> This is amazing, if you can sing it from memory that > is. If you can sing a > role after 3 hearings you should have no trouble > finding work.
Oh no, not from memory; I have to be holding the score -- that *would* be an amazing talent. No, I think I'm pretty normal in terms of learning new music. Listening to recordings is easy, but I have the nagging feeling that it isn't a "legitimate" way of learning a role.
For example, last week my voice teacher told me to take home her Elixir score and look at Adina for my next lesson. I took home the score and completely forgot about Adina until the morning of my lesson. So I sat down with three recordings (Sutherland, Freni, and a live recording with Blegen) and listened, with score in hand, to Act I three times through. Then I listened to Act II three times through. When I went to my lesson that afternoon, I sang through the role and didn't have to be corrected for notes (except for the occasional recit note -- those sudden accidentals can be startling -- and some of the trickier runs). I think that's pretty normal for a singer, but obviously I didn't have the role memorized and couldn't have sung it from memory. Also, I'm not sure how much of an advantage this is, since it's going to take (at my stage of training) another six months before the role is technically finished, translated, etc., and ready to take to a coach. So simply learning the notes quickly doesn't seem like it's unusual or helpful, and I still feel like a fraud for learning from recordings.
I'm not sure this "three times through" method would work with Britten or Wagner. For totally atonal things, I find my computer notation programs helpful (but again, I'm learning from another "cheating" method).
In terms of quickness, my methods of learning music are (from fastest to most laborious):
1. Listen to many different recordings 2. Type it into a computer program 3. Sight-sing through the melody line (with piano at hand for occasional corrections) 4. Play the melody line while struggling through the bass line in the piano
I've never tried to take an unknown piece into a coach. The coaches I know would send me home if it was clear that I was still learning the notes. And I'm not sure where one would find a simple repetiteur; do opera houses really still employ them? I always assumed that house coaches worked on diction, note correction (not teaching, but double-checking all your intricate rhythms and runs and things), interpretation, memorization, etc. -- not teaching you the part from scratch.
I just feel like less of a real singer without instrumental skills. I was eavesdropping on the general director of the SF opera house the other day, and he was singing the praises of Fleming to some patron: "Oh, she is a wonderful musician -- her musical committment -- and piano, everything." It got me thinking.
Isabelle B.
===== Isabelle Bracamonte San Francisco, CA ibracamonte@y...
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