Page 10 of 31

B-Ball Shame — this one always makes me shaky

March 28, 2023 / dancallaway

Nothing prepared me for the cussin’ bullies, spit wad projectiles, or knuckle thumping contests (why?) that awaited in 7th grade homeroom.

Every morning my stomach churned and my hackles raised like a cornered rescue dog.

One especially stinky rite of passage was gym class. And I mean basketball.

Volleyball, fine. Square dancing — a blast. The Electric Slide? Amazing.

I even excelled at bowling.

But basketball?

I’d never recovered from the peewee league shame debacle when I
? grabbed a rare rebound,
⛹️‍♂️ double dribbled like lil hillbilly Larry Bird to the other end of the court, and
?️ attempted 3 underhand shots (all unsuccessful)

into the other team’s hoop.

I realized the error when the opposing team kids filed by, pointed and laughed — a bizarro version of the “good game” hand slap line.

I never made friends with basketball after that. And my classmates knew it.

So, they always picked me last.

??? (sneaker time lapse ⏱️)

When I was grown up (and nobody was making me play basketball,) I hosted an industry biz event in LA. I invited a successful actor/author to speak.

This person had wrestled actor success from the jaws of hardship —

(moved to NYC later in life, pounded the commercial pavement, landed series regulars, and became a go-to guide for actors navigating the industry.)

The panel talked about creating opportunities — My jaw almost hit the concrete floor when I heard this seasoned pro say, “No. I want to be PICKED. I want someone to point to me and say, ‘You. I choose you.'”

There they sat — clearly with enough IMDB evidence to tell them they’d been picked a lot. And still —

We all wanna be picked. It’s a real need.

I also find that when I go ahead and pick myself, 3 things happen:

☝️ it shakes things loose and gets things moving
✌️ creates a combo creator energy: solid with a side of shaky
and
? ironically, more folks wanna pick you for things after you go ahead and pick yourself

You notice things showing up to help you–

an eager collaborator, a space to perform your show, a guy who knows a gal who’s got a room where you can rehearse.

Sometimes it’s the right teacher, the right class, the right community.

And still, when we get the chance to choose ourselves — to invest and fill our cup, we balk.

I mean, dang. Yesterday, I tried counting to 30 for each quadrant when I was brushing my teeth, and even that was uncomfortable.

It’s hard to leap into good things for ourselves.

But you get that nudge.

The quiet, kind voice that says, “It’s time.”

Your fire to do the thing uses fear like fuel; your clarity’s like sunshine clearing the fog.

Most of all, I want you to step your brave, superb, unrepeatable self forward and feel the energy you generate as you say, yep, I’m choosing me for the team!

You’ll be excited AND scared, and we’ll say THANK YOU for being courageous (meaning full of HEART) enough to SHARE the one and only you.

Because remember, there IS only one you. Folks need to hear the story only you can sing.

Love much,
Dan

The One Thing that Changes Everything — Jack’s superpower ?? (yours too) + the celeb who could change your acting forever

March 21, 2023 / dancallaway

Jack was in the hospital when he found out he’d won a place in Boston Conservatory’s Musical Theatre Program.

He’d also gotten some news he wasn’t expecting: a Type 1 Diabetes diagnosis.

This Disney-devoted Marvel memorizer had to navigate huge life changes and adjust to a rigorous training program in a new city that definitely wasn’t Big-D-Little-A-Double-L-A-S.

After the BoCo Sorting Hat placed Jack in my studio (Ravenpuff), a mentor of his emailed to say — “Hey! Dan Callaway teaches there. You should try to study with him.”

That mentor was Jim May who’d music directed me in LA (and hosted the best singing soirees at his house in Granada Hills.)

He’s flying to Boston for our studio recital this April! ??

Love synchronicity hugs like that.

Back to Jack —

Jack’s shown up to lessons dizzy, exhausted, fighting to get his eyes to focus, and battling an often tricky Dexcom sensor.

(I have a terrible habit of clapping Jack on the shoulder where it’s injected 🙁 Sorry, Jack.)

He’s sung exercises leaning against the piano to stabilize himself, worked through lessons in a chair, and done about every other thing he can to get his body into the studio at his lesson times.

Some days, I’ve asked if he wanted to take a break or go grab an egg sammie. He always wants to work.

There’ve also been days when he’s texted me from an Über on the way to the Joslin Diabetes Center because his levels were going nuts.

I have no idea what managing diabetes feels like–

what it’s like to monitor your glucose all day, callous your fingertips from constant pricking, navigate sudden dizziness, or worry about your vision going haywire while the best docs tell you they’re not sure why.

I looked at Jack this week as he juggled the 17 directives I was twanging across the piano at him, and my heart filled up with admiration.

I stopped and said, “Jack, you know how courageous you are? The things you overcome just to show up in the room are huge, and I think you’re a big deal.”

I wiped a tear, and we went back to sticking out our tongues and making Elmo sounds.

But Jack makes me stop and say thank you that my body’s healthy.

It’s a miracle to hear music, walk the 5 flights from the basement to my studio, and play wrong notes and cuss.

My Grandma Frances always said, “If you have your health, you have everything.”

I remember her words when I look at Jack with his eyes on what he loves to do more than anything — make folks laugh and feel better.

He could be the one feeling like crap, and he makes sure you’re okay.

Jack reminds me that showing up is seriously it.

Nothing else happens if you don’t.

Just put your body in the place, and do the thing.

After a while, folks’ll notice and trust you. Most importantly, though, you’ll notice and trust yourself. You’re the one who shows up.

Lately I’ve been getting quiet and listening into my guts about what the next stage of my life’s supposed to be about. I’ll pray, “What do I need to know?”

I’m getting this answer: Share.

Okay. Yes.

And sharing means showing up. That’s why I’m rolling into your inbox on a Monday.

Here’s another truth — lots of times, I’m scared to share.

I make videos I delete. I write posts and leave them in the drafts folder. I want to hide.

You got that too? Times you want to hide?

Good — we have something we can both practice: show up and share.

Just get your body in the room.

You’ve picked up things over the years that’ll help folks. What if you don’t bring those to the table?

And remember, feeling afraid is required for courage.

I bet if you go back and think about the folks who’ve made a difference to you — how much of that was just because they showed up? What would happen, do you think, if you did that for you? And in turn for us?

Because you know what I’m fixing to say — there there’s only one you, and folks need to hear the story only you can sing.

love much,
dan

ps Are you as excited as I am about Ted Lasso’s Season 3 starting up??

If you’re having a hard time waiting for the week-to-week episode drip-drip, may I recommend Shrinking? 30-minute episodes packed with heart, humor, humanity, and any other H-word that brings you joy.

And if you’ve never hopped on the Luther train, get to the station. It’s so good.

(There’s a new Netflix film, and if you haven’t watched the show, I recommend you mark some time in your binge calendar to get up to speed.)

Melissa and I re-watched the first episode the other day and due to parenting exhaustion and amnesia, it was like a whole new experience!

(And whenever a student needs an imaginary scene partner for their love/heartbreak song, I regularly recommend Idris Elba. I’m not wrong.)

the real reason I went to ballet class ? — and the offensively simple secret to being shiny and stand-outy

March 14, 2023 / dancallaway

I used to go to ballet class.

Several times a week, I yanked on black tights, a v-neck T, and my dirty white shoes, and I’d sweat it out with all the other dance pilgrims in Anna du Boisson’s 1pm class at Daahnce-works on Balderton Street. ?

I found her class in an undergrad semester in London; I was working hard to get my 200+ lb frame to do all the dancey things that all the triple threat BroadWAY philosophy told me I needed if I was gonna get discovered by a West End producer and stay in London for a long career doing show after show at the National Theatre.

So, there I Tubed ? most weekdays tryina get those pirouettes (and I don’t mean the lovely Pepperidge Farm dunkable biscuit.)

I worked my ass off – Anna even suggested I bring an extra T to change into for center floor (prolly so I wouldn’t sling sweat on my classmates while hurling my skeleton in precarious circles. Sorry errybody.)

There’d be moments holding a balance to Brahms, my leg in some trembling contortion, and my inner voice would scream, “This can’t be this hard, can it? Can it??! Get me ice cream!”

I even captured this moment in a little watercolor a couple years ago:

There may’ve been a part of me that imagined myself song-and-dance-manning across the stage, but the real reasons I kept going to ballet class were –

? Anna du Boisson was a generous and loving teacher, and somehow I could remember choreography when she explained it.

? The music was beautiful – dancing with live piano collaboration filled me up. (I still jig around the studio during lessons.)

?? And class filled up with kind and loving folk all Tetris’d into the limited barre space in that big studio with the fogged up mirrors.

I wanted to be a better dancer, yes, but there was a reason I made my life work around 1pm Ballet and not 4pm Jazz.

It also turned out that Anna hired me to come back to London to do a musical version of Little Women that she directed.

She set me up with a place to live (the Wake family’s attic spare room in their daughter Katie’s retired pink race car bed), somewhere on McFarlane Road –

She welcomed me to stay at her house for the rest of the summer, and treated me to more Pizza Express, bangers and mash at the wine bar, and Sunday roasts courtesy of Marks and Spencer grocery runs than I can count.

Her ballet school and foundation is now in the former Shepherd’s Bush Village Hall where we had rehearsals (AND where I was once apprehended by a harried BBC employee for a test run of The Weakest Link – I got voted off the island real quick. I think I was also wearing overalls.)

I’ll also never forget what she said to me one day as we rode the 94 Bus around the Marble Arch. It’s made me a better teacher:

“Often, good teaching is about what you don’t say.”

She was also the first Londoner to share the concept: “Dan, sometimes you’ve got to put your pain in your pocket and carry on.”

To my 22-year-old mind, that was not at ALL what Julia Cameron said to do in The Artist’s Way, but I’ve learned that, often, your brilliant body just puts your hurt in that lil compartment on the front of your corduroys and says “We’ll deal with that later.”

So, she was right. And thanks, body.

That 1pm ballet class changed my life; the people you put yourself around always do.

Before this explodes into a multi-chapter memoir of my London days entitled Trying to Hug Brits, let me tell you what I was thinking –

While I did love ballet class, and I’m glad I did for the professional and soul benefits – no directors were calling me back for my glissade jeté.

My dance skills were enough to get me through singers-who-move calls..

I also experienced a lot of first-round cuts.

(One painfully embarrassing one at the self-same Danceworks when I couldn’t understand the audition monitor’s West Yorkshire dialect. I thought I had indeed been invited back into the room. Nope. Joops.)

But what I want to say to you is this: If you love going to ballet class, go. Enjoy and love it like I did.

But if you’re on a get-all-my-skills-to-the-same-level-so-I’m-marketable-and-can-do-all-the-things train, I’m gonna suggest you alight at the next station and get yourself a cup of tea and a chocky bicky.

Thing is, if you’re focused on getting your leg higher than, turning more times than, screaming higher frequencies than, being choice-ier than …. You’re competing on comparables, and many of them quite subjective.

I want you to think about a theatre artist you truly admire.

Got em?

Ok, now I want you to think about their skill set. What do they do well?

Do they tick all those quintuple threat boxes the college prep folks told you you needed if you wanted to go to Michigan?

I’m gonna bet the answer is no.

Did they get a broad range of diverse training that informs everything they do? Probably.

When you try to compete on skills like you’re an athlete playing a game with objective rules, you disappear yourself.

When you celebrate and lean into the things that make you light up, you light up.

The work that’s meant for you finds you, or you have the clarity to create it, and you stop obscuring your light trying to be and do all the things.

Take a moment to ask yourself, “What truly gives me energy? What’s a cup filler, and what’s a drainer?”

Focus on your fillers.

And remember there’s only one you, and folks need to hear the story only you can sing.

Love much,

Dan

ps a lil walk-n-talk about your strengths from the IG this week

And if you’re not already step-touching at the Calla-gram party, touch that Follow button and join us!

pps and while you’re on the IG, do you follow Tabitha Brown? She always rolls in with that word you need when you need it– ???

You Have the Poweeeerrr ⚡️ — the Care Bears knew ? (your secret super sauce) oh, and sing flexible and strong

March 7, 2023 / dancallaway

When I was a wee child, my version of “You’re not the boss of me” was “You’re not the teacher!”.

You see, my mom could sit in front of a classroom of 30 massive sixth graders – near adults! – and with one eyebrow shift, Tommy Bowman (who terrified the other kids) would zhoop down into a yes ma’am ball like a rolly polly.

This was clearly the apex of power – public school teacher..

I also had a biological need to share data. Add to this a compulsion to correct folks making egregious life errors like grammar or open mouth chewing.

I had one intense season sharing the gospel of how to spell Czechoslovakia. (That geopolitical nugget aged well.) I even enjoyed bedtime snuggles with the dictionary.

That’s why it’s crazy to see our lil Noah bear vibrate with informational glee when he learns a new thing or spots an error in my parenting logic.

He’s top notch at poking plot holes in improvisational bedtime stories or picking up dropped narrative threads – But Daddy, what about the ice cream scooper person at the beginning?

(…when the Callaway Transformers fight to defeat the Mickey Mouse Roller Coaster that turned into a theme-park destroying centipede robot at Disney World. These are the bedtime yarns.)

He’s on the teacher track himself as you can see from this photo from the lecture hall:

(He moonlights as The Mandalorian.)

And here he’s grading homework while pursuing an engineering side hustle – disrupting the computer space with magnet tile laptops.

Though I didn’t take the path of power to the public school classroom, thankfully, life pinballed, nudged, bodychecked, and shunted me right smack dab into teacher work.

I’m actually required to go full Hermione Granger on the full-set World Book Encyclopedia of voice.

And my job is to help folks remember words – I even teach CLOSED MOUTH chewing exercises.

But the secret power I didn’t notice when I was wide-eyed at Mama’s classroom management magic was basic and powerful:

She cared.

That’s why she always got stopped and hugged at the grocery store.

When the grad students show up for their 4th semester teaching seminar, they’re absorbing a flood of new info. And you know when you know more stuff, you learn how much you don’t know.

Some of them tell themselves terrifying imposter stories, and they wonder: How’m I gonna get EVERYTHING locked down before I get those official letters that mean I know everything???

So, I tell them what I learned from my Mama –

Your students just want to know that you give a shit.

If you care about your students, and you’re working with a baseline of healthy principles, you’re gonna help them.

You’ll share what you know, and in the meantime, you’ll comb the library, your colleagues’ brains, and the google machine to find answers.

And if you can’t help, you’ll find someone who can.

When I tell them this, shoulders melt. We remember to become learners again.

But it’s risky to care.

That’s why so many of us stop. We care, and we get hurt.

But, if you wanna sing sounds that are butter magic, heal your soul, and vibrate like only you vibrate, you gotta keep on caring.

No other way.

Care for your singular point of view, your love of that song, your need to tell a story, the joy that singing gives you, the freedom to share your hurts through oscillating CO2 that was just around your heart.

And if you care about these things, you’re automatically caring about the person who hears you.

If you’re willing to live a story and all its feels in front of folks who spend their waking hours avoiding, squashing, and sublimating such sensations, that’s love.

I’m remembering the Broadway production of Ragtime in 1998:

Audra MacDonald wept and rocked her baby while she sang “Your Daddy’s Son”; Brian Stokes Mitchell howled with grief and rage when they murdered his love; Peter Friedman opened the tender vulnerability of being a Jewish immigrant fighting to protect his daughter; Marin Mazzie invited you into how unseen women felt (and still do) at the turn of the 20th Century.

If you care for this gift of expression – this chance to make beautiful noises that heal you and those who are in earshot, it’ll change everything you do.

Your singing becomes a way to heal your world. Not a hoop to jump through to show table people you’re as good as….

Yes, master your skills. Know your things. And do all that because you know why you care about it. You know your own reason and your own path into real-deal.

When you know this, and you put your body in the places and do the thing, you heal, and folks around you can, too.

You are the teacher. Notice what you care about, what you’d get up at 4am for, and let that invigorate every story you tell.

And the lesson for every week – there’s only one you, and folks need to hear the story only you can sing.

Love much,

dan

ps Here’s a series for flexibility and versatility and acoustic power through gentleness. Some simple, effective ways to work on this.

? Avocado Debacle — ” leap and the guac will appear” and other lies we tell ourselves

February 28, 2023 / dancallaway

? You know about shopping for avocados.

You find a pile of squishy fruits two days past their prime next to bright green candidates that could equip the Olympic shot put team.

You don’t wanna deal with all the sketchy bits you’ll have to excavate from the mushy ones, so you scuttle your same-day guacamole dreams.

You go ahead and buy the overpriced chartreuse orbs sourced from the Petrified Forest. They’ll be good with that turkey chili on Friday?

But the week happens.

You get busy and improvise with PB&J/Life Cereal combo meals.

And by Friday when you’re using that ground turkey for Bolognese, you spot your healthy-fat fruit friends languishing in the bowl under the Chiquita bananas.

They’re in the same state as the skwooshy ones you rejected at the market.

I mean, it’s not like you can buy them at various stages of ripeness.

So when you DO remember you are indeed an avocado owner, your menu for Ripeness Zenith Day is a 14-Ways Top Chef Challenge.

Breakfast: avocado toast
Lunch: turkey, lettuce and tomato AND AVOCADO sammie
Dinner: aaalllll the aguacate con limon ? with your taco salad on the side

Dios mio. So much life depends on timing.

And when you’re tryina make songs and stories part of your creative Chipotle bowl, (maybe even make money doing it), well, the guac can feel like a significant up-charge.

And like produce shopping, we wonder if we should front-load our grocery investment. Will we really make that ceviche in four days?

Should I really prep this role? Yeah, it’s a dream, but I can’t know if I’m going to be called back for it. Or even get in the room. That would hurt if I learned the entire score only to be told no. And what a waste of an avocado purchase. Right?

I dissent.

Here’s why.

If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing.

And if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing badly.

And if it’s worth doing, you are worth doing it.

I’m grateful for every create-y thing I’ve let come through me. No matter how many folks did or didn’t see it.

We swim in polluted culture water that asks things like, “What are you gonna do with that degree?” “Why waste your time on that?” “You think they’re gonna make it?”

We push aside the song, story, or role we wanna work on.

Instead, we suction to a nearby screen.

Then we look up 45 minutes later wondering if we should learn that trending TikTok jig. (We never could pick up choreography that fast.) What’s wrong with us, anyway?

But read fiction? Play with watercolors? See what comes out of a simple chord progression? Nah. Waste of time.

May I make a suggestion?

Get out your Man of La Mancha LP, and start singing “The Impossible Dream.”

But Dan, what would this 1960s chestnut have to offer my current situation?

I’ll tell you.

It’s time for you to dust off, grease up, and polish your dreamer.

And I hear you. When you’re just trying to knock out your bills, Jedi your family situation, or triage your friendship going off the skids, the last thing you wanna think about is your effing dreams.

So go ahead — roll your eyes real hard, scoff inside, and raise your right finger. Good.

Now, please let the crazy silly dream buried under 37 feet of worry-geology begin to burble back up.

Grab a Crayola and write it down.

And this is why.

Turning your heart toward your dreams opens crazy surprises for you and can even influence the folks around you. You start to see yourself and them with eyes of love and possibility.

So, let’s get in the dreamy place and get okay with feeling shaky.

If you’re shaking, you’re growing, letting stored up energy out and through. Yay!

And again: If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing.

So go ahead. Buy the avocados.

And write down how you want to make the most delicious guacamole.

And most most most of all remember this – There’s only one you, and folks need to hear the story only you can sing

love much,

dan

ps You can, indeed, freeze avocados.

pps I was an absent-minded professor in last week’s email about comparison and forgot to attribute Brené Brown’s Atlas of the Heart . Terrific book.

Why you thinking about Channing Tatum? — this thing they warn you not to do can help you after all

February 21, 2023 / dancallaway

Moons ago, my friend Bryan and I wrote a screenplay together and even cooked up a reading at AFI.

While the script found its way to the

file, we learned a ton.

And I look back now and I think, “Dang – crazy what happens when you show up every day and call a bunch of folks.”

On one of our meet-up, procrastinate, and keep microwaving the same cup of coffee seshes, Bryan got an urgent blip blip on his Blackberry.

A friend from his Yale MFA days was in SOS distress.

Bryan called him back, and a carpet-pacing, brow-furrowed intervention ensued.

I heard his friend’s voice rising and falling, saying things like, “But you don’t underSTAND!”

Bryan listened, offering “I hear you,” and “Focus on your lane,” and “What’s the next thing you can do? What can you control?”

Then there was an extended-cut, multi-pitch closing argument.

My eavesdropping skills detected complaints about studio decisions, agent comments, and actors who got ALLL the opportunities.

Finally, a vein popped out over Bryan’s aforementioned brow. He stopped his classmate:

“Channing Tatum ain’t thinking about you! Why you thinking about Channing Tatum?!”

Bryan’s friend got trapped in the comparey dispairey thornbush. An invasive species, and once you get all up in it, you’re gonna need BandAids.

I’ve Neosporined many an encounter with this prickly customer.

And before you’re like, “Oh, Dan, I know. I know. Don’t compare myself to other people blah blahhh. It’s like drinking poison and expecting the other person to… wait.”

Nope. That’s not what I’m gon’ say.

What I’m gon’ say is this:

Go ahead – think about Channing.

I said his name three times, so, like Beetlejuice, he appears.

And just like there’s no way you’ll ever “just get out of your head,” your brain’s always gonna put things side by side and notice differences.

?
This avocado is a lil softer than that one. Guacamole is tomorrow, so Avocado A.

?
This friend tells you you’ve got Charmin on your shoe, and that one regularly says, “I’m sorry you think I did something wrong.” Smart brain: spend more time with friend #1.

or

?
That Dodge truck driver in my rear view mirror is getting real close. They’re driving faster than anyone should on the Mass Pike. I’ll just proceed at equal speed to this person next to me in the right lane for a spell before I scoot over.

(I’m a New Englander now – the closer you tailgate, the slower I drive.)

Your brain’s a compare specialist; it could pundit on PBS Newshour weighing oat milk prices in one segment with a tight segue to Rotten Tomatoes ratings of Channing’s oeuvre.

But Dan, “Comparison is the THIEF of joy!”

Can be, yes.

All depends on what exit you take off the Pike once you’ve thwarted Dodge’s speed agenda for an acceptable distance.

One exit we jerk the wheel toward is Envytown (cue “Funkytown” hook.)

? Gotta make a move to a town with spite for me.

This is the strip mall-hedged boulevard where your brain indeed heists your joy – you couldn’t resist this exit. No one could.

There was a Sheetz AND a Wawa – you could grab a 1200 calorie Fluffer Nutter shake followed by your pick of TastyKakes.

Envy is wanting what someone else has —

Their job, their fitness, their singing skill, their travel, their recognition, their success.

I’ve envied all of these.

Just the memory of my innumerable I-want-what-you-gots squeezes my under-ribs. Oof.

Not my favorite zone.

It’s the Sheetz Shake and the TastyKake diminishing returns binge, a sugar crash, and what-chemicals-did-I-just-ingest? film on your tongue.

Envy leaves you similarly empty-full and ill-nourished.

The good news? Comparison has other roads you can take. See? You even need comparison to choose your route.

There’s the turn-off to Admiration-ham (I’m in Mass now. So many ‘hams.)

That looks like, “Wow, Lin Manuel, you wrote “Dos Orugitas” AND all that music in Vivo? I can’t get that outa my head. And we don’t talk about Bruno no no no…. Ah! Stop!”

There’s also the road to Reverence-cester – (pronounced Roostah).

When you revere something or someone, you show deep respect.

That’s like this:

Mr. Sondheim.

And speaking of names of German origin, there’s the village of Freudenfreude.

Joy-joy (as opposed to schadenfreude which we learned from Avenue Q means harm-joy, or what I’d feel if that Dodge got pulled over.)

Freudenfreude is when you find joy in other people’s good fortune.

I’m remembering a jig I did in a voice lesson last year when our collaborative pianist got her doctoral tuition fully funded. ? Go Katie! We miss you.

But wait. We’re not done thinking about Mr. Tatum just yet.

What about the times when you in fact want the thing the other person has? Maybe even want them not to have it. We’re all humans here.

?️ Here’s a map to another town. ?

Ask yourself —

What will having this thing do for me?

and

Can I be sure that if I had their thing it’d yield the result I think?

See what answers bubble up for you.

You might see yourself possessing that shiny doo-dad and notice you’re looking ahead for a shinier one. Hmmmm.

Or,

you notice living your own version of the thing would be terrific and satisfying. Then you have some crucial information.

You have an exciting thing you can work backward from, make a system, and start showing up.

And it’s when you start showing up every day — singing the exercises, writing the story, getting melody ideas down, calling your friends for the thing – that’s when you can follow Bryan’s advice and start thinking about YOU.

Because it’s then that you’ll be able to give the one and only you – and folks need to hear the story only you can sing.

Love much,

dan

ps here’s another video from the BoCo vault — a vocal exercise framework that you can use for yourself. It’s set up so you can take the principles and make up your own stuff. 15 minutes. You can pair it with the silly and effective voice and body warmup I shared with you last week.

If these are effective for you, go head and download for yourself in case the Google Drive does weird stuff or I change the videos.

pps I’ll keep you posted about how my fruitless Channing Tatum GIF searches affect my social and ads algorithms :).

ppps and my friend Bryan (Terrell Clark) does great things. Check him out.

you surprised? ? — threats of compulsory minimalism and soul gnawing envy on the Boston streets

February 7, 2023 / dancallaway

I’m always making idle threats that I’m going to do a pre-parenthood Marie Kondo guerilla house sweep. The boys’ toy supply will have two wooden blocks, a panel of fabric, and a meditation chime.

Seismic rage rumbles in my guts when I try to knock some order into the pile of plastic wheely things crammed behind our sectional.

For some reason this doesn’t bother Melissa.

What? This is right next to our window. Janet across the way can see right in here. The producers of Hoarders will be ringing our doorbell any day.

This is why when Melissa asks me if I need anything when a birthday approaches, I almost always say, “Just hugs.”

We don’t need more stuff, y’all!

But then the boys brought me a package before my birthday last December, and life changed.

Inside? A gray backpack.

But I already had a backpack.

Okay, it didn’t fit all my stuff. It was hard to fish things out of. My lunch bag rarely fit. And I walked the Boston streets consumed with side-pocket envy because mine would slowly extract my coffee cup and expel it onto the sidewalk with a violent clang.

But then I unzipped the new arrival and saw — it was a pocket extravaganza. A compartment kaleidoscope. All manner of organizational coordinations appeared in my dreamscape.

Then I felt immediately overwhelmed.

How would I keep up with all these pockets? Surely one day while searching for a hole-punch, I’d exhume an ossified tube of chapstick wasting away for decades beneath a desiccated turkey sandwich.

But I took a deep breath and gave it a try.

And now just call me Professor Poppins – ready to procure music stands, full-bound scores, and yoga balls out of my satchel on demand.

This backpack made my life better.

It’s something I didn’t know I wanted, and every time I slide my laptop into its cozy pouch, give it a zip, and sling its padded back panel against my scapulae, life smells like a new delux box of Crayolas.

You had any backpacks in your life? I hope so.

The master’s students and I were talking in class last week — how you make a plan so the plan can change. You make a framework so there’s a structure that flexes with surprises.

I notice a lot of folks on the YouTubes and the like saying, “Make a PLAN. Glue pictures to cardboard. Tape it beside your bathroom mirror. And then go make that shit happen! Go!”

Smash Your Comfort Zone! Level Up! Best Life!

And yes, I do believe that we humans need things to look forward to. Seems it’s a crucial battery for well-being.

But what’s more important is that while we’re smearing Elmer’s Glue on the back of that cut-out feature from Architectural Digest, life might have a nondescript gray backpack waiting in a box.

In that master’s pedagogy class, I was crying (again) because I was sharing how life can nudge, prod, and pinball you exactly where you’re supposed to be.

? The job I have now? I didn’t even know it was a thing until my friend Val sent me the ad. (She should be running a head hunter side hustle while she music directs the national tour of SIX — go ahead, Val.)

? The home we live in now? It wasn’t on the market when I scurried around Boston trying to find a two-bedroom without 47 death stairs to the front door or a “cozy charming study” that smelled like room temp bleu cheese.

Only after we lost the workable overpriced place did my friend Lydia rage-search the MLS and see this spot had just appeared 20 minutes before.

❤️‍? And I definitely didn’t plan to be anything other than a solitary music monk for the rest of my life when ride-or-dies Kaye, Kim, and Ryan convalesced my pulverized self in their Valley Village guest room and Humpty Dumptied me back together again – I had zero coupling aspirations when I met Melissa in their backyard.

? The best things in my life came as surprises, and they came because of the people around me.

So, for you today, a reminder and a question.

First the reminder: ? You can trust life to carry you where you’re supposed to be. Be smart, grab something that floats, and hang on.

And a question –

? And are you sharing surprises? If you’re loving the folks around you, the surprise sharing will prolly just happen.

So yeah,

✅ Okay with surprises? and

✅ Are you sharing them when you can?

Two simple Qs that’ll help that backpack you’re carrying feel a little lighter — AND hold your coffee!

And always remember there’s only one you, and folks need to hear the story only you can sing.

Love much,

dan

ps here’s a short warmup framework video I made for my BoCo kidz –

warmup is what we do to get our bodies ready to sing. You don’t need a piano. You just need you, some space, and the ability to make some noise.

pps You know I’m writing a book? There might be videos too. We’ll see. It’s about singing. And life. And joy. And healing.

And it can also be about something you wish someone would put in a book about singing and life and joy and healing.

So why don’t you write me back and tell me, “You know, Dan I think you should really tell people about this in the book about singing. No one ever talks about this.”?

Maybe I’ll write you a chapter about it ✍️. Hit reply, and lemme know!

ppps I’m not gonna leave you hanging on the backpack. It’s a Matein.

Don’t look up there — free advice (solicited and un-), sidewalk hubris, and cake

January 31, 2023 / dancallaway

There’s a spot on Lansdowne Street right below Fenway Pahk’s Green Monstah. The pavement crack you avoid (for your mother’s spinal wellbeing) is covered in pigeon dookie.

I avoid this side of the street when I race-walk to the commuter rail station after convincing myself yet again that an 11-minute walk only takes 8. (and don’t wanna get kicked off the express for leaping on a moving train again.)

But yeah, the south side of Lansdowne —

It’s shady, so that means cold in winter. Uncheck.

It’s narrow, so awkward shoulder navigation with Sawx pilgrims. Uncheck.

And there’s the pigeon toilet problem.

The first time I strolled that side, I noted white-grey splats Jackson Pollocking the pavement, and though I knew it was grave folly, I looked skyward.

Just looked right on up — in case there was a fresh row of pigeons ready to evacuate on my Warby Parkers.

Luckily, the fowl ball club was scavenging Sausage Guy roll leftovers. But still. Poop on the ground? Maybe keep walking and don’t look up.

I was a deft doodoo dodger that day. But there were other times when feces found me.

One self-important pre-audition stroll in Central Park, I was saying my mantras and asking God to grant me superpowers when I felt a smatter-patter on my right backpack strap. When I noticed the dirty WhiteOut offering on my shoulder, I did have the good sense to laugh.

But yeah. We don’t walk near the doo, no no no no.

THEN — the other day I was giving my best Richard Simmons to the train (more time delusions) and saw a young woman navigating the path below the high northern stands.

Sure enough, she noticed the Columba caca, and just like I did that day, she paused. And performed a thorough rafter check.

She survived her hubris unscathed, but yeah: When there’s birdy turdy at your feet, keep your eyes groundward — if you have to get #2’d on, you want it on the noggin and not in the nostril.

Sometimes I wish there were a universal manual with clear-cut directions like —

Avoid the the Green Monstah undahbelly.

Straightforward, right?

Or when you learn to sing show tunes for folks. Things like —

Give your eyes a break every now and then from that spot on the wall they told you to pretend was a person. Looks stalkery.

or

Most times, you need less of what you’re calling breath support.

or

You’re gonna need some different vowels. Well-meaning folk told you to sing like you speak, but physics says nope.

You got something you wish somebody would just TELL you how to do? Hand you the secret dog-eared manual with the step-by-step?

While I can’t help you with dishwasher repair, I’ve ?ed plenty a bed when it comes to all things song and story (and helped several others change their sheets.)

So, I know some things.

And I’m a teachery sort, so I suffer from an incessant need to tell folks things I know.

My family loves it.

So, can you help me?

Here’s how —

Email me your voice mystery.

Hit reply, and say, “Dear TeacherDan, The singery thing I’ve never gotten a satisfying answer to is ….”

And let me know.

Noise making, audition room consternation, what am I even doing? ?

Send it my way.

I’ll write you back or make you a lil video that’ll scratch my unsatisfiable itch to share info.

This is for you if you’ve ever been like, “I wish I could just ASK a voicey person how to fix this and they’d answer my question without me plopping down a large slice of my rent.”

Seriously, get out your fingies and type your burning question.

And if you don’t remember anything else from today’s letter, remember this:

There’s only one you, and folks need to hear the story only you can sing.

Love much,
dan

ps Here are answers to questions you didn’t even ask me — all baking related.
The best chocolate cake recipe you’ll ever make. (It’s Ina Garten)
The best biscuit recipe you’ll ever bake. (not even from a Southerner ?)
And more baking — a terrific last minute delicious cheaty bread recipe.

pps You wanna hear some beautiful straight-from-the-heart sangin? Look what the YouTube algorithm delivered up to me this week: “She Used to Be Mine” sung by Sara Bareilles and Brandie Carlile.

ppps And sirriously. Write and ask anything singy, auditiony, your relationship to music-y. I’m HERE for it.

Choreplay ? — dishwasher’s empty. laundry’s folded. Alexa, play Barry White.

January 24, 2023 / dancallaway

Melissa and I can get all flirty birdy kicking around the house.

Ewwww, Dad. I know.

But I’m lucky. When someone tells you they like how those jeans look, it’s nice.

These days, such flirt-portunities appear like fleeting comets. Most of the time we can’t hear each other talk.

Someone’s being a T-Rex, demolishing the other’s train, or belting “The Nutcracker March.”

I see Melissa’s lips move and hear sounds, but intelligible phonemes? No chance.

So– when there’s quiet —

When “Bluey”’s on, the boxed wine flows, the spaghetti burbles, and “A Case of You” twings through the Bose, we shnuggle by the stove and share spicy idears about what could happen after the boys go to bed.

Then we rendezvous at 8pm in our noiseless house… (except for our neighbors. What’s going ON over there?) …we rendezvous craving just one thing: induced coma.

Friends try to tell you how it is keeping young children alive, but just like the MLM pitch your friend assured you was an antioxidant juice party, you don’t know ’til you’re there.

So, I stoke the hottie home fires in other ways:

Step 1: I get up before the sun.

Step 2: get some breakfast in the crew

Step 3: may do a load of laund-a-ry.

Step 4: unload the dishes, put the flatware in the drawer

Step 5: Get dinner in that Instant Pot jive

Step by step gonna get to you girl. ?

Then my phone BLOWS UP allll day ? about how hawt that toasty load of laundry is while the house gets aroma(n)tic with my special slow-cooker turkey chili spice blend. ?

I’m good at doing stuff for other folks.

I’m crap at doing stuff for myself.

If it weren’t for Melissa, I’d rarely wash my face, and I’d sprout Christopher Lloyd professor-brows from my frontispiece like a possessed wire fox terrier.

You in this club, too?

Not the Doc Brow Crowd.

The Doing Good Things for Yourself Oh Wait I Forgot Society. The dehydrated, crusty-knuckled, still-gotta-pee brigade.

Oh, you’re the treasurer. And volunteered to take minutes. Yes, I see you.

Ahem. May I ask you to put down your Robert’s Rules of Order for a sec?

? Thanks — Now — can you think back to a far away time and tell me —

What’s the last good/nourishing thing you did for you?

(I’m telling myself it’s the bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios I’m eating (I even added roasted almonds), but that’s not what I’m getting at.)

What’s something you’ve done for you that’s investy?

I’m asking you because we’re here by the coffee percolator at the Society meeting, and you might be saying things to yourself like —

❌ I don’t actually need that class at Jen Waldman’s studio my friend raved about.

? I should figure that out on my own. I don’t need Mike Ruckles to tell me my breath’s jacked. I already got a BFA. And there’s YouTube.

? I can’t know this is worth my cash. I got inflated city rent to pay and $10 eggs to buy. Besides, my vocal coach took two phone calls MID-SESSION last time.

I understand. (That vocal coach bit really happened. More than once.)

But sirrously, remember the last time you did the investy thing?

Did you get surprised? You learn an unexpected oh-yeeeaah? Or did the path light up showing you a step you couldn’t see before?

Or maybe you felt that honey-buzz in your guts because you did something kind. For you.

Years ago, I plopped down money I was scared to spend to coach with LA Chutspa Menschela Barbara Deutsch when I needed to grow my studio biz. Like, exorbitant-interest-wolves-at-the-door need.

She told me two things that cleared the fog and helped me breathe again; and 14(?) years later I keep those tools top of the box.

Hey, I have an idea. ?

In case you feel your heart tapping you on the shoulder saying:

❤️‍?: “I wanna feel freedom, release, express, get heard, enjoy, feel great, heal, and sing some tunes!

“Oh, and singing tickles our vagus nerve and helps us chill the eff out. It’s science!”

You got choices:

? hop in the shower and belt “Total Eclipse of the Heart.”

☎️ call your in-network voice care provider and set up a consultation

or

⭐️?⭐️ email me back.

While skewl has me spring semester zany, and the Feb Special-Special crew is full, there remain some rare, cozy corners of my calendar waiting for us to nestle in and make shameless sounds.

You can celebrate like my friend David who SOS’d me on Instagram last month.

All I did was send him a 5 minute video with some idears. He just took it from there.

Or we can get in there all heart melty like I roll with the BoCo kids.

? This is why I’m the luckiest — I get to teach the best kids.

And there are the endless opportunities for grinning and belting like Michael Tatlock and I do on a Thursday evening:

The party’s hot, so get in here with us. nnn-ts nnn-ts nnn-ts ?

Before you know it, you’ll be getting all manner of vocal chore hacks, and like Ina Garten pouring a scalding pot of cavatappi into a colander for Jeffrey, you’ll muse amid the rising steam, “How easy was that?”

Just tickle this link or hit reply.

I’ll write you back, ask you questions, and we’ll work it all out.

Can’t wait!

And whatever scintillating chore you’re fixing to do right now, always remember, there’s one you, and folks need to hear the story only you can sing.

Now go do something nice — for you! ?

love much,
dan

ps You know I wouldn’t leave you hanging about the vibrato-limp wrist connection. I also call it rubber chicken.

Here’s the video I sent to David.

pps The folks mentioned above are top notch.
Jen Waldman Studio — whole hearted acting/singing/artist training
Mike Ruckles Voice AND piano wowee zowee
and
Barbara Deutsch wise career coach and somebody you just wanna listen to ?

ppps Wait! You were gonna email me about that 1-on-1 time? Just click here and press send. I already wrote the email for you.

Hot tub time machine — vexing cellular memory and belly bubbles

January 17, 2023 / dancallaway

This was not what I expected when I got in the jacuzzi.

Last December in Florida, Melissa and I worked out a tag team system with Uncle Rob at the pool so that we could grab 10 minute soaks in the resorty hot tub.

A cover of “Last Christmas” piped through palm-concealed speakers, and I tingled with spa-ticipation as I cranked the timer to get the whirlpool whirling.

I dipped my toesies in and slid my back in front of the perfect jet. Sigh.

My expectations for soothing Zen blurble blurbles burst, though, when I noticed some other kinds of gurgles in my guts — and it was’t Uncle Rob’s famous Buffalo chicken dip.

No one warned me that the jacuzzi in Fort Myers, Florida, was actually the famed Hot Tub Time Machine.

It slurped me through a wormhole like a reverse waterslide, and I splashed down somewhere around 2011.

I was doing a show at Laguna Playhouse, and the actor housing was swank; by swank I mean in-unit laundry AND a pool.

I was burning myself out teaching seven days a week and fighting the 5 Freeway to get to rehearsals and call times.

My spouse at the time was living and working in New York, and we’d been doing three-times-zones long distance for a while.

One morning, I took a rare and brazen break and decided to relax in the complex’s hot tub.

She’d landed at Burbank Airport that day, and I assumed that top of the to-do list would be to toodle on down to Laguna’s sunny shores.

When I clickety clacked my BlackBerry asking when I should expect her, I learned she’d be remaining in LA for a few days.

I’d honed a deft practice of constructing an impenetrable excuse edifice for any questionable/shitty thing my partner did at that time.

In a mere four minutes of mental gymnastics, I’d perform an intricate uneven bars routine with a wobbly-yet-committed dismount that announced, “See? This red flag is in fact a party decoration!”

But my brain was an exhausted Mary Lou Retton that day.

My lil thumbs clicked off another query: why would one fly across the North American continent and not prioritize a visit with one’s spouse?

I don’t remember the answer, but I do recall leaning out of that hot tub in Laguna Beach staring at my phone feeling like Steve Martin’s Dentist from Little Shop was drilling inside my stomach.

zhoooop

Back in the today times — there I sat in the disappointing Fort Myers hot tub, and my gut cells decided to let some more of this memory on out.

My brain went to busy bee mode: ?? analyze the situation, construct a reframe to mitigate all intense/unpleasant sensations. (There was no cereal on hand.)

But somehow in this moment I knew that I just needed to let it burble—boil boil toil and trouble up just like the chlorinated jacooze swirl.

It hurt.

My body got vacuumed into this movie where the person I wanted to put me somewhere near the top of the list just didn’t.

And then the truth emerged from the Floridian Hot Tub Time Machine like alligator side-eyes I was finally ready to see.

Back then, I was nowhere near the top of my own to-be-taken-care-of list.

Before I count the ways for you, lemme ask you a question–

❓You got times in your life when you look back with your more integrated eyeballs❓

You check the rear view, and you know exactly what you shoulda said and how you shoulda acted in that scenario.

But then, you review that scene and understand that expecting that version of you to advocate or hold a boundary would be the same as demanding a crash victim in a body cast to crank out ten push-ups.

That’s where I was.

It wasn’t until a year later when I went to therapy — by myself — to figure out how to save the marriage that I started to report what was happening to another human being.

As I said things out loud, I gained some distance from the hornets’ nest that I’d been poking.

I started to understand that I was the one. I was treating me like shit.

The hot tub scenario is one of the reasons that we half-ass our singing too.

If we take the 30 seconds to ask what this lyric means to us, it’ll pull up things that our genius psyches buried years ago.

To be an alive human singing, you have to open yourself to what might bubble up.

But instead, we plan and plot and stick to the script.

This is like avoiding a tricky conversation because you can’t control what the other person is going to say.

The captivating and scary thing about life is that we don’t know what’s going to happen next.

We don’t know what our dear friend who misunderstood us is going to say.

We don’t know what the motorist in front of us is going to do.

And we don’t know what treats our subconscious is gonna serve up.

Could be Pop Tarts. Could be EPCOT. Could be that time you haven’t worked through the shame of it all and swore to never think about again.

But your courage to be surprised makes all the difference in the world when you sing —

— all the difference between an open, alive heart serving truth treats and a shielded, cold ego calculating each note with a self conscious grip on a control delusion.

You know the difference. You’ve seen it.

You’ve thought, “Hmmmm, their voice is nice, but I just can’t make myself care.”

“They’re doing all the right things, and I forgot what just happened.”

These is what makes us leave the theater upset that we parted with the price of a ticket and pissed that we didn’t just go get a cheeseburger at intermission.

But, when someone opens their heart and says yep to whatever may come up in front of theatre-full of folks fighting to keep a cast iron lid on their stuff, you leave satisfied and changed. You may even want to slide the lid off your own Le Creuset just a little.

The hot tub experience made me all wiggle waggle, and it hurt.

And I decided I would sit there, breathe, and let it bubble on through.

The great thing about feelings is that most of the time they start and then they stop. Most of the time, if you remember that sensations come and go, you can ride it out.

It’s also found that opening to these gut surprises makes life vibrant.

If you’re game to feel the brave feels, you’ll roll out the carpet for joy, gratitude, and other forms of effervescence.

Your welcome mat’s out for connection; and it’s a robust, risky, pink-cheeked way to live.

And it makes your singing deep and satisfying.

You can craft a song, understand where it fires in your body, and season every vowel with your own secret soul sauce — that’s a hearty stew to serve.

And someone in the audience will relish that.

You’ve felt that.

Who are the artists who’ve helped you feel alive and filled from the most delicious meal?

They’ve prepped the ingredients, said yes to burns, knife nicks, and boiled-over pots, and they’ve served up a perfectly imperfect meal with crusty bread and love.

So, what if you found something you can say to yourself that spurs you to open up and play?

Something like, “I can fire the hearth and get chopping, or I can microwave this Amy’s burrito. Let’s get cooking, see what happens.” ? (no shade to Amy’s)

And like your kitchen garden where the carrots and arugula grow, you need sunshine and water.

When I let my tears fall, they’re great soil waterers. And there’s always a surprise seed or three some birdy dropped there that turns into a flower or a fruit tree.

Even the weeds can be great — you ever had dandelion greens?

Most of all, remember there’s only one hot tub soaking, garden pottering, love cooker you, and folks need to hear the stories that can only bubble, boil, braise and simmer from your heart(h) where you sing while you stir.

Love much and chew slow,
dan

ps I love Anne Lamott. Here’s a terrific interview with her and Tim Ferris that filled me with grace this week.

Dan Callaway Studio