chapter

The voices of my voice

Three working as one

Theo Bleckmann

I n m y m u s i c I a m c o n s t a n t l y s e a rc h i n g f o r s o u n d : the most effortless, the

most severe, the most spacious, the most abrasive, the most longed for, the
most vulnerable, but most of all I am looking for sound that is not mine, but
that is me.
I don’t want to possess anything when I sing, I want to be free of
wanting, of trying, of doing and give myself over to sound. But in working
with the voice as my instrument I am also confronted with my body’s con-
stant and mercurial state of change. And then there is my very active mind.
There have been times when I have traveled for twenty-four hours
with no sleep, bad food, horrible delays, too much coffee, too little water,
going from the airport directly into a rehearsal, followed by a sound check
and the gig only to find that my voice was working perfectly fine and able
to go anywhere. Other times, after a full night’s sleep (in my own bed, no
less), I warmed up, warmed down, steamed, did not speak, warmed up
again, spoke a little, ate the right foods, drank the right liquids and felt that
I was barely able to hold on to basics. Are there any consistent rules in how
this works? How can I develop a more dependable, more grounded support
system for myself? The older I get, the more puzzling this all seemed to me.
Three things that have helped me in coping with most situations on
and off stage are a solid grasp of my own psychological triggers (the expe-
rience of learning to deal with the voices surrounding my own voice), and
the combination of a general understanding of vocal technique with a strong
sense of abandon, or in other words, freedom. This, I have come to see as a
sort of vocal trinity1: an equal triangle with
1. Trinity from Latin Trinitas “three
psychology at its base, and technique and working as one”

exploration on either side:

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Technique: Skirting the Issue in Order to Wear the Pants

Oh, what hasn’t been said about voice technique? There are so many dif-
ferent teachers and even more ideas of how to sing and how not to, sur-
round by some hocus-pocus and pear shaped tones. Roughly speaking,
technique is the practice of basic principles pertaining to breath support,
relaxation and voice production in order to provide a set of tools to balance
length of tone, volume, color, shading and vowel sound as well as vocal
health, within each individual voice. I love voice technique, I am grateful for
it—it has expanded and protected my instrument over the years. My basic
rule is: if it is physically painful, only do it once; preferably on tape.
Too many people believe that voice lessons take their individuality
away and strip them of their uniqueness. I would call this fear the conse-
quence of flawed teaching. Good and thorough voice technique is based on
adding, not subtracting. Most of all, my voice is an irreplaceable body part
that I want to be able to use throughout my life. I do recognize that there
are many exceptions of highly skilled singers doing just fine without ever
having taken one voice lesson (or have they? Even such naturals as Björk
eventually go to seek help). On the other hand, the naturally talented singer,
standing by him/herself, plopped here onto earth from nowhere is such a
media-propelled ideal, that voice lessons are still somewhat of a taboo, espe-
cially in non-classical singing. Why?
Too often the question becomes: “am I less of an artist if I take
voice lessons?” My answer to that is taking voice lessons does not make you
an artist at all. Taking voice lessons has always been an enriching and loving
thing for me to do. Expressing complex musical structures with the voice
technique of a two year old to me is like trying to explain the Pythagorean
theorem with words like “nana” and “poop”.
In my music I want to be able use it all, from complex syntax to lin-
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gual anarchy and everything in between. Ultimately, it’s the music that
decides where I need to expand and grow technically.

* * *

For most of my performing life I have been traversing though a myriad of

musical styles from jazz to new music, improvised to composed, wild to
mild, raw to refined, with and without lyrics, instrumental lines, political
Kabarett, pop, minimal, maximal and all over the place. Through studying
voice technique, I have been able go full speed ahead without resorting to
mimicry and possibly bringing on injury, and have been able to be myself
vocally in all of it.
After my voice began to achieve maturity, at around eighteen, I
started singing again right away (I had been a boy soprano as a child) and
did quite well without much technical voice training. I sang gigs galore with
and without extended techniques and my instrument held up just fine. But
eventually I felt a need to look at my habits, wanting to expand my musical
horizon and acquire a better facility to maneuver through more challenging
music with more precision and most of all, more tools of expression.
I have never been very interested in the operatic voice (with some
exceptions), so traditional, classical voice training was out of the question
for me. In searching to find a basic, neutral understanding of my instru-
ment, I knew that I did not want to acquire any stylistic mannerisms of any
kind. I was extremely lucky to find a great teacher here in New York in
Jeannette Lovetri, with whom I still study today. What has been important
for me from the get go was to be able to change between very specific gen-
res of music without ever loosing my own sound or identity. Particularly
for a singer this can become a big balancing act, both mentally and physi-
cally. Instead of acquiring a style and making that a “me” (mostly by ampli-
fying and repeating affectations), I wanted to rid myself of affect as much as
possible to get to a space that resembled something of a blank canvas. Short
of becoming neutral or neutered, I was looking to approach each piece of
music without stylistic or vocal baggage and still be expressive and very per-
sonal with it. It is a delicate balancing act between Zen and Rock and Roll,
between honoring the music and acknowledging the self.

* * *

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I realize now, that my “skirting the issue” as far as styles and genres is con-
cerned, has been an ineluctable way to develop my own sound; not through
imitation but through purging of vocal habits and ballast. Navigating
through different musical genres is exactly where I live most happily and
even though musicians, record producers, critics and friends have some-
times tried to convince me otherwise, my voice is crossing these boundaries
very readily.
Nevertheless, such rapid change in environment requires diligent
and constant calibration of the instrument and that is exactly where study-
ing technique has been so helpful.
When I have overemphasized one register for too long, my voice
can become lackluster at times. There are moments when the music requires
staying in one place for a really long time or sometimes it just feels good to
sing only in one part of my range. Or both. As a consequence I have had
moments of entire passages of my range almost waning away completely,
leaving myself stuck with only a few vocal options. Like any muscle in the
body if used more than usual, the laryngeal muscles not only get more tired
but also tighter, which can become a catch 22: underused muscles become
weaker and don’t want to be used any more, making those already overused
muscles even stronger, and eventually obliterate the weaker (those that need
to be exercised the most). It’s a laryngeal “survival of the fittest” of sorts.
Through diligent exercising of the opposite end of the vocal spectrum I have
been able to carefully coax these registers back into being—an idea that
seems simple in theory, but in practice can be quite tricky and frustrating
without professional guidance. However, once I have found my way back
to my vocal home base, I am free to go pretty much anywhere, or so it feels
at least. A feeling so important to me that it feeds on itself: a feeling of tech-
nical freedom triggering relaxation triggering artistic freedom.

Exploration: Decoding Noise Accumulation (DNA)

In my experience a lot of free (vocal) improvisations quickly ended up being

dense, aggressive, abrasive, loud and all over the place, all the time. You
know the kind, with ingressive singing and pitch going every which way,
peppered with screaming and the occasional whispers. I’ve done it a hun-
dred times, if not more, until one day that wasn’t enough for me anymore.
On the opposite side of technique lies exploration and abandon.
Where there’s meticulous fine-tuning of the instrument while studying
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technique there must also be a complete letting go of rules and control on

the other side of the spectrum. After free improvising for years in large and
small groups, I felt a real need to abandon my old habits. Short of creating
yet another technique, I set out to let go of how I had used my voice thus
far. I started my exploration with the spirit of a scientist trying to decode his
own DNA. Inspired by the sheer endlessness of what the human voice can
do, and taking an example from Jerry Hemmingway, I set out to catalogue
my own vocal sounds. I started very, very simple and worked my way into
more complex structures as I went along:

For example:

1. Long tone: comfortable pitch, no vibrato.

2. Long tone: same pitch, same vowel, with vibrato—playing with
amplitude of vibrato.
3. Long tone: same pitch, with vibrato—playing with amplitude of
vibrato—changing vowel sound between “oooh” and “eeeh”.
4. Long tone: same pitch with vibrato—playing with amplitude of
vibrato—changing vowels slowly and quickly.
5. Long tone: sliding pitch with vibrato—playing with amplitude of
vibrato—changing vowel randomly—slow, fast back and forth,
change of volume.
etc.

Recording all of this was crucial, since notation in this area falls
very flat. In my improvisations, sounds seem to have a life of their own,
wanting to go every which way, but I tried to discipline myself not to get
into my habitual pattern of morphing around, a.k.a. vocal free association
(for which there is definitely a place). In the beginning I felt a need to stay
with each sound for as long as possible and continue exploring; working
from the simplest, most unobstructed sound to the most complex and
dense. I discovered that each addition of parameter made the sound expo-
nentially more complex and that seemingly simple vocalizations had
already a number of sounds inside them, worth dissecting and examining. I
needed to slow down even further and take out elements, not add any.
I went back and simplified my exercises, separating elements
like this:

1. Long tone: comfortable pitch, no vibrato.

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2. Long tone: same pitch, same vowel, with vibrato—playing only

with amplitude of vibrato.
3. Long tone: same pitch, no vibrato—only changing vowel sound
between ”oooh” and “eeeh”, slowly.
4. Long tone: same pitch, no vibrato—only changing vowels at
random.
5. Only eliminating pitch (just using breath)—changing vowels at
random.
6. Eliminating pitch, just using breath—changing vowels at
random—only adding occasional consonants.
etc.

Soon I had accumulated long lists of what I could do, sorting out
elements of vocal manipulation from one another and able to reproduce
them on the spot (this is where recording is especially important). The lines
between what is “normal” singing and what is called “extended” technique
became so blurred, they eventually disappeared completely. I tried to be as
non-judgmental with each sound as I possibly could, not labeling them
“boring”, “too simple”, “too pretty” or “too silly” for example, but simply
singing them until they became their own life form—separate from my own
intentions or ideas.
After starting from more “traditional” places of singing, I used the
Alphabet as my sounding board. I went through each letter, especially con-
sonants, to try to excavate interesting and unusual sounds. In order to
remember more precisely what I had done, I scribbled down short associa-
tions, like “outer space radio waves” or “cappuccino maker in heat”, next
to more technical description like, “high pitch on nininnünü; while using
tongue percussively and singing overtones” or “abrasive fricative on ch in
right side of mouth”. It was then that I realized that each sound held a cer-
tain, very personal image or association for me, and as far-fetched or absurd
as they might be at first, these sounds were unique to what I could do vocal-
ly and what I felt emotionally about them; my own sonic DNA of sorts.
I also recognized that I had again put two, or sometimes three
sounds together without really taking note, like the abrasive fricative and
growl of the “cappuccino make in heat” for example. So, I started to look
through my lists again to see which other vocal sounds I could separate and
combine anew. Maybe an “outer space cappuccino maker” or a “space radio
in heat” would be something I had never heard before, creating new com-
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posites with my voice. And just like in my voice technique practice, this
decoding was a great un-cluttering of my library and habits—one that con-
tinues to this day.

* * *

As I was moving further away from the top of the triangle (the corner where
technique and exploration intersect) a freeing sense of abandon started to
settle in. At this moment, all previously acquired technique served to reach
beyond itself in order to facilitate new vocal sounds (again, if it was physi-
cally abusive, I only did it once, or maybe twice to see whether I can pro-
duce the same sound with less tension and no injury). What to do with all
this sound? I did not want this just to be another technique and merely
accumulate piles of vocal tricks and gimmickry. I was searching to find a
deeper connection with it all, one that would renew my spark to even the
dense, all over the place improvisations that I had became so tired of in the
first place. In my collaborations with composer and vocalist Meredith
Monk I have always been inspired and encouraged to look beyond the mere
technology of making extended sounds and found this challenge in my own
explorations very crucial. I tire very easily of vocal trickery, mimicry or
photography in myself, so the next step for me was to find my true moti-
vation or subtext for each sound. I came to it mostly very instinctual, by lis-
tening carefully to what each sound meant to me. I asked each sound ques-
tions like: Is this abstract or representational? Is it a person, machine,
nature, thing, feeling, etc.? What kind of person, machine, nature etc. is it?
What do I feel about them? Can I change this abstract sound into a person?
Can I, through the smallest change, go from a representational sound into
an abstraction of it? What is the exact opposite of each sound? How long
can I sustain it, musically and technically? What registers does this work in
best and how does it change its meaning with change of register, pitch,
vowel or volume? How can I insert space and silence and how can I turn
something amorphous and textural into something rhythmically precise or
irregular? Can I create a melody with a non-melodic sound? Who is this
voice, person, nature, machine etc. that’s singing this melody? Who are
these voices and who am I while singing them? Who is this sound?
Most often, the answers to these and other questions did not come
in the form of intellectual responses but through very instinctual, intuitive
feelings by way of listening, re-creating and exploring further. I feel that the
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ear already knows some kind of truth and by simply staying with each of
these sounds for long enough, rather than rushing through them, I was try-
ing to find their internal musical and physical principles and a more per-
sonal connection to them. What I found when I listened back to my record-
ings, strangely enough, was that the most interesting places were often those
of transition. The places where I had moved from one sound to the next,
right in the middle where one thing was fading away and another one mov-
ing in, that’s where things started to gel and come alive. There is something
to be said for not trying.
And so through my questioning sound, I was moving further away
from the intersection of technique and exploration, bringing me to the base
of my vocal triangle: psychology.

Psychology: When Will I Be Me, or Am I Me Already?

There are two places in life where you cannot lie: in bed and onstage. You
can fake it, of course, but you really cannot lie to yourself without a lot of
effort or numbing of the senses. Am I allowed to find true happiness in
music or is that a buzz kill to all creativity? Do I have to be a tortured drug
addict in order to belong? Some artists still believe that entering psy-
chotherapy will destroy their creativity—a phobia quite similar to that of
not wanting to ever learn about vocal technique in fear of destroying one’s
own sound. The same answer applies here—if that were the case, I believe
the therapist to be flawed, not therapy itself. Why does Western culture
seem to reject the pursuit of a higher self through music whereas other cul-
tures have embraced it for ages? (John Cage being a towering and inspiring
exception perhaps.) One day it came down to this: if I cannot find a sense
of calm, peace and fulfillment in with what I do, am I really doing the right
thing? If only a suffering and narcissistic artist has validity in this world, do
I truly want to belong to it? At times it has seemed to me like a contest, or
well-spun PR story about who has suffered most and thus has the right to
express him or herself louder in public. And again, there are so many great
exceptions to this, and therefore is a dilemma that really pertains to my
own doubts.
I entered therapy after a botched and painful relationship forcing
me to look at everything in my life, not just the one isolated area of rela-
tionships. We assume that everything is connected, but it was a true discov-
ery to see in how much detail my emotional life had already entered my
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music and more immediately, my voice. If the eyes are truly the window to
the soul, to me, the voice becomes the audible expression of it. It seemed that
a lot of feelings were present in my music simultaneously, which is a great
thing, ultimately. Some feelings I wanted to be there, other I didn’t or had
too little control over. Not such a great thing, really—especially in situations
of stress or tension. Rather than exert control of my feelings with an iron
grip, I wanted to be free of this sense that my emotions were able to intrude,
destroy and obliterate my music and my voice at any time. For me, the
more I understood the etiology of my feelings, the less they would occupy
me, making more room for music and hopefully enabling a deeper, quieter
layer to come through. Similarly to taking on voice technique I did no want
to make a style only out of my habits. Instead, I wanted to un-clutter and
somewhat purify my motivation of why I sing and what I sing. At the same
time, I did not want to simply eliminate former habits, but honor them and
be able to give them room to speak when I felt appropriate. I wanted to be
able to stand in front of any audience, open my eyes, my heart, and be able
to free myself of ulterior motives such as trying to please, trying to be hip
or enigmatic, needing to be loved or needing to be inaccessible; in short: I
wanted to be free of me.

* * *

This is certainly not a plug for therapy but one for self-reflection; one that
can be achieved in so many different ways, through meditation, philosophy,
religion, art itself and many other paths. Granted, I got to this point through
years of therapy (and I am still going) but this construct seemed so perfect-
ly neat and logical that it simply had to fail at some point. What ultimately
became the glue that held this triangle together, was a healthy sense of aban-
donment or freedom: abandoning judgment of myself thus accepting
myself regardless, abandoning judgment of the audience thus accepting
their approval or lack thereof, abandoning judgment of myself and every-
one else after the gig, thus accepting and taking responsibility for it.

* * *

In situations of great stress I have developed a list of internal steps to get

myself out of my ego, or false, self and back into my musical, or true, self
(they work on first dates, too).

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Step No. 1: Abandon thought.

I try to get away from thoughts not pertaining to the music at hand.
If I can’t do that, I try to just focus on one detail in the music – one
moment, one note, one harmony, one rhythm, one word I truly
love. This most often gets me back into some kind of flow con-
necting me to the music, the audience and myself.

If that fails I go to:

Step No. 2: Abandon ego or false self.

I imagine the worst-case scenario, which in most cases is not that

bad, really: “I suck and everyone in the room hates what I am
doing.” Considering the suffering in the world, it’s not really that
bad and at worst I would survive with a bruised ego. Big deal.

If that doesn’t work either, I go to

Step No. 3: Abandon judgment.

I think of a close friend that might be in the audience and love

myself and he or she would love me. If none of my close friends are
present I simply imagine. I take the role of the accepting friend
myself and therefore accept myself. I try to rid myself of feelings of
wanting to please or impress anyone around.
And if that fails, too, I move to

Step No. 4: Abandon observing ego.

I abandon external consciousness of myself and abandon myself in

the music.

* * *

It’s basically a healthy dose of love combined with a helping of concern of

what’s really important to me.
As a singer, this might seem just that little bit more daunting at
times, being exposed so vulnerably in front of judging onlookers, but ulti-
mately this relates to everyone that’s ever been in that completely artificial
situation of performing in front of people, that are sitting there receiving
with their ears and eyes and then hitting their hands together to show

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appreciation. Weird.

* * *

It was a more consistent support system along with a deeper connection to

my emotions through sound that I was looking for in the beginning. With
the development in technique, exploration and psychology I have started a
dialog with my voice from three different angles and feel that I have indeed
created a more consistent, reliable connection to music, musicians and lis-
teners for myself.
In this simple trinity, each discipline has the ability to compensate
for the other(s) in times of physical or psychological need or stress. My
technique has gotten me through some hard times when psychology and
abandon have failed me. My sense of exploration has revitalized a fatigued
voice and a relaxed attitude has been a savior when my explorations seem to
present nothing new to me, however false that may be. Truly transcending
moments come rarely and unannounced. They happen when they do and
until then, this trinity is simply something to keep me company.

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