The Liberated Voice

Revolutionizing vocal technique with timeless wisdom

The Problem of Infinite Potential

Uncategorized Dec 01, 2023

The Liberated Voice

The Problem of Infinite Potential

7:29

Welcome, and thank you for joining me.

Yesterday, a friend who is also a voice teacher—an outstanding, and very caring voice teacher—said something that got me thinking. I'm paraphrasing, but it went something like this: "Voice teachers always have this dilemma when we talk to prospective students: We express our conviction that they absolutely can learn to sing, and we can help them, but if we are honest about the possibility that it may take five years or more to get the results they are after, no one would sign up for lessons!"

I recognize the truth of what they were saying: in a culture that is obsessed with expedience, that evaluates products and services based in part in terms of how quickly they yield measurable results, how do you communicate the value of an open-ended endeavor like singing?

I guess you just try. For me, the fact that singing is an open-ended endeavor is a feature, and not a flaw. Not only will there always be more...

Divas & Deities

Uncategorized Nov 28, 2023

The Liberated Voice

Divas & Deities

7:13

Welcome, and thank you for listening.

As promised, today I am going to talk about Deity practice. I would like to begin this discussion with some song lyrics from the Rogers & Hammerstein musical Cinderella, which I first experienced around the age of five or six on our black and white television:

In my own little corner, in my own little chair,

I can be whatever I want to be.

On the wings of my fancy, I can fly anywhere,

And the world will open its arms to me.

Cinderella goes on to fantasize about all sorts of experiences she would like to have, also pointing out that some of these experiences are more safely experienced in the realm of her imagination than in real life. If you are familiar with this story, you know that it ends with her most cherished wishes coming true.

This musical had a powerful formative influence on me, problematic patriarchal issues with fairy tales aside. It taught me that if there is something you want to experience, you...

Waiting for Maitreya

buddhism meditation practice vipassana Nov 27, 2023

The Liberated Voice

Waiting for Maitreya

7:14

Welcome, and thank you for listening.

Yesterday I saw a social media post describing how members of different spiritual and religious lineages have been waiting for their version of a Messiah to arrive, sometimes for thousands of years.

It concluded with the comment that, "Most religions adopt the idea of a 'savior' and state that the world will remain filled with evil until this savior comes and fills it with goodness and righteousness. Maybe our problem on this planet is that people expect someone else to come solve their problems instead of doing it themselves."

While I agree that it is vital that each of us be as proactive as we can about creating the world we wish to be a part of, I also feel that vision and ethical leadership plays a vital role in systems change. But that is not why I brought up this idea today. The reason that this post caught my attention is that the spiritual lineages mentioned included Buddhism, pointing out that "Buddhists have been...

Attachment Culture

Uncategorized Nov 25, 2023

The Liberated Voice

Attachment Culture

10:43

Welcome, and thank you for listening.

I used to think of my approach in the studio as using mindfulness techniques to teach singing. Lately, I have come to realize that what I am actually doing is using singing technique to teach mindfulness.

For me, singing has always been, first and foremost, a practice.

The practice of singing raises my awareness of how my body functions, enabling me to move with increased grace and intention. It puts me in contact with the real-time flow of my feelings, allowing me to explore and express them with intensity and nuance. It gives my imagination free rein, investing me with the power to create unique interpretations of the music and texts I perform. It helps me to experience more of myself, connect with others more deeply, and better understand the world around me.

However, this is not the way that I have generally described my relationship with singing.

My foundational experiences as a singer and voice teacher...

You’re Always Practicing Something

Uncategorized Nov 24, 2023

The Liberated Voice

You’re Always Practicing Something

9:18

In this podcast, I talk about singing as a liberation-oriented practice. Anything that promotes the flow of experience and expression, and reduces qualities of friction or rigidity that can impede that flow, will make your singing freer and more enjoyable. When I use the word liberation, what I mean is liberation from anything that might impede that flow, and liberation to express yourself more creatively and powerfully. When you view this process of enhancing flow and reducing friction as a practice that can impact not only your music-making but also all of your activities, your singing practice becomes a liberation-oriented activity in the broader, Buddhist sense: a practice that heightens awareness, and enables you to become more mindful and present generally.

What I would like to point out today is that, whether you are intentionally engaging in a liberation-oriented practice, or you are not, you are always practicing something. At any given moment, the way you move,...

Gratitude (?)

Uncategorized Nov 22, 2023

The Liberated Voice

Gratitude (?)

7:31

Welcome, and thank you for joining me.

I am recording this episode on the day before American Thanksgiving, and I would like to share some thoughts about the feeling and expression of gratitude.

I have a student who has been an actor and theatre director, and last week we were talking about how you can't make yourself feel specific feelings on demand. He was telling me about how frustrating it can be for actors pursuing a technique like Method Acting, when they think they're supposed to be able to conjure up an intense feeling in real time, in the service of the character they are portraying.

When we experience a feeling, it arises within us, in response to both internal and external conditions. It arises, and we experience it, at various degrees of intensity, and then eventually it passes, to be overtaken by the arisal of other feelings. Buddhist philosophy equates feelings with body sensations, and emotional feelings arise and pass the same way that...

What Is Willpower?

fitness pedagogy practice wellness Jan 02, 2023

willpower, n.
The power of a person’s will; control exerted to do something demanding or to restrain one’s impulses.
—Oxford English Dictionary

Happy New Year, readers!

This morning I kicked off 2023 with an hour or so of stretching and self-myofascial release. As I focused my awareness on where I was feeling tight and considered how it might feel good to move, I began to feel deeply grateful—not only for the fitness and anatomy background that enables me to care for myself in this particular way, but also for the fact that I genuinely want to. Exercise isn’t something I have to make myself do—it’s a luxury that has become a daily indulgence.

It wasn’t always like this for me. Growing up, gym class was an ongoing source of trauma, compounded by the bullying I endured for being “chubby” and uncoordinated. By my mid teens I decided I’d had enough. I started living on iceberg lettuce and cottage cheese and...

When You Pull Off All the Spider’s Legs…

expression opera singing vocal technique voice lessons wellness Nov 20, 2022

CW: Animal cruelty

I was recently reminded of a terrible joke I first heard as a child:

A scientist is performing research on a spider in his lab. He places the spider on a platform and commands, “Jump!”
The spider jumps. The scientist makes a note.
The scientist pulls off one of the spider’s legs, places it back on the platform, and commands, “Jump!”
The spider jumps. The scientist makes a note.
The scientist pulls off another one of the spider’s legs, places it back on the platform, commands “Jump!”… rinse and repeat, until finally the spider is completely legless.
The scientist makes a note: “When you pull off all the spider’s legs, it can no longer hear a damned thing.”

This comes to mind today because I feel that classical voice students often end up the unwitting study subjects of a psychological version of this experiment. Along the education and career paths they...

What Did You Learn In School Today?

pedagogy practice technique voice lessons Aug 04, 2022

Pete Seeger wants to know

Singers, what did you learn in your most recent voice lesson? Teachers, what have you successfully imparted to your students so far this week?

I’m inviting you to reflect on these questions because the greater our clarity about what is successfully imparted and actually learned, the more valuable the lesson and the more likely the learning will be retained.

There is certainly an ineffable, je ne sais quoi component to the way artistic growth occurs, and good communication between teacher and student often seems to happen as much via osmosis as it does through any method.

However, learning to sing does involve the development and integration of codifiable skills, including breathing, phonation, registration, resonance, diction, and flexibility, as well as the ability to apply those skills to dramatic and musical interpretation of repertoire.

So, aside from the je ne sais quoi, what did you learn in school?

The...

Opera: Suffering as Entertainment

equity and inclusivity opera Jul 19, 2022

Soprano Angel Blue

Here’s a story: A young black woman is kidnapped, held hostage, and humiliated. There’s a ray of hope when one of her captors’ employees betrays them in the hope of absconding with her. But he’s caught, and they both die.

This, of course, is the plot of Verdi’s Aida, considered by many to be the grandest of all grand operas. Outsized emotions are what make grand opera grand, so the greater the suffering and hope portrayed, the more cathartic the opera will be for the audience. Beginning with Aida’s premiere, opera companies have traditionally heightened the grandeur of the protagonist’s emotions with the most epic production values imaginable:

At “Aida’s” 1871 world premiere in Cairo, 12 elephants joined a double chorus in the scene welcoming a brave soldier’s return from battle. In Shanghai’s uber-performance of the Verdi classic in 2000, the elephants had even more company: camels,...

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Author

Claudia Friedlander, DMus

I’m a voice teacher, fitness expert, and author with a private studio in New York. My students have performed on Broadway and at leading opera houses, including The Santa Fe Opera and the Metropolitan Opera. My first book, Complete Vocal Fitness: A Singer’s Guide to Physical Training, Anatomy, and Biomechanics was published by Rowman & Littlefield in 2018. In 2008, I joined the faculty of the Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall, where I developed, in collaboration with Joyce DiDonato, The Singer’s Audition Handbook, an interactive online career development guide for young singers that was published in book form in 2019.

The Liberated Voice

Revolutionizing vocal technique with timeless wisdom

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