Dear List and Michael:
--- In vocalist-temporary@yahoogroups.com, "edsmed969
<michael.gum@d...>" <michael.gum@d...> wrote:
> Ok, so what your saying is .. that since I sing and sang 'popular'
> music and not 'operatic' music when I was originally trained ..
that
> I was not trained classically ???
Again, this is kind of tricky without hearing you sing. It is
possible I think to sing "popular" music and have a well trained
voice - frankly I have no idea really what popular music means,
though. I think it's not so much the music as how you sing the
music - I'm kind of out of touch with whatever is "popular" these
days, but it is possible to sing "Beatles" or "Simon and Garfunkel"
somewhat classically - such music has nice melodies and sustained
notes. Was the emphasis in your training on the classical ideals -
sustained singing, pure vowels, resonance, smoothly connected
registers, etc? If so, then I guess you could be classically trained
without singing "classical" music.
In general, though, I would be very skeptical of someone who has
never trained to sing operatically and wants to step on stage and
sing in an opera or perform oratorios. For example, I was in Borders
the other day and saw a CD by "Russell Watson" - I guess he is some
sort of pop tenor singer. He's a talented guy, and I would say that
compared to joe on the street he has a trained voice, but it's not
trained to perform opera. I took a quick listen to his attempt at
singing classical arias and I didn't like it at all!! In fact, no
offense to him - I couldn't do any better myself, but I really
couldn't stand his singing of the classical material and would never
buy his CD. Now maybe his pop singing, on the other hand, is pretty
good. I would further add that most famous opera tenors haven't a
clue at singing non-opera stuff, and I wouldn't buy their pop albums.
Although most of my singing has been in classical choirs, and my
teachers classically oriented, I also like vocal jazz and barbershop.
In my opinion, the best of the singers in these non-classical genres
are pretty close in their technique to classical singers, especially
the men. But that doesn't mean they are ready to have careers in
opera or classical music without further training...
The "pop" singers of an earlier era sang with very much the same
technique, in my opinion, as classical singers, perhaps with some
adjustments for style and resonance. I have an older recording of
say Tony Bennett, and while I don't know how well his voice would
have projected on the operatic stage, the technique to me is
essentially the same as that of a classical singer.
That's my opinion. Just curious - why do you care whether we think
you were "classically" trained?
Cheers,
Michael Gordon
|
