Isabelle Bracamonte wrote:
>
>
> I disagree that undergraduates can consider themselves
> well-prepared if they graduate with several roles
> under their belt, charming stage skills, perfect
> diction, and no voice. I think the training of the
> voice has to come first, and only after a student is
> capable of getting through a role on the merits of his
> own technique should the student be allowed to build
> on that by adding performance skills. But most
> undergraduates don't get any more than 50 minutes of
> technical training a week, and so they aren't able to
> cover even the basics of good technique in four years.
>
> A long career comes from vocal health. Vocal health
> comes from unshakable technique, the ability to
> produce an operatic tone in an house without doing
> vocal harm. That's got to come first. After you've
> got a voice that can healthily cut over an orchestra,
> THEN you should add in all the "polishing" skills and
> performance opportunities.
I agree with most of what you have said. We try to advise students in
the pathways for which their voices are most appropriate. Only about
10% of our voice majors are even considered for career opera tracks. Of
that group, maybe 1% has true career potential. Other voices and other
personalities will need to find other paths. We try to give our
students as much breadth of training as we can at first, then later help
them to find the depth of training appropriate for their needs and
interests. Part of the dilemma we face is the old nurture/nature
quandry as applied to singing. We get 17-18 year old freshmen who are
hoping to graduate at 21 yrs or so. No amount of technical training
will prepare most of those voices for serious work at age 21. (A piano
major here probably practices 5+ hours per day. However, he or she is
using a fully developed (9 foot grand) instrument to play on. Even so,
pianists sometimes run afoul of tendon problems due to overuse.) There
are exceptions of course but they are rare and can be delt with
individually. In my opinion, university training must allow for the
issue of biomechanical maturity and so we teach a gamut of material
(history, theory, languages, acting, movement, literature, etc) in which
a student can far outpace his vocal maturity. If a student waits until
he or she is a fully matured singer to search for breadth of experience
and training, the student may well find him or herself unsuited for an
opera career, and with few options from which to choose.
I would be interested in hearing from other teachers/singers as to your
feelings on how age & maturity should be allowed for in vocal training.
How often do you find that vocal improvement is as much due to vocal
maturation as it is to technical insights or training?
--
Dr. Barry Bounous
Brigham Young University
School of Music
bounousb@i...
bounousb@i...
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