The Liberated Voice

CW: Animal cruelty

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I was recently reminded of a terrible joke I first heard as a child:

A scientist is performing research on a spider in his lab. He places the spider on a platform and commands, “Jump!”
The spider jumps. The scientist makes a note.
The scientist pulls off one of the spider’s legs, places it back on the platform, and commands, “Jump!”
The spider jumps. The scientist makes a note.
The scientist pulls off another one of the spider’s legs, places it back on the platform, commands “Jump!”… rinse and repeat, until finally the spider is completely legless.
The scientist makes a note: “When you pull off all the spider’s legs, it can no longer hear a damned thing.”

This comes to mind today because I feel that classical voice students often end up the unwitting study subjects of a psychological version of this experiment. Along the education and career paths they...

“It is not how high you get that matters—it’s how you get high.”
—W. Stephen Smith

Imagine you’re watching the Olympics on television. It’s time for pole vaulting.

You observe this amazing feat and think, wow, that’s for me! You seek out a coach who is known for training elite pole vaulters, and you schedule a session. You meet up with them at a field that is already set up for pole vaulting. The coach greets you, hands you an enormous pole, points to the distant crossbar, and says, “Okay, show me what you’ve got! Then come back here and I’ll tell you what you did wrong.”

This would never happen, of course.

But it’s really not all that different from what many singers experience in a first voice lesson with a new teacher, even as a complete beginner. You meet up with the teacher at their studio. The teacher greets you, sits down at the piano, invites you to sing a song, and then critiques...

Welcome to The Liberated Voice, Version 2.0!

It’s time to transplant and reboot my blog. My reasons for the refresh are logistical as well as philosophical.

I dubbed my practice The Liberated Voice when I first launched my blog in 2010, and I appended the tagline, “Revolutionizing vocal technique with timeless wisdom.” What I was implying without making explicit, is that the “timeless wisdom” I draw upon is largely inspired by Buddhist philosophy and practice; by “Liberated,” I’m referring to not only unfettered vocal expression, but also the liberation to enjoy our lives free of unnecessary suffering and limitation.

So why not make my influences explicit? At the time, I personally found it too challenging to decouple Buddhist philosophy and practice, from the hierarchical thinking and the “woo” that characterizes every “spiritual” path I have yet encountered. I’m in the camp that doesn’t...