Bottom-End, Writings and Reviews from Music Producer Pete Strobl

To continue on the subject of Mouth Mechanics in general and Voiced Consonants in particular, Here is a little written homework assignment for all of you singers who are not competing for the title “LQBM”  (Least Qualified Band Member.) To review definitions for a moment, Voiced Consonants are those sounds which are not vowels, are created using the same mechanics as the Unvoiced Consonants, and are produced concurrent to phonation or the vocal cords engaging to create pitch.

The more obvious Voiced Consonants are those which can be sustained over long notes. These are L, M, N, the American R, V (F) and Z (S). Less obvious but voiced nonetheless are those which combine pitch with a slight burst of air. These are B (P), D (T), Soft G as in George and J (CH), and Hard G as in gag (K).

The consonants in parenthesis are the Unvoiced versions created with the same mechanics but without pitch. G and K for example are both formed by releasing the closure created by the base of the tongue meeting the tip of the soft palette. The difference between God and Cod therefore rests merely upon a split second of pitch.

Yes, it can be argued that there are many permutations of these sounds but these should be enough to get you started. Besides, the time you spend offering evidence that X is not really just KS would be better spent making yourself better, wouldn’t it?

Okay, so you wanna get into this right? Here’s the first assignment:

You’ll need multiple copies of your lyric sheet for this exercise.

1. Go through your lyrics very carefully and identify EVERY Voiced Consonant by underlining it.

2. Now go back and circle each Voiced Consonant which is at the beginning of a new word or a new syllable.

For example:  the word new begins with an EN sound which is a Voiced Consonant. In the word renew, the second syllable also begins with the EN sound and should be circled.

3. Go back and make a box around every Voiced Consonant which is either at the end of a word or at the end of a syllable inside a word.

For example: The word exam ends with the EM sound. In the word examination, the second syllable also ends in the EM sound.

4. Go through your lyrics and notate each Voiced Consonant which begins a word or syllable on a pitch higher than the note immediately previous to the Voiced Consonant sound. Use the “My Bonny” example as your guide.

This all might seem like busy work but repetition is key if you want to instantly and instinctively identify problem areas that can actually become very helpful tools in the development of more expressive singing.

The thing you are trying to accomplish here is to understand the difference between consonants you sing through and those which sonically interrupt the act of singing. Let’s use the word accomplish as an example and assume that its three syllables go up the first three notes of the major scale. We would separate the word like this…Uh-kahmp-lish. The EL sound of the syllable Lish must be identified as being at the start of the last syllable and not at the end of the second syllable (The P is a puff of air and the subject of a different article altogether. Forget it for the moment and concentrate on the EL). And yet, how many singers would place the EL sound on the same note as Kahmp and then find that they must quickly slide up to the next note with their mouth open while singing the Ih vowel. And if the melody required the third syllable to be sung at a larger interval the slide would be even more exposed as would be the singers sloppy approach.

So to review:

Voiced Consonants have pitch.

Voiced Consonants must be be executed (Some of you probably want the sentence to end right there, I’m sure) with the same support and attention to sonic detail as the vowel sounds.

When a Voiced Consonant begins a word or syllable, it should occur on the same pitch as the word or syllable itself.

When a Voiced Consonant ends a word or syllable, it should not fall off in pitch but rather provide the word or syllable with a clean cutoff with sonic and rhythmic accuracy.

As in all things artistic, there are many exceptions. Artistic singing has more to do with communicating ideas and emotions than it does with carefully obeying arbitrary rules posted on the internet by pedantic maniacs like yours truly. However, slovenly executed Voiced Consonants are like a quarter-inch hair mole hanging from an otherwise stunningly beautiful woman’s nostril. No matter how badly you want to get into the vibe of the moment, you find your focus returning to that one little follicular blemish. So if your listeners are being distracted and can’t get into it because you’re sliding around on your consonants, no matter how artistically intended,  it might be a good idea to adopt the motto, “It’s perfectly okay to know what I’m doing.” Do some homework!

I made the switch from gym rat to studio rat when I realized that breaking fingers on the basketball court didn’t add much to a bass track. So I hung up the old sneakers, grabbed my bass with both hands and took my gym rat mentality with me into any studio with a good espresso machine. What can I say? The things I would forego for a chance to be in the room with the guys and gals is a very short list. And that is why I jumped at the invitation to travel to Holland to work on Traveling Girl with some good friends who also happen to know their way around a recording studio.

I was picked up at Amsterdam’s Schipol airport by the Traveling girl herself, Lille Mulder. As we knew each other only by email, we both did a few laps around the terminal before the process of elimination successfully put us into the car together. The two hour drive to Dick Kemper’s Studio in Doetinchen gave us a chance to tell our life stories and lay the groundwork for the two week’s work ahead.

Dick Kemper

S&K Studio reflected all the know how of the seasoned musician/engineer/producer that is Dick Kemper. Dick toured the world as the bassist of Vandenberg sharing major concert venues with Metallica and Ozzy and that experience combined with the intervening years of recording have served to create a consummate studio pro. I was here to work with Lille  only on the vocal tracks but a quick tour of the studio and a listen to the basic tracks told me that she would have plenty of inspiration to draw upon when it was her turn on the other side of the glass.

As good as Dick is at his job, any engineer or producer will tell you that they are only as good as the talent holding the guitar or bass, or in the case of Nico Groen, hitting things with sticks. And in this department Dick had plenty to work with. The producer of The Traveling Girl is my good pal Casper van Vulpen and Casper started the project off with plenty of wind in his sails by choosing great songs to record and the right combination of players to make the magic happen. This project was truly an international effort as Casper had gathered the forces of a Russian from Poland, a Polish songwriter from England, a British writer from London, an Austrian from Los Angeles, a rhythm section from Holland and one of the best singers I’ve worked with in years. Lock the doors and get the coffee going. This was going to be more fun than a pick up game at the Fourth Street cage in the Village.

The Traveling Girl

Lille was a dream to work with. Many singers can be temperamental, moody or demanding. Lille was all of these but in a very unique way. Where some singer’s moods or demands are driven by insecurity, inability or lack of preparation, Lille took full responsibility and her demands were only of herself. And where some singers might hit the wall of their endurance or storm out of the room blaming it all on the headphone mix or the color of the pop filter, Lille forced every mood directly through the microphone and into her vocal performance for upwards of eight hours at a stretch.

The main focus of my involvement was in creating authentic and sincere vocal performances with a singer in English as a second and sometimes third language. Regrettably, I only know how to say “Goddammit” “Two Beers” and “Screwing in the kitchen” in the Dutch language but Lille and I were able to work together in German as well as English. I find sincerity to be the most attractive element of any vocal performance and this must be based on not only a thorough understanding but also a convincing belief in the lyrical content of a song.

Producer Casper van Vulpen

Whenever studio rats get gather in the temple of sound they follow a timeless ritual. Everyone let’s everyone else know who they know, which new plug-ins they use, choice of recording software, past, present and future drug, alcohol and gambling profile and whatever other factoids seem pertinent to the session. It’s just a bit of canine butt-sniffing really, but it serves to lubricate the initial get-to-know-you period better than passing out resumes. We already knew each other via the internet so the circle sniff was just a bit if handshaking and joke telling. Before I hit the pillow that first night I felt warmly sniffed into the pack.

My second day in Holland Lille and I went to work in earnest. As we went line by line dissecting the finer points of pronunciation we also discussed the inner meaning of every phrase. Sometimes when writers create in a foreign language they might say something that makes perfect literal sense but loses symbolic meaning or poetic value in the translation. There were a few corners to smooth over in this department and we changed a few words or phrases to insure that Lille was portraying the feeling behind the meaning with belief, conviction and precision.

Nico Groen at S&K Studio

I had initially thought to coach Lille into a strictly American pronunciation but her delivery has a certain international charm which we certainly did not want to lose. So we concentrated on clarity and those areas where letter sounds differ between Dutch, German and English while retaining the feel and passion which went into the original demos of the songs. On a technical level, most problems arise when losing the distinction between voiced and un-voiced consonants. Using the word “Love” as an example, the ‘V’ must have pitch. Dutch and German speakers pronounce the word as “Luff” because their ‘V’ is our ‘F’ and so “Live” becomes “Life” and “Very” becomes “Fairy.” Another pitfall is the American ‘TH’ sound which doesn’t exist in many European languages. To make the sound one must extend the tip of the tongue between the teeth and blow out a puff of air. Euros tend to replace the ‘TH’ with either the hard ‘D’ or the sibilants ‘Z’ or ‘S’ as in “Vaht do you Sink about ziss.” And, as the sentence indicates, even our ‘S’ sound has voiced and un-voiced versions as does the ‘TH’…hear the difference between “This” and “Think” “What’s” and “Was.” And then there is our ‘W’ which is their ‘V’…so our “Was” would be pronounced “Vass” two corrections for the price of one on that one.

The key was to make the corrections seem effortless and allow the vocal performance to be driven by Lille’s amazing sense of phrasing. As I got to know her day by day I learned that Lille is fierce when it comes to learning new things. She was hell-bent on mastering whatever I suggested and made notes on the lyric sheets, wrote on the leg of her jeans, pounded the table and repeated the ‘TH’ sound until I had to cover my coffee cup. But I didn’t want her to obsess so the best and most efficient learning came through simple conversation. We decided that when in the studio we would speak only English and I would try to catch and correct every mispronunciation as it happened.

Lille keeping an eye on Roland Franken

There are many structured exercises aimed at engaging the diaphragmatic-intercostal musculature but none is more efficient than uncontrolled laughter. Being among new friends gave me a fresh audience for the jokes that elicit groans from my stateside friends and I took full advantage. Teaching the jokes to Lille was also a way to practice Americanized idiomatic pronunciation. What seemed to be breaks in the work were actually quite useful and her delivery of the songs as well as her complete understanding of the intent behind them improved at a fast clip.

Two weeks later my job was done and Lille dropped me at the airport where she had first found me. We were in the studio every day and the two weeks seemed like one long session. Working with Casper, Kostek, Dick Kemper and especially Lille had made the time go much too quickly and on the Los Angeles bound flight I wished that we had been making a double album. The musicians played their asses off, Lille sang her ass off, Dick engineered his ass off and now my ass was off for home.

Traveling Girl will be  available online and represents the hard work of very talented people from all corners of the globe (yes, I know that the globe doesn’t have corners, just go with me on that one). It was a ton of fun to be involved with the project, the music and, most importantly, the people. I hope you all enjoy it.

I’m ripping myself off. Actually, I’ve had a few requests to revisit an old article about one of my guitars so here it is, this time with photos. In the past year the guitar made appearances on the albums Out Of Confusion by ConFused5 and The Running Time by SolidTube, both of which I produced for Sellaband. So, on with the guitar-porn…

MK signature Strat

My favorite guitar is a Fender Mark Knopfler Signature Stratocaster. I love this guitar for two reasons. For starters, she is just a fantastic guitar not only to play but to look at and admire, and I’ll get into that in a moment. But what makes her so very special to me is that she was placed into my care by Mark as a “thank you” for the small part I played in support of his 2004 SHANGRI LA album.

Electric bass is my weapon of accomplishment but I’ve always had a few guitars around for writing and teaching. On a more sensual level, there are some guitars which pay their way just by being beautiful to look at and touch in ways that result in wonderful noises. This is what my ’62 P-bass and my first girlfriend once had in common. After fifty-some years, the bass is sexy as ever and still makes wonderful noises when I touch her just right. I can’t say with any certainty, but I’d hazard a guess that the old girlfriend hasn’t aged as well.

Everyone has a favorite “the one that got away” story. My stories tend to fall more into the “Pete, you are a friggin’ idiot” category. I once bought a ’63 strat for $75.00 and decided it was ugly, so I sold it and made fifty bucks! Now this was in the early seventies and fifty bucks kept me alive for a week so it was cool…I thought. It was ugly to me because of the color. I found out later that Inca Silver is a rare color and had I put that rare bastard in the the case and under the bed, well…every time I think about it I imagine a big pie hitting me in the face.

Vintage bridge

I could write all day and into the night…into many nights, about my knuckleheadedness but let me get back to my favorite guitar. MK arrived at Shangri La the evening before we were to load in the instruments and digital recording gear. Some days before, I had taken delivery of the guitars he planned to use for the album. We spent the evening unpacking his guitars to get them acclimated to the Malibu air. Mark proved to be a true guitar junkie and we spent a most enjoyable evening fawning over each of the instruments as we set them free of the flight cases and let them run loose in what would be their home for the next five weeks.

One of the guitars for which Mark is known is a “frankenstrat” which, to my knowledge, is a ’59 red Fender Stratocaster body mounted to a ’61 neck with a rosewood fretboard. This guitar, with the middle and bridge position pick-ups out of phase, was the sound heard on “Sultans Of Swing.” Fender now markets The Mark Knopfler Signature Strat and I was surprised to find that both Mark and Richard Bennett play these guitars on stage and in the studio just as they come from the factory. I admired the guitar and told Mark that it seemed like an instrument worth having and that I would look into getting one for the studio.

The weeks spent recording the album are another story but it must be said that a good time was had by all concerned. About a week after the circus left town, a guitar was delivered, addressed to Mark in care of Shangri La Studio. I emailed Mark’s tech in London and asked what was to be done with it and when the answer came, so did I. The guitar was no longer an anonymous “it” but a “she”…and she belonged to me!

Lightly figured maple

In describing the manufacture of the guitar, Mark had told me that he thought Fender had done an excellent job of reproducing his original Strat. As I had played both Richard’s and Mark’s guitars, I had to agree but these guitars were in the hands of world-class musicians and I suspected that they were handmade at the factory especially for them. I was surprised to find that this was not the case at all and that my new Strat was a spectacular instrument right out of the box. The first thing that impressed me was the finish which is a bright, hot-rod red nitrocellulose lacquer and absolutely flawless. The use of nitrocellulose insures that the guitar will age beautifully and actually sound better as the years pass. Her first impression simply knocks your eyes out. The neck is also finished in the old school lacquer with a beautiful, aged amber tint. The grain of the rosewood fretboard is very straight and runs the length of the neck with no run-out. This is not only visually attractive but will contribute to years of stability.

Rosewood

I always judge the musical voice of an electric guitar un-plugged. When I play a guitar without amplification, I can hear and feel how the wood reacts to string vibration. Some guitars “speak” more clearly than others and there was an unmistakable similarity between the Signature Strats used on the session and my newly arrived beauty. There is a pronounced consistency in these instruments that speaks very highly of Fender’s quality control. But what impresses me is that when I have this girl in my hands, all the techno talk melts away and I’m left with a guitar that feels like she was handmade only for me.

Mark once said to me, “A beautiful guitar will be a friend to you for  life.” Truer words were never spoken. This beautiful redhead has been a true friend and a hard working cohort who has never asked for a raise. She doesn’t mind bad weather, is kind to strangers and doesn’t bark at children. I am in love with this guitar. It is a Mark Knopfler Signature Stratocaster.

I am at my wit’s end. Am I going nuts or having auditory hallucinations? Nope, they are real…I’m hearing bells. And I hear them EVERY MORNING…EVERY HOUR! The church around the corner has gone back to a time when ringing bells on the hour was a public service and it has become the bane of my existence.

I frequently work late into the early morning hours and wake up on my own at about 10:00 am. If I’m working on music I do so with headphones in deference to my neighbors sleep/work schedules. Up to now I have had no problems getting my 5-7 hours of sleep with only an occasional leafblower rattling me into premature consciousness. But about two weeks ago someone must have donated a new speaker system to that damned church and by god they are using it. I mean, it’s not as if the villagers are huddled around the tower wondering what time it is. Even the neighborhood dogs have mobile phones for chrissakes.

And so, every hour on the hour I’m treated to that obnoxious Big Ben “Ding Dong Ding Dong…Ding Dong Ding Dong. Then, after a slight pause during which I almost slip back into dreamland, the infernal tower peals the hours…Doong…Doong…Doong and whatever I might have been dreaming is lost forever. Why can’t they be good neighbors like me and go the headphone route? They could put a listening kiosk on their property and any of the congregation desirous of bells for breakfast could go there and listen to those odious out of tune bastards on a voluntary basis.

Well, I was considering taking action but decided to do some research into the history of the offending party. I found little at the public library and was stonewalled by the church’s own archivist but one evening, while commiserating over a beer at the local bar I was approached by an old-timer named Nils Percheron who noticed that I was muttering “goddamned bells” repeatedly into my beer glass. He tapped me on the shoulder, looked both directions as if we were being watched and said, “Are you the guy digging into the old bell story?” I wondered what there was to be so secretive about and nodded. He led me to a booth at the back of the bar and told me the full story. As it turns out, the story of the bells is full of small town intrigue, civic shame and resulted in a cover-up second only to Watergate. This is the story as Nils Percheron told it to me.

The scene of the crime

“One day, years ago back in the days of real bells, the bell ringing rope had been inexplicably removed under suspicious circumstances. The town bell ringer was thus unemployed and his position quietly passed unnoticed from the public eye (and ear). When the old minister passed to his just reward a young new minister came to the post hell bent on reform. One of his first actions was to restore the hourly bells to his clock-less congregation. An ad was placed and candidates for the bell-ringing job were interviewed, hired and, one by one, fired for various reasons. The first for mere tardiness, another for drinking on the job and a third for using the bell tower as a midnight trysting place…which would have gone undetected had the shrubbery at the base of the tower not been upholstered with the choir director’s wife’s undergarments one Christmas morning. And so the bells were silent once again.

At this time, Monrovia was becoming known for its yearly crop of excellent walnuts and no walnuts were as good as those coming from Joe Sr.’s Walnut Grove just outside the eastern city limit. Joe Sr’s secret was that he left the walnuts on the trees about a week longer than most growers and his harvesting method was unique. Joe Sr. had twin sons who were born with the defect of having no arms. Joe Sr., not being one to dwell on misfortune, raised Joe Jr. and JoJo to work on the farm despite their shortage of upper limbs and they became locally celebrated as the “Nut-Knocker Twins.” Every season from the time they were old enough to stand on a ladder, Joe Jr. and JoJo would go up the ladder at precisely 7:00 am and knock the nuts out of the trees with their foreheads which, after years of nut knocking, had acquired an inch thick layer of muscle and callous.

The third silence of the bells occurred just at nut-knocking season and, as there was no clock at Joe Sr.’s farm to call the twins to their post, the crop was almost lost. Joe Sr. was not a religious man and the loss of good timing caused him to curse the clock tower in a way that led the armless Joe Jr. to take matters into his own hands. Joe Jr. went to the church and applied for the job of bell-ringer. The new minister, happy to have an applicant but new to the town and unaware of the locally famous “Nut-Knocker Twins,” did not let Joe’s apparent lack of tools with which to ring the bells go unnoticed. “But my son,” he asked, “How do you intend to ring the bells?” “Aw jesus Reverend…no disrespect intended,” Joe Jr. answered. “just let me at those babies and I’ll show you!”

And so the young minister led Joe Jr. up the rickety staircase to the landing at the top of the bell tower. Joe Jr. took a stance on the window ledge and, balanced on his right leg, gave the enormous bell a push with his left and braced himself. As the bell rebounded, he struck it with his muscular forehead and the bell responded, pealing over the valley for the first time in some months. The young minister looked on amazed as Joe Jr. repeated the exercise. Unfortunately, on the fourth rebound, Joe Jr. who was a natural showoff, pushed a bit harder than he should have and the rebounding bell followed through. Joe Jr. shot through the arched window, cleared the shrubs, and landed on the street below.

By the time the young minister reached the bloody stain formerly known as Joe Jr., rescue workers had arrived at the scene. Seeing the minister praying over the unrecognizable Nut-Knocker, the emergency doctor asked him, “Reverend, do you know this man?” To which the young minister answered, “No, not really, but his face rings a bell.”

“Okay, okay, wait…there’s more.” Nils sputtered under a lager shower. So I helped him wipe what was left of my beer from his greasy hair and he went on… “When Joe Jr. failed to come home that day, the family put two and two together and correctly surmised that the carcass hauled away from the vicinity of the bell tower was in fact one of their own. Now The remaining 50% of the Nut-Knocker Twins was not a member of the faith but burdened with a fierce sense of family honor led JoJo straight to the church to redeem the family name.

The young minister, guilt-ridden by his part in the previous day’s occurrence was visibly shaken at the sight of what he took to be the dead Nut-Knocker standing in the entry of the churchyard. Finding that this was indeed Joe Jr.’s twin brought only temporary relief as now he was certain to be found out and punished “on earth as in heaven” so to speak. Mincing no words and citing family honor as his motive, JoJo demanded that he be allowed to resume his brother’s post. Once again the young minister found himself leading an armless man up the treacherous stairs to the belfry. JoJo took his post and, after saying a few words about vindicating his failed brother’s name, spat into his palms, rubbed them together and set to work.” I shot a glance at Nils and he admitted that the last part was strictly figurative…but that’s what he would have done if he had hands to spit into.

“Well,” he continued, “old JoJo took his perch on the window ledge as his brother had done the previous day, cocked back his well developed forehead and set those bells to ringing. The minister thought his troubles were over and JoJo celebrated by taking a triumphant stance just as the bell came back around from it’s last swing. As if in slow motion, JoJo was catapulted through the open window, landing with a melon-like crunch inches away from the spot last occupied by his own brother. The young minister found himself praying over his second unrecognizable lump of former Nut-Knocker as the ambulance arrived. “Reverend” the doctor asked, “do you know THIS man?” And, choosing his words carefully to elide suspicion, the minister replied, “No, but he is a dead ringer for his brother.”

Well, alright, I admit it. It’s a horrible joke! But hell, with these goddamned bells dragging me out of bed before I’m ready this is just the kind of crap that has to be let out to dry. And the worst thing is that, even if I lay down for a nap, I know that just as I start catching that really good deep sleep, fifty-nine minutes will have elapsed and the nightmarish din will start up again. My nerves are shot.

What a great day I had today! Sadly, it was my last day in Salzburg. The Mozarteum workshop was fantastic and the ConFused5 cd release party was a most memorable night. So What destroyed the dressing room, drank all the beer and played their young asses off, Gisel de Marco proved beyond any shadow of a doubt that she’s got the goods and more, and ConFused5 treated the crowd to a polished concert version of their new album, Out Of Confusion.

So, back to my great day, Since it was my last day, I decided to walk from my room to the railroad station, normally a healthy 30 minutes. At minute 10 the mist had become a tolerable drizzle and the last 200 meters the sky opened with a personal vengeance. I know the vengeance part is true because it stopped raining moments after I reached the shelter of the station.

As it happened, the rain had increased my pace to the point that I was able to take an earlier train. My computer battery had gone dead just as I was checking into my flight from Vienna so this would get me to the airport in plenty of time to secure a seat in the exit aisle. Things were looking good.

When I hoisted my luggage onto the belt for check in, the representative handed me back my passport, smiled her sweet Viennese smile and told me that I had missed my flight by anywhere from 4 to 8 hours depending on the exchange rate at the moment! Damn it! With the damnable 24 hour clock they use over here I had misread my itinerary! No big surprise since Markus from C5 and I had been sorting out the world’s problems over beer til at least 47 o’clock the night before. This is the only place I know where you can ask someone the time and still have no clue without taking off your shoes to count out the hours.

And so, here I am, stranded in Vienna, not “in” Vienna but at the airport…the difference is eloquent. As I don’t fly until morning, I’ll listen to some music and try to think happy thoughts.

Speaking of happy thoughts, a quick look at the top ten artists on the Sellaband roster could mislead one to think that the label has become some sort of dating service. Of the ten, eight are females or feature females in their band. But to dispel any false impressions, these artists are in the top ten because they belong there.

The latest to break page one is Polish-American singer/songwriter Natalia Safran. While Natalia’s Carly Simon smile has surely drawn attention to her Sellaband profile, her songwriting and sultry delivery are what will ultimately define her success as an artist.

Natalia has surrounded herself with very capable musicians who have learned the art of accompaniment. The tracks display a mature and empathetic level of musicianship in that, even though the instruments are masterfully played, the intent to focus attention on the vocal is accomplished very naturally. The tracks are custom fitted to Natalia’s strength which is to deliver lyrics in a melodic, chant-like manner that makes listening to her a personal experience. Her soothing voice is free of pretense and the combination of urgency and innocence are charming.

While vagueness is not necessarily something to seek in writing prose, it can be the characteristic which sets a song apart for many listeners. A song isn’t complete until the final element of the equation, the listener, has heard and accepted the intent of the artist. When a song has mystery, when the listener is free to dress the characters of a story as he sees them, the artist has done much more than just perform a song. The singer has collaborated with each listener on a very individual basis and has let them decide how the story should play out.

Every successful artist has something special which sets them apart…let’s call it the X-factor for want of a better term. The ability to pull the listener into her stories is what sets Natalia apart and in context of her material, bombastic vocal pyrotechnics have high value by their absence. I would be curious to know what Natalia could do if she really put her foot to the floor but then again, that doesn’t seem to have anything at all to do with her music. I find myself wanting more from Natalia. And I say that this is a good thing because, as a listener, when you find yourself wanting less, you simply move on to another track, another song, another artist.

Natalia is touring Europe at the moment, but a listen on her profile page is well worth a click or two. It will indeed be interesting to watch the progress of what has become the Race of the Divas on Sellaband’s page one. One thing you can count on, there will be no losers. And thanks to Natalia for making my one day “vacation” at the Vienna airport much more than bearable.

It was the summer of 1968. My parents, having seen “The Sound of Music,” had saved for the better part of a year in order to alleviate their homesickness and make the journey back to Salzburg to visit my grandparents for the summer. It was a summer of milestones for all of us. My father had only flown in an aircraft once before and for my mother the 14 hour journey would be her first experience away from terra firma. The trip would ultimately prove to be the last time my father would see his parents alive. We had also hoped to visit with my great-grandmother, known to me as “Wolfgang Omi” and my god-father, Ludwig. Sadly, they had passed within days of our departure and our visit was limited to planting fuscias on their new graves.

For me, the summer was a time of discovery. I was 15 years old, about 6’5” and looked at least 20 so there was nothing off limits. After a cup of my grandmother’s coffee, my first discovery of the summer and the beginning of a life-long addiction to the sort of coffee that turns spoons into forks, I would head out into the city on foot. I was alone and could do as I liked, go where it pleased me to and linger over whatever caught my interest. I became particularly enamored of the Mirabell Garden. The idea that this formal baroque garden, with its fountains, statuary and manicured flower beds was once someone’s back yard impressed me. So regardless of where my fact-finding mission of the day took me, a portion of the afternoon was spent sitting on a bench fantasizing that this was mine and those enjoying the garden were there by the grace of my benevolent nature. My usual perch turned out to be just under the open windows of the Mozarteum and the sounds of practicing singers and musicians pouring out into the garden air became the “first hit” of the second addiction I acquired that summer.

Up to that time I had been sitting on the fence between being a basketball star and becoming a world-famous musician. I was fifteen and had that curious combination of confidence and inherent laziness that marks that age. Sitting in the garden I decided that music had to be an easier way to get girls than sweating in a gym and my fate was sealed. I decided to study at the Mozarteum. The last thing that occurred to me as I made up my mind was that I would have to actually learn something. Sitting in my personal garden I was convinced that the music world was waiting to strew my path with flower petals.

Flash forward and thirty years of reality have not dimmed my ambition of entering the Mozarteum. This spring I produced the “Out Of Confusion” album for the Salzburg band, ConFused5. Herbert Hopfgartner is a multi instrumentalist, composer and one of the two talented lead singers in the group. During the recording of the album we discovered that we had a lot in common and subsequently, Herbert’s wife Regina Hopfgartner, a teacher of vocal pedagogy at the Mozarteum, asked if I would have interest in teaching a workshop for singers at the school. I played hard to get for a nano-second and accepted the invitation on any terms and at all cost. We decided that it would be a workshop aimed at singing students with a classical background and training but who wanted to sing pop and rock material. As Herbert is more adept at interpreting these styles than the average school accompanist, he graciously offered to lend his fingers to the project.

The workshop was attended by a wide variety of students and a few faculty members as well. As I scanned the room I saw that the teachers were all in the back row and imagined they might have been thinking, “Okay hotshot, show us something we don’t already know!” I could not have been more wrong. After a short introduction, I brought the first victim to the front of the room.

My chief aim for the workshop was to prove the value of keeping an open mind, When I went to school, and what eventually drove me to leave the academic environment behind, was the close-minded attitude of my teachers and the manner in which they used their authority to foster the same prejudicial tastes in their students. I respect teachers for their learning and for the work that they do. But I have a great deal more respect for students because of the work they have yet to do. Teachers are already plying their trade, they have made their choices and are living their lives accordingly. But students are a blank page waiting for the words to be written. “What shall I do?” and “How shall I proceed?” are questions yet to be asked intelligently.

And so, given my rebellious nature, I had no qualms about instructing the students on more than one occasion to forget everything they have learned in school, if only for the next few hours. The reaction from the faculty members was not at all what I expected. The questions they asked and their welcoming attitude toward me demonstrated a willingness to learn something new and a genuine effort to give their students a different viewpoint and perhaps some tools they didn’t know were in the toolbox.

The most common impediment we encountered was fear. Most of these singers had excellent voices and good technique. What was missing in their performances was intent. The notes were correct, their diction and enunciation were, with a few adjustments, acceptable. But when attempting to sing anything contemporary they delivered data and not music. Years of learning technical exercises don’t yield an end product. They are meant to teach the body to respond in the most natural way to what is required. I have yet to see a poster advertising Gabriella Sans-Corazon in a program of vocal exercises. In working with these singers I attempted to take them out of their comfort zone. I asked them to describe what their song means and what they wished to convey to the audience other than “My, what a lovely vibrato, or, Doesn’t she stand with good posture?”

There were some corrections to make in the area of what I call Vocal Architecture. And there was the baritone who was trying to sing a song that had a high ‘G’ and I could see in his eyes that he knew it was coming and he also had a plan ‘B’ which he availed himself of every time. Apparently this singer had not heard of Leonard Warren, the great American baritone who sang the sort of high ‘B’-flat that made tenors look into their trousers to see if the twins were really all they were supposed to be. I asked the young man what his highest note was. He told me ‘E’ was about it. And I observed also that he was very sure about this and that it was based on many hours of training. Yep, ‘E’ was it and then he had to go into his head voice. So I took him to the piano and vocalized him a bit. I went up to ‘F’ sharp and he had no problem at all. But as soon as I told him that he had sung a, ‘F’ sharp he folded again. I explained to him the importance of not caring how the note is named. And if he could sing an ‘F’ sharp freely, then a ‘G’ was nothing to worry about. It’s like being a receiver in football. How many times do we see a tough pass go off of a wide receivers fingertips? But if you can touch the ball, you should also be able to catch the ball with just a fraction more effort. This baritone had told himself that a ‘G’ was too high, and as long as he believes himself, it will be out of his range. No amount of exercising will change that belief. He already has the note, he’s just afraid of disobeying his own instructions and just letting it out.

The two days were heaven for me. And I want to thank the students for their attention, the teachers for their warm welcome, Herbert for putting up with me and providing expert accompaniment and finally, Regina Hopfgartner for making a thirty-year-old dream come true for me…even if I did come through the back door.There isn’t anything I love more than seeing young musicians step out of themselves and be who they really are, not who they think their teachers want them to be. And to freely express themselves without regard for what they think is right and wrong. Because there really isn’t a right or wrong in the arts. There is only “I dig it” and “I dig it not.”