I have long enjoyed Jeannie Lovetri's blog - this week's was really interesting. She makes a rather long list of all the things a singer is expected to do well. Then adds a few things for specific styles such as CCM, etc.
LoVetri Post: It's Complicated
As she says at the end - it's a wonder anyone is able get all this done!
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Friday, September 10, 2010
Musical Constipation
I experienced one of those "breakthrough" lessons with a student today. She performs a lot of commercial-type music and was feeling "emotionally constipated" (my phrase) by classical music. She had a change of heart with (of all things) "V'adoro pupile" from Giulio Cesare by Handel. If you know Handel, you will immediately wonder how a commercial singer found a "way in" to classical music in this way.
I reminded her that singers at this time were expected to "improvise" within these arias. That improvisation, in fact, was a big part of their training. It seemed as if my student was feeling constrained by her expectation that she should "only do what is on the page." While this is true, we reminded ourselves that the piece of paper with a lot of black dots is not music. It is merely the representation of music. MUSIC is what we are creating when we sing/play. The paper is merely our road map to re-creating what the composer had in his head. We are expected to bring something of our own creative powers to the table as well and, in a way, are meant to create the music every time as if we are making it up on the spot.
It was as if a light turned on in a different room in this student's brain! (My teacher, friend and mentor Gary Race would have said that she connected with her communicator!) And I can tell you that it was a different experience hearing her sing after that moment. She still had some technical issues with the passaggio and needed to further modify some of the top notes for optimal resonance. She could use a little work on her legato. But that is not the point. She SANG.
My question now is, where did this girl get the idea in the first place that she was supposed to sing "classical" music any differently than that??? I am not taking the blame for this personally because this is our second semester working together and I have been trying to convince her to do this the entire time. But she got the idea somewhere. Was it my predecessor? I doubt that she specifically told this student that she ought to sing "classical" music in a way that was so emotionally rigid. Do we have a culture of constipation? If not, do our students think we do? Where do they get that idea?
I will grant that studying something academically has an inherent danger of sucking the life right out of it. But it isn't a foregone conclusion. Is it?
Below, I include a youtube clip from a production of Giulio Cesare in which Danielle de Niese gives a stellar performance as Cleopatra and sings the aria discussed above. The production was a Bollywood-inspired version of the story and got rave reviews from just about everyone. Ms. de Niese is admittedly not my favorite singer and this staging is a little strange out of context but one thing you CANNOT say is that her performance is boring.
Now - who do we know who is not boring AND sings beautifully at the same time? Hmmmmmmm.....
I reminded her that singers at this time were expected to "improvise" within these arias. That improvisation, in fact, was a big part of their training. It seemed as if my student was feeling constrained by her expectation that she should "only do what is on the page." While this is true, we reminded ourselves that the piece of paper with a lot of black dots is not music. It is merely the representation of music. MUSIC is what we are creating when we sing/play. The paper is merely our road map to re-creating what the composer had in his head. We are expected to bring something of our own creative powers to the table as well and, in a way, are meant to create the music every time as if we are making it up on the spot.
It was as if a light turned on in a different room in this student's brain! (My teacher, friend and mentor Gary Race would have said that she connected with her communicator!) And I can tell you that it was a different experience hearing her sing after that moment. She still had some technical issues with the passaggio and needed to further modify some of the top notes for optimal resonance. She could use a little work on her legato. But that is not the point. She SANG.
My question now is, where did this girl get the idea in the first place that she was supposed to sing "classical" music any differently than that??? I am not taking the blame for this personally because this is our second semester working together and I have been trying to convince her to do this the entire time. But she got the idea somewhere. Was it my predecessor? I doubt that she specifically told this student that she ought to sing "classical" music in a way that was so emotionally rigid. Do we have a culture of constipation? If not, do our students think we do? Where do they get that idea?
I will grant that studying something academically has an inherent danger of sucking the life right out of it. But it isn't a foregone conclusion. Is it?
Below, I include a youtube clip from a production of Giulio Cesare in which Danielle de Niese gives a stellar performance as Cleopatra and sings the aria discussed above. The production was a Bollywood-inspired version of the story and got rave reviews from just about everyone. Ms. de Niese is admittedly not my favorite singer and this staging is a little strange out of context but one thing you CANNOT say is that her performance is boring.
Now - who do we know who is not boring AND sings beautifully at the same time? Hmmmmmmm.....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)