On Sat, 8 Apr 2000 DANIaka007@a... wrote:
> Hi temperary listers----
>
> I was thinking...what would be considered "challenging" in a song to sing?
> What MAKES it challenging? Also....does it have to do with pitches, the
> music, or the over-all song? Thank you, replies would be appreciated!
> Danielle
There are three factors that, alone or in combination, make a song (or
aria) challenging to me:
1) vocality
2) musical composition
3) text
1) If the song or aria is particularly demanding vocally - usually, for
me, this means lots of long phrases that require excellent breath
management, or a markedly high tessitura, or a lot of sustained notes,
particularly high ones. Also phrases - particularly long ones - in which
text and music don't seem happily conjoined, making it difficult to figure
out how to manage breath - i.e., if the text suggests breaths in different
places from where the music suggests them. I'm working on an Offenbach
aria now where this is really a problem: the music and text are actually
at odds with each other in terms of suggesting where one should breathe.
Because it's an "atmosphere" aria - one in which the main purpose is to
create an atmosphere - I've decided to let the music predominate, in this
case, in "telling me" where to breathe, even when it doesn't make as much
sense textually; then I'm using particular emphases in the text to commit
myself to where I breathe, and make the breaths meaningful text-wise. The
result is actually turning out to be quite interesting and effective (and
it's also giving me a new understanding of why the mezzos I've heard do
this aria emphasise particular words or rush particular phrases - because
they had to struggle with exactly the same strange conflict between text
and music; but I don't always like their choices, particularly the rushed
phrases - so I'm having a lot of fun experimenting with my own, and
working with my coach and voice teacher to try out their ideas too). You
might wonder why I even bother with such an aria - clearly not one of
Offenbach's happier efforts - except that it is musically absolutely
glorious, and a really good showpiece vocally because of the wonderful
variety of dynamics, range, and moods-within-the overall mood. Plus it's
not very long. So, in short, an ideal audition piece once I can get past
the weirdnesses.
2) If the music is particularly challenging - and I don't just mean 20th
Century "non-melodic" or "atonal" compositions. I actually find one of
the most musically difficult composers to be Berlioz, because he is SO
detailed and tends to write in a way that one can never really predict, so
you have to be extremely vigilant all the time about his music. The
result, when you "get" it, is absolutely exquisite - but it makes learning
his music 2-3 times more difficult than, say, learning Verdi or Brahms,
who I find are much more "transparent" and uncomplicated in their vocal
writing. Berlioz's music is very complex and nuanced, and frankly a bitch
to memorise because there's so much there, so many tiny details you just
cannot overlook.
3) Text for me is a problem when it's "just words" - i.e., when it's
purely abstract poetry with a very subtle emotional subtext behind it.
The reason I'm much more comfortable singing theatre-music (e.g., opera,
operetta, "legit" musical theatre) is that I can *become* a character, and
simply be speaking that character's words when I sing - the drama is
explicit, and the words always make sense in the context of the drama
(even a really silly drama and really stupid words). And Lieder where the
poem/story is told from a point of view also allows me to indulge this
approach to performing. Even "abstract" texts where the mood/emotion is
strong, so one can imagine a character who delivers the text, and still
work from that direction. But what I find very difficult to sing are
those songs where I can't find the "hook" - the "angle" from which I want
to perform the piece. Honegger's settings of Apollinaire, for instance.
It's very abstract, fragmented poetry that was intended, in fact, to be
*visual*. I greatly admire Honegger for taking on the task of
"translating" that visual quality into music. But I find it absolutely
frustrating to figure out how I'm supposed to *sing* such a text. Thus
far, I haven't had to, so beyond playing with such pieces on my own time,
I avoid them.
Karen
-----
Ich singe, wie der Vogel singt,
Der in den Zweigen wohnet;
Das Lied, das aus der Kehle dringt,
Ist Lohn, der reichlich lohnet.
-- J.W. von Goethe, WILHELM MEISTER
My NEIL SHICOFF Website:
http://www.radix.net/~dalila/shicoff/shicoff.html
My Website:
http://www.radix.net/~dalila/index.html
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