from me..Reg. >> 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.
from Isabelle B >Actually, I am advocating having a young singer spend >5 or 6 years in the studio, concentrating on NOTHING >but technique (and perhaps language study, if they >have extra time) so that the technique is the first >thing to learn.
Dear Isabelle, This is flipping to the other approach. Apart from jeopardising the sustained involvement of the student it is slowing down the development and extending the training duration.
>In fact, I think that lieder, in many ways, is much >more demanding of an individual instrument than opera, >which is why I totally disagree with the practice of >giving young singers a steady diet of lieder until >they are mature enough to "handle" arias and roles.
I'm sorry I interpreted what you wrote as an opinion that lieder should not be included in the intense training approach. The top down one. I would have to disagree. On the contrary it is the demanding character of the work that makes it so valuable.
I absolutely agree that technique is the first thing to learn and if the other, bottom up involvement, (experience), gets in the way of adequate advancement in technique, then the bottom up would need to be trimmed but not curtailed. It's the absolutes of songs and lieder that call into action the deepest vocal and bodily activity to stir the pot: apply the theory: interpret the teachers input to achieve an easy and correct performance of the work. Whether this is scales, arpeggios, Concone, songs or leider. Perhaps I need to define bottom up and top down for some. If bottom up is to 'just get out there and do it', 'put it across' then we leave the way open for anything that passes as a satisfactory performance, which may depart considerably from the original intention and still be declared wonderful. No problem here if that same singer can also accurately perform exactly as the composer intended. If not, the singer is programming himself for a career of sloppy performing.
Top down implies not a learning by doing, but a learning by listening. Listening to what the teacher has to impart: to what the exercises require and what the piano is saying in the lied. If your technique cannot meet these needs then it's like a bolt from the blue as to which part of your technique needs work. This held up to the requirements of your bottom up involvement discloses the liberties being taken in that singing, and that's good.
>If by "bottom-up" you mean that the singer begins with >the voice, studies only the voice, and THEN (after a >few years of technical study) gives attention to the >other details -- then that is exactly what I advocate.
No. You describe top down. Sensitization.
>I find it is not a popular proposal, since many >singers are impatient (they want to begin performing >when young, in lieder recitals and workshops, before >the voice is under control),
Exactly. So if they want to do that, and they do, then why go overboard with a bottom up approach that will do little but reinforce bad habits and reveal inadequacies. I don't mean to eliminate it. It has to be a productive balance that will speed progress, lead to vocal comprehension and achieve a social balance.
>conservatories want to show their students performing, >and thus push them into developing "performing" skills >(and musicality, which is not a bad thing but it can >take away a singer's time/energy which should be >devoted to technical study) before the technical >singing skills are finished. If singers would just >realize that they have to invest some years into the >vocal aspects of singing before they are ready to go >out into the world, there would be FAR fewer >burned-out singers (since I see burn-out as a result >of a singer with imperfect technique who was trying to >perform before the voice was ready).
Like I said, you're worth your weight in GOLD Isabelle. I find myself reducing the practise I'll do on a day that happens to clash with a night of choir singing. If technique needs the practise then perhaps the choir time should be reduced or removed but then there are social pressures that need balancing. Despondency is just around the corner if we set out artistic and social goals beyond our reach.
My teacher tells me it takes five to ten years to re-programme a vocal technique to which I respond I don't have that amount of time. Thinking back I remember how difficult it was to juggle the demands of family and singing and wonder how it is that some can retain an equilibrium while still being detached sufficiently to become vocally proficient. So obviously there are advantages in getting it right first time.
Best Wishes Reg.
P.S. We seem to have another point of disagreement here Isabelle! "Lieder and lighter rep make it too easy to "slum" and slip into bad habits "
|
| |