On Tue, 16 Jul 2002 11:37:14 EDT buzzcen@a... wrote:
>>Classical training rarely allows a female to come out of pure chest. When
singers trained this way try to come out of pure chest they usually at some
point resort to a production that either flips or has a timbre that is not
connected to their chest voice. I get "recovering opera singers" in my studio
all the time and the problems they have with disconnects present huge
challenges to them.
In my day-job business, where we deal with "evidence" in deciding what to do
about alleged bad-things people do at work, what you just wrote about
"classical training" is called "making a leap". It means an unwarranted
conclusion based upon insufficient information. Your observation is valid.
However your conclusion about what you call "classical training" is certainly
not.
I'm at work and don't have time to write a treatise, and I'm not a voice
teacher anyway.
But the only voice training I know is classical, with what I know to be "good"
teachers (because I've personally heard the consistent vocal progress of the
majority of the teachers' students over a long period of time). So my
experiences tesll me not to attribute an isolated singer's faults to the
teacher or training method, because I know the teachers and what ALL their
students sound like, and who has stuck with it and who hasn't, and where there
are personality conflicts and where there aren't, so I have a pretty good
sense of whether in these cases any vocal "problem" lies with the
individuality of the student or with the teacher's "method". And I've never
heard a single one of whom I know to be competent "classical" teachers who
advocated what you seem to allege they do. Note, however, there are numerous
individual teachers (of any musical discipline) with credentials up the wazoo
who teach very strange things, which may be apparent if you hear many singers
from the same studio over time.
To Randy specifically - Please think back on the voice students you've not had
success with, for whatever reasons (certainly it wasn't the fault of your
"method" or you as a teacher in general). Imagine one or two of those
students going to another teacher, with whatever vocal problems they have/had
that were not resolved while they studied with you, and then that teacher
writing to this list "XYZ" (Randy's) method is full of @#$*% because of the
vocal problems several of his students have.
Intellectual discipline sounds boring. But really, it's a good thing. It
saves lives and reputations.
Peggy
Margaret Harrison, Alexandria, Virginia, USA.
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