Dear Isabelle,
Experience has shown me that you are
both right and wrong. I squandered a most promising
singing career by trying to learn it from the bottom up,
which is what learning from experience is. You appear
to advocate this in preference to the dual one of both
learning from the top down: the lieder training method,
and the bottom up. Either is correct but only BOTH
ensure a rapid and complete coverage, whatever the
subject.
This is what I see as an attempt to be
objective about training.
I understand exactly what you advocate
but I think it's a view clouded by impatience. This is
one of the most important tasks of a teacher I think:
the moderation of expectations and the imparting of
the methods of training. Theory and finesse from the
top down and experience from the bottom up means
we arrive at the middle most promptly and completely.
I'd like to hear Lloyd on this.
>student has been polished and poised, and sings in a
>lovely, artistic, intelligent manner, with perfect
>dynamic control and linguistic understanding, and the
>tone is totally untrained and still immature (breathy,
>lacking in ring, placed too high or falling into the
>throat, etc.)
I've seen this so often, too, but then there's the other
end where the voice has the ring and personality but
is devoid of the early technique. This voice has to be
carefully restrained by someone other than the owner
lest it trample the whole flower bed.
My training in the last 18 months has
frequently lead me to a point where my improvement
in technique has left me quite disappointed with some
of the songs and lieder I had learned with a less
efficient one. I think back to some of the productions
I have had major parts in, and grind my teeth in
despair at how much better they could have been if
this last few months had been back then.
All for the lack of timely guidance!!
A singer can only endure for so-long on natural
talent and spontaneity
There are plenty of directors who
would only too swiftly agree with you. Burning
out a young singer by throwing her or him in at
the deep-end merely for a quick box-office return
ensures that the singer has a pecuniary interest in
accepting the bottom up method to the exclusion
of the alternatives. This may or may not be in the
long term financial interests of the singer, but most
likely will be to the detriment of his art.
[Ok, so you can't burn anyone out by throwing
them in at the deep end:) It's still better than 'them
pissing in your pocket and expecting you to
swallow it.' Mix yur own metaphor;)]
Regards Reg.
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