Dear Vocalisters:
I have found that most new students to the vocal performance degree consider themselves singers first and musicians second. That is not acceptable.
Consequently most schools of music and, in some cases, conservatories have to take on the job of teaching these singers to be musicians, that is, singers who can read music (including sight singing), understand a score (not only for their own vocal part but for the parts of others and the orchestra as well), and have at least a rudimentary concept of performing styles. All of this should be a part of their knowledge before coming into a performance program at the college level but it seldom is. In other words, most new singers in performing programs at the college level are illiterate, musically.
No theatre program, even at the junior high school level, would consider casting a student who could not read the play, but it is common to find students who were very active in choral groups and music productions in high school and are still unable to read a music score.
This need for remedial training holds the singing performer back. And as more and more students are coming into performing programs in the colleges, the colleges are able to be more selective. The singer who is also a musician will always be selected over the lovely voice who has not developed his/her musicianship skills.
Professionally, in the classical world of song, music theatre and opera, more and more singing musicians are being hired rather than just lovely voices. The constant crunch of limited funds requires that those hired are able to do the learning work themselves.
So . . . as one starts a college study of performance, be ready to meet a more and more rigorous emphasis on music theory, sight reading, music dictation, music history and performance practices in addition to the usual but more strongly demanding practice on your instrument or voice. Most programs at most universities and colleges begin with easy material and become more complex and difficult as the students skills grow. It is necessary to remember that one is learning a skill, not an intellectual thought and a skill can only be learned by DOING it, not simply by talking or thinking about it.
As an addendum, we require all vocal performance majors to turn in 6 reports per semester about their listening to song recital or opera performances from recorded material in our library. Each report follows a form that steers the student toward developing a more accurate analyses of what he/she is hearing. We do this because most students do not have much of a background in song recital or opera performances nor are they even slightly familiar with the really great singers available on record.
We emphasis classical vocal training at NAU because that is, in our opinion, the most efficient, succinct approach to becoming a singer who is also a musician. We hold no bad vibes for any musical style (we have an outstanding instrumental jazz program run by the great bassist, Pete Bartolo, for example) but we have had the best success training along a classical ideal because it represents the most condensed synthesis of the require skills and the nature of the musical art.
Congrats on being accepted into a vocal performance program. Work very hard. It will be required of you. Allow music to be your master and it will pay you very well.
-- Lloyd W. Hanson, DMA Professor of Voice, Pedagogy School of Performing Arts Northern Arizona University Flagstaff, AZ 86011
|