Nande's posts have been making me reflect on the value
of being able to sight-read. Outside of choral
situations, is it necessary for a singer?
The more professionals and young artist singers I
meet, the more surprised I am that only a small
percentage of the singers have good reading abilities.
Most of them say that -- gasp -- they learn their
roles from recordings.
I know this is frowned upon by the teachers of the
singing industry. But why? If you listen to more
than one recording (say, a variety of recordings from
the 1920s through the 2000s) there is no danger of
imitating a particular performer's style or
mannerisms. It is much quicker for singers to go the
Nande route, simply reading along with score in hand
while the music gets imprinted into the brian, than to
spend a lot of time trying to decipher the notes and
rests and still not know how the orchestration sounds
-- or spend hours trying to pound out the piano
reduction on the piano, when half the time could be
spent with recordings and scores before going off to
the teacher or coach.
I can see value in being able to sight-read in
situations where the music has never been recorded,
i.e. new music. But this music is often terribly
difficult to read because of atonality, odd intervals,
etc. Another useful situation might be when learning
a piece on tremendously short notice -- but, again, it
is so much more time-efficient for a singer with a
good, quick ear (as most singers have) to listen
through a couple of times and then have it.
I work on my sight-singing and I am taking piano
lessons diligently. I am able to play very simple
two-handed melodic lines (one line in each hand; no
chords yet), once I have played each hand separately
many times over. I try to learn these things because
it has been drummed into my head that it is better,
finer, nobler, to be able to learn a role from scratch
by looking at it than by listening to it first. Now I
am wondering why.
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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