#162. The Truth about Singing: Mythbusting with Chris Johnson Part 2

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Episode Transcription

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  00:00

Okay, so what do Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift, Janet Jackson, and Mariah Carey all have in common? Sure, they’re all Grammy Award winning artists. But did you know each of them had to overcome challenges with their pitch prior to achieving their career successes. So if you’re feeling discouraged about your own ability to sing in tune, or for whatever reason, singing in tune solutions for 25 pitch problems is a perfect book that offers hope for all singers who want to further develop their technical and performance skills from the novice singer to the pro vocalist ranked number one on Google, this carefully crafted book by Karen Lu condensers, 35 years of vocal pedagogy research, as well as Karen’s decades of experience as a vocalist and holistic voice coach into a resource that offers 110 solutions designed to help you hit those money notes sooner rather than later. Singing in tune takes a truly holistic approach to singing and contains clearly defined yet simple to understand lessons, exercises, and practical tips for developing body awareness and maintaining a healthy Intune and skilled voice. This book is sure to offer a solution to your specific vocal needs. And the good news is that for a limited time, you can save $5 When you purchase your copy of singing in tune solutions for 25 pitch problems from w w w dot singing in tune book.com Get your copy now. It’s Marissa Lee here, and I’m so excited to be sharing today’s interview round episode with you. In these episodes. Our brilliant lineup of guests will include healthcare practitioners, voice educators, and other professionals who will share their stories, knowledge and experiences within their specialised fields to empower you to live your best life. Whether you’re a member of the voice, community, or beyond your voice is your unique gift. It’s time now to share your gift with others develop a positive mindset and become the best and most authentic version of yourself to create greater impact. Ultimately, you can take charge, it’s time for you to live your best life. It’s time now for a voice and beyond. So without further ado, let’s go to today’s episode. This week on a voice and beyond. We’re thrilled to have Chris Johnson returned to the show for the second instalment of his informative interview. In this episode, Chris and esteemed vocal coach with international recognition delves into dispelling more of the most widespread myths surrounding singing and singing voice training. With the background in vocal manual therapy, and myofascial release, Chris has extensive experience as both a singing teacher and vocal coach, bringing a holistic perspective to his training approach, acknowledging the interconnectedness of mind, body and voice. As we navigate the vast expanse of the internet, we encounter a bombardment of information, much of which is misleading. From YouTube tutorials to social media posts, Miss Information regarding singing techniques, and voice coaching in our dates our screens. In an industry lacking regulation, self proclaimed experts promise to deliver the key to vocal excellence. Chris addresses misconceptions surrounding crucial aspects of vocal training, such as support of placement, the necessity of certain tone qualities across different singing styles. And do we use the diaphragm to sing? Join us as we unravel these myths and gain valuable insights into nurturing healthy vocal production. Tune in to part two of my conversation with Chris Johnson. And if you missed part one, you can catch it in Episode 159. So, without further ado, let’s go to today’s episode tell me your thoughts on placement is real.

Chris Johnson  05:53

I used to when I first started sort of singing more technically, I used to think placement was a load of trying to think of a non bad word load of rubbish.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  06:03

I have a swear jar that I use the most. And get it out. Okay,

Chris Johnson  06:12

okay. Oh, no, I don’t want to I don’t want to part with any cash today. So I’m gonna try real hard, but

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  06:17

she doesn’t pay up either.

Chris Johnson  06:21

Okay, so I can do it and just not pay you. That’s fine. That yeah, yeah. Although

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  06:24

I did stay at her home. So if you swear, you might end up wanting to visit.

Chris Johnson  06:34

That’s fair enough. But no placement, I used to just I used to chuck it away as being a thing. But then, you know, I was training myself more mechanically, if you like. So if I was thinking about the position of things, I guess I at that point, I was managing my voice very much more than I was enjoying it. So I do recall those times. And I think when your attention is into management, or if you strain a lot, or if you actually are very flaccid, and let’s get back to all these words, you tend to perceive sensation, a lot less in a lot of those environments, when you’re managing when you’re straining or when you’re flaccid. So it I think at that time, it was probably much harder for me to become aware of vibration sensations and the nuances of them. But when I got into more holistic stuff, and that ended up being part to do with resonance, I started to feel things. And that became cool, because then I could just play around with that on stage. But what that led me to do then is to start to understand, Yeah, but why, why there? What is it about that, and then it becomes easier to understand because we understand a little bit about vibration felt in the body. And that it actually has its frequencies where you can feel it most strongest, and it has its frequencies where you can feel it very little like especially I see for sopranos, it’s very hard to feel. But when you get down to sort of middle C and sort of slightly above in the pasado, there’s a lot of there’s a lot of sensation there possible in the receptors in the skin. So we have that. But then we have reflection points, which make it much easier. So when I talk about placement, I use exercises that are from Arthur Leszek and Les Madsen resonant voice therapy, but they work on they work on points of reflection. So if you if I have a round lips, eval II, II, what that does, it puts the narrowest point in my whole vocal tract against my gum, and right by the teeth. So as the sound waves funnel them, their selves through this, lots get reflected back, but some come through. Obviously, that means that the greatest sensation and concentration of energy is going to be at the narrowest point, which is going to be on my gum, so I’ll probably feel something on my gum. Yes, that’s a consequence of shape. I can’t place it there. I have to do the right shape. Yeah, no. Yes. Right. So that’s that’s how it builds. But the placement, the why placement is real is because if I do that enough, and if I build that out with other reflection points that make it predictable, to feel something in somewhere like against the soft palate, hi towards the head, down towards the chest, I can I can use those vibrations to represent the motor pattern in my nervous system. So again, now what I do is I don’t manage my voice in parts and pieces and places. But instead that gets deferred to the sensation. So in the end, I asked for the sensation, but not before I’ve trained that through the shape, so that so the sensation is just representing the shape. And so that’s why something is some singers have done that, without knowing or without a process. They’ve done it intuitively. So they say they place their voice but what they’ve just done is they’ve represented a shape in a sensation, and now they just aim for the sensation. It’s very much like the golfer just goes through the ball. Do they Go through the ball, of course, they don’t go through the ball. The ball leaves we know that’s, that’s just an image, but that’s going through the ball represents a piece of the motor pattern, it organises a piece of the motor pattern. And if you don’t go through the ball, you use your muscles differently. So I teach singers to represent shapes and motor patterns through sensations. And so then in the end, they just go, they just aim for the sensation. It feels like they placed their voice, but it’s been a process. And that’s why that’s why placement is real.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  10:30

Yes. And it’s important to when you’re helping a singer, that once they get that sensation, and their voices ringing, it’s healthy, the sound is sustainable. That’s what they’re wanting to achieve. In tone that that sensation is what helps them replicate that once they leave.

Chris Johnson  10:53

No, it’s right. Yeah, on in bad sound on stage. That’s how they know. Yeah, I don’t know. Don’t need to push it now, even though I can’t hear myself because it feels just right. It feels

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  11:03

right. And so I will often ask the singer, what are you feeling? Where are you feeling anything? And there’s no wrong or right here. It’s your body? And you can tell me whatever you think is going on? And then, okay, well, then we go from there. But I find that that’s really the most helpful way because sometimes they can’t hear the difference to them. Sometimes they’ll say, but it sounds the same to me. And I’ll say, well, you’re hearing something different to what I’m hearing. And that’s okay. But are you feeling anything different? Yeah, it feels easier. Great. So what is going on? Where are you feeling? Any difference within like your mouth, your throat, your chest, your head? Like, where are you feeling it? Great. So now, you know, that is the feeling to aim for?

Chris Johnson  12:05

Yeah, I you know, I think it’s funny we’re working it in the other direction as well is, let’s say that you start off with the concept of placement without first training it through shape, which is how a lot of singers are going to end up when they go on something like YouTube and see like, try and place your voice here, place your voice in, there’s no detail around it. Where we use shape to generate placement. If you start with placement, your nervous system will try and create a shape that will generate something close to what you’re asking for in terms of placement, so it works in the other direction. So if somebody asks their voice to be forward, it’s very common for them to become nasal 100%. Because that’s where the sensations if the sensation is going through the nasal passages, then you’re gonna get a forward sensation. And then they’re going yes, it feels forward. They’re ignoring that it sounds nasal. Yeah. Because they’re, they’re achieving placement. And that’s why singers get totally wrapped up and wrecked with it. Because they’re beginning with placement and not understanding that it’s a consequence of shape.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  13:07

Yes. 100%. Okay, this is a huge one. Our next myth is one of the most frequently said things to me, either by a student when they first start, or I’ve heard other singing teachers saying this, you sing from the diaphragm? Yeah.

Chris Johnson  13:29

It’s just one of those ones that when you probe it with questions, so what do you mean? It’s very easy. I’ve seen this so many times for singers to go, Well, you know, just, and then they realise, actually, I have no idea what it means. So that’s how it that’s how the conversation usually ends up. Yes, it’s almost like a buzzword. It’s like, I just need to say it because it’s a singing thing, isn’t it? So it’s interesting how maybe it’s just caught on for that reason. But I honestly don’t know why it starts but obviously breathing if it’s felt down there, if the in breath is felt in the diaphragm, yeah,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  14:03

the diaphragm is the major inhalation muscle. So of course, it has a role to play, but we don’t sing from there. No, there’s no larynx in there. Either.

Chris Johnson  14:18

If you think about placement, as well, if somebody’s thinking low, it’s like if they think about chest voice being in the chest, if they think about the singing from the diaphragm, the thoughts in their in their mind are all down. Which may work well because as we think lower and lower, it’s not unusual for the for the chin to come down for the larynx to lower for the jaw to become lower. And then before you know it is like oh, yeah, it does make you sound quite goofy. And it really doesn’t work with a range. It doesn’t right. It’s like oh, it talks about hitting a ceiling about F is a bloody nightmare. So cookie jar sweater. Oh is I know, coming to stay with me. That’s it. You got a free night one night. Yay.

15:01

Every swear word.

Chris Johnson  15:06

You’ll have a holiday or this by the end of it.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  15:08

I’ll be there for the next year. Yeah. And in

Chris Johnson  15:11

India, I’ve worked with a few Indian singers. And they actually, it’s very common for them to call chest voice, either stomach voice or throat voice. Oh, really. But quite often, it’s like, yeah, my stomach voice. So yeah, I noticed that in parts of the world. The reference to the stomach is actually quite strong when associating it with a strong sound. Right, calling it stomach voice. So yeah, there, there’s I think it gets very confusing. And who knows how people use it in different cultures and whatever. Yeah, maybe

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  15:43

they’re talking about verbal diarrhoea.

Chris Johnson  15:48

Oh, what’s in the stomach coming out of the mouth? Yeah, I hear what you’re saying.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  15:55

Oh, that is so weird. A stomach voice. I’ve never heard that. Honestly, I think that’s a weird one. But hey, you know, each to their own. One thing I can say I’m not a terminology. Nazi. In terms of, like, the language my students speak, when they first come to me for their lessons. I speak in their language, and we gradually start introducing new words. Because, you know, like, it’s not about me, look at me, look how much I know. It’s about getting them to sing efficiently and healthily and sustainably. Yeah. And if it needs for us to just speak their language, then that’s fine. And even I always I love the one to 10 scale. So how much effort is that taking for you, one means you’re flatlining. There’s no poles and 10. Like, you’re lifting up Mount Everest, like it’s a real big effort. And even though I know they’re like, at a two, and they’re almost flatlining, and they say, that’s a five, Bill, I’ll say, Okay, well, do you think maybe we can give it a little bit more energy, and aim for a seven year, so it’s always what they think is going on? And then educate them from there, and then introduce all the language and the terms and everything else that they need to know about? Yeah,

Chris Johnson  17:33

agreed yet. And with effort as well, sometimes you after a couple of weeks, they realise that actually, I need to recalibrate my idea of effort. Actually, that’s not a lot of effort. Or that’s more I didn’t think that was a lot of effort. But now I felt what’s easy. You know, it can all change, can’t it? So yeah, the score, I score system with singers all the time. It’s really, really cool.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  17:54

Yeah. Okay, myth number seven, we need to support the voice. Mm hmm.

Chris Johnson  18:02

We need to support that. So it’s, again, one of those strange subjects of semantics is support, as sometimes with breath support, let’s say so enough breath pressure or flow or energy to support what’s going on the vocal fold level. So if that’s a belted sound, it will be different to being at falsetto, for example. So that’s that’s kind of true. In that way. It’s obviously true. But when it comes to support support is something that again, when we use the words always or never, it always comes a cropper. There’s almost never an always and there’s almost never I never almost see

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  18:45

the caveats that’s arrived saves us from being stoned. Yeah.

Chris Johnson  18:52

stoned, though, on the proverbial on the on the, on the judgement of the internet, but But no, it’s it’s the support always support your voice is it’s just what that generates in people is I always have to do something with my body to drive the air to give that voice something to work with. And if that, how many times have you seen singers just take they’re having trouble in falsetto, it’s getting blown out. It’s tight. And they’re like, you have to have the conversation of like, so what are your strategies for this? What are your strategies for that? What do you think about when you’re doing this? And if somebody comes up with well, I’m always trying to support it’s always like red flag. Red flag, we first got to figure out what is your support strategy? And is that even relevant right now? Because some some ways of singing just need you to take a breath in and the rest of it will just be fine. Yeah, right. Yes. You don’t need to be thinking about support and to over support, it will over deliver pressure flow air volume to a register that does not need it. And so then it becomes at Her that gets again, just taken out as an always as a taken as read and singing. And I think with singers, they often don’t say these things to us because they want, they just think it’s taken as read. So when it comes to teachers or singers, by the way, teachers, if you’re talking in a lesson it does with the student in conversation, it doesn’t mean you’re not providing value. Because you you only often find out these problems in conversation 100%.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  20:27

It’s by asking the questions, not all, you know, asking the student about what they’re thinking and what they believe is going on what their plan and what their strategy is. Yeah. And, you know, is there a reason why they’re doing something a particular way? Yeah,

Chris Johnson  20:47

that’s it. And it does take if you’d go in the Socratic route, which is where you basically sit there as the completely ignorant party. And you question someone about what they do in a way, that’s just, I’ve got no preconceived ideas, you just tell me how it plans out. And I just keep asking questions until there’s no way out. But there’s an answer there. And that’s how it works. And sometimes that takes five or 10 minutes. Yeah. And when it comes to support, often, when we get those terms that seniors just think are taken as read, everybody does this, don’t they? We don’t need to talk about this. You often have to spend 510 minutes getting those thoughts out of someone’s head, and then you realise, oh, they’re trying to support everything. That’s why some of these registers won’t come or some of these sounds won’t come. So I feel Yeah, you always have to support the voice. That may or may not be true, but I think posture plays a role. And again, there is no perfect posture. But if your body position doesn’t afford your breath system, to calibrate itself around your voice, then you will feel like you’ll need to do something to support it. You may need to place an effort on something. So posture posture allows you to think less about support. Yes, yeah. Right. Because it allows things to work. And in in in more extreme activities of you know, top end opera singing probably is one of those activities. incredibly high belting may require a postural or support strategy, because now it’s getting out of the realms of sort of, I guess, you know, voice shoots are getting into more extremes of voice you so you tend to have to get a tiny bit more strategic?

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  22:32

Yes, I find that what works really well is a primal approach. Yeah, well, exactly. That is my favourite way to get everything to kick in in terms of support, when they come from that need to communicate, that will often take care of the support. Real quick, smart.

Chris Johnson  22:54

Yeah. Primal sounds is one aspect I find people use. In less act, there’s what are called energies and argies. So I tend to use those as well, like one of them is called radiant, which is where you’re like, Oh, I’m just a little bit shaky, I just want to open that present right now. Because I’m so excited to get it like in terms of support. That’s often how I use it. And then once again, what you’ve pointed out there, which is really cool as it’s not about mechanics, as much as it is about intention, yes. And without intention, you can’t just play some mechanical resolution to replace intention. Intention has to be the first thing. And if there’s any extra requirements for support, that might be mechanical, it might be yes, it works. Well, when my belly comes in slightly. That’s great, because that’s, that’s only a small amount of conscious effort. Whereas intention, or character organises the other 99 muscles that you couldn’t possibly on your own. Exactly.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  23:57

And I love to using not only like a call for help when I’m trying to get them to access their belt sound, but also using different emotions. How does it feel if you sing this really sad song, but you’ve just won the lottery.

Chris Johnson  24:20

Oh, what a dichotomy. I love it.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  24:22

Oh, what if you were really angry? You get angry sometimes, surely. So how would that feel in this song? So I love playing with all those different emotions as well. And a lot of things do take care of themselves, but it’s then how do we make them permanent? You know, but it’s a good starting point without controlling and manipulation. Okay, great. Myth number eight. This is a show and tell verse. So I call this show versus tell because the myth was you You need to tell someone how to do something for them to be able to do it. Now, I would like to argue that some teachers would say, No, you have to be able to show them a model for them to know how to do it. And me being a singing teacher that I’m teaching pop singers who are doing all these crazy melismas. I can tell you, I can’t do them myself, but I can teach other people to do them.

Chris Johnson  25:32

Yeah. And that is the argument, I would say without using this as a reason to not develop yourself as a better demonstrator. Because that is, and to be fair, not being able to demonstrate some of the more rudimentary functions in singing is half the reason why singing teachers are crippled with impostor syndrome. Is because they don’t feel they can demonstrate to the level they know they probably need to. So I just want to just wanted to make sure that that was out in the open but yes, but the thing about showing someone is again, like I will show you you do it has been again, a model of singing teaching for centuries. Yes, Master apprentice. Yeah. But then for centuries, especially if we consider classical the aesthetics were all very narrow, like you had a very specific set of aesthetics to fulfil, in order to be credible in that thing. So then, I do feel like a little bit of our show you, you repeat probably works better in that environment. But when you bring in contemporary styles and individuality and pop, we have to leave some room for people to figure out a unique way of doing some things. And that’s what creates them that that’s how I when I first taught by demonstration, obviously, I created about 10 Mini fucking me’s right

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  26:56

100% You know what, I could not agree with you more. I’ve been to a Stanford’s when I used to teach school children, right, K to 12. And they would enter a stead buds, you could tell who their teacher was by their sound. Yeah. And I’d go yep, that’s from that she’s from this studio. Yep. She’s from that studio, because they sounded like their teacher. And so for me, I try to avoid singing as much as possible. I do when I, you know, it’s necessary, I will or to demonstrate, you know, something that we’re introducing in terms of an exercise or a warm up that they’ve never done before. But unless I have to, I don’t sing because I don’t want them mimicking me. And that we all learn we are hardwired to learn by emulating and mimicking. And I don’t want my students to take on the voice of a, you know, quite a mature person when they’re, you know, I’m at least 35. And they’re only 18. So that’s my take on that. Yeah,

Chris Johnson  28:12

no, I think you’re right, I think you’re right. And the when it comes to teaching style, it’s good for you to be able to do like, Oh, hey, you know, here’s how it might sound. But then you’d have a whole bunch of say, examples of other singers on Spotify, that do this same thing in different ways. So that you can sort of dilute your sound amongst a whole bunch of things, but still be able to help them if they get stuck. So you still have an ability to do do it in some level. And also, when someone is struggling with something, this is also an important part. So you don’t need to clear up every problem that the singer encounters. Again, demonstrating is is pretty good. But when singers struggle, teachers jump in quite often, or tittle singers also say, can you just show me because I just need someone to tell me how to do it. And that’s cool. That might be sometimes the personality of the student. They’re just like, you tell me I’ll do it. And that’s, that’s the way I’m going to navigate this process. And we could we could get in a great big conversation about going well, you know, you wouldn’t have that much uniqueness. If that’s how we did it. You know, you’d probably just end up sounding like me, and they’re like, don’t care. I just want to be able to sing the song. Right? And then you’re like, Okay, that’s the students goals. That’s like, Okay, you just want to sing the song, I’ll do more demonstration, then. It’s not your it’s not your desire to be selling record, but the person who wants to sell records or be signed, and and who wants to learn in the most sustainable way. So when someone figures something out for themselves, it sticks in their memory, but if you show them they have to remember what you said. Discoveries stay with them, but information leaves them real quickly. So every time I’m telling someone how to do something, it pains me inside because I’m thinking this is just going to rely on your memory now. And I don’t want it to rely on your memory. I want your nervous system to go big. Oh, yeah. And take it into that nervous system into that Autumn automation automaticity. And self discovery is one of the greatest ways to do that. So as a teacher, I feel like yes, I need to facilitate the discovery of it, rather than always instruct it. And that’s another reason why I don’t feel we just need to show everybody everything all the time. We got to leave it, leave it Yes.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  30:27

Well, we have to allow our students to become autonomous. And I think when they learn, what is the process to achieving the desired sound? How do we get from this point to that point, and teaching them basic process? Not something where you have to sit at a piano and play all these complicated scales? It could be? How about you having trouble with this verse? Let’s trill the verse, or let’s do use a straw. Let’s do a straw foundation through the verse. So we have all these different processes and layers, and then start to remember those. And I think that’s helping them to learn that hey, one, you know, there are times where I’m going to need help. There’s times my singing teacher is not going to be there. But I’ve learned these different processes and one of them will work. Well, hopefully.

Chris Johnson  31:34

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Give giving them all kinds of tools like that to, to experiment. If you’re on your own, and you want to try this out. Remember those four kinds of various voice qualities? We did? Yeah, try and see which one works? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Autonomy is a big one. But sometimes singers, they don’t want the autonomous route. They want the instructed route. So we are we’re sometimes at the mercy of of how the singer feels they need or want to learn. It’s a funny one.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  32:03

Yes. And they all learn differently. Some of them want it explained, some of them want to hear it. Some of them want to see you demonstrating what it looks like on a bot, you know. So yeah, some of them need to feel it themselves. I find most of them need to feel it themselves.

Chris Johnson  32:22

Yeah, absolutely. Okay, myth

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  32:25

number nine, beauty as a vocal goal. So we all wanting to achieve beauty as singers, or how important is beauty.

Chris Johnson  32:37

And beauty is applauded as well. Yeah.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  32:40

But is beauty not subjective. It

Chris Johnson  32:44

is subjective. Although as a culture, we sort of, we do agree often on what we consider to be beautiful. You know, collectively, there would be more beautiful voices that have more purity. And again, they would come into gender stereotypes as well. Especially, you know, how sort of born female voices would be viewed in terms of beauty. And the rougher they are, the less beautiful they are labelled. But yet, we know that we know in all kinds of voice qualities rough, smooth, cracky, broken, stable. There’s a lot of beauty to be discovered in those in terms of expression, the storytelling, that’s not what beauty is. But this idea of beauty and purity, especially. It does lead singers to to go down that route. Because also what people say quite often I hear this so often, they go up, somebody comes up to me and says your tone is just so beautiful. It’s just so beautiful. But what they express is like, oh, but people, they don’t sort of buy my records that there is buying it because when it’s this beautiful tone that somebody of a traditional mindset really appreciate and applaud you for they lean into that but to create a lot of smoothness and legato and eliminate all of the non beautiful things. It can be very boring and is very boring.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  34:10

Oh, I find it excruciatingly boring.

Chris Johnson  34:14

Yeah, right. It doesn’t have to be fair.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  34:17

Yeah. And I mean, as CCM singers, we do often create unconventional sounds, to express a particular emotion, or as part of our storytelling, or it could be our signature sound. And I mean, I’ve heard people saying, you know, Bob Dylan, he’s a great singer. He’s got a beautiful voice, and I’m thinking, There’s nothing beautiful about it. He’s a great storyteller. His lyrics are amazing. But would you say he has beauty of tone? No, but yeah,

Chris Johnson  34:56

right. Yeah,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  34:57

dear bride.

Chris Johnson  34:58

It’s subject Yes, absolutely.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  35:01

What do you say Mick Jagger has a beautiful voice? No. But then other people go, Oh, he’s got a beautiful voice, you know, so they get the whole thing. What is beauty? It’s very subjective.

Chris Johnson  35:14

Absolutely. And is its net beautiful is the whole thing that I’m listening to speaking to me on a certain level with a with a message, and does it contain that that’s that’s the beauty. It’s like the net effects. Let’s not let’s, let’s not always just place the voice as being the sole provider of the beauty, or the singer feeling like that’s what that their job, I have to carry everything. It’s like no the mute, everything does that. Even the melody is beautiful. You don’t need a voice to carry a melody to get beauty because it’s often written into the melody and the intervals and the chords. So you have that. But I think I think as well when it comes to beauty and if somebody has been lauded for the beauty. Again, this is the my experience of it is functionally that leads the singer to use their voice in a very, I guess you could call it balanced way it’s not extra loud isn’t go breathy. Everything’s very even. And when you take that as a muscle pattern, or I guess you could call it muscle memory for them to do other tasks like calling and like going breathy, they find it impossible. It’s like everything they sing out has that same evenness. And it’s a complete head wrecker to do other sounds. So you know, the, the Endeavour for beauty, it’s not just this not this not just a sound thing. It’s not just an interesting but functionally encourages the system to do a lot less. And they find it so hard, so hard to get out of that to become more expressive.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  36:51

I know you can tell when someone is focusing on beauty of tone, rather than the storytelling. I can see it on their on my students faces. So I will ask them at the end of their singing a particular song. What were you thinking about when you were singing that? Oh, I was thinking about my voice and how I sounded. And I’ll say, well, where’s the storytelling in that? Yeah, so beauty that trying to achieve beauty of sound. It does get in the way of storytelling and being vulnerable, and expressing yourself and sharing the story that you have to share with the audience.

Chris Johnson  37:37

Yeah, you Sir, do you find also its tempo often find the singers who are focusing on that I just always on the balance because it gives them enough time to manage their voice. Well,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  37:48

my scenes are quite a mixed bag. And the ones that do come in and they say that they’re inspired by Adele and they love the big ballads. The first thing I do when it comes to because I have to choose one of their repertoire pieces. I’ll give them something totally different. I’ll find an artist that isn’t a big belter. Someone like Georgia Smith, or I don’t know, I can’t even think there’s a lot of singers out there that that are not the big Belters, and they use all parts of their voices. So I introduce those songs and those artists to them. So they start to explore the full range of their voices. They don’t put limitations on their voices. That’s one thing. I really work on getting them into the mindset that this is a safe space for you to make any sound. Some of them you’re going to love. Some of them you may hate and you’ll never want to use again. There’s no wrong or right. Let’s just see what your voice is capable of use this space as a science laboratory. And let’s experiment. And if we have a failed science experiment, so be it. Because guess what, no one’s gonna die in here.

Chris Johnson  39:21

Yeah, like that analogy. Yeah.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  39:22

Yep. So let’s explore. Let’s play. Let’s just go through the motions and see what happens. Let’s just see what ends up happening. What’s the worst case scenario you have a blowout? Well, I hate to tell you I sometimes have them when I teach. Because I go I get really excited and I’m still talking and then I go to sing but I haven’t kind of given myself that moment. Okay. Yeah, you know, so Did you hear me have a blowout from time to time? Oh, don’t really care. That’s okay. But this is the place to do it. Yes, you don’t want to do it on stage, but you are perfectly fine to do to explore and have fun and make those mistakes in here. Yeah,

Chris Johnson  40:16

yeah, it’s great, isn’t it? When you get when you get that art, when you get that singer sometimes it just kind of, you know, the exercises get progressively weirder and weirder, because you know, they’re trusting you more and more, until you bring out these kinds of funny sounds. And they just stop for a minute go. Seriously, is this getting posted on the Internet or something? Because this is just insane. Yeah, but yeah, you gradually see your ability to build up those, as you call them the science experiments or whatever, over time. Yeah. And then you find something inevitably amazing, don’t you? I know.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  40:48

I know. And even the students themselves pseudo the things that they discover about their voices by letting go of all those shackles, either that a prior teacher has told them something, or someone laughed at them at school when they were at school and see the school assembly and they hit a wrong note. Anyway, yeah, it’s very interesting. We’re so messed up as singers. Yeah, we truly are. We are the biggest, most messed up a lot of people

Chris Johnson  41:29

don’t want you to watch you know what I think Marissa, what you’ve said there is, I can understand why you say that. Because I’ve had this I’ve had a similar experience to you, which is, when you’ve worked in a institution, where all disciplines are on the same diploma, do you have it where they kind of all come in and at the end of the week, they all play the song specific guitarists have been doing guitar diploma and, and you see them all together. And all there’s always variation, but the the singers versus the guitar, like the guitarists always really want to be this thing is really to be you know,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  42:04

they think they’re the lead instruments.

Chris Johnson  42:06

Yes, it’s yeah, it’s always it’s always the same. So we get to see that we get to see how certain groups of people or certain groups of instruments all seem to behave like as personalities don’t pigeonhole them. But there is some similarity. So I think I think I feel you as to why we kind of like think that way. I

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  42:24

know. I know. Okay, myth number 10. Because we’re going way over time, so I’m thinking this is going to end up being a double episode. Is that okay with you? Of course, yeah. Okay, because we’re nearly there. Alright. Myth number 10. Chris, CCM singers don’t need resonance. Only classical singers do. Oh, yeah.

Chris Johnson  42:49

Well, that’s a good one, isn’t it? Oh, that’s a good one. It’s not it’s not true. But it’s a but it is a good one.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  42:58

Yeah, because and I’ve heard this from a very highly acclaimed singing teacher, that CCM singers don’t need resonance because we’re miked. Now, to remain even for sustainability, we use Twain. It may not be the same resonance as a classical singer. But I know that twang for me is my lifesaver. Even when I speak, even when I’m teaching these long days, even in my speaking voice, there’s that little bit of tweaking and it’s helping me it’s my preservation. So that’s my version of like, what I think resonances for CCM singers. What’s yours?

Chris Johnson  43:50

Yeah, I agree with you. There’s different resonant strategies. And resonance is a driver of the vocal folds vibration. So the less resonance that singers can take advantage of, the more the other parts of the voice or the system have to pick up the slack. So they’d have to probably use breath more aggressively. The vocal cords may need to squeeze together a bit more to return the energy that isn’t been gained by a resonance of some kind. So we do labour the rest of our voice if we don’t have something on the resonance side to support it, yes. But in classical singing, if if that person is lumping in the word resonance to the singers formant strategy, which is a very specific strategy and classical that allows you to be heard over a 65 piece orchestra with a microphone and heard lots of doats so many uses for it. Yes, so many uses. town crier. Oh, yeah. But no yet so that that resonance strategy would certainly not agree so well with a kanban So Mike, you know, and if and a 10k rig, let’s put it that way Exactly. It’s not going to do well with that. But But twang twang is a form of resonant strategy for sure. And even Yeah, even vowels, all singers know that certain vowels work better on certain pitches. And occasionally that’s because of biomechanics a little bit. But more more often than not, it’s because it reorganises resonances in a way that gives that voice energy and then doesn’t labour the rest of the system. Yes, so and if we talk about placement, contemporary singers, as well as classical singers all describe placement because they are describing interactions and reflections of energy that you could describe as resonance. So we can’t have placement or those sensations, if we don’t leverage resonance in some way. The thing about resonance as well, I find, which is important to say is, if you resonate really, really strongly, ie if you choose a vowel or a resonant strategy that is designed to really put a lot of energy into the system, then that has to be balanced with the effort that the vocal folds make. For example, if you put a really strong glottal onset, on to a very powerful resonant strategy, your chances of getting injured go up quite quite strongly, because that the force of the vocal folds coming together as strong, but then the effect of resonance is to increase the intensity of the vibration of the vocal folds as well. So if you if you put them both together, it’s very easy for you to overcook it. So let’s say you were a classical teacher who’s dealing with a singer who was singing rock with glottal onset, if you did place your resonant strategy upon that you would absolutely cook that singer within a few weeks, probably or even in that moment. So it is important to say that, if resonant strategies are going to be transferred over to from one genre to another, they can’t just come as they are. Other Other things, especially vocal foreclosure also need to be altered. Or if you want to keep the glottal onset, you probably don’t need a resonant strategy, that’s going to put a maximise the amount of resonance possible. It needs to be enough resonance to sustain the voice, which is why twang is good, because it adds energy in nice ways. But it doesn’t, it doesn’t put too much amplitude of that energy in it supports it and just in just the right intensity, so you can use it with those more closed sounds those more adapted sounds.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  47:37

Exactly. No, I love that. Okay, this one here, I pose the question. In a Facebook forum, not so long ago. So put the question in, I read the first couple of responses. One was yours. And then because I’m gonna go go to social media very often. I don’t know what happened after building, but it was mix is a register. So yeah, you know, I this is one of the biggest debates. And it’s, and it’s such a buzzword, you know, we talked about some of the buzzwords, it is a massive thing, I feel part of what people believe MCs to be even varies by continent. What some Americans believe MCs to be that I think they believe it to be head boys like with heaps of twang. And then what people from the UK believe it to be, is different. And then there’s people that just don’t think it’s a thing at all, because you can’t put head voice and chest voice in a blender and press start and blend them together. And my feeling is that we’re always mixing at some level. Yeah, there’s always a blend of the TA the CT, that I know goes beyond that, but I feel that we’re always blending.

Chris Johnson  49:22

Yeah, and that I think it’s a difficult argument to have not that they were arguing different, a difficult conversation to have. Yeah, is because there’s the perceptual aspects. So I think without getting too deep into the sort of mechanics of it perceptually someone can throw those two registers into a blender, they can think I’m going to have 50% Chance 50% head and in some people that will generate what what you might see as something that would sound quite chesty, but travel really high. Yes, that doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s exactly what’s going on at the vocal fold level, but it’s it It could be a useful lie to the singer. And that’s quite possible. So when you take in perception, you might even get a singer like, let’s say that might be like it, like a really high voice like a soprano. And that’s that singer may well see MCs as chest voice all the way up because their vocal physiology is different. Their feeling of it is different. And they may, they may think I just seen one voice all the way to the top. Whereas a baritone or somebody with a much deeper voice, they often describe of having to have to let go a lot more like I feel I feel it more of a change more of a, I have to drop some weight from the bottom for this to be possible. And so those two singers describe polar opposites. The baritone might say, yes, my head voice, but just with more, and the soprano may say my chest voice goes all the way to the top. Yeah. And that can be that can be a vocal, full physiology, thing, that and coordination and even just the size and that of the vocal folds that allows those two singers to experience those two things so differently. So it almost doesn’t matter what goes on underneath. So we can’t speculate as to what the mechanics are, if we will discover that the mechanics do something. And let’s say we, and we’re not going to because we can’t stick needles in vocal folds without breaking ethical rules, we’re probably never going to know until we develop something. So but if we were to know that information would probably either corroborate the soprano or corroborate the baritone or create a brand new something in the middle. And that may get those two people to second guess what they’re even doing. Right, which was working in the first place. Yes. And now everybody’s going towards functional truth, but don’t worry about functional truth. It’s really about imagery that you create for yourself, and that you can help somebody create for themselves. So we I think, with MCs, when we discuss it, we’ve got to be careful that it doesn’t change what people do, if it’s working. Because that’s the problem with I think, the 20th century, we got so much knowledge about how stuff worked, we took that forward into voice lessons, especially about placement, can’t place your voice. It’s true. You know, science tells us whatever, and then we realise that we actually know it. Yeah, you may explain it like that. But it still works as a concept. So with MCs, I think we’ve got a, we’ve got a worry about that. But the way that mix has been described these days, it could be an acoustic mix, it could be that the way a vowel is shaped, changes energy in the system. And when energy lowers a little bit in the system, we may perceive that as a as a register change. But really, really, it’s just a sort of a stepping down of how much energy in the system in a in a distinctive moment, which we perceive as a registered change. But you may still be in chest voice from bottom to top, but it’s the vowel that gives you the sense of of energy change that we attribute to being all more heady, when it may not be. And vice versa. So the combination of all of these things makes mix, and I’m big, useless pain in the neck. Again, yes.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  53:12

I don’t use the word in my lessons, to be honest, because I don’t want to confuse students. You know, I don’t say, oh, let’s use mix. I just try and get them to create the sound in a healthy, sustainable manner, that they’re not then getting in their heads about what it is. Yeah,

Chris Johnson  53:37

no, I agree with you, you lead with the experience. And if it turns out that the conversation would be, let’s say that I’m a big fan of using intensity, instead of saying, I’ll make it more mixie. It’s more like, okay, we’re just not gonna do that with quite as much gusto. And that’s probably going to get close. Maybe we’ll use a bit more vibrato. And it might sound a bit closer to a register that that a director might say, oh, yeah, that yeah, you know, the more mix you want. So sometimes I do clarify it with my students, because they’re directed to be more mixie on on the west end, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. And if they don’t understand what it is, they can’t fulfil the directions, but that’s the reason why I would use it more often. Yeah,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  54:21

I will. I don’t work with any musical theatre singers. So I don’t have to well, not currently anyway, so I don’t have to worry about it. It’s normally posing

Chris Johnson  54:33

as it would just master their own destiny and you know, when it comes as it comes.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  54:39

Okay, we’re at the last one Chris. We’ve got there. And and you know what, with this one, we’re going to address the elephant in the room. See, you thought there were only goats.

Chris Johnson  54:55

I’d rather goats because they’re a little less dangerous. Okay,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  54:58

but there was there’s An elephant in the room here. Okay, so myth number 14, you must have classical lessons. If you want to sing any style of music.

Chris Johnson  55:14

Yeah, that’s probably the oldest one, isn’t it? All right.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  55:17

That’s the elephant. Yep.

Chris Johnson  55:21

And that is, again, that is a myth. Again, we’re labelling it as the myth. But I know there’s loads and loads of classical teachers out there who would also understand that, you know, classical singing is is not the standard or the gold standard. And what classical singing could do for somebody is it may encourage them to use their voice in different ways. It may encourage them to have a very strong sound and extend range quite often if you’re going to be working on certain types of repertoire. But those those skills are also attainable in other forms of training. It’s not that classical singing generally did them. But when singers, let’s say, six, a singer, let’s say they started in contemporary music. And they took some classical lessons, if they got better, great. That’s because they took some lessons, they got some function, you could attribute that to the genre of classical, there’s probably not it. But quite often, what you’ve said about giving singers very different things is cross training, is is very much like a really valuable thing for singers to do. And let’s say that, if you got better from classical training, and it made your contemporary sound better, it’s not necessarily that the classical training was the gold standard, it was that your you use your voice in a more various way during that period, which is only good for an instrument variety avoids getting stuck in one thing. And if we get stuck in one thing, we might be really good at that. But the tendency to get more tight, or be susceptible to injury and fatigue, yes, they grow if you use your voice in a narrow way. So sometimes I feel like classical singing gets attributed the gold standard, but all it provided somebody with was cross training was a variety of tasks. And that’s why I think musical theatre generates some absolutely incredible functional singers, is because they don’t usually rest in one thing they have to be, they have to be old, young, angry, sad, high, low classical, contemporary, arguably, that might not let them arrive on the most stylistic of identities, right. So that’s the trade off. But it does allow them to use their voice in such various ways that they can actually perform many shows a week, and sing really incredible stuff, because they have that various training. Contemporary singers who teach pop, could easily bring that into their singing lessons in ways that don’t involve any classical repertoire. Or any repertoire. Even that steps out of that single genre, you can still, you could still sculpt that training. At the end of the day, classical singing has a longer history of study. So you, it’s obviously going to have a probably, I guess, more techniques at the end of the day to apply to singers. But that’s just from its long history. We could bring that information into contemporary and make it fit. It’s just that contemporary vocal coaching is probably only really been around for about 70 years, as opposed to hundreds 400 years. So yes, you know, we just we just need to make sure that all the information goes in apart. And then it becomes a part of style agnostic information. It’s not about classical, it’s just classical as contributed a lot of the knowledge and information over a longer period of time doesn’t make it better. Yes,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  58:51

when when I was in the US, I did some teaching over there. And it was I taught at three different locations, universities over there, where I was working, and doing master classes and delivering presentations to classical people, because there was a they only had a classical voice department. But I taught CCM and so I had classical teachers in the room I had members of nats the local chapter, members turned up. And it was so interesting watching their faces as I taught, and as I delivered information, and they’re going, Wow, right? We do that. You you do that too.

Chris Johnson  59:44

All right, lovely, some common ground, they

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  59:47

were finding common ground and also that basically my philosophies were the same. And just because I teach CS see em, I am still a legitimate teacher. And I still have certain principles, and certain things that I teach that classical people teach. But it’s just the output is different. So we’re working towards the different output. But a lot of the steps are still the same. We’re still looking for a lot of the same things. In terms of like, store, a brief store, got a place store to support whatever it is we’ve talked about tonight. I’m sure all classical teachers do it too. But we’re just looking for a different sound. Yeah, the aesthetic is different. But we are still teaching singing, and still teaching the instrument. Good singing is good singing. Efficient singing is efficient singing. So sustainable singing is sustainable singing irrespective of style. Yeah,

Chris Johnson  1:01:06

absolutely. And I have the I’m kind of the same as you, you know, because many texts are classical. A lot of the experimentation of techniques and things I’ve learned over the years will be majority classical based. But the the experimentation and shushing it with other forms of of information, allow us to either discern what’s going to be useful in the pop world, exactly what’s close, but needs to be modified. Yeah, that’s nearly it. Yeah, that’s gonna be and so we can thank classical for that for its long history of being able to provide a lot of observation. And classical, we can’t forget, as well as gone through many changes, let’s say before the invention of like, laryngoscope. And, you know, before Garcia and all of the industrial age, classical singing was very much like how we how singers do pop these days, which is very intuitive, not based around mechanics, because they weren’t really on that anatomical sort of, they weren’t dissecting bodies at that point in time. They weren’t just looking at stuff in the throat through a mirror. They didn’t get tainted by mechanics, biomechanics, and they did a lot of it through prime or expression, you know, just fears, you know, being physically robust. And all those things. Yes. So you know, there was a, there was a time in classical from what I can see of the history anyway, where that probably would have transferred to pop much better than all of this mechanical 20th century stuff that seems to be like, No, you’ve got to keep your larynx low manually and all that stuff. It didn’t, it didn’t quite end, even breathing was much simpler before. Biomechanics got involved. Yeah, opera, it was it was a whole self breath. It wasn’t a mechanical, this ribbon, that ribbon, twist that one and pull that in. It wasn’t any of that was so classical is almost taken the hits for us on that as well. But how it then gets permeated out by I guess, I guess purists in some way. It’s the it’s the purest version of that classical teacher that that actually almost demonises some of the stuff that goes on in contemporary but exactly. Fortunately, I see them as the, the more than minority these days, because I think they’re, I think the education is going out. And the acceptance and the understanding and the, like you say the common ground is growing.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:03:33

It is it is. And you know, I felt very privileged to be a part of that. When I was teaching. I, I honestly was so grateful that I was able to, to impart what I knew, and that they could actually relate to it. And, and they, they saw the similarity. So it was really, really cool. Now, we’re winding up, Chris, this has been way too much fun.

Chris Johnson  1:04:06

Thank you for having me again. Yeah, I always enjoy.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:04:08

Yes. And I love all the information. You are truly such a knowledgeable singing teacher and vocal coach, and I have the utmost respect for you. I think you’re doing great work. And I know you’re sharing it through your teacher training. What so tell us where that’s out at the moment.

Chris Johnson  1:04:28

Thank you. I appreciate you too, by the way, at the moment. Yeah, I’ve got a couple of things going on teacher training, I run through a company called Teach voice.com Which is where vocal coaches primarily who are working in contemporary or quite often they’ve been classical but are moving into more contemporary fields if you like. I’ve created a big programme a membership for them, but there’s a there’s a free community where I help people with questions, everything we were talking about sort of today, you know, there’s a lot of conversation in there. But then there’s a programme of teacher training that I do for those guys that allows them to sort of not go through a course, but rather just dip into these knowledge gaps that they have. Because I think we have to acknowledge vocal coaches come from such different places of either education conception style, yes, to run them through a course doesn’t make any sense. It’s got to be like, Okay, we have conversations, they take assessments into their singers, and then the assessments identify where the gaps are, in their own knowledge. And then they kind of pick in so I have a great time with about 100 teachers at the moment are in the programme. Wow.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:05:38

That’s amazing. Well done.

Chris Johnson  1:05:42

Thank you. That’s really great. And they are so cool. Yeah, congratulations, they really help each other as well. We have two group calls every week. So actually, some of those teachers have been in the programme for three years. So actually, I’ve got to know a lot of them really, really well. And so we do we do all kinds of collaboration. And, and they they almost mastermind at times, you know, there’s a lot of input and expertise that can come in on those group calls, as well as specialist information that I might bring, as well.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:06:11

That is amazing. So where can people find out about this training that you’re offering,

Chris Johnson  1:06:18

where you can go if you’re, if this is either for singers or teachers, so if you go to teach voice.com forward slash email, what you can do is if you want to find out more about it, you can enter in your email there it will say, Are you a singer do it here are your vocal hooks do it here. But whichever one you add, or place your email in, you’ll get an email straight back with with a free piece of training. Just to allow just allow you to kind of like experience something different. But also that’ll give you information as well on what the what my various pieces of training contain, the features that they have, and the outcomes that you can expect from them. Amazing.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:06:55

So we will add the links to your training in the show notes to make things easier for anyone that’s just missed that. Okay, so what are you up to next? I believe there could be some overseas trouble. Am I allowed to say? Yes,

Chris Johnson  1:07:11

you are. Yeah, I’m going to I don’t have the exact details right now. But if you’re listening in 2024, that is the year isn’t it? I always forget it is this me know, right? Flying by okay, I’m still writing 2023 Occasionally. So if it’s 2024. Then in August, if you keep an eye out for my mug, on the singing wherever you get your singing information, I’ll be there in in Brisbane, in Australia in August, which is going to be absolutely brilliant, roughly about the sort of 22nd or 21st. And it will be a rather large sort of almost like singing festival where there’s loads of training, but it’s going to be quite big applicable to singers, coaches, voiceover artists, and also some of that some of the medical fraternity as well. That’s incredible.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:08:04

Wow, okay. Well, anyone that’s here in Australia look out for Chris’s mug.

Chris Johnson  1:08:14

Blazing I’m hoping it’s gonna be on Billboard’s you know, but I doubt I doubt I’ll be loaded up that much.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:08:20

I’m sure but for all the wrong reasons.

Chris Johnson  1:08:24

Have you seen this man? Please call this number.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:08:28

Wanted Dead or Alive? Oh my gosh. Well, thank you so much, Chris. It has been such a joy. Honestly, I love hanging out with you. doesn’t even feel like it was an interview to live it was was too much fun for an interview. But no, I truly appreciate you and all the work that you’re doing and your contribution to our singing voice community is unbelievable. It’s so valued. So love your work. Keep it up and see you next time. I’m looking at that mug.

Chris Johnson  1:09:06

Thank you. Yeah, no, it’s great to be a part of the community and offer something that whatever I can, I’m here to offer it. So thanks for having me once again. Thank

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:09:14

you. Bye, Chris. Bye. Bye bye. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of a voice and beyond. I hope you enjoyed it as now is an important time for you to invest in your own self care, personal growth and education. Use every day as an opportunity to learn and to grow so you can show up feeling empowered and ready to live your best life. If you know someone who will also be inspired by this episode, please be sure to copy and paste the link and share it with them. Or share it on social media and use the hashtag a voice and beyond And I promise you, I am committed to bringing you more inspiration and conversations just like this one every week. And if you would like to help me, please rate and review this podcast and cheer me on by clicking the subscribe button on Apple podcast right now. I would also love to know what it is that you most enjoyed about this episode and what was your biggest takeaway? Please take care and I look forward to your company next time on the next episode have a voice and beyond