This Is A Voice

The reality of PhDs and vocal pedagogy with Dr Marisa Lee Naismith

November 28, 2022 Jeremy Fisher and Dr Gillyanne Kayes with Dr Marisa Lee Naismith Season 6 Episode 13
This Is A Voice
The reality of PhDs and vocal pedagogy with Dr Marisa Lee Naismith
Show Notes Transcript

Ever wondered what it's like to do a PhD in vocal pedagogy? Or how that PhD might translate into teaching singing?
Want to know exactly why we think classical vocal training doesn't work for contemporary commercial music singers?

We go deep with Dr Marisa Lee Naismith, author of Singing Contemporary Commercial Music Styles, a pedagogical framework:

  • How difficult is it to juggle the work of a PhD, family life and a full-time business? Marisa and Gillyanne compare notes (3.00)
  • Why is CCM pedagogy still not thought of as legitimate? Marisa gives us the background (9.00)
  • What is the single biggest difference between classical and CCM music, and therefore the biggest requirement for teaching CCM singers that classical teachers don't usually do? Jeremy shares his thoughts. (16.50)
  • Marisa prods Jeremy about bias - what's his answer? (18.30)
  • What is the 1% that Marisa is talking about, and what was the survey Gillyanne & Jeremy did that confirms it? (26.40)
  • And what IS the job of a singing teacher? Marisa reveals her take on what needs to happen in a singing lesson.


It's a fascinating conversation, and this is just part 1!
Drop in and join us

Get Marisa's book here https://amzn.to/3EG7O3p

Get the This Is A Voice book here https://amzn.to/3A9steN

Get the One Minute Voice Warmup app here, it's got a 4.9star rating
Appstore https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/one-minute-voice-warmup/id1212802251
Google Play https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.speechtools.warmup&hl=en_GB&pli=1

We've also got this! ↓
The 5 Days to Better Singing Teaching course online, with voice coaching techniques, vocal articulation exercises and a LOT more for the up-to-date singing teacher is here https://vocal-process-hub.teachable.com/p/5-days-to-better-singing-teaching

For the best self-guided learning check out the Vocal Process Learning Lounge - 16 years of vocal coaching resources (over 600 videos) for less than the price of one private singing lesson. Click and scroll down the page for the free previews
https://vocal-process-hub.teachable.com/p/the-vocal-technique-learning-lounge

For real 1-1 attention on your own voice, book a voice coaching session in the singing studio with Jeremy or Gillyanne
https://drgillyannekayesjeremyfisherinspirationsession.as.me/schedule.php

If you want to discover if our singing teacher training programme works for YOU, message us - we can share the process for joining Cohort23.

Sign up for the Vocal Process newsletter https://vocalprocess.co.uk/build-your-own-tilting-larynx/

Check out our brand new Voice Journal, written with Rayvox's Oren Boder
https://www.rayvox.co.uk/products/voice-journal

Find us - follow us on the socials!
🐦 Twitter - https://twitter.com/Vocalprocess
πŸ“Έ Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/vocalprocess
πŸ“– Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/vocalprocess  
 
 
#thisisavoice #vocalcoach #singingteacher #voice

Jeremy:

Going back many years, we did a survey of 800 singing teachers across the world.

Gillyanne:

Oh yeah. We did that for the, um,

Jeremy:

Oxford Handbook of Singing, and we asked them how many of them were classically trained singers? And how many of them were still teaching classical music exclusively? And I think of 800, it was five. And everybody else was teaching across genres. It was really fascinating. And the other thing I want to bring up is a piece of information that you had in your PhD, which I absolutely love. And that is about music and recordings and what people are buying. So what, what's, what genres, what styles are selling and in what percentages. Do you remember that piece of information?

Marisa:

Yes. Oh, I, well, I do, because I look those figures up, I research them every six months. Mm-hmm., those figures come out biannually, and I continue to update that information because it fascinates me. So when I first started looking into those figures, classical music represented 1% of all music consumed by the population across the world.

Gillyanne:

1

Marisa:

Music listeners, 1%, 1%. Globally

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 six, episode 13,

Gillyanne:

the podcast where we get Vocal about voice.

Jeremy:

I'm Jeremy Fisher.

Gillyanne:

And I'm Dr. Gillyanne Kayes

Jeremy:

And we have a very special guest with us today. We've been looking forward to this for ages. Dr. Marisa Lee Naismith. Hi Marisa

Marisa:

Hello. How are you?

Gillyanne:

Good. We are very well

Jeremy:

And Marisa you are the host of a podcast. Tell us about the podcast.

Marisa:

Yes. I'm the host of a podcast called A Voice and Beyond, and today we hit a huge milestone. It is such a big milestone that I'm actually in a bit of a state of shock. So today we hit 100,000 downloads. That is amazing. Oh, though, envy.

Jeremy:

That is amazing. We are so envious.

Gillyanne:

Do you know what, I had completely forgotten that you only started your podcast last year. Yeah.

Jeremy:

Um, what was, what was your first episode?

Marisa:

Mm, well, my first episode was actually an introduction into the podcast and introducing the concept behind the podcast, why I was doing the podcast, who the audience was going to be. And it was about my journey. And I had been on quite a bit of a journey, having done a PhD while I was working full-time, and I was doing the PhD on a full-time load. Mm-hmm. And at the end of. I thought, wow, once I press submit on this, my life's gonna go back to how it was before. Mm-hmm. And I didn't realize the physical, mental and emotional impact that had on me. And that's kind of where it all started.

Gillyanne:

Mm-hmm. Of course, I have shared your journey of working full time while doing a PhD. mm-hmm.. And the impact that that has on you as a person on your energy levels, on the potential to leave you in a state of kind of, you know, alert because you've got so much to do. Um, impact on family life and household life is also a big deal, which I know you and I have shared more than once. Um, yes. And. I mean, I think for me, after my PhD, it wasn't that I was expecting a whole load of, you know, bells to start ringing, um, because we already were running our own business. But I think it took me two years to realize that I had not learned how to switch off mm-hmm. and I think in longer term that gave me, um, some, you know, health conditions that I've had to deal. And you know, then when you hit the pandemic, as you say, suddenly you are taken away from that, that nurture of just having a casual conversation with somebody, which by the way, I find incredibly important. It's less important for Jeremy, but I'm the sort of person I go and chat to someone in a shop and occasion I do too. Yeah. Occasionally he'll roll his eyes.

Jeremy:

There's a lot of eye-rolling going on.

Gillyanne:

And apparently it's really important for us to have these casual conversations as well as the more deep friendships that we need. So I thought, okay, that's one way I look after my mental health.

Marisa:

It is. And. Look, when, when we talk about health, it does encompass physical health and wellbeing, mental and emotional health and wellbeing. And I can tell you I was pretty messed up on all three levels when it came to that point where I submitted my PhD and I didn't even recognize myself in the mirror. I didn't know who I was anymore. I felt like I, I'd lost my identity. I didn't know where my friends had gone. I hadn't been in touch with any of my friends for so long, and I felt lonely and, and very much on my own. I can say that I and unashamedly that that was one of the things that caused me to feel depressed and that lack of interaction with other people and that social connection that we are hardwired for was missing. And, and I then became very angry and I started to question, was it all worth it, to be completely honest.

Jeremy:

Sure. Yeah.

Marisa:

Here I was. I had a PhD. But at what cost? Yep. And, and there was a price to pay for it. It's not for the fainthearted.

Gillyanne:

No, absolutely not.

Jeremy:

It's a real hyper focus, isn't it? I mean, you cannot if you're going to do a PhD with the sort of thesis that, that both of you did, you can't afford to have external distractions. When you are doing something that is that demanding and you also have all of the other

Gillyanne:

commitments

Jeremy:

the calls on, on your, on your energy and the calls on your life, and you get to the end of that focus. And you go, I now don't know what to do because suddenly that's finished and, and everything else has been on hold or I've been sort of juggling. Trust me, we know about juggling. And there's something about that thing, which is I've now finished whatever it was that I'm doing, but with a PhD, you don't even really get the benefit from it until several years later often. It's, I think it's really interesting.

Marisa:

Well, I have to back back with that, what you've just said there. I actually did the PhD to research my book. The book idea came before the PhD. The PhD was a means for researching the book. I was already in the job that I wanted to be in, so I didn't care about earning more money or having a job promotion. I wanted to write the book. I was very passionate about that. And so the PhD was a byproduct, if that makes sense. It was a means to an end.

Gillyanne:

I think that's a very good way of dealing with a PhD. Yes. Sorry to interrupt you, but particularly when you are at a, um, a later stage of life. In other words, you are a mature person and I can remember when I sort of was fairly early on in mine talking to a young colleague and he said, well, why are you even doing this? You are already published as an author. And in my case it was because I realized there were things that I was doing and I didn't understand why I was doing them. I knew that they worked and I wanted to find out more. In your case, your goal was to write a book. Now, Marisa for listeners who don't know your book, can you please tell us what it's called?

Marisa:

It's called Singing Contemporary Commercial Music Styles, a pedagogical framework.

Jeremy:

Hooray.

Marisa:

Hooray. I got it out without stumbling.

Jeremy:

So both of you coming away from PhDs for the moment, I wanna talk about CCM pedagogy.

Marisa:

Oh, okay. We're there?

Jeremy:

Yes. Yeah, because why is this still a thing? Why are we still going we have to fight for CCM pedagogy to even be legitimate. What is going on here? Help us out, Marisa. What's going on?

Marisa:

Okay. From what I believe to be the case, you have to go back into the history books. There are problems around racism where the music is, the roots of the music, where this music was derived from is problematic for many. And then you have that elitism that comes from class. And the music came from Western European, traditions. So therefore, it was music that was written for the elite. It was accessible by people who had money. And all the other music was music that was consumed by the masses. So you had this hierarchy. And the other problem with all of this too, and something that I hadn't considered till I spoke to someone not so long ago, is that we have this master apprentice model that is still in existence. And that perpetuates the problem also because you have teachers who have come from that training and the way that they then go ahead and teach is, well, this is what I was taught and this is what I'm going to teach you. This is the repertoire that I believe you should be singing. These are the sounds I believe you should be making. Then we have that binary system of this is what is good singing, this is what is bad singing. That is what is a beautiful sound. That's what's an awful sound. And dare you belt in my studio.

Jeremy:

Yes.

Marisa:

And and the other thing that I've come to realize, cuz I've been doing a lot of reflection over this, even beyond writing the book, is that with teachers in higher education, they don't have access to CCM Vocal pedagogy training. And why is that so?

Gillyanne:

It's still the case, isn't it? Most, most programs, most pedagogy programs, aside from the one that you work on, at, the Queensland Conservatorium, they come very much from the classical tradition because that's the, say, the western lyric tradition, because that's where all the research corpus by and large and for some reason, we're still waiting for, you know, people like you who have doctor in front of their name, who actually started life as a CCM singer and continued life as a CCM singer. Similar with Dr. Irene Barlett. Yes. There's nowhere near enough people from, um, that background who have gone through that system. Whether we should even honor that system or not is another matter. But I think it's one of the reasons why there are so many teachers out there who've been trained according to the so-called Western Lyric tradition, but most of us are not teaching that.

Marisa:

this is something I've been questioning. It's, it's kind of like, do you put the, the cart before the horse, the chicken before the egg? So you have these programs, that are nonexistent. Like I know in the US I was speaking to Matt Edwards, I don't know if you're familiar with Matt Edwards? Mm-hmm. from Shenandoah University. I was speaking with him the other day. He has a new article that was released in Journal of Voice that he co-authored with his wife and David Meyer. And he was telling me, because when I did my research way back and I published my PhD and my book, there were only three higher education institutions in the US that offered CCM Vocal pedagogy at a doctoral level or a master's level. Right. Okay. There are now four, so there's one more.

Gillyanne:

Wow.

Marisa:

We now have four.

Jeremy:

That's great.

Marisa:

Out of 75 that offer ccm and not exclusively, by the way, a couple of these. Offer classical as well. So Shenandoah, I think is the only one that exclusively has a program. So if, if you want a job in academia, you have to have a doctorate. Now, where are you going to get a doctorate unless you go to one of those four institutions in the us where are you going to get a doctorate in CCM Vocal pedagogy? So we want these training programs, but where are the teachers going to come from? Um, I mean, you see where I'm coming at?

Jeremy:

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Marisa:

So I think that is one of the reasons, I mean, obviously the racism, the elitism, the, the master apprentice model of training. They are the, they are the, the serious, deep rooted problems that we have in institutions to even at present. But also too, there are many teachers that we have to say, you know what, they're doing their best because unless they're teaching a methodology, where are they going to get the training for ccm? It is a problem and it's like, what, what do you address first? Do you get higher education institutions to make those changes or do you have the teachers going, we demand the training and so the institutions have to listen because, sorry, I'm on a rant now because the other thing is that what they're doing, they're putting teachers out of work. There are now, in terms of enrollments for music departments in the US the numbers are down by 33%, so teachers are being put out of work. And a lot of those programs are going to have to close down unless they start listening to the demands of music markets to the needs of the students and what the general population wants to listen to. Mm-hmm. where the work is. I mean, it's so unethical. They're training students who were never, ever going to get a job.

Jeremy:

Yes. It's a real problem.

Marisa:

And when we talk about, sorry, there was one thing I missed when we talked about this elitism, my students who are in the popular music program at the Conservatorium, they cop it from students from other cohorts. Mm-hmm. and say, oh, you are the pop kids. do you guys actually sing? do you have singing lessons? They've been called out mm-hmm. in some of their little group chats on, on social media where all students from the university can speak to one another. So we have a problem. Houston, there's a problem.

Jeremy:

I want to pick up on something because I'm, I'm not sure that there are gonna be some listeners that are convinced by the idea of the master student apprentice thing and that also the difference between class, basically classical pedagogy and contemporary commercial pedagogy. And I think there's one really major difference, and I think it's so obvious when you put it like this. Mm-hmm. Most classic, well all frankly, classical and to a certain extent, classic musical theater, uh, singing and performance is based on what did the composer write? How close to it can you get? Can you translate what the composer has done and put it down and get it off the page and into the performance? And I mean, I've spent 40 years coaching classical singers to do exactly that, which is what can we see on the page and what, what, what is there, there? And how do you lift it off the page and make it your own? Mm-hmm. But by making it your own, that doesn't mean you can recompose it. What it means is how close to what you think the composer's intention is, how close can you get your version to. The moment you move into almost every style of contemporary commercial music? Then what you are doing is you are not looking at the composer, you are looking at your

Gillyanne:

filter, you're looking at the artist as well.

Marisa:

Exactly.

Gillyanne:

It's the artist that's celebrated. Whereas these other genres that Jeremy's talked about, it's the composer, um, and the producers and the directors who are celebrated. I mean, of course we celebrate the artists, but it's a completely different mindset. There's another important aspect which we should talk about.

Jeremy:

Later!

Gillyanne:

Marisa, chip in.

Marisa:

Can I just ask Jeremy, based on what you've just said, that you've spent 40 years doing what you've been doing. Upon reflecting that now, how much of your bias is in there and how much are you directing the sound? So just asking, I mean, are you actually, without thinking about it also taking on the role of that master apprentice.

Jeremy:

Do you know, that's really interesting and I'm going to say not much. And do you know why? Mm-hmm.

Marisa:

Great. I'm happy to hear that.

Jeremy:

Um, because, and I, this is absolutely specific. I hear something and I think that's not working. Now there's a bias there because I have a history of, um, I hear it when it's working. I understand the music. I can look at the page and go, well, that's, there are intentions written on the page that maybe are a little bit hidden, but that's fine. What's so fascinating is that somebody comes along and sings it in a completely different way to the way that I would expect, and I go, that works brilliantly. Thank you. I am not changing that because that is amazing. Never thought about doing it like that. Love what it does completely fits with you, completely fits with your context, which is actually about you, the artist and you, the context.

Marisa:

Yes.

Jeremy:

And my, my mind gets changed all the time. Yeah. Because people come out with something that I think that's amazing. I never thought of about, Love it.

Gillyanne:

I want to say something here. Um, first of all, I think you are extremely flexible in the way that you work with people, and it's one of the things that I've benefited from because I'd like to answer your question as well, Marisa. I think it's a terrific one. Um, the other thing that Jeremy is able to do because of his level of musicianship, whatever that means, there's so many different ways of defining what musicianship is, but he is able to listen to the style and the vibe of a particular, um, type of song. and to kind of work out what are the signature features of it. And then discuss with anyone he's working with, do you wanna do it that way? You know, these are the kind of the style implications if you like. These are the note approaches. This is the, you know, this is the phrasing type, this is the vibe. He's very, very good at that. I think.

Jeremy:

Hang on, hang on. We were also talking, we were also talking to Irene, I think it's three podcasts ago, about contemporary music and it basically everything being a fusion. And I love the idea that you can bring your style features into a different genre and go, can we make that work? Because that's gonna produce something brand new as well. And I love that.

Gillyanne:

So if you want to sing a song written by Adele in the style of Birdie, He has the ears.

Marisa:

That's fine.

Gillyanne:

He has the ears to go okay. They're cool. You wanna sound like Birdie? Great. Yeah, let's do it. Yeah. And it's one of the things that we do with our teachers, which is that we'll kind of listen to song performances and say, What do you hear? And to be fair, people coming from the master apprentice model, and also coming from, let's say, broadly speaking, a more Western lyric music training, we'll say. But, but what about the phrasing? Um, and, and where's the legato? And we go,

Jeremy:

they took a breath in the middle of a word.

Gillyanne:

What? So, so what? And to be fair, they then, Well, what shall I teach then? Yes. What are my values as a teacher?

Marisa:

Oh, you're taking all their toys away.

Gillyanne:

This is genuine, genuine people.

Marisa:

I, I, I understand that.

Gillyanne:

People want to do a good job. Yeah. They want to do the best for their, their students. And if they don't, suddenly, if those tools are no longer relevant.

Jeremy:

But this is the point. Yeah. This is the point. And we're back to

Gillyanne:

What do they do?

Jeremy:

We're back to pedagogy and the way that it's taught.

Marisa:

Yes.

Jeremy:

Which is you are taught a certain number of tools as a Western lyric singer, as a Western Lyric teacher. You are taught a certain number of tools and they work very well in that set of genres. The moment you come out of that classical lyric thing and you go into something contemporary commercial, half of those tools don't work at all. They're completely not relevant, and some of the others actually have to be changed. And this is, it's like that. That's my problem. And the biggest red flag for me is I'm a classical singer. I can teach anything. No, you absolutely can't. Mm-hmm., get off my field.

Gillyanne:

I mean, are people even still thinking this? Um, can I go back and answer Marisa's question because I wasn't expecting to go here today and I think it's really exciting.

Marisa:

Oh, sorry.

Jeremy:

No, it's great.

Marisa:

You never know what you're gonna get with me.

Gillyanne:

No, that's good. Um, means it's organic. Um, the master apprentice model and the teacher as being the one that knows whether what the student is doing is good, bad, um, even effective. And, you know, we want, we want to be effective as teachers. I think I've really changed my approach over the last, say five or six years. So rather than, oh, you need to make this sound here. And particularly being a musical theater specialist, you know, there are certain industry sounds and expectations.

Jeremy:

No, there aren't.

Gillyanne:

As you know, but I think I've always worked with the individual voice. I listen to a voice.

Marisa:

Yes.

Gillyanne:

And I think, oh, this is a nice place to go. And I think as I've matured as a teacher, that discussion happens much more in conjunction with the student. It's not about me saying, well, you know, you, you really need to be doing this because this is what your, your voice seems to do best. I mean, who the hell do I think I am if I come out with that crap?

Marisa:

Yes. Well, exactly, exactly. Students need to be involved in that conversation. The problem is that as teachers, there's a couple of things based on what you've just said. One thing is, You have come to the place that you've come to. You've arrived here because you have educated yourself. Yes. That doesn't happen by accident. As teachers, we need to be lifelong learners. And if you are in that situation where, this is what I was taught and this is what I know, you are not just creating problems for CCM singers. The whole pedagogy, the whole system is going to come to an abrupt end there. It's not going to evolve with the music. And I know classical music is evolving as well, so you are actually doing a disservice to Vocal pedagogy, irrespective of CCM, music theatre, or classical.

Jeremy:

Yep.

Marisa:

So we must continue to learn now if we are going to listen to our students, we have to work with our students. We have to take on a student centered approach to teaching. By not acknowledging what's going on in music markets, and by not acknowledging what students are wanting to sing, you cannot call that student centered teaching. How can you hold space for a student if you are not teaching them what they want?

Jeremy:

Absolutely.

Marisa:

Or what they need.

Gillyanne:

Absolutely.

Marisa:

And figure out, how do I make this? Sustainable and healthy. Mm-hmm.

Jeremy:

Mm-hmm., um, going back many years and there's, there's a couple of things I want to bring up. Going back many years, we did a survey of 800 singing teachers across the world.

Gillyanne:

Oh yeah. We did that for the, um,

Jeremy:

Oxford Handbook of singing, and we asked them how many of them, and I haven't got the exact figures, I could look them up, how many of them were classically trained singers? Mm. And how many of them were still teaching classical music? Exclusively? And I think of 800, it was five. And everybody else was teaching across genres. It was really fascinating. And the other thing I want to bring up is a piece of information that you had in your PhD, which I absolutely love. And that is about music and recordings and what people are buying. So what, what's, what genres, what styles are selling and in what percentages. Do you remember that piece of information?

Marisa:

Yes. Oh, I, well, I do, because I look those figures up, I research them every six months. Mm-hmm., those figures come out biannually, and I continue to update that information because it fascinates me. So when I first started looking into those figures, classical music represented 1% of all music consumed by the population across the world.

Gillyanne:

1%.

Marisa:

Music listeners, 1%, 1%. Globally. And all the other styles, which included funk, r and b, pop, rock country, uh, I, jazz all together, they were 99% of total music consumption. The only thing that's changed since 2015 is that rock represented the most consumed, and that was sitting at around 27% of total music consumption was rock music. It has now fallen to second place and R&B, funk or rap, I can't remember, but I know it's R&B and something else that has been leading the way for the last two years.

Gillyanne:

I think it's hiphop, isn't it?

Marisa:

Yeah. See, there you go. R&B, hiphop. Thank you. I knew it was something,

Jeremy:

I mean, just that as a piece of information. Just that, and you go, so when you are training classical singers, you are training them to become one of the 1% of recording artists who are bought. 1%.

Marisa:

Well, music consumption.

Jeremy:

Music consumption.

Marisa:

Because that can be, yeah, it can be, yeah. It can be streamed, it could be a live stream, it can be anything. It's not necessarily produced in a recording studio.

Jeremy:

And it's very interesting. I'm sort of going to go very, very slightly against what Gillyanne said because I do think that there are singers who, the moment they open their mouth, you go, you live in the classical world. You express yourself in that way. Absolutely fits you. And I'm going, fantastic. Let's go for it. What I think is so fascinating is that so many people know there is so much choice just from what you listen to and also what's available to you, that you are open to so many more influences that I think that really needs to reflect in singing lessons that, you know, if you are open to R&B, if you're open to um, pop, if you're open to, you know, I dunno, disco jazz, I mean, whatever, that there ought to be an opportunity for you to at least analyze what's going on and at least have a go at it. So this is in a way, what is the, what's the singing teacher's job?

Marisa:

I think the singing teacher's job is to listen first up to your students. Listen to your students. Ask them why are they there for, what do they want to sing? Yep. Ask them to have a sing through of their favorite piece of music just as a starting point, and then you can start to analyze the voice from there. And I mean for me, in the institution that I'm working in, and because I've come so much from a performance background, I was a performer with a professional career first and foremost. And that's had a big influence in the way that I teach because when I teach, I'm not just teaching people how to sing, I'm also teaching them how to perform. Mm-hmm. and I think. No one would pay for that. So I'm always thinking, okay, how do, how can we make this marketable? And that is always, you know, if I was to put you in front of an audience, how would they react to that? Not just in terms of the aesthetics, but also in terms of style. You know, they authentic to style. How do they engage with the music? How do they move to the music? Are they entertaining? Are they telling their story? Are they being authentic? There's so many factors that I've, I've just gone into that teaching style, not because I was trained that way, but because that's what came instinctively to me. I was a performer, so all my students are being trained not only to be singers, but to be performers and to have careers. And that is a big thing now at the Conservatorium with all my students is when they come to me, yes, I'm working with their voice, especially in first year. Hmm. It's getting the foundations there, making sure that whatever we are, we are working on, we are building strong foundations. And you have some students that come in who have a very strong M one sound. They have no M two. Mm-hmm.. So I work on balancing registers and, and giving, training them to have options to create different sounds so that they may not want to use that sound all the time, but if they decide they'd like to use it. because they're singing a song that requires it or because they want to use, use it for emotional effect. They have access to that sound. So that first year is very much about exploring their voices, not putting limitations on them, but allowing them to be playful, allowing them to explore in a safe environment where they feel they can become vulnerable. Then second year is working out who they are as artists. Mm-hmm.. Okay, who are you? Let's explore all these different styles of music and see which one you feel most comfortable in and what are you writing, because they're all singer songwriters, what are you writing? Let's have a listen to what your original music is, is doing, and how you use your voice in that. And then third year is all about wrapping them up in a, in the bow and sending them off. So making sure all the performance aspects are there. And that starts probably around halfway through second year, depending on the student, how far their, their technique has come. If, if they have a strong technique underpinning everything, then I really go for the jugular in terms of, okay, you need to be authentic and you need to be honest. When you sing this, I want you to be as you, oh, I shouldn't say I want you. What do you want to say here?

Jeremy:

This has been amazing.

Gillyanne:

We would love to talk another time because I think

Marisa:

That would be so fun!

Gillyanne:

What's gonna happen after this is that we're, all of us are going to get ideas and say, we need to talk about that.

Marisa:

Yes. I didn't think this was going to head that way.

Gillyanne:

Nor did we.

Jeremy:

It's fine.

Gillyanne:

Nor did we. Yeah.

Marisa:

Oh my goodness.

Jeremy:

So, um, for the moment, thank you very much Marisa. Thank you so much for being a guest and for, for going, going. Thank you. Where we all didn't expect to go.

Marisa:

Yeah. Look, you, you just never know what's gonna come out of my mouth do you? You should know that by now. We've been friends for a while, expect the unexpected.

Jeremy:

Well, we will definitely see you next time.

Marisa:

it was very organic and very real.

Jeremy:

Oh, absolutely. It, it's very authentic. Totally.

Marisa:

Yes. Thank you so much for having me, and best wishes to you. Thank you. Bye. Love your work. Bye.

Jeremy:

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