May the Record Reflect
May the Record Reflect
72. The Vocal Edge: An Opera Singers Secrets for Trial Lawyers, with Anne Fuchs
Opera and the courtroom might seem worlds apart—but they share a similar stagecraft. In this episode, Anne Fuchs, professional opera singer and Director of Communications for the Indiana Court of Appeals, reveals how posture and breath can transform your voice into a powerful advocacy tool. From mastering vocal control to learning a little Italian, this conversation will help you speak with confidence and command attention when it matters most.
Topics
02:30 Why vocal quality matters
04:03 Assessing your voice and why we hate the sound of it
07:13 Transatlantic accent
08:34 Introverts and extroverts, and skills
13:42 La Postura
21:16 Appoggio
33:05 Legato
41:26 Chiaroscuro
39:41 Nasality and vocal fry
50:20 Opera and the appellate court
55:23 Signoff questions
Quote
“Confidence is a skill set. It is not a personality trait. And so as much as it might feel like, Wow, that big, loud, bombastic person with that amazing trial experience, and Look at how he just commands the courtroom with that voice—that may be something that’s inherent to him. It may be something that he learned. But it is 100% true that every single person can learn how to use their voice more confidently and more effectively, without being an extrovert, without it being something that just came to them naturally. There are specific skills you can learn, and anybody can do it.” Anne Fuchs
Resources
Anne Fuchs (bio)
Foxy Opera (30-minute private coaching, enter Secret49 for savings)
Vocal Warm-Up Exercises (cheat sheet)
Point Well Made: Persuasive Oral Advocacy (book)
On today's episode of May the Record Reflect.
Anne Fuchs:Vocal Fry, the pop culture sound of the century. It's this sound for those of you who have not heard it. This is Vocal Fry. It's so unpleasant. Nobody likes it, but everybody's doing it. As an opera singer, my number one reason I don't want you to do this is because you are damaging your voice quite literally. Take out the vocal fry. Let your beautiful resonant voice convey the confidence and credibility that you deserve.
Marsi Mangan:That was Anne Fuchs, and this is May the Record Reflect. Hello and welcome to the 72nd episode of the monthly podcast of the National Institute for Trial Advocacy. I'm your host, Marsi Mangan. In today's episode, we are going to be learning about how to warm up and refine the quality of our voice by using tips from the opera stage. I'm joined by Anne Fuchs, the Director of Communications for the Court of Appeals of Indiana. While Anne gets a lot of vocal practice communicating on behalf of the courts, it's really on the opera stage where her natural vocal talents have been polished to perfection. She is an internationally acclaimed opera singer and the founder of Foxy Opera, where she teaches professionals how to use the human voice to convey authentic messages persuasively. She collaborates with judges and lawyers, legislators, civic leaders, educators, and corporate executives to help them enhance their vocal presentation skills. And she is here today to teach us four tips that opera singers know that trial lawyers need to know. Here's our interview. So I'm very excited to introduce my guest today. Her name is Anne Fuchs, and she's going to tell us how trial lawyers can learn from opera singers of all things. Anne Fuchs, welcome to the podcast.
Anne Fuchs:Oh, thank you so much, Marsi. It's a pleasure to be here today.
Marsi Mangan:Well, I'm so glad that you could join me for what I know will be a really fun and helpful conversation. So to kick it off, I want to say that you had told me as we were preparing for this recording that in your capacity as Director of Communications for the Court of Appeals in Indiana, you attend every single oral argument of the Court of Appeals. And you sometimes have to restrain yourself from jumping up and giving the trial attorney who is arguing a quick fix to help them use their voice more effectively. So my first question is, why does our vocal quality even matter? Isn't what we say the most important thing?
Anne Fuchs:Wouldn't you think, and yet we are all human, and I'm sure you've heard that phrase, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. Obviously, in the courtroom, you're trying to get a complete record and you want to get everything out in that limited amount of time that you've prepared so much. But every single person in that courtroom is a human being. And your voice is one of the number one things that people evaluate to decide if you're credible, if you're trustworthy, what kind of person you are, who you are, and we make determinations about this in milliseconds. And for someone whose entire career is based in persuasion, I would think you'd want to use every single tool available to you to really get those judges and that jury on your side.
Marsi Mangan:So how do you recommend that we be brave and listen to the sound of our voice in order to assess it? Can you recommend a particular method for that madness? Because it sounds terrible to me.
Anne Fuchs:Oh yes, yes. It's a it's the old adage, right? Nobody likes to listen to their voice and nobody likes to look at recordings of themselves or to try to evaluate and analyze. But luckily, all of you wonderful lawyers are so used to doing that when you prepare, when you go to law school, when you work with your teams, so you're aware in some sense of kind of being critiqued and preparing every single detail before you get in the courtroom. So this idea of getting used to your own voice and how to use it, it's not so different. Opera singers are also preparation people too. We have to get every single detail right before we step out on that stage. And our vocal image is a big part of that. And so the number one thing that you can do to start confronting this is to hear and listen to that recording of your voice, to watch how you're producing it and to start developing techniques to use it more effectively.
Marsi Mangan:It sounds a little bit like what we do here at NITA, which is video review. It's just part of our training. You are recorded, giving a performance of one of your skills, like I don't know, opening or closing, and then you get instant feedback from faculty right there, and then you learn what you did really well, and you learn what you should work on. And then meanwhile, your peers who are also learning right alongside you are hearing this and they absorb the same lesson as you do. So it's learning by doing, but it's also learning by listening. And so it sounds like that's kind of what you recommend doing, but then we need to know how to how to correct it, how to fix our voice and what to to even listen for to know what to do that.
Anne Fuchs:Absolutely. So um one of one of the kind of primary bents of the types of trainings that I offer and the type of knowledge that I like to share with people is about the voice other people hear. So there are physiological reasons why you cannot accurately assess the sound of your own voice. And consequently, there's a reason why you hate what you do here when you finally hear that recording. Yes, we all do, don't we? We all do. And it's completely normal and it's it's physiological. It's by a process of bone conduction in your head that you hear your own distorted sound, and yet everyone else hears the sound waves that emerge from your mouth into their ears. And so that's thing one, not just accepting that there's a difference, but then learning how to train that so that other people receive your message most appropriately. So, yes, step one, we want to get that vocal awareness, and step two, we want to decide what am I doing well and where can I really make my vocal image and my delivery more effective? What are the techniques that I personally need to develop?
Marsi Mangan:Before we get into that discussion of your presentation tips, there's something that I wanted to mention. And it's that when I watch old movies, I am always struck by how posh people like Cary Grant and Catherine Hepburn sounded when they spoke almost as if they had an accent. And somehow they sounded older and more mature in their 20s. You know what I mean? Then most people sound at 50. I wonder if people actually spoke that way back then, or was it just an affectation?
Anne Fuchs:Oh, I love this question so much. So, what you are referring to is the transatlantic accent. It was popular in the 1910s to the 1940s, and you're absolutely right. It's a beautiful accent that was used in lots of radio and film, but it was not a natural accent. It was a cultivated accent for the stage, for theater, for radio, and there were a few benefits to it. One is that it blended those American and British traits. So it was considered understandable to a transatlantic audience. Secondly, it was considered an elevated form of speech. And then thirdly, since they didn't have the same level of technology and amplification abilities that we have today, they were able to project their voices in a very resonant and clear capacity so that people could really hear what they were saying. And that is an art form of you've probably heard of this, Marsi, of elocution lessons. Yes, of course. So I'm gonna share a little personal story. My grandmother was a World War II veteran. She was a whack in World War II, and she was an award-winning debate and elocution person. She just loved to go around and to speak and to use all of her lessons, talking, gesticulating with our hands, had this beautiful voice. And um, that was really always impactful to me, realizing they used to train that. And we'd we don't. We just simply do not do that in the same way, if at all, anymore. And if anything, our use of our voices is decreasing. Have you noticed that in your own life? How often are you actually using your voice compared to maybe how often you used it 10 or 15 years ago?
Marsi Mangan:Well, as a podcast host, I might say that it's gone up, but um, I see what you mean. I definitely see what you mean. It feels like people don't talk on the phone quite as much. Uh, and certainly the pandemic probably had an effect on that too, because we weren't out socializing. What do you think?
Anne Fuchs:100%. You are totally right. And yes, congratulations on finding a medium to actually use your voice. Yes, podcasters. Uh, but so many people now are communicating with their fingers. Lots of typing, lots of texting. And so, to your question, are we kind of losing the art form of great speech? I think absolutely yes. Yes, we are. And it's something that we need, particularly when we say that we're an increasingly socially anxious society, when we're saying that we want to build the toolkit of civility, confidence in our communication, working on our vocal and oral skills is a fantastic way to move the needle on that issue in our society today.
Marsi Mangan:Fantastic. Well, I look forward to hearing what you've got to share. Um does it take a theatrical personality to improve your vocal quality? You've said that you're an opera singer, so I know that it's and you've come from uh a grandmother who spoke very well yourself herself. So I know that you've already got it baked in, but what about the rest of us?
Anne Fuchs:So um I am one of six kids from two highly introverted parents. And so I've got a very, very uh soft spot in my heart for introverts. I would say, and I know it to be true for myself and for others that I know, particularly in this profession, confidence is a skill set. It is not a personality trait. And so, as much as it might feel like, wow, that big, loud, bombastic person with that amazing trial experience, and look at how he just commands the courtroom with that voice. That may be something that's inherent to him. It may be something that he learned, but it is 100% true that every single person can learn how to use their voice more confidently and more effectively without being an extrovert, without it being something that just came to them naturally. There are specific skills you can learn. Anybody can do it. It does take some vulnerability, it takes some bravery, but it can be practiced and learned. It's true what you say.
Marsi Mangan:Sometimes you think that a trial attorney has to be extroverted because of this performance they put on, and that is part of their career, their livelihood. But then I've met so many in person who are completely different outside the courtroom. And it's they're a little shy, they're introverted, and I I almost have to think that the performance of going to trial is very emotionally draining for them.
Anne Fuchs:Oh, yes. Oh, yes. I I can relate to that so much, and so many of my fellow performers are very introverted people. Um, to be totally honest, I would say for myself, I do not particularly enjoy being on stage. I enjoy singing. And it's natural to me to be on stage because I've done it so much. But what I love is music and I love singing. And I think probably for many trial attorneys, getting up there and doing the thing that you've trained to do, you almost have to dissociate a little bit the same way that a performer or singer does. I certainly do. You become someone else in that moment. You play the part. And I think that's an interesting distinction, and it certainly makes the experience less vulnerable for any lawyer who might feel a little strange about getting up there and being this other self.
Marsi Mangan:Yes, I think that is an interesting distinction that you're you're almost split in two. There's two sides of you. Um you have four secrets that opera singers know that trial lawyers don't. Shall we jump into those? Oh, absolutely. Okay.
Anne Fuchs:Let's start with the first one. All right, so um, one of the most fun things about the secrets of opera singers is that we tend to learn them in Italian. And Italian is the language of Bel Canto singing, which is a long tradition of it directly translates to beautiful singing. These are the fundamentals of classical singing. It's time-tested, hundreds of years old. So that very first word in that very first secret is La Postura. If you'd like to try saying it, La Postura.
Marsi Mangan:La postura.
Anne Fuchs:Ah, she's a natural. Beautiful, lovely. So Italian's got these lovely vowels, and you'll see as we go through some of the secrets why I choose to use these words as we uh elaborate on the secrets. But La Postura quite literally means posture. And I know we have all heard different things about what great posture is, but I am going to talk to you today about something you may never have thought of, and that is your feet. My feet. Your feet.
Marsi Mangan:What are your feet doing right now, Marsi? Well, I'm standing up and I've got one crossed over the other, and it occurs to me that my feet are actually kind of tired.
Anne Fuchs:Are they? Okay. Feet are a little bit tired. What would happen right now if you happen to put your weight equally distributed on both feet and really focus on the way they feel in the ground? I know you're a little tired right now.
Marsi Mangan:Uh, I feel more stable. And it takes the pressure off the outside of my feet because uh that's where my weight was landing when they were crossed. So now it feels more evenly distributed.
Anne Fuchs:Okay, evenly distributed weight. Um, the reason I bring this up is because opera singing 101 is when you get on stage and you're about to perform, you have a foot position that you just know it's your unique position. Some people like it to be evenly balanced, some have one foot a little forward, a little back. Everybody has their most comfortable position. It should make you feel like a tree, that you are completely grounded in the floor. And the reason for that is it grounds your breath support so that your voice can convey your message with confidence and clarity. In my role with the Court of Appeals of Indiana, I have had the pleasure of watching so many attorneys' feet. And when you talk about me wanting to jump up and make adjustments, that is the number one thing that I wish I could help people with. I watched a woman argue before the Supreme Court of Indiana, standing on one leg. And I just wanted to die. I just couldn't take it. She was standing like a flamingo. And unfortunately, at that particular moment, her arguments were equally as flimsy as that posture. And the second she put that foot down, her arguments were grounded. They were stable. And it's a chicken and egg thing, right? She may have known that that was her better argument, so her body mirrored it. But you're kidding, you can affect that with your own posture, getting those feet planted early. Give yourself that false sense of confidence that maybe you don't have when nerves are running high. Women tend to uh they'll cross their feet one behind the other, they'll lift a leg up. If you think about it, you're really putting a lot of pressure on yourself to maintain your balance when you've got way bigger fish to fry. Yeah. I've noticed with men, they tend to kind of um flip their feet sort of towards the outer soles. Yeah. I'll see some of that. I'll see bull, uh, the bull gesture, almost like they're gearing up to pounce. The feet are very telling. And so my number one piece of advice for attorneys is go ahead and get those feet grounded. There's a very specific reason why your arguments are going to be better when you feel stable.
Marsi Mangan:And so when you leave, say, the lectern, you can walk a little bit and then come back to home and assume the position again, right?
Anne Fuchs:Exactly. And that leads to another really interesting uh point, which is on stage and in the opera world, you only ever move because you have a reason. Every movement has a dramatic intent. And so, same for trial. If you want to move out to make a certain point, make sure you've got a reason. Do not move just for the sake of moving. Movement should always come with an emotional and dramatic pull. And when you're trying to convince a jury and convince a judge of your very important argument, you want to make sure that you use your physicality to convey that congruently so that your emotions are congruent with your message.
Marsi Mangan:And moving purposefully in that way also attracts the attention of jurors whose interest or attention might be flagging a little bit. So it it changes the environment and it grabs their attention.
Anne Fuchs:Absolutely. And you're dealing with everyday human beings who are about to make some really important decisions, and your voice and your body language are going to be very convincing to them, no matter how much beautiful legalese you may use. These everyday folks, they're looking at who you are and how you are and putting on that great, I hate to use the word performance, but truly um what's the word I'm looking for? Congruent. I keep coming back to it. Something authentic and congruent in what you say it, how you say it, how your body conveys it to them. It also makes it more memorable. So your first tip is La Postura. La postura. Root to rise. I'm gonna give you one more little part of La Postura. There's a there's a whole array of things we could talk about if we were working together one-on-one or in a group, but I just want to give you all another today that I've seen help people a lot, and that is your sternum. Your sternum is right on the front of your chest. And I'd love for you to just imagine a little string pulling that sternum up, and imagine another string pulling the top of your head. It might feel a little bit like your yoga class, but now I'm gonna ask you to do one more step, and that's to drop your head back gently and slowly massage out the back of your neck. That part of your neck is one of our number one favorite things to tense up and push forward when we're nervous, and also because we spend a lot of time looking down at our computers and phones. If you just go ahead and massage out the back of the neck, it releases lots of tension in the larynx and helps you drop your support lower, which is what we really, really want for great speaking.
Marsi Mangan:Interesting. So when you stand from your table, you can just do this little maneuver and then walk to the podium. And no one will think anything of it.
Anne Fuchs:No, you can just sit. I do it all the time. We call it, uh, you'll like this, we'll call it we call it the bobblehead. Just a gentle little bobblehead. It does the trick.
Marsi Mangan:Okay, so we root to rise and then we do the bobblehead. That's right. And then we go on to the second secret of opera singers.
Anne Fuchs:Yes. Okay, so this is another very fun word to say. It's a paggio. A poggio. Oh my gosh. It's like, did you take Italian? No, you're so good. I went there last year. Oh, it counts. What you just did so beautifully there was pure vowels, double consonants. Love that Italian. But apaggio translates to breath support or leaning on the breath. And your voice is 100% carried by your air. How often before you speak, do you really think about breathing? Never. And I know since it's just me and you, you know, you're getting the full brunt of my uh my lesson here, Marsi. But hopefully for anyone listening, ask yourself that question. Did I breathe before I spoke? There's a lot of reasons that's important. First of all, your breath can convey an emotion as well. A surprise breath or a quick breath or a slow breath. I really would like to add, Your Honor, there's a way to express yourself through your breath. That's one reason to do it. Another reason is that you place your sound on top of your breath. That does many things for you, the most important of which is make sure that you don't run out of air. How often have you had a huge amount of stuff you wanted to say in a short period of time and you just simply can't get it out? And you feel just your throat closing down, right? And then your abs start gripping, and now you're getting tense and you're already under duress. You're already in this high-stress communication environment where every word matters, and now you feel tense. And if there's one thing audiences pick up perfectly, it's each other's tension. We all can feel each other's nervousness, we feel each other's tension. That deep breath that resets you before you speak and before you place your voice on the breath is a wonderful way to mitigate nerves and get a nice, clear, competent, resonant sound.
Marsi Mangan:I know that we think that people are watching our every move and judging it and thinking she's taking too long, or what is she doing? Is she dumb for being quiet? When in fact, if you just have the confidence to do that and take that breath, it just seems like a normal thing. You know, just to have that pause before you start.
Anne Fuchs:Yes, I I love that point that you just made because uh and I know you're an opera lover of Marsi and a music lover, which is so wonderful. There is music in that silence. Silence is golden. You've heard the phrase that silence that you create in that moment that you take a breath, it's very valuable to the jury, it's very valuable to the judge. That's an emotion that you're expressing, the way you breathe in, the way you reset. And I just want to use this opportunity to also say that your voice and the way you use it is your gift to others. And so in that moment, when you take that breath, instead of maybe saying to yourself, oh my gosh, I'm taking too long, everybody's bored, I'm wasting time, they're judging me, all those nasty thoughts we have, you can consider that you are giving them the gift of your calm and clear and peaceful delivery that they can actually understand. Because when you're nervous and you're rushed and your shoulders are up to your ears, people are just not going to be able to receive your message the way you want them to.
Marsi Mangan:And on that point, I know that um deep breathing helps activate our parasympathetic nerves, which are the calming nerves that relax us.
Anne Fuchs:Yes, 100% correct. And um if you'll indulge me, we can actually do a little breathing exercise right now. Yeah. Um, it's one that I really love for activating a popjule, but also calming you down. Some may have heard of this. It is called box breathing. Paramedics use it. Lots of professionals who are under a lot of stress use it. If you just go ahead and place your hands on your sides, on your ribcage. So not on your hips, but above, so at the very bottom of your ribcage. And I'd like you to just take in some deep breaths where you feel your rib cage expand in 360 degrees. So full circumference. Beautiful. And now when you breathe in and expand that rib cage, do your very best to keep your shoulders low and your sternum up. And we're gonna breathe in for four, and I'll count you off, and then we're gonna hold it open for four, meaning the rib cage open for four, and then release the breath on a shh sound for four. I'll try not to blow out the podcast mic on that. Um I'll count you off. So let's breathe in for four. Here we go. One, two, three, four. Two, three, four. Out on two, three, four. Beautiful. You can also do that silently. You can do that from your chair. If you're sitting there, you're about to get up and present. I do it all the time before I'm about to sing a nerve-wracking performance. No one ever knows, they can't hear you, and you're totally right. It just it relaxes you. Did you feel a difference there?
Marsi Mangan:Oh, I did. So when you're on stage, you do this box breathing before it's I do it on stage. Okay.
Anne Fuchs:Oh yes. Oh yes. Or if I'm nervous before public speaking, which happens all the time. So you still get nervous as a public speaker. I sure do, yes. Um, as a especially as a singer, I've spent my whole life uh performing words that somebody else wrote. So um using my own words and doing public speaking in my own words, I always have to really focus on my breathing so that I stay grounded and don't get in my head about all those, all that negative self-talk that we all have.
Marsi Mangan:Well, it's interesting to know that you still get nervous. And I sometimes hear that from other from attorneys too, that they they just have this flutter of nervous excitement and they try to flip it more to the excitement side than to the nervous side.
Anne Fuchs:Yes. Can can I give you another step to take that box breathing um to sort of get the voice out? Would you be open to one more little trick? Do I have to make some crazy sounds? Um, I will refrain from the crazy ones. How about that? Okay. We'll save that for when we get together for a glass of wine. Okay, sounds good. So once you take in that nice big breath where you've expanded your rib cage, I want you to just do like a gentle cough, like after you've expanded. So after the first count of four. After the first count of four, just some gentle coughing. Yes. And did you feel in that moment a sensation from your pelvic floor? I'm not sure if I did. You may not have noticed it, but it's impossible to cough without it. So I know you did it. Okay. Um, go ahead and try one more time. And when you do that little cough, I want you to focus on the downward pressure that you feel from your pelvic floor. I do feel it. Yeah. Yeah. And now you can kind of do like a um, I won't make you do the big loud one, but we could do an aha sound using that same pressure from the pelvic floor. And is that after I inhale for four?
unknown:Okay.
Marsi Mangan:So I'll do it again.
Anne Fuchs:You get this. Aha. Aha. Yes. Lovely. And I'm gonna ask you now to explore a little more of your range. Aha, and see if you can connect the whole thing from top to bottom. Aha. Beautiful, beautiful. And for all of those listening, and for when you go back, Marsi, if you don't delete this because I embarrassed you too much, I'm so sorry. That was beautiful, a beautiful connected sound that used your entire range. And although it may have felt Strange to do it in the moment. This is when that vocal awareness is really helpful. You can listen to that recording and say, oh wow, I love that. I love the way that sounds. I hear the connection in my voice. So it relaxes your voice, or does it warm it up?
Marsi Mangan:What does it do?
Anne Fuchs:It does a little bit of both. It also coordinates your vocal folds to make sure that you are projecting your voice in a resonant manner that's on the breath, as we would say in opera. Aha! Or we do lots of vocal size. Ah. Did you do any before our recording started? I sure did. You caught me red-handed.
Marsi Mangan:What are some of your other like little warm-up tips that you have for getting started as a singer?
Anne Fuchs:Oh, this is a fun one. Okay, so have you ever heard of a lip trill? Uh no, I haven't. Okay, some folks who have studied singing or maybe have kids who are singing or been in a choir may be familiar with this, but it's kind of like doing a raspberry. Okay. Where you take in that big open breath that we just talked about. You're gonna apply a little bit of that downward pressure that we just experienced the sensation of, and you do this thing with your lips where you go, fantastic. And over time you see how long you can hold that. Isn't that fun? Yes, it is. You try to hold it as long as you can, and then you start adding sound to it. This regulates breath pressure so that you literally cannot overly compress your voice. It's something you can do in the car while you're driving to the courthouse. Wanna try it? Fabulous! Gotta be shameless here, I think. You gotta be shameless here. Uh, that's all of my trainings and my classes are all about letting that silly side out and swinging the pendulum.
Marsi Mangan:So this must be what it's like backstage before the opera starts, yes.
Anne Fuchs:Oh my goodness. That is literally a glimpse into backstage. Every singer is going around making all their little sounds. That's so fun.
Marsi Mangan:All right. Is there anything else that we need to know about a pod, Joel?
Anne Fuchs:I think those are a good uh set of starting things, but my my basic um takeaway that I'd want everybody to know is your breath is the life force of your voice. Please use it. Take in a good breath before you speak. Let your sound fall onto your breath and know that that is what's propelling you and what will keep you grounded and calm when you're in those high tense intensity communications moments.
Marsi Mangan:Okay, great. So then let's move on to the third secret of opera singers, shall we?
Anne Fuchs:All right, let's do it. Legato. Legato. Beautiful, and I'm gonna ask you to do it this time with a little bit of that downward pressure. Legato. Legato. Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. That's getting your vocal folds resonating perfectly and bringing your sound out so that other people can hear it. Legato in singing means smoothness and connection. Smoothness and connection.
Marsi Mangan:Legato.
Anne Fuchs:Legato. Legato.
Marsi Mangan:Which is exactly what you just did. Legato. It must be so much fun to sing in Italian. It's a beautiful language, so expressive.
Anne Fuchs:It's so lovely. It's so lovely. And honestly, kind of playing around with it is a great way to get our own American constricted voices to be a little more free. Yeah. Legato. So legato is uh often visualized as a rainbow. Uh, for anybody here who's listening or joining us today, or maybe you, Marsi, anyone who's studied music has probably seen those beautiful phrasing lines that go above the musical notations. A phrase is basically one breath to the next in music. And every phrase that we speak is no different. Your breath carries you from the beginning of that most compelling phrase, that compelling point you have to give all the way to the end. And the tricky thing is to keep your voice flowing through the entirety of the phrase all the way to the end. So I'm gonna ask you to do an exercise where we're gonna take in that apagio breath and we're gonna do some counting in this rainbow format. It's gonna be from one to ten and it'll look like this. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. The temptation is gonna be for the voice to fall back and down on the vocal folds. My challenge for you is to keep driving the breath forward and out, just like you did when you said legato, counting from one to ten. Okay, I'll try it. Okay.
Marsi Mangan:One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
Anne Fuchs:Beautiful. And now let's do a vocal sigh in that same pattern. Ah. Ah. Beautiful. Oh, she's ready to sing. Lovely. And so that's one way that you can kind of keep track of where you are in your phrasing. Some people tend to cut off their vowels, which can make it very difficult to get the full resonance of the voice. Um, here's another one we can try. Can you please introduce yourself to me and also tell me what city you're from?
Marsi Mangan:My name is Marsi Mangan, and although I'm a Denver native, I now live in Seattle.
Anne Fuchs:Beautiful. That first sentence, my name is. Can you see what that would sound like if you removed every single one of your consonants? I don't even know how to start. That's a brain teaser, right? So my name is if I took out all those consonants, it would be a right. Okay. Aye, which is my name is Marsi. Ay. How do you know how to do this? This is crazy. Aye. Am I doing it right? You're doing it right. Okay. Aye. And what and you said and then mangan, right? Yes. Aye. Ay, yeah, aye. It's very hard. It's very hard. There is a method to the madness. So when we train legato in singing, what we do is we remove all of the consonants so that we can train seamless vowels that connect one to the next. And when you hear really beautiful speakers, their vowels connect from one to the next. They are vowel-driven. And that's because the vowels in your voice carry the most resonance. And they also have the most opportunity for you to play around with tone.
Marsi Mangan:So when you say that vowels carry the most resonance, what do you mean by that?
Anne Fuchs:So every single note, um, tone, whether in speech or singing, has a fascinating array of overtones associated with it. And this is nerdy voice science stuff that opera singers love to get into. But by managing sounds that produce the maximum amount of overtones, that is how you actually achieve volume. Volume and resonance often get misconstrued. Volume tends to be associated with more force and more tension, whereas resonance is a relaxing and an openness that allows the voice to carry with minimal effort.
Marsi Mangan:Interesting.
Anne Fuchs:That is the goal of great opera singing, and it is something that really great speakers know how to do so that their voice doesn't get tired and that it can continue to resonate for a long time to audiences.
Marsi Mangan:Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that opera singers do not sing with any sort of mechanical projection like a microphone.
Anne Fuchs:Is that right? That is 100% correct. And that's how we became such nerds for this language of overtones. I know in the courtroom you've kind of got a mixed bag, right? I mean, sometimes you've got amplification and sometimes you don't. Sometimes you've got huge cavernous spaces where I'm sure people are saying, I can't quite hear, or maybe the equipment fails. These kinds of techniques are very useful when you've got a space that you need to fill and you want to make sure that every word really hits the audience's ears.
Marsi Mangan:So doing these exercises will help you project because you're using your breath to project.
Anne Fuchs:So your breath support is how you help your voice to go out of your body and into the space of the room. I'm gonna just illustrate this with a little bit of an example. Have you ever heard a person who's hard of hearing and how they tend to go one direction or the other? They either speak really softly, and which seems odd. Like, why is this person who's hard of hearing talking so quietly? Or they're overly loud. Yes. There's a reason for that. It's because in order to hear yourself better, if you pull your voice in, you can hear it better in your inner ear. Oh. And so some people pull their voices inward, particularly when they're nervous or self-conscious, and they don't necessarily know that other people can't hear them well because they sound fine in their own head. I hear attorneys do this all the time. So, what is the advice then? Breathe. The advice is to breathe and to use that downward pressure to send the voice out. One um really ridiculous technique that I won't make you do, and I'll just I'll just do it myself, is laughter. So sometimes we take in this big breath and we just go, ha ha ha ha ha. The way that it feels to send out your voice when you're laughing is very similar to the way that an audience can receive your voice well. So that's something that you can do in the car before you get to the courthouse.
Marsi Mangan:You can do all these crazy vocal exercises.
Anne Fuchs:Absolutely, and give yourself a little laugh while you're at it, because we can all use a laugh.
Marsi Mangan:Indeed. Okay, is there anything else that we need to know about legato?
Anne Fuchs:I think that's a great start. Thank you so much for being willing to try it out.
Marsi Mangan:Of course. Okay, let's move on to the fourth secret then.
Anne Fuchs:Beautiful. Chiaroscuro, another fun word to say. Chiaroscuro.
Marsi Mangan:Chiaroscuro.
Anne Fuchs:Chiaro scuro beautiful. Oh, she's a natural. I love it. Beautiful. Chiaro scuro is a beautiful world word that means dark and light. And that is the Italianate idea of what a beautiful resonant voice is. And when it comes to our credibility in the courtroom and our credibility as speakers, we do find that those resonant voices that have a balance of a forward placement and a brightness, so to speak, and a depth in balance, those are the most credible and convincing voices. So I'll give you an example. If I was talking up here all the time and I had kind of a very high-pinched voice that was only in this one forward place, that would be an example of a very bright sound. And it completely shifts your perception of me as a human being. Conversely, if I'm if I'm only speaking down here, kind of in a low voice, and you can hear that it's dropped in the back of my larynx. Now, for me, I can hear myself just fine in the back of my throat. But it sounds um maybe pulled back, a little sleepy. Any other adjectives that come to mind, maybe boring?
Marsi Mangan:Yeah.
Anne Fuchs:A little monotone, actually, too. A little monotone, a little yeah. And so if you get these parts of your voice into balance, that's the idea between having a fully credible and competent voice where it's forward and bright enough that it has energy, it's audible, but it also has a depth to it. So just go ahead and place a hand on your chest. Go ahead and take in one of those big deep breaths that we did a minute ago and introduce yourself to us again, Marsi, and feel your chest resonate.
Marsi Mangan:My name is Marsi Mangan. I am the host of May the Record Reflect, and I live in Seattle.
Anne Fuchs:Beautiful. Did you feel a nice resonance in your chest there? I heard it, it was lovely. That's a way that you can test if your voice is starting to get too high. If you elevate your voice a little too high, you won't feel it reverberate there at all.
Marsi Mangan:Interesting.
Anne Fuchs:So those are two just small, easy ways to kind of gauge where is my voice? Am I using too much of the bottom? Am I using too much of the top? How do I get in the balanced place? But secondly, two things that I think are really, really, really valuable to talk about that everybody complains about in their voice are nasality and vocal fry. I'm glad you're gonna talk about these things. Oh, I'm delighted to talk about them. So, nasality, uh, most people just really hate the way that it sounds, and it's a very piercing kind of quality, and I immediately sound different. And Fran Dresher comes to mind. Yeah. And unfortunately, because I'm such a vocal nerd, I know exactly how to do that. So, in order to produce that sound, a person has to have a completely depressed and dropped soft palate. That is an easy fix. Um, you don't have it, so I'm not worried about you. But if you ever wanted to test how nasal your voice is, you simply hold your nose and try to just speak and say something that you would normally say and see if it's basically the same. Well, my name is Marsi Magin.
Marsi Mangan:I I think it does sound nasal, yes.
Anne Fuchs:So it does occasionally sound nasal because you have a lot of M's and N's in your name and those are nasal consonants. Oh, is that right? Yes, but yeah, but your vowels were not nasal. Okay. So you're in good shape. But if you did want to just experiment with getting a little more what we call loft in the sound, you would take in a breath as if you're surprised, like I'm Marsi Mangan. And that lifts your soft palate immediately and gets your voice out of your nose.
Marsi Mangan:Interesting. Okay. So again, it comes down to the breath, doesn't it?
Anne Fuchs:Always down to the breath, yes. So for any of our attorneys out there who are saying, Oh my gosh, when I listen to recordings of myself arguing in the courtroom, I can't stand that nasally sound I make. I would encourage you to start with just focusing on taking in that breath of surprise before you start your phrase.
Marsi Mangan:Okay.
Anne Fuchs:Over time it will become natural. Do we have a minute to talk about vocal fry? Please. Okay. Vocal fry, the pop culture sound of the century. It's this sound for those of you who have not heard it. This is vocal fry. It's so unpleasant. Nobody likes it, but everybody's doing it. Why, why, why?
unknown:Why?
Anne Fuchs:So there are so many reasons why we don't want to do this. So many reasons. As an opera singer, my number one reason I don't want you to do this is because you are damaging your voice quite literally. You are slamming and grinding your vocal folds together such that over time they will develop calluses and damage that will make it more and more difficult for you to have a beautiful and resonant voice, whether you're speaking or singing. Wow. So that is compelling reason number one, not to indulge in vocal fry. Compelling reason number two is that vocal fry is not conveying competence, credibility, and authority. It does not, it does not create a resonant sound with overtones, which has been proven to be what people hear and like and listen to. And it's uh frankly very hard to hear, and it makes you sound like you don't really know what you're talking about. So vocal fry for many of us creeps in at the end of phrases when we get tired. So if I'm talking to you and then my voice starts to get a little tired, now I'm down in vocal fry. And how do I combat that? Again with the breath. If I focus on making sure that air is passing through my vocal folds at all times, it prevents vocal fry. So let's just try a little exercise where you make a creaky door sound and then eventually add a little bit more of the ooh vowel. So I'm gonna start on an almost like ah sound and then add ooh. It'll sound like this.
Marsi Mangan:Don't say beautiful because I know it's not.
Anne Fuchs:Well, the the first part wasn't, but the second was good. Okay, good. That's exactly it. What you did there by using an ooh vowel is that you forced your vocal folds to allow the proper amount of air through and to allow the right balance of head and chest voice. Now, for people who are wondering, oh my gosh, I use vocal fry all the time. There's two things I would suggest to you. One is to just practice speaking with a little more ooh in your tone generally. Um, what that can mean is modifying your vowels into a slightly more ooh position. And another way you can do it is to simply speak a little bit higher. Just slightly higher. Some people get vocal fry, especially men, because they're trying to speak too low. Have you ever heard an attorney get up there and talk like this at you the whole time? And it's kind of hard to listen to it. It is hard to listen to, yeah. And it's not, you know, it it conveys um, in in that case, sometimes a sense of age and aging. And we want our voices to sound fresh and youthful and energetic because we want the people listening to our arguments to know that they are fresh and energetic and persuasive arguments. So if you do experience that vocal fry at the bottom of your voice, try just elevating your speaking a couple of pitch tones. And if you feel really weird about it, which you will, record it. You will not like it until you hear the difference between the before and after.
Marsi Mangan:Oh, that's a great tip. Yeah.
Anne Fuchs:Everything we've done here today, um, for anyone who's trying it at home, or even probably for you, Marsi, doing it, you feel so ridiculous. It feels so stupid. Every single one of us has felt that. I have felt that way, demonstrating it to people. And then you sit there and you listen to it and you feel it and you realize, wow, it does make a difference.
Marsi Mangan:Yes, it does. So I hope everybody puts these tips into play. It'll make a really big difference. And I hope that the the section on where you talked about combating vocal fry goes viral because we need that.
Anne Fuchs:Oh, it would make me so happy, especially when I see young women who are just imitating a sound that they've heard. And, you know, we we need every tool available to us to be credible. And in my opinion, if there's one small adjustment that you can make that enhances that, go for it. Take out the vocal fry. Let your beautiful resonant voice convey the confidence and credibility that you deserve.
Marsi Mangan:Well, it sounds like you've got your own private revolution going on here.
Anne Fuchs:Oh, I'm working on it.
Marsi Mangan:So I want to know how you developed a passion for singing and for opera in particular.
Anne Fuchs:Oh, sure. Um, it's a little bit of an embarrassing story, but when I was a kid, so seven years old, singing in the church children's choir, uh Peggy Nas, our children's choir director, was an opera singer. And I just loved her voice. It was so big and loud, and you know that vibrato sound, and it was all over the place. And I just thought it was so wild and loud and exciting. And so as a kid, I tried to do it right next to her at the top of my lungs. Sounded a little bit more like an alpine yodeler than anything else. And my parents were absolutely mortified. They went up to Peggy and they said, Peggy, we are so sorry. Anne is not making fun of you. We promise. She just thinks you're really great. And she said, Oh, I know. I know. I was the same way when I was a kid. I love the sound. When she's old enough, I'll start training her. And so when I turned 13, she did.
Marsi Mangan:How wonderful. So you've mentioned your day job, which is the communications director for the courts of appeal of Indiana. Yes. Does it does it involve a lot of public speaking?
Anne Fuchs:It does. Um, it involves a lot of outreach and public speaking with the media, and then also as I administer our Appeals on Wheels events. And um, that is a really, really wonderful program that the Court of Appeals runs. Shameless plug, Appeals on Wheels, traveling oral argument program where we go all around the state of Indiana and bring oral arguments right into people's communities.
Marsi Mangan:Fantastic.
Anne Fuchs:It is just wonderful, and it's a great way for oral advocacy to get out in the community. And that's a big part of how my passion for this type of work developed is seeing all of that in action.
Marsi Mangan:Have you ever made a statement to the press singing in Aria?
Anne Fuchs:Oh gosh, probably unintentionally. I did have a weird radio show experience where I was asked to come in and sing some random movie lines as part of a game, but no official statements.
Marsi Mangan:Well, I want to give a quick thanks to Judge Nancy Dadick, who is one of NITA's program directors, and she wrote this fabulous book called Point Well Made, which is all about motion practice. And she is in your social swirl in the Court of Appeals.
Anne Fuchs:Oh, yes, she is. She is one of our judges extraordinaire, a major mentor and friend of mine, and just an incredible supporter of great communication skills for the next generation. Judge Nancy Vedick is a force of nature, and I'm just so extremely grateful that she got us introduced to one another. She is incredible.
Marsi Mangan:So, in addition to this work, you also run a little company called Foxy Opera. What is Foxy Opera?
Anne Fuchs:So, as we uh joked around before, I'm so glad you asked. Uh, my last name, Fuchs, is German for Fox. And Foxy Opera is my vocal empowerment business where I help leaders and professionals and executives, attorneys, people in all different walks of life elevate their speaking skills, their executive presence, and their public speaking using the secrets of opera singers. It's a lot of fun. It involves a lot of hands-on training, not so dissimilar from what you did today. Marsi, thank you so much for being our guinea pig.
Marsi Mangan:Of course. I always want to get better. I'm like all of the attorneys that we train. I know that I have ways, ways to go, and anything that I can do to sound more pleasant is uh a goal of mine.
Anne Fuchs:Oh, we we all have it, and I always feel like even after doing a training with a group, I think my voice voice gets better every time. It's just it's a labor of love, and um I'm really delighted to share these secrets with people who can use them to advocate and to build a more civil society because we really need it.
Marsi Mangan:Indeed, we do. And I think that that's the perfect last word. Love it. Let's move on to our fun sign-off questions then. Okay We know that you are an opera singer and you love opera, so I just have to know what your favorite opera is to perform in.
Anne Fuchs:Oh, it's so hard to pick one. There's so many great ones, but Così Fantute is a beautiful Mozart opera. Uh, there's a role in that that I really love to perform called uh Fiori Ligi. And I sang that role in Weimar Germany, and I I just love it. It's a very empowering female role. Come scoglio is her main aria, which means like a rock, and that's something I really like to think about when I'm doing this type of work.
Marsi Mangan:Do you have a sentimental favorite that you just love the sheer beauty of it?
Anne Fuchs:I do. I I love La Traviata by Verdi. Have you seen that one?
Marsi Mangan:Yes, it was the first opera I ever saw with my dad.
Anne Fuchs:Oh my gosh. Do you have a favorite aria or part that stuck out for you? Uh no. I can't recall right now. No, that's okay. Uh so my I I ask because there's this aria that the soprano sings at the end that just wrenches my heart every time. It's Atio del Pasato, and it's the one right before she dies. Spoiler alert, yeah. Spoiler alert, yeah. Opera shoulders. Um, but absolutely beautiful. Was wondering if you liked that one too.
Marsi Mangan:Yeah, I've seen it twice. Uh the first time I was uh in my late teens, and then the second time was maybe oh, I want to say 15 years ago, and Opera Colorado in Denver did a more modernized treatment of it, and they turned it into like a godfather uh mafia setting. So that was interesting.
Anne Fuchs:Oh, I love that.
Marsi Mangan:Yeah, sometimes those modern ones work and sometimes they don't. And I have um maybe I can tell you my story uh about a an opera, a modern opera rendering where it didn't really work, but um I'm curious to know what is your most memorable opera experience. And you can do it either as a performer or as an audience member, or maybe both.
Anne Fuchs:Okay. Well, I I have two I have two music-related stories for this that I'd love to share because I think they're related. The first is um I I loved singing in Così Fantute in Weimar because there was an aria that we included that typically is cut, and it's called Per Pietà. It's not come scoglio, the main one that we were talking about a minute ago. Per pietà is a very, very um sentimental and heartfelt aria that some would call like kind of a downer in the middle of a very fun and silly and comedic opera. But um the conductor and I decided to include it because we felt like it gave dimension to this character. And it was um one of one of the moments in my musical life where I achieved um a sense of flow. And maybe folks listening have experienced that in the courtroom, maybe you've experienced it, that sense of kind of blacking out, yeah, loss of time and space because you're just so in the zone, and you get finished with the aria or the performance or the activity or the puzzle you're working on, whatever it may be, and you just think, where did the time go? Where have I been? What planet was I just visiting? It was one of those experiences for me, and that is the magic of music that I am always chasing.
Marsi Mangan:Beautiful.
Anne Fuchs:And then um the other story I would share is this is not an opera story, but I think it's important. I went to see a woman play piano at a church in Maine in the middle of nowhere during a family reunion weekend. And it was a baby grand piano. This woman is playing it with a level of intensity the likes of which I have never heard. And I have to say that it was actually kind of bad. The the the playing was not great. Her talent was not great. Uh, she was making a lot of mistakes. But she was so completely into it and so authentic and so in the moment that I started crying because I had never seen anything more beautiful than the sincerity with which this woman was playing the piano. And that's something I really hold on to. And I think it's a really great life lesson for all of us who are out in front of people, whether we're performing or arguing, that your sincerity and your authenticity always carries through. It always shines through no matter what.
Marsi Mangan:I love that. I love that. And I think that's a really important reinforcement of what so many native faculty share is that you are you're still you, even when you're in the courtroom, and your authenticity, your your sense of self should still always come through, and you shouldn't be imitating anybody else.
Anne Fuchs:Right. No matter how many of these weird vocal sounds we do and how much we modify and learn our and build up our um toolkit of confidence, you're still always you. You're always authentically you, and the more of that you can be, the more people believe you.
Marsi Mangan:Yeah. Well, my experience is not as an opera singer, but the most memorable opera I've ever seen was in Berlin in 2018. And I will never forget it, though, believe me, try as I might. It was Bizet's Carmen, which my husband and I had never seen. And so we thought, oh, it'll be fabulous going to Germany and seeing it, you know, and that can be part of our travel experience. And we'll never forget, and indeed, we will never forget. We entered the the auditorium and there's this scrim on stage that looks like abstract art. It's kind of red and swirly sort of and has a dark thing right in the middle, like a big dark dot. And we look at each other, and one of us says, Is that like a cow eyeball with all the skin pulled off? And it's like, yes, oh my god, I think it is. And okay, we're like weird, gross, but okay, I guess this is a modern version of Carmen. We're gonna go with it, and this is Berlin. We're going for it. And so the performance starts, and it all seems pretty normal until the Toriador scene. And that is probably some of the most recognizable opera music there is. And I I'm not going to sing it, but uh, if you hear it, you know it. And so it's very strange. All of these soldiers line up against and face the wall, and they start dry humping the wall in time to the music, and we're trying not to laugh, but it was so strange. And so that's the one. Yes. And I think you can picture it, right?
unknown:Yes, I can.
Marsi Mangan:So again, we're just like, well, this is a really strange performance, but we're in Berlin. Okay, we're gonna go with it. And so they've changed the story so that it involves human organ traffickers on the black market, which is a real departure from the actual BZ narrative. It sure is. So toward the end of the performance, there is a bull that it they simulate killing on stage, and one of the male characters who kills the bull then castrates it, and he tosses the hot testicles to Carmen, who then fondles them, and then she tosses them underhanded like a softball into the orchestra pit.
Anne Fuchs:Oh my god. Yeah. It's it takes your breath away. It's a shock to the senses. What does this have to do with anything? This is not what Bizet had in mind.
Marsi Mangan:Well, and it was just so bloody and gross, too. And and really, when there was clapping after any, you know, big musical moment, it was always kind of tepid. Like people weren't really sure what they were clapping for.
Anne Fuchs:Oh my god. You experienced Regie Theater, is what they call it. Regie Theater. It's um this movement of theater in Germany where the director is king and anything he wants to do comes first. And so it's not at the service of the music, it's not at the service of the orchestra, any of that, or the singers. It's about his vision of the drama, even though it's totally divorced from what the story meant. Oh, it's so interesting. I I think a lot of opera companies in the U.S. are more focused on preserving tradition, and I I really appreciate that. I love seeing innovative new productions in Europe. It's a lot of fun, but yes, it is hit or miss.
Marsi Mangan:Okay, so my last question is what TV show are you currently obsessed with? I always love to ask this question.
Anne Fuchs:Yes, and I have to be honest that I'm not watching a show right now, but there is a movie that I just saw that absolutely slayed me. Um, have you heard of Bridehard? I have I have not, no. What is it? It's with Revel Wilson. It is a hilarious bridesmaid-esque comedy spoof on the diehard drama. And it's just all the laughs that I really needed. Bridehard.
Marsi Mangan:Bridehard. Okay, we'll check that out. That sounds great. All right. Well, I want to thank you so much for coming on the podcast and teaching us all of these great tips. Foxy Opera offers even more if your organization is interested in bringing Anne Fuchs in-house. And I thank you very much.
Anne Fuchs:Thank you so much for having me. This was such a pleasure, and thanks for trying things out.
Marsi Mangan:You bet. If you'd like to learn more about Anne Fuchs and her work with professionals, please visit foxyopa.com. The link is in the show notes, as well as a special discount for May the Record Reflect Listeners. I've also included a cheat sheet for all four vocal exercises that we practiced: La Pastura, Appaggio, Legato, and Chiaro Scuro. As always, thanks a million for tuning in. Until next month's episode, Happy Lawyering. May the Record Reflect is a NITA Studio 71 production. NITA. We are advocacy enhanced, mentorship reimagined. Welcome to the community.