Wednesday, October 19, 2011

More about Singer's Salon!

SO much going on! Wendy Parman Voice Studio with Deagan Music (Maggie Dahlberg) will be hosting a new Singer's Salon on the second Sunday of the month starting Nov. 15 at 7:00 p.m.(I trust you saw the flyer on the home page). The idea behind the salon is to provide a safe and nurturing environment for singers of all kinds, genres and range of experience to come out and get in front of an audience to perform. It will be run somewhat like an open mic and will feature Maggie on piano accompaniment. (And who knows? Maybe The Red Apples will put in an appearance...) I will be featuring one or two singers as well, to get things going.
The atmosphere is one of encouragement and excellence. We all need more of that. The space is intimate and BYOB, some refreshments will be offered and a very small cover to offset the costs. ($3) Bring your friends and make some new ones! Also don't forget to bring sheet music in your key! If you like of course, you may accompany yourself on guitar, piano or whatever works. The studio will be set up for a variety of instrumentation, but the emphasis in on singing!
I would like to encourage folks to call (773-474-8471) or email (either from this site or wlparman@gmail.com) and sign up in advance so we have an idea of who and how many are coming. But you can also just show up.
We SOOOO look forward to hearing the many interesting singers, actor-singers, singer-songwriters, scatters, rockers, classicals and what-have-you, share their talent with everyone!

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Singer's Salon

Vocal Performance Workshop and Deagan Music are pleased to announce we are starting a Singer's Salon. This will be an opportunity for anyone to come and sing for an audience of their peers in a supportive environment. Stay tuned for more details! It's going to be fun!

Saturday, October 8, 2011

What kind of singer am I ? and other irrelevant questions...

Maybe I shouldn't say irrelevant, but sometimes I think we all worry about this too much. If you have good singing technique and a healthy pleasing voice, are you really limited to one (or two) genres of singing? Granted one needs a feel for any kind of music and it's pretty hard to teach that one. But many musical sorts of folks are fully capable of "getting" many and maybe even all types and genres of music. Different voices are clearly suited to different types of music, I'm not going to argue that one. Case in point, I am not a big fan of Rod Stewart singing standards. He certainly has a great pop/rock voice, but crossing over into the Great American Songbook is just not anywhere I need him to go. (Not that he cares what I think, I'm sure his bank account has more to say about that then any music critic). Same with many classical singers taking on pop songs-"Gag" say I, for the most part. Two totally different sounds, both of which I lovingly embrace as a listener, that sometimes just don't mix well.
However all of that being said, I myself am a genre buster. Two weekends ago, of a Saturday night, I sang a gig with my roots band, and the next afternoon, (!) I sang at a benefit for Jaroslaw Golembiowski's Chopin Society at the Chopin Theater. We performed several of our original songs which, seem to breach a murky gap between art song, theater song and European cabaret. I've only recently been back to performing this sort of thing, and I'm not going to say it isn't a bit challenging to go from one to the other in a given weekend. (The main challenge being that I was exhausted from singing a long couple of sets the night before into the wee small hours...) But I feel good about my ability to get inside of a  rockabilly tune or a Lucinda Willliams ballad one night, and switch to a highly cultivated art song based on very personal poetry the next day. Not to be braggin' on myself, just to be sayin' if I can do it, so can others!!!