Advice to a young female singer

Listen, listen to and watch all the greats, the big band and other jazz singers, classical soloists, listen to jazz musicians play songs you're familiar with. Listen to two great jazz sax or trumpet players perform the same song and notice their styles, and do the same for a short solo piece for violin from the classical repertoire. Learn why many musicians think that Michael Bolton, Mariah Carey, Christina Aguilera, and Kenny G have too often been over the top, overblowers, over-emoters. Learn why the pop audience forces some singers to operate at their peaks all the damn time. Learn why passion is now only recognized as singing soft, then loud, and learn the relationship between extreme sports, rock bands and violent movies. Learn the relationship between sex and violence in the human animal and notice how that relationship has crept into pop music until it's blatantly in our faces, then figure out any reason why any of it should be glorified. Think about how our music mirrors our world. Is there any music that transcends rather than mirrors our world? Wonder if there’s a connection between wars and very aggressive music, and take a look at what those two things have in common – like men. Learn why jazz is a pure art, and pop usually a lesser art that uses feathers and hammers to make up for it. Learn why dark, rough, ruined whiskey voices seem to sound more wise and learn why the song You Are So Beautiful is so much more believable – to most people – when sung by Joe Cocker, and learn why audiences are seduced by even the appearance of lots of experience, especially painful experience. Learn what African-American singers, musicians and dancers gave the whole world, why and how – and why we should never, never stop acknowledging those gifts and being eternally grateful for them.