Up next in 10
Music: A Souls Journey Into Joy with Lisa Harrison
0 views
Sep 2, 2020
Today's show is all about music! I welcome Lisa Harrison to the show. Lisa is a singer, songwriter, actor and master vocal coach. She has toured the world singing and co-starred on The Waltons, an American drama television series, in the 70’s. We talk about how music touches the soul and communicates in a way that all can understand. You are in for a treat when she shares her beautiful voice with us! #music #lisaharrison #thewaltons Follow us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/carenglasser Follow us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/carenglasserlive Follow us on Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/carenglasser 📌 Subscribe to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/@carenglasser
View Video Transcript
0:00
hello everyone karen glasser here and welcome to karen glasser live i welcome
0:05
guests from all across the globe who entertain wow and excite us and today is no
0:10
exception so whether you're here live or on replay make sure you say hi in the comments
0:16
and i'll say hi right back today i am welcoming lisa harrison to the show she's a singer
0:22
songwriter actor and vocal coach she co-starred on the waltons as well as other films tv and theater
0:29
she does voice-overs and commercials she's tv films animation as well as a master
0:35
vocal coach phew i'm exhausted welcome to the show lisa thank you that was a mouthful
0:43
it's a mouthful and what i didn't say is is that we are high school friends that's right dude your high school
0:48
friends yes junior high school oh my god you're right junior oh my god now i'm feeling old
0:55
totally feeling old but you know what we should all look as good as we do at this age right there you go lisa i'm
1:02
so excited that you're on the show today because we're talking about music and we're going to talk about how
1:08
music you know speaks to the soul i always like to say that music is the universal
1:13
language it talks to those who might otherwise not hear not understand all they have to do
1:19
is listen to the melodious notes and they'll get what it's all about we're talking about music though being
1:24
the the soul to joy so tell us tell us a little bit about what that means to you
1:30
well think about it if you if you went to a movie and it had no music imagine seeing jaws
1:37
and you didn't have it really underscores our
1:43
life and you remember the songs that you grew up with and when you hear them again
1:49
it brings you right back you imagine you fell in love with you remember the breakup ones the ones that soothed you
1:57
and it's true and it's interesting one of my favorite lines is bruce is from a bruce springsteen
2:04
song and he says i learned more from a three-minute song than i ever learned in school
2:10
oh i love that i love that i don't know if you saw a buck buck bucky as as we call him buck webber
2:16
says hi karen alisa hey i'm so glad that you joined us today i'm thrilled that you joined us
2:21
today so we're going to jump right in and if you're just tuning in right now we're talking to lisa harrison about my favorite topic
2:28
and hers music so i talked about the fact that you're a vocal coach but you're a master vocal
2:35
coach what does a vocal coach do and and before i even do that i want to i want you to notice that
2:41
lisa is not just sitting here in an interview format she's sitting at her piano because what guys she's going to sing to us
2:50
and so i i am really excited about that um so i'm gonna actually put myself down
2:55
in the corner over here so that you can come on the screen and let's talk about what a master
3:01
vocal coach does what does vocal coach do okay well it's very interesting because
3:09
you can sing and sound great and over time actually hurt yourself
3:16
if you don't know the technique to keep yourself healthy and so
3:23
i have worked with master teachers i've worked with
3:28
ear nose and throat doctors i've worked with everything to really know how the instrument
3:36
works and how to keep it healthy and really we come into the world
3:42
knowing how to do it right if you've ever heard a newborn baby cry they can do it for hours and
3:48
hours and hours never get laryngitis never get a sore throat
3:54
why because they are breathing correctly they're really filling their lungs
4:00
properly and everything comes freely up and out of it so what i teach
4:08
the most important thing is to do it correctly to keep you healthy and then you do it
4:14
the rest of your life without running into problems as so many people do uh adele sam smith
4:22
julie andrews i mean it just goes on and on right you hear about it in the news all the time they're on vocal rest they
4:29
can't sing can you sing for us right now tell us show us a sample of what it would be like well i don't
4:36
want you to ruin your voice to do this what it would be like to not sing properly and what you actually help people do in
4:41
terms of where they should place the sound good question people squeeze right here
4:48
don't think if they squeeze here they can get that note out and it's the opposite your body does the
4:56
work never your throat you want to make that throat as open as possible thus the sound goes up
5:03
and out so it is it is the diaphragm it is your support and then i have a secret way to even give you extra
5:10
support so the body is doing the work singing is a physical sport i love it and so um what
5:18
i do is i i work with people who want to stretch want to increase their
5:24
range do different styles i work with people who've had vocal problems who've had nodes
5:30
i worked with one woman who couldn't speak louder than a whisper wow and was able to get her
5:38
cords going and able to fix that so i've i've that's what i love about it
5:44
and i'm so passionate about it because our bodies are amazing
5:50
and singing is to me singing is just joy it is it's joyful you know one of
5:55
the things i like to say is everyone can sing some better than others but everyone can
6:00
sing so lisa sing us a little something oh all right um well we have different styles different
6:07
things we can do um we are storytellers anybody artistic is story is a storyteller whether you're
6:13
a ballet dancer or a cellist a singer an actor
6:18
fifty of singing is acting so um i love telling stories
6:25
and i um i have uh something that i wrote and i'll just do a little a little
6:30
snippet for you that i want to dedicate it to everybody that we have lost this year because it's been a
6:37
challenging one [Music]
6:47
in a perfect world
7:03
the
7:09
[Music]
7:15
the clouds of everywhere
7:30
[Music]
7:37
[Music]
7:43
good night
8:06
[Music] that is so beautiful and you wrote that
8:15
i did it's the whole rest of the song you didn't hear but we've got limited time here i know that
8:22
is really really beautiful one of the things that i find fascinating about you
8:27
is that you not you don't just write music you wrote a musical i did i mean who does that
8:34
you you do that tell us about the musical what is it about and maybe you can sing a little snippet from the music
8:40
oh all right um i uh wrote a musical
8:45
that is um a mashup of celtic and rock and roll there have
8:51
been rock musicals and celtic musicals but not a a mashup of both so when you
8:57
hear what i'm i'll play a little bit of the first song um imagine bagpipes
9:05
and massive drums and crunch guitar it's it's all all mashed up together um
9:12
that would be the bad guys and it is um really a story of a young boy faced with
9:20
challenges and becoming a man finding out what is important to him
9:28
above the morse in scotland that's where the highlands lie it's between aberdeen
9:35
[Music]
9:48
is [Music]
10:01
[Music]
10:10
so i love i mean your range is amazing your range is amazing for those of you
10:15
who are listening and just tuning in right now or on replay what we mean by range is that lisa can
10:20
sing way up there high and way down there low and that's unusual i mean that is unusual most people either
10:27
like our soprano or an alto or or something you or everything you know what i'm finding through teaching though
10:33
i gotta tell you most people have a bigger range than they know just like nobody has taken them there
10:41
yeah that is i i mean i'd love to show you sometimes we'll have to do this on our own
10:46
because you're a great singer and great well it's interesting that you're saying that because um back before i became a cantor and was
10:54
singing liturgical music which was very much soprano and a voice that i had never sung before
11:00
i was a linda ronstadt fan and what did i do i did exactly what i wasn't supposed to do i belted out these songs in the wrong
11:07
place and when i turned my my life around and ended up doing something completely different
11:13
i ended up being quite the accomplished soprano and and did not know it in fact most
11:19
people don't know me at this point other than just singing soprano so i totally totally yeah totally understand
11:26
what you're saying because it's true and again going back to we all can sing we just need a teacher
11:31
like you to bring it out i will show you you know ed you know singing really low you can do
11:38
all this but you can also do um let's see if i if i pick a um i'll just
11:45
do a little bit of this
12:02
[Music] wow you can go up that high yeah so easy
12:10
don't tell anybody it's fun it's actually fun to go up there and just let the notes
12:16
just flow totally flow so um let's talk a little bit about the
12:22
waltons one of my favorite shows tv shows back in the in the 70s
12:28
um we i i remember watching it you and then we got out of high school and
12:34
then next thing i know you're co-starring on it what was that like
12:39
you know it it it it was very interesting because the fans both either reminded them
12:48
of their family or it's the kind of family they wish they had well i was one of the fans
12:54
that i wanted to manifest a family like the waltons so i just manifested the walls
13:03
i it just was incredible and the nicest people the most
13:09
welcoming wonderful set you know sets are very different you can walk in and
13:14
cut the tension with a knife or you can walk in and it's welcoming and it's warm
13:20
and people are lovely and that's how it was on set there um and i love you so connected with them
13:27
you're still connected with the fan clubs and and the the organization itself i know you go all you're supposed to be
13:33
somewhere right um yes there um are national and international walton fan
13:38
clubs and uh my daughter who actually played my daughter on the show in the movies of the week
13:44
that followed during the 80s um with the two of us go to
13:50
schuyler virginia where the original well that's where pearl hammer grew up
13:56
um they've now uh renovated that there's a bed and breakfast there that's just lovely and we go in november
14:04
and i go periodically and i sing and they are just the greatest people
14:10
greatest fans so it helps it um really live on as it does it's it's played every
14:17
single day and i love singing for them they're just i i love it we have a question uh luck wants to know did you study
14:24
opera um i did an opera and uh when i was studying at ucla i
14:32
guess i um i studied a little bit there and i did one opera
14:38
and it was so much fun and i love singing like that but i'd rather uh for me do something like phantom of
14:45
the opera i'd rather do a musical than than um a straight opera though i
14:53
appreciate it so much i'm too much of a goofball i don't know that i think
14:58
so you mentioned musicals what's your favorite what's one of your favorites i know you probably don't just have one
15:03
what's one of your favorite uh west side story godspell godspell is my favorite show i
15:08
ever did i did that at ucla i love gladsville and it is the most joy stephen schwartz i
15:15
love you um i i would think west side story yeah yeah what do you
15:22
think about the fact that they're coming out with a or is that a subject we do not want to
15:28
get into it'll be very interesting to see steven spielberg's
15:33
take on it um it's like you can't do sound of music over you
15:39
can't do mary poppins over there's certain oh you can't do wizard of oz over it there's certain things that are kind of sacred
15:46
right so it'll be very interesting to see how he modernizes it
15:54
because really the story is just as true today the divisiveness oh my gosh yeah
16:01
we could get into that yeah so i see why it's so prevalent and important to do that story
16:09
but there is an innocence about it from the time it was written and i hope that
16:17
he was able to retain that yeah me too you know you were talking about
16:22
how music and storytelling go hand in hand one of my favorite musicals is pippin
16:28
i love pippin i the stories that the music tells corner of the sky and and magic to
16:35
do i mean i think of those songs as classics um i don't i don't think i've actually seen
16:42
it recently even being done anywhere
16:47
they've modernized it if you now i saw it on broadway a friend of mine was
16:53
starring as pippin and i was in the last row
16:58
of her and i couldn't even talk afterwards it was like i was like and i
17:04
loved it so much i can't tell you now they've modernized data and i'm just an
17:09
old-fashioned girl like i like the original better than how they have updated it but same music
17:15
did they change the music no the music is the same but they've made it darker oh it's almost like if you go dark then
17:22
it's it's hip what i am doing in my musical called
17:28
kidnapped is i want to bring back like rogers and hammerstein
17:34
i want to have it where there's something there for every age
17:39
the way lion king is and i uh the way wicked is you could be any
17:45
age and that's my second favorite that's my second favorite there's a lot of darkness in this it's called
17:52
but the message the message is so it's another one where the message
17:57
like west side is so clear that good is not always good and evil is not always evil there is an
18:04
intersection i've seen wicked i think six times every time it comes i go and i watch it and for good is one of my
18:10
favorite songs and define gravity
18:22
wrote the book oh i just love and adore um but see that that's what i absolutely
18:28
love i i'm i'm just passionate about all different ways of expressing
18:33
with storytelling with music with acting and um and i love acting i love doing
18:41
voiceovers and and cartoons and things so tell us about that you do voiceovers
18:47
you do cartoons you do t how does that work i mean and one of the when you when you sent me information
18:52
over and one of the things you said was you know nobody really knows who the people are that are doing the voiceovers unless they're a
18:58
a very very high level a lister celebrity but you do voiceovers so what is it like
19:05
being faceless and and do and being the voice and having your voice actually create the character because
19:12
it's the voice you know how we could have like pajama pants on right now when you're doing any kind of workout
19:18
anyone no makeup remember anything you want it does it's so
19:23
freeing and um i i love outrageous characters so i love
19:28
cartoon work and um i i i've known and studied with
19:34
bob burgin who is the master of voiceovers there's nothing
19:39
he can't do he's the voice of porky pig and he has been for a million years you
19:45
know he does a million voices and it is the most fun i think i've ever had is being in his class and being
19:52
free and and just growing and and it's so wonderful to be able to have
19:59
the freedom to go off your net and have fun and um
20:06
i've always done it i i would walk around doing voices and and dialects my my whole life and and
20:13
i'd walk in and be doing something and my mom would say can't you just be normal
20:21
that's funny i was always um singing playing guitar playing piano doing
20:27
voices it's just it becomes just i think what's it what's a favorite voice that
20:33
you did oh well i really like this one and she's
20:38
a mother and um she really has a very good time being a mother but
20:44
she's so busy that she's a bit scattered oh dear
20:49
love it oh my gosh it is definitely a talent and i think because you're a musician and you're a
20:55
singer i think it also has to be that you have a good ear for the dialects and you have a good ear
21:00
for accents and things like that i can sing hebrew that's my thing and people will always stop and say are you israeli
21:07
you know that kind of thing it's no because i just happen to know what the dialect is and what it's supposed to be for
21:13
hebrew but you have a special gift you have a special gift you you do you can talk like this from
21:20
other country you know when your star was existing and who knows we may
21:26
be part of ussr before we notice things don't change
21:32
um yeah i i love it it's it was fun to kind of work a little bit
21:38
on a scottish accent because i'd i'd always be doing irish in the scottish is different
21:44
you know they roll their arse and they do this and i love it so you're known as a
21:51
master vocal coach i want to put a screen up right now and i'm just going to put it on snowboard for a second um and i know it's kind of hard to read
21:58
but i i really like this you you have by backstage magazine best vocal singing coach
22:03
in los angeles that's that's quite a title that's quite a lot of
22:08
recognition and by the way when as you're watching this you'll notice that a link to lisa's website
22:13
just populated in the comment section because i i have to believe
22:18
that there are a lot of people out there that if only given the opportunity
22:24
would you know work their chops i i'll tell you it it's so exciting to
22:30
see people who didn't think they could sing and find out or thought they could only sing this much and then they find out they could
22:36
do this and i found out that really teaching online works
22:42
beautifully i was going to be my next question because in this in this world that we live in you pivoted because
22:48
up until and if you go to your website you'll see all these beautiful people that are standing in your living room and you're playing in their singing and
22:55
we are you know since march um it's you know it's it's september already um you you are now
23:03
teaching online you're doing it virtually so for all of you that are listening to this
23:08
saying well i don't know i can't go to lisa's place because lisa lives there and i live here you don't
23:14
have to go to lisa's place anymore you can visit her virtually and i i do also think that we
23:19
need to make very clear that vocal coaching is not just for singing it's it's right it's not just for
23:25
singing although most people do it because they they want to sing but it's also
23:31
preserving the voice and for those teachers who have to use their voice all the time especially now on on
23:37
virtual you help people preserve and save their voice right oh absolutely and for actors too who who
23:44
want to make sure that they're really using their voice correctly i've helped a lot of them it it it really is extraordinary
23:52
what you can do when you learn how to um to do it i've worked with
23:59
life coaches people who want to be able to do public speaking
24:04
right um it's and it's it's just fun it's exciting the um the interesting
24:11
thing about this is i'm waiting i i heard there and it's in the works that when we speak we don't hear that
24:18
there is a delay but when we are doing music there is a
24:23
slight delay and so it was a matter of learning how to do warm-ups
24:29
together without sending them a tape of new plan right there is definitely yeah there's definitely a delay there's
24:35
even a delay in the show that we're doing right now because where it's it's the internet so the things that we're saying right this second they're
24:42
gonna hear in about 10 seconds oh that long yeah and that's that's the
24:47
streaming world that's the streaming world because well and it's always been that way but it got a little bit worse with everyone
24:53
being online all at the same time um but yeah there's definitely a delay so it it changes the way you communicate
24:59
it changes the way you you talk the way you teach when you know that in the background
25:05
what is a tip that you'd like to share with our audience something that they can take away it doesn't have to be music but what is
25:11
it that you can impart on our audience that's important to you
25:16
um okay having to do a singing or or beyond
25:22
doesn't matter it doesn't matter i could show you so many tips with with singing which i love we'd be here all day i think um a
25:30
tip that that goes beyond singing is to really be in gratitude even though
25:38
we're in lockdown even we have the decisiveness that is happening right now
25:44
in our country to be grateful for the gifts that we do have yeah be able
25:50
to love the people who think differently than we do so that we have unity and we've gotten
25:58
away from that my tip is find it in your heart because i'm i am
26:05
very political i'm very strong with my my beliefs because i'm such a patriot i
26:11
love this country but what i love is how different we all are and
26:17
we're more the same than different and that is my tip is to be in that state of love i love
26:24
that gratitude congratulations what's all about what's your superpower do you have a superpower
26:31
oh yeah let's see invisibility flying yeah um i i think my my superpower
26:40
um is ideas i'm i've always been an idea person
26:45
and if somebody has something i will come up with an idea that i think well let's try this
26:52
let's try that for instance we have fires here in california 100 million acres are
27:00
burning i have friends who have lost their home and then everything burns and the rain comes and
27:05
then we have mudslides we have so many states that are flooding with these
27:11
hurricanes and these monsoons everything that's happening so my idea is a national
27:18
pipeline we can build it through uh 3d pipes that connect to sewers huge
27:26
giant ones where there is charcoal and rocks to clean the the
27:32
water and if you know something is coming to your state and and a dam might break or this might come
27:38
look at what's going on in new orleans um you open the national pipeline and it
27:43
literally and it can be done with solar energy we we pump this water away and send it to
27:50
areas in the country that have droughts we've lost what 100 million trees in california
27:55
we need that we need water that they have too much of and no place that needs it you clean it
28:01
and put it out to see agreed so i don't think i like it but my super powers i'll come up with an idea
28:07
for it i love that i love that buck says in this day and age of budget cutbacks in public education
28:13
and you were in front of a school board preparing to cut the music program what would be the one takeaway for them
28:19
to have to get to try and convince them not to cut the program what would you
28:24
tell the board i think i would quote winston churchill
28:30
who was told that very thing in world war ii that they need to cut the arts
28:38
and he said then what the hell are we fighting for oh well i don't think i ever heard that
28:44
and that is powerful totally powerful and as i'm looking in the background of my screen i realized we were going to talk penguin
28:52
so one of the things that lisa and i have in common amongst many gazillion things is that
28:58
we collect penguins and that's a gorgeous one that that's beautiful where's that from
29:07
um my friend caitlin peterson gave me gave me this and it actually has a
29:13
little younger brother or sister that's over there but i love it i totally love it you have an amazing
29:21
amount of penguins we both agreed that we do not need any more no no housewarming gifts no
29:28
no guest gifts when you come to visit us whenever that happens that people can actually visit us no penguins lisa what is one
29:36
last thing you want to share with our audience we're at the end of our time i can't believe how fast this went but i am so appreciative of you what do
29:42
you what last is there anything last that we did not talk about well we there's a lot we didn't talk about did you like where we say goodbye um
29:51
find find your joy find your purpose in life there's a zeitgeist going on
29:58
right now where everybody's kind of tired and a little low-level depression
30:04
find the joy garden go be around water you know whether it's
30:10
a lake or an ocean or put a a little baby pool and you know i love it i love it with
30:17
nature it's so important amen amen if you if you've i'm sure you've
30:25
enjoyed this show we have lots of shows living on karenglasser.live lots and lots and lots of shows go check
30:31
it out over there and follow us on social media um at karen glasser on twitter
30:37
at karenglasser on instagram at karenglasserlive on facebook and there's
30:42
a there's a pattern there karen glasser just go search for it and you're going to find me on because i'm all over the place you can't
30:48
get rid of me i'm all over the place look at that lisa thank you back and sing together how's that
30:54
absolutely absolutely let's do that let's make a promise you now heard it here first so we can't like go back on that i want to thank you
31:01
for your time today but i also want to thank our audience because you have a choice as to how you spend your time and you chose to spend it with us today so
31:07
go out and give somebody an awesome day and we'll see you next time on the next episode of karen glasser live goodbye everyone
31:15
bye everyone
#Performing Arts
#Vocals & Show Tunes