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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