Singing Lessons
I’m still here, and so is the pandemic. No real news to speak of since my last post except that fateful, sure-to-be-full-of-drama November draws e’er closer, and, even faster approaching, the return of the boys to virtual school after this non-summer bummer of a summer. On Friday I ventured out to a salon for a haircut, and, both of us naturally masked, my stylish stylist Nadine (whom I hadn’t seen since January) and I commisserated over the strange year. She’s lost half her clientele to to fear of going out, and my freelancing has dropped off a cliff, but at least we’re both still here, and I got a decent haircut and she got paid.
This June blog post aside, since I don’t usually interview people just for kicks (“Hey Beth, can I call you up and interview you? No, it’s not for any publication or anything, I’m just bored”), it was time to take up a hobby. Besides having maintained a 141-day streak to date learning Dutch on Duolingo, what better hobby than…singing? I’m not planning a stage career at this stage, or anything other than maybe doing karaoke night at the local boozer when karaoke nights become a thing again who knows when, but it also has to do with — I don’t know, wanting to get inside the music and see what it feels like? I might describe myself as “just a nice Jewish boy from New York who likes music a little too much,” but that doesn’t completely do justice to my addiction; I’ve played records, listened to the radio and gone to concerts since I’ve been old enough to do so, and since age 19 or 20 or so I’ve regularly interviewed musicians both celebrated and not so much, for a variety of print and online media. But do I really know music? And what better way to get to know music than to make some?
Oh, I’ve tried playing instruments since childhood. Clarinet, guitar, drums. But it always came back to the voice. I’ve always enjoyed trying my larynx at imitations, accents, languages, and of course singing. It was play. But it was time to take a deeper journey, to put my mouth where my mouth was. So last February, I signed up at a local music school. The instructor I chose is a smart, cheerful lady about my age — let’s call her Marieke — who performed in various Austin-area bands in the ’80s and ’90s, and though our musical tastes only partially align, which is fine, she’s encouraging and gives me good advice on how to get through a song without sounding like I don’t know what I’m doing (one would hope). I don’t think she thinks I’m wasting my time. Due to the you-know-what the lessons soon switched to Zoom, but aside from a slight time delay, adjustment was painless.
The thing most shower-and-car-only singers don’t understand about professional singing, which involves powering through a song all the way and then moving on to another one, is how hard it is. There are words to memorize, beats to sit inside, rules to follow.
Sit in the beat. It’s acting. Take on a character for three and a half minutes, then do another one. Follow what’s on the page. Legato, legato! Practice singing lightly, get familiar with the tune, get in bed with it. Don’t go too high. Don’t go too low. Be yourself. No, be the song. Think like a musician. Wait, how do I do that? You already know. Trust the force, Luke. You know, I’m not much of a Star Wars guy. Don’t throw the lyrics away. Enunciate. Breathe. Learn how to breathe. Relax. Act it out. Lighten up during the verses, rock out more in the chorus. Dynamic contrast! Articulate. Watch your phrasing. Drop your jaw on the high notes.
During times of grief and loss, I was a kitchen singer. I’d print out a lyric sheet and belt out a song just to myself, for myself, in the kitchen. It helped process it all, I think.
Donna, the first Mrs. Pogoer, encouraged me in my singing. Laura, the second Mrs. P, also encourages me.
Marieke and I started with the classics: “On the Street Where You Live” (first attempting Nat King Cole’s version, then Dean Martin’s which was more in my range, A flat, but I preferred Nat’s style), “Mona Lisa,” “Three Coins in the Fountain,” then Sinatra with “Witchcraft” and “Fly Me to the Moon,” and “Skylark” à la the immortal Rosemary Clooney. On Marieke’s suggestion I tried Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” which exercised my high range (though I never cared much for Elton’s style or Bernie’s lyrics, not in the ’70s and not now). I then moved forward into the ’60s: the Kinks’ “Where Have All the Good Times Gone” and the Beatles’ “In My Life,” then forward still: Nick Lowe’s “Heart,” and two from the late Adam Schlesinger: Fountains of Wayne’s “Utopia Parkway” and lately “What’ll It Be,” from one of my favorite TV shows, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Schlesinger, a talented, prolific and versatile songwriter, died on April 1 of COVID-19. Some of his songs contain references to Manhattan and the New York and New Jersey suburbs, territory I grew up in and around and know well. It’s material I relate to; maybe singing a couple of his songs is my way of paying tribute, even if I’m just practicing alone in my bedroom. I’m a critical audience. I know I need some work.
Thursday night, Laura and I watched a livestream concert from Brandy’s Piano Bar on East 84th in Manhattan. (Yes, even classic piano bars sometimes stray from the Great American Songbook, which is not a bad thing.) Before their turn at the mic, every singer sanitizes their hands and removes their mask. There’s plenty of Broadway melismatic showstopping, but also a fellow named Tommy McDowell who slays it with a credible cover of Amy Winehouse’s “You Know I’m No Good.”
Run out to meet you, chips and pita
You say when we’re married ’cause you’re not bitter
There’ll be none of him no more
I cried for you on the kitchen floor
So what have I learned from singing? What do I think I can learn from it? Why am I here doing that?
“So ya wanna come up here and sling it? Like to see ya try, Mr. Writer Guy. Ha.”
Hey! Not fair! I’ve got stage experience! I was in my high school drama club. A two-person play! And all those chorus roles! There was the time I got up in the school auditorium and auditioned by making up a song on the spot. Not saying it was a good song, but it was improv/brave/foolhardy at least. Something I’ve never talked about but it’s one of those memories in the back pocket that you pull out when you need to. And I’ve made speeches! I accepted an award for Austin Freecycle from the podium in a downtown hotel ballroom in front of the mayor and all kinds of highly dressed-up people! I know what it feels like when you’re in the groove, in your comfort zone, killing it out there. At least I think I do, I hope I do.
I think about when back in 2014 I interviewed Chrissie Hynde for the local paper and asked if she’d had any formal vocal training. This is what she told me: “Well, y’know, this is rock ’n’ roll. You can’t learn this stuff in school. It’s not a technical thing — you just listen to the radio and then copy it. I suppose if you were in theater or opera and you have to project certain ways, obviously there are technical abilities that some singers have to have, but not if you’re a rock singer.”
Oh, OK then. Who am I to argue?
Your body is your voice. Watch your finish. Don’t overdo your Rs. Sustain it to the end. Watch your range. You can do this. It CAN be sung. Stick in the register, push out the air. (Should I channel a bit of Gordon Lighfoot here?) Don’t overthink it. Just sing the f*****g song.
