Dear Candee and Vocalisters:
Your recent post defines well the common difficulties that have
prompted Randy's comments about voice teachers who do not concern
themselves with staying current about the science of vocal function.
Most teachers with successful careers, such as yours, drift into
teaching as their natural instrument begins to function less well.
It is a logical transition and has been the nature of voice teaching
for centuries. And it is logical that it is the direction you will
be seeking as that time approaches for your career.
In most cases these teachers collect students who are also extremely
well gifted and pass on to them those qualities of voice and career
which have been a personal help and which, eventually, define the
art. They are successful as teachers as they are successful at
attracting superior students. They seldom accept a student who is
not obviously well endowed with vocal gifts. Their value to the art
of singing is in passing on the art of singing to the next generation
of the gifted.
However, seldom do these teachers well define their teaching
technique and even more seldom do they build their teaching technique
on the fundamental physical functions of the voice. Instead they
teach as they were taught and attempt to generalize what worked for
them into some system that will work for equally gifted students.
In this sense, such teachers are more voice collectors rather than
voice correctors.
Which is alright, they are needed in such situations.
But today, more and more singers with a less obvious physical gifts
are being groomed to become great singers. I think this is so
because the science of vocal function is paying off. It began 100
years ago with Manual Garcia, the inventor of the laryngoscope, and
it is continuing today in a steady line of improvement with more
recent development in the analysis of vocal function and acoustic
considerations.
Perhaps this is not as it should be but I like it very much. You are
to be congratulated on your desire to learn more of this science/art
as you consider new directions for your gift to vocal music.
--
Lloyd W. Hanson
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