I have no problem with teenagers on the list, not even those with Britney
Spears ambitions. I'm a little troubled by the intolerant exclusionary
message that's coming across from a few posters.
Vocalist has never been meant to be a "classical singing only" mailing
list - at least, that's my understanding.
I know that to we "jaded" (read: experienced) singers, some novices'
questions can seem naive and even "dumb" - but then, I'm sure if I were
trying to learn about Quantum Physics for the first time, my first few
questions might also sound pretty stupid to seasoned quantum physicists.
One of the complaints that often came up on the old "Vocalist" was the
implied (and occasionally overt) snobbishness that made pop singers and
even musical theatre singers feel like barely tolerated second-class
citizens. I'd hate to see us deteriorate back into this kind of
polarisation of "us" and "them" - "us" being the classical singers who
think what they're doing is "real" singing, and "them" being everyone
else.
As someone who is singing her first country music song at a wedding, I'll
tell you something. Classical training only gets you so far when you need
to cross over. I'd love to have a few country singers on the list whose
brains I could pick. I've been listening a lot to country, jazz, and
other pop singers recently, and marvelling at some of the things they do
vocally - little stylistic details that seem so easy and natural when they
do them, but which I, with my Bel Canto technique, just can't replicate.
I know I couldn't put across raw blood-and-guts the way Janis Joplin did
no matter how hard I tried. And it's my choice not to try - because it was
my choice to concentrate on classical and "legit" musical theatre singing.
But oh, wouldn't it be great to get a glimpse into the vocal technical
processes that Patsy Cline or Dean Martin or Roger Daltrey or one of my
other non-classical icons went through to create the sounds that were so
uniquely theirs, and which so please my ears and move my heart.
KM
-----
Ich sage euch: man muss noch Chaos in sich haben,
um einen tanzenden Stern gebaeren zu koennen.
- Friedrich Nietzsche, ALSO SPRACH ZARATHUSTRA
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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