|
Voice lessons and singing instruction have probably been around since music was invented, but the idea of formalized, one-on-one instruction emerged with opera in the early 1600s. Before opera, singing didn’t require in-depth vocal training. As people do not naturally create such resonant tones, singing lessons became necessary for aspiring opera singers.
Initially, singing lessons (and training for an opera career) were only for the nobility and wealthy. Voice lessons were a part of overall music education given to children of the nobility, along with song-writing, piano, and other instruments. But as industrialization created a solid middle-class in Europe, singing lessons (along with piano instruction) became a fixture of middle-class life. The spread of sheet music, a middle-class with money to spend on music education, and mass entertainment such as opera and vocal recitals created the demand for professional voice teachers who could focus solely on voice lessons for income. While most music professionals still branched out and taught other instruments and subjects, the idea of a voice teacher solely focused on teaching vocal lessons was no longer an impossibility. The same evolution was occurring within all music careers. Composers, instrumentalists, singers etc...were all able to become more specialized and devoted to one aspect of their profession because middle-class Europe was able to support a large class of professional artists. What is perhaps most surprising is that the actual singing lessons and exercises used today have not evolved that much from instruction in the 1600s. The vocal exercises and warmups are basically the same because the human vocal instrument has not changed. To create resonance and a beautiful tone, certain elements of breath control, vocal tract shape, and projection must be produced in a certain manner. What did change was technology. The invention of microphones and artificial amplification changed two aspects of voice lessons. First, voice teachers did not have to focus so much on creating resonance to power over orchestras and large concert halls. This opened a huge realm of possibilities on how a person could sound and still be heard by an audience. In addition, amplification allowed new genres of music to emerge, which would require different styles of singing lessons. Rock and roll, country, big-band, you name it…none of those would exist as commercial music without microphones. The market for singing lessons is now massive due to the different styles of singing. Whereas voice lessons were once the realm of only opera singers and rich patrons, most middle-class families can afford lessons and tailor their instruction to widely different music genres. DWS A recent New York Times article investigated the different reactions to rule changes in the ACA (“Obamacare”). What was pertinent to this blog was that one of the profiles included was an aspiring opera singer who lived in the Northeast.
She attended Manhattan School of Music, which is one of the elite conservatories of the country. Unfortunately, it is also one of the most expensive, especially after taking into account living expenses in New York City. The woman dropped out due to the financial stress of tuition and is currently paying student loans for a degree she never completed. I will always encourage in my singing lessons for voice students to follow their dreams. That being said, one can also be aware of how to reduce the financial stress an aspiring singer is faced with. A broke singer will have a hard time auditioning well! Here are some rules for succeeding in the music business financially. A. Never, ever go into serious financial debt from college for a music degree. There are several reasons for this.
B. Develop Side Work you can do while traveling. I know lots of singers who support themselves by developing websites, being a travel agent, or doing some work that is portable when they are traveling. You can certainly be a waiter when you are at your home base but that work is very difficult for a singer: the constant noise and manual labor can be rough on a singer's vocal health. C. Find a few people you can trust. They may be family or a close colleague, but you need people who can be brutally honest with you on your goals. Singing requires outside ears to judge where you are headed. You don’t want to waste time pursuing opportunities you aren’t likely to earn. Have your voice teacher guide you to what is best for you. DWS You may have heard that robots are taking over the world - automation in our cars, factories, you name it...if a job has repetitive tasks, it can be given to a robot or computer to perform.
Singing, like most of the creative arts, is inherently non-repetitive. Even more importantly, the whole point of singing is to communicate, which is something robots cannot do. Any robot can produce a pretty pitch, but no machine can make you cry. Yet many voice teachers teach their singing lessons as if they want to make their students sing like robots - that there is one right way to produce a sound. Little attention is given to the performance of a song and how to convey emotion through your voice and acting. Many voice teachers seem to think they should let acting teachers handle that aspect of singing. In voice lessons, I focus on how to perform a song almost immediately. It is of vital importance that you start developing a student's artistry and ability to make musical choices from the get-go. After I teach a song or two to a new student, I start asking the student questions. “How would you sing this phrase?” or “What is your character feeling in this phrase?” There is no ‘right’ answer. I simply want my voice student to develop their musical ability so that they communicate through song and sing with emotion. The most wonderful part of singing musically and working on your acting is that it in fact ENHANCES your vocal technique. I cannot tell you how many times a voice student has had a vocal breakthrough because they were focused on the performance of a song rather than its technical challenges. For example, many people struggle with their high notes. While I have many technical tricks to help students, sometimes the best way to address a high note is to tackle the acting and emotion behind the phrase. When a student focuses on something else other than their voice, they often 'loosen' their body and instrument, enabling them to hit the high note. All these lessons my students have taught me have come to me preparing students for their auditions (college or professional). I see how focusing on the acting and performance of a song releases physical tension in my students' singing, enabling them to sing better than if I had only addressed the vocal technique. Thank you to all my students prepping for college auditions right now! DWS Every year, I judge the Solo/Ensemble Competition for the Beaumont area in February. I love serving as a judge for these vocal competitions: you get to hear great singers, discover new songs, and in a relaxed atmosphere (for the judge, not the singer!)
For this post, I wanted my voice students to understand how a judge critiques and evaluates singers. 1. While accuracy is important, you don’t have to be perfect. Messing up a note or two, or forgetting a word does not ruin your solo UNLESS you let it ruin it for you. 2. Be musical and take a risk. Try to make your singing unique. I am far more likely to grade you highly if there was something special about your singing. 3. Presentation and manners matter. A singer who comes in confident (or fakes it!) and with a warm greeting sets a great mood and I suspect makes a judge more forgiving. 4. I don’t care if your song is hard. I do care if you sing badly. Don’t pick a hard song that you can't sing well. I don’t give brownie points for difficulty. I would rather you pick an easier song that you can sing beautifully. 5. Voice teachers matter. It was very easy to tell when a singer had regular voice coaching. While the singers with voice lessons weren’t necessarily the best, they all were very polished and made few errors. Finally, I do want to say that the singers were extremely good, considering the circumstances. This Region was devastated by Hurricane Harvey and I know many of the singers and schools in this area (Port Arthur and Beaumont especially)are still rebuilding. It was a testament to these students that they sang with such maturity and grace. DWS The most often asked question I receive from new voice students is: do you teach adults?
My answer, of course, is YES! While there are obvious differences between a child and adult voice, the reality is that we all have the same instrument that operates on the same vocal technique - good breath support, posture, resonance etc...there is no real difference in how we sing, but in what we are capable of producing. A child’s instrument will have less power and range than a typical adult. However, children’s voices recover more quickly when the instrument is used poorly, and children also tend to have less bad habits that need to be fixed. For adult students, the most critical question is “what are your goals?” With a child, it is my responsibility as a voice teacher to guide their learning and set appropriate goals for auditions, songs and so forth. For my adult students, they are truly in command of the lesson. While I certainly lead on teaching good vocal technique, I give my adult students complete control over the music we work on IF that is what they want. I’ve worked on contemporary Christian, pop, country, rock, you name it...it makes for a very fun and enjoyable lesson because I’m learning about new styles and artists from different genres. The same goes for auditions: while I can certainly recommend ensembles to audition for, adult students can guide their own music career based on their interests and passions. Adults also differ from children because they have greater attention spans. Whereas I am cautious to make a voice lesson about just one topic for a younger singer, most adults love that sort of detailed work. Spending ten minutes on perfecting one high note or making a long phrase in one breath is no issue for an adult. DWS One of the most difficult things in music is to stay "on the beat" when your accompaniment (karaoke track) is complicated. And many singers have this issue, so please do not feel you are alone. In fact, I struggled regularly as a young singer to stay in tempo, as I did not know how to read music. One of the reasons I strongly advocate and help all my singers learn how to read music is that it makes following a song much easier.
There are several tricks you can use to stay with a difficult accompaniment. Some are aural and others are visual. Try one of these out. 1) Write out the beats above the measure so you know exactly which words fall on which beat. 2) Know your piano chords; when does the harmony change and on which words? Does the piano give you any cues for entrances? Most composers will try to give you clues in their accompaniment. 3) Be able to "sing" the piano part. You can often find your entrance(s) by making your own melody by singing the piano part in your head and including your starting pitch in that piano part. 4) Chant the words out loud, in rhythm, while you listen to the piano part. 5) Hum your melody while you listen to the piano. Figure out how your melody interacts with the piano/karaoke track. 6) Modify how you count the beats. Even if the quarter note technically get the beat in a song, sometimes the pace of the song almost requires you to count the beat in half-notes (slower pace) or eighth notes (faster pace). I hope this helps! DWS |
Archives
March 2024
Categories |
RSS Feed