0:00

I have to say Austin was amazing. He just was such a work ethic.

0:03

Um, he really wanted to get this right.

0:05

So I followed my instinct,

0:05

my normal instincts.

0:07

I didn't go, "This is a star and

0:07

I've gotta get him to sing Elvis".

0:10

I just went, I've gotta get him to sing

0:10

efficiently and then I've gotta get him

0:14

to sing in style, the style he wants and

0:14

needs, and I have to analyze the style.

0:18

So I was doing a lot of listening on my

0:18

own, you know, What is Elvis doing there?

0:23

What sort of tension is he bringing in?

0:36

This is a voice,

0:36

a podcast with Dr.

0:40

Gillyanne Kayes and Jeremy Fisher.

0:43

This is a voice. Hello and welcome to, This is

0:46

A Voice, Season six, Episode

0:49

10. The podcast will be Get Vocal about voice.

0:52

I'm Jeremy Fisher. And I'm Dr. Gillyanne Kayes.

0:55

And she's back again. Yeah.

0:57

We're back again with Dr Irene Bartlett.

0:59

Hello Irene.

1:00

Thank you so much for

1:00

coming back again because we felt

1:03

we had so much more to talk about.

1:06

Oh, it's a pleasure. Thank you for asking me.

1:08

So we're gonna jump straight in with something that's only just been released.

1:12

Yes. Now we know that you are a very

1:12

modest person, so don't hate us.

1:17

This is from an article about You. Okay.

1:19

About something that's recently been, um, released

1:21

and coming to the news.

1:24

"Since beginning her academic career

1:24

at the Queensland Conservatorium,

1:28

Griffith University in 1996, Irene has

1:28

been an ever present, if humble and

1:34

largely hidden figure behind the careers

1:34

of generations of talented singers."

1:40

Now that comes from Griffith

1:40

News, and that is about a job that

1:44

you completed earlier, which is

1:44

Vocal coach for Elvis, the movie.

1:48

Do you wanna talk about that?

1:49

Yeah. Tell us a bit about it.

1:51

Yeah, I can talk about it now,

1:51

um, because it's been released and,

1:54

um, and it's now okay to do that.

1:57

It was just one of those

1:57

things that, that popped up.

2:00

I got a phone call from the, uh,

2:00

principal musical director to say, you

2:05

know, would I coach a star for a movie?

2:09

Didn't tell me what it was all about it or anything. the bottom line was that, um, I

2:10

ended up accepting the job and, um,

2:14

I got permission from the university

2:14

to let me do that, and I would go

2:18

down there on a Friday afternoon

2:18

or a Saturday as they needed me.

2:21

So I,

2:22

And what was the job I,

2:23

you haven't told us? It turned out to be Elvis, the movie.

2:26

Um, and I was the Vocal coach

2:26

to Austin Butler, who's the

2:30

fabulous star of the show.

2:32

Great. And you basically had to work with him

2:32

to find out how he was gonna take his

2:36

voice and sing Elvis material as Elvis.

2:39

Yeah. That was something I was very impressed

2:39

with in, in the article that you, you,

2:43

you stated that you didn't want to

2:43

clone the er, you know the Elvis sound.

2:48

You did something. How did you work around that?

2:51

Yeah.

2:53

Well, so first of all, the very

2:53

first meeting I said, I said to the

2:57

musical director when he asked me about

2:57

this, and I said, Yes, I'd be interested.

3:00

I said, First thing, first, I need to

3:00

meet with the singer and I need to make

3:05

sure that he's comfortable with me and

3:05

I'm comfortable to work with him because

3:09

it's gotta be a two-way street here.

3:11

Um, and I didn't know at that stage

3:11

how long this was gonna go on for.

3:15

Um, but basically, um, then once I got

3:15

down to the studios and the brief was.

3:20

You know, we, we, it's Elvis

3:20

and we are covering everything.

3:24

Like Elvis had a 22 year career.

3:26

Mm-hmm.

3:27

And, um, and his voice

3:27

changed dramatically from

3:29

the beginning to the end. Um, primarily, I mean, age is always a

3:30

factor as we know, but, um, you know,

3:35

with the, the settling of the larynx and

3:35

the, The vocal factor, uh, the Vocal.

3:40

I'm, I've a baby brain. I've been looking after babies all day.

3:43

Excuse me, I'm with my grandchildren. Um, yeah, the Vocal FRA compliance,

3:45

the Vocal tract compliance.

3:49

I'll get this right. Um, and uh, yeah, basically with

3:50

the Elvis, you also had the problem

3:55

of later in, towards the end of

3:55

his career, massive drug intake.

3:58

So he was, he had damaged his

3:58

body, let alone just his voice.

4:04

So yeah, so, you know, we had that

4:04

conversation early in the piece.

4:07

Um, Austin was in his late twenties,

4:07

and so he had a, you know, young

4:11

larynx and, um, could already sing.

4:14

But it never sung the sort of

4:14

heavy material that Elvis does, so

4:17

with the belting and everything. So it's male belting.

4:19

So, um, yeah, I basically worked on,

4:19

I said we'll start with the, the early

4:24

stuff, whether Elvis was younger, and

4:24

we work with that and, uh, we work with

4:28

Austin's voice, see what his voice does on

4:28

those songs, and then we'll Get his voice

4:34

um, we could build the stamina and get the

4:34

resilience in his voice, and then we'll

4:38

put on the effects, the Elvis effects. So I was very fortunate in

4:40

that I have to say I was part

4:43

of a team, a fantastic team. Musical director was amazing

4:45

and completely, um, supportive

4:50

of anything that I did. And he sat on every session so that he

4:51

could make sure that when I wasn't on, on

4:56

set that the, um, that the exercises and

4:56

that were still being done continuously.

5:01

Although I have to say Austin was amazing. He just was such a work ethic.

5:04

Um, he really wanted to get this right.

5:06

Um, but they also had a speech voice

5:06

coach and they also had a dialect coach.

5:11

So there, there were a few

5:11

of us working on his voice.

5:13

But my job was to put all of

5:13

their work with his accents and

5:16

everything into his singing. Mm-hmm.

5:19

I mean, fantastic experience

5:19

and obviously he was very lucky to have

5:24

you and your ability really to collaborate

5:24

with other disciplines and, and create it

5:30

into a whole for that particular singer.

5:33

And you've helped a lot of

5:33

artists develop, haven't you?

5:35

I, I know that.

5:37

Yes. Um, so, but usually in that I like

5:37

working in a team, so the Vocal

5:42

idea of a vocology team, which we,

5:42

we know is still quite American.

5:45

Uh, not so much taken up in Australia

5:45

or, or in England, although we do

5:49

it without putting a label on it. Mm-hmm. So teams with speech pass ts, um,

5:51

you know, physios all that for ages.

5:56

And so this was nothing different for me. And, um, yeah, it was.

6:03

I decided right from the beginning my

6:03

job was to address what we said last

6:06

time, function of the voice, and get

6:06

that working, get his, get him happy with

6:10

the own sound, accepting his own sound.

6:13

And um, I have to say, Towards the

6:13

end when we had to get some quick

6:17

stuff going, I really did, um,

6:17

connect him to his primal sounds,

6:22

um, because I'd already done a lot

6:22

of work on his breathing and that.

6:25

So, you know, it sort of seemed

6:25

to be the way to go and it worked.

6:28

You talk a lot about the, the

6:28

sort of style features that Elvis had

6:32

and it's, I think it's really interesting

6:32

that you were working with, as we do, you

6:35

work with the singer in the room first? So you find out what that voice

6:38

does, what, what that larynx is

6:41

like, how it reacts, what you know. It's the whole business of

6:43

the singer in front of you.

6:46

And checking the function.

6:47

Yeah. Mm-hmm. . And then you start to

6:48

add the style features.

6:50

Talk to us about the style features.

6:53

Well, first of all, can I just go

6:53

back one step and say, What I tend to do

6:56

with professionals is note the tensions.

7:00

So, Cause there are always tensions

7:00

with performers, they're on.

7:03

And, and so I wanna, is this

7:03

physical, is this in the larynx?

7:06

Is it just a psychological mindset?

7:09

You know, what, what, what tensions am I working with? Once I get that done, yeah.

7:12

So once the voice is functioning and I

7:12

believe it's functioning efficiently,

7:16

so efficiency is the big thing for me,

7:16

that this voice is working efficiently.

7:20

And again, this harks back to the last

7:20

time we spoke, um, because I grew up in

7:24

a, in a big family and I was the youngest,

7:24

um, my youngest brother, who's seven

7:29

years older than me, was mad on Elvis.

7:31

So I grew up hearing all of Elvis,

7:31

and so when they put the repertoire in

7:36

front of me, I went, Oh, yeah, I know

7:36

that, I know what that sounds like.

7:39

I, I know what that is. So basically, once the voice was

7:40

working, then with the musical director,

7:45

I just worked on the fine detail

7:45

around how did Elvis make that sound?

7:50

You know, because Elvis

7:50

did use constriction.

7:52

He did use tension, but he, this was an,

7:52

an, you know, an amazing voice and he was

7:58

able to switch it on and switch it off. And as we know, that is good singing when

7:59

you're able to manipulate the larynx,

8:03

but always be able to come back to a

8:03

place of, I call it neutrality, where

8:08

there's the voice has some downtime. So that was, that's how I worked on the

8:10

style, was looking at each song because

8:14

I'd go down, we'd work on a song, that he

8:14

had to have ready, you know, to go into

8:19

the studio and then take it on stage. Um, by the way, he did sing,

8:21

um, about 15 of the songs.

8:25

He sang all of Elvis's pre 1963,

8:25

I think, um, for the whole thing.

8:32

And then, they say very clearly

8:32

on the, any interviews and in notes

8:35

that basically, then they spliced

8:35

Elvis's voice into whenever it got

8:41

to a point where they needed that

8:41

really heavy sound, especially later.

8:44

So even in some of the later

8:44

stuff, he starts the singing.

8:46

But when it gets into the really heavy

8:46

belting, they splice Elvis's voice

8:50

in, and the musical director Elliot

8:50

Wheeler did the most amazing job.

8:55

And just a magician, you know? Um, so yeah, so that's, that's,

8:56

that's how we went about it, basically

8:59

function first, which is, so I followed

8:59

my instinct, my normal instincts.

9:04

I didn't go, "This is a star and

9:04

I've gotta get him to sing Elvis".

9:06

I just went, I've gotta get him to sing

9:06

efficiently and then I've gotta get him

9:10

to sing in style, the style he wants and

9:10

needs, and I have to analyze the style.

9:15

So I was doing a lot of listening on my

9:15

own, you know, What is Elvis doing there?

9:19

What sort of tension is he bringing in? You know, what sort of constriction do we

9:21

need or what sort of release do we need?

9:25

Because Elvis was using his Vocal tract

9:25

in both a, um, the pharyngeal spaces were

9:30

manipulated across those three areas.

9:32

You know, the superior, middle

9:32

and inferior constrictors.

9:35

So there was a lot of manipulation going

9:35

on, which we all do in all speech and

9:39

singing, but it was specific to Elvis,

9:39

so I had to find out what they were,

9:43

and then I sort of helped him with that.

9:45

I love this because basically

9:45

we, again, we're on the same page.

9:49

What you're talking about is the

9:49

singer in the room, you're talking

9:52

about the style that that singer,

9:52

particular singer has, has to sing in.

9:56

And you're also talking about

9:56

context because that context in that

9:59

film was absolutely specific and

9:59

you had to work with that context.

10:04

Love that.

10:05

And with that voice. And have that voice, um, you

10:05

know, last, the distance.

10:09

Um, yes, because the young, a young man

10:09

with a sterling career in front of him.

10:15

And the last thing you know, I wanna

10:15

do with any of my singers, I say to

10:18

them, One gig is not worth ruining

10:18

the rest of your career for, you know.

10:21

So, um, as we had all those conversations

10:21

upfront, even though he wanted to go

10:25

gungho, like all singers, he wanted

10:25

to get to the meat of it, I went,

10:29

No, no, this is the way I work. Are you happy with this?

10:31

You know, we're gonna. We're gonna do some voice building

10:32

before we ever get into the style, but

10:35

I'll always tell you how, I'll show

10:35

you how to use the exercises within

10:39

the context of the song, primarily

10:39

without words at first, and then

10:42

we'll lay words in on top of that. But, um, and then we'll get the emotional.

10:46

So I tend, I know some

10:46

teachers get, get good results.

10:49

I'm not, I'm not criticizing, but I

10:49

don't like to go for emotion first

10:54

because I think it turns on too

10:54

many, um, un uncontrollable tensions.

10:59

Yes.

11:00

Um, I can't, I can't tell

11:00

them how to sob cry or whatever.

11:04

However, once the voice is stabilized,

11:04

then I can use those tools and go,

11:08

How would you, how would you complain?

11:10

How would. Wh how would you whine, you know,

11:11

Um, but not just whinge, whine, sob.

11:16

Because that's likely to undo something.

11:18

That is a very interesting

11:18

perception, I think, about getting

11:23

a sort of, it's a bit like, um, and

11:23

I, you know, none of us in this room

11:29

think that there's only one balance.

11:31

Mm-mm. But it's a little bit like getting

11:32

a, you know, a physical alignment,

11:36

physical balance from which you

11:36

can move into other positions.

11:41

Well, this is essentially the

11:41

neutral that we talk about, and we

11:44

talked about it for years and it's

11:44

not even, it's still a dynamic thing.

11:48

I mean, what you're talking about is, is

11:48

it's almost like you want to find that

11:52

person's Vocal balance around this style

11:52

before we put any of the features on it.

12:00

That's a great way of saying it. Yeah.

12:02

And there's, um, there

12:02

was something also that you've

12:05

said because you're listening

12:05

for tensions that already exist.

12:08

Which I love, love that. Haven't heard that before.

12:11

Really like it. And that's actually what we do is we

12:12

listen for is the tension that somebody

12:15

is carrying appropriate for what they

12:15

they need, can they switch it on and off?

12:19

Which is massive, that,

12:19

just that point at all.

12:22

Can you switch that tension on and

12:22

off if you can, then it's serving you.

12:26

If you can't, you are serving it.

12:28

Exactly.

12:29

And we need to do something about it.

12:31

Well there'll be consequences. And we all know that young

12:32

voices are resilient.

12:34

We've all been young. We all know what that's

12:35

like and recover quickly.

12:37

But you know. When you're working with professionals

12:39

in the industry, music theater people,

12:43

film people, whatever, you know, my gig

12:43

singers, basically, I want them to have

12:47

as long a career as they wanna have.

12:48

Mm-hmm.

12:49

So I'm, you know, I try and teach

12:49

them all the time to, um, to not need me.

12:54

So I, like I was doing with him, I

12:54

was giving, I was training him exactly

12:57

same way I would train my three, four

12:57

year, five year university students

13:02

and only I didn't have that amount

13:02

of time, but I, I, I avoided going

13:07

off-piste and trying to create something,

13:07

you know, for this particular thing.

13:13

Cause he was a movie star and I went, No, no. He's a student standing in front of me.

13:16

I will teach him the way I teach. I've got time.

13:19

It wasn't, you know, it

13:19

wasn't a three week fix.

13:22

It was, I had weeks with him and then

13:22

of course, Covid came, shut it all down.

13:26

And then we started up again

13:26

as soon as Covid lifted.

13:28

And of course we had, we were

13:28

pretty lucky in Queensland.

13:32

It was, it was quite easy

13:32

for us to open up again.

13:35

Um, so, and um, yeah, so

13:35

that's, that's what happened.

13:38

And, uh, yeah, it was a very enjoyable experience. He, the crew was phenomenal.

13:41

They, they were just, the whole team

13:41

was just, everybody was interested

13:46

in what everybody else was doing. So the voice specialist or the

13:47

voice coach, um, came and sat in

13:52

on lessons, just said, Would you

13:52

mind if I watch what you're doing?

13:54

And then I went to watch her work

13:54

with him in a acting position

13:59

where he then had to sing. So, you know, I could watch what she

14:01

was doing and then build on that.

14:04

So it was this lovely

14:04

conversation between the two.

14:07

All of us actually.

14:08

Mm-hmm.

14:09

I mean that that's,

14:09

I mean, it just sounds like

14:11

an ideal model, doesn't it? When you are in that situation where

14:12

you've got to coach the staff for

14:17

a specific thing, that it's the

14:17

collaborative work and also the patience,

14:21

you know, saying, This will take time.

14:24

Yes. Because it's not like doing a take,

14:24

you know, it's not like we're gonna

14:29

do a little micro thing on this note. It was a full run

14:32

every time. Doesn't work. And it was a full visual run as well as

14:34

say, um, it's the way Baz Lurhmann works.

14:38

It's visual and voice. It's, it's, he doesn't

14:40

like to cut and paste.

14:43

It's, it's basically what it is, you know?

14:45

And so, yeah, that was,

14:45

it was, it was terrific.

14:48

Anyway, that's, um, that was, that was that. But I said to people, people say,

14:50

Oh, you really worked on Elvis?

14:52

I, it's another job. You know, it was, it was what I do.

14:55

It's what I've been doing all my life, basically. Well, not all my life, but I've been

14:57

doing for the last 30 odd years.

14:59

So, um, for me it was just a, it

14:59

was very interesting to go into that

15:06

world in a studio situation, because

15:06

I had to be at the studios all the

15:09

time when I was working with him.

15:10

We're gonna bring you back

15:10

to, um, the world that you normally

15:13

inhabit, your day to day job. Um, we wanna talk about the pedagogy

15:15

program that you run, because we

15:20

have taught on it and both of us

15:20

thought it was unique and brilliant.

15:25

Yeah. I mean, why did you do it and how did you

15:25

go about setting up something like that?

15:32

Tell us more about that.

15:33

Okay, so I, I first started

15:33

teaching into, there was a pedagogy course

15:38

that was being run by, um, a wonderful

15:38

classical teacher called Adele Nesbitt

15:41

who's retired 10 years or more now.

15:44

It was basically a classical voice course.

15:47

It was part of the classical

15:47

voice and, um, jazz voice

15:51

sits under the jazz umbrella.

15:53

I think I said that last time as well. Mm-hmm. Whereas classical voice is independent

15:54

of classic orchestral music, you

15:58

know, it's a separate entity. So anyway, um, what happened was, um,

15:59

all of a sudden, um, Adele came to

16:04

me and she said, Look, we are getting

16:04

applicants who are contemporary singers.

16:09

And at first it was two, you know,

16:09

mostly it was still classical.

16:12

There might be, you know, eight

16:12

classicals and two contemporary.

16:15

It was that sort of number. Um, and, um, she said, Would you come

16:17

in and do a, a couple of lectures?

16:22

So I started just by doing a couple

16:22

of lectures in a trimester with

16:25

everybody in the, in the space. Um, but it was interesting that, uh,

16:27

another story, but the, some of the

16:31

classical, um, kids as you know, I call

16:31

'em kids, students, um, the arrogance of

16:37

youth, you know, they sort of said to one

16:37

of my students about realizing she was one

16:41

of my students, um, you know, why is, why

16:41

is this pop person teaching us, you know?

16:47

So that was truly, and my student came

16:47

back and told me, so I made mention of

16:52

it in the next lecture, which was, uh,

16:52

and I have to say the credit to that,

16:55

was a young man, he came up to me at

16:55

the end of the second lecture and said,

16:59

I have to apologize to you because I,

16:59

I thought you were just a pop teacher.

17:03

So that was interesting. Anyway, that's how it all started.

17:06

Um, and then what happened? It's the times we live in more,

17:09

more contemporary teachers.

17:13

They were hungry. They were hungry for, you know,

17:14

either to start teaching or you know,

17:18

they'd been teaching from what they

17:18

knew from being gig performers and

17:21

wanted their background knowledge. Um, so we start and all of a sudden

17:23

the balance started to shift.

17:26

And so eventually Adele, I were

17:26

team-teaching, because we had such a

17:31

huge mix, and at first it was almost

17:31

half and half, and then it started to

17:34

tip towards contemporary, you know. Um, and so when Adele retired and she, you

17:36

know, God bless her, she gave me notice

17:43

that, that she was gonna be retiring. So I started to rewrite the program

17:45

based on what she was teaching, there was

17:50

nothing wrong with what she was teaching. The, her, her knowledge of anatomy

17:51

and physiology was fantastic, but I

17:55

was starting to gear it more towards

17:55

how do we, um, reconcile style if

17:59

we've got majorly different people,

17:59

uh, singers in our, in our space.

18:04

Mm-hmm.

18:05

And so, yeah, that's the

18:05

first thing I didn't, I I was writing

18:08

that while she was still in charge. And then when she retired, I

18:09

became the head of pedagogy.

18:13

So in that first year, it was sort

18:13

of a wish and a prayer and I put,

18:16

I threw everything I'd written

18:16

into this program just to see.

18:20

And, and luckily it worked. So because it could have been

18:22

a disaster, but it wasn't.

18:24

And, um, we're at the point now

18:24

where we have, more than two, no

18:30

more than three quarters of our

18:30

students are contemporary based.

18:34

I'm talking, sorry, with contemporary,

18:34

music theater, which we said we'd call

18:37

a separate genre, but they're singing

18:37

all styles from rock through to jazz,

18:42

music theater, um, everything in between.

18:45

And then we've only got only ever

18:45

in each year got, you know, maybe

18:49

three, four classical, because

18:49

last year we had 24 people enroll.

18:54

So it's, it's in demand.

18:57

Um, but the, the ratio has changed.

18:59

So do you want me to go on with this?

19:02

Because I say what happened then

19:02

was the development was when

19:05

I realized this was happening. Um, I didn't then want the classical

19:07

students to feel the way the

19:12

contemporary ones did originally. Mm-hmm. I was determined that wasn't gonna happen.

19:16

So, um, so Ron Morris came

19:16

on board then with me and um,

19:21

in the first year basically. I said, This is the program I've written.

19:24

And he said, Great. Looks fantastic.

19:27

Um, and because he's a voice scientist

19:27

as well, so the two of us just put the

19:32

underlying program and took it away from

19:32

one-to-one teaching type tuition because

19:38

a lot of our people are already teachers. They know what they're doing.

19:41

Yeah. Um, we don't want to teach to recreate

19:41

the wheel or, or or put them off side

19:45

because we're telling them that something

19:45

they know is, is probably not right.

19:49

You know? So we've got to, in another way, we

19:49

went to it through voice science.

19:53

So the first pro, the first course they

19:53

do is anatomy and physiology of the voice.

19:58

And that is mind blowing for a lot of

19:58

them because they've, they've read,

20:02

they've been to conferences and, you

20:02

know, but to get that a whole trimester

20:07

of, you know, really intense work.

20:11

On. And the second, in our second

20:11

trimester, that same unit, it's

20:15

Ped one, Ped two, is acoustics.

20:17

It's fully acoustics. And they learn to understand

20:18

and be able to work on

20:21

spectrograms and, and phonograms.

20:24

And apart from just doing perceptual

20:24

analysis, which we all do, um, they've

20:29

gotta be able to do that as well. But we, we show them the science, the real

20:30

science side, and they get very excited

20:34

and they have to do a lot of research.

20:36

I think it's really important

20:36

for people to hear this because one thing

20:39

I was very aware of when we came was there

20:39

was a very strong sense of inclusivity.

20:45

I mean, you know, we came in and, and did,

20:45

we did two pedagogy practicums, didn't we?

20:49

The first years, the second years,

20:49

and the way that people were able

20:53

to discuss things and the way that

20:53

you and Ron Morris also guided.

20:58

So it's very much curated discussion,

20:58

particularly the first years,

21:03

um, in terms of what is that

21:03

exercise for, how is it applied?

21:08

Where, where does it come from?

21:11

You know, the understanding of that. So there was never any sense that

21:12

one genre was better than another.

21:16

Mm-hmm.

21:17

And that's what the main thing, um,

21:17

the feedback we get, um, from the shoes

21:22

that when they graduate, and it's every,

21:22

just about every course someone writes,

21:27

my mind is so open now that I, I just

21:27

understand that we just all teach music.

21:33

We all teach singing, and that one

21:33

style is no better than the other.

21:37

It's just what the student wants and needs. Um, and so basically, yeah.

21:41

So the other thing that Ron and I can

21:41

do, um, as a, as a duo so to speak, is,

21:46

you know, he's fully classical I'm fully

21:46

contemporary in terms of performance.

21:50

we demonstrate if they ask us, Well,

21:50

how does that work on a classical voice,

21:53

that exercise, or how does that work? We can make the same

21:54

exercise work on any voices.

21:57

Yes, yes. We just adapt, adapt to, to octave

21:59

of course, um, to, um, register

22:04

whatever you wanna name it. But basically the lower register, the

22:05

upper register, um, and, uh, yeah, so

22:09

that works brilliantly because they

22:09

get, we give, all of our students

22:13

get one-on-one lessons in addition.

22:16

So they don't just get the coursework,

22:16

they get one-to-one lessons.

22:18

So the idea is they go to

22:18

the lectures, they gain this

22:23

theoretical academic knowledge.

22:25

Okay? Scientific knowledge. Um, in practicum they then

22:27

put that into practice for.

22:31

But in the meantime, they've, they

22:31

have their one-on-one lesson as well

22:34

where they have to be the student.

22:37

So all of a sudden they, they step

22:37

out of the role of the teacher and

22:40

they have to know what it feels

22:40

like to be the student in the room.

22:44

I love that. You are, you are basically, you

22:45

are hitting three targets, which

22:48

is wonderful because you've got the

22:48

knowledge gain, but the knowledge gain

22:52

is simply intellectual understanding

22:52

with no practical application.

22:58

And I, um, feel very strongly about

22:58

this, that people just gather facts

23:02

like they're bricks and then try

23:02

and build a, a house without a plan.

23:06

Yeah. Um, the second thing is the, the

23:06

pedagogy aspect, which is how

23:09

you teach it to other people. And for me the difference between a

23:12

singer and a teacher is that the singer is

23:15

always working on their own voice and the

23:15

teacher never works on their own voice.

23:18

It's actually, they are always

23:18

working with someone else's voice.

23:20

And it's a completely

23:20

different set of instructions.

23:23

And also a, a lot of

23:23

teachers process, you know, their

23:26

understanding via their own voice.

23:29

Mm-hmm.

23:30

So, for example, one may

23:30

not be a great belter, but if you

23:33

understand how to approach that sound

23:33

and what it feels like in your voice,

23:38

then you have a much better chance of

23:38

being able to help someone else do it.

23:41

And you know, it's not just

23:41

the theory that will help you

23:45

Exactly. But I think that underlying the

23:45

understanding of what you're asking

23:49

from the instrument, even with basic

23:49

exercises, I say to my teachers, my

23:53

students, What are you asking someone

23:53

to do when you ask them to warm up?

24:00

What, what are you expecting them to be

24:00

able to do muscularly, psychologically,

24:06

um, their neurological processing?

24:09

When you say sing a five note scale.

24:12

Which five notes please?

24:13

But it's easy. But it's easy. And I said, Well, actually

24:14

it's not easy . No, it's not.

24:18

Because you, you know, we have to, What

24:18

a good teacher has to be able to do is to

24:23

get rid of as much inference as possible.

24:25

We have to know that when we

24:25

are asking a student a question,

24:29

they're receiving that question

24:29

the way we mean it to be received.

24:32

So you might have to ask a question

24:32

three or four ways before you actually

24:37

understand the way the student

24:37

is, is processing that question.

24:40

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

24:41

We have a, in the third

24:41

trimester, they do, um, internship.

24:45

And, uh, one of the things I do is

24:45

we, um, I was fortunate enough to

24:49

do the critical response process. Um, um, and I did that in Finland, I,

24:51

I was completely confronted myself.

24:56

It was a week at Sibelius Academy at

24:56

the retreat uh, so I now teach them,

25:00

I take them through that whole process

25:00

and say, you know, this is a process of

25:04

listening, of knowing how to ask an open

25:04

question rather than a closed question.

25:10

So what I'm trying to say is we,

25:10

there's so many ways to, so many

25:15

ways to skin a cat, basically. And I love cats, so I shouldn't

25:17

say that, but there's, there's so

25:19

many ways of, of getting someone to

25:19

under getting you sorry, yourself,

25:24

to understand how they're receiving

25:24

the information you're giving them.

25:27

Yes. Otherwise, it remains information. Yes.

25:30

It never gets used.

25:32

Yes, so the critical response

25:32

process will put that in the notes,

25:36

and I think there are a couple of

25:36

YouTube videos about it, aren't they?

25:40

There's something I want to pick up on, which I think is really interesting, which is what you are

25:42

talking about is your own hidden beliefs

25:48

and your own hidden understandings that

25:48

you don't even know they're hidden,

25:51

so you don't even know they're there. Yeah. And so when you ask a question or, I mean,

25:52

my favorite one is sing a five note scale.

25:57

Yeah. And I'm going as a classical

25:57

singer, the five note scale is

26:00

absolutely embedded in your training.

26:04

But as a pop singer, age 16, Yeah.

26:08

Which five notes would

26:08

you like me to sing?

26:10

It's not even a pattern that I recognize.

26:12

Five notes from a pentatonic? You know, because that's what,

26:13

they don't know that, but that's what they're hearing, you know?

26:16

Yes. Or is it a diatonic scale or whatever.

26:18

But, so yes, straightaway, Jeremy,

26:18

you, you've hit the as you always

26:21

do, hit the nail on the head. Um, you know, the, they can be

26:22

thinking any of those things and.

26:27

Even if you play the single notes on the

26:27

piano and you say, I want you to sing

26:31

this diatonic five note descending scale.

26:33

Um, then I say to the first thing I

26:33

say to my singers when they've sung

26:38

through I go, was that all in pitch?

26:40

And they stop and look at you

26:40

as if no, I said, You know, did

26:43

every note was, every note you

26:43

sang was, was every note in pitch?

26:47

And they'll go, Oh.

26:50

Maybe the third wasn't,

26:50

and I go, No, you're right.

26:53

The third wasn't. So should we do it again?

26:55

Because every time you practice that

26:55

wrong note because you think it's an

26:58

easy scale that is going to become, you

26:58

know, processed and and endemic to what

27:04

you do when you sing, every time you

27:04

hear that note, you might sing it sharp

27:07

or slightly flat, you know or something. So it's just, yeah, Five note scale is.

27:11

I start with 'em all the time. I go, You've gotta nail these first

27:12

before you do the grand opera scale.

27:15

I'm sorry.

27:16

I think that's very interesting

27:16

because, um, as you've said, you know,

27:20

the five notes scale, the up and down or

27:20

just the down, It's absolutely ubiquitous.

27:26

And I mean, with our, um, you

27:26

know, our Five Days To Better

27:30

Singing Teaching, that's the

27:30

first thing we do on that course.

27:33

We ask the participants to

27:33

share an exercise and they teach

27:37

an exercise to someone else. They don't tell them

27:40

what the exercise is for.

27:43

They just walk them through it. And then we get together afterwards

27:45

and we say, Okay, what was your

27:48

experience of that exercise? What do we think it was for?

27:52

And it's amazing, absolutely amazing

27:52

what people think it's for, and

27:56

the kind of the words they come

27:56

out with in absolute good faith.

28:01

Um, you know,

28:02

they have, they formed their own

28:02

inference from very straight what you

28:06

think is a very straightforward direction. And that's, And you know what,

28:09

I think that's the exciting

28:12

thing about teaching people. We're not teaching machines and,

28:13

you know, and just finding that

28:17

way through and going, you know

28:17

what, they understand me now.

28:20

They understand what I'm asking from them.

28:23

But first of all, they've gotta

28:23

understand they've got not to be,

28:26

uh, not to be affronted by me asking

28:26

them to do maybe a three notes scale.

28:31

Mm-hmm. But I wanna hear those three notes

28:32

backwards and forwards in pitch.

28:36

I think I said this last time. With the more advanced singers

28:38

and these, um, pedagogy people

28:41

are, um, basically acapella.

28:44

I say they all wanna

28:44

run over to the piano.

28:47

And I go, I'm sorry,

28:47

where is your instrument?

28:50

Why you, why do you need that? Why do you need that manmade thing?

28:53

When you are dealing with the most

28:53

amazing instrument that no one can

28:57

replicate, scientists cannot replicate.

28:59

They can blow in as many tubes as they

28:59

like and you know, through pigs' larynxes

29:03

and whatever, but they never can quite

29:03

get the sound of a human producing sung

29:08

or spoken speech, uh, spoken sound. So sing, sing, acapella, get, be

29:10

reliant on your own ear, and, and

29:14

then go to the piano to, to check.

29:17

Check in. Yes, absolutely. But don't rely on it.

29:19

So I mean even

29:21

that's very interesting.

29:22

Even that is so interesting

29:22

because, um, pitch is contextual again.

29:27

Context is everything. Um, pitch is contextual.

29:30

So if you sing and you're singing

29:30

your three notes and you're in tune

29:32

and you go to the piano, you're then

29:32

tuning to piano pitch, which is not

29:35

orchestra pitch, which is not band

29:35

pitch, which is not guitar pitch.

29:39

And who knows if that particular

29:39

piano is actually even in tune, right?

29:42

I mean, if there's a keyboard, it's

29:42

more likely to be one would think.

29:45

But who knows, You know, who

29:45

knows who's bashed on it last,

29:48

especially in a university situation. But, you know, pianos go out of pitch,

29:50

go out of tune so fast because students

29:56

are banging on them and playing on

29:56

them, and, and they're being left open

29:59

and, you know, the air con gets them. And so I say, No, no,

30:01

you, this is, this is.

30:04

This is your best tool.

30:06

And even, even then,

30:06

um, you look at classical coral

30:10

tuning and you look at barbershop

30:10

tuning and they are so different.

30:15

Yes, absolutely. As we in fact found out, one, one workshop

30:16

we did, we had a hundred people in

30:20

the room and 50 of them were classical

30:20

and 50 of them were Barbershoppers

30:23

and the tuning was all over the place.

30:25

We got them all to

30:25

sing together and it was, it

30:28

was very, very interesting.

30:30

You should have, actually, Jeremy,

30:30

I never know you to miss an opportunity.

30:34

There was new music in front of you. This was contemporary.

30:38

Whatever it was. Classical, I dunno.

30:40

Fusion.

30:42

There you go, Yes fusion pitch. Um,

30:46

Irene, there's one thing I

30:46

I want to draw out of you because I sat

30:49

in on some of your lessons at the con.

30:52

Thank you for that. You actually ask two students to

30:53

do lesson observation while you

30:58

give a lesson to a third student. and then they go off and discuss together.

31:04

Tell us about that, because I think

31:04

that's a really powerful process.

31:08

Look, this comes a bit from my

31:08

own, well a lot from my own experience

31:11

when I told you, when I started to

31:11

really look at, you know, trying to

31:14

understand voice science and really,

31:14

apart from, you know, in real with

31:18

real people rather than out of a book. Plenty of books out there, but

31:20

basically, um, The way I learned

31:26

fastest and was able to make educated

31:26

arguments in my own head about what I

31:31

was seeing and not just taking it on

31:31

as, Oh, that's a professional, they

31:34

must know what they're doing, but

31:34

rather questioning, um, was to observe.

31:40

And the more people I observe,

31:40

the more confident I became in my

31:44

ability to assess what was going on.

31:47

So I, that's something I did write

31:47

into the program so that, um, they

31:52

basically, I think they might three,

31:52

you know, we, according to how strong

31:56

the student is that's being taught. Because they have to, by the way, they

31:58

have to agree to have people sit in,

32:01

but they become part of this cohort and

32:01

they know that if they let people sit

32:05

in on theirs, they can sit in on theirs.

32:08

There's a, you know, there's

32:08

this quid pro quo going on.

32:11

And so, um, so, you know, not in the first

32:11

couple of weeks we, we settle them in.

32:15

But then after that I say, Look,

32:15

your prerogative to say no, but

32:18

then don't expect somebody else

32:18

to allow you to do this either.

32:21

Um, so yeah. I remember when you were there,

32:23

there were a couple, but they could be up to four people sitting in.

32:27

And the idea is that the, the

32:27

group taking notes the whole

32:31

time, I tell them to be critical. And critical thinking is

32:33

not critiquing someone.

32:36

They're certainly not critiquing the student. If anyone, they'll be critiquing the

32:38

teacher, which is me and I'm, I'm, you

32:41

know, I've been around a long time. I'm happy to discuss anything they

32:42

don't agree with, not in front of the

32:46

student, but with me on my own later.

32:48

But I asked them to go away and talk to each other. Go have a cup of coffee now

32:50

and unpack what you saw and

32:54

you know, you all took notes. Compare notes.

32:56

See if you picked up on the same things. See if you disagree about certain

32:59

things, and all of a sudden they

33:02

get very excited about that because

33:02

all of a sudden they're, it's

33:05

no, there's no rote teaching. It's all about understanding and

33:07

knowing that they can question.

33:11

A lot of them have come through

33:11

conservatoire training, and especially

33:14

if they're classical singers where

33:14

they were never allowed to question.

33:17

Whatever, you know, the master

33:17

said was, had to be, right.

33:21

Yeah?

33:21

Mm-hmm.

33:21

And, um, and so I wanted to undo

33:21

that master apprentice, uh, thing to a

33:27

point, you know, obviously you've gotta

33:27

have, um, to deliver the sort of in depth

33:31

information that we given the program. There's gotta be some, um, discipline in

33:33

the way we manage the way the students

33:38

guidance

33:38

interact, and the guidance. I say to my students, by the time you

33:40

get into third by sometimes it's second

33:44

trimester, we're actually mentoring you.

33:46

Mm-hmm.

33:47

It's mentorship because you,

33:47

you know, you come here, you bring with

33:51

you so much background as a performer

33:51

and or a teacher, or you might be a

33:57

performer who's just starting to teach. Or you might be a teacher who's just

33:59

actually not done a lot of performance.

34:02

So we can all learn

34:02

from each other and Yes.

34:05

So that what you saw is very common. Um, let's say it's got to be the

34:07

student who's being taught has to agree.

34:11

And they can actually say,

34:11

Look, I'd really like a.

34:14

On my own today. And it's usually cause they're

34:15

a bit fragile about something.

34:18

But, and then we just, and

34:18

everybody's fine with that.

34:20

They Oh fine. Okay. Can we come another day?

34:22

Yes.

34:23

Mm-hmm. Very powerful process.

34:25

I think what's really interesting

34:25

about this is, is, um, one of the phrases

34:29

that you just said, and you sort of threw

34:29

it away, but it's so important, is that

34:33

people come with their own background. Mm. They come with their own level of skills.

34:36

They come with their information, they

34:36

come with their knowledge already.

34:39

And the thing that you don't do is on

34:39

the first day, you don't say everything

34:44

that you've just learned is nonsense. We're going to instill you.

34:47

You know, or, or you don't do that.

34:49

You don't, you

34:49

don't rip up the book.

34:51

You say, Great, so you're coming

34:51

from a particular place, and then you

34:56

can help them reframe if necessary.

34:58

We think the reframing

34:58

things the same as you, that.

35:01

If you're teaching already, you've

35:01

got skills, you've got skills,

35:04

you're already good at what you do.

35:06

The reframing is important

35:06

because, um, and it's exactly what we've

35:10

been talking about, which is you are

35:10

uncovering beliefs that you have and

35:16

checking out whether they're actually

35:16

going to serve you in the future.

35:19

Yeah. Yes. That's beautifully said again, Jeremy.

35:22

Um, cause I just think that, um,

35:22

it's not my place to tell anyone that

35:27

what, that somebody else is teaching.

35:30

When I know myself, sometimes students

35:30

will go out and do their thing and they'll

35:37

say, Irene Bartlett taught me to do this.

35:39

And I went, Well, I never taught you to do that. You know, I know that I didn't,

35:41

because I would never do that.

35:44

Um, so I'm, I'm very, you know, to my

35:44

colleagues, I don't ever wanna say,

35:48

Oh, that teacher teaches really badly.

35:51

I'll go if anything, possibly the

35:51

message that they were trying to give

35:56

the student didn't quite hit the spot.

35:58

You know, it was misinterpreted. Um, and that can happen.

36:02

That's okay. I asked them whether they've had classical

36:03

or contemporary or music theater,

36:06

always said three, um, training where

36:06

it's their principal training been.

36:10

So I know that's when I listen to

36:10

their singing, if they're, you know, if

36:13

they're very CT dominant, cricothyroid

36:13

dominant, that's more likely to

36:17

be a classical underpinning even. And I said, Do you know what,

36:19

I don't ask teacher's name.

36:21

I say, Do you know what your

36:21

teacher's training background was?

36:24

Mm, Oh well she was a

36:24

great opera performer.

36:27

That says it to me straightaway. That's fine. Um, or you know, or you know,

36:29

they, they get loads of gigs.

36:32

So I went to them because I wanna get

36:32

gigs, you know, and I go, and then

36:35

somebody will say, Well, I know that my

36:35

teacher went to a lot of conferences.

36:38

So you can sort of, without asking

36:38

personal questions, you can get that.

36:42

And then basically I listen to them

36:42

sing and I go, Yes, I can see where

36:48

the work's been done here and where

36:48

it's either hit or it's missed,

36:53

um, or where you didn't understand.

36:56

And so it's my job then to

36:56

take you back to those things.

37:00

So let's, let alone

37:00

what's working for now.

37:02

Mm-hmm!

37:02

Let's not do anything with that. And let's, let's work on the

37:04

things that are missing and then

37:07

we can gradually put the, the

37:07

jigsaw puzzle back together again.

37:10

But without criticizing anyone,

37:10

certainly not criticizing the student.

37:13

It's not their job to make

37:13

sure they understand everything

37:17

that you've said to them. It's your job to make

37:18

sure they've understood. Yes. That's my, yes, my philosophy.

37:22

Mm-hmm. .

37:24

Jeremy: Um, this has been amazing. Um, it's been so interesting listening

37:26

to you describe the process of

37:32

setting up and the process that

37:32

you go through with the teaching.

37:34

Loving it. And we have to stop. I think.

37:37

Yes. Yeah. That's, that's felt like

37:38

it's been really short!

37:40

I mean, I'm glad you're happy.

37:43

Feels like there's

37:43

a nice full stop there.

37:46

Yeah. So thank you very much Irene. Thank for talking to us and

37:48

we will talk to you again.

37:51

Thanks for having me back.

38:04

Bye. This is a Voice, a podcast with Dr.

38:09

Gillyanne Kayes and Jeremy Fisher.

38:12

This is a Voice.