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From:  Imthurn Melinda <mimthurn@y...>
Imthurn Melinda <mimthurn@y...>
Date:  Mon Mar 12, 2001  2:09 pm
Subject:  Re: [vocalist] NATS competition yesterday


He's probably just following his teacher's
> instruction, trying to be
> a good student. I'm sure we've all be in these
> situations before.
> If so- please share.
We have been in those positions!
I once had a teacher who believed in pushing mixed
voice as high as it could go! I was screaming
under-pitch notes almost up to high C! All this while
my teacher assured me I sounded great and that it was
supposed to feel this way!
By the time I got ped class and had some science
behind my feelings that this was bad for me, it had
been several months of screeching. I approached the
teacher and told him I felt I should be using more of
a head-tome feeling, as well as that it was painful,
made me hoarse, gave me a headache, and sounded flat.
He again assured me I was hearing incorrectly and that
I was SUPPOSED to sound like that!
By the time I left the studio I was in seriously bad
vocal condition. Bless those teachers who can bring
us back from places like that and help us to trust a
teacher again!

--- taylor23f@h... wrote:
>
> Dear Listers,
>
> I had an interesting experience yesterday as I
> judged a NATS
> competition for the first time. It was a last
> minute decision by
> Steve Austin(who was very ill)to ask me to judge in
> his place. I was
> honored that he asked me and glad to allow him some
> needed rest time.
>
> The students I heard were all males from ages
> 17-22. I heard
> several excellent young baritiones with tons of
> potential. For the
> most part they all sang with a pretty stable
> laryngeal postion and
> good vowels. This was great to hear from young
> voices- and says that
> there is some fine teaching going on around here.
>
> One of the contestants did however surprise me.
> He was a young man
> (I think 18)who announced that he was going to sing
> "Che faro." So,
> I thought great, he'll sing it in the regular key an
> octave lower
> like Tito Schipa used to. Well, when he started the
> aria on e
> natural I knew he would be singing it as a
> countertenor-and I became
> excited at this prospect.
>
> Well lets just say that he sang MANY wrong
> notes(often way out of
> the key) and had a pronounced wobble which got worse
> as he added
> intensity and pitch. By the time he was done I
> still had not started
> writing because I didn't know WHERE to start. I was
> concerned for
> the vocal health of this boy. When he bid us
> goodbye he could barely
> phonate the words and was extremely raspy.
>
> I wrote on his comment sheet that he should train
> his 'natural'
> range first- before moving into countertenor rep.
> And that in order
> to be a countertenor musical skills must be
> exceptional. In the most
> diplomatic way possible I wrote that his top voice
> was unsteady and
> unhealty. Each of us who judged this guy gave him a
> rather low grade
> and told him that the technique needed much
> improvement.
>
> As I said, I heard many fine voices. But, since
> yesterday I have
> not been able to get this countertenor-gone-wrong
> out of my head.
> He's probably just following his teacher's
> instruction, trying to be
> a good student. I'm sure we've all be in these
> situations before.
> If so- please share.
>
> Take Care All,
>
> Taylor L. Ferranti
> Doctoral Candidate in Vocal Pedagogy
> Louisiana State University
>
>


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10169 Re: NATS competition yesterday John Link   Mon  3/12/2001   2 KB

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