Introduction

Here is the Crescendo Music Education Podcast – Episode 147.

This podcast is being recorded on the lands of the Turrbal people. I acknowledge them as the traditional owners of the land and pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging. They were the first music makers on this land.

About ‘Read the Episode’: Sometimes, we would rather skim visually than listen to a podcast! That’s a great way to learn too!
The transcript of episode 147 of The Crescendo Music Education Podcast is below.

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Debbie O’Shea 

Now most of the people who are listening now sing, at least in part, sing for a living, even if we’re not on stage. We sing all day, every day with our students and our choirs. So do you have some tips for our listeners around vocal health and hygiene?

Vocal Health and Hygiene

Kate Schirmer 

Yeah, absolutely. I’ve been lucky enough to do some workshops for educators and music educators in the past and I think a lot of what I say in those workshops still really stands for this. The first thing is that, if you are any type of teacher, even if you’re not a music teacher, you are a professional voice user and that means that if you have a pathology that means that you have done some damage to your voice, you will lose income because of that, or you will at least have to take lots of leave and all of that kind of stuff.

So it’s so, so important for us to recognise as teachers that our voice is our livelihood so we need to take care of it and ourselves seriously. Because, of course, our larynx is just a part of us, but it just happens to be quite a hard working part of us when we are in these sorts of professions. So the first thing I would say is just know your rights at school about things like amplification. So if you are working outside, or if you are working in noisy areas, you do have the right to ask your school for a little personal microphone.

That is not a sign of weakness, that is just smart and Adele doesn’t go out on stage and sing for three hours without a microphone. If you go and see Sister Act at QPAC, all of those singers are miked up. The only people who don’t do it are opera singers and even then, it depends on the show that they’re doing. So please don’t be afraid to ask for a mic if you need one and badger the school about it, because they have to give you one if you ask for one. The second thing that I would say is that there’s a few little things that you can have in your toolkit that will just make warming up and warming down a little bit easier. The first thing we always need for a healthy voice is hydration.

So whether that’s a personal steamer, like a Bosisto steamer that you use, or a nebuliser with some saline solution, just be careful about how hot the water is that you’re steaming. You should always have that water well off the boil. Also just maybe think about steaming and then having a break for a little bit before you actually start to talk or sing. Of course, water is really important too with your nebuliser, just making sure you use the right saline solution.

Kate Schirmer 

Hydration to the folds is absolutely important and sometimes as educators, I’m as guilty as anyone, we don’t drink enough water because we’re busy and we forget and then we wonder why our voice is tired at the end of the day. There is also a lot of good research that those semi occluded vocal tract exercises, which are all your buzzy exercises, lip trills and straw in water bubbles and those sorts of exercises, are just really beneficial for your vocal health and safety.

There’s lots of different versions that you can get a silicone straw, nice and wide in about 10 centimeters of water, just bubbling, bubbling, bubbling with sound, just through your range, is really, really beneficial between classes or before class or after. But you can also get, I’ve got one here, like a little fancy version, which is called the better voice vocal trainer, which is like a little kazoo type thing, which you can use as well. I’ll send you the name of that in case you want to put it on. There’s lots of gadgets and gimmicks, but some of them work better than others. Honestly, just a silicon or a metal straw in some water is a great place to start.

Then the other thing that I would say is that mostly for professional voice users, even if you’re singing a lot, even if you are doing Sister Act at QPAC, even if you’re Casey Donovan, the ratio of talking to singing in anyone’s life, you’re always going to talk more than you sing. So pay attention to the health of your speaking voice. Most pathologies come from inefficiencies in your speaking voice rather than in your singing voice. So we need to first of all, engage in periods of rest throughout the day. I call them vocal naps. That might be 15 minutes or 20 minutes while you’re in the car on the way home.

I know it can be really tempting to talk back to your podcast or to sing along with Defying Gravity at the end of a really long work day, but actually just closing down that voice completely for 20 minutes a couple of times a day is really, really beneficial, that little period of rest, if you are using your voice as much as any teacher does. So I have a little like moniker for that. So the three S’s, which is Steam, Straw and Shush or Steam, SOVT and Shush. It’s just all about that hydration, doing those little fitness kind of exercises and buzzes and then just a bit of shush a couple of times a day.

Debbie O’Shea 

The three S’s and everyone can remember that. I love it. I love it. Steam, Straw and Shush. I love it. The term vocal nap, gorgeous. I’m a little guilty of not looking after my voice as well as I should. The beautiful Wendy Rolls, who I’m sure you know.

Kate Schirmer 

Yes, I know Wendy.

Debbie O’Shea 

She gave me a straw. I’ve got a nice, fat silicon straw and it sits in a drawer. I’m sorry, Wendy, forgive me. Um, I’ve been meaning to start using it.

Kate Schirmer 

Now I’ve said it as well.

Debbie O’Shea 

Debbie, consider yourself told, okay. Tell me about steam though, because as someone who has only had minimal vocal tuition and as such I’ve sung in choirs and I’ve had little short lessons with some great people, but tell me about steam. Oh, look, I tend to rely on just sipping water.

Staying Hydrated

Kate Schirmer 

Which is honestly the best thing that you can do. So the benefit of steam or the nebuliser is that it’s just important to remember that when you take a sip of water, it’s not going anywhere near your vocal folds. It goes down your esophageal tube and if it went onto your vocal folds, you would cough and choke. It’s gone the wrong way, because your vocal folds are at the top of your airway. Yeah.

So when we hydrate, if we stay hydrated throughout the day, that’s good, because it means your whole body is hydrated and your vocal folds will be hydrated as well. The benefit of steam is because you are breathing in little droplets, they can go straight to your vocal folds without causing that choking sensation and they can sort of warm and moisten the vocal folds, which will then mean that there’s less friction when they’re vibrating and you’ll have a better time of it, basically.

The nebuliser does roughly the same thing. There are differences. Actually, there’s a wonderful speech therapist and singing teacher on Instagram called VocaLab and she has a really good explainer about the difference between steam and nebulisers that everyone can go and look up. That’s Elle Holiday VocaLab on Instagram.

Debbie O’Shea 

I will put the link in the show notes.

Kate Schirmer 

That was such a podcast thing to say Debbie, you’re a professional, love that. Yeah. So the benefit of steam is that you get that immediate hydration right onto the part that we want it to go to. So it’s a bit of a shortcut to hydration for a singer, it’ll also just warm and moisten all of your sort of nasal and oral passages, which is also a benefit. The only thing to watch with your steam is because you’re breathing in something that’s warm, it will cause, as with any sort of warm substance on your skin or on your tissue, it’ll just cause everything, like the blood vessels will kind of raise up a little bit.

So that’s why we sort of say, Do your steam and then 30-45 minutes gap to let everything sort of settle down a little bit and then teach your class or whatever. So you could do it at the beginning of your free period for example, just while you’re marking and doing the 20 million other things that I’m sure you have to do on your free period and then sort of go back into the classroom a little bit later on. But that’s the benefit of it.

Debbie O’Shea 

Thank you so much.

Kate Schirmer 

Does that make sense?

Debbie O’Shea 

Absolutely. I’m so happy I asked the question, because I think I’m quite happy to show my ignorance, because it really helped me. So that’s great. And the three S’s we’re going to remember that. I can see a poster. We need to do a little poster with the three S’s.

Kate Schirmer 

I mean, I should say I’m such a bower bird and I don’t know if I actually made that up, or if I stole it from someone else. I always try and shout out if I did, but I’ve at least sort of, I can at least sort of say that I use it all the time, so thank you if I did steal it, I can’t remember. I might have adapted it.

Debbie O’Shea 

Now let’s go to choir, because there are some people and also possibly keeping in mind, if you’re working with adults and young adults, you might have a little bent towards that sort of repertoire, but have you got a few choral pieces that come to mind that you really love?

Kate’s Favourite Choral Pieces

Kate Schirmer 

Oh my gosh, absolutely, yes, I do. I’ll start with music theater sort of stuff, or that sort of style. When I started looking at this question, I realised what an emo I am, because so many of mine were like these kind of meaningful, slow pieces and I do have a bit of a bend towards that. But anyway, there is a beautiful song by Jason Robert Brown, who is a music theater composer he wrote The Last Five Years and Songs for a New World and Parade. But this is a stand alone song and it’s just called Hope and there’s a beautiful four part arrangement. Actually, I wrote this down so I didn’t forget. Where’s my little document? Because I just thought I’d get the arranger for folks as well.

Debbie O’Shea 

Again, I think we need to put these things you mention, we’ll put them in the show notes. So people can go to my website, crescendo.com.au, and they find the podcast page and it’ll be there for them.

Kate Schirmer 

So it’s arranged by Mark Brymer, who does a lot of really nice arrangements. So you can actually get it in lots of different part arrangements as well, so an SSA or a SAB or an SATB. But it’s just got the most beautiful words, it was written just after the current president of the United States was elected the first time and it was a reaction to that. The words are “I come to sing a song about hope. I’m not inspired”.

Now I’ve forgotten it, but even so, I came out here to sing a song. So here I go. I guess I think that if I tinker long enough, one might appear and look, it’s here. The work has begun. And it’s sort of that thing of singing and creating art, even when it doesn’t feel easy. And it’s such a meaningful, beautiful piece. I’ve done it with a few different groups and I just adore it. There’s also, in the same kind of vein, the revival of Godspell has this beautiful song in it called Beautiful City, which is in the original, if you like me, were brought up on daggy Christian musicals.

There is one in the 1970s film version, but it’s very like up tempo but the one in the revival is a ballad and there’s a beautiful arrangement of that, which is arranged by Mack Huff. Same sort of vibe. I did it a couple of years ago at summer school actually and I just really, really love it. In terms of pop music, oh my gosh, I’ve done so many cool things. At the moment my choir is doing, I’m going to mispronounce this because I’m really old.

The artist is spelled L, a, u, f, e, y and I keep calling them Le Fey but every time I do that, my choir looks at me like I’m definitely getting it wrong. Now I come on a podcast and I have not looked up how to pronounce their name, but anyway, she is an Icelandic artist who may or may not be called Le Fey and we’re doing this cute little Bossa Nova at the moment called From The Start and that’s been lots and lots of fun to do. That’s a bit of an up tempo one.

The other one that I thought I’d just shout out is your friends and mine, Pete Churchill’s, Diamonds and Crystals. Now I’ve used that so much at workshops and in my own choir. What I love about that piece is that you can just mess with it, you can put anything, anywhere and you can create your own version of it. It’s really sort of like alive and you can do it with any groups, doesn’t matter who they are, and build all those gorgeous harmonies and do the canon. You can chuck an ostinato in there, if you want to. I love that kind of music.

Debbie O’Shea 

Yes, yes. It sounds like a primary school teacher’s dream on a higher level.

Kate Schirmer 

Absolutely.

Debbie O’Shea 

Because that’s the sort of repertoire we love to play around with, with the primary kids. Yeah, it’s the adult equivalent, isn’t it?

Kate Schirmer 

Absolutely.

Debbie O’Shea 

Actually, Pete Churchill, who I haven’t thought about his music for so long because I don’t work with that age group. Do you know I’ve done a bit Pete Churchill with upper primary, but anyway, not for a long time. It leads us to the next thing I wanted to mention, which was favourite composers?

Kate’s Favourite Composers

Kate Schirmer 

Oh, I had fun with this one too. Well, actually, I categorised it because I’ll start with music theater, seeing as that’s kind of where I work mostly and look boring as heck. But honestly, the best teacher that I have ever had as a singer, as a musician, as an educator, is Stephen Sondheim and I will love his music until the day that I die. What I love about his music is that you think of Sondheim and you think of all those spiky kind of melodies and those sorts of things. But honestly, no one captures that balance between the lyrics and the music like Sondheim does. Some of my favourite pieces of his are so simple, something like Anyone Can Whistle, is a really simple, approachable song that just packs such an emotional punch. I think all the educators will like this.

One of my favourite lyrics in all of music theater is in Into The Woods and it’s the witch and she says, “You’re so nice, you’re not good, you’re not bad, you’re just nice. I’m not good, I’m not nice, I’m just right”. I love that, such a wonderful, pithy kind of line and when you’re sitting in your next staff meeting you can think about that one. So, so fantastic. But I also wanted to shout out, there is so much great music theater that’s happening in Australia at the moment. I wanted to shout out some female composers who I love, who are Australian. Yve Blake is one, she wrote a musical called Fangirls, which is one of the best things I’ve ever seen.

I am quite obsessed with it. It’s so Australian, it’s so funny, it’s so poignant and just brilliantly written. I think Kate Miller-Heike is doing some fantastic work as well. I love what she’s done with Muriel’s Wedding particularly. Then there’s another like crop that’s coming through, Laura Murphy who did The Lovers, Gillian Cosgriff who’s just starting to do some really interesting stuff. She does a lot of comedy as well.

Then, of course, you’ve got Eddie Perfect and Tim Minchim, we’ve just got a lot of really exciting stuff happening in Australia music theater at the moment. I don’t think we think of ourselves as being a nation of musical theater yet, but I reckon we’re finding our voice in that in that area and it’s really, really cool, really exciting. And I mentioned Jason Robert Brown before, he would be my other favourite music theater composer I would say.

Kate Schirmer 

In terms of classical, my husband is the classical music fiend in this house and in terms of instrumental, oh, there’s lots, there’s lots of fantastic stuff, but I always go to the vocal. So I’m just going to go to the vocal. The stuff that I’ve always loved to sing is that romantic era stuff. So the Reynaldo Hahn pieces and early 20th century as well, Richard Strauss I just adore his Lever. Also Samuel Barber would be the other one that I always come back to.

If I did have to name an instrumental piece, again I’m being super emo, but Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings just gets me like every damn time, it’s so beautiful. Then I thought I’d also throw out my favourite, like songwriters. My favourite pop songwriters as well, because that’s a really important part of my life also. The first one, I just think he’s one of the best musicians that the world has ever seen and the best songwriters that the world has ever seen and that’s Paul Simon. I grew up with Paul Simon in my house and no one writes a song like that guy.

He is such a poet and such a treasure. I’m kind of a fiend for just any piano based pop. So Ben Folds would be another really important musician to me. Tim Freedman from The Whitlams. If Jennifer Teh is listening to this, she will giggle when she hears that, because we’ve been to many a Whitlams gig together and people like Fiona Apple and Tori Amos and Regina Spektor would be on that list as well. All just fantastic songwriters in their own right. But yeah, you will note that they’re all very piano based pop, which is kind of my bag, because I love bashing, bashing on the piano and singing.

Debbie O’Shea 

You’re allowed to have a bag.

Kate Schirmer 

Yeah.

Debbie O’Shea 

Be proud of your bag.

Kate Schirmer 

Yeah, exactly and I am indeed.

Debbie O’Shea 

Fabulous. There’s lots I need to look up there too. We’re up to nuggets of fabulous. It’s my favourite. I love my nuggets of fabulous. So any tips? Well, you’ve already given us tips and tricks and ideas, but let’s see if you’ve got some more up your sleeve for us.

Nuggets of Fabulous!

Kate Schirmer 

I’m going to give you some more of my three things. I’ve given you my 3 S’s. One thing that I think that people get a little bit wrong with their singing practice is that they are not mindful enough about what’s what. I think that we sometimes consider a warm up to be sort of this big, long, arduous thing that we have to do for ages and it feels like I’m going to warm up by doing 15 minutes of yoga and then I’m going to do this, and then I’m going to go into my vowel shapes and my onsets and whatever. I do all of that, of course, but an actual vocal warm up does not have to take you an hour and a half or 30 minutes. It’s really just three elements that you have to get back into alignment.

A lot of us are sort of partially in alignment with it, because we’re doing stuff throughout the day, but we just have to zone in and find some balance in it. So I think a good vocal warm up is the three B’s. You want to get your Body right, so doing some myofascial release and some massage, checking your alignment, checking that you’re feeling grounded, all of those sorts of things. Then you’re going to do your Buzz, which is another word for your straw, or your semi occluded vocal tract exercise.

Sorry, that’s the last one. So it’s the Body, then it’s your Breath. You need to make sure that your breath is feeling connected. So you might do some accent method exercises, like you’re sss sss sss on the floor or that sort of thing. Or you might do some you might do some yoga breath work, taking a breath in and releasing and creating some of those stretches that way. Then you’re going to do your Buzz and you’re going to make sure that you’ve brought blood flow and stretching to those areas that need it.

That’s really your warm up, is your Body, Breath and Buzz. Then you go into what I call in my studio, the setup, and that’s a lot more for the task. What are you doing? What are you trying to sing? Are you going to sing an aria? Well, you’re probably going to want to do some balancing of your vowel shapes, some simultaneous onsets, some long scales and breath groups and making the sound even and all of that kind of stuff. But if you’re going to be singing a music theater song, like a patter song.

You’re going to need to do some articulation exercises. You’re going to have to get everything nice and loose here. You’re going to need to find your speech quality and find the right placement for that. So I think warm up and set up are two really different things. A warm up can be quite consistent, but a setup needs to be a bit more mindful and a bit more for the task. So that’s my little nugget of fabulous.

Debbie O’Shea 

It sounds to me like within a rehearsal then, if I’m understanding this correctly, you may have several setups.

Kate Schirmer 

I absolutely have several. So for my choir, last night we’re learning The Ballad of Sweeney Todd at the moment. So we definitely did lots of articulation exercises to get ready for that as part of our setup. We did some physical things, like putting our little Dr Evil finger in to make our tongue work a little bit harder, rather than our jaw, all of those different bits and pieces.

Then, of course, we also did some exercises where we just made some soundscapey, sort of discordant chords so that they were ready aurally for that in Sweeney, it’s not all sort of just happy majors and minors and that sort of thing. So yeah, I think as choral directors, it’s great to have lots of tools in your toolbox in terms of your setup exercises, so that you can draw upon that for the group that you’re working with.

Debbie O’Shea 

Yes, but then later in the rehearsal, you might be working on a piece that’s a completely different style. Do you have to do another setup?

Kate Schirmer 

Exactly, so then you do a little setup for the next one. Yeah, exactly right. You got it in one Absolutely.

Debbie O’Shea 

I love that. I like thinking of that separately, because I just did a little session. I should send it to you, except that you might critique it too much.

Kate Schirmer 

Oh no.

Debbie O’Shea 

I did a session for some people overseas and it talked about warm ups and what its purpose was and some ideas. But I love thinking of the warm ups and the setup as the two different things. I love it.

Kate Schirmer 

Yeah, they partner together. But I would say that I often do a similar kind of warm up, stretches, breath work and then some semi occluded and they might be different semi occluded to keep it interesting, but then we will always do something that prepares us for what we’re going to sing and then we work into the repertoire from there.

Debbie O’Shea 

Thank you. I love that and the three B’s.

Kate Schirmer 

I do that in my studio too, like in my one on one, same thing. Yeah.

Debbie O’Shea 

Love it, love it. And the 3B’s for the warm up, love it. Now let’s get onto advocacy, like it is my little personal hobby horse. Most people know that I’ve been fighting very hard for the existence of music education in primary schools and we all do need to fight for our position, which is quite terrible that we have to, but in various ways, we all have to. So any advice that you would have around advocacy for music education generally?

Advocating for Music Education

Kate Schirmer 

Well, it’s interesting, because I now work in tertiary music education and I just notice so much, like I was saying before there’s definitely such a broad spectrum of quality of music education. I know that it depends where you go to school and it depends what town you grew up in and all of those kinds of things and what I want to see is for music to be, we talk so much about STEM, but we need to be talking about STEAM. We all know that, you know the arts, the research is in, the data is in. We know that the arts affect all of the other learning. So how do we fight for it?

Well, first of all, we have to have strong communities and we have to speak to each other and lift each other up as educators and artists and activists, that’s where our professional bodies do become really, really, really important. What we always need is new blood going into those groups, keeping things fresh and encouraging that next generation to keep flowing up and through.

Because a big problem and I know this, I’ve been on lots of committees Debbie and burnout is real. Um, so mentoring and training up that next group to take over and then for their ideas and their energy to carry it forward and forward. That’s a big, important thing. The second thing is that we cannot let music become the optional extra and that means that we actually do have to see music, singing, art, making art, art consumption as a political act, as a radical act.

That means that we can’t let up on our elected officials on this one. We do have to write the letters and sign the petitions and it’s really exhausting, because of all the reasons that I’ve just talked about, because the data is in, because we know that we’re right, but as soon as we, as a community of educators, let up they’re going to take a mile.

We give them an inch, they’ll take a mile. So every time you see a story about an arts program shutting down, every time that you see something where our worth is being eroded, like the music therapy debacle recently, get involved. It doesn’t take much to sign that petition. It doesn’t take much to reach out to your music therapist friends and say, “I’m here. I got you. I know that this is important” and don’t let your foot off the pedal, because we won’t get there till we get there.

Debbie O’Shea 

Yes, yes. I agree and we can’t sit by. It’s like bullying. If you stand by and do nothing, don’t you dare complain, if you’re not going to put your money where your mouth is and take an action, even if it is sharing a post. That music therapy one was a good illustration. I didn’t do a lot, but I signed the petition and I shared the post to a few people and a few groups and if everybody did that, like not everyone can be the main mover shaker, but you also can’t just be a, not an observer. You can’t just be the audience member.

That’s not the write word I’m after. The bystander, that’s the word I’m after. You can’t be bystanders. And if everybody did their bit, that would make the difference. I love the fact that you talked about the professional associations. It’s not just about getting in and being part of it. It’s helping to raise others up, so that, absolutely, when you leave that committee, you can proudly go I’m just so pleased I had a part in training the next generation who’s carrying the torch.

Kate Schirmer 

That’s right and that means, I think, for us, the arts can be perceived as being full of individual ego and that’s not the vibe. We’re not going to survive if we do that. I guess this goes into the Lifelong Learner thing as well. We have to understand that everything that we know should be shared with people who are less experienced than us and everything we don’t know we’re curious to find out.

Debbie O’Shea 

I love that. I love that. That is amazing advice around advocacy. Thank you. Before we finish off, you get a chance to be on your soapbox and tell the world and whoever’s listening from the world, something that’s really important for you to say. Now you’ve already said so many important things, but this is your last soapbox moment on the podcast.

Kate Schirmer 

Yes, I think what I want to end on is this idea of not becoming too narrow in your participation in and appreciation of art. I truly believe that all art speaks to each other, like each other part of art, really. I remember watching this wonderful interview with Alan Rickman before he died and he was asked, well, what advice would you give a young actor? And he said, Oh, I tell them to forget about the acting.

Of course, that’s a funny thing to say, but what he then went on to say was when you are walking through a gallery and you look at a painting and it affects you that is something that’s going to help your acting in the future. When you are at a dinner party and you’re having a great conversation, I’m now paraphrasing. I don’t know if he said this, but this is me now.

When you’re at a dinner party and you’re having a great conversation and it’s witty and there’s banter. Those are things that seep into your soul and that you use later. Even when you watch a trashy TV show, but you think about it, and you think about how those people are behaving and acting. Those are things that can go into your music, that can go into your painting, that can go into your teaching, that can go into your singing.

And so what I would say to your listeners is, next time you feel guilty about the art that you are consuming, I want you to just hear my voice and say it’s all art baby and it’s all important. Whether it’s a great pop song, whether you’re listening to Espresso by Sabrina Carpenter in the car, or you’re listening to some gorgeous Carissimi Chorus from Jephte or whatever it is, if it moves you and it makes you feel something in that moment, then it is valid and it’s exciting and it’s important and it’s going to enrich you for that next day of whatever you have to do, to advocate for your communities, to teach your students, or to get on stage and do what you do as a musician. So yeah, it’s all art baby. Live it. Love it. Don’t feel guilty about it.

Debbie O’Shea 

I love it. That is the perfect place to finish. But I just need to thank you for coming on and spending your time with us. And I just want to finish by saying, I’d love you to be my teacher, Kate.

Kate Schirmer 

Can you please keep training some gorgeous primary school students, because I hope to still be teaching in tertiary in 10 and 20 and 30 years and I want all your beautiful little ones to come to me and find their joy in music theater one day.

Debbie O’Shea 

Sounds amazing. We’ll talk again soon Kate, bye.

Kate Schirmer 

I hope so Debbie. Thank you so much.

Sign-Off

Thank you for joining me for this podcast. Don’t forget, you’ll find the show notes and transcript and all sorts of information on crescendo.com.au. If you’ve enjoyed the podcast or found it valuable, you might like to rate it on your podcast player and leave a review. I’d really appreciate it if you did. All I can be as the best version of me. All you can do is be the best you. Until next time, bye.

Just for Laughs

As we know, laughter relieves stress, don’t lose sight of the funny side of life.
Why was the belt arrested? Because it held up a pair of pants. _{(laughs) I quite like that one.}

Links Mentioned in the Episode:

📜 Crescendo Music Education Podcast | Episode 147

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