The great tradition of classical singing was always based on disciplined long-term development, unrelenting work-ethic and a thirst for knowledge. Before there was much empirical information, voice pedagogues and students read voraciously in the search of enlightenment, relative to both the physical act of singing and the artistic performance thereof. Today, my colleagues and I at the Opera Studio in Härnösand, Sweden labor daily to instil in our students a fundamental respect for knowledge, objective information, dialogue and debate based on accepted factual information, including “music as a language!”
1. Music: Everything we do as classical singers must have “musical literacy” at its core. Music is hardly abstract. It is no more abstract than a foreign language. However, a foreign language is literally “gibberish” to someone who does not speak it. Just as some singers sing words they do not understand and try to cover their ignorance by silly facial expressions, so do they sing harmonies with no idea of their “weight” and “significance” in a musical phrase, and make inappropriate nuances with their voices to cover their complete lack of understanding. Where the honest singer will feel gratification when a teacher instructs them about musical and textual phrasing, the lazy singer will continue to develop subterfuge to disguise their abject musical illiteracy. Posturing is a common and overused manner of hiding a fundamental lack of knowledge.
2. Pedagogy: Unfortunately, in a world strongly influenced by one’s ability to manage quick soundbites, the illiterate singer (sometimes armed with a good native vocal material) can quickly become a master of subterfuge, knowing just what “button word” to use to give a false impression that s/he is knowledgeable. Such poseurs can become very influential in a world where “fact” is labeled “fake news,” “real knowledge” is labeled “elitist cult,” “experience” is labeled “obsolete” and “manipulation of ignorance” disguises as “pedagogical pedigree.”
I see too much of this and it makes me sick to my stomach! Especially when experienced masters in our field are thrown to the wolves by narcissistic anarchists who can only achieve influence by destroying the reputations of people who have worked their entire lives to contribute to our field in substantial and undeniable ways. Those of us of conscience must do everything we can to expose such malignancies in our midst.
Yet, we must not despair! At The International Congress of Voice Teachers (ICVT 2017) in Stockholm in early August of this year, I left inspired and optimistic about the future of singing as a whole. I met many wonderfully knowledgeable people who are passionate about learning and passing on information, who have real skills and share them with generosity of spirit.
I was able to see a remarkable presentation on the state of modern vocal pedagogy by three next generation pedagogues. Drs. Noël Archambeault, Blake Smith and Doctoral Candidate Joshua Glasner were not only informative in their presentations but articulate and organised. Talking with them afterwards was revelatory. Knowledgeable people do not need to posture. They have answers and yet are always humble before the elemental proportions of our discipline. What I constantly find in people who cherish knowledge is their fundamental awareness that they are trying to understand something that is practically limitless in scope and therefore they must revise their understanding every time they come across new information. That is the nature of education. Meanwhile the lazy ones hold on tightly to whatever small amount of palatable information they may possess and repeat it ad nauseam while avoiding any new information that may question that little bit of knowledge.
I also met two of the most extraordinary Western overtone singers in the world: Wolfgang Saus, whom I had briefly encountered several years before at PAS5 in Stockholm, and the Youtube phenom, Anna-Maria Hefele. What was extraordinary about them both was their passion, their understanding of vocal acoustics and their eagerness to share their knowledge. I was fortunate to have several discussions with them, which resulted in a mutual desire to deepen our combined knowledges and create a bridge between traditional classical singing and overtone singing. I have committed myself to learning overtone singing because of them. We remained humbled by the infinite possibilities. They are not just a curiosity in a world fixated on novelty. They are on a journey towards understanding and their passion is infectious. I am eager to collaborate with them. While classical singers hope to have an effect on the various formants, these overtone singers understand them so well they can control individual formants in opposite directions to one another.
Kenneth Bozeman, another extraordinary American vocal pedagogue gave a mind-bending lecture on applied vocal acoustics that I found stunning. This was a lesson on how what one knows can be seen from a totally different angle and renders everything that much easier to understand. Mr. Bozeman is one of the truly great vocal pedagogues around and I am determined to find ways to collaborate with him.
There were elegant and instructive masterclasses by Janice Chapman, George Shirley and David Jones, among others. It never ceases to amaze me how much experience open our horizons. These people have been at it a long time and they have true wisdom to impart.
I encountered my dear friend from Barcelona, Dr. Patricia Caicedo, who has made Latin American and Iberian classical songs her passion. She continues on her path with even greater vigor and passion than ever before. Lifetime commitment and growth is our inheritance in the classical singing world. We must not allow it to be obliterated by a few who seek to gain influence by undermining a tradition of personal investment with a false promise of immediate gratification covering superficial drivel.
I encountered a number of wonderful young performers in the field of popular music, who despite their extraordinary voices and stage presence wanted to understand the voice from the classical perspective. Swedish jazz singer Emilia Mårtensonn, Italian pop singer, Emilia Zamunder and Dutch pop singer, Kim Beemsterboer made an indelible mark on my spirit.
At home in Sweden, at least two interesting connections were made in Stockholm. On the last day, I spontaneously started conversations with Helene Lux Dryselius, whose openness of spirit inspires collaboration. I am looking forward to sharing information with her soon. Finally, after many years of passing each other in the halls of various and sundry voice congresses in Europe and the United States, I finally had the courage to approach the legendary Johan Sundberg, who presented some very informative and entertaining sessions. Our talk lasted close to an hour regarding, among other things, the subject of my presentation with Dr. Katherine Osborne, on the acoustics of the female voice. He was immensely generous, and has already taken a look at our work since. He is passionate and ever searching for new information. He was genuinely interested in what we have found out and was eager to help us understand the greater ramifications and how we should proceed. I look forward to meeting him again, as soon as time allows.
In the middle of a world that constantly falls for the promise of easy success–we see it in the posturing of the American president as we do in “Talent” shows promising quick fame to an ever gullible public–We must maintain an unwavering optimism, because in the middle of the Zombie Apocalypse of Lazy Singers and False Prophets, promising rain on the moon, there is genuine artistry and profound pedagogy all around us.
1. Great pedagogues never claim they are the only answer to your problems because they are aware of the fact that there isn’t one of us who command the full scope of the monumental challenge of teaching a human being to discover his/her true vibration.
2. Great pedagogues never promise to make your career, because they know that only you can navigate your own path. But they will do everything they can to help you make the next connection.
3. Great pedagogues do not put down other pedagogues, because they know that fundamental disagreements usually stem from not seeing where two paradoxical concepts intersect.
4. Great pedagogues do not envy the success of others but rather celebrate it and attempt to learn from it. Your failure does not make my success.
Kashu-do, The Way of the Singer, seeks to create a body of open-minded, truth-seeking, collaborative teachers, who can proceed from established and newly discovered facts, in order to understand how their apparent differences come together to form a more complete vision of our beloved discipline. We welcome collaboration, when we can all agree that we are little compared to the enormous nature of vocal pedagogy in its unlimited facets.
© September 24 2017
KASHU-DO 
There are a large number of these “false prophet” voice coaches on Youtube now. What I've noticed is that some who focus on one or another genre of pop vocalizing lip sync but want potential students to think they are singing with minimal technological enhancement (in many cases the recordings are greatly enhanced in probably all kinds of ways, leading to a clearly non-human sounding voice!). I have left comments on some of these videos telling others to ask the voice coach about what and how he/she intends to teach them, but it's difficult to get through to people who only know studio recordings and lip-synced live performances.
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