This conversational thread is of particular interest to me as well since this EXACTLY what I am studying at the moment. Although I have not the expertice that many others here can supply as I am still faily young and not yet finished with my degree, I feel it necessary to reply.
Ok, so you have a singer who is not able to portray the emotional meaning behind the piece that she is singing, either because she feels it and it is not translating into her peformance or because she thinks about the emotion and believes that this will translate into performance and it is not (I'm not sure which is true by your post). In either case, what's happening is that the singer is not able to "act" the song effectively. I agree with many of the opinions already stated to which the singer must feel the emotion of the piece and have some connectivity to it. HOWEVER, from my own knowlege of singing and acting, and from what i have been taught about singing and acting thus far, this certainly is not enough for some singers. An example of this was an experience I had working in a workshop setting this summer. I was in a cast with a particular singer who had never had much acting experience with regards to singing and the prompting that other singers as well as myself gave her to "feel mad here" or "think about how you would feel in this situation" did not translate into her movement on stage or even more credible facial expression. However, when this same singer was asked to make specific choices by the stage director regarding her movement and what she was doing at a given time with her body in order to "act", the results had more emotional integrity. Therefore, a singer must be aware not only of the emotion of a piece and be in the moment, but must also beware of their bodies and have made choices about their performance with regards to their face and body. To quote my teacher, "there should be a certain amount of flexibility within each given choice in order to retain the spontenaity of stage performing, however certain choices need to be made in order to look like you know what you are doing and must be rehearsed in order for the singer-acter to be comfortable with them onstage." A common misconception that many singers have is that "the eyes are the gateway to the soul". This may be exactly what your singer believes as it is the belief of most people. The eyes are a very intimate and useful tool of expression, however they have little capacity on their own for emotional expression. The eyes accompanied with the face and eye brows, on the other had, have a much greater capacity for emotional expression. In order to make intelligent choices as to what your singer is trying to portay, she must first be aware of the text of the song. If this is an opera or a show what is going on at this point and what other characters might be onstage? Is she talking to someone else , to herself or is she in direct conversation with the audience? Is she looking at another character or invisioning them in her mind? When is it appropriate to break focus from what she is supposedly seeing within the context of the song? What is she doing with her face, with her eyes, with each individual part of her body at any given point? What can she do with her face and body in order to make the music happen? These are just few questions that might help your singer to get started. Granted, these are just general questions that i am posing without real knowlege of her repertoire or what she maybe working on, but i hope it helps for a jumping off point. Also, if available, I think a singing-acting techniques class would be helpful to your student. Such a class focuses specifically on what it takes to act while singing and is different from a regular acting class in this regard, because it will more greatly help to integrate her current singing technique with a newly acquired acting technique. If this is not an option, then go with a regular acting class if possible. Any new bit of knowlege will help the overall learning of the craft. I think it wise as well to explore the literature of H. Wesley Balk in order to gain more idea as how to help your individual student. My teacher has studied with him and our text is based quite heavily on his teachings. It is an excellent point of reference and will greatly aid your student. I believe he also proposes excercises with which to help the singer to learn (I have not actually read his books myself yet, but as i said before, our text is based quite heavily on his teachings and literature).
As far as repertoire goes, my personal opinion would be to go with something IN ENGLISH while trying to build her acting craft. This is to make the barriers of learning lessened by giving her something which is easily understandable to her because it is in her native tongue. Also, I do not recommend at this point giving her anything with a very long introduction or coda as pieces with such dynamics are often hard to start out with when you are learning the craft because it is hard to know what to do to fill in the time.
I hope I have been able to help in even the smallest way.
- Audrey Gamez :)
--- In vocalist-temporary@y..., "Robert Edgar" <redgar@b...> wrote: > Dear listers, > I am looking for some ideas on how to solve a problem with a student > of mine. She is a 31years old soprano who has had to work very hard to > develop some quality of tone in her upper voice. That she has accomplished > fairly well, although we still have some work to do to stop the reediness, > but her problem is the inability to sing with sensitivity. What I mean by > that is, she finds it very difficult to sing with passion, emotion, > sincerity etc. She certainly thinks it, but it do not come from her heart. I > thought maybe I could approach the problem via character songs, folk songs > etc but am asking if anyone has some brighter ideas. I'm mainly trying to > build this technique for the benefit of Art songs and Lieder. I find this > technique very easy to do, but when it comes to teaching someone else, I've > hit a brick wall. I've even made her watch me, but it doesn't transfer. Hope > someone has some great ideas. > Robyn Edgar > Australia > redgar@b...
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