Mary Beth wrote: >As teachers we need to separate result from process.
Dear Listers and Mary Beth,
This is a fabulous statement folks. The result vs. the process and aesthetics vs. function are usually at odds with each other. At times, what sounds good to the ear(aesthetically pleasing) is NOT necessarily functionally correct. Inversely, what sounds bad to the ear is not necessarily functionally incorrect either. A well known voice teacher(remaining nameless) taught a soprano friend of mine. In the year of lessons she had with this teacher, the only comment my friend ever heard was, "make it pretty dear- that's it- good." After many months of this my friend moved on to another teacher that solved her problems with voice function. No, this did not happen over night- but it came after some hard work. My point is that sometimes it becomes necessary to keep aesthetics and healthy function in different camps in order to reach technical goals. Some of you may know that I have been observing and taking lessons on and off with C. Reid for the past 20 months or so. He has been teaching for 62 yrs. and is 90 right now (amazing huh!). When I was there over Christmas(current German baritone Thomas Quastoff was there observing that day!) Reid reminded me of the fact that the vocal methods employed by Mancini and others of his time were virtually extinct by the early 20th century. I a NATS article a while back, Oren Brown, another brilliant pedagogue I've seen at work, summed the same thing up like this:
"In the 19th century, the focus was on breathing- in the 20th century, the focus was on resonance- in the 21st century, maybe the focus will be on brains." When I first read this I thought, "Wow that Oren Brown guy- what an absurd comment to make to a journal- they actually published that!" However, as I thought about it for the afternoon, things got clearer for me. He was talking about getting back to basics as related to healthy function. Why do so many of us at times, myself included, concentrate soley on one aspect of vocal technique while excluding the others?
Mary Beth wrote:
However, there are > definitely different registers that occur within each persons voice, and this > is due to known physiological reasons. At different pitches, the vocal folds > et al, behave in different ways in order to make the required pitches, that > is the PROCESS .
Wonderful comment Mary Beth! Along these lines I could propose that the 'functional process' of singing often gets confused with the 'art of singing' itself.
Take Care All,
Taylor L. Ferranti DMA Cnadidate in Vocal Pedagogy LSU
|
| |