Blog

Schoolhouse Remix: An original song from a San Francisco 3rd Grade class!

2013-08-22T10:20:00.001-07:00

Check out this original song and music video by third grade teacher Edgar Camago and his students! The San Francisco class composed this song using entirely objects and sounds from within the classroom, highlights including a violin, a white-board eraser and a globe.

          Edgar Camago says that he often combines his passion for music and teaching in the classroom, "I teach using music or even just play the guitar when my students are reading silently." When he decided he wanted to compose a song with his students, Camago was inspired by the remix artists and musicians on YouTube like "Pogo." He wanted to play around with everyday sounds the likes of "Stomp" and other DJ's who sample found noises. To get started, Camago showed his students some remix videos and then had the students brainstorm sounds they could make. As you can see, they got very creative!
          Over the course of the last month of school, Camago recorded the students in the classroom for a few hours each week. He then crafted the final, rhythmic and creative video.
          Please enjoy! Any money raised through YouTube will be used towards field trips for the students.

Voicebox wins the 2013 American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Media Award!

2013-07-28T11:03:00.003-07:00

VoiceBox has been selected to receive the 2013 American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Media Award for its broadcasts raising the profile of the human voice. The ASHA Media Award recognizes significant contributions by individuals and organizations for news coverage and media programming that illustrate the impact of communication disorders on quality of life, treatment of communication disorders, programs and services available for individuals with communication disorders, or research in communication sciences and disorders.

The achievement will be recognized in an upcoming press release as well as at the 2013 ASHA Convention in Chicago, Illinois this November.

Congratulations to Chloe Veltman and the Voicebox team for this amazing achievement!

Tune in to Voicebox on Fridays on KALW 91.7 FM San Francisco (10-11pm) or via on-demand webstream at www.kalw.org.

Action Shots at KALW!

2013-07-02T18:15:00.002-07:00

Photo credit: The Marvelous Kitty Margolis

Crowdsourcing...A Drinking Song

2013-06-05T07:16:00.001-07:00

Wednesday evening saw the latest incarnation of Drinking Songs: A Night Of Beer And The Music That Goes With It, an interactive live event that pairs beer tastings with specific songs as a means to tell the story of the close relationship between beer culture and singing culture through the ages.

I produced and hosted the event, a collaboration between VoiceBox, my weekly public radio and podcast series about the human voice, and Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, an artisanal beer maker based in Delaware.

Our singers are an awesome bunch of mostly ex-Chanticleer members who call themselves The Fill-A-Steins for our purposes. And we have a fascinating beer cicerone on hand to talk about the ale end of things -- Sayre Piotrkowski of The St Vincent Tavern in San Francisco.

Drinking songs lend themselves particularly well to audience participation. Usually we have opportunities for audience members to join in with the singing (they also get to taste a variety of Dogfish Head Beers.)

This time around, we had a new partner, Smule, that helped make the event even more interactive. Smule is a Silicon Valley-based company that develops music-making apps like Magic Piano, I Am T-Pain and Ocarina. On Wednesday during intermission, we used a whizzbang app called MadPad to crowdsource a drinking song with anyone who wanted to participate in the packed bar of around 200 people. Smule's Turner Kirk (aka the Mule) went around the room asking for members of the crowd to contribute snippets of song and other sound effects which he captured using the MadPad app on his iPad.

MadPad saves nuggets of audio and video which can then be rearranged at the touch of a button into an instant "music video." The product of our tipsy collective imaginations can be seen here. The track includes foot stomping, jangling keys, clinking steins and comely sung phrases like "raise your glass and drink it down" and "beer, beer, beer, beer."

At the start of the second half of our program, we showed off our crowdsourced drinking song on a big screen on stage. The whole thing took about 15 minutes to create from start to finish and it made me (and I think quite a lot of other people who were at 50 Mason Social House on Wednesday night for our event) very, very happy.

Finally, here is a 5-minute video capturing the spirit of the entire event. With thanks to Rachel Hamburg, Rebecca Hsu and Jake Wachtel.

VoiceBox featured on Mission Local

2013-04-22T08:52:00.004-07:00

Mission Local, a great local news and culture site, published a feature about VoiceBox's recent collaboration with Street Stage and Dandelion Chocolate.

Street Stage Carves Out Space for Public Performers

The free chocolate was just a bonus. The main attraction in front of Dandelion Chocolates on the sunny afternoon of March 10 was the live music that beckoned people to stop, lean and listen awhile.

“It’s been going splendidly,” said John M. Francis, co-creator of Street Stage, a mobile parklet dedicated to live performance art. As a band prepared to play on the wooden platform that occupied a parking spot on Valencia Street, he held a glass full of small pieces of dark chocolate that he placed in outstretched hands with a long spoon.

Francis, a city planner and urban designer, and Street Stage collaborator Ross Hansen, a landscape architect and industrial designer, teamed up with the chocolate factory and cafe to support a local business while providing a dedicated space for musicians to play.

“This really gives them a presence, a special environment for performing,” said Francis, whose event featured the bands Tall Heights, the New Thoreaus, Conspiracy of Beards, Jimmy Kansau, and Caitlin Lacey & the Twin-Not-Twins.

Street Stage was conceived in September 2012 at San Francisco’s first Urban Prototyping Makeathon, hosted by the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts. It has appeared at Off the Grid Fort Mason Holiday Market and Mission Community Market, but this was the first time the pop-up parklet had teamed up with a local business.

Francis approached Dandelion Chocolates and expressed interest in collaborating on a Sunday afternoon that he knew would draw a lot of people. Dandelion Chocolates loved the idea, and offered to do a free tasting of small-batch chocolates from Venezuela, Madagascar and the Dominican Republic.

In between performances, Dandelion Chocolates employee Alice Nystrom stepped onto the stage to announce the varieties of artisan bean-to-bar chocolate. “They’re pretty delicious,” she said. Their philosophy? “We try to get great beans and then get out of the way.”

Francis and Hansen organized the event with the help of KALW’s ”VoiceBox,” a weekly public radio and podcast series dedicated to exploring the human voice. VoiceBox staff recorded sounds from the day and invited Francis and Hansen to join them on the air last week to talk about street performance.

The elevation of the stage from street level, Francis said, is enough to create a space designated for the community to enjoy live music. Street Stage becomes a space in front of which people feel comfortable standing and watching.

“I like the music,” said Martin Hauser, who was visiting from Germany. He had been walking down Valancia Street when he noticed the large crowd gathered in front of the chocolate shop. He stopped to see what was going on and enjoyed the event so much that he stayed for two performances. In between, Hauser supported the chocolate factory by purchasing chocolate to bring home to friends.

Street Stage is just as enjoyable for the performers. Caitlin Lacey, 25, said that her band, Caitlin Lacey & the Twin-Not-Twins, doesn’t perform much. Street Stage gave them the opportunity to play for 30 minutes in front of a large crowd.

“It was really fun,” she said, her banjo strapped to her after the performance. “A lot of people walking by stopped to listen.”

Lacey is production manager at Dandelion Chocolates, so her involvement with Street Stage was a sweet marriage of work and performance art. “We’d love to play again,” she said.

Francis and Hansen hope to bring Street Stage to communities across San Francisco and collaborate with other local businesses, community organizations, markets, public parks and more, to bring people together in active public spaces where they can celebrate art and music.

Francis said his street performance parklet “gives performers a real space in the city, not just in the gutter.”

To listen to the “VoiceBox” show that featured Francis and Hansen, click here, go to the “Listen Now” box and click on the “Street Stage” episode.

To read the original story, click here.

Street Performers

2013-03-19T12:53:00.002-07:00

Check out VoiceBox’s upcoming show on the urban singing and performance landscape! Join urban designers John Matthew Francis and Ross Hansen, and Dr Paul Simpson, a human geography lecturer at Keele University UK, as they discuss the dynamic between outdoor performance spaces, vocal performers and audiences.

Here are some interesting examples of vocal performers who frequent the streets:

The Renaissance Singers of New York have sung a cappella on the streets since 1973! And not just any a cappella, but hymns, Psalms and other sacred 15^th and 16^th century music including works by Josquin des Prez (whom you met on Renaissance Man last month).

Did you know the Barenaked Ladies, Simon and Garfunkel, Eric Clapton, Leonard Cohen, Neil Young and Sid Barrett all started off as buskers, singing on the streets? Here’s a short video of Paul McCartney busking in London:

This busker’s claim to fame is that he sings from inside a trash can in Cambridge city center. 30 year old Charlie Cavey is now one of 50 acts in a four-day celebration of street performance in Cambridge. He finds that he always attracts crowds because the people can’t figure out where the music comes from!

Guitarist Zack Andrew plays classical pieces in the streets of Los Angeles. What does this have to do with vocal music, you ask? Well, he beatboxes along with it! Check it out here:

Street Stage Pop-Up Parklet Event

2013-03-12T20:29:00.001-07:00

On Sunday, March 10, Tall Heights, Jimmy Kansau, The New Thoreaus, Conspiracy of Beards, Caitlin Lacey and The Twin-Not-Twins performed at the Pop-Up Parklet presented by Street Stage and VoiceBox. Here are some pictures from the event:

Be sure to listen to VoiceBox on March 29! Urban designers John Matthew Francis and Ross Hansen, the creative forces behind a new kind of mobile stage that can be assembled out of the back of a van in half an hour, and Dr. Paul Simpson, a lecturer in human geography at Keele University, UK, who has studied the urban performance landscape, discuss how giving vocalists a dedicated outdoor performance space is changing the nature of the interactions between street performers, audiences, and the environment.

If you want to read more about the Street Stage Pop-Up Parklet event, click here.

Come to VoiceBox and Street Stage's special vocal music event this Sunday!

2013-03-04T14:12:00.000-08:00

DRINKING/SONGS: A NIGHT OF BEER & THE MUSIC THAT GOES WITH IT

2013-03-02T12:41:00.003-08:00

Dogfish Head Craft Brewery and public radio’s VoiceBox team up for another unforgettable global journey through the shared cultural history of ale and song.

Unique event affords beer lovers and vocal music fans an unrivaled opportunity to sample six artisanal Dogfish Head India Pale Ales (IPAs), hear songs associated with the selected brews performed by The Fill A Steins men’s vocal ensemble and participate in a discussion about the link between IPAs, a style of beer with a rich globe-trotting history, and song. Featuring certified cicerone Sayre Piotrkowksi (St. Vincent), the event will be recorded for broadcast on public radio and podcast.

One Night Only: May 29 at 50 Mason Social House, 50 Mason Street, San Francisco. 8pm (doors open at 7.30pm.) VIP seating at 7pm.

For tickets ($15 in advance; $20 on the door; $35 VIP), please click here. For information, please call (415) 608 0133. Please click here to visit our Facebook page and invite all your friends!

SAN FRANCISCO (February 18, 2013) – Dogfish Head Craft Brewery and public Radio’s VoiceBox present an unforgettable, interactive exploration of the ancient global connection between singing and beer.

DRINKING/SONGS: A NIGHT OF BEER AND THE MUSIC THAT GOES WITH IT affords beer lovers and vocal music fans an unrivaled opportunity to taste a range of artisanal Dogfish Head India Pale Ales (IPAs), hear songs associated with the selected brews performed by The Fill A Steins, a professional a cappella vocal ensemble, and participate in a live discussion about the deep connection between beer and singing featuring certified cicerone Sayre Piotrkowski (St. Vincent) which will be recorded and broadcast on public radio’s VoiceBox the following week (broadcast launch date: June 7).

First brewed in England in the nineteenth century and known as “the beer that built the British Empire,” IPAs are closely associated with seafaring and global trade history. Popular at home, these strong, extra-hoppy beers quickly became a hit at sea and abroad when English brewers started shipping IPAs to colonialists on the subcontinent. The sailors and settlers who drank these beers created and sang songs in praise of IPAs.

The event includes samplings of six Dogfish Head IPAs: 60 Minute (Dogfish Head’s best-selling beer), 90 Minute ("perhaps the best IPA in America" according to Esquire Magazine), Burton Baton (an oak-aged gentle giant), 75 Minute (a rare blend of two Dogfish Head favorites), India Brown Ale (A hybrid between a Scotch Ale, an India Pale Ale and an American Brown) and 61 Minute (an unusual brewpub exclusive infused with Syrah grape must). Upon entry, each audience member will receive a special Dogfish Head/VoiceBox tasting glass for their personal use, which they can take home afterwards as a memento of the event. VIP guests will additionally get to sample Rhizing Bines (a special recipe developed in collaboration with California’s own Sierra Nevada brewery) as well as enjoy other exclusive programming and ringside seats.

The Fill A Steins, a group of professional vocalists whose performance credits include such local, national and internationally-recognized vocal ensembles as Chanticleer, Clerestory, American Bach Soloists and the Philharmonia Baroque Chorale, will perform a repertoire of rollicking IPA-centric drinking songs to go with each beer on the program. The evening’s musical offerings include stein-swinging shanties, lusty odes to ale, and the catchiest drinking songs that have ever been heard on the high seas. As the fun progresses and the beer flows, there will also be ample opportunities for audience members to join in with the singing. During the intermission, audience members will get to devise their own drinking songs at the touch of a button with the help of Smule, a Silicon Valley-based creator of innovative mobile music-making apps. Prizes will be awarded for the most stein-swinging creations.

Throughout the evening, the musical numbers and beer tastings will be contextualized through a lively, on-stage discussion between renowned Bay Area cicerone Sayre Piotrkowski, member of The Fill A Steins, and Chloe Veltman, the host of VoiceBox, a weekly syndicated public radio and podcast series all about the art of the human voice and the best of the vocal music scene. Audience members will learn about the intimate link between drinking beer and singing songs.

"Dogfish Head's penchant for exotic ingredients is well-known, but there is one old-world style we've embraced, tweaked and reinvented," said Sam Calagione, founder and president of Dogfish Head. "The India Pale Ale originated in the nineteenth century when English brewers learned that boosting the hops and barley in their pale ales made them more capable of making the long ocean journey to their thirsty troops in India. It probably made their sea shanties a little more lively, too. We're proud to be celebrating the overlap of the beer and music worlds with VoiceBox."

Light, complimentary snacks will be provided by Dogfish Head and 50 Mason Social House, one of San Francisco’s newest live music venues and a downtown destination for beer and wine. Additional drinks beyond the Dogfish Head samples included in the program will be available for purchase at the 50 Mason Social House bar (cash only.)

About Dogfish Head Craft Brewery

Dogfish Head Craft Brewery makes off-centered ales for off-centered people. Dogfish first opened as a brewpub in downtown Rehoboth Beach, Del., in June 1995, then opened a brewery in nearby Milton in 2002. Dogfish beers push the envelope of what beer is expected to be, often using non-standard ingredients such as raisins, chicory, maple syrup, vanilla and grapes. The company is also known for its Ancient Ales, which revive long-ago brewing traditions. Find out more at http://www.dogfish.com/.

About VoiceBox

VoiceBox is a weekly syndicated public radio series about the art of the human voice and the best of the vocal music scene hosted by arts journalist and singer Chloe Veltman. Launched under the auspices of KALW 91.7 FM San Francisco in January 2010 and now available on several stations in California as well as a free podcast on iTunes, VoiceBox seeks to connect and contextualize the work of singers, songwriters and vocal music experts across myriad backgrounds and genres. By stimulating in-depth discussion about the voice, VoiceBox aims to encourage listeners to expand their musical horizons and participate in singing activities of their own. Find out more at http://www.voicebox-media.org/.

About The Fill A Steins
The Fill A Steins is a group of professional, classically-trained singers who have been inspired to come together especially for Drinking/Songs out of their combined passion for fine ales and singing. The Fills (vocalists Jesse Antin, Kevin Baum, John Bischoff, David Kurtenbach, Clifton Massey, James Monios, and Justin Montigne) are current or former members of some of the most highly acclaimed locally-, nationally- and internationally-recognized vocal ensembles including Chanticleer, Clerestory, American Bach Soloists and the Philharmonia Baroque Chorale. http://www.facebook.com/FillASteins

About Sayre Piotrkowski, Certified Cicerone

Sayre Piotrkowski, the Beer Director at St. Vincent Tavern and Wine Merchant in San Francisco, was recently named “one of the country’s top beer sommeliers” by Eater.com. Prior to St. Vincent he served as Co-Beer Director and the public face of the Monk’s Kettle, which was on 7×7 Magazine’s San Francisco Best Beer List in each of the two years he held that position. Sayre has worked with several Top Chefs including David Myers, Russell Moore, Sarah Kirnon, Hoss Zare, and Chris Kronner and has collaborated with Duvel USA, Bar Crudo, Bar Tartine and the Palo Alto Cheese School. Sayre’s work has been featured on The Cooking Channel and mentioned in GQ and San Francisco Magazine.

About 50 Mason Social House
50 Mason Social House is one of San Francisco’s newest music venues and a downtown destination for artisanal beers and wines. The space features live music by great local bands seven nights a week and a premium selection of limited edition and seasonal beers including California Sunshine Rye IPA by Devil's Canyon Brewing and Firestone Walker’s Velvet Merlin Oatmeal Stout. Find out more at http://50masonsocialhouse.com/.

FOR CALENDAR EDITORS:

WHAT:

DRINKING/SONGS: A NIGHT OF BEER AND THE MUSIC THAT GOES WITH IT

Dogfish Head Craft Brewery and public radio’s VoiceBox team up for an unforgettable global journey through the shared cultural history of ale and song.

WHO:

This unique collaboration features tastings of six boutique IPAs by Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, music by The Fill A Steins a cappella vocal ensemble, a live discussion recorded for radio and podcast between cicerone Sayre Piotrkowski, The Fill A Steins and VoiceBox host Chloe Veltman -- and audience participation.

WHEN:

Wednesday May 29, 2013 at 8pm (doors open at 7.30pm.) VIP seating at 7pm.

WHERE:

50 Mason Social House, 50 Mason Street, San Francisco, CA. The venue is located within a five-minute walk of Powell BART and MUNI station as well as many buses and cable car lines. Ample lot and street parking nearby.

TICKETS:

For tickets ($15 online; $20 on the door; $35 VIP) and information, the public may call 415-608-0133 or visit http://drinkingsongs2.eventbrite.com

PHOTOS:

High-resolution digital photos and art are available at:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.245953908840246.44637.195430363892601&type=3

VIDEO:

A promotional video can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU0Bu1iqKlc

SEEKING: WEB EDITOR / SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER

2013-02-28T13:20:00.001-08:00

VOICEBOX, PUBLIC RADIO’S ECLECTIC WEEKLY PUBLIC RADIO AND PODCAST SERIES ABOUT THE HUMAN VOICE AND THE BEST OF THE VOCAL MUSIC SCENE IS SEEKING A CREATIVE AND RELIABLE WEB EDITOR / SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER

BOOST YOUR RESUME AND MEET GREAT SINGERS WHILE DONATING JUST ONE TO TWO HOURS OF YOUR WEEK TO HELPING TO TAKE A GREAT VOCAL MUSIC MEDIA SERIES TO THE NEXT LEVEL

Job outline:

· Updating the VoiceBox website home page (www.voicebox-media.org) each week to reflect the coming week's programming
· Updating the playlist on the website each week
· Keeping the Facebook page and Twitter feed up to date
· Attracting more followers on Twitter and fans on Facebook
· Optional but desirable extra: writing articles and doing events listings on the website

Attributes:

· Meticulous editor and writer
· Fast, responsive and reliable
· Web and social media savvy
· Interested in vocal music

TO APPLY, PLEASE SEND RESUME AND SHORT COVER LETTER VIA EMAIL TO INFO@VOICEBOX-MEDIA.ORG

VoiceBox is an independently-produced, non-profit project recorded at the studios of KALW 91.7 FM in San Francisco. The project’s fiscal sponsor is Independent Arts and Media

5 Vocal Music Apps We Love

2013-01-20T10:01:00.002-08:00

5. LaDiDa

Who says music has to be written before lyrics? LaDiDa uses artificial intelligence to compose music to back up your singing, rapping, or guitar playing. Some vocal effects LaDiDa uses includes pitch correction, reverb, flange, chorus, and delay. Then, upload it on Facebook, Twitter, or your email to share with all your friends... and maybe get discovered!

Cost: $2.99

Available for the iPhone and iPad on the App Store.

4. Songify

Songify makes anything you say into a song. Bored during class? Record your teacher's lecture and watch it be Songified.

Cost: $2.99

Available on Google Play (Androids) and on the App Store.

3. iPitchpipe

Tired of whipping out a pitch pipe every time you warm up or sing an a cappella piece? This virtual 13-pitch wheel is the perfect substitute. You can control the volume, length of the pitch, and never worry about misplacing your pitch pipe again.

Cost: $0.99

Available for both iPhone and iPad on the App Store.

2. Sing! Karaoke

Every singer loves karaoke. With Sing! Karaoke, you can pick songs to sing from a huge catalogue that includes everything from oldies to Gangnam Style. You also have the chance to connect with friends, share your performance with the world, sing duets/group songs, enhance your voice with special effects, and easily upload your work on Facebook.

Cost: FREE

Available on Google Play (Androids) and for iPhone and iPad on the App Store.

1. Soundhound

This truly amazing app is the perfect edition to everybody's phone, singer or not. Soundhound rapidly identifies music - you can even sing or hum into your phone, and Soundhound will recognize the song! Once the song is identified, Soundhound pulls up the lyrics, which move in real time with the song. These are just some of the cool features - download the app to fully experience Soundhound.

Cost: FREE

Available on Google Play (Androids) and for iPhone and iPad on the App Store.

VoiceBox on HuffPo: Tower of Song by Tamsin Smith

2012-12-11T11:07:00.003-08:00

Slipstream Strategy founder Tamsin Smith who blogs for The Huffington Post just wrote a great piece about singing -- and specifically about VoiceBox -- for the HuffPo. The link to the article on the HuffPo's website can be found here.

Tower of Song by Tamsin Smith

The urge to ****. It comes on strong and wild, and it fills you from tip to toe. It may take you in the shower, when you're tipsy in a crowd or on top of a mountain with no one else in sight. The surrender is sublime, and so easy. Just open your mouth, and it's all right there inside. A singular but universal passion. It connects, shapes and propels the human experience. It is the essence of fullfillment and release, fun and power, simplicity and profoundity all rolled into one tight syllable. To SING may be both the root and the flower of the most personal and most communal thing that we do.

Charles Darwin suggested that an early progenitor of man likely "first used his voice in producing true musical cadences, that is in singing." Beyond control of the thorax itself, we certainly know that children learn language skills and develop the joy of communication through song. From pubs to cathedrals, cotton fields to political conventions, song exercises that most intimate of instruments.

How often do we celebrate the miracle of voice though? As with much else, sometime a nudge towards intellectual exploration of a topic, as well as physical indulgence in the same, can be helpful. So, I point you towards a fantastic public radio series and multimedia project dedicated to the art of the human voice, hosted by arts journalist and singer Chloe Veltman. Through a syndicated broadcast, VoiceBox explores everything from the color range of Bob Dylan's voice to the neuroscience of song, and the link between the zen of surfing and choral direction. A recent live VoiceBox event, in partnership with Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, explored the ancient global connection between beer drinking and singing with enthusiastic audience participation in both.

There's something for everyone from a subject matter standpoint. But more importantly, high-quality productions like this remind us that song brings us back to ourselves and to others. Be it ballads or beatboxing, song is the soul's oxygen.

One of my favorite films of all time, Harold & Maude, is levitated by a song that captures the best advice one could ever give or get or follow -- "If you want to sing out, sing out/If you want to be free, be free..."

Circulate the rhythm.

Paloma & Co.

2012-11-27T11:09:00.000-08:00

Sasha Frere-Jones' recent article in The New Yorker about the
British songstress Paloma Faith’s entrée into the United States market got me
thinking about the fortunes of British female singers on this side of the pond.

Jones explores the potential success of Faith, who hasn’t
been on the British scene for very long and is on the verge of launching over
here, in relation to the most popular of the recent UK women vocalist imports – Amy Winehouse and Adele – and declares that there’s room over here for another Brit diva if Faith can come up with a certifiable hit as Winehouse and Adele did before her.

I’d argue that a hit song isn’t the only thing that will more likely ensure Faith’s name recognition in the US. The type of voice and the image the singer possesses is also an important factor. What Faith has in common with Adele and Winehouse is her old-fashioned persona and a big,
soul-centered voice to go with it. That’s what American audiences seem to go for, judging by the rapturous way in which they have responded to Adele and Winehouse.

If being a 1950s throwback is what it takes to make it big in America, then it’s no wonder that singers whom I think have much more unusual and interesting voices, such as the bracing Florence Welch of Florence and the Machine, don’t get the same airplay over here.

This is a shame. Paloma Faith is a fine singer. But her voice doesn’t have much of a grain and she lacks physical presence in spite of her retro hairdos and little girl lost gaze. In short, I’d like to see more
variety in the US market’s tastes when it comes to importing singing talent from the other side of the ocean.

The Voice

2012-10-31T11:52:00.002-07:00

I've lately -- and embarrassingly belatedly -- become hooked on The Voice, NBC's singing show which asks celebrity judges from the music world like Christina Aguilera and Cee Lo Green to pick pop-stars-in-the-making, coach them, and then pick a winner based on watching them compete against one another in "sing offs" in front of a live studio audience, a panel of fellow judges and of course the millions of viewers watching the program at home.

The show's been on my radar for a while, and I was finally inspired to check it out when I heard on the radio that The Voice is one of two factors (alongside televised football games) cited as being responsible for pushing NBC's ratings through the roof. The network had been lagging behind all the others for years before The Voice came along.

The Voice makes for compelling viewing mostly because of the mostly incredible voices of the singers involved in the show. May favorite performer from the series is Avery Wilson (pictured above), a teenager with an amazingly mellifluous R&B voice and a sweet personality. Plus the guy can move. He just got knocked out of the competition by Cody Belew, whom I don't think has as exceptional a voice or stage presence at all. I think the reason for Wilson's failure can largely be attributed to a poor choice of song (the naff dance hit “Yeah 3x") which didn't show off his abilities to their fullest. Meanwhile Belew did moderately interesting pop-inflected things with Dolly Parton's "Jolene." That was a more inspired choice in terms of creatively showcasing the singer's more modest talents.

Now, to get to the meat of this post: there's one issue to do with The Voice that I'm having trouble wrapping my head around. While other vocal music-oriented reality TV shows like The Sing-Off and American Idol judge performers singing separate songs, The Voice pits two singers against each other over the course of a single song.

This means that the singers have to perform a duet together while at the same time duel against each other. To me, the tension between having to cooperate and make harmony with someone while wanting to defeat them in that very act is totally bizarre.

I can't decide whether there's something intrinsically messed up about the idea or whether it's a stroke of programming genius. Probably a bit of both. It's keeping me watching, anyway.

Chloe Guests on KZSU's Entitled Opinions

2012-06-22T12:55:00.000-07:00

Robert Harrison, a professor at Stanford and the host of the radio show Entitled Opinions invited VoiceBox host Chloe Veltman on to his weekly show as a guest to talk about what makes a singing voice interesting.

The show is available here starting on Wednesday 27 June 2012.

Chloe in The Bold Itallic

2012-06-22T12:49:00.001-07:00

VoiceBox host Chloe Veltman is featured in the Bold Itallic. Read the profile of Chloe here.

Media Roundup for "Drinking/Songs: A Night of Beer & The Music That Goes With It"

2012-06-03T20:10:00.000-07:00

Its time to do a media roundup of the inaugural VoiceBox Live Event -- Drinking/Songs: A Night of Beer & The Music That Goes With It.

1. Homegrown media:

Here is a link to a five-minute video of the event. Videographer: Matthew Washburn.

The hour-long radio/podcast version of the event can be found on the homepage of the VoiceBox website in the podcast feed on the right hand side of the page. Scroll down the list of show titles to find "Drinking/Songs." (Original airdate: May 25, 2012.)

Here and here are links to photo galleries featuring images taken at the event. Photographer: David Toerge.

Here is a link to a blogpost I wrote about the event for ArtsJournal.com.

2. External media (what other media organizations said about the event):

San Francisco Chronicle; column by Tamara Straus; May 10, 2012.

KUSC Arts Alive with Brian Lauritzen; feature story by Gil Gross; May 19, 2012.

San Francisco Chronicle; column by Leah Garchik; April 27, 2012.

The Bold Italic; blurb; May 13, 2012.

The San Francisco Examiner; feature story by Janos Gereben; May 13, 2012.

SF Weekly Night & Day Section; blurb; May 9, 2012:

Beer has a bad reputation. Night after tasteless night of soused revelry, the drink has become nothing more than a fun vice we traded in for better glassware and unstained rugs. Tonight connoisseurs strike an ideal balance between artisanal ales, music, and lively exchange in Drinking/Songs: A Night of Beer & the Music That Goes with It. Taste the latest craft selections from Dogfish Head Brewery, while hooch historians discuss the rich, longstanding relationship between drinking and song. Members of the men’s a cappella group The Fill A Steins perform libation-themed songs from around the world, including those penned by local composers. Special glass mementos and light complimentary snacks are provided. In this swilling world of corporate beer-sponsored hootenannies, Drinking/Songs pours out an intimate, refined, and thoroughly grown-up must-sip. — By Jessica Hilo

The earliest recorded sounds

2012-02-20T17:24:00.000-08:00

Here is the scoop on a very interesting article about the oldest known recordings of the human voice that appeared in The Economist the other day.

The story begins:

IT MUST have been excruciating for the National Museum of American History's archivists to have the earliest known recordings of the human voice but not to be able to listen to them. The records, made in the Volta Lab of Alexander Graham Bell in the early 1880s, were too fragile to play. But the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory figured out how to scan them optically and retrieve the sound...

The article, which includes YouTube footage of a digitally transcribed phonograph (a crackly version of "To be, or not to be" from Hamlet no less) can be read in full here.

Beginnings and Endings

2012-02-20T17:19:00.000-08:00

Beginnings and endings are very important in art, as in life. The start of something and its concluding moments are the moments in performances tend to make the greatest impact on us. What happens in between these two points somehow doesn't matter quite so much.

So it was interesting to attend a couple of largely wonderful vocal music happenings over the weekend by The Stanford Fleet Street Singers, a venerable men's student a cappella vocal ensemble, and Magnificat, an acclaimed Renaissance and Baroque music group, and observe how palpable the difference between getting these parts of a performance right or wrong can be.

Fleet Street's 30th anniversary concert at Dinkelspiel Hall on campus on Saturday night was riddled with amazing beginnings. The group always makes a memorable entrance, bounding on stage like a bunch of students that have just found out that their mid-term exams have been canceled. (They should be so lucky.) The songs all started strongly and purposefully, with different groupings of singers (both from the present ensemble and alumni who had returned to Stanford especially for the event) assembling in the middle of the stage.

Less convincing, however, were the endings. Perhaps it was part of their schtick, but the way in which the first half of the program ended, with the performers simply walking unceremoniously off stage, left their fans in the audience feeling a bit non-plussed. No one knew whether to clap. A lot of the non-singing elements of the performance similarly fizzled out. Comedic skits started out boldly enough, but often lacked climaxes and punchlines. The lack of finality, if intended, didn't work as a gambit. It seemed very much at odds with the exuberant, engaged singing and adorably geeky personalities of the performers.

Magnificat's concert of Monteverdi madrigals suffered from the opposite problem on Sunday afternoon at St. Mark's Church in San Francisco, but somehow it didn't bother me as much. The tight ensemble was excellent at closure. The expert singers and instrumentalists handled the curlicue final cadences with alternate bravura and wistfulness depending on whether the mood of the song was uplifting or sad, and we were never in any doubt as to when the music was coming to a final close.

What seemed much more ramshackle (though not necessarily in a bad way) was the start of the performance and many of the pieces on the program. The musicians more or less wandered in at the top of the concert when they felt like it and noodled around on their instruments. Artistic Director Warren Stewart made an opening speech which only about 50 percent of the audience heard as many of us were still filing in or not yet arrived when he made it. Some of the songs, which came from Monteverdi's eighth and final book of Madrigals, were performed without Stewart leading. The musicians simply started up. It was hard to tell who would be singing or playing in any one piece. Again, this was very likely a stylistic decision. It certainly made things casual. But I also found it slightly unsettling for some reason.

Death Speaks

2012-01-26T10:59:00.001-08:00

They might look like ants in the photograph I snapped on my iPhone from my faraway vantage point at Stanford's Dinkelspiel Hall last night, but the people standing on the stage are today's GIANTS OF CLASSICAL MUSIC, at least certain circles might think so.

Three of the performers -- Bryce Dessner (guitar), Shara Worden (vocals and bass drum) and Owen Pallett (violin) -- are indie pop / underground New York art scene mavens. Their names are most closely associated with such modish rockers as Bon Iver, Sufjan Stevens and Grizzly Bear. The fourth person on stage, composer Nico Muhly (piano), is a darling of the contemporary classical scene, where blurred genre boundaries are as much the rage as mullet hairdos and black eyeliner on men.

The piece that the quartet performed on stage was the world premiere of Death Speaks, a song cycle by David Lang inspired by the songs of Schubert in which Death features as a "flesh and blood" character who often speaks, rather than a faceless metaphor ("Death and the Maiden" is perhaps the most famous example of this personification of the grim reaper in Schubert's oeuvre.) Lang's piece was co-commissioned by Stanford Lively Arts and Carnegie Hall.

As Lang astutely put it in the program notes: "Art songs have been moving out of classical music in the last many years -- indie rock seems to be the place where Schubert's sensibilities now lie, a better match for direct storytelling and intimate emotionality."

For better and for worse, I kind of agree with the composer -- the confessional, quasi-whining style of the likes of Rufus Wainwright seems like the place where the modern art song sits right now.

The problem is that this incarnation of the art song isn't often very good.

The key error that Lang makes with Death Speaks is to conceive it as a partner piece for his luminous work, The Little Match Girl Passion. Match Girl (which Paul Hillier's Theatre of Voices performed adequately but not terribly movingly last night) is a dark, frigidly cold piece with -- when it's done with precision and careful attention to seamless line like the performance I heard in Los Angeles as part of the Jacaranda Music Series last year -- a strong, deeply warm heart. For the most part though, the work is a hesitant thing, full of sputtering phrases that disappear into the icy musical ether and glacial energy.

To then follow up that piece with another work that is equally slow and low-energy, as is the case with Death Speaks, is a mistake. Lang's new cycle, I'm afraid to say, is laborious, repetitive and extremely dull. The mood remains pretty much the same -- dark and dirge-like -- throughout. The performers last night exacerbated this fact by hiding within themselves and playing the work in a sort of reverie. I couldn't have felt more detached from the music by the end of the show. The only thing that stood out for me was the opening song, which reminded me of Dido's insistent incantation, "Remember Me," in her lament at the end of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas.

Sadly, I don't think I'll remember much about last night's musical experience.

KUSC

2012-01-23T19:37:00.000-08:00

VoiceBox is growing!

Eight shows from the VoiceBox archive on classical music themes will begin airing on KUSC -- Los Angeles' major classical music station -- on January 28.

Saturdays, 8 - 9pm on KUSC 91.5fm.

And ALL The Voicebox podcasts will be available at KUSC starting on that date, ad infinitum, too!

Chloe spoke with KUSC's Gil Gross about Voicebox. Please listen here:

Christopher Maltman

2012-01-20T23:32:00.000-08:00

I fell in love with the British baritone Christopher Maltman's voice when I was scouting around iTunes for a recoding of Ralph Vaughan Williams' Songs of Travel. That was about three years ago. I listened to many different artists' samples of the song cycle and Maltman's was the one that spoke to me the most. Since then, I have devoured his recordings.

Last night, at Herbst Theatre, I finally got to hear him live. Maltman sang a recital under the auspices of San Francisco Performances with pianist Malcolm Martineau.

What a gig.

The thing that impressed me most was the suave silkiness of Maltman's tone -- he is the vocal equivalent of a matinee idol.

Secondly, I was entranced by the dynamic between the singer and pianist. For two hours they carried on a flowing conversation with one another without exchanging a single word. Music was the language they spoke and every note danced.

Thirdly, the repertoire choices were intriguing. The first half of the program was devoted to songs with Venice as a theme. I had never heard the song cycle Venezia: Six Chansons en dialecte venitien by the early 20th century French composer Reynaldo Hahn. It's a vibrant, cheeky piece full of romance and spice. It's stuffed with kitschy moments, but the melodies spiral winsomely and the harmonies are lush. Maltman and Martineau played it with humor and panache and the audience was hooked form start to finish.

My only regret of the evening was that the there were too many empty seats.

Debussy's "Martyr:" A Poisoned Arrow

2012-01-16T12:26:00.000-08:00

On last week's VoiceBox, composer and blogger Brian Rosen and I explored the theme of "badness" in vocal music. You can read Brian's accompanying blog post on the broadcast here.

Towards the end of the show, we talked about songs that possess many of the qualities shared by sub-par efforts and yet somehow transcend things like inane lyrics, wavering intonation, a dirge-like melody and inept musical instrument mastery to enter the rarified realm of the "so bad it's good." Brian presented a compelling case for The Shaggs in this regard.

I was thinking about this transcendent category of bad music while attending a performance by the San Francisco Symphony over the weekend of Le Martyr de Saint Sebastien, a lavish musical spectacle created by Claude Debussy based on poetry by Gabriele d'Annunzio.

The piece is a misfire on a massive scale. Even the program notes allude openly to its "perfumed" writing and overall sense of "kitsch." Program annotator Michael Steinberg even goes as far as to quote the impresario who produced the premiere, Gabriel Astruc, as saying: "I don't understand it at all. I have brought together the greatest musician, the greatest poet, the greatest designer, the greatest choreographer--and it's bad!"

Michael Tilson Thomas, who led the orchestra in the concerts which drew on the forces of a massive orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony Chorus and a coterie of soloists helmed by the great vocalist Frederica von Stade in the spoken role of The Narrator (Sebastian himself), obviously thought that the work was worth resuscitating.

I'm afraid I disagree. Even Frederica von Stade with her beautiful French accent couldn't bring life to d'Annunzio heavy-handed and stilted prosody. The video projections featuring a lightly-clad male dancer cavorting and a big supine lily, and the soloists billowing gospel-singer-like robes added a layer of camp silliness to the proceedings. Debussy's music has something going for it, at least. There are spine-tingling spectral moments and ardently lush choral episodes. The orchestra and chorus acquitted themselves well. But with all the stage business going on, it was hard to really home in on whatever musical merits the work possesses.

I'm grateful that the Symphony played Janacek's silvery Sinfonietta in the first half of the program. It's one of the greatest pieces ever written for an orchestra and it created a sharp contrast with the much more highly-hyped puff piece that made up the second half.

The fact that Debussy composed the music for Le Martyre in the same year that San Francisco Symphony was founded (1911) is not a good enough reason to resurrect the work for the orchestra's 100th anniversary season.

Why is society so coy about criticizing classical music?

2012-01-08T10:51:00.000-08:00

I recorded a VoiceBox episode on Friday on the subject of "terrible songs" in collaboration with Jim Nayder, the host of NPR Chicago's Annoying Music Show, and Brian Rosen, a Bay Area-based composer and arts blogger.

The task was to dissect well-known vocal music aberrations (we covered everything from The Shaggs' "My Pal Foot Foot" to Rebecca Black's "Friday") according to what we called "the elements of badness." These elements are the various qualities that many sub-par vocal compositions possess in common such as crumby or smug lyrics, monotonous/grating melody, poor intonation and overuse of Auto-Tune.

One thing that came up in discussion is how coy our society generally is about voicing a negative opinion about classical music. Few people have qualms about skewering a bad pop song. But beyond narrow-focused musicologists steeped in the world of academic journals and conferences, faulting a Mozart aria or Schubert lied is "just not done." And relatively few people besides the handful of professional critics that are still plying their trade today come flat out against contemporary works.

Performances/interpretations of classical music works are fairer game for derision -- Florence Foster Jenkins makes an appearance on our VoiceBox program, naturally. But in general, the criticism is not serious. And while classical music critics might fault a singer for not performing an aria or art song as well as they might, it's rare to come across a review which completely destroys a vocal performance.

Classical music is more of a niche genre than pop music, of course, so there are fewer "worst of" lists anyway and fewer people sharing widely-disseminated opinions about classical pieces. This explains in part why there is so little discussion along these lines.

I think what it boils down to, though, is that society at large is scared to judge classical music. It's still so very entrenched in the establishment and regarded as "high brow." Perhaps people think that to deride classical music is to highlight one's own poor taste. Ultimately, it's easier somehow to make fun of something truly alien to many western sensibilities, like Chinese opera or Mongolian throat singing for instance, than to condemn a piece of occidental art music.

Go Gareth Go

2011-12-22T17:04:00.001-08:00

Gareth Malone is the British chorus world's answer to Jamie Oliver.

What Jamie has done to revolutionize people's appetite for home cooking, Gareth has done to bring them together in song.

I have been following Malone's trajectory with curiosity for the last few years since first hearing about the unlikely idea of a choirmaster as TV personality. But I didn't fully appreciate the power of Malone's TV series The Choir until tonight, when my mum turned on the television, saw what was on and said, "you should watch this, it's Gareth Malone."

Over the course of a couple of hours, I sat riveted as the thirty-something choirmaster, who cuts a nerdy-chic figure in Buddy Holly glasses, preppy blazers, knitted pullovers and trendy jeans, took a bunch of stoical army wives from a couple of British military bases and turned them into vocal superstars. In so doing, he also helped to give these women, who felt pretty isolated and emotionally drained, a potent sense of community and well-being.

At the start of the show, the ladies were mumbling their way apologetically through a song on home turf. By the end, they were singing with gusto and flair at the Royal Albert Hall before the Queen. All the while, they were soldiering on, fearing for the safety of their husbands, most of whom were serving long tours on the front-lines in Afghanistan. Added pathos came from the story of one tattooed military wife and mother, who at the start of the show, could barely summon up the courage to sing a note to herself, let alone a solo before a crowd. At the climax of the episode, she was belting out the solo part at the Royal Albert Hall in front of 5,000 audience members and millions of people watching at home.

OK, so the show was pretty schmaltzy and the simple musical arrangements of songs like the Whitney Houston hit "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" aren't exactly fascinating fodder for the ears. But if Malone's choral interventions don't make for compelling telly, I don't know what does.

Following in Jamie Oliver's footsteps, my mum tells me that Malone is headed to the States to work his magic there. I hope the choirmaster makes it as far as The Bay Area. I can think of several groups of people who would benefit from his touch, from the prisoners of San Quentin, to Silicon Valley engineers, to the kids currently starved of music education at any number of our public schools.

P.S. "Wherever You Are," the song that the military wives sang at Albert Hall, went on general release in the UK on the 19th of December and is topping the charts for the holiday season.