Boyd Holmes, the Writer

A Musical Journey

6/22/2022

Music is a personal journey.

As a teacher, you’ve already started your trip and are only a tour guide for trip that your students are embarking upon.

You’ve picked your destination. Grant your students some autonomy by allowing them to pick their own destination.

Remember, you’re driving the tour bus – so you control the route they will take 7.5 hours a day.

You plan the itinerary with your long and short range lesson planning.

Keep a balance in your lessons between what your young travelers want, enjoy, and pursue with the basic skills and knowledge you know will help them arrive at their current destination.

There will be bumps in the road – and you know where many of them are from your own personal journeys.

Just like any traveler, your students might get tired, frustrated, and uncomfortable along the way – primarily because they have never experienced what is up ahead on the road.

You’ve traveled the musical road.

Don’t let them over pack. You only have so much time to travel and loading every bit of musical knowledge you possess into their suitcase will make for a labor-intensive trip for them. Esoteric knowledge and deeper theoretical understandings can wait for another day. Focus on what will make music today and the near future.

Have them bring the essentials.

Give your kids the opportunity to take an occasional break, relax, while still reminding them of the exciting sights and scenes waiting for them around the next corner.

And take pictures along the way and revisit the memories. Sing old songs, do activities that they’ve enjoyed doing a million times but still want to do them “one more time”.

And remember, as the tour guide, you are expected to do all of this with a smile on your face.

Have fun.

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Things I Miss From My Music Room Days - Number 44

6/22/2022

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Choices

6/22/2022

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The Ticket

6/20/2022

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Things I Miss From My Music Room Days - Number 46

6/20/2022

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“That Sounds Good To Me!”

6/20/2022

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“That sounds good to me!”

We've heard that phrase hundreds of times in our life. Here are a few thoughts on how it applies to our work as music educators. And believe me, it applies.

One at a Time
It’s hard to talk and listen at the same time. Best advice: the teacher needs to talk less and listen more. Make sure you repeatedly remind your students that’s what you’re trying to do. Modeling pays off.

Lesson Plans
When you write out lesson plans, don’t aim to be wordy or lengthy. Just nail the phrases, concepts, ideas, goals, and arks to your learning and teaching. And don’t forget exit strategies and assessments.

After you've got it this information down on your cocktail napkin (because maybe you are like me and did it sitting at a bar), read it out loud. The bartender might think you’re nuts but it will pay off in the long run.

Does it ring true? Did you leave something out that is more crucial than something you wrote? If so, maybe cross out the weaker idea and include the newly recognized tidbit.

Your ears won't lie. They'll tell you what's missing.

Learning a Piece of Music
We can all be analytical when looking at a piece of music.

It's easy to figure out the tessitura of a piece, relate it to our own vocal range, and determine the best key to put the song in.

The next step is crucial.

Sing the song from beginning to end, keeping mental notes of potholes in your performance. After you're done, reassess the key and take note of the issues you had in certain spots and how you're going to correct.

On more than several occasions, I've heard people attempt to do a song that they had practiced in their head but not in their mouth or their hands. The resulting performance was less than optimal.

Teach listening. Find opportunities when half your class performs and the other half critically listens.

Do it out loud. Listen to your ears. They won't lie to you.

Your Temperament When Dealing With Discipline Or Management Issues.
This is one of those self-assessment pieces that begs for you to have a recording of your work. Not necessarily a video but at least an MP3.

Your words can have profound impact on your students, especially when things suddenly go sideways with discipline or classroom management.

Many teachers talk about that “one class”, the one that always seems to be problematic.

It’s wise to get in the habit of recording those classes to discover what approaches and words work and which ones exacerbate problems.

Analyze and assess your recordings, evaluating your comments and attitude as if they were elements in a piece of music.

Was the tempo to fast? Was it too loud? Did your statements have too much or too little honest emotional content? Did your phrasing lead to resolutions that felt natural?

Would your approach be characterized as win/win or would an impartial observer view them as aggressive emotional venting?

Most of all, if you had the chance to do it all over again, how would you edit your work and make it stronger in the moment?

I can't lay claim to this idea. My dad taught it to me when I was in my single digits.

By fourth or fifth grade, every Sunday afternoon, anything that I had to write for school, my father required me to read it out loud in front of him. Every time I started to read, I would catch myself saying something that sounded awkward and incorrect.

I would look at him and he would just raise an eyebrow and tilt his head to the side.

After a while, I figured out that it would be a better strategy to read it out loud to myself before I got to him to avoid all the raised eyebrows.

Amazingly, things went better for me during my recitations.
When I got my first full-time teaching gig after college and had to prepare remarks for concerts, I asked my father for advice. It was pretty succinct.

“Write it down. Read it out loud. Your ears won't lie to you.”
I took his advice.

I wrote all my concert remarks out and I practiced them until I memorized them.

I got to the point where I would write in little mistakes that I could turn into jokes. That worked well with the parent audiences who were already nervous about their child’s upcoming performance. If the first mistake is made by the teacher and he can laugh it off, that bodes well for any potential mistake a kid might make.

My dad was right. Eventually, I didn't have to write my remarks out. I had done it so many times and had enough data in my brain from past experience that I could improvise just like a jazz player riffs on a set of chord changes.

I hope some of these ideas help.

There are many ways to get to “that sounds good to me”.

Find your own path. Borrow techniques, tips, and tricks from the people you observe that seem to have the gift of gab while facing an audience.

Chances are, the gift they possess is a habit of preparation and editing their remarks before they step in front of an crowd or a microphone.

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Things I Miss From My Music Room Days - Number 39

6/19/2022

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How To Sound Like a Lot of Cringe-Worthy Older Singers Whether or Not You Qualify for AARP Membership

6/19/2022

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Sadly, some of us singers get a little complacent with our technique, our instrument, and our habits as we get older.

Here are some tips if you want to sound like that singer who has lost it and hasn’t realized that they need to find it.
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How to sound like a lot of cringe-worthy older singers whether or not you qualify for AARP membership:

Keep gaining weight until you don’t have the abdominal muscles to support your voice.

Get out of shape to the degree that your muscle memory thinks you are still buff and singing in tune but due to lack of muscle tone, your pitch is consistently a few cents flat.

Think that singing louder will allow you to sing higher.

Louder isn’t working? Try screaming.

Emphasize that husky lower register because you believe it’s sexy. By the way, it isn’t. Anyways, Tom Waits has already cornered that market.

Don’t think you have to practice and plan ahead in a song as to where you breath.

Never sing a long note without any vibrato.

Slouch.

Let your vowels go wide and flat.

Never change the key of a song. After all, you learned it thirty years ago and you still sound the same as you did back then, right?

Cut sustained notes too short with an added touch of slight pitch drop thrown in for good measure.

Never record yourself for analysis when you practice.

For that matter, never practice. After all, you’re a pro, right?

Sing ahead of the pocket because you’re subconsciously insecure about your sound. A guaranteed groove killer.

Don’t work on your upper register and blame your lost notes on your age.

Let whatever passaggio technique you had fade away by not practicing softly and undersanding your body. While your break point might change as you get older, the technique of shifting from one voice to another doesn’t.

Don’t learn any new material.

Think about your technique while you’re singing on a gig. That’s about as helpful as asking a golfer just as he about to hit the ball if he inhales or exhales as he swings. An exceptionally efficient buzzkill.

Refrain from using a microphone properly.

Never record yourself on a gig to check the quality of your singing the day after the gig.

And my personal favorite: add a wide vibrato to every note because you think it adds emotion while only providing evidence that you can’t support your notes.

If you want to sound ancient or like that pompous lady from your childhood who sat in the fifth pew, smothered herself in Chanel No.5, and embraced the rapture with every phrase, this will do the trick.

It is the vocal equivalent of serving Thanksgiving dinner to your guests but smothering everything on their plates with ketchup because it’s “your signature taste”.

Currently there are several rock/pop vocalists in their 60s and 70s doing the “Retirement Account Tour”. Many of their voices are basically shot due to overuse and misuse.

They are divided into two groups: those that continue to sing with no adjustments and those that cut back on their hubris intake and modified how they sing.

The thing the proactive ones have going for them is that they have embraced rephrasing their hits and learning how to deal with a general lack of energy and a growing overabundance of weight.

Like Lennon sang, “Whatever gets you through the night”.

Dig deep through Youtube and find their live performances – you’ll find the good, the bad, and the ugly of vocal sins.

Thankfully, the pros who know how to get through their material without embarrassing themselves so badly that they won’t cash the check are there to lead the way for the rest of us.

And remember, getting’ old ain’t for sissies – it’s just for singers.

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Things I Miss From My Music Room Days - Number 47

6/19/2022

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What Does the Audience Really Want to Know About You?

6/18/2022

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A few weeks ago, I dropped two posts about “What Students Want to Know About You”.

Funny thing is that many of those same things apply for a musician’s relationship with their audience.

What does the audience really want to know about you?

Confidence
From the minute you walk in to the venue to the moment the wait staff notices you walking out at the end of the night, you must exude a quiet confidence that you know what you’re doing, that you know how to do it, and that you are at the top of your game.

Are you confident?

Do you have the right to be confident yet?

Have you put in the hours, paid the dues?

Anything less than confident doesn’t work.

Groove
They want to know if you can dance with your fingers and voice.

It’s not about the notes you play. It’s about where you put them.

Tense people can’t groove.

Confidence helps a groove but isn’t an end-all be-all.

Thinking gets in the way of groove.

If you can’t hit a groove in the first few bars, the jig is up.

They’ll know that you are pretending.

So . . . can you groove for a few hours?

What Are You?
You better exude the stank that you are a musician and there better be no question about it.

For example, I can usually tell how good a guitarist is by the way they take their instrument out of their case. On some level, so can your audience.

They are not there to hear a teacher, a dad, a mom, a sob story, a cry for help, or an unrehearsed practice session.

They want to be impressed.

As the Hamburg club owner yelled at the unknown Beatles whenever they started to run out of energy during a six-hour nightly gig, “Mach shau!” (“Make a show”).

Can you “Mach shau”?

Skill Set
For starters, can you make music?

Can you remember everything you need on the gig and start on time?

Can you relate to people?

How many songs do you know?

Can you look strangers in the eye, have a conversation, give them a reason to smile or engage?

Can you improvise and make any situation work?'

Do you know where your lane is? Can you stay in it and step out when needed?

Can you do all these things consistently for a few hours . . . because they want to know if you can.

A Funny Thing Happened on My Way to the Gig . . . .
Can you consistently be funny at your own expense? Things will go wrong on a gig. Smile.

The audience doesn’t want to see you struggle with anything – they want a pro.

Don’t Hate the Player, . . . .
But they will if you don’t exhibit grace under pressure.

Can you be unflappable . . . . because as much as people like the spectacle of watching someone fall off the high wire, they are even more thrilled by someone who, when they slip off the wire, doesn't crash to the ground but instead flies.

Lean In or Fall Back
They want to experience your moods through your music.

And there has to be variety.

Music is about emotion, not notes, so if you’re still concentrating on the notes, the mechanics will overpower the feels.

Are you comfortable and adept putting emotion into your music?

Triangulation
It’s about the triangle, with you, the music, and the audience at the three corners. Make everything else melt away.

Play what they want to hear, not what you want to play.

Ask them what they want to hear.

That means you’ll need a lot of material under your belt.

Right now, I have 1,700 songs in my book – and I’m always learning new material.

It's not enough to convince them that you know every song under the sun.

They need to leave convinced that you ARE the sun.

Similarities
They want to know how similar you are to their musical heroes.

The Most Important Thing They Want to Know
Each person listening to you wants to know and believe that you are dying to play what they want to hear but that you want to play to only them.

As if the two of you are the only two people in the room.

As if the sounds you produce are heard by everyone but only intended for them.

If you have never performed for just one person, you need to do this several times as soon as possible and notice how different it feels performing that way. That sensation – along with some great music - is what they really want to feel.

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A Musical Journey

Things I Miss From My Music Room Days - Number 44

Choices

The Ticket

Things I Miss From My Music Room Days - Number 46

“That Sounds Good To Me!”

Things I Miss From My Music Room Days - Number 39

How To Sound Like a Lot of Cringe-Worthy Older Singers Whether or Not You Qualify for AARP Membership

Things I Miss From My Music Room Days - Number 47

What Does the Audience Really Want to Know About You?

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