randy has a good point about 'bel canto'. so many have claimed to be
practitioners of 'bel canto' that an absence of a standard has failed to
seperate the charlatans from its true exponents. like 'national security'
during the nixon era, it has come to mean nothing except, 'beautiful singing'.
<< Vocally,
the "cream", voices that are large , resonant, even scaled, and
trained "acoustically, not "microphonally", are becoming fewer-
and "crossover artistes" are in vogue so even opera singers
are "crooning". >>
to hear an opera singer sing a pop song is to realize that it is still
possible to tell what some cows are grazing on. the use of the voice exists
outside of style. to understand the use of the voice and to be able to
manipulate it at will, is to give one the choice to do whatever one
understands. the essence to understanding style is to understand its
purpose and, having understood its purpose, selecting the use of the voice
that is most suitable to that purpose. in knowing all the possibilities of
the use of the voice, one has the room to improve even if only singing in one
style.
one should look at the singing of a particular style as using only part
of what one is capable of. to be unable to go from style to style, is
either a lack of understanding in what the second style requires, a lack of
the ability to produce the sounds that style requires or, both.
producing the voice is a science. choosing what to do with it is an
art. (broccoli's value as a food source has nothing to do with broccoli's
value as a taste treat.) if your taste is for opera, to the point you want
to sing it, you have to find out how to do what is required to represent that
style. on the other hand, if your style of choice is pop music, you learn
the use of the voice that does it justice. singing pop music with an
operatic approach, is stylistically wrong, just as singing opera with a pop
approach is wrong. deciding what is appropriate to a style is a decision of
art. acting on that decision is a matter of science.
no potential singer comes to singing a blank slate. we have all been
using our voices since the moment we were born and have found many uses for
it over the duration of our lives. our view of our voices is not uniform
either. that view is affected by learning style, personality, culture and
so forth and, that view is more likely to change rather than remain the same.
the fact that there are many approaches to singing that more than a few
would champion, bears this out. as karen said "if it isn't broken, don't
fix it" but, if it is broken, you must. too many singers are willing to
accept broken and sing in a way as if to say "it's not broken, i like it that
way".
mike
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