Author Archives: Susan Mohini Kane

About Susan Mohini Kane

Susan Mohini Kane started North Star Voice in 2011 as place for singers to gain inspiration and information that help them navigate the treacherous and ever-shifting waters of their singing careers. SMKane is an active performer, blogger and college professor who keeps up with current trends in the field, ancient discipline & vocal pedagogy, and performance tips that connect singers with audiences.

Where’s my cheese?

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3D movie photo

Opera at the Movies

I cannot tell you how many conversations I’ve had in the past three years with classical musicians bemoaning the current state of the arts.  Someone has moved our cheese!  We are starving!  The instinct is to panic and run in circles and shout for more cheese.  They are right.  The cheese is gone.  As we face this new era of Youtube, Facebook, and iPads, we are finding that the audiences in actual opera houses and symphony halls are dwindling.  OK, so what?

If the cheese has moved, we’d better start hunting for it or we will actually starve.  It’s time to adapt or die – (didn’t Brad Pitt say that in Moneyball?).  When Peter Gelb came to the Met and introduced the HD live broadcast to movie theaters, there was a similar outcry.  It will ruin the art form! The quality will be lost! (We artists are so dramatic!)

The New York Times reported last week that the Met has made more in donations this year than any year in the past.  ANY YEAR!  That is in a recession!  Why?  Because he went out and found the cheese!  If the audiences are not coming into the opera house, why not take the opera out to them. NY Times Hits a High Note

The point is that Peter Gelb took a huge chance.  He endured a lot of criticism and he found the cheese – at least for this year!  He was able to balance his budget in large part due to the $11 million in profits that came from the HD Broadcasts, but most of the money came from very wealthy people who liked his idea.  So his was a two-pronged approach 1) if the audiences are not coming into the opera house, bring the opera to the people; 2) find donors who believe in the “democratization of opera” and get them to donate to the cause.

How does this affect the everyday singer?  Money (or cheese) can come from anywhere.  Lowering ticket prices helped Gelb find money.  How can the average classical singer adapt to find her cheese?  Ultimately it was generosity and good will that brought in the millions.  It was a cause that people could get behind.  And it was implemented with the power and confidence required to take a big risk.

On the level of the artist as entrepreneur, each individual singer can define herself as the CEO of her own company: Herself the Great Soprano Incorporated.  The company needs a product, a team, a cause, and the ability to take risks.  What can this company do to make the world a better place either in the product offered or in the method of delivery?  The Met brought live opera to the people in movie theaters and made the world a better place by doing so.  In turn, they also made a lot of money.  It was a win-win!  What can you do?

An Irish Inspiration

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I’m here in Europe for a few weeks sharing my music with audiences and passersby.  A short and solitary visit to my ancestral land of Great Britain took me to Northern Ireland, where I met local musicians at a country pub.  Two men with tattoos and muscled necks, not young, sat at the bar.  A lone American woman in search of my first taste of Guinness, I wandered in at the suggestion of my country guesthouse concierge and took a seat at the bar.

The little pub went quiet upon my arrival, but soon was buzzing again with friendly people who asked me questions and teased me about ordering a pint of Guinness. There were such witticisms as “We hate the stuff, but we don’t have to drink it, we’re Irish”, and “Maybe you should have ordered a half pint for your first time.”  No, I didn’t like the Guinness, and my new friends jovially offered to buy me my preferred drink of Diet Coke.  But beverages aside, the conversation was all about music.  My new tattooed friends, John and Kenny, were tough looking single dads who work in a local factory and have a band called J & K.  They play American country music with some Irish music on the weekends.

I was inspired by their passion for the music.  As they spoke about it, their eyes softened and their voices sweetened as if remembering a dream.  I was sad that I was leaving the next day because they had a gig in a small nearby town.  I wanted to hear them play.  As I left the pub, the toughest looking one said, “As I told my wee one, if you have music, you’ll always be alright.”  I agree.

Heading back towards the airport the next day, I had one night to spend in Dublin. I wanted to hear some real Irish music but didn’t have time to search around too much.  I decided to join Dublin’s Musical Pub Crawl. (http://www.discoverdublin.ie/musicalpubcrawl/mpcvideos.htm) Touristy, I know, but it was highly recommended and since there was a soccer match between France and Ireland that night, I thought the musical pubs would be a little less crowded.

I got lucky!  The Pub Crawl was lead by two amazing Irish musicians who took us to two very quiet pubs and really taught us about Irish music while playing examples.  I have posted a couple of videos from my flip cam for your listening pleasure.

At the end of the night, they made what they called “The Noble Call.” In Irish music, they believe that everyone has a song to sing and that it is your duty to share your song, no matter how well you sing.  So at the end of an Irish music session, the paid musicians go out for a beer and leave the audience alone, waiting for one crazy person to launch into a song.  It is considered rude to interrupt so everyone listens and sings along if they know the refrain.  Then another person offers a song, and another, until late into the night.  The musicians come back and join in too.

They did the Noble Call at our session and I decided to be the crazy person to start it.  I sang a song my grandmother taught me called Mockingbird Hill.  A newlywed couple sang a song about a hurricane party in New Orleans and another woman sang a song she had written about slavery in America. People really shared and even those who didn’t sing appreciated it. It was colorful and fun.  I could feel that more people wanted to sing but decided not to for some reason.  Regret.

I am a singer.  I cannot deny that I am a singer, nor can I stop being one.  I love the stage and the power of singing to transform any situation into light.  I am the dreamer of dreams.  I am the bringer of beauty.  I answer the noble call and share myself with others through singing.

If you have a song, sing it every day.  In fact, it is your duty to find your song and to sing it.  Sharing a part of yourself with others through singing is a safe and lovely way to change the world for the better.  It is an Irish inspiration…

Belgian Inspiration

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The logo above was on the cover of the concert program for my first concert in Belgium.  A crowd of seventy lovely Belgian people heard our duo, Kristof & Kane, in Izegem. The logo is probably too small for you to read the quotes so I’ll write some of them for you here:

“We are the music makers and we are the dreamers of dreams.”

“Music, the beautiful disturbance of air.”

“Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.”

“Music is well said to be the speech of angels.”

“Without music, life would be a mistake.”

Such inspiring thoughts.

Flutist Ilse Vromans (www.ilsevromans.vpweb.nl) played with our duo and also offered some pieces with piano and for solo flute.  We connected right away and I could tell that she was a kindred spirit the moment we began to play together.  Ilse also played with a band called Ishtar in Belgium.  After our rehearsal, she offered us free tickets to Ishtar’s concert in a nearby town.  Kristof and I went to the concert and were delighted by the band and its music.

Ishtar performs arrangements of love songs from many different ages and places.  Some of the languages, long dead, were brought back to life by the arranger and leader of this band, Michel Vangheluwe.  Michel was a double bass player in the Radio Orchestra of Belgium for twenty years.  He told us that he had found a book that changed his life.  It was a book of ancient love songs, all in the original languages and with German translations and explanations.  He read through this book of several hundred tunes and became inspired to bring them to life with instrumentalists and singers.  Thus was born Ishtar, a Babylonian love goddess and Belgian band. (www.ishtar.be)

In this form, Ishtar has nine heads and eighteen arms.  Yes, there are nine people in the band, which includes six instrumentalists who double on several instruments and three singers.  The music itself is ethereal, delightful, sweet, poignant, and simply beautiful.

The band won a large European competition in 2008, which launched its fame. They became successful enough for Michel to leave his position with the orchestra and do Ishtar full time. The day after our concert, Kristof and I were invited to join them for lunch in Brugge.  The conversation was wonderful.  We spoke about our individual visions of the purpose of art and music.  We each shared our experiences of performing, teaching, and trying to make a living with our music.

Above all, I was struck by how each of us believed that music’s beauty and power was unfaltering in the face of misunderstandings, difficult human relationships, and financial challenges. In fact, the music made those daily, ordinary human situations irrelevant.  None of us were young up-and-comers with stars in our eyes. We were all experienced, seasoned musicians whose lives bore witness to music’s gifts.

Again and again, I am awakened by the amazing power of music. When it appears in a musician’s heart, he can move not only himself but also everyone around him.  Michel obviously had many trials in his life, as we all do.  But the gleam and spirit in his eye, his soft heart, and his passion to keep making music no matter what were the overriding truths I walked away with.

Life is short.  Pain is inevitable.  Music soothes, uplifts, and makes this human life a paradise.

Audiences are Hardwired to be Moved by Your Singing

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The Effects of Entrainment & Mirror Neuron Responses

Have you ever been to a concert when an entire audience started clapping exactly to the beat?  Or, have you ever listened to a throaty singer and inexplicably felt tension in your throat?  Have you ever wondered why?  Everyone has these experiences, but we rarely think about why they exist. What causes them?

Responses like group clapping are caused by a phenomenon called entrainment.  Entrainment is an involuntary physical adjustment to an external rhythm.  The field of life sciences defines to entrain as: “to adjust an internal rhythm of an organism so that it synchronizes with an external cycle.” (thefreedictionary.com).  It is this crazy hard-wired response that makes us tap our feet to a steady rhythm! Continue reading →

Advice for Success in Graduate School

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Congratulations, Graduate!

Our little one is grown (sniff).  We are so proud of you.  You made it through all your courses, your senior recital, and successfully navigated your way through the labyrinth of grad check!  You’ve been accepted into a graduate school!  Congratulations again!!

As you enter graduate school, here are some words of wisdom for success from someone who REALLY knows. If you follow each point to the letter, then you will certainly have a great OPERATIC CAREER. Continue reading →

True Stories

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True Stories

Story #1

My friend just celebrated her birthday.  We had a party at her apartment around her pool.  I brought my ukulele so we could all sing if the spirit moved us.

Well, the spirit moved us right away.  I pulled out my uke and we started singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” in harmony.  We laughed, played, forgot words, and started over.  It was a party.  It was fun.

We noticed that some of the apartment dwellers overlooking the pool closed their windows.  Others came onto their balconies to check us out.  We ignored them all.  We were having a good time and no one asked us to stop. So we just sang and sang and laughed and laughed.

A couple of days later, my friend was doing her laundry and ran into one of her neighbors.  The neighbor stopped her and asked, “Were you out by the pool singing the other day?”  My friend sheepishly said, “Yeah, that was us.”  The neighbor went on, “I thought it was beautiful.  I’ve heard you practicing in your apartment, too.  I love that.  My mother just died. She was a singer, too.  We are looking for someone to sing at her memorial service and I wanted to see if you’d be interested.”

My friend will be singing at her neighbor’s mother’s memorial service for her regular fee.  Her neighbor will have a wonderful memory of her mother and my friend will have a professional gig that contributes to her community.

Story #2

A soprano who completed her master’s degree in classical music found herself relocated from Japan to Los Angeles.  Husband, child, cultural restrictions, modesty, or something else made her stop singing.  Life carried her away until she got breast cancer.  The ordeal left her longing for her singing.  One day she summoned up the courage and called me for a voice lesson.

She had to drive more than an hour to get to my studio, but she did it every other week for several months.  Singing made her feel alive again.  The original talent was still there, as was her voice.  As she got into shape, she needed an outlet, but was hesitant to sing in public again.

Then, in the same weekend, came her 50th birthday and the disastrous earthquake and tsunami in Japan!  These two events strengthened her resolve.  She planned a recital at her church as a benefit for Lutheran World Relief–Japan.

Her recital repertoire expressed her sadness and deep love for Japan.  As she was preparing for the recital, she found out that her husband had been transferred. Her family was moving back to Japan.

At first she was worried that she’d have to leave her singing behind again.  Luckily for us, SKYPE works between Tokyo and LA.

Her recital was last night. She sang like a pro, of course.  More importantly, she will sing the recital again in Japan as her re-introduction to her community after twenty years away.  She is back.

 

Have you got any true stories to share?

Hello Singerverse!

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Hello, Singerverse!

I’m Susan.  I’m a singer, I write this blog, and I’m a professor of voice.  If you’re a singer or hope to be one, this blog, North Star Voice, is for you.  Here’s what I believe:  birds gotta fly, fish gotta swim, and singers gotta sing. There are hundreds of thousands of us in the singerverse who are out there singing every day:

Tall ones, short ones, ones that sing off-key.

Fat ones, skinny ones, ones that sing high C.

Human ones, robot ones, and ones like you and me.

We’re in the subways, in the churches, in universities, nightclubs, recital halls, and opera houses. We’re amateurs, part-time pros, and full-time pros out there touring, headlining, and singing in the shower. We’re making millions by singing at the Met and La Scala, or making pennies waiting tables in East LA while taking lessons. We’re posting our performances all over YouTube, singing on street corners, and doing our senior recitals in college. Shows like Glee, competitions like American Idol, opera stars like Renée Flemming, singing sensations like Lady Gaga, amateurs turning professional like Susan Boyle, and YouTube sensations like Justin Bieber are inspiring more singers to join our ranks every day.

What does it feel like to be a singer?  Well, even with all those singers out there, it might feel like you are all alone, but you’re not. We’re here with you!  This blog, North Star Voice, is for you. North Star Voice is a community and resource for singers and voice teachers. In addition to the blog, we offer voice lessons, workshops, and forthcoming books on vocal pedagogy and career fields. We hope you find something here that will support you and inspire you in your singing.  Let us know what you need and we’ll try to help out.  Come back anytime.  You’re always welcome here.