This Is A Voice

Vocal health, accompanying and working in the trenches, with Cate Frazier-Neely

July 25, 2022 Jeremy Fisher and Dr Gillyanne Kayes with Cate Frazier-Neely Season 5 Episode 8
This Is A Voice
Vocal health, accompanying and working in the trenches, with Cate Frazier-Neely
Show Notes Transcript

In this wide-ranging episode of This Is A Voice Podcast we chat with singer, author, musician and teacher Cate Frazier-Neely on:

  • Working in the trenches - what it's like to be a singing teacher with an eclectic career (2.01)
  • Jeremy's first terrifying job with Scottish Opera and how he stayed just one step ahead of the singers (5.00)
  • The difference between playing a piano part and an orchestral reduction for singers - Jeremy is very clear on this! (6.30)
  • Gillyanne's and Cate's personal experience of voice problems - what happened and how they solved it (14.00)
  • The role of the singing teacher in voice rehabilitation, and the "no-man's land" between the SLP and the singing teacher - crossing lanes, staying in lanes, reactions from the medical profession. (19.12)

It's a funny, deep and moving episode, and a real meeting of minds across the Pond.


Cate's website https://Catefnstudios.com

This Is A Voice - 99 Exercises to Train, Project and Harness the Power of Your Voice https://amzn.to/3uSw66c

Singing Through Change - Women's Voices in Midlife, Menopause and Beyond https://amzn.to/3IQ9Kb9

The Vocal Process Learning Lounge, with 16 years of voice training resources (over 600 videos) for less than the price of one singing lesson. Click and scroll down the page for the free previews https://vocal-process-hub.teachable.com/p/the-vocal-technique-learning-lounge

Book a coaching session with Jeremy or Gillyanne https://DrGillyanneKayesJeremyFisherInspirationSession.as.me/

Jeremy:

This is a voice, a podcast with Dr. Gillyanne Kayes and Jeremy Fisher. This is a voice. Hello and welcome to this is a voice season five episode eight.

Gillyanne:

The podcast where we get Vocal about voice.

Jeremy:

And she's back. Yes. We had such a good talking to Cate Frazier-Neely. She is back again for another round.

Cate:

Woo-hoo! Hi. Nice to be back. Yeah.

Gillyanne:

What's on your question list today.

Cate:

Well, I want to know where that intro song came from. That is so snazzy and awesome.

Jeremy:

It was written for us by one of our people. Um, because we, we actually put out that we were going to do a podcast and uh, one of the guys that we coach who's, um, uh, an MD, a Vocal coach, composer photographer, web designer said, I want to write the theme tune and I want something sparkly in it.

Gillyanne:

Are we going to name him?

Jeremy:

We are, Connagh Tonkinson.

Cate:

Okay. He did a wonderful job. So, so did he give you, did he like write things and send them to you so you could listen or

Jeremy:

he actually gave us, I think three or four different versions and this was the first one he wrote and it was the first one immediately we said, love that one. Can we have that one please?

Gillyanne:

We just slightly changed the voicing didn't we, there were certain parts we wanted to emphasize more. Yes. Yeah. And yeah. Well, we love it. We're happy. I'm glad you like it. Thank you for asking.

Cate:

Oh, it's very, and are those actual singers? Is it Okay.

Jeremy:

They are, they are. We had backing vocalists and uh, his brief really was want something that will make us smile.

Cate:

Well, it mission accomplished.

Jeremy:

Yes. Yeah, absolutely.

Cate:

I think Gillyanne, and I found out that we have similar backgrounds, you're teaching everybody, you're teaching everybody and everything. I will admit that when I got started, uh, after grad school, I had already been teaching for several years and I actually started teaching when I was 13. And I would, I'm so glad the statute of limitations has run out on those students, those poor people. Um, but, I, uh, started off in grad school and because I played the piano and accompanied, many of the teachers in grad school who didn't wanna work with the musical theater people gave them to me, thinking I would just teach them their parts and accompany them. But I got very, very interested in actually helping them within my limited understanding. And from there, because I'm good at building relationships and building relationships within the community, this was at a time when you could do that. And I quickly quickly had a full private studio and an adjunct teaching job. And between the two was working with this wide variety of, in the trenches real life, starting off with the, just every kind of music there was. And then people would come because no one else was teaching that kind of music. Now what I was teaching when I was 22 or 23, I don't remember is prob probably best that I didn't, but I actually left academia to go teach in a large community music school for 20 years because I wanted a similar experience to working in the large churches that used to have large groups of singers, of very different denominations, because you would get every kind of singer and musician there was to get. And I was very comfortable with that and I'm very, very glad I had that background because it kept me from becoming narrow in what I taught and how I had to teach. I had a lot more freedom to, um, to, to do what I felt was the right thing.

Jeremy:

Nice.

Cate:

And where does that, where does that come from? I don't know. There's a certain amount of chutzpah. There's a certain amount of awareness. There's certainly background. It certainly gifts that you have that you have to learn that will, you know, just because you have a sense for what's needed doesn't mean you're always right. When do you know, have to backtrack? When do you have to say Nope, we need to go in another direction. I don't know if those are all innate gifts or you learn them, but they're certainly important.

Jeremy:

I think you're talking about life lessons.

Cate:

Ah, there you go.

Jeremy:

Because, um, and it's interesting also, I hear you as a collaborative pianist and Vocal coach I hear what you are saying. And I hear the idea that as a collaborative pianist, you are sometimes one step ahead of people in music or in technique or in musical understanding. And you can help them make that step. One of my jobs at, uh, Scottish Opera, they asked me would I, uh, become the repetiteur, the, the rehearsal pianist for Lulu, the Berg opera.

Cate:

Oh my God.

Jeremy:

only the three act version, which is very rarely done. And I had two days to learn it.

Gillyanne:

Mm-hmm

Cate:

Uhhuh.

Jeremy:

And they didn't tell me what I was going to be doing on the first day. So I could have been playing for the piano dress rehearsal. I could have been coaching the soloist. I had no idea. And they gave me seven small parts, seven soloists to coach. There's a, there's a party scene in, I think, halfway three. Yes. Um, and they said, go and coach them. And. Honestly, I spent the previous night learning that particular bit, that I was gonna be coaching the following day and I was one step ahead of them.

Cate:

I get it. I get it. And how fast you have to work and have to have the acquired skills to do that. Um, oh, oh my goodness. oh my goodness. Yes.

Jeremy:

I was young enough to say.

Cate:

Yes. I know. I know.

Jeremy:

Well, I wouldn't say yes now!

Cate:

Well, there's a, there's a certain amount, you know, ignorance is bliss, when you don't know quite what you're getting into. Sometimes it's easier to say yes.

Jeremy:

living in a garrett and being a starving musician.

Cate:

Yes. You'll take any gig that. Yeah, exactly. When I was accompanying very often, I would get scores that people would hand me that were orchestral reductions. And I was wondering if you two, could talk a little bit about what an orchestral reduction is, what that means for the pianist and, uh, Yeah, let's just, let's just bring that out there because I think many singers have no concept.

Gillyanne:

Yeah. That's definitely not my bag. I know.

Jeremy:

It's definitely mine.

Gillyanne:

I know that he does it really well. So do you wanna talk about how you do it?

Jeremy:

Okay. Let's talk, let's talk what an orchestra reduction is to start with.

Cate:

Yes.

Jeremy:

Let's assume that you are doing, um, and I'm going with classical for the moment and I'm going with opera for the moment.

Cate:

Okay.

Jeremy:

There are other genres out there. An orchestral reduction is you take an orchestral score or someone has taken orchestral score in which you can have up to 80 instruments and they've condensed it down in terms of notes and phrases and they've picked out all the important bits and all the themes, and they've turned it into something that is theoretically possible for a pianist to play. Theoretically. Depends on the score. Um, so what will often happen when you have, uh, somebody coming in to do an audition, which is really where this comes in, right? They hand you a score and they want you to play a certain aria. And it can be an aria that, you know, very well and they want to be able to sing it as if there's an orchestra playing underneath them, but you, they don't have an orchestra. They have you on piano. So the way that you have to play an orchestral reduction is very different to the way you play a song. A song is written specifically for piano. It's written specifically for the tonality for one instrumentalist, and it's a voice and piano piece is very much a collaboration between two equal people. And you are co-creating.

Gillyanne:

Do you know what I can say here as a singer, there is nothing worse than a collaborative pianist who's playing an opera score for you when you do your audition and they play it like a pianist.

Jeremy:

Oh, hate it.

Cate:

how would you, how would you describe that Gillyanne? Is it, it's just, it is very jarring. It's hard to get a flow going, right?

Gillyanne:

It's really hard to get a flow going. It's hard to get a momentum because you know, they're enjoying the shapes of the phrases and actually what they need to be doing is you talk a lot don't you about you lead the singer.

Jeremy:

Oh yeah. All the time, singer doesn't notice, all the time. I'm exaggerating a little,

Gillyanne:

I mean, you are great to sing with. I have to say that. Very, very good.

Jeremy:

Um, so

Gillyanne:

I want to backtrack.

Jeremy:

Hang on. No, I haven't finished yet. I have not finished yet. The thing about orchestral score that you have to play it like an orchestra plays. And that means that all the phrasing is different.

Cate:

Yes.

Jeremy:

The way that the rubato, the slowing down and the speeding up is different. The way the orchestra moves through the music is different. It's a bigger animal. It's heavier. It's not louder necessarily.

Cate:

Right.

Jeremy:

Just moves in a slightly different way. So if you wanna speed something up, normally with an orchestra, your speed up will be slower than it would be if you were a pianist or pianist by yourself. So all the time as a... When I'm playing piano for an orchestral score, I'm thinking what instrument is playing this, or what set of instruments is playing this and how would they do that? So I have orchestral colors in my ear while I'm playing, which means I'm trying to reproduce how an oboe would play that sound. Now I'm I am an oboist, so I know how an oboe will play.

Cate:

I am too. That's crazy.

Jeremy:

Honestly, there are so many of us around,

Cate:

oh my God. Well, well, I I'm, I'm a bassoonist and, and a Piccolo player, but I never had a chance when I was younger to develop embouchure it just sounded like someone farting on all three instruments all the time, because I was playing them all at once. But anyway, that's an aside. Moving on.

Jeremy:

Another aside, which is I, I do, I do play flute and Piccolo, but I tried playing bassoon once. And you are talking about aperture and farting. Mine was really, really tight farting. Way too tight. Anyway,

Gillyanne:

Farting, sphincters, larynx...

Cate:

Yes. Yes, exactly. Oh, that's what I was a farting sphincter. Yes. Thank you very much.

Jeremy:

Oh, I'm definitely having a t-shirt made of that.

Gillyanne:

Can we move on to cleaner things please?

Jeremy:

Okay. that. Yeah, there is definitely a difference between playing a piano part and a piano reduction.

Cate:

I'm thinking also of like violin tremelos, and, and like harp parts. Yeah. You know, which, which might, which contribute to the flow or hang up the flow as Gillyanne said.

Gillyanne:

Yeah. And also the colour.

Jeremy:

Oh yeah.

Gillyanne:

The colour.

Jeremy:

You are doing your best to reproduce some of the, the feel and the landscape. You talk about landscape.

Cate:

Right.

Jeremy:

You're doing your best to reproduce the landscape of an orchestra with one instrument. So, and there are people who are good at it. And there are people who are superb at it, nevertheless, you are one instrument. So you're never going to be able to get the breadth of sound. But one of the things that you do learn to do, if you are playing orchestra reductions is to slow down, broaden, lengthen, the changes are different. So there's all sorts of things that you can do. And the tonality that you play with is different as well.

Cate:

Well, thank you. That was very interesting. Yeah, because I've never heard that put to words before, and, and I think it's worth, especially for your audience, that they're they're teachers, they're musicians, they're singers. And I hate to differentiate between being a singer and a musician because you can be both, but, um, it, it, it's just good to cover all bases, because I know you work with a lot of different people.

Jeremy:

Um, there's, there's a correlation to this, which is my first pit job in musical theater. One of the things that... cause my very first job playing keyboards in the pit in the theater was Les Miserables in the West End. It's like, if you're gonna start, start high. Wow. And the keyboard part, keyboard one part in Les Miserables, the show is three and a quarter hours and you play for three hours and 12 minutes. There's two breaks in the whole thing. And this is the old one. This is not the, the new version. Um, and it was interesting because I really discovered what it was like to play with a drum kit. That's the other thing is that when you are, the moment you come away from classical music where you have the ability to, to slow down and speed up and rob time put the rubato in, you can't do that with a drum kit, because

Cate:

No.

Jeremy:

the drum kit has, has a set of patterns and that's part of the music is that there is a, a rhythm there's a very tight rhythm that's going on underneath it. That was a shock. The first time I did that.

Cate:

Well, and of course the piano in a pit is either part of the rhythm section or they are, or they're, or they're providing some kind of tonal harmonic thingy. Um, and, and you just sort of have to meld between the two of them. Yeah. Yeah. Fascinating.

Gillyanne:

Different beast.

Jeremy:

It is.

Gillyanne:

I'm going back into the trenches for a moment.

Jeremy:

Go.

Gillyanne:

Just thinking about, you know, those formative experiences in the trenches. I know for me, it, wasn't where I started, but, you know, working at this drama school and standing up in front of 30 students in a class and bringing them a little, you know, nice Beatles song that I'd done an arrangement of, and hoping that they were gonna be able to sing that, um, and finding out that that was not going to cut the mustard at all. And 30% of them couldn't pitch and yet, and they were feisty and they didn't wanna be there. And had to tell myself, If I was gonna work with these people, I was gonna have to change tack because you know, I'd come from a very mainstream, music background where I did my exams. I played piano. I played violin, you know, I played in the university orchestra, I'd got as far as being able to play a couple of piano concertos, um

Cate:

Wow.

Gillyanne:

can you believe? Yeah That's a bit of a long time ago. Um, and I was a well trained musician and what I realized was that most people back in the day when I was in my twenties who learned to sing could already sing.

Cate:

Yes. Yes.

Gillyanne:

They could already pitch. They were not accepted for lessons if they couldn't pitch, or if they a noise that wasn't a sort of something nice or whatever. And we all know what happened in schools. And you know, a lot of those actors that had that experience at school, which is you have to go and mime.

Jeremy:

Mm-hmm.

Gillyanne:

So I had to make up my mind that I was gonna work differently with them and to say to myself that if everybody had the same parts and I knew nothing about the mechanics of the voice, then, nothing at all, but, you know, I knew we'd all got, there were similarities in the bodies. Surely we must all have the same parts. Surely we could all potentially sing. And that was what got me through that sort of first part of the experience. I was not gonna give up on those young students. I really wasn't. And then when I was 26, I hit my own voice problem.

Cate:

Really?

Gillyanne:

Yeah quite young I started to have problems with my singing voice. I started losing my speaking voice because actually I was working way too hard. That was one of the problems. I was teaching eight hours a day and

Cate:

Oh, yeah. Vocal load

Gillyanne:

Yeah Vocal load was ridiculous. Four classes back to back with no break, except to go out and have a wee. And um then having the students for four hours at the time, um, a 15 minute units and it was a killer. Anyway, I hit this voice problem and nobody could really tell me what it was. I, I remember my late singing teacher whom I adored saying, "well, it's nothing to do with the act of singing".

Cate:

Huh

Gillyanne:

So I thought well you mean it's me? You mean a psychological problem. And that's why I can't sing. So now it's not just here, also here? Yikes.

Cate:

Yeah, right?

Jeremy:

So it's not just in your throat is in your brain.

Gillyanne:

Yeah, absolutely. It was, you know, I mean, and it was devastating Yes. I know you've been through this devastating experience, it's a loss of the self and massive grieving and all the rest of it. And actually it was my teaching that got me through because I carried on teaching and I found workarounds. And what I learned was I don't have to sing at my students.

Cate:

Yes. That's a big one. That's a big one.

Gillyanne:

I can work out what they're doing and I can guide them as to how to do it. I can use words and other ways of doing it.

Cate:

Well, you learned that very early, Yeah very early. Yeah.

Gillyanne:

And I found that I would not allow other people to go through that experience. And that's why I set out on a journey to find out as much as I could about the voice and how, how it all works, you know, all of the, the functional aspects. And of recovered. Really it was a case of teacher heal thyself. Nobody did it for me.

Cate:

Yeah, that that's a tribute to the way your mind works. And it also is a tribute to it's like, you don't want other people to suffer, like you've suffered. So that is in a very powerful motivation.

Jeremy:

that's a real landmark moment.

Gillyanne:

Very much so. And that, thank you for letting me share that, um,

Cate:

I'm

Gillyanne:

That leads us very neatly to another topic of interest.

Cate:

Yes.

Gillyanne:

Do you want to say anything from your perspective on that or.

Cate:

Well now, uh, another thing that Gillyanne and I share is this intense interest in the sort of the intersection between being a voice teacher, a, a singer, and what we in the states call a singing voice specialist. So we thought we would talk a little bit about this because in the United States, 30 years ago, you could not call yourself a singing voice specialist without having worked in a voice clinic with an otolaryngologist and maybe trained by them. And actually people who wanted to call themselves singing voice specialists were frowned upon and you were really slapped down by your peers. It's still that, uh, there's no one training for singing voice specialists in the United States. And, um, the National Association of Teachers of Singing, which has a program called NatsChats that are led by Kari Ragan just this year did a round table discussion among a voice teacher who's a singing voice specialist and what we call SLPs speech language pathologists who are singing voice specialists on how to get this training. There's no one way to do it, In this video, which any of you or who are interested in really need to go watch it, they do a beautiful job of bringing up to date where the status of who gets to call themselves this now and kind of work they do. And I love Kari's words. There's you, you do have to have clinical experience in terms of going in working with SLPs and working with otolaryngologists and observing their work. Certain kinds of book learning, maybe, experiences, and supplemental, whether you're talking about trauma informed or, psychology or safe spaces or that sort of thing. But my interest came from, um, I started having, I had been singing for about 25 years and had been studying singing that whole time. By the time I got to be about, I don't know, 42 or so, I had had eight abdominal surgeries. My nerves, my nerve central nervous system was pretty fried. And I developed bilateral vocal fold paresis, which is when there's immobility in both folds. Wow. It went undiagnosed for almost seven or eight years. I went to three different otolaryngologists. Two of them told me I was fine. The third made the diagnosis. I went to four SLPs who could not help me. and it was at that point that I thought I would. I, I did find somebody I could go to, I went to Jeannie Lovetri for about four or five sessions. She got me started. And then was like, I've got to figure this out. I've got to, and I was already helping other people at that time, but I didn't call myself a singing voice specialist. There was just not enough information. So I made it my mission to learn. And, uh, interesting about this. And then I wanna hear Gillyanne's frame of reference. What's interesting this is that right now there is still this concern and rightly so speso, between speechage pathologists and singing teachers that the singing teachers stay in their lane, that they not, they, and, and, and as Jeremy, as you said, we cannot diagnose, but we can hear and recommend. And the issue comes when you are trying to work with the speech language pathologist. Very often, they try to pull rank on you without knowing your backstory or without knowing... uh, it, there is this very tricky learning curve where you learn how to stay in your lane, but then how to champion the gifts that you have and what you have learned, and the experiences that have taught you. Very tricky, but you need a certain amount of chutzpah to do that with grace and humility, but also a forward thinking you do have something to contribute. And it's taken me, I would say since 2013, taken me that long to get my voice functional. Okay. Every time I had COVID in 2020, my voice went, I had to work with this, uh, Lori Sonnenberg for a few sessions. Then I just had COVID again recently. And it's back to, it seems to go to my throat. Um, and I've developed a relationship with speech language pathologists now at Johns Hopkins otolaryngology, it's been a long road coming. And I'm sure that I'm sometimes perceived as aggressive when, uh, if I were a man, I would not be seen as aggressive. I would be seen as doing what I need to do to learn what I wanna learn and that relationship now, um, as I have, because I have been in the business for 43 years, I'm slowing down my teaching, but I now work predominantly as a singing voice specialist slash voice teacher on referral from Johns Hopkins. I'm considered vetted now. been a very long road and road and I'vea lot of people discourage me along the way. Gillyanne, what..?

Gillyanne:

Yeah I I think um, we have been having very similar conversations here in the UK, as to, you know, who is entitled to call themselves a singing voice rehabilitation person.

Cate:

Right.

Gillyanne:

I or who, says that they do singing voice rehabilitation because rehabilitation has traditionally been, the domain of the speech and language therapists. The health workers. Yeah, so the medically trained, the clinicians and we did have a program that was set up by, I can't remember what this acronym stands for and

Jeremy:

British association for performing arts medicine. BAPAM.

Gillyanne:

Yes

Cate:

Okay.

Gillyanne:

They they set up a number of competencies that they felt a singing teacher would need or indeed, a speech and language therapist might need to become a singing voice rehabilitation specialist. So, I mean, there was that one route, and I think we went through a bit of a phase of feeling that it was a bit of a closed shop. I'm gonna speak for myself and other, very experienced teachers that there was a sense of, well, I'm the singing voice rehab specialist. And you know, this is my special place. And wanting to keep it to themselves. And I'm afraid this is a problem that we meet in our profession anyway, as we know, don't we?

Cate:

Exactly.

Gillyanne:

People become territorial and it's recently been, I think, opened out by, um, Vocal Health Education. And I'm sure you'll have met Jenevora Williams.

Cate:

Oh, yes.

Gillyanne:

And you know, they're really looking at that and saying, well, hang on a minute, there is stuff that singing teachers can do. How about we develop, you know, a scope of practice, and a code of practice that is appropriate for people who are not medically trained so that they still have enough information to know when to sign post, just things to look out for. So we don't get into this situation where maybe a singing teacher, in ignorance is working with someone who has a technical difficulty and they don't have the tools to resolve that technical difficulty. And they say to that singer, well, I think you've got a voice problem.

Cate:

Yes

Gillyanne:

You need to go to the voice clinic because we all know that that happens and it's done in ignorance and without malice. And on the other hand, you have some singing teachers who say, no, no, you don't need to have the operation, you can work with me. We can all see those people on the internet. Um, you know, and that's also inappropriate. So this is an evolving field. And I think it's great that we're having these conversations.

Jeremy:

I think there's something interesting about lanes that I want to go into. Because people are talking about, you must stay in your lane. And I'm with that. What I think is interesting here is this crossover between the S L P or SLT in this, in this country and the singing teacher. And if you, again, I'm going to context and I'm going to job description. So if you look at the job description of the surgeon, it is to get something physically functioning, again, either by surgery or, or a replacement or, or, you know, adjustment or whatever. This is a physical thing. You then go to the speech and language pathologist or speech and language therapist, and their job is to get the voice functioning as well as it can in the speaking area.

Cate:

Yes yes

Jeremy:

The you go to the singing teacher and the singing teacher's job is to get the J the voice functioning as well as possible in the singing arena. And the moment you look at the difference between singing and speaking, you've got extended pitch range. You've got extended duration of sound. You've got extended tone, color, dynamics, dynamics. You've got, there's all sorts of things. You've got extended vowel sounds. There's all sorts of things that singers use that speakers don't and the... I am all for singing teachers staying in the lane of, this is my specialty. I can hear because of the extended work that we are doing, I can hear that there is something still not working. And I want to advise the SLP that there is something here that I still don't know what's going on, but there is definitely something. Now because I'm doing the more extreme work, the more elongated work, it's more obvious.

Gillyanne:

And you'll be seeing them more often because generally they get three to six sessions. Um, and often it's, uh, with all due respect about damage limitation, because that's what the medical profession is about

Cate:

They get three to six sessions with the SLP or SLT right? Yes.

Gillyanne:

They're gonna get more and we're gonna be working with them probably for an hour. And I, I feel that our job is to help them recover their voices for their performance environment.

Jeremy:

Which is, is much more extended voice use than it would be for an SLP.

Gillyanne:

That's a different task.

Cate:

That is a different task. And opinion about all that, you know, we have a real meeting of the minds. I generally agree with you guys on everything. If, if you, if you have somebody come to you, like with an, when an SLP has their six weeks to nine months with someone and then sends them to me, um, there is this extra area that happens before a singer is functional. There's this place between getting the speaking voice and airflow and cords to coordinate, the time it needs to heal whatever's going on. Lots of times, there's this psychological stuff that goes with that too. As you know, there's this, this little, this, this broader window that can be three months to two years where you are working to get the barely functional voice back into function, and then you get functional and then you get into optimal. And I believe that a good singing voice specialist voice teacher can work those three sections after language pathologist does their work, but it's this extra little place that seems to be the no man's land. very hard to describe how do you, where you're still actually doing rehab. still, you're still actually working with brain function, the neuroplasticity of the brain to groove new neural pathways in your pacing, in the types of exercises you're doing, in the types of rest and play. It's all different. It's very therapeutic than the functional work.

Gillyanne:

And it's also the application in the song material. And, you know completely agree with you that if a, a singer has had surgery, we're talking about a year before they start to, you know, feel yeah. Things are okay. And it can be another six months to two years altogether when they go, do you know what? I just feel great.

Cate:

Yes.

Gillyanne:

I don't worry about it anymore. I feel I can really rely on my voice. and more than that, they'll often say, I now realize that my function is better than ever it was.

Cate:

Oh, for sure.

Gillyanne:

It does take that long.

Jeremy:

That this is really important. It's in order to be mentally healthy as a performer, you have to have a sense of reliability on your instrument.

Cate:

Oh For sure.

Jeremy:

Because of that if you don't have that reliability, now, this is interesting, because this could be pre-surgery you don't have reliability on your instrument.

Cate:

For sure Right.

Jeremy:

That can affect you so in fact, the, the, the mental health aspect of it has already happened and therefore you're in re rehabilitation for security as much as anything.

Cate:

Yes. Yes. Very good.

Jeremy:

So that whole period between. Getting a voice even vaguely functional and optimal.

Cate:

Yes. Yes.

Jeremy:

Is that, there's a whole thing. There's a whole list of things that goes on in there. There's one other thing that I want to say, and I'm, we are starting to notice it in this country, which is the, the SLTs, some SLTs are now coming out of their lane and coming into the singing teacher's lane. And please that No Because you are not qualified.

Gillyanne:

Yeah There's gonna be a conversation about this in the British Voice Association.

Jeremy:

Hurray.

Gillyanne:

On Sunday, shout out for that particular conversation.

Jeremy:

Hurray.

Cate:

Yeah. You know, and I found that to be true in, in my SLP work back then, now we didn't have the information we have now, and people need to understand what a new field this is. I know there have been pioneers and early adapters in it over the past 30 years, but still we're talking there's been an explosion in the past seven to 10 years, and that's not very long in the life of a field. The SOPs I worked with, God bless them. They, they didn't have a clue how to help me. And I would have one session with them and say, you. No, you know, and I wouldn't come back. it is a new field and there are those of us who are, um, next set of early adapters. Although I've come to it late in my life. I'm 66. doesn't matter. I feel like I'm better equipped for this now than I ever was earlier in my life. So age is only a number. Right?

Jeremy:

It is.

Gillyanne:

I love that I'm better equipped than ever I was earlier in my life. I'm gonna second that one.

Jeremy:

Yes

Cate:

Very good. Very good. Especially with what you've been through too, Gillyanne, you know, there's, there's things that can, I don't wish the kinds of things that you and I have been through physically on anyone. I really don't, but you always have a choice with how you handle them and how you have it inform as you go forward. And that's actually in our weaknesses, those become super strengths that can't be taught in any program.

Jeremy:

We should really round up now. It's been a complete joy.

Gillyanne:

You're probably ready for your mid-morning break. I mean gosh, we've got so much glorious content here. Haven't we?

Jeremy:

We have. Um, what's coming up in the future for you, Cate?

Cate:

Well, work wise, I've been asked to do some more research on the menopause and singing. I have said no, I did my part for that. And I will be talking it as people bring Nancy, Joanne, and I because it still needs to be taught out there. Um, but my husband and I are going to be selling our home of about 30 years and we are moving to Europe and Mexico for a little while.

Jeremy:

Wow! Life change.

Cate:

Yes. A big life change. And uh, I'm going to learn how to be. I'm gonna learn how to be. I'm gonna learn how to waste time. I'm going to learn how to not be useful. Uh, and I'm, I'm going to continue to teach. I'm gonna continue to work as a singing voice specialist and voice teacher, because that can be done on the internet. But it will be, um, uh, a limited schedule. After we come back to the states and settle, we will see what I have evolved into. I, um, have had many lives and, um, I'm ready to experience life in a different way now.

Jeremy:

That's wonderful.

Cate:

Yeah.

Gillyanne:

So Cate, as you learn those lessons, please do share them because it's kind of where I need to be as well.

Cate:

Well, this idea of learning how not to be useful, which. I mean, many people need to learn to be useful. Uh, you know, when you are an artist, when you're a teacher, when you are a sensitive person, you tend to make yourself incredibly useful. Right? Um, and I think it's important to have a mission. I think it's important to contribute to the world, but the world will keep spinning if I go AWOL for six months, you know.

Jeremy:

Will it?

Cate:

I just, I finally realized that that, that I will not lose anything by doing that. So and this has been wonderful you, with both of you, I'm so glad I've known I've I'd said earlier that I've known your names for at least 20 years and, and Gillyanne, and I met in the Michelle Markwart Devaux's SECO where, uh, I was actually learning to not work. I was learning how to back off and hone my focus and hone what I was going to do as I started to, uh, back off from teaching a little bit, not from learning, but from the physical act of teaching.

Jeremy:

Well, Cate it's been a joy! Thank you so much for being a guest.

Cate:

Thank you.

Gillyanne:

As we've said, a meeting of minds.

Cate:

Very much. Thank you very much both of you and, and best wishes to all the work and the good you're doing.

Jeremy:

Thank you.

Gillyanne:

All right.

Cate:

Take care. Bye bye.

Jeremy:

This is a voice, a podcast with Dr. Gillyanne Kayes and Jeremy Fisher. This is a voice.