VOICE, PERFORMANCE & EXCELLENCE TRAINING
THE NAME
Kraft:
Origin: German - literally translated it means a force or strength.
Noun: A particularly strong and usually brown paper produced from wood pulp and used chiefly for bags and as wrapping paper.
There are no expensive or complex wrappings here ... just the plain, straight-up, brown-paper-bag version of the facts that can help you to connect with your inner creative abilities. If what you are learning isn't logical and doesn't make sense ... simple common sense ... then it really isn't going to do you any good. Regardless of your intent, to simply be all you can be 'or' to become a great professional singer and performer, the SongKraft methodology will put what you need to know and do very easily, and naturally, within your grasp.
WHY SING & PERFORM?
The answer is quite simple. Leaning to sing, and undertaking to perform with excellence, challenges people to learn to integrate all of their physical, intellectual and emotional resources into a single act - to get it all together and discover their own 'natural ease' ... 'natural strength' ... 'performance excellence'.
Many great singers, when asked why they sing, simply say: "Because they have to!"
Once you learn that singing goes beyond being an end in itself, to being a means to a greater end, you will be hooked, too! Not only is this the reason so many people sing, it is the key to understanding singing as a process rather than an outcome. This is a crucial foundational understanding to the SongKraft methodology.
KEY OBJECTIVES
Songkraft has four foundational objectives:
- Making performance art accessible to anyone and everyone ... which distinguishes SongKraft as a natural practitioning program.
- Providing training that supports performance that is both natural and free of inhibitions - particularly, performance without fear.
- Providing life-long learning opportunities that promote well-being.
- The pursuit of joy and excellence -- sharing an understanding of the difference between good and great.
We hold firm to a belief that great performance is "natural" and that by birthright we all have the resources to sing, to dance, to act, and to perform with a positive attitude and also with excellence.
CREATIVITY BACKGROUNDER
People need to understand that singing, performance and creativity in general are birthrights.
The next two paragraphs summarize part of a TED.COM presentation given by Ken Robinson; author, speaker, and international advisor on education in the arts to government, non-profits, education, and arts bodies. Robinson was Director of The Arts in Schools Project (1985–89), Professor of Arts Education at the University of Warwick (1989–2001), and was knighted in 2003 for services to education. The paragraphs below have therefore been offered in quotation marks. Please note, we urge everyone to see both of these 15 minute presentations in their entirety (links below).
In these presentations, Ken Robinson is brilliant, funny and speaking very important truths. For those who don't have the half hour it takes to look at these presentations (and it is highly recommended that you try to find the time), Ken Robinson stipulates that:
"Before the 19th century, there was little in the way of organized education, which came into being to meet the needs of industrialization. School is predicated on the idea of academic ability and achievement, which dominates our view of intelligence. Systemic education is intended to prepare youths to become good workers and not creative thinkers and people. As a society, we simply can't afford to go on educating people out of their creativity. "
"Too many people falsely believe that they aren't creative. Every child has an extraordinary capacity for innovation, which is at the heart of creativity. Creativity is inherent in every human being and is a matter of allowance and nurturance. It is as important as literacy and we should treat it with the same value. We need to radically rethink our view of intelligence and the means by which we support human creativity. All to often, those who are creative thinkers are quite often (although not always) those who do not fit in, who have trouble with the 'system'."
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Systemically, most people also falsely believe that they have no 'talent' for voice, that something 'special' is required to be successful at learning to sing. Nothing could be further from the truth but, the misconception is so well seated within our society, it sadly manifests as an unchallenged truth in the lives of most people.
SONGKRAFT
SongKraft is a systemic and holistic approach to learning to be a singer. It's about learning to sing and it's also about the benefits of learning to sing, which are considerable.
Authored by Tim Mallandaine, SongKraft is based on 35 years of direct teaching experience and two decades of research on voice, human creativity, brain function, the education process ... and much more. It is for people who wish to learn to express song, poetry and/or prose freely from the heart. While the core study focus is all about singing and singers, the program has been used by people from many different walks of life for a variety of excellence-training purposes. In particular, the performance and excellence components of SongKraft's methodology are directly transferable to any performance ... "when it is important" ... situation. However, nothing requires as complete an individual investment as a great vocal performance.
If you ask a brain researcher what part of the brain is involved in singing, they will tell you simply: "All of it."
Clearly, the benefits of this kind of study opportunity are far-reaching and globally beneficial. What evolves out of the study and interpretation of the benefits that accrue to participants is the realization that improving the performer enhances an individual's life. If you help the performer improve then the person improves on many levels, too. Conversely, if you make the person better then the performer improves. In short, if you work on the person, the crafts person and the artist all at the same time then all aspects of that individual's experiences are advantaged right across the board. This understanding underscores SongKraft's holistic natural-practitioning approach (as opposed to a narrow 'technique-based' approach) to singing and performance.
SongKraft assists participants in a number of ways, which include:
- Voice basics, naturalizing and then finishing the vocal instrument
- Removing blocks to ultimate performance and creativity
- Discovering the key to in-the-moment performance excellence
- Naturalizing and challenging performance abilities to reach personal excellence
- Teaching the difference between 'good' and 'great' performance
- Fine-tuning craft and approaching mastery
... and much more!
We offer a free class because we know that it is difficult understand the broader-spectrum life influences which are a part of SongKraft training. Beyond the obvious singing/performing benefits, here is a list of a few life-affirming physical, emotional and mental benefits that might not typically come to mind when one thinks of learning to sing:
- Helps to increase confidence, self-esteem and improves mental alertness
- Enhances feelings of well being, boosts the immune system, releases endorphines, increases positive feelings, improves mood and is a great stress reducer
- Emotionally therapeutic, helps to reduce anger, depression and anxiety and leads to strengthened personal boundaries
- Decreases muscle tension, improves posture and sleep patterns
- Benefits the heart and circulation by improving aerobic capacity, tones the intercostal muscles, the diaphragm, and facial muscles and adds a rich, more pleasant quality to speech
... and many more!
It should be evident that, if singing and performance positively affect these aspects of our lives, improving these aspects of our lives will also improve one's singing and performance. It is prcisely that reasoning which lead to the creation of the SongKraft process.
You should not assume that, because SongKraft provides a great full-spectrum performance excellence education, it won't help you with the specifics of your craft; vocal or otherwise. SongKraft is designed to be just as potent a craft-specific process as it is a source of vital how-to information. It will help you to understand, and to attain mastery over, your craft. As a part of the SongKraft learning process the craft component, yourindividual craft processes, are designed to match your individual and therefore unique creative objectives.
SongKraft's foundation is knowledge; a 'ToolKit' of ideas which will help you to improve your sensitivity and awareness as an individual, a vocalist, a performer and an artist. These knowledge ToolKit 'ideas' also define a 'process' that helps you to get it all together -- it effectively combines what you need to know with what you need to do. SongKraft will deliver the goods ... the difference between good and great.
WHY SONGKRAFT?
SongKraft is both an individualized craft-specific process-based learning system 'and' a broad-spectrum performance excellence training methodology ... in one. It makes the assumption that everyone can learn ... no exceptions! There are no special talents required ... just special attitudes ... challenging one's self to learn. It's an holistic program that addresses the individual, the crafts person and the artist as one and the same.
SongKraft training is based on the asumption that people who look for singing lessons typically already know how to sing and are not really just looking for singing lessons. When asked, they will usually agree that what they are looking for is an understanding of and an opportunity to learn ... the difference between good and great.
SongKraft also assumes that most people, who say they "don't sing", are usually not telling the truth. They just don't sing where other people can hear them and many of them secretly hope that one day they might have an opportunity to change that in some way.
So, think of SongKraft (in part) as a ToolKit of ideas and processes that no singer, performer, or person, should be without. The ToolKit consists of both 'knowledge tools' that will greatly enhance your preparedness for performance situations (and life) and 'process tools' for directly improving and fine-tuning craft and performance skills -- for those times when what you do is important ... to you!
The British have a saying, "on song", which means performing at peak efficiency or ability.
Abraham Lincoln used to say, "Whatever you are, be a good one."
Music, singing and performance experiences provide the matrix of opportunities which challenge SongKraft program participants to "be a good one". SongKraft training will definitly assist you, individually, to get "on song".
PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACH
The philosophy surrounding any art form is a nebulous topic at the best of times. No two good instructors will agree completely; but that is not to say that they are in disagreement. At the core of any good working philosophy are influences that span decades and, in some cases, centuries.
If we look at the wild creatures that roam the world on foot, by wing or through water, we see that they embody natural magnificence; a strong but graceful regal state of being. At the core of all great people - regardless of whether they perform publicly on a stage or act greatly in private life - is this essential 'naturalness'. It is an ease with which they operate, in their own style and in command of themselves. They do not strike us as having an air; we have the sense that they are "at home" inside of themselves wherever they are and whatever they are doing.
Learning to be all in - learning how to present or perform, with all the resources that you have available, is an invaluable undertaking. The personal benefits of being able to be present and freely expressive in the moment are many and they last for a lifetime.
Our engagement of each participant is holistic, taking into account broad emotional, cultural and spiritual influences and the individual differences which have an impact on performance. Looking at this from a natural rather than a technical perspective, the enduring result is growth ... in personal strength, self-acceptance, self-respect, patience ... and skill.
Here are a few quotations for your consideration:
"Dance like nobody's watching
Love like you've never been hurt
Sing like nobody's listening
Live like it's heaven on earth
--Mark Twain
"Perhaps the most important thing we can undertake toward the reduction of fear is to make it easier for people to accept themselves, to like themselves. "
--Bonaro W. Overstreet
"I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself."
--Maya Angelou
"Enlightenment is, in the end, nothing more than the natural state of being."
--Adyashanti
"Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it."
--Confucius
"There is a natural and 'living' force within all of us and it is our birthright to trust that force and ourselves."
--J. T. (Tim) Mallandaine
SONGKRAFT
