> You appear > to advocate this in preference to the dual one of > both learning from the top down: the lieder training > method, and the bottom up.
Actually, I am advocating having a young singer spend 5 or 6 years in the studio, concentrating on NOTHING but technique (and perhaps language study, if they have extra time) so that the technique is the first thing to learn. Once the technique is under control, the singer can begin to study acting, movement, diction, audition techniques, phrasing, musicality, history, and all the other aspects of a successful performing career.
If by "bottom-up" you mean that the singer begins with the voice, studies only the voice, and THEN (after a few years of technical study) gives attention to the other details -- then that is exactly what I advocate.
I find it is not a popular proposal, since many singers are impatient (they want to begin performing when young, in lieder recitals and workshops, before the voice is under control), and many universities and conservatories want to show their students performing, and thus push them into developing "performing" skills (and musicality, which is not a bad thing but it can take away a singer's time/energy which should be devoted to technical study) before the technical singing skills are finished. If singers would just realize that they have to invest some years into the vocal aspects of singing before they are ready to go out into the world, there would be FAR fewer burned-out singers (since I see burn-out as a result of a singer with imperfect technique who was trying to perform before the voice was ready).
So, at the extreme end, I am a big fan of the Porpora method (that old legend about how the great singer Porpora's teacher let him sing only vocalises for 5 years, every day, in intense lessons, and then said to him the oft-repeated equivalant of, "Go, my son, you are now ready for the world."). Technique first -- no performing, no auditioning, no study of any aspect of music other than technique. Five years at the least. Then begin to build other skills (whether it's "on the fly," in a contract or apprenticeship, or by moving on to grad school) necessary for a career.
Isabelle B.
===== Isabelle Bracamonte San Francisco, CA ibracamonte@y...
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