holy crap!

I never thought move on and the christian coalition would agree on anything, but I guess the pigs are flying home with the cows today!

Both groups are going to post an add together against the pending internet control bill. And this when I had just given up hope that the internet would remain the free and beautiful thing it is today. I just can't imagine not seeing homestar anymore because it would cost to much for all of those big files to run.... or to search for a recipe and only be able to access those annoying bland recipes from kraft food that require a bunch of terrible brand name corn products.... I had assumed with republicans controlling congress that the end of the internet as anything other than a corporate advertising tool was imminent...

And do I really have the christian coalition to thank for hope?

Armed Man a Success

The U.S. premier was quite a success, everything I heard from the audience was positive. As for my opinion, I think the work is a great in someways, but not necessarily a great work of art... gah, gotta go, more later...

no time no time...

Dress rehearsal tomorrow for "the Armed Man!"

I am quite excited, the music that I know has already grown on me quite a bit, and I'm excited to hear the parts I'm not in. Saturday will be the US premier of the new work. In the way of advertisement, take a listen at a small part of the European premier: "better is peace than always war" I especially like the end of this movement.

Nothing but work

I do nothing but eat sleep work these days, so no blog time.

I hope after this week I will have an hour or so of free time.

Dull dull boy I am right now.

Underpants... profit.

If you've looked at more than two posts on this blog, then you know that my frequent topics range from singing to bawdy limericks to Mr. Rogers back to Mindless Self Indulgence, around the corner to sociology and politics, insideout to the English language and how to teach it better, up to photography and down to fiction and poetry, nature.... basically I'm intensely curious about everything right down to why it is that that certain kind of guy just can't seem to keep his shirt on... it's like the "as seen on COPS" fashion movement.

Speaking of "as seen on COPS," in the past week or so, the PO-lice have visited our small apartment building 3 times, twice in the same day because of vandalism and once because our neighbors were having a domestic dispute. And it must be something about the flashing lights, because when the cops pulled in the the guys next door all took off their shirts and came to the windows to say "hey, hey, somethin matter fer down there?"

Though from the trajectory of egg splatter it was clear that the eggs were thrown from his back porch, I decide to play it cool and not say anything accusatory:

"Yeah well someone just egged the cars in our parking lot in broad day light"

"Uh, weel we don't got no eggs and you can check"

Right, I mean they wouldn't have any eggs *NOW* would they?

What the heck am I looking at down there?

The "pictures" of voices down below were made using a program called PRAAT. PRAAT is a tool for speech therapy that shows the different over-tones in a voice. As I said before, almost any sound you hear is actually made up of many different sounds blended together. So when I hear a trumpet, I hear only a single note, but the sound is actually made of many different notes together. The different notes that go into a single sound are what give that sound it's character. This is why a trumpet and a clarinet sound different, even when they are playing the same note-- they are actually producing many pitches at the same time, the trumpet different ones than the clarinet.

And this is also the reason that a tenor like Pavarotti and a Bass like Hines sound different-- the pitches (or "partials" when we're talking about the notes in a complex sound) that make up a bass sound are different than in a tenor voice.

From the two pictures I posted below, you can see what I'm talking about. A dark bass voice has all of the sound energy concentrated on a couple of intense sound clusters. The first dark line is called the Fundamental-- its the pitch we actually hear. A bass voice has a lot of energy put into the actual pitch we think we hear. The line is very dark and thick because a big percentage of the voices energy is here (more intensity-- "santori time"). Then the line above that determines what vowel sound we hear-- this is also dark in a bass voice. Above that there is one more thick band of sound called the singers formant, which adds beauty to the voice and makes it cary over an orchestra. Actually in a bass voice, the "singers formant" is a combination of the third and fourth partial. But you can see that above the singers formant, there is a big drop off in energy. This drop-off makes the voice sound dark and bassy.

You can see a big contrast to this in the Pavarotti picture. The energy isn't concentrated so heavily in a few areas so the bands are thinner(less intense.) Instead, the energy is spread out over 8 strong bands. These additional bands at the top make the tenor sound beautiful and "bright." At the end of the recording of the Pav, I included a couple of high notes to demonstrate what these top partials add to the voice. The first time, you hear the normal note, then in the second, I've significantly weakened these bands at the top of the voice.

Dude, like I totally see your voice right now....

Gee, I think my old college room mate used to say stuff like that in between 12 packs of ho hos.

This is a spectrograph of the great Luciano Pavarotti singing the last high C in the aria "Ah mes amis." To hear an excerpt of this aria, click here!

Seeing voices

ever wondered what a voice looks like? Here's one of my favorite singers, Jerome Hines. To hear the selection this spectrogram is taken from give us a click.

In this picture you see 3 dark blue bands. These are the "pitches" or partials that make up the sound of this voice. This dark bass voice is a composite of "pitces" in two main concentrated areas. The bottom one is the pitch you actually hear, called the fundamental. The one on top is called the "singers formant," or ring in the voice. The singers formant is important because few instruments produce sound in this area, so it helps a singer be heard over an orchestra, and adds beauty to the voice. The blue band in the middle determines what vowel sound the listener hears.

Later I'll show a tenor voice so you can see the difference between a high voice and a low one.

Two weeks until break!

And boy do I need it.

Lots to write about, no time to do it....

Singing my silly head off this Friday

I will be singing in a concert, 8:00, this Friday at Aurora University, in the Perry Theater, 347 S Gladstone Ave
Aurora, IL 60506 The concert will feature some talented young singers from the Chicago/Milwaukee area. This is technically a private concert but I'm allowed to bring some people, send me an email if you're interested.... The good thing is that, since a private event, admission is free!

Singin' my silly head off this year

Just got two more gigs-- One US premier and one world premier (maybe.)
I will be singing The Armed Man, by Karl Jenkins in Milwaukee on May 20th, and september 11th, and then in the fall I will probably be singing Michael Reagan in the premier and a recording of "Reagan's Children."

Just when I thought I was going to get a break! But I've already heard some of The Armed Man, and it seems like interesting music...

Exciting stuff!

My Birthday Requiem

Last night I had the pleasure of hearing Samuel Ramey the greatest singer of the last quarter of a century, perhaps the greatest singer of the modern era.

The K and I went to the Roosevelt University Verdi Requiem, which featured bass Sam Ramey as one of the soloists. Overall, the concert should have been OK. The Chorus lacked the proper beef to deliver a truly operatic Verdi Requiem and there were some problems with the student orchestra, (which was however, also very good.) The women soloists seemed a little under weight vocally for Verdi's writing... but the singing of Sam Ramey alone was enough to raise this concert to a level of greatness.

For those that don't know, Sam Ramey has reigned supreme over the Bass concert and operatic rep for the last 20 years. But that reign has not been without controversy. Even last night, there were apparent weaknesses and paradoxes in his singing-- and yet, he may be the greatest singer I have ever heard.

The Sam Ramey controversy can be summarized by the time when he appeared in Don Carlo with Jerome Hines, in my opinion, the greatest bass of the previous generation:

Interviewer: "we all thought the other guy (Ramey) was doing just great, and then you came out, and it was like we had forgotten what a real bass sounded like."
Hines: "Yeah, they tell me I really made him sound like my boy...."

Having heard both of these singers live, I can attest to this, Jerome Hines, well, eats Sam Ramey's lunch. Hines is by far the greater bass, and yet, Ramey is still the greater singer. In fact, this is the very reason that Ramey is the greater singer.

All great "new art" represents in a sense, a criticism of what came before it. In this way, Ramey's singing represents the perfect critique of the post war generation of singers. The "post war" generation had as it's halmark the great dramatic voices: Tebaldi, Del Monaco, Hines, London, Callas: singers who made great dramatic thrilling sounds, and were not afraid to make an ugly or unhinged sound for emotional effect. Sam Ramey on the other hand seems incapable of producing a sound that is less than exquisitely beautiful. And while the most prized characteristic of the previous of the post war singers was the full ringing heroic middle voice and top, Sam Ramey seems restrained and refined on those pitches instead seeming to blossom in the rich lower parts of his voice.

It was this refined quality that led to Ramey's career as a "bel canto" singer. "Bel Canto" was a term invented to describe the the way the singing of Mattia Battistini perfectly realized the aesthetic of the middle 19th century. It has long been considered a lost art by many, and many were ready to accept Sam Ramey as a new proponent of this style. However, a closer look would show that the post war singers had more in common with Battistini's singing than Ramey does. Firstly Ramey relies heavily on aspirates (ha ha ha ha) to aticulate notes-- something never heard in battistini's singing. But more importantly, the big middle voice and emotionally declamatory style were Battistini's most distinguishing characteristic-- the things that Sam Ramey most characteristically lacks.

So Sam Ramey represents not a throw-back to the past, but a truly new aesthetic and technique-- one which may be more perfectly suited to the modern era than any singer in history. His voice has endless character and beauty. And perhaps his greatest characteristic is that, more than any other singer I know of, his voice sounds the same on recording as it does in the house. In this way, Ramey's technique represents the perfect solution to the modern career of the recording artist/performer.

Happy Bunny day!

I can't wait to eat that bunny.




Mmm....




In other news, I had a rehearsal for my concert on April 29th. Sick as a dog... It was actually very interesting.... I made myself "sing out" for everything and it actually was pretty good. I take it as a good sign that I can now sing ok even after a week of sore throats, coughing fits and stuffed nose. The concert should be pretty good, although many people missed the rehearsal and others didn't know their music yet.

In other other news, isn't it interesting how we inherit our parents fears. Yesterday at rehearsal, one of the soprani and I walked over to a cafe, a trip that required a nice jaunt over a heating vent. Lisa said she was terrified of them because her dad had fallen through one before. she wasn't there of course, but she has learned this fear from her dad.

Me, I'm afraid of bears and cockroaches. And um...

pigeons.

These are fears that I inherited form my mother. In actuality, I'm not really afraid of any of these things, I think pigeons are kinda cute, and I'd LOVE to see a bear... but yet there is some level where the idea of these things are...

scary.

Cockroaches on the other hand...


Ughhhghghgh.... creepy.

Sick as a dog

all week.

Yuck.

Just saw this today and it made me laugh myself into a coughing fit.

from http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/

kid 1: Paper beats rock! Bam! I blowed up your rock!
Kid 2: "Bam" doesn't blow up, "bam" makes spicy. Now I got a spicy rock-- you can't beat that!

My blog: apparently about Hitler's crossdressing earlobes.

Thanks to the magic of sitemeter, I sometimes can find out how people arrived at this blog. And let me tell you, you people think of some Freaky shite!

Here are some of my favorite searches that have brought people hither:

"mom teaching their songs to masterbate" What!? I didn't even know songs COULD masterbate! I mean what does that sound like? Like, could the song I'm listening to right now be masterbating and I don't even know? And what is dear ol mommy song doing encouraging the behavior! Can a song go blind? Hairy psalms?

"Hitler's earlobes" Now this search I get. You see Hitler actually had very cute earlobes. This isn't often talked about these days what with that whole holocaust thingie, but in his early years he made quite a living as a lobe model. See what I mean? What a QT!

"Crossdresser at Walmart" Everyday low prices. Where else?

"Long Division" Sick bastards!

"bill 4437" for dummies" Yup, they got that right, it sure is!

"Lack of Pants" I sure hope that's what this site is about!

Well, off I go to google "Smurf fashion: trousers or bikinis?"

Big day yesterday

Booked a venue for my story-telling-sing-along-extravaganza in May and signed a contract for an opera and another concert in July-- exciting stuff for me, and also a nice chunk of extra change from the opera. Now I gotta lotta work to do.

The show, the Student Prince was a star vehicle for Mario Lanza, and that's about all I know of it. But it sounds like delightful music and a light comedy in the old MGM sort of style-- if I'm lucky I'll get to do some dancing!

Add on novel

So here are the chapters of what I intended as a community novel. I'm still open to anyone who wants to write a bit... just post it in the comments.
Here's the novel so far:
chapters 1-3
chapter 4
installment 5
mini bit

Dead again

The burritos have no taste

What was the name of this place? Reality swims around when you're possessing someone. It feels like the city, with bits of sensation and thought flooding past with jarring fragmentation.

"Well, Come on." my body says. "It's time to go." She sits there quietly. "look, we can't be late, ok? We gotta go now! If I don't show up with you soon...." My body goes quiet. It smiles in a comforting way. She looks up. "Everything will be ok, I say in a paternal and comforting way, but something isn't right. I don't feel assured. I think I feel...

fear.

This isn't getting me anywhere, and I feel if I stay I might be lost... not yet... I need to go back, back to that day....

Poetica Concretica

A ratio:

Killingly/Livingly=Thrillingly

cheap poetry is a cheap game:
Which is harder on the heart?
Which is harder on the hands?
Harder on the man?
cheap poetry as a cheap game:

These things in a room:
Severed hands
severed head
Limbs apart
the color red
a bomb
a mask
a man in pain (oh god the pain)
the soldiers knife
the thrill
the gory glory
and the pain.

And what's the name of this room?

Across the hall these things in a room:
ecstatic souls
a joyous day
the color white
a dove
and roses
sweaty night
heart in bloom
same in womb
some pointless fight
Severed hands
severed heads
severed hearts
sorry souls
and pain of being apart.

What's the name of this room?

Each room is empty fill it up!
And which is harder on the heart?

postlude concrete

on my desk:
blue bottle
Metronome
pencil
eraser
14 "cd"s
8 markers
nicor bill
ComEd bill
Photograph of my sister
Cell phone
Tea
Note pad
lamp
computer
In my head this poem:

A dead man.
Take a skull.
cover it in paint.
rub against canvas.
skull against canvas.

add on novel mini addition

Previous chapters down yonder, I'll link to them when I'm feeling less lazy.

CHAPTER 5.1

Yes, this was definitely my funeral. And there's my cousin....

And what is that scratching my nose.... it seems to be a hand...
Dah! get it away!

Nothing happens... I open my mouth to speak and in a strange voice I say, "come now, lets go home."

Very very strange. I would have never guessed from the movies that this is what it would feel like to be... uh, haunting someone, if that's what I'm doing.

I'm fat.

And sweating.

I wish I could be nervous or something but I can't. But I feel...

The strange voice again; "I'm starving lets go get some burritos."

I like pictures

pictures that k doesn't like. Thank you to Je Suis for the linkage.

Poetic Aesthetic

EDITED

First let me put a link here: Keri

Before I said something that wasn't really true, that I prefer her prose to her poetry, where it's really just a mater of my mood.

Too many thoughts to try to parse them out coherently here... here are a couple of poems that hopefully do part of the job for me. They were written on the day that the US attacked Iraq.

Our Poetry, My Love, is Death

How today can I write to you
who know my mind without words?

In this jarring age, can I
express, with our shared
lexicon, the beauty I witness in you?

"Mission: Endurring Love" (around the clock coverage!)


"Showdown in LoveTown!"

or perhaps

"Target: LOVE"

Simple words mask our
profound horrors,
Our poetry, my love, is death.

Words have become brutal instruments
of death.
Language no longer reveals or shares
it scabs festering lies and death.

In it's ennui it is death and
even in extremity it is banal:
How many who shit and fuck and bleed
can be erased with one callous
Euphemism: "collateral damage."

So hold me, and listen to my body.
My warmth against your skin.
Confesses one shared future together.
Share your lips, and share with me
what can never be made an act of
war.

Postlude to "Our Poetry:" a Pastoral Dance

In your eyes, my love I see death,
and on your lips I taste it.
And though your breath is sweet
my love, it's daggers to me and death.

And all about your smooth white skin
(which almost seems too white)
is wrapped a chain of skulls my dear
(a chain of endless night.)

And on your fine white clothing love
(which almost seems too fine)
are tiny hand prints, see them love--
much smaller than yours or mine?

I see them hold hands with death as they sew,
(hands with death as they sew!)

And we too hold tight their frail wrists
(as we sow and reap)
and 'round the world the chain goes...

Ah, thank the lordy it's spring break!

And I'm done with teaching for a week. The last week or so I feel like I've been hanging from the sanity tree by my teeth. Right now I've been learning music for a concert in April, programming a sort of recital at my college, working on some ideas with spectral analysis and teaching and it's just too much.

I think I'm going to pretty up some pictures of voices because I think it's really interesting. I've really learned to literally see the beauty in voices... this week I intend to post some explanations of what I mean....

I murdered my ex wife, what did you do?

The place: Federal maximum security penitentiary. Even through the dim lighting you can see the grime and grease-stained floors-- rusted bars.

The dark figures of hardened criminals rise and swarm around the new addition to their cell. They swagger and strut menacingly with the body language of sharks surrounding their pray.

Inmate one: Fresh meat on deck boys!

(sounds of laughter. The new guy, LUCKYMORTAL sits quietly but intensely, unmoved by the taunts of the other criminals)

Inmate two: Well, fresh meat, you gonna tell us your name?

Luckymortal doesn't respond, he just continues to sit in silence.

Inmate two: You hear me fresh meat?! I'm talkin' t'you! Why, I ought ta rip you up, just like I did that stupid....

Inmate three: that's right, "Sharkey" here, he killed his mail carrier. Ripped her apart with his bare hands! (some more laughter. Inmate three continues quietly in a raspy voice:) Me, I killed my wife. Stabbed her sixteen times in that black pit she called a heart. What did you do to get here fresh meat? Go on and confess your sins before we mop up the floor in here with your worthless hide!

(finally, luckymortal rises slowly, his face just inches away from the other inmate's. He doesn't flinch, staring at him with his soulless eyes. He spits on the floor. Them slowly and calmly, his hardened voice rasping:

Luckymortal: I conjugated a verb in front of some mexicans

commotion ensues, the other prisoners recoil with shocked expressions of horror. Luckymortal curls his lip with a menacing snear and laughs a cold evil laugh....

This blog drama brought to you by HR 4437, which would criminalize helping undocumented immigrants in any way: including teaching them English. The bill would make such violations of immigration law "aggravated felonies"-- a category usually reserved for the most violent crimes like premeditated murder and rape.

Music Brain Again

Well, I'm finally feeling better....
but now I'm all up in music brain again and I can't write anything.

A little more on immigration policy:

Firstly, I have to say that I am for a stronger immigration policy of some kind. I think that our current immigration status is dangerous for the American economy for the same reason that out-sourcing is; it turns us into a banana republic. It is a continuation of the ruinous policy of allowing an American elite to sell off our Autarky for personal profit. The end result is predictable and disastrous.

However, the proposed bill 4437 is soulless and cruel and would only push us further down the road to a Argentinean style economy.

This bill is the very definition of fascist economics. It would punish victims (small businesses-- the victims of our national economic policy of destroying small business, and immigrants) while appealing to nationalistic sentiment. It's main goal is to hinder small local businesses while helping big-business, further concentrating wealth in the hands of the ultra-wealthy-- the definition of fascist economics....

Just plain bad news.

Immigration Law

(Written with help from my English Students)

All over the country, Americans of all colors are coming out to protest a new “anti-immigration” law. The law: HR 4437 the Hastert/Sensenbrenner “Border Protection, Antiterrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act” is intended to make America safer. However many people say that the bill will do little to make America safer, and do much to hurt immigrants tourists and the American way.
The new law has already passed in the House of Representatives, and Republicans are trying to pass the law quickly in the Senate, before there is any debate.
Here are some parts of the new law:
 It will be illegal for any person, organization or agency to aid illegal immigrants in any way. If the bill is passed, services like doctors, free English Classes, and shelters and even churches could be used to put illegal immigrants in prison.
 It will make immigration laws “aggravated felonies.” The term Aggravated felony” is usually for the most violent crimes like intentional murder and rape.
 The bill will change the “Burden of Proof.” In the United States, a person is considered innocent until proven guilty. The new law will make the immigrant responsible for proving that he or she is here legally.
 Local governments and police will be given the right to take care of immigrants as they want to without the courts getting involved. All government agencies (even the fire department and hospitals) will be required help find illegal immigrants.
 The government can deport even legal immigrants for minor crimes. These minor crimes will be classified as “aggravated felonies” and will have harsh penalties.
 700 miles of border fence .
 Mandatory worker legal verification through electronic means for all employers phased in over several years.
 Elimination of the visa lottery.
If you want to do something about this law, you can write to your Senators. Also there will be a March against H.R. 4437 - Friday, March 10th at noon at the Federal Plaza (Kluczynski Building), 230 S. Dearborn St. When: 2 p.m. - 5 p.m.
Come join immigrants from all over the nation in a historic march this Friday, March 10th at 12 noon! We need to send a message to the nation!

Light blogging

a little longer. I've been feeling a little under the weather. I hope to be back to it by the weekend.

Trogdor Rogers!

Ah, a nice romantic evening at home....

Wait, it's quality time that's important, right?

Dick Cheney Ninjas karate chopping our children-- oh the humanity!

An interesting (and looong) article on government intervention in violent video games atIGN.COM And a discussion of the article at slashdot.

Everyone today is worried about violence in the media. "Too many Ninjas karate chopping robots." But worst of all, our children are now pretending to be ninjas karate choppng robots and the fancy graphics of modern video games make their kung fu antics very realistic. And many are now crying out to ban these games, or at least take strong actions to keep them away from children.

As the article points out, Censorship is not new. But let me add a little music history perspective to the discussion. Ancient Greece was a pretty boring place to be: No ninjas. No robots. But even back then, the likes of Plato (in Republic) advocated for censorship of certain music "modes" because the were too... (drum roll please)...

"non violent."

That's right Plato led an effort which actually ended in certain city states (sparta- but not plato's native athens) passing laws to ban certain music modes because they were too gentle and might make young men too "soft" and "sentimental" and hence utterly useless in war.

This leads me to the conclusion that we're missing the whole point of violence in media-- it's not good, it's not bad-- it's about pragmatics. All media has a certain effect-- well, what kind of effect do you want to have? Not good or bad-- it's about skillful use of media or unskillful use of media. The US government has certainly come to the same conclusion. If you ever wanted clear proof that our culture has deteriorated into a sort of comic-book, Science fiction, Klingon-war-society then check out the US Army page here

That's right, the maker of the two most popular extreme violence video games today is the US Government.

Hmm, so what kind of society do we want to have? To me, the effects of violent media are horrible for our society, and according to psychologists, the effects are the same on adults as they are on children!

But are more laws the answer? Well, although the US has fewer protections for consumers and workers than any other western nation, it has more outlawed behaviors than any other country in the world (accept in some people's opinions the few countries with strict sharia law-- though this is debated!) Gee, with fewer freedoms (to act freely and freedom from government intervention in our lives) than any country you might start getting the idea that we arn't the beacon of freedom we say we are. So lets not make "the terrorists", who "hate freedom," jealous by throwing yet another freedom on the fire.

Yet again, my solution is that people need to be taught to take responsibility for the state of their minds, and to understand how our minds actually work. People need to be pragmatic about how we keep the state of our minds-- do you want to walk around all the time with our fight or flight mechanism turned on? Do we want our children to do that too?

So how does violent media effect us? Here are the best parts of the article: (keep in mind that the results for violent to and movies is Double that of video games, and the amount of time spent with these media increases the effect hugely!)


Playing videogames with aggressive content does have an effect on children, teens, and adults. In children and teens, several results are associated with exposure to aggressive videogames.

First, youth experience an increase in arousal that suggests an increase in tension that may contribute to aggressive behavior.

Second, youth engage in more aggressive thinking about others and changes their attitudes toward people as they emerge from play more likely to believe that others are interested in harming them.

Third, play diminishes the level of empathy that kids have for other people.

Fourth, play has an effect on the amount of aggressive behavior demonstrated in verbal aggression, teasing, and some physical aggression by increasing the frequency of these actions...

Finally, playing and viewing does desensitize people to aggressive images and the impact of aggression on others. After play and viewing, children are much less distressed by images of characters being hurt or killed, and, given their reduced empathy, more likely to engage in aggressive behavior against others.

Got Voice?

I recently attended a performance a friend was in, and he asked me for some advice on singing from a voice teacher perspective. So I rather quickly hatched out an email and then I realized that (amazingly) what I had written communicated my philosophy on studying voice pretty clearly. So I decided to reprint parts of it here. I intend to improve on this in the future, but....




If you want to work on your singing, here's what I'd have to say: "don't WORK on your singing." Many people think in terms of "vocal problems" and such, and this is a very ruinous way of thinking. Don't try to fix anything or change anything, don't try to "project," and especially don't try to "sing forward"-- then you lose the special qualities that make your voice unique. Besides this, by over analyzing, we only get in our own way-- read "the inner game of tennis" or "a soprano on her head" by Elois Ristad-- Your Language Brain is quite separate from the parts of your brain that you want involved in your singing That is unless your trying to learn to conjugate "the hill are alive". A great singer will approach singing the same way a great athlete would-- with visualization. And the other parts of your brain will do quite well at improving your voice if you just get out of the way and let them.

Firstly, for this to happen, your voice has to have it's own natural balance, so always try to find the relaxed and easiest effortless way to sing. Listen to the tone of your voice and imagine it as beautiful as you can. Listen to good singing and let it have an imagined visual footprint in your head-- what does a good voice "look" like? By doing this, you're allowing all of your brains resources to get involved in your voice progress. And most importantly, sing often-- and sing with a vivid imagination. Learn to visualize your own voice the way you visualize other voices.... Slowly, your voice will start to look like the voices you consider beautiful (and sound like them too) without loosing the characteristics that make it unique.

But you should also pick good models for you to listen to.... Right now I'm doing research with spectral analysis and voice types.... You know that every sound we hear is actually a composite of different pitches... well these pitches are different for different voice types. And some of these things are unchangable. This is at least my future thesis, and my research thus far bears it out. You can imitate a different voice type, but from the stage, it will always sound like your voice, because you can't get the right harmonic response....

Male voices have four formants (or main pitches that make up the sound). The first is the actual pitch you are singing. The second has to do with making different vowel sounds. The third adds a feeling of space in the voice. The fourth formant is called "the singers formant" and it is really a combination of the fourth fifth sixth and seventh formants. This is ring in the voice, but it's different for tenors, baritones and bases. Tenors for example have a lot of ring in the fifth sixth and seventh formants, whereas bases have all of the energy concentrated in the fourth formant, with almost no energy in the fifth and above this is what makes a voice dark and bassy. This is my voice. I can try to sound like a tenor, and it works up close, but I can not generate energy above the Fourth formant, so from the stage I always sound like a bass-- a bass doing a bad imitation of a tenor!

So basically, just relax and sing, and don't worry too much (at this point) about changing anything. Just build your ear and your imagination. And enjoy singing.