Robert asked:
>Is there really a such a great difference between the "inside" experience
of singing
>and the "outside" result of singing?
... and I agree with the big resonating YESes that has already been posted.
I have found that I sometimes resist a change in technique because it feels
so wrong that I can't believe that it is right.
At the moment, it's this: Sometimes the sound in my head will be muffled (as
though someone had placed a big pillow over my ears and I was hearing
through that). Yet I am assured by my teacher that there is nothing wrong.
I don't LIKE the muffled sound, but I suspect this may be one of the cases
where the "wrong", muffled sound is actually just the thing that my teacher
is trying to teach me to do.
The important point is that it feels so wrong that I won't accept it unless
I deliberately work on accepting it.
(many years of choral singing and some bad habits to start with is an ideal
way to get a fixed but wrong view of how your singing should sound).
What I will do now is to go deliberately after the "muffled" sound. For the
moment, this is how I want to sing. Easy to write, hard to accept, and even
harder to remember to do when I practise at home.
My lessons are taped, so when something puzzles me at lessons I try to
describe what I am hearing "inside" (e.g. "this feels REALLY weird, like my
voice is not there at all") - usually that will prompt my teacher to give
his impression so I also get the "outside view" described. Or I will ask "Is
this REALLY how you want this to sound?" to make absolutely sure that I am
on the right track. At home, I listen to the tape repeatedly. My own comment
will help me remember how it felt to sing at that moment, the sound on the
tape and my teacher's comments will assure me that "muffled" is all right.
Based on my earlier experience I expect that it will take a few months to
get this new habit to stick.
At that point I will probably (hopefully!) start noticing a general
improvement of my voice. Somewhere along the line it will no longer feel
wrong to sing like that.
I'd like to compare with the approach that Les described:
>I avoid telling a student what they should sense as the traditionalists
did.
>I ask a lot of questions instead. It will often be something I like, "What
>was that? That was absolutely wonderful! What were you seeing and / or
>feeling and / or hearing when you did it?
My teacher does not actually ASK, but he is very good at pointing out what
is good and what is better. When he repeatedly tells me he's happy about
something that I don't like, I simply have to assume that he is right and
work on it as I have described. (He is probably asking himself: "She CAN do
this, why the %&#¤ doesn't she do it all the time?"). Once I have a clear
idea about what I should aim to do, I ask myself the same kind of questions
as Les uses. I can't always put the answers into words, though. Sometimes
the answer is a feeling that I can reproduce at will.
Robert and others, I hope you can use this.
Best regards
Karin
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