Vocalist.org archive


From:  "Audrey Gamez" <letmusiclive4ever@a...>
Date:  Sat Sep 28, 2002  6:04 am
Subject:  Re: Looking for ideas

This conversational thread is of particular interest to me as well
since this EXACTLY what I am studying at the moment. Although I have
not the expertice that many others here can supply as I am still
faily young and not yet finished with my degree, I feel it necessary
to reply.

Ok, so you have a singer who is not able to portray the emotional
meaning behind the piece that she is singing, either because she
feels it and it is not translating into her peformance or because she
thinks about the emotion and believes that this will translate into
performance and it is not (I'm not sure which is true by your post).
In either case, what's happening is that the singer is not able
to "act" the song effectively. I agree with many of the opinions
already stated to which the singer must feel the emotion of the piece
and have some connectivity to it. HOWEVER, from my own knowlege of
singing and acting, and from what i have been taught about singing
and acting thus far, this certainly is not enough for some singers.
An example of this was an experience I had working in a workshop
setting this summer. I was in a cast with a particular singer who had
never had much acting experience with regards to singing and the
prompting that other singers as well as myself gave her to "feel mad
here" or "think about how you would feel in this situation" did not
translate into her movement on stage or even more credible facial
expression. However, when this same singer was asked to make specific
choices by the stage director regarding her movement and what she was
doing at a given time with her body in order to "act", the results
had more emotional integrity. Therefore, a singer must be aware not
only of the emotion of a piece and be in the moment, but must also
beware of their bodies and have made choices about their performance
with regards to their face and body. To quote my teacher, "there
should be a certain amount of flexibility within each given choice in
order to retain the spontenaity of stage performing, however certain
choices need to be made in order to look like you know what you are
doing and must be rehearsed in order for the singer-acter to be
comfortable with them onstage." A common misconception that many
singers have is that "the eyes are the gateway to the soul". This may
be exactly what your singer believes as it is the belief of most
people. The eyes are a very intimate and useful tool of expression,
however they have little capacity on their own for emotional
expression. The eyes accompanied with the face and eye brows, on the
other had, have a much greater capacity for emotional expression. In
order to make intelligent choices as to what your singer is trying to
portay, she must first be aware of the text of the song. If this is
an opera or a show what is going on at this point and what other
characters might be onstage? Is she talking to someone else , to
herself or is she in direct conversation with the audience? Is she
looking at another character or invisioning them in her mind? When is
it appropriate to break focus from what she is supposedly seeing
within the context of the song? What is she doing with her face, with
her eyes, with each individual part of her body at any given point?
What can she do with her face and body in order to make the music
happen? These are just few questions that might help your singer to
get started. Granted, these are just general questions that i am
posing without real knowlege of her repertoire or what she maybe
working on, but i hope it helps for a jumping off point. Also, if
available, I think a singing-acting techniques class would be helpful
to your student. Such a class focuses specifically on what it takes
to act while singing and is different from a regular acting class in
this regard, because it will more greatly help to integrate her
current singing technique with a newly acquired acting technique. If
this is not an option, then go with a regular acting class if
possible. Any new bit of knowlege will help the overall learning of
the craft. I think it wise as well to explore the literature of H.
Wesley Balk in order to gain more idea as how to help your individual
student. My teacher has studied with him and our text is based quite
heavily on his teachings. It is an excellent point of reference and
will greatly aid your student. I believe he also proposes excercises
with which to help the singer to learn (I have not actually read his
books myself yet, but as i said before, our text is based quite
heavily on his teachings and literature).

As far as repertoire goes, my personal opinion would be to go with
something IN ENGLISH while trying to build her acting craft. This is
to make the barriers of learning lessened by giving her something
which is easily understandable to her because it is in her native
tongue. Also, I do not recommend at this point giving her anything
with a very long introduction or coda as pieces with such dynamics
are often hard to start out with when you are learning the craft
because it is hard to know what to do to fill in the time.

I hope I have been able to help in even the smallest way.

- Audrey Gamez :)




--- In vocalist-temporary@y..., "Robert Edgar" <redgar@b...> wrote:
> Dear listers,
> I am looking for some ideas on how to solve a problem with
a student
> of mine. She is a 31years old soprano who has had to work very hard
to
> develop some quality of tone in her upper voice. That she has
accomplished
> fairly well, although we still have some work to do to stop the
reediness,
> but her problem is the inability to sing with sensitivity. What I
mean by
> that is, she finds it very difficult to sing with passion, emotion,
> sincerity etc. She certainly thinks it, but it do not come from her
heart. I
> thought maybe I could approach the problem via character songs,
folk songs
> etc but am asking if anyone has some brighter ideas. I'm mainly
trying to
> build this technique for the benefit of Art songs and Lieder. I
find this
> technique very easy to do, but when it comes to teaching someone
else, I've
> hit a brick wall. I've even made her watch me, but it doesn't
transfer. Hope
> someone has some great ideas.
> Robyn Edgar
> Australia
> redgar@b...




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