Thanks Barry!
Seth has made a huge contribution to the health of singing and singers at
large by embracing all styles of music and giving legitimacy to them. His
goal has been to give singers the freedom and ability to sing whatever and
whenever they want in a healthy manner, free of injury.
Overall, I think that should be, or is, the goal of all vocal
instructors.........allowing our students freedom of expression while giving
them the tools for a healthy production.
For those of us who are "SLS-er's", we all feel strong allegiance to Seth
and his teaching proved by his significant contributions to the musical
community. However, it would be ignorant and naive for any of to say that one
person holds all the keys to vocal methodology. It is a learning curve for
all of us......a process of growth and development.
Frankly, I"m excited at the trends I see developing over the next 10-20
years in vocal pedagogy and performance. Finally, we have the means to
analyze and study the voice and truly understand how and why it works the way
that it does, due to the advances in technology.
Seth was ahead of his time in that he saw 30 years ago where music was
heading and tried to bring legitimacy to all kinds of music through a common
technical approach......those ideas got him thrown out of colleges and
professional association back then.But now, as you said, the rest of us are
playing catch up now for what he had the foresight to see back
then...............let's hope that we will be a little wiser as we begin to
use the technological advances availabel to us and won't have to wait
another 30 years for an accurate understanding of the voice to be prevalent
in the educational institutions.
My two cents,
Mary Beth Felker
Seth Riggs/Speech Level Singing Associate
Pursuing MA degree in performance and speech language pathology.
Lifelong student
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