Yap Sesh #9: Featuring Yapper Meredith Eib

Anna: Welcome to Yap Sesh. I'm your host, Anna Diemer. Our usual co-host, Maurice Goodwin, is traveling right now and is not here, but I have a special guest for us today. I've brought on one of my fabulous colleagues that I met at the NATS Intern Program last month. Everybody say hi to Meredith Eib. Welcome!

Meredith: Yay, I'm so excited to be doing this. Thanks, Anna. Thanks for the invitation.

Anna: Yeah, thanks so much for joining me. Why don't you tell the Yappers a little bit about yourself—your work and what you do?

Meredith: OK, great. Yeah, so like Anna said, we were suite-mates at the NATS Intern Program—so fun to have an awesome suite-mate! I’m sure we’ll get into that and into the intern program later on. But I’m a voice teacher specializing in musical theater. I teach mostly musical theater students and am based in Washington, DC right now. I teach at Catholic University of America in their BFA musical theater program, as well as Temple University’s BFA musical theater program up in Philly. So I pivot between Philly and DC every week, and I’m often in New York and Boston. I’m from New England originally.

I teach applied lessons, and I also teach voice and speech—kind of into everything musical theater, storytelling, sound-making related. I still do my own singing and performing in the DC area too. So it’s great to be here!

Anna: Yeah, that’s so fantastic. I’m just curious because I’m not sure I ever asked you this. Again, we’ll get more into the intern program, but we were so busy—we were never in the room! We were like passing ships.

Meredith: Never! We’d have like 5-minute passing conversations before bed and then maybe a 2-minute one in the morning.

Anna: So I wanted to ask you—what have you been performing in lately? What have you sung?

Meredith: Yeah, so recently, the teaching schedule has been really hectic, so it’s been more cabaret-type work. I developed a cabaret that I did both here in DC and in Boston, kind of based on the music of Judy Garland. That was really fun—I did three performances of that, plus another cabaret I developed with a colleague up in Boston at the Napoleon Room as part of Club Café Josephine’s cabaret series.

Then I brought it down here and did a salon concert for Levine School of Music and a few other things like that. I also do a lot of sacred music singing right now—have a few different church gigs, as most musicians do. That’s something really important to me and something I love.

I haven’t done a full-scale musical in about two years though, and I’m missing it! I’m hoping to get back on stage. I’m actually doing a show at 54 Below this August with a friend of mine from a past contract, so that will be fun. The big goal for 2025 is definitely to be back on stage more.

Anna: Yeah, your cabarets sound awesome. I actually did one recently too—I performed it at the intern program this week.

Meredith: Yes! We got to see—it was so, so good.

Anna: I love that genre as a form of honoring someone’s music—like doing Judy Garland songs—or as a way to explore facets of your own creative self-expression.

Meredith: Yeah.

Anna: I also hope you get back on a big stage again, but also—heck yeah, cabarets! I love that so much.

Meredith: Thank you. Yeah, it’s great. And I feel like cabaret work is especially good for voice teachers. Since we’re teaching all day, every day, it’s tough to do those rehearsal processes that are usually during the day for the professional theaters. So cabaret work, concert work—all of that—seems to fit the schedule better for voice teaching. But yes, I would love to get back on stage in a big full-scale musical again soon!

Anna: Yeah, even the community theater here— I mean, I live someplace very small, so we don’t have a professional theater—but they’re running The Little Mermaid in June and July for like four weekends. And I’m like, “Oh my gosh,” much less the rehearsal schedule—I couldn’t even make all the performances with teaching.

Meredith: Mhm, yes.

Anna: So I know that’s really tough.

Meredith: Yeah, absolutely. A former roommate of mine and good friend is doing The Little Mermaid here too. I think it’s a four-month run—eight shows a week. She’s a Pilates teacher and a voice teacher, so I don’t know how she’s going to schedule that as Ariel. She’s superwoman though!

Anna: Oh wow—as Ariel too. Not just anyone—as The Little Mermaid herself!

Meredith: Yep. I’m Ariel. I’m Ariel. Yes, exactly!

Anna: Oh goodness. Well, that’s a good segue into the NATS Intern Program—thinking about balancing everything, because it was busy. It was a jam-packed ten days full of stuff. I’m still recuperating—we’re not even a week out at the time of this recording.

Meredith: Yeah.

Anna: How are you feeling getting back to your normal life and routine?

Meredith: It definitely took a full—I mean, I don’t know about you—I was kind of catatonic for a full 24 hours after I got back. But it’s been great, honestly. For me, it reignited a desire to submit to conferences, to connect with colleagues in different parts of the country, to present more, and to look into different certifications and things. It really reignited my professional development brain, which was great.

Especially for academic teachers, it’s so easy to get stuck in the rhythm of the semester. Then the semester ends, and you have a week of sleepiness—and then you’re like, “What do I do from here?” So the intern program came at a really good time for me—right at the start of summer—and helped keep that drive to keep learning and connecting with other voice professionals.

Anna: Yeah. What's your favorite thing that you learned and absorbed and participated in while you were there?

Meredith: Oh, oh, it was so cool. I—you know, I mean, I think my favorite thing ultimately was meeting colleagues from around the country. So like meeting you and meeting, you know, everybody from all different states. We had so much representation from different parts of the country and different chapters. So it was—it was great to just connect with so many new people. But of course, like, the masterclasses with the master teachers were all really, really wonderful. I sang for Justin’s class—I sang for Justin Moniz’s class from NYU—and then also for Noel Smith’s class; he was my master teacher. And then watching Amelia’s class and Sander’s class—it was really, really cool to see all the master teachers at work. And I loved those professional development afternoons the most, I think. Yeah.

Anna: Yeah. I think especially for me—but maybe even for you—we are not watching other teachers do what they do a lot of the time. And I am, as an independent teacher, I'm really on my own little island out here. So like, getting to have colleagues is like, wow, this is great. We're like, you know, the equivalent of, like, standing around the water—

Meredith: No—mm-hmm, nah.

Anna: —cooler. Like, I feel like that’s so corporate of me to say, but that's really—that’s really valuable for me. To like, not just be like a hermit in my house all the time.

Meredith: Yes. Yeah.

Anna: Um—

Meredith: Yeah, I know. Colleagues are kind of—I feel like they're kind of the lifeblood of what keeps voice teachers—or should be what keeps voice teachers—moving. Because like you said, it is such a solitary career. And I know I'm an extrovert, and there's something about voice teaching that's—it is very extroverted. You're in constant dialogue with the other person. But you do miss that aspect of connecting with other professionals sometimes, because it's always teacher-student. And so I know my colleagues at the schools I teach at are so important to me—so, so, so important to me—and that it was really cool to kind of expand that here and see what other schools are doing and what other programs look like. Yeah, it was great. It was very—

Anna: Cool. Yeah, I'm really excited about popping in the group chat, like, a pedagogical question.

Meredith: Yeah, yeah. Yes, yes, yes. And just talking shop too for 10 days—candidly—was really fun as well. You know, I think we—we need ideas from people you know. And the online forums are great—the online forums are helpful in a way—but face-to-face conversations are so valuable. And it was cool to just have 10 days of kind of voice nerd boot camp.

Anna: Yeah, like, I thought I would be sick of talking about voice. But then, like, we would go to dinner or like, go to grab a drink, and we would still be talking about voices.

Meredith: So—

Anna: Like, oh yeah. Like, I am a huge voice nerd. And it feels really good to like, lean into that. And to like, get into like the nitty-gritty, like, mental thoughts, pedagogy, like all that stuff with other people who are like on the same wavelength. Like, that is so valuable.

Meredith: Absolutely. I mean, we could have talked about anything at happy hour or whatever we went to. And of course, like, debating registration—why not? Like, let's do it. You know? So yeah, it was fun. It was great. It was really great. And it was cool seeing everybody's presentations too. So for those who don't know, part of the NATS intern program is not only that we watch each other teach, but that we watch each other present as well. So Anna presented a cabaret—not a recital, I'm sorry. Recital-cabaret.

Anna: It was—it was my drag title, right? So recital's in the name.

Meredith: Yeah. Good. And Anna kicked us off, too. She was on day one.

Anna: Oh God.

Meredith: It was so good.

Anna: Like, both like—great to get it out of the way and not have to worry about like, my vocal stamina for the rest of the time. But it was also like, terrifying because I was like, let me put on a mustache and get up in front of these like 16 people that I literally just met—who were all exhausted because it was 4 in the afternoon when I sang, which is like nap o’clock.

Meredith: And you had never met really your collaborative pianist either. It was like, day of meeting, right? Or day before or something?

Anna: The night before we talked through. So, you know, it's so fun to like, have that in-person and collaborative experience, right? Like even if it's just like, we're throwing it all together. Like, that's the magic of live theater, right? Like, it's showing up to what I'm bringing, what y’all were bringing. Like, I just remember mostly being like, y’all are tired and you need to wake up ‘cause I'm up here doing the most. Like, I just remember, like, yelling at you all a lot.

Meredith: “Give me energy!” No, it was so—I mean, it was such a good way to start though. Because it was really the first intern presentation of the whole—the whole 10 days. And I just—I think it got us off to a really good start. So I really enjoyed your recital. I would come see it again. And any other video, yeah.

Anna: Well, thank you. Well—and you gave one of the last. So we all knew each other going into it.

Meredith: Yes.

Anna: You presented on musical theater repertoire scaffolding.

Meredith: Yeah, it was like repertoire—yeah—scaffolding, musical theater. Yeah. So it’s a presentation that I developed with one of my colleagues at Temple. And we both teach multiple schools. So Shane—my colleague at Temple—he’s awesome, shout-out! But he teaches at three different musical theater programs, and I teach at two. And we kind of see this common thread of students just singing a bit beyond their means in a way that doesn’t always happen in classical voice education, right?

I think the sequencing for classical voice education is maybe a little bit more defined than it is for musical theater sometimes. So we just wanted to come up with this way of scaffolding repertoire for musical theater students. And then also developing some like, self-sufficiency skills with musical theater singers, so that they're able to kind of identify where their technical needs are, and then repertoire that might serve as medicine for those technical needs. So that was kind of the basis of the presentation.

But it was fun. It was fun to give it a whirl at the NATS intern program. We've done it at Temple, Shane presented it out in Wyoming—at University out in Wyoming—and then this presentation. So yeah, we’re hoping to do more of it.

Anna: Yeah, it was great to hear about that. Because I teach mostly adults, and I just tell folks like, bring me whatever song you’re working on. And a lot of it is like, choral repertoire. And it’s so like—getting into this—and I think you’re right, like, the scaffolding of classical repertoire has just been more researched and put out there, right? Like—and there are so many anthologies that are like, start here with your baby classical singers, and then move on.

So it was really nice to like, have this framework presented. And like, I know that rep is not one of my strengths, so I was literally—

Meredith: OK.

Anna: —like, taking pictures of every slide. Being like, I don’t know—like 8 out of 10 of these, I don’t know. So now I have a lot of Spotify playlists to make. So you can like, get up on—you were saying about getting into professional development brain. I’m like, I haven’t even started going through my notes, going through all of my photos of like, the things that I want to spend more time on because of that.

Meredith: Good. Yeah.

Anna: Excitement has now, like, been sparked.

Meredith: And the books—we got so many books! Which—I already saw you do a haul of your books. I saw that on Instagram. Awesome. But yeah, we got so many resources. I didn’t know that was part of the NATS Intern Program, so that was such a happy surprise. Thank-you notes! But it was such a happy surprise to get all those resources. It’s gonna give me some reading for the summer, so I’m excited about that too.

Anna: Yeah, me too. I didn’t know either, and so I did a live and it was like—it’s a voice teacher Christmas.

Meredith: Yeah! So good. Good.

Anna: So if you're listening to this, look on my personal Instagram—Diemer Voice Studio. I shouted out as many of the publishers as I could find Instagram accounts to tag, so you will be receiving thank-you notes from us. And also—publishers, if you are listening to this podcast, thank you so much for supporting—

Meredith: Thank you.

Anna: —voice teachers and vocal education. Because music is expensive!

Meredith: So generous. Music and textbooks are expensive, and technique books are expensive—like, all of it. It’s just—you know, it’s expensive. So it’s so cool to get. And I got some books that I legitimately have been wanting to buy—like the Singing Through Change book, for example. I got that one too, and I’ve been wanting to read that. So it was so cool to get that.

Anna: Yeah, I shout them out all the time because I am constantly talking about that book—because that’s one of my main demographics.

Meredith: That’s so cool.

Anna: Singing Through Change—like, I thought the terminology that I used to refer to those clients... so again, I’ll tag them in the show notes. Thank you to our Singing Through Change authors for putting such a good—

Meredith: Yeah. Yeah.

Anna: —resource out there.

Meredith: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah.

Anna: So, one thing that was cool about getting to know Meredith is that we come from different backgrounds. All of my pedagogy in school—like, my pieces of paper on the wall—are from classical programs studying classical pedagogy. My introduction to musical theater pedagogy and voice function all came with other programs and professional development after my degrees.

So I wanted to hear a little bit more, because I think maybe in my world—and I think in the folks that generally listen to Yap Sesh—are more familiar with the track that I have taken. But I would love for you to share a little bit more about your journey into, like—how do you get to being a musical theater voice teacher?

Meredith: Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. So I—you know, growing up, I really didn’t take consistent voice lessons until college. But I do remember I took a few one-off voice lessons when I was a senior in high school, and it was with an Estill-trained musical theater teacher. And I remember kind of looking at her model larynx for the first time and thinking, “Oh, that’s so cool.” And I had never thought about the voice systematically at all. I didn’t even know what that meant, right?

Like, singing was something that came supernatural to me—but it just felt a little... supernatural, right? Like, just felt kind of like a magic thing, and I had no control over it. It was like a superpower I just had no tools to control. And then I took a few lessons with this teacher—one-off—Martha Gleeson and Rick Smith in New Hampshire, and just kind of became a little bit fascinated in it.

But then I went to college for musical theater kind of unexpectedly. I walked into a random audition with a voice teacher—no, I’m sorry—with a Sing Broadway for Dummies songbook. You know those For Dummies songbooks? And I sang for this random audition—I sang “I Dreamed a Dream.” And they were like, “You want to be a musical theater major?” Like, OK!

But I sang “I Dreamed a Dream” out of a Broadway for Dummies songbook and decided to go into the musical theater world. And that’s when I started studying with a musical theater teacher specifically—Rochelle Fleming—who I’ve kind of maintained a close mentorship with since. But Rochelle was an incredibly systematic teacher and just gave me so many different ways to think about my voice technically and practice tools to make what I was doing in lessons replicable outside of lessons.

And it just ignited this huge fascination in me—in systematic teaching, in teaching that’s founded in speech, teaching that’s really rooted in technical work specifically for the actor, for the singing actor. So part of musical theater training is that you do a lot of voice and speech work as well. I took a Linklater-based class in undergrad, and I was kind of fascinated with that too. And just these multiple different teachers started really influencing how I was thinking about singing and how I was practicing singing and all of the above.

And I ended up—fast forward a few years—I performed professionally for a while in the DC theater scene. I was teaching actually K–8 music for a little bit, so I was like a classroom teacher.

Anna: The babies. Not the babies!

Meredith: It was fascinating. Yes, it was so great. Yes. I just realized while doing that, though, that I loved the one-on-one lessons. I was getting more done in one-on-one lessons. I loved it, loved it. I think classroom teachers are the biggest heroes in the entire world—ever, ever, right?

But I was really growing and loving my one-on-one lessons that I was doing on the side. So I ended up applying for a brand-new MFA in musical theater vocal pedagogy at Boston Conservatory, and went through the very first class of that. And of course—it was 2020. So we started in fall of 2020, and that was under the direction of Kevin Wilson, who’s pretty well known in the musical theater voice community and just the pedagogy community in general.

So I got to spend five semesters—two and a half years—doing that in Boston. And of course, it was a weird time. It was during COVID. You know—strange. But I’m so grateful for it because it really set this firm foundation for me in what musical theater voice pedagogy looks like. And the foundations of musical theater voice pedagogy specifically—kind of training the speaking voice along with the singing voice.

And that led to a voice and speech fellowship that I did at Harvard in the summer as well. And then I ended up taking over that voice and speech class and teaching that at Harvard too, in the summers—which was amazing. And then it led to going back and being hired as a musical theater voice teacher at Temple and at Catholic—which is my original alma mater, Catholic. And yeah—just going from there, and kind of having this specialized focus within the world of pedagogy has been really wonderful.

So I would say that most of my voice training specifically has been with musical theater-based singers and with musical theater-based teachers.

Meredith: And I’m grateful for it. But it—it was such an interesting part of NATS as well—to kind of compare those educational journeys. And, you know, I admire so much the time and dedication that classical singers put into their education. I think it’s amazing how much work goes into that and how much time goes into that. So it was really interesting at the program to compare those educational journeys and to compare some of the foundations of both sides of pedagogy—and how they can serve each other. Yeah, it’s great.

Anna: Yeah. I think it's interesting to think back—not too far in the past—of when NATS was still just classical.

Meredith: Yes, not far at all.

Anna: Not far at all. I mean, there have been so many categories even just in the past three or four years, when they added the rest of the CCM categories. I don’t know what we’re calling that—commercial music, whatever—because I think musical theater had been around for a bit. And then they added other non-classical music categories.

And so for me, it was nice—having a classical background, doing general voice function, and dealing with singers that sing all different kinds of styles of music—that there was such a representation of musical theater pedagogy at the NATS Intern Program that I could slurp onto and build up my experience there. Because I’m like, great, I got the classical stuff down. Like, this is the stuff I’m really interested in.

And just the fact that you did this new program in 2020—like, when I was looking at graduate schools in 2011, 2012, 2013—they did not exist. I would have loved to have studied that, but there were so few or no options. So like, I’m so glad that the academic voice world and just the music world in general is going in that direction and saying like, hey, no matter how you want to use your voice, we are—

Meredith: —able to equip you. Yeah. And that’s why—I mean, like you said—musical theater voice ped and contemporary voice ped specifically is so—it is so new. It’s such a new field. Which is why, you know, continuing education is so important.

So podcasts like yours, or VoiceProEd, or just professional development opportunities like the ones you offer, are so important. Because this stuff changes, right? Like, there’s new information from— I graduated in 2022, so I’ve only been out three years in the teaching world. But there’s new information from 2022! You know, there’s new information from when I was in school, which was... not long ago.

So it’s—it’s always changing. And it’s a good thing that it’s always changing, right? It’s a good thing that we’re always growing and changing. That’s why these professional development opportunities and conferences and things like that for voice teachers are so important. So that we don’t stay stuck in old science and old conceptions and all of that. That we’re moving forward—progressing.

Anna: Right, right. Because it’s so tough when you are doing all the teaching that you and I are doing to be like, OK, my brain is full—when do I have time to—

Anna: —go sit down and read Ian Howell’s new book? I still have not read it. I’m so sorry.

Meredith: Yeah! We all battled. I don’t know if Ian Howell—I don’t know if he listens to this.

Anna: I don’t know! He’d be so honored if he did.

Meredith: We can imagine that Ian Howell is going to listen to this. But we all—there was one copy of the book that went around at the Voice Teacher Christmas at the NATS program, and the way that we battled for that book—the way that we battled! I think Lexi got it.

Anna: Oh my gosh, that’s so funny. I preordered it because I’m that big of a nerd.

Meredith: Smart. Yeah.

Anna: So I’m glad I didn’t have to participate in the Hearing Singing battle. But I—like—I can’t wait to dig into it. And now I have this whole big stack. Like you were saying about other contemporary pedagogy—one of the copies I snagged was So You Want to Sing Rock by Matt Edwards. And I’m like—I see Matt on Instagram—

Meredith: Oh yeah.

Anna: —all the time. Calling him Matt like I know him.

Meredith: I’ve always wanted to go to the professional development programs over at Shenandoah. Cuz I’m so close—I’m in DC, you know. So it’s just—there’s so many different opportunities available. And it’s always just a time thing, right? Because teaching is so intensive. It’s so intensive on time and energy.

So then we get outside of teaching and it’s like, OK, where can we prioritize some of those opportunities? But they’re available, and that’s the cool thing, you know?

Anna: Right, right. And this was such a gift from NATS too—because it was at no cost to us.

Meredith: Yeah. No cost.

Anna: So that was kind of a huge deal. Cause these other programs, too—we have the time constraints, and then you just have the financial constraints as well. Of like—OK, I have to take time off of my studio, so I’m not necessarily making money. And then I have to pay for the program, and pay for lodging, and pay for—

So like, this is a lovely thing that NATS does to say, hey—we lined up all of this stuff for you to get your brains into this mode. Like, I’m pretty sure I’m tired. It was a lot. And also, I’m like, you know what—I have a renewed spark because I know that I haven’t been picking up these books that are just sitting on my shelf. And now I’m like, OK, how do I now prioritize the time to do—

Meredith: That. Yeah. I know—I’ll be recommending the program to new young teachers that I know too. Because it’s just—yeah, like you said. I mean, they reimburse travel, they reimburse a lot of the food that we have while we’re there, they provide us with a lot of that, they provide us with lodging.

And then it’s—it’s 10 days of free professional development for us. It’s 10 days of mentor teaching. It’s 10 days of working on our own voices. It’s 10 days of practice presenting, and listening to different masterclasses. And that’s so valuable.

Nothing in this life is free, usually, you know. But this was—or this was paid for, you know, which is just—it’s so generous. And it’s an awesome program. I mean, yeah. It’s no wonder to me that it’s been so successful since the early ’90s, because it’s really wonderful.

Anna: Yeah, because I think they said the first year was 1991, so...

Meredith: ’91! I wasn’t going to...

Anna: The NATS Internship Program is almost as old as me, so...

Meredith: I know. I wasn’t—I wasn’t around yet, so it outranks me. But—

Anna: How prestigious for you.

Meredith: I know, I know. Very cool. Yeah.

Anna: Well, I think this is a great time for us to come to our usual, everyone’s favorite segment of the podcast—which is Tool Time.

Meredith: Tool Time!

Anna: So if you are new to the podcast, Tool Time is where we talk about our—maybe not necessarily favorite—but a tool, an exercise, a concept that we’ve been using in the voice studio recently that we like. Because at VoiceProEd, we talk constantly about: how can you build your toolkit—your vocal toolkit—for helping voice users. That is what we do. So of course our podcast has to include tools. Do you want to kick us off for Tool Time?

Meredith: Sure! OK. So I’ve been—recently, I’ve been really into exercises that work a few different functions at once or kind of pivot you between different parts of your speaking voice at once. So the one I’ve been doing a lot is just kind of like a princessy, like, “Wow!”—and then going right into like a chest-dominant slide up on an “ah” into a staccato “whoo” coming down. So it’s like a three-parter.

So it’s kind of like: “Wow!” (I’m obviously not in front of a piano right now, so I don’t have my pitches in front of me.) But it’s kind of playing with more of that light princess mix in the middle, and then into grounding the voice and speech, and then up into a light staccato at the top. So—yeah.

Anna: I love that contrast. And that you can kind of build that up from starting with “Wow!” I got to watch Meredith teach one of her lessons, and I was like, writing down everything that you did—writing down all of your phrases—because I loved how much you used this speech-into-singing. And I’m like, “That’s a new one. Oh, I’m gonna use that. Those words, those vowels are great.” Like, I was just soaking up everything you were giving.

Meredith: Yeah. I mean, just thinking of speech as non–register-specific, right? Like, sometimes we speak up here in the head voice, and sometimes we ground it a little bit more in chest-dominant sounds, and it’s all over the place. So kind of building warmups that allow you to access different parts really quickly—because that’s, I mean, that’s what musical theater singing is. It’s all over the place all the time.

Anna: That’s what the repertoire demands of us. So I love—

Meredith: Yeah, yeah. Exactly.

Anna: I’ve also been thinking a lot about this registration idea. We marinated on that a lot at the NATS Internship. And I’m pretty sure I shouted out Bel Canto Boot Camp last time on Tool Time, so I am coming back with another Bel Canto Boot Camp Tool Time because I have been thinking about using more chest voice. Even more chest voice in my classical singers. Like, this is something that somehow my teachers along the way encouraged in me, and that I continue to encourage in my singers—which I know is not their favorite—but now it’s so important.

Meredith: So important, though! Gotta get that foundation. Gotta give the house the foundation.

Anna: Yeah. So this week, everyone has been doing five-note scales. Which—in between—I think Rochelle might have done this in her masterclass or in one of her lectures, where when you’re in a more head-dominant sound, you’re on “oo,” and then you switch to “ah” for a more chest-dominant sound.

I’m gonna give myself pitches for this. So you would do like an “oo” and switch over to an “ah.”

Meredith: Yeah. I love the purposeful breath and the “oo” too. I love the extra flow in the “oo”—that’s great.

Anna: Yeah. Well, I will just go into chest in that range if I don't work to keep it.

Anna: But all of my classical singers have been getting that this week—to work around, you know, through that area where we have lots of different registration options, and experimenting with encouraging them to switch to “ah” where it feels good to them. I just love that so much.

Meredith: Yeah. And then building off of that—so, off of that, if I may, one more quick thing. One thing that I really gleaned from Noel Smith, who was my master teacher, was not just moving in half-step directions, but kind of taking a pitch, bringing it up a third, and starting it up there—and then bringing it back down a fourth. Kind of playing with the singer’s ear a little bit. So they're not just moving in a sequential half-step order up and down, but kind of playing with, “OK, we’re going to start this exercise down here on [demonstrates], but then we’re going to go [demonstrates],” and kind of play with it all over the voice. Which I thought was so cool too, just so the ear doesn’t get used to only moving in those half-step increments. I loved that. That was a huge takeaway for me.

Anna: Yeah. And also, like we were saying about the demands of the repertoire—not moving by half-step or stepwise—it’s all over the place. And so encouraging folks to learn—

Meredith: Mmm-hmm.

Anna: —what their voice does in different parts of their range, that’s so fantastic.

Meredith: Yeah. Yeah. Love it. Very cool.

Anna: All right. Well, Meredith, thank you so much for joining me on Yap Sesh today. If you would like to be found on the interwebs, where can people find you?

Meredith: Oh! OK. So my website is www.mereditheib.com—and Eib is E-I-B. Very German there, with the “I,” stress on the second vowel. But mereditheib.com. Or my Instagram is @mgraceeib—it’s my middle name in there. So, @mgraceeib on Instagram. Yeah.

Anna: Excellent. And we will link that in the show notes, so you don’t even have to spell it—you can just click on it from wherever you find your podcasts. So thank you again, thank you to all of our VoiceProEd listeners. We are winding down for this summer. We’ll probably do another Yap Sesh or two, but we will be taking off in July.

To keep you going over the months where we are not yapping for you and not teaching live courses, we do have two asynchronous courses that we are offering. You can, anytime, check out Voice Notes, which is our newest asynchronous course on documenting the voice, taught by our fabulous Maurice Goodwin, telling us all about what you need to make your notes more efficient—like what you need to write down, what you need to write down for insurance purposes. We get those questions from SLPs all the time.

So that is available anytime on our website, as well as Achieving Competence as an SLP Working with Singers, which is our introductory course. If you have never sung a note in your life, but you’re like, “I would love to help voice users,” then this is the course for you.

I literally sit down and I’m like, “Hey, this is Middle C, just in case you want to use the piano,” to learn more about music. So it starts at the very beginning—very basic. I had a ton of fun recording those sessions for that course. So you can check us out on the web anytime at voiceproed.com/courses, and you can check us out every Sunday—except for July, when we will be resting—for a new episode of Yap Sesh.

Bye!