn. Autumn brings cosy jumpers, beautiful colours, cinnamon and the first frosts. As nature’s last display before we hunker down for winter, it signals that it is time for the earth to rest and renew. In my move back to this glorious part of the world, I’ve been reconnecting with nature and reconnecting with myself. The idea of looking after yourself is something that has come up for me a lot in these uncertain times, both as a teacher and as an individual recently. As I said in a previous video, everything is changing right now for so many of us. So, I decided it was time to shed some leaves for autumn, throw out some bad habits and unhealthy ways of thinking, to change too. Hopefully, some of these things can be helpful for you too...

As a vocal coach, a considerable part of my teaching is about facilitating a safe space for students.To sing people have to  work through the mental barriers they have attached to expressing themselves and it's essential for people to feel like they can be vulnerable. It’s about helping people accept their voice and work with it, rather than against it. Your voice is incredibly personal, so it’s often about helping someone embrace a part of themselves. Through this, it has become starkly apparent to me how people really struggle to be kind to themselves!

And I realised this applied to me too. When I first arrived back in Scotland, I went through a whole spectrum of emotions. It was fantastic to get out of the hustle and bustle of the city and have more free time to spend on myself, but it was also disappointing. I realised that actually, I hadn’t always been looking after myself either. Now it might seem like common sense, but it’s still helpful to be reminded that we only hold ourselves back by not taking care of ourselves. I think a lot of us can feel like it’s selfish to look after ourselves, but could it also be selfless? The space that we can create in our own lives also impacts the lives of those around us. So, if we want to be the best version of ourselves for those around us, the best thing we can do is start at home... with ourselves.

It seems like such a vague concept, looking after yourself. It’s something I’ve found difficult to pin down because it is so personal and it will be different for you than it is for me. But I’m going to tell you what I’ve observed and maybe some of this will work for you, or perhaps it won’t and you’ll find your own way and that’s cool too!

Let’s look at a few examples; I’ll start with what I’ve seen in terms of approach to singing. Everyone books a singing lesson because they want to get better for all sorts of personal reasons, and hopefully because they want to enjoy it. But, most people in one way or another get in their own way, and this stems from the same thing not really valuing ourselves. Let me explain. Some people try to the point of overworking, feeling as if they have to prove themselves and are never doing enough. I am definitely one of these people! Others freeze, or worse, give up because it feels too difficult or like it might be beyond them and it definitely seems easier than going through the process of learning and growing. Both ends of the spectrum can be equally harmful. Those who overwork do so at the expense of their enjoyment of life and put more pressure on themselves than they need to and those who freeze never even give themselves a chance and wonder what might have been. Even if there is improvement happening, people don’t recognise it because they still feel like they are ‘not enough’. The learning process can make so many of us defensive and shut down, when the best thing they could do is open up. It might seem like a contradiction, but the best progress can be made by also being happy with where you are now. And that boils all the way down to being happy with you - the human being.

There is a theme in this I see again and again, that stops us enjoying where we are in a moment. Immovable expectation. We place so much pressure on ourselves. We have an entire life's worth of expectations that we’ve taken on from the outside, society, parents, teachers, advertisements. We can easily end up feeling like we’re not enough for so many different reasons and then carry those reasons into things that should be fun, like singing! We’re living in a society that rewards companies for finding your insecurities and then these companies convince you that the way to better yourself is through buying whatever they’re selling. But maybe we can just step out of the cycle and realise that actually, we’re in control of our own happiness! We don’t need any of this stuff, we don’t need to be more.

The best example I have is my body image. As with most people, I have always had a problematic relationship with how I felt about my body. I grew up in the 90s where Kate Moss was the optimum body type. Throughout the years, I have fluctuated between controlling my diet and going to the gym to eating unhealthily and not working out at all. My outlook on the exercise has always been more to do with looking a certain way and trying to fit in. But the silly thing is, neither approach was making me happy, neither was looking after my body or mind in the best way. And neither was making me feel better about myself! So, I looked at how I can be kinder to my body. I’ve taken time to walk in nature, fun exercise, I’ve been to the chiropractor to sort out my sore back that has been painful for years and rather than calorie counting or starving myself, I’m making sure my diet is filled with nutritious and also tasty food. I’m spending more time looking after my body from an entirely new perspective, and I feel great for it. And when I feel great, I carry that into other areas of my life. When we are happy and healthy we have more energy, we are more able to invest in relationships and regulate our emotions, are more productive, and can think more clearly. This means that although we’re starting with ourselves, we can also be better for the people around us. And I promise when you find your joy, the motivation automatically follows, because it's fun and we all just want to do fun things! And it’s not just my anecdotal evidence, scientists say that happier people get more done, and get it done better than most. In fact, a 2015 study at the University of Warwick in the UK found that they’re about 12% more productive than the average individual. I have no idea how they measure that. 

But this isn’t a blog on how to be productive. It’s about balance and enjoyment. These things often start with things that can be healthy and fun. Of course, exercising can be a really good thing for many of us, but forcing yourself to do it to keep up with a false expectation of body image you have via the media probably isn’t going to make you happy! Likewise, if you force yourself to practice a song for six hours a day because you’re going to push through until you can sing it, you won’t make efficient progress either! I’m trying to carry those priorities through into other parts of my life too. In the past, I’ve done what I’ve seen so many of my students do. I’ve thrown myself at something until I am utterly burnt out because I felt like I wasn’t good enough if I couldn’t do it. Looking after myself, for me, is taking the time to ask why I want to do the things I do and asking how it’s benefitting me and the world around me, then allowing myself the time I need to learn that thing, it doesn’t need to be instant.

I think more of us need to take some time to notice what makes us happy! Learn because we want to learn something, not because we’re trying to live up to an expectation we perceive from the outside world. I am taking my own teaching advice - mistakes are good! Mistakes are the way that we learn. I’m trying to let go of what I think society wants me to be and pay more attention to forging my own messy, imperfect path. I’m doing my best to throw away the mean self-talk and tell myself that I’m happy with where I am, in my body and in my life - and I think I am starting to believe it is true. It’s about learning what makes you happiest and healthiest and forgetting about what you think you should be doing. You don’t need to adhere to any of society's rules because if you are happy with where you are first, then progress can really happen.

Right now, it is easy to watch the world and feel overwhelmed by what is going on. I certainly do sometimes. Our world is facing a lot of challenges. So it’s more important than ever that we start taking care of ourselves. Autumn is taking over the northern hemisphere, and as the leaves begin to wither and fall from the trees, we must remember that, in time, the trees renew themselves and spring will dawn upon us, cheesy I know. However cheesy it is, for ourselves and those around us, maybe we can do the same. Rest, renew and give ourselves a break. 

Resources

University of Warwick Study: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/new_study_shows/

Productivity: https://www.themuse.com/advice/the-ultimate-guide-to-being-happier-and-more-productive-at-work

Why You Can't Get That Song Out Of Your Head

If you have been near a child, the words “Baby Shark” may be enough to make you run from the room covering your ears. Well, that annoying song stuck in your head has another name - an Earworm. 90% of us experience them a least once a week, a quarter of us several times a day, but how do they work? And how can we get rid of them?!?

Well, Neurologist Oliver Sacks wrote in his book Musicophilia that earworms are a clear sign of

“the overwhelming, and at times, helpless, sensitivity of our brains to music”.

Earworms are musical memories that loop, repeating over and over rather than running to completion. An involuntary musical thought, they arrive without permission and refuse to leave. The more you concentrate on trying to get rid of them, the more persistently they can stay. For some people, earworms incorporate entire instrumentation (I am one of those people), and for others, it’s just the melody. Either way, an earworm generally includes a melodic section, whether it’s a guitar hook or vocals. So what about this melody makes it so catchy? Songwriters take note!

A 2016 study analysed the melodies of different earworms and found that they had some things in common; 

• They’re about 15 - 30 seconds of melody.

• They have an uptempo beat.

• They contain an unresolved melody section that allows music to loop and repeat.

• Lyrics are often repeated. 

• Chord structures and melody tend to be generic and are often repeated too, but crucially...

• With a little bit of novelty, like an unexpected shift of pitch or unusual lyrics. 

In short, earworms tend to feel familiar but slightly surpass your expectation of what a song should be - this is why Baby Shark is the perfect ear….shark. 

So if earworms have a specific structure, do we all have the same earworms? 

Well, no! In a study where they asked 5000 people what their current earworms were, although songs played on the radio at the time did come up a little more often, very few occurred more than once. So why are our earworms so diverse? 

Earworms are reported more in people who play or sing regularly or count music as an integral part of their life. One research paper found that a song had to be listened to at least twice for it to get stuck in someone’s head. The more you hear a song, the more likely it is to become an earworm. And of course, we listen to the music we like more often, so our Earworms are often defined by our musical tastes. However, the earworm is a fickle beast! In our modern world, we hear music a lot, again and again. It is no wonder the earworms that did pop up more than once are songs that are played repeatedly on TV, radio, in shops, elevators and adverts. Some of the most common earworms included Don’t Stop Believing by Journey, Bad Romance by Lady Gaga and the aptly named Can’t You Out My Head by Kylie Minogue. There has to be something going on in our subconscious with that one! 

Music is all around us, where are the most common places to catch an earworm?

Earworms love to sneak in when the mind isn’t working very hard, doing a monotonous task or daydreaming, they can even burrow in when you are sleeping. It’s common to wake up with a song already in your head.

Live music is also much more likely to worm its way into our brains. There are a few theories as to why this may be; it could be because of the way you focus on the song or the action of singing along. Or it could be that because you’re physically present, the combination of both visual and auditory experience make it ‘stick’ in multiple parts of the brain and remember it more clearly. It could also be because live music is a more emotional experience and strong emotions stick in our memory. 

However, the majority of studies have reported more coincidental triggers for earworms, for example, recent exposure to music or memory associations with people, sights, sounds and even emotions. Do you have an earworm for bewilderment? Or rage? 

This makes sense as for most of us, music is deeply connected  to our emotions. It’s this emotional connection that makes earworms so hard to shake. If a song relates to an emotional experience or a strong memory, it is more likely to become an earworm; popping up when you remember an event or even think about a future event that makes you excited. Just thinking about a band that you are going to see can bring up an earworm of their song. This emotional link might be why it’s not just songs we like that stuck in our head so much, it’s the ones we find annoying too. An experience that is stressful or annoying is more likely to stick in your memory. 

So, why are our Earworm’s music but not other sounds? 

Music differs from other sounds because it’s defined by repetition. Compared to other things in our lives, it’s unusually similar each time we experience it. Let’s take a random example, a brick wall is visually repetitive. But, if you’re walking past that wall regularly, it’s likely you see it from a different angle each time. Even if we stare at it for a while, the light changes and other things can interrupt that experience, so it’s not repetitive in the same way. It’s actually a relatively new thing, to be able to consume something as repetitively as we do with music. Especially now with our ability to literally carry all our music in our pockets, you can hear a track anywhere, in almost the same way each time, excluding relatively small differences in how each speaker relays frequencies. Memory is powerfully affected by repetition, so the similarity of music engraves deep grooves in our mind.

Bluma Zeigarnik

But there is more to it than that. To understand why earworms stick in our memory quite so much, we need to look at this woman, Bluma Zeigarnik. She was an early 20th-century Psychologist who realised that waiters could remember customers orders right up until their order was complete. But then, the memory disappeared. Zeigarnik did some research, she wanted to see what happened if the waiter was interrupted whilst dealing with an order. She found that when interrupted, they remembered the information for an extended period. In short, your brain keeps essential jobs in your working memory, and when that job is complete, the mind will get rid of the information that is no longer useful. But when interrupted, the brain will hang onto it until the task is complete. This became known as the Zeigarnik Effect. Remember how I said earworms tend to be songs with an unresolved section? Melody, unlike speech or other noises, is a sequence of notes in a specific pattern that your brain can anticipate and therefore complete. Think Baby Shark, you can’t leave it without the “do do do”. This is the Zegarnik Effect in action. Your brain sees it as an unfinished task. Unfortunately, in the case of Baby Shark, it’s also the easiest thing to loop straight back round and start again, which is what makes it so catchy… and so infuriating. 

So, we know what an earworm is, how do you get that song out of your head? 

Although 3/4 of us report enjoying our earworms on occasion, 33% say they can be annoying, and 15% of people find their earworms disturbing! I am sure some of you are here because you want to know how to get rid of them. This is split into two primary schools of thought, distraction and engagement. 

Let’s first talk about engagement. In a study by psychologist Victoria Williamson, they examined over a thousand survey responses to see what was an effective method of getting rid of an earworm. Now, we just established that with the Zeigarnik Effect, the earworm emerges as a result of feeling like a song is an unfinished task. The study found that people often don’t know all the words to their earworm, therefore making it unresolvable. A successful way to remove an earworm, in this case, is engagement. Intentionally listen to the tune, even play it or sing it out loud through to its completion. If you want to try this, make sure you listen to the song all the way through and beware of songs with a fade-out!

Now let’s look at distraction. It’s all about understanding which parts of the brain are involved in keeping that earworm burrowing away and keeping them occupied with something else. The first example is a little bizarre! Psychologist Philip Beaman found that people exposed to a catchy song snippet whilst they chewed gum reported fewer earworms than those who didn’t have any gum. The act of chewing gum engages the tongue, teeth and other parts of the anatomy used to produce speech and kicks off the part of the brain involved in vocalisation, the same circuitry as the earworm, so it lessens the brain’s ability to form verbal or musical memories.  

If it’s too late for gum and the song is already stuck, don’t despair! We can still use the same principle of distraction after the event. A 2012 study also found a fun cure in specific puzzles. In the study, participants would listen to a classic earworm then would be given a brain-game of a particular difficulty; some were number games like Sudoku and other word-based challenges like anagrams. With easy puzzles, the song would sneak back into the participant’s brain, and with challenging puzzles, the participants would lose concentration, and the earworm would burrow in. The sweet spot was moderately challenging puzzles, taking up just enough mental resources for participants to forget about the intrusive song. In engaging that verbal part of the brain, word puzzles also seemed to do better than number puzzles, replacing the earworm with a different verbal task. So, try a moderately tricky anagram, see how you go! 

If that doesn’t do the trick, try and find something else to occupy that verbal part of your brain. Reciting a poem, reading, or just having a nice chat. 

And lastly, music can be a solution too! It’s pretty difficult for our brains to focus on two melodies at once. Distracting the parts of the brain involved in music is often the most effective way. In Williamson’s study, they touch on playing an instrument as being pretty effective, but I’ve got to say, I reckon singing must be pretty good too since it’s engaging that musical and verbal  part of your brain! If you don’t want to perform, participants in Williamson’s study were also able to choose a cure tune. If you go down this road, choose your cure tune carefully! If you want some mental peace, you might want to go for something that doesn’t have the repetitive traits of an earworm. However, some people will choose a song that has those characteristics deliberately. This means they can replace it with one of their favourite songs! Do you have a favourite earworm cure tune?

IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS PLEASE GET IN TOUCH OR BOOK A LESSON HERE.

References

Zeigarnik Effect - https://blog.sandglaz.com/zeigarnik-effect-scientific-key-to-better-work/

How to Get Rid of Earworms: https://www.dur.ac.uk/music/research/earworms/remedies/

Why Earworms Get Stuck In Your Head: https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/why-earworms-get-stuck-in-your-head/

Working Memory and Earworms: https://thinking.umwblogs.org/2019/04/24/working-memory-and-earworms/#:~:text=An%20INMI%20is%20%E2%80%9Cthe%20experience,executive%20loops%20in%20working%20memory.

Why Do Songs Stick In Our Heads: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20120411-why-do-songs-stick-in-our-heads

Musicphilia: https://www.oliversacks.com/books-by-oliver-sacks/musicophilia/

Experiencing Earworms: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0305735613483848

Musical Formula of The Earworm: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235417649_Earworms_from_Three_Angles_Situational_Antecedents_Personality_Predisposition_and_the_Quest_for_a_Musical_Formula

Why Is That Song Stuck In My Head?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq53AjCCfuE&feature=emb_logo

Victoria Williamson Study: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0086170

Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts: https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/aca

Goldsmith University Earworm database: https://earwormery.com/

Chewing Gum Study: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17470218.2015.1034142

What Are In-Ears and Why Do Singers Use Them?

If you have ever been to a live concert or watched your favourite musicians perform live on TV, you may have noticed them wearing earpieces. But what are they listening to through them?  And why are they necessary? Well, last year I did a short video on in-ear monitors and loads of you wanted to find out more, so today I thought we’d take a bit more of an in-depth view

When you’re performing, it’s crucial to hear what you are playing or singing clearly. Traditionally, this was done with wedges. Wedges, as the name suggests, are wedge-shaped floor monitor loudspeakers. They’re placed on stage to face the performers and play the music back towards them so that the musicians can hear themselves better. Legend has it that the first floor monitors were used by The Beatles in the 60s because they found it impossible to hear themselves over their screaming fans in the height of Beatlemania. Their sound engineers decided to simply turn some of the speakers that would’ve been facing the crowd around to face the band instead.

For a long while, wedges were the only method of doing this effectively, but they also presented problems with hearing health, sound quality and mobility of the musicians. Another, smaller and more effective solution was needed; this came in the form of in-ear monitors, an evolution of the walkman earphone.

So, how did these come about? The first basic, homemade in-ears began surfacing in the early ’70s, which essentially were just standard earphones with a radio pack attached. These did not have excellent sound quality and were not accessible to the everyday musician. More effective in-ear monitors were made by Chris Lindop and used by Stevie Wonder in the 1980s; these allowed a better (although not perfect) sound to be fed back to Stevie’s ear directly. However, these weren’t made with hearing health in mind and didn’t protect the wearer from the loud sounds of the band or audience, and as they were still not for sale in the public forum, it would be more than a decade before any significant developments occurred.

Then, In 1995, a monitor engineer called Jerry Harvey, (who worked with artists such as Kiss, Morrissey, The Cult, Mötley Crüe, k.d. lang, Linkin Park) was working with Van Halen. The drummer, Alex Van Halen, felt the sound from the monitors was hurting his ears and made it difficult to communicate with the band, so he went to Jerry for a solution. After researching current in-ears, Jerry realised there was nothing that worked well enough to solve the issue - It wasn’t possible to get true sound isolation from external sounds. The sound quality was tinny and didn’t give the musician an accurate representation of the sounds being produced. Jerry decided to do something about it! He used his sound engineer expertise to create the first-ever dual speaker, custom in-ears which he moulded to impressions of Alex’s ears to isolate the sound he could hear and improve the spectrum of frequencies that the in-ears could relay.

Skid Row were touring with Van Halen at the time and were so impressed that their lead singer Sebastian Bach and the other four members of the band offered to pay $3000 each for a pair. The custom in-ear was born. Since then, the work of many sound engineers has continued to evolve and improve inears, and since the early 2000s, in-ears have become accessible to musicians at a reasonable price.

So let’s look at what modern-day in-ear monitors are and what makes them better than traditional wedge speakers...

Similar to your standard earbuds, in-ears sit in the structure of the ear - but unlike earbuds, they create a seal against the ear canal. Here are eight reasons why they work.

1. Superior Sound Quality - Because in-ears fit really tightly into the ear, the seal between the in-ears and the ear canal blocks out the outside noise. It also means that the sound coming through the monitors goes directly into the ear canal, enabling you to hear more detail but crucially with less volume - this leads us onto point two...

2. Hearing Health - It’s no surprise given they’re constantly in loud environments, but Musicians are four times more likely to deal with noise-induced hearing loss and 57% more likely to develop tinnitus. Listening to anything above 85 decibels for extended periods puts you at risk of hearing damage. In-ears block out the sound of the amplified instruments and acoustic instruments like drums, allowing you to have the mix at a lower level and protect your ears.  

3. Individual Mixes - Because everyone is wearing their own in-ears, the sound is isolated to each performer rather than the entire stage so everyone can choose the mix of sound they want to hear. It means that if they want to, they can listen to themselves more prominently in the mix without having to up the volume. It also means that as a performer, you can add click tracks and audio cues that the audience can’t hear, for a more precise performance - this can also help singers specifically in number four...

4. Reduced Vocal Strain - Another great benefit of being able to set your own lower levels on your mix is that it can prevent vocal strain. When singers can’t hear themselves over the band, it is instinctual for them to push to compete with the sound. In-ears allow you to listen to yourself clearly and feel less need to strain, often singing more accurately as a result and without risking vocal damage even when doing many shows in a condensed period. 

5. Elimination of Feedback and Clean Sound For The Audience - If you’ve got speakers on stage blasting sound back at you, some of this can be picked up by your mic and amplified causing feedback. Even without the full effect of feedback, low frequencies from the wedges on stage can bleed into the audience mix, muddying the sound. With the playback directly into the performer’s ears, the audience mix is clean and leaves the sound engineer to concentrate on making it the best possible experience for both audience and musicians.   

6. Mobility - Stage monitors both take up a lot of space and have a lot of wires. They also have directional sound, so performers will only get their mix if they are in front of their wedge. This can be a problem when singers and musicians want to move around the stage as they have to stay in specific spots to be able to hear properly as well as avoid all the stage clutter. In-ears free the stage and allow you to an excellent quality mix - even when crowd surfing! 

7. Portability and Personability - In ears are small and portable, unlike a 45-pound wedge. This means touring with them gave you a choice - either lug around a load of giant speakers and set them up each time or work with whatever the venue had but have to configure each setup differently. The portability of in-ears means that neither of these things are a problem! 

8. Stereo Sound - In ears empower the singer to set their own mix, but also, if using stereo, adjust the balance of sounds so that one ear can have different sound levels than another. Working in stereo is a more natural way for the ears to hear, giving you the impression the instruments surround you. 

I want some! - What are my options?

I won’t go into massive detail here, but there are still few things to think about if you want to get yourself a pair. I had some custom made to the exact shape of my ears, something that’s more expensive than the average on the market. There are pros and cons to this. Custom made monitors fit snugly into your ear, blocking out external noise incredibly effectively; giving you the best ability to hear precisely as well as likely the best durability and hearing protection. 

Personally, though, I find my generic Sennheiser IE400’s work really well. This isn’t a sponsored video or anything, but I find them less fiddly to take in and out. This wouldn’t be an issue for most performers, but as a vocal coach, it’s important for me to both be aware of what the singer is hearing, and the audience mix which means taking them out and putting them back in fairly quickly. However, you do get a bit of sound bleed from the outside. If you’re gigging regularly in loud settings, I’d recommend paying a bit more for customs because that extra isolation means your ears will thank you in the long run!

Why wouldn’t a singer use them?

Although this all sounds good, you may have also noticed singers don’t always use them or have seen them take them out during performances. Why would this be?

Well, of course, sometimes things go wrong; there could be a problem with the mix or interference, and this could cause singers to take them out or not wear them at all. 

In some smaller venues, there’s only one sound desk, and therefore there isn’t the option of having your own mix, which might make a musician opt to go without. The third and most common reason is that the isolated sound takes a little getting used to and as the singer can’t hear the audience, can make them feel a bit disconnected. Sometimes, during intimate gigs, the singer wants a direct connection with the audience, and there are fewer problems caused by using wedges. In bigger venues, sound engineers can get around the feeling of disconnect by setting up ambient microphones that pick up the sound of the crowd and feed it back to the singer. The singer can then choose how high they want the audience in the mix so they can still hear themselves and feel connected at the same time. Having said that, there will always be times where you just want that direct audience connection no matter how big the venue. In live music, most performers will tell you it’s all about the audience.

References

Hearing Loss - https://www.aarp.org/health/conditions-treatments/info-2018/musicians-hearing-loss.html

Shure - https://www.shure.com/en-US/performance-production/louder/

Empire Ears- https://empireears.com/blogs

Earrockers- https://earrockers.com/why-do-musicians-wear-earpieces-during-concerts/

The History of In-Ears - https://audiofly.com/blog/history-of-in-ear-monitors/