ODivaTina@a... wrote: > You might just engage your daughter's teacher in a little technical > discussion and ask her her beliefs about vocal technique.
First off, I'd like to thank everyone for their input on this subject. I'm listening very carefully to it all, and I hope I'm not opening too large of a can of worms for the list!
The times I have discussed vocal technique with my daughter's teacher, I have never gotten the impression that she felt that the lower register was bad or wrong, but rather that it could be damaging for young girls' voices. She used, as an example, Andrea McArdle and the Broadway play "Annie", and seemed to feel that the belting she did early on hurt her adult voice, and shortened her career.
Some of this, I'm sure, had to do with the fact that my daughter's desire to study voice came directly from her involvement in a local children's theater group, where the kids were strongly encouraged to belt out Broadway songs by a director who had little vocal training. I could see her concern had some justification.
So my daughter and her teacher set out, as I understand it, to develop her upper register (which was almost nonexistent) with the longterm plan of bridging it, in due time, to her chest voice. Where they are in that plan now, two years later, I couldn't say, but they seem to be working exclusively on the upper register.
None of which bothers me particularly, except that the head voice my daughter has developed sounds markedly different from that of her age peers---far more trained & operatic. In a real sense, she seems to be moving from an Eponine to the adult Cosette & beyond, if you follow my clumsy Les Miz reference, and I'm not at all sure that is where she wants to go ultimately.
So late at night, when I'm in full worried-mother mode, I wonder if she is on the right road, and whether it's one way, or she will be able to redirect later on if she so chooses...
Small worries, indeed, in the grand scheme of things, but still I appreciate your help in putting them to rest.
Julia farmer@a...
|
| |