John said: "I urge all of you who would like to perform more authentically
to try the experiment of changing the groove of something in your repertoire
and see what happens when you go back to performing with the original
groove."
One of the things my students have been working with this past year are CD
and MIDI arrangements of song accompaniments, and I've been encouraging them
to seek out the most interesting, fun arrangements they can find. Some of my
students even create their own arrangements. One of the unforseen benefits
is that now I'll hear a singer work on something like the Lord's Prayer,
both "straight" as they might be expected to sing for a funeral, and a more
jazzy, ornamented version that would play well in a wedding or contemporary
church setting. Asking the singers to match their style to that of the
arrangement is a good exercise in itself, and it really seems to bring home
the fact that you can...and should...be able to change style while singing
with the same underlying technique.
One singer used to sing everything with pop-style ornaments, no problem when
this was appropriate to the music, but frankly more of a habit than an
artistic choice. Working with an orchestrated, "contemporary christian"
soundtrack on a song she'd first learned as a classical solo was fun for
her, since for the first time I was advising her to add More notes:-), and
when we returned to work on the classical version, she suddenly realized how
much of what she'd been singing originally didn't fit the tone of the
"straight" arrangement. She reads music but I suspect tends to learn more by
ear, and this experience has her now looking more closely at what is on the
page, and what and Why she chooses to add for stylistic effects. As a
result, her artistry has increased in both classical and pop singing.
Hooray!
I'm starting to get sent MIDI files for our holiday studio concert, and the
wilder they are, the better I like them!
-y
_Dr. Yvonne Dechance
Email: ydechance@s..., Homepage: http://www.scaredofthat.com/yworld/
The Diction Domain: Free voice diction resources for singers
http://over.to/dictiondomain
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