Whoops, I should have waited two seconds for mike's
response to come through...
[about students listening to their studio lessons and
not understanding how they'll sound outside the
studio]
> i doubt most students make that distinction.
Surely they must! If you aren't listening to your
lesson tapes specifically for certain sounds and
concepts, then what's the point? If I'm listening to
my lessons because we're working on squillo, then I
learn to recognize that sound and remember that
feeling when the teacher says, "Yes" -- even if that
moment doesn't sound so hot on the tape. This is part
of the necessary trust between teacher and student --
you trust the teacher's ears, and you go for the sound
they want, even if it sounds slightly off in a small
room. Good teachers tell their students this, too:
"YES! That's exactly the right sound. It might sound
a little shrill to you on the tape, but that's what I
want you to go for -- that's the sound that will cut
through an orchestra."
A good teacher's ears will listen for the big-house
sound and teach that technique, despite a small
studio; a good student will put aside the initial "but
I don't sound like Diskau on my lesson tapes" dismay
and use the tapes as a learning tool, rather than an
enjoyable listening experience.
> for most singers, the experience is the small
> studio. for the singers
> you are claiming to have adversly affected their
> voices by recording, their
> experience includes the larger stages for more of
> their singing than any other singers.
Yes, but singers KNOW about this difference. They
sing differently in a studio than they do in a house.
Listen to any current coloratura's recordings and then
go see her in a big theater -- the production is
amazingly different. Big-name singers with big
recording contracts and savvy agents make a LOT of
adjustments when they go into the studio.
Remember, the days of planting Tetrazzini in front of
a horn and giving her one cylinder to sing her heart
out are gone -- the big singers also learn how to sing
for the studio, they don't just walk in and run
through their rep once. And you can sense what
adjustments you might be able to make if you didn't
have to worry about being heard, too, when you're
hammering out your technique -- you can tell what the
compromises both ways are. Especially when your
teacher is telling you, "I know you want to sink into
that [u] vowel, but it's killing your ring; modify it
to [o] in order to be heard over the orchestra."
In houses which are secretly or not-so-secretly miked
(like NYCO and Berlin, both of which admit it),
singers will routinely plant their spouses or friends
in the house during rehearsals (often with minidiscs)
in order to discover what sorts of adjustments they
need to make.
Isabelle B.
=====
Isabelle Bracamonte, ibracamonte@y...
San Francisco, CA
moderator of Vocalist: the mailing list for singers
(vocalist-temporary@yahoogroups.com)
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