> Your argument, if you will forgive the comparison,
> has the same sort of
> idealism that one used to find in Communism or in
> Behaviourist psychology,
> in that it states an unattainable position made
> unattainable by some
> inalterable facts of human nature.
Well, yes -- that's why it (the Porpora method) is the
extreme end of the example. The more real-life model
is Jennifer's approach (study privately for some years
before going out and performing).
The economic argument (was that Liz?) is also a strong
one. But conservatory costs exorbitant amounts of
money, and gives singers the wrong tools at the wrong
time (not enough technical training, and too much
polishing before they are vocally equipped to use it).
Ideally, yes, you would find a teacher, study every
day, and concentrate only on technique until your
voice was ready. In the real world, I still maintain
that you're better off saving your conservatory money
and training your instrument privately, and/or finding
a job and splitting your time between money-making and
vocal training.
I also maintain that singers should get non-singing
jobs while they are still training, for the same
reason that I don't think lieder should be sung at an
early age -- by going out and singing before you are
technically prepared, you are only learning bad
habits, how to cheat (technically speaking), and
taking time and energy away from your real practicing
and training.
If you get a singing job to pay the bills and pay for
lessons, you are wasting your 2-3 hours of "vocal
time" (the time you can use your voice each day before
you get tired) on the job, when that time would be
better applied to your practicing. This assumes that
you are not yet at a technical point where you can
sing anything correctly -- hence, a large portion of
your job-singing is going to be imperfect. If you get
a job doing something else, you have those 2-3 hours
to spend perfecting your instrument instead.
Similarly, if young singers spend an hour each day
singing through lieder songs (which were, it's true,
written for the untrained voice and are easy to sing
incorrectly but pleasantly -- and bloody difficult to
sing with perfect technique), that's an hour they
could have been spending doing their take-home
vocalises to strengthen that G, or smooth out the
passaggio, or any other concept that the singer's
teacher happens to be working on at the moment. And
if the lesson time is spent singing incorrectly but
pleasantly through the easier lieder instead of
concentrating on technique -- that's a waste of a
teacher, in my opinion.
And to sing lieder CORRECTLY -- that is, again in my
opinion, more difficult than opera. It's harder to
sing musical theater "correctly" (in operatic terms)
than it is to sing opera, simply because opera doesn't
give you a choice. If you don't sing the A's and B's
correctly in Caro nome, you'll never make it to the
high E -- survival through correctness. You won't be
able to sing straight through the aria for x number of
months, as you practice and are corrected and guided
at every note, but you'll always be on the path to
technical correctness. Lieder and lighter rep make it
too easy to "slum" and slip into bad habits -- you can
spend two hours veering down an easy but technically
off-base vocal path, which is not only a waste of time
(think of those two steps down the original path you
could have taken in that time), but often you have to
spend extra time finding your way back. Unless, that
is, you have already mastered the high pianissimo and
how to sing all your consonants without messing up
your vowels -- in which case you are beyond the
training stage of vocal development anyway.
Plus, the nature of lieder is that the text is the
most important thing to communicate, whereas in opera
it is the vocal line. Since, in training, the vocal
line has to come first (according to my
technique-then-polish theory), it is easier for young
singers to concentrate on the voice (and ONLY the
voice) with Mozart and Bellini than with Schubert and
Brahms. The forms demand different priorities.
Someone please tell me when I stop clarifying my
position and begin ranting... I don't want to go on
and on about this, but I think it's important, and is
the reason why the conservatory/university system
turns out so many bland, mediocre voices.
Actually, this is great, since it forces me to
verbalize my thoughts to myself, and clarify my own
position.
Isabelle B.
=====
Isabelle Bracamonte
San Francisco, CA
ibracamonte@y...
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