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From:  ODivaTina@a...
ODivaTina@a...
Date:  Thu Aug 2, 2001  6:26 pm
Subject:  Seth Riggs' Recent SF Master Class


I thought you Listers out there might be somewhat interested to hear about my
impressions of Seth's most recent master class here in SF.
I went there with a lot of anticipation, as my teacher's technique is also
what she dubs "speech based", although she has no affiliation with Seth and
his technique. (And just as an aside, it really is phenomenal how powerful,
beautiful, and effortless speech based singing is. The trick is finding the
correct and applicable speech.) She and I went together, interested in his
approach, hoping to find new ways of thinking about similiar concepts, or
better yet, hoping to be scandalized with something controversial that we
could perhaps experiment with and find out something exciting! The truth is,
his technique as displayed at this master class is actually very traditional
and rather conservative and very safe and healthy for the voice, not even
remotely fitting the "bad boy" reputation he presents. He basically
emphasized vowel modification for the entire 4 hour length of the seminar
(which is definitely extremely valuable and useful, however, only a means to
the end of true bel canto, speech level singing). All of his examples were
with a rather light balance and the emphasis in the seminar tended to be on
the tenor and coloratura voices. For training tenors in light mechanism
production (which I don't do, but Deborah does) there were some valuable
exercises.
He also focused very pointedly through out the seminar on making money, and
didn't mention a single time anything related to artistic fulfillment or joy,
but rather, as a pop singer, developing your style and going and making money
from it. He discouraged classical aspirations entirely. When I asked him
about technical issues related to heavy mechanism, full throttle operatic
production for large scale voices, he did not address my question.

In the end, from what was presented there that one day, it was all in all
very innocuous, and not even remotely controversial.
TinaO






  Replies Name/Email Yahoo! ID Date Size
13444 Re: Seth Riggs' Recent SF Master Class S Owens   Thu  8/2/2001   2 KB
13445 Re: Seth Riggs' Recent SF Master Class Domisosing@a...   Thu  8/2/2001   3 KB
13448 Re: Seth Riggs' Recent SF Master Class ODivaTina@a...   Thu  8/2/2001   2 KB
13449 Re: Seth Riggs' Recent SF Master Class Wim Ritzerfeld   Thu  8/2/2001   3 KB

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