Teaching young students- From a former student's prospective:
I was a boy Soprano. Went to a Boy's Choir school and sang with several
professional children's groups. At 14 my voice hadn't changed yet and I was
starting to be asked to sing more challenging solo works with
orchestra(chichester pslams,Faure Requiem). When my voice did change the
following year it was dissaterous. I was not able to even phonate on pitch for
many years. A much more severe "break" than the normal adolescent voice change.
I have to believe that singing through that period in my development was
responsible, so I would warn teachers who are dealing with male students
anywhere in this age group to be very carefull.
MB
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There are 5 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Re: pitch
From: bjjocelyn@p...
2. Re: pitch
From: Greypins@a...
3. Re: teaching the very young
From: "SlightlyoffBroadway"
4. Re: Re: teaching the very young
From: "Christine Thomas"
5. Re: Aspirate stage speech for an Irish dialect
From: "michael.chesebro"
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Message: 1
Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 08:58:22 +0200
From: bjjocelyn@p...
Subject: Re: pitch
Mike answering me on pitch versus height:
the problem is: there is no connection (between pitch and height) any time
wasted on holding
on to such a deception, is time wasted that would be better spent elsewhere.
in the larger picture, if you are willing to hold on to one such mythology
of singing, you are probably holding on to a whole host of mythologies. if
you act on these misconceptions, you are building your singing on a house of
cards.
what's wrong with embracing reality (besides having to find a teacher
who does likewise)?
My reply:
You may be a diehard realist, "calling a horse a horse", well, it's just as
good, sometimes.. but in turn, don't let yourself be deceived by the
reality myth. Any way of "embracing reality", designing it, conceiving it,
representing it, in short, any language is but by essence arbitrary, perhaps
even not best suited for certain purposes. Name facts the way you want,
resort to gestures, coloured cards, beacons instead of speech, you can't go
away from it. Are such terms as "pitch", "sharp", "flat", or "building your
singing" less biassed than "high" or "low"? ("pitch" alone already calling
up such concepts as "throwing", "slope"...)
Imagine an ideal langage featuring as far as one distinct lexical root for
each separate fact, in the most exhaustive way (no cup "handle", because
"hand" already exists and it could mislay us into believing that only hands
can hold handles, whereas feet, paws, tentacles, armpits, pressed legs,
folded arms, clenched jaws also could in theory...). Well, even so, do you
candidly believe comparisons, analogies, assimilations, metaphors, images
wouldn't surge to mind?
So for the asking, how would you magically bypass any "misconception" in
trying to account for the "note frequency" reality without embarking on a
dull wavelength explanation?
Would you do away with speaking of different "sounds", "tones", "colours",
"bases", "vibrations", "sensations", "processes"? Or go the tautological
way, "different pitches are namely what pitch is about" ,"call notes by
their names and that's it"? Or intentionally silence all thinking on the
subject (beware: a taboo is a message too)? Sure, there must be many valid
approaches around... Let's just not hope it may one day occur to one of
those free-from-misconceptions trainees to liken a musical scale with its
degrees to a physical ladder with its rungs, the way it strangely occured to
our forebears (as shown in their linguistic legacy), some of which have
proven decent vocalists, though.
Bart
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Message: 2
Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 14:58:57 EDT
From: Greypins@a...
Subject: Re: pitch
In a message dated 5/27/2002 2:45:15 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
bjjocelyn@p... writes:
> You may be a diehard realist, "calling a horse a horse", well, it's just as
> good, sometimes.. but in turn, don't let yourself be deceived by the
> reality myth.
bart,
until calling a horse a chicken actually becomes a more appealing
idea, i think i'll hang with the reality myth. you should at least try it.
believe it or not, it's easier.
mike
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Message: 3
Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 16:14:58 -0400
From: "SlightlyoffBroadway"
Subject: Re: teaching the very young
Hi Molly:
I've read the other posts and all the advice is sound.
I, also, have had students under 10 years old and have approached it with
this one thought:
It's better that they are under the guidance of a professional if they're
going to sing anyway so that you can help them with the basics of proper
breathing and singing appropriate rep. for their range and age.
I use:
folk song arrangements
RCM repertoire books
Broadway solos for Kids
Popular songs for Kids (these aren't ":pop" songs, they're songs from Disney
and movies that kids have sung.)
Movie songs for Kids
Choral repertoire (ie Kitty of Coleraine, folk songs arr. etc. that are
arranged with the smaller ranges - usually no more than an octave).
Also, I have a keyboard with a transpose button so if any piece of music
pushes the range, I can change it by a semitone or tone to make it fit the
student better. Often, years later, we'll come back to these pieces and see
how our range has increased and how much our voice has changed.
Have had (and still do) our share of stage mothers. The worst part is when
they tell you their child is "gifted". It's rarely the case. But, there's
so many wonderful parents who are realistic about their children and just
want to offer them the benefits of studying voice that it's still all
worthwhile.
Jacqueline
SlightlyoffBroadway
jaxsobcon@n...
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Message: 4
Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 16:57:07 -0500
From: "Christine Thomas"
Subject: Re: Re: teaching the very young
Also, I have a keyboard with a transpose button so if any piece of music
pushes the range, I can change it by a semitone or tone to make it fit the
student better. Often, years later, we'll come back to these pieces and see
how our range has increased and how much our voice has changed.
***
I love my transposition buttons. The kids call them the "magic buttons."
The joke is that I can keep playing the same exercise in C major and just
push a button -- but it also keeps them from knowing just how high they're
singing (since there's no way in my studio to move the piano so that they
can't see the keyboard).
Christine Thomas,
Mezzo Soprano
"I love to sing-a, about the moon-a and the June-a and the spring-a!"
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Message: 5
Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 16:47:08 -0700
From: "michael.chesebro"
Subject: Re: Aspirate stage speech for an Irish dialect
If you push air to create volume, you run a very real risk of damage to
your mechanism. Work this out with your teacher.
Best of Luck.
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