Vocalist.org archive


From:  David Cox <davidcox@c...>
Date:  Mon Apr 17, 2000  2:28 am
Subject:  Re: tension and support


I have been intrigued by the ongoing discussions about what is the correct
way to support. Lloyd has given probably the definitive description of
appoggio. Isabelle has pointed out that different singers use different
ways of conceptualising support. I remember seeing a video of Thomas
Cleveland, I think, discussing this - he said that some people use the 'down
and out' and some the 'up and in' method, and that both groups saw success.
For me, that immediately signified that the precise details were perhaps
less important than the individual protagonists thought. Estill's anchoring
stuff was for many years the most useful description I have found. So by my
count, that is at least four separate descriptions, all of which lead
singers to success.

So what is going on here? I suspect it is a bit like the success of
psychotherapy - i have been told that the success rate across the different
approaches is roughly the same and seems to relate to the personality of the
therapist, rather than the details of the method!

In singing, I suspect that several things are required of a 'support'
mechanism. 1) That the singer be able to relate to it. 2) That the method
generate a certain amount of the right sort of physical tension in the back
and abdominal muscles. 3) That the singer be able to keep track of the
muscles so that the support does not ebb and flow over the length of a
phrase. The precise explanation is in many ways less important.

On top of this, the singer needs to be able to release parasitic tensions in
areas like the jaw - in other words, the muscular work in the torso needs to
be isolated there.

Also, and I would count this as a different issue from support, we need to
coordinate of the onset of tone. This is of particular importance in
achieving the aesthetic required in classical music, less so perhaps in
other forms.

Buffy Hunt wrote that after her c section her teacher had her doing knee
bends while singing. I've also seen similar techniques used by lots of
different people - for example, the English folk singer Frankie Armstrong
used 'digging potatoes' in her workshops - they were about Bulgarian folk
songs, so it made a poetic sort of sense as well! I think that all of these
techniques achieve a common result - firstly, they are easy to relate to and
t understand both physically and mentally. Secondly, because the
action/movement is ongoing, the muscular activity tends to be sustained,
rather than intermittent. Thirdly, by involving the student in easily
intelligible movement they reduce anxiety and assist in the reduction of
counter productive physical tension in areas like the jaw. Fourthly, and
related to the previous point, by involving the student in a familiar
movement pattern that does not usually include things like jaw tension, they
make it less likely that such tension will appear. These points match
fairly well those I made about the requirements of a successful description
of support.

So, you pays your money and you takes your choice!

Cheers

David
--
David Cox
36 Toronto St, Ovingham South Australia 5082
Ph/Fax 61 8 8344 7044



emusic.com