Liza Constable

Music:
Howie says put the music stuff first. Ok ok.
Just came back from a weekend in Ballston Spa, NY. A fun festival called the “Gotta Get Gone”. Saw lots of folks there, Larry Unger and Eden McAdam-Somer. She can really sing that gypsy music, man, I was transfixed. And Larry can really play those blues, write those tunes…. Also saw Jonny and Annie Rosen, they always play the music I love, old blues and swing. And Marc Bernier who I met at the Mystic Sea Song Festival last year or the time before, and the Woods Tea Company. Plus all the campers who are ardent singers and players, it was just a blast. Besides my solo performance, I taught a singing workshop, a big leap for me, being a self taught singer that only just figured out how to put it into words. It was a big happy crowd (all those ardent singers), and a successful bit of fun.

I give great credit to the book by Roger Kain, “A Guide to Tough Vocals”. Those are the best exercises, best results. For me. I get annoyed by the production value on some of these vocal workout CDs. Synthesized yuck - with too much reverb. Kain’s CD is clean piano, with what sounds like rock and roll singers. Not operatic. And he uses some pushy singing, encouraging some rock and roll attack with classical know how. It’s fun. And a little scary to sing so aggressively. My opera friend is paralyzed by the thought. She won’t try it. But I have to say, and I say it often, this book changed me.

Roger Love’s “Set Your Voice Free,” comes in second. He talks about developing the upper chest voice, and pushing that area with the results that the rest of your voice is strengthened. It did. In the last few years I’ve used both these books.

I ordered Karen Olesons “I’m Not Crazy I’m Vocalizing” from her online website last month. Good title. I don’t like her dramatic and self conscious talking voice (she doesn’t talk much), the production is overdone, the songs over the top. But I have to admit, I have fun with some of the exercises. Songs that incorporate exercises. Still, I can’t recomment this one for $40. There’s something annoying about it. Can’t place it. Maybe too much synthesized yuck.

Books:
Atonement
The Last Days of Dogtown, by Anita Diamant. Set in 1800s, Cape Ann, Mass.
Dreams of My Father (I sat down to read this at a bookstore, wondering whether the fuss was simply the machine churning out PR for our next presidential candidate. It was happily surprised. He can write! think! and still talk politics)