Oct
15
2008
The American Lung Association says that professional singers have an average life expectancy that is 25 years greater that the rest of the population because of the way they breathe. I have an image in my head of the world ending on a high note. 
I am constantly grateful for the set of lungs I’ve developed over the years. I was asthmatic as a child and have had little of that since developing my voice! But as a singer, and maybe because of my asthmatic condition, it took me a while to get the technique of good breathing. I finally sat down with several books, tapes and songs and tried everything I read until I got the results I wanted. The results I wanted were
1. Lots of air for long phrases
2. Effortless appearance
3. An improved sound through improved breathing.
I got all of the above and also better health and great abs!! If you’d like to try what I learned, I have included an audio track of a lesson in breathing here 06-how-to-breathe. Please download it and try it out! Let me know how it goes.
Oct
09
2008
My father was a man of few words; my mother was a woman of many. They had been married for nearly 50 years at the ti me of my father’s death. The miracle of their marriage was that they were in love to that day. When asked the secret of their successful relationship, both would answer, “Great communication.” I became acutely aware of the problems that poor communication can create in a relationship when I went through a divorce. The experience created an urgency in me to discover the priciples of effective conversation and coflict resolution. I was probably trying to find a solution that would mean I would never have to go through that kind of pain again. Of course, life isn’t like that. There is no fix that fixes it all. But understanding how we communicate and making it more conscious at least makes it possible to meet life with some tools that can help.
To this end, I highly recommend the work of Dennis Rivers, and his book on Co-operative Communication Skills. He gives it away free as a download and it is a great resource for anyone who works in teams, supervises others, has children, is in a relationship or argues a lot…lol It is great!! We’ll talk about his ideas from time to time.
