Canadian Musician September / October 2019

PHOTO: COLIN MEDLEY VOCALS A co-founder of Toronto-based band Bruce Peninsula and an accomplished vocal guest with Daniel Romano, The Weather Station, City and Colour, Timber Timbre, and Snowblink, Misha Bower now emerges as a singer-songwriter with her debut album, Trying to Have It All. With a full band, soaring strings, intimate guitar and piano, and impassioned vocals, the album is a journey through different takes on the art of coping. www.mishabower.com/music. By Misha Bower Voice Lessons, Part Two Embodying Musicality for Solo or Guest Vocal Work P art one started when I was around nine years old. My folks had recently separated, and my mom was trying to get me into an activity, worried about my increasing tendency to avoid outings that involved leaving my parents. “I put you in gymnastics. You said you liked it, but then you didn’t want to go,” my mom recalls. “We tried swimming. Same thing. You didn’t want to go. Then we tried Brownies, which you said you hated – but I hated it too, so I guess that one doesn’t count…” Eventually, a woman named Joanne moved to our neighbourhood and offered mu- sic lessons out of her home. She and my mom started hanging out, which gently evolved into me taking piano and singing lessons. For the first year, I refused to sing in pub- lic. When it came time to perform at a recital or festival or eldercare home, I’d happily play “Melody of Spring” or “To a Wild Rose” on the keys – but consistently bail on “I Can Sing a Rainbow” or “I’m Called Little Buttercup” or whatever vocal piece I had prepared “just in case you decide you want to sing this time.” My first successful attempt at public sing- ing was “Castle on a Cloud” from Les Misérables, which I dedicated to my Aunt Kim, who end- ed up having to excuse herself right before the performance to deal with an imminent coughing fit. “There is a castle on a cloud,” I began shakily, as my aunt’s jagged hacking decrescendo-ed down the hallway of St. Mi- chael’s Church. I stopped the lessons sometime in high school, having successfully shed my post- divorce shell, but then the music journey re- sumed in 2006 when Matt Cully and I got a couple songs together for a pal’s fundraiser at Victory Café in Toronto, which then led to the 32 CANADIAN MUSICIAN inception of Bruce Peninsula with Neil Haverty. Voice Lessons, Part Two A lot of my formative singing years have been with Bruce Peninsula, which often consists of Matt, Neil, and I developing one another’s songs by honouring a pact of “I’ll embarrass myself for you now if you embarrass yourself for me later.” This means we help each other explore ideas by singing parts outside our vocal ranges, belting notes from the gut we’re used to singing softly from the head, impersonating instruments that may or may not exist… It feels ridiculous at first, but a willingness to experiment beyond real and imagined limits has paid dividends. A few years ago, when I was recording backup vocals and the producer asked me, “Can you be a didgeridoo?” I was ready. Any time I was struggling with a vocal take for Try- ing to Have It All, I knew I could rely on trying different singing styles (along with lighting a candle and putting on a pair of Ray-Bans) to help get me unstuck. Whether it’s in your living room alone or with a group of true blues who’ll keep your silliness secure, reaching beyond what you think you can do vocally – acting a part you don’t usually play – can help with noticeably expanding your physical and ex- pressive range. Leaning into the acting side of singing has helped me with my versatility as both a solo- ist and vocal guest. I often approach guesting as an exercise in embracing the character of another person’s music. By “character,” I’m refer- ring to qualities like emotion, intention, mood, mindset – aspects of experience that are often channeled into songwriting with some degree of purpose. Getting into a desired character can feel like a stretch, especially if it entails singing in what you don’t feel is your strongest or most representative voice, but coming back to the goal of doing what’s best for the song – and remembering it isn’t about you – can be a helpful reset for getting out of self-involved mode and back into supportive guest mode. Another highly doable strategy that helps with staying “in character” (instead of “in your head”) is showing up prepared – deep-listen- ing to the songs, practising the relevant sec- tions, knowing the lyrics… Having the techni- cal stuff down means you can focus on artfully performing the music rather than adequately delivering the lines. One of my favourite ways to enrich my singing education is by observing other vocal- ists in action and summoning their examples come showtime. When I’m trying to make a performance more dynamic, I channel my in- ner Julie Doiron, who knows how to get the most out of a microphone by using it like an effects pedal operated by degrees of distanc- ing from the element. When I’m anticipating a show, I let my inner Daniela Gesundheit take the “self-care” helm, making sure to rest, hy- drate, and not order the chick pea curry an hour before doors. Not all of my examples come from people I know – or even real people. To this day, when I’m pushing out a hard-to-hit note from the gut, I close my eyes and think of the scene in Sister Act where Whoopi Goldberg pushes on Wendy Makenna’s diaphragm to bring out the badass alto in Sister Mary Robert. Little inspirations like this are easy to find, and add to the accumulation of lessons and techniques that come to underlie a vocal practice – ones that pay off as they become automatic, receding from awareness in those magic moments when we move from ob- serving our musicality to embodying it.

Canadian Musician September / October 2019 | Page 32