Minor/obvious realisation

I am currently wading through one of those oh-so-helpful career reflections, as is normal before a new academic year and it is usually centred around “why aren’t I further down the career line?” This is also not helped by the fact that my birthday is late August giving me an extra salt bae of panic and exactly zero clarity on said career reflections.

I was just washing my face thinking about a writer and creator whose career is my dream (and who I’d quite like to be friends with). Irritatingly, she is five years younger than me, which I can tell you does fuck all for the self-worth. Whilst quietly criticising myself and my choices as I rub the Glossier milky cleanser into my 37-year-old skin, I suddenly remembered that I have a kid. I stopped rubbing and uttered a long drawn out “oooooh” sound of understanding.

I have a near 11-year-old kid. I had him when I was 26, which was when I was supposed to start my MA (as I had to save in order to afford that back in the day - the money went on changing cars). I have been a single parent for nearly half of his life, shouldering debt left over from the marriage and the divorce. Then there’s childcare, afterschool clubs, school shoes, food (my GOD the food they consume) and all the other pointless shit kids like. There go the MA and PhD fees, not to mention any time to start the application let alone do the bloody research. I’ve spent the last five years treading water and I’m finally reaching land: my debts are pretty much gone and my kid is old enough to make his own breakfast and walk home from school. Now is the time for focus and drive but without the steaming side of Catholic guilt.

Disclaimer: This is not intended to be divisive or look down on those who are without children either by choice or otherwise. The sort of responsibility that comes with raising a kid can be applied to being a carer or being on a low income as well as a variety of other life obstacles. I know plenty of single parents who have the finances to make a lot of the inconveniences of parenting go away, but that is not the reality for most of us. Once again, the issue is class and privilege but I need to finish washing my face, so that’s for another day.

Weekly Warm Up Series

If you are reading this as a result of my recent YouTube series entitled “Weekly Warm-Up” then a massive thank you and I hope you found them useful. If you’ve stumbled upon this, then welcome! You’ll find this helpful alongside the videos when you get round to watching them…

There are some general overarching warm-ups and technique work that I used in all the videos that I want to explain in a little more detail.

Semi-Occluded Vocal Tract (SOVT) Exercises

I used a couple of SOVT exercises in the YouTube videos for a variety of reasons.

First up was straw work. Using the straw in singing is a wonderful thing: It can be used as a warm-up but also for technical work. In the videos, I am using it as the former in order to get my vocal folds and vocal tract to be more mobile and pliable for the rest of my warp-up and song choices.

Then we have the “ng” sound. This is an unnerving vocal exercise because there is nothing to hide behind: no vowel or consonant, just vocal fold adduction. As a result, the first few times you use this SOVT exercise, it will likely feel unstable, pitchy and generally ruin your self-esteem. Boss. The exercise is to encourage medial vocal fold closure and control the amount of air moving through the vocal folds. The descending major/minor scale uses smaller intervals and encourages consistent vocal fold closure through my critical bridge.

Vowel work

The “ooo” is rounded with some breath sneaking through which after the SOVT exercises ensures that my vocal tract doesn’t gather too much tension. This vowel sound also allows me to stretch out into the higher areas of my range now that my voice is warmer.

The “orr” and “ahh” sounds in later weeks (as I had built some vocal stamina) allows more pressure to build in my vocal tract in order to work with thick fold and belted sounds. These are harder because the voice can tire quickly, which is why I waited till later weeks to attempt them. Keeping the vowel shape consistent throughout the scale is key to gaining strength and consistency throughout the more dicey areas of the voice, in this case, the critical bridge.

I used pitch glides to release some tension but also to improve the accuracy of hitting higher notes in an abstract nature i.e. without the melody or scale ascending first.

Vowel/Consonant combo

These should be paired in accordance with what you need at that moment. I wanted vocal fold closure but without tension initially, so I coupled two aspirates (f and w) with an “ee” sound which did the job. As the weeks progressed, I used more neutral consonants (m and n) to challenge vocal fold closure.

In the latter weeks, I used heavier consonants and more open and bright vowels to work on thick fold and belt, without the need to shout or use too much volume. Have a sizeable gob is useful at times, but a needs to be reigned in when it comes to the nuances of vocal technique.

What did I miss??
Comment below with any questions…

Did you feedback? Or did you *get* feedback?

Yeah, that one doesn’t really work does it…

I am currently swimming through a Never-Ending Story swamp of assessments and feedback, all with a turnaround time of 15 days from assessment to receiving feedback. I also have my own submission to get finished and handed in so I can receive my equally timely feedback.

I am in hell.

Feedback, both the giving and receiving (behave yourself), is incredibly important to me (again, behave . But also true). I hate insufficient, fluffy, non-specific feedback that says exactly nothing and offers no solutions of how to develop. As a result, I take my time with it and make sure it’s done properly, but this means I have zero brain space for anything for about 6 weeks, twice a year. I struggle to string a sentence together, I send voice notes to friends and family to avoid having to type anything, I struggle to read for fun and resort to rotting on the couch rewatching boxsets I’ve long since completed (currently battering through The Sopranos. Ralphie got off’d today. Happiness).

Bring on July when I don’t have to use my brain in any way other than the way I want to for a hot minute.

Enough

I can happily confirm I've had enough. Like you give a shit, dear reader. We are all trapped in the same hellscape: doomscrolling Twitter for updates on the faux lockdown, vaccines, the US election and whatever bullshit the government have leaked in order to distract from the real news that’s not being reported.

My teaching is all-encompassing at the moment (I’m currently averaging about 31 hours of solid teaching). It always was too much but at least I was able to get up and walk around a large building or walk to my nearest coffee shop on a break. Now I try to run up and down my stairs in a vague attempt to stave off a DVT.

I think the worst aspect of it all is that other countries are opening up and getting on with the rebuild post-COVID. They have solid testing, tracking and tracing (one not run by Serco with data being sold off) more transparency and stringent instruction from their governments, and most importantly, the financial back up if it is required. The majority of European economies pledged 24 months of financial support to protect jobs and business. Hearing about the gigs my Norwegian students have played this week was at once joyous and deeply saddening, with a saltbae of envy. When will I next go to a gig and hear live instruments?

I say again, I’ve had enough.

Back to Normal?

N.B. I started writing this blog post in early April musing on what the return to “normal” would look like, and I’m pretty smug about how I accurately I predicted it.

And so a new academic year begins as we are all being told to return to work as normal, but WTF is normal now? It is important to note that most peoples normal is a healthy pendulum swing between hard and shite. I am very lucky that I love my job, but daily life is hard going: rarely in my house, either in work or in the car, constantly rushing, always late, always hungry, always tired, etc. This is true for most people but why should this be the norm?

The lockdown forced everything to be slower. We couldn’t get anything or anywhere fast, FOMO was on hold and if you were/are lucky enough to still have a wage/decent furlough, the time to fanny about had arrived. For a time, this was the new normal. Now we’re being forced to board a fast train back to mediocrity, with politicians guilting us back onto public transport and into shared offices and workspaces in order to save a fucking Pret, whilst selling us this faux fairtale of how boss communal work spaces are.

I get a 30 minute dinner “hour”. If I finish my teaching on time, it takes approx 3 mins to walk down the stairs to canteen or front entrance (equidistant) with another 5 min swift stride to the nearest decent buttie shop (which closed pre-lockdown). Another 5 min walk back, 3 mins to ascend the stairs to the Music office (we don’t have a staff room - it’s not allowed) where I sit at a desk wolfing my food down whilst answering emails for approx 8 mins. This leaves me 6 mins in which to go the loo, fill my water bottle and get back to my teaching space in order to begin teaching on time. This my friends, is a bullshit dinner hour.

Teaching during lockdown meant that it was exactly 30 seconds from my office to my kitchen, in which I could cook myself some eggs, brew a nice coffee, chat to my kid, pee in my own toilet as opposed to a shared one and generally allow my shoulders drop a bit more.

As I type all of this lets all remember that the answer is very much non-binary: working from home is a privilege and works well for me currently, but I wouldn’t like to do it forever as the solitude would get to me and nothing can replace face-to-face teaching and interactions with people. Even the people I don’t like. In fact, especially the ones I don’t like (😈). Working in offices does provide community and structure, but can also be stifling and toxic depending on the environment and the people you work with and for. Its all about balance babes, but it is a balance that should be interrogated at every level and on an individual basis. So yeah, Utopia….

As Vivian sagely states in Pretty Woman “Now everything is different and you changed that, and you can’t change it back”. Lets see what the new academic term brings...

Recommends
Song: “In Your Own Sweet Way” Wes Montgomery.
TV: “Selling Sunset”. They are all vile with no redeeming features whatsoever, but I can’t stop watching it.
Book: “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle The Master’s House” by Audre Lorde.
Other shit: The High Low Podcast is back and I’m gassed. Thoroughly missed these posh funny bright women.

Routine Check

If there were ever goals…

I know, I KNOW. More frigging routines but I was working with a student this week and we ended up down the vocal routine route and it felt ripe for a blog post. I’ll probably expand this into a vlog post as and when I get my arse in gear and post to YouTube (Thats for June - better light). Below I have listed some loose guidelines that will only benefit you and your voice if you partake in them.

Daily routine

• Warm your voice up every day, regardless of whether you are planning to sing, write or otherwise. This is NOT a full workout, I’m talking 10 mins tops. Think of it like a bloody good stretch each morning. #vocalsunsalutation

• Get play-listing. I have one for belt, one for riffs, one for thin fold, one for songs you want to learn, etc. You see where I’m going with this? Then listen to them regularly. Pick a different one each morning as you wash your face, brush your teeth, have a poo etc. Listening to these playlists in an organised regular fashion helps like you wouldn’t believe, which leads nicely on to…

• Play sing. Get the tunes on in the kitchen, do the dishes, scrub the cooker top, empty the bin and sing like a you’re not in lockdown and don’t have a care in the world. This is my secret weapon and also leads to a very clean kitchen. More importantly, you are singing for no other reason than you enjoy it: it’s not for a performance, the gram or anything else.

Monthly

• Learn a full song. Plan to learn a full song to performance level however you set the boundaries: Monthly, biweekly, weekly, daily: whatever. Just get a date in the diary and remind yourself of it. Remember: finished, not perfect.

• Film yourself when you’ve learnt the song but NOT so you can post it on social sodding media. It is to watch yourself and get used to that. You can get granular with it and really pull it apart, but only in a constructive way. And don’t be zoning in on the bags under your eyes and beat yourself up with it. This is so you have something healthy you can compare it to in a few months time.

There is no right way for everyone with this sort of planning, which is why I refer to them as “loose” (though that word should be cancelled, along with “moist” #vom). The above gives you a rough idea of where to start and then see how your voice and, more importantly, your mind reacts.

Recommends
Song: “Spoiler” by Baloji. Summery French vibe.
TV: Ozark
Book: “The Myth Gap” by Alex Evans
Other shit: Richard E. Grant is reading out his lines from Withnail and I on Twitter and IG. It is glorious.

Put off the Red light (syndrome)

Picture the scene: setting the camera up, getting a decent angle with lighting that gives you cheekbones, half-decent audio from either a bouji phone or an even boujier Røde mic, you run the song through 4 or 5 times (having rehearsed the song for a week), thinking it’s looking and sounding good, then you listen back. Your ears vomit and you reconsider your career as your eyes scrunch closed to the perceived horror you are currently witnessing.

We have all been there, but your perception of that video isn’t accurate. Due to that which shall not be named, I have had quite a few students experiencing and sharing their frustration regarding this. Though it is a very common, red light syndrome feels even worse in isolation. You aren’t interacting with anyone other than the fella in the corner shop, and he thinks you’re beautiful when you’re hungover, so his judgement cannot be relied upon. The grasp on our collective new reality is oh-so-very slippery.

So how the hell do you get over yourself? There are a few things you can consider to help ease the extensional hatred of self.

Normalise recordings
The original bastions of reality TV, before the sodding Kardashians, were The Osbournes. If you look back on the first few episodes, there was a charming interaction with the cameras that verged on authentic. They became relaxed around the cameras: That’s what you need to do. Set your camera up in the kitchen whilst you are making your tea and just sing. I guarantee the quality of the vocal will improve the moment you forget you’re recording.

Live streaming
I KNOW. Everyone and their mate is live streaming. I go on instagram at 8pm, and everyone is at it. This has settled down a little as we progress into our fourth week of lockdown so it absolutely should be up for consideration. It is the most accurate representation from a performance dynamic perspective, in that it takes away some of the control from the performer and gives it to the audience.

Why are you doing a video though? Do you need to post a video or do a live stream? Are you feeling a pressure to involve yourself musically during the lockdown? That you will disappear if you don’t contribute? The FOMO we experience in the normal times of old are no longer relevant: you’re not missing out on anything. I do not ask these questions as a veiled way of judging, but simply so that you can understand the motivations for doing such videos. That in turn will help you to a much better and authentic performance.

Wash your hands you detty pig .

5 good things / 5 shite things.

(Disclaimer: This has nothing to do with music or vocals. It’s Easter Sunday, I’m missing the football and I’m at a loose end. All thoughts are my own etc etc).

I am an Everton fan and have had a season ticket since 1997. Clearly, I am certifiable to have willingly paid for so much average/appalling football. Part of what makes the football and Everton so wonderful is Everton twitter: A number of deliciously miserable and hilarious accounts that make it all seem right. One such account (Darren @nsno_83) does two tweets listing 5 good things and 5 shite things about every match. I have half-inched the idea and applied it to this sodding lockdown.

5 Good Things
1. Eating with my son. I so very rarely get to do it because of work and school.
2. Spending time at my house. I am reminded of how much I love it because again, I am so rarely here.
3. Cooking all my meals. I love to cook and it’s saving me a fortune.
4. Reading. When I’m not teaching, I am blasting through the books. Love it.
5. Saturday night Houseparty with a certain group of mates. I have accidentally ended up hammered in my kitchen every Saturday since the lockdown and the call lasts less than an hour. Outstanding work.

5 Shite Things
1. Not being able to see and hug my family and friends. It is fucking awful and cannot be overstated.
2. I am baking loads which means I am going to roll out of this house like one of the people from Wall-E when this is all over.
3. The media peddling the myth that the virus “doesn’t discriminate”. The vast majority of those dying are low paid immigrant key workers of colour. Go and soothe your worried soul with some other bullshit balm. Johnson got it because he is a liability of epic proportions.
4. The football still isn’t back on.
5. I ask every key worker who has served me “Is everyone being nice to you?” and every single one has said, “no, not really”. This boils my blood, especially when Scouse exceptionalism is so potent. Let’s do better aye?

Stay at home, wash your hands, don’t be a shitehawk.

Finding your Wilson...

Habits to help your quarantine

The majority of my students are now beginning Week 3 of their lockdowns all over the world, and I can report that the novelty has very much worn off. The initial flush of enthusiasm about being quarantined in their flat with instruments and recording equipment had them living out their very own Bon Iver fantasies. However after two weeks of seeing and touching no other human being, they are staring down the barrel of a creative solitary confinement with all the psychological pressures that that brings. And I am fully with them.

The tiny upside for vocalists is that there is a period of rest for our voices. No gigs, online lessons and no rehearsal rooms makes for a reduction in voice use and therefore lesson vocal swelling. YAY. The major downside of course is the glaring poverty that will befall working vocalists. I’m clutching at straws here…

I am lucky to some extent because I am incredibly busy: homeschooling my 9year old whilst delivering classes to degree students leaves little time for getting metaphysical with my own mental health. Next week brings the Easter holidays and whilst I am excited to being doing fuck all, I am also daunted by my glaringly empty diary. I am ridiculously routine-driven because my head is normally a shed so I’ve begun to plan and list a number of tasks I want to do.

Disclaimer: This is not some half-baked Buzzfeed wannabe list, this is simply what is working for me, along with suggestions for my students. You are welcome to borrow from this or ignore it completely.

1. Break your routine
   After telling you to get a routine LOLZ I’m crazy…. Routines are incredibly helpful for giving some rhythm to the monotony but being ruled by them is deeply unhelpful. If you planned to do something but feel your time would be better spent bingeing a podcast then baby, you do you. Do not feel bad about it.

2. Plan your food
   My life is ruled by what I’m having for my tea plus it gives me something to look forward to.

3. Go for a walk
   This is predictable AF but Christ alive does it make a difference. Leave your phone at home or download a playlist/podcast then put your phone on airplane mode. It’ll be like 1998 all over again (Always #socialdistancing though pls).

4. Watch an entire film series in order
   My son and I started the Avengers film series last week and have watched one every night. It means we don’t have to face the endless scrolling of streaming services. Star Wars is next.

5. Keep a diary
   I know. Wanky McWankface but I can’t tell you how much its cleared my head out each evening. Plus social historians rely on first hand accounts when researching and documenting a crisis, so I’m doing my bit because I’m dead interesting...

6. Rest
   When was the last time society shut down in such a way? By all means learn a new language, read 12 books or how to cook, but if you just want to chill the fuck out then crack on.

Self employed creatives vs Rishi Sunak

There shouldn’t be any surprise that a Tory government isn’t going to jump at the chance of supporting a fuck-tonne of self-employed creatives (amongst various other self-employed peoples) but it would be a fib to say that I wasn’t a teeny bit disappointed with their proposals. After half-inching a fair amount form the Labour budget, Sunak is not only late in offering support to the self-employed, it is also resplendent with caveats. As I read through these conditions, I made a mental list of who would find these economic measures helpful. A big arl duck egg was what I came up with (that would be 0). I look forward to those creatives refusing to play Rishi’s Ma’s 70th birthday because they’re working full-time hours on a zero-hours contract in an Amazon distribution centre. That'll learn him….?!

Yet again, the contempt that is shown for the creative arts is clear and bright. We have seen the national curriculum gradually chip away at arts education in schools, peripatetic music teaching has reduced dramatically, drama courses are being dropped and the focus on what makes a good story has shifted to fronted adverbials and subjunctives.

I find it amusing and galling in equal measure that during this global lockdown, the masses are using films, TV, music, radio and books to while away the hours but aren’t necessarily willing to invest in them or fight for them.

Recommends
Song: “Daily Routine” Disq
TV: I’m rewatching Band of Brothers to lighten my mood.
Book: “How to get over a boy” by Chidera Eggerue.
Other shit: The New Statesman’s daily email especially by Stephen Bush.

Lucy is on Skype with Hand Gel…

As the COVID-19 pandemic is currently creeping its long virus-ridden fingers across the globe, the world has scrambled to move their work online. Higher Education is no exception with the Music Dept at LIPA (the performing arts institute that I work for) has pausing all face to face teaching and moving it online until further notice.

Though there are definite downsides to online teaching (resonance, playing for the student, actual human contact) the upsides are pretty boss too: continued learning regardless of country (and to some extent timezone), not having to leave your home to teach/learn, and importantly during this crisis, regular verbal connection. Some of my students are in total isolation with no real connection to the outside world so their lessons have become really important to them.

Are you having online lessons? What do you think? Are you interested in having some? Comment below…

PS. Fully expecting no comments because this is a new blog. I am essentially blogging to myself. Send help and oat milk.