Vocalist.org archive


From:  buzzcen@a...
buzzcen@a...
Date:  Tue Feb 13, 2001  12:21 am
Subject:  Re: [vocalist] SLS


In a message dated 2/12/01 5:20:00 PM Central Standard Time,
bounousb@i... writes:
bounousb@i... writes:


> > Well,
> >
> Characters such as Estill and Lisa Popeil are cataloguing
> > behaviors that are hyperfunctional
>
> Hyperfunctional by who's definition?


COMMENT: A raised larynx puts the vocal folds into a valving position where
the extent of closure is more forceful than in other maneuver including
forceable closure. If that's not hyperfunction what is?

>
> and using the word technique to describe
> > what is done.
> \
> If belt means bringing up chest past the point it is healthy,
> > you are promoting pressed phonation which leads to abusive behaviors on a
> > laryngeal level.
>
> Most current literature both pedagogical and scientific defines belt as
> something other raised chest voice. The only people who define it as
> such are either unfamiliar with it or are trying to demonize it.
>
>
COMMENT: If it is not raised chest then some form of vocal fold lengthening
is being used which would mean the CTs are involved. This is a mix at this
point, the degree of the mix is dependent on such factors of CT Vs TA
involvement and the degree of compression.
>

> > It's nice to have a Ph.D., and years of experience, but since you brought
> > that all up I'd be interested in who you've produced with this technique.
>
>
> > Who would be the example we could listen to? SLS can point to many we can
> > all listen to, as could I from my own studio.
> >
>
> I am very familiar with the lengthy lists of names generated and
> maintained by SLS instructors. They can legitimately claim many fine
> singers as having been exposed to SLS however, because of the extreme
> self-promotion of the system, I know singers who have had a single
> coaching or signed up to sing in a workshop and have later found
> themselves listed as products of the system or adherants. I also know
> collegues who have agreed to participate in an SLS workshop and who also
> therafter appear in literature as students, teachers, or supporters of
> SLS (without their knowledge or consent). I even know a student who
> called an old friend of his, currently an SLS instructor, asked him a
> question over the phone, and later found himself listed in the teachers
> promotional literature.


COMMENT: I'd be very careful about such comments. If this was as prevalent
as you insinuate, litigation would be occurring on a rather consistent basis,
and it is not. By the way, I'm still waiting to here what singers of yours
we can listen to. I am truly interested in hearing what you teach as belt.
By the way, you can hear one of my students on the upcoming Streisand special.

>
> While I have never had any problem with the vocal technique espoused by
> SLS, I find that many SLS teachers only have the vaguest notion of what
> really makes the voice work or current vocal science in the slightest
> way. They simply parrot the instructions they have been given and if it
> doesn't work for a particular student then they are at a loss - usually
> blaming the student for the problem. Systems don't make a technique -
> good teaching does.
>


COMMENT: This may be true in certain cases as it would be with many voice
> teachers regardless of what they teach. But those of us who take this
> seriously are up to date with the literature. Are you insinuating the SLS
> teachers on this list fall into the category of being ignorant of
> physiology and research. By the way, I will be a speaker at the upcoming
> Chicago chapter of NATS/Chicago Guild of Voice Teacher joint conference on
> technique and vocal health along with Dr. Robert Bastian and I'm very close
> to completing my MS in Speech Language Pathology.
>
> And I do believe that systems do make technique. In fact the word a
> systematic approach is used in Miller's The Structure of Singing as part of
> the title. What we teach is the most important aspect of the process, not
> the teacher. An inferior clinician teaching a superior technique is better
> than a teacher teaching an inferior technique.
>
> Randy Buescher










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