Moving on....

I don't have trouble with any of those four. I pay attention to them all the time, but it's more or less second-nature.

I guess I used to concentrate really hard on all of them. I used to sing really quietly and had to learn to project. I also learned to make sure that, when I broke into vibrato, I let the lower pitch stay on the note and the higher pitch go above the note. If the upper pitch is on the note and the lower one hangs below, it gives the impression of being flat; if lower of the two pitches is right in the center of the note, and the higher pitch goes above it, it just makes the note sound alive. Stuff like that I really worked on for quite a few years, but now I don't really have to think about it.

The one thing I do have trouble with has to do with tempo. I tend to speed up a little bit during a song, so I end up a little faster than I started. It happens more when I'm playing something with a lot of energy in it, or when I'm improvising a lot. Just one more reason I like to play with one of my drummers--they keep me steady. Also, I don't enunciate like I should sometimes. I have to remind myself once in a while to give them every consonant loud and clear--somehow that makes the vowels sound better, too.

--Jean