Class gives a little fine-tuning to shower singers

Not too long ago, Pamela Wheat sang in the shower every day. Ella Fitzgerald was her favorite.

Then she got a roommate, and got shy, and the singing stopped.

So there Wheat sat on Saturday, in the basement of a music studio, with seven other people, trying to conquer her fears. Her right knee jiggled. She took a few deep breaths.

"Can I close my eyes?" asked Wheat, an office worker.

Of course she could. This was a non-judgmental, nonconformist class on "reclaiming our birthright to sing." Its very title was "How To Sing in The Shower." No pressure or push for perfection here. The youngest student was 11 years old, the oldest 56.

The class, offered through Dusty Strings studio in Fremont, came in a vision to Cathleen Wilder, a 46-year-old former opera singer turned teacher. Her strong belief is that America needs more music-making in its life — in its classrooms, around its campfires, inside its homes and on its city streets.

Right now, she said, America is losing out on a lot of joy.

If we all practiced more, the spontaneous singing would sound good, she promises. Very few people are tone-deaf; they just need training. And even if you're tone-deaf, Wilder has a motto: Your voice is beautiful, no matter how it sounds.

"I'm sure that would infuriate a lot of choir directors," she said.

To Laurie Cogan, a social worker from Bellevue, the whole thing was refreshing. She's always loved that freeing feeling that comes with singing a song — in living rooms with friends, at karaoke bars by herself.

But until she came to class, it had never occurred to Cogan that it might be good for society if she sang. If everyone sang.

"I love that idea," she said. "As if my voice is something that's needed in the world."

Wilder walked her students through the basics on Saturday, from breathing techniques to the body parts they need to sing. They lay together on a rug, hands pressed against their abdomens, feeling the way their bodies breathed. They touched their fingers to their necks, where two muscles, a half-inch long, worked inside to make music, along with all the other "resonating chambers," from the teeth to the open spaces in the chest.

Then came the tricky part for some people.

"Show us the music with your bodies," Wilder said.

Once, in Hawaii, someone pulled engineer Paul Brower from the audience, brought him onstage, and told him to mimic the hula dancers. He would not move then. And he would not move now.

"You move," he said to Wilder, "and I'll sing to it."

Wilder took another tack. She asked the group to walk in a circle while singing. That, they could all do. And when they did it, there it was: the better quality of sound. Something about moving, Wilder said, makes people relax into song. Brower swung his arms as he walked.

Wilder encouraged her students to take a strong posture, their heads tilted up like some kind of nobility.

Jenni Ross, a scientist, volunteered to perform the first solo in the class, saying she wanted criticism. Her voice came out breathy and soft.

"What can you do to stay more big and bearlike?" Wilder asked.

As it turns out, Ross could raise her arms up slowly as she sang, then repeat that motion, all through the first verse of "Amazing Grace." It somehow gave her power. It helped her hold the notes, and make them strong.

She finished to claps from the group and cries of joy from Wilder. Less breath, more voice: just what Wilder wanted to hear.

There was the "Jenni" in that singing, she said. There was a woman making herself known through sound.

Cara Solomon: 206-464-2024 or csolomon@seattletimes.com