Teaching singing has introduced me to hundreds of interesting people. The woman who assigned jobs to inmates at the Trenton (N.J.) State Prison; the audiologist who left Maine at age forty-one to make it on Broadway; the woman iron-worker who hangs by day from the 59th Street Bridge welding it back together; the nurse who warns that "people die in hospitals; the television technician who has been with "Good Morning, America" from its first broadcast, longer than any of the on-air personalities; the psychologist who was petrified of getting lost in the long hallways of the Ansonia Hotel, site of one of my studios; the call girl who grossed $300 a trick, but longed to get a $75 a week job tap-dancing in a summer stock musical; the clown, the comics, the waiters and waitresses, the cab drivers, the tap dancers, the tapless dancers, the topless dancers, and the working actors.

Some people I've worked with you may already know: comedienne Elayne Boosler had long hair and sang Laura Nyro songs in the early seventies; Dee Wallace, a dancer and dance teacher, auditioned as a replacement in the Broadway production of Pippin before she moved to Hollywood to star in E.T.; Barry Manilow auditioned as my replacement for an accompanist job in a gay steambath (where he later met Bette Midler); Mr. Greenjeans (Captain Kangaroo's personable sidekick) and I toured Vietnam as a musical act; I taught a song to Joanne Woodward and Sandy Dennis; I taught entire score of a musical to Phil Silvers.

Celebrities and civilians, they've come to me. Their common needs I can readily identify and meet; in their unique differences I find challenge and inspiration.

Hundreds of brave and talented (and some not-so-talented) people have gotten to me before you came along. Many of them join us as we explore together and attempt to solve the mystery of song. They've each and all trained me so that I can now train you.