The Singer's Tools

I trust that some of you read today's New York Times Article, 'The End of The Great Big American Voice" that I mentioned in my e-mail of yesterday. If not, try accessing this link: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/13/arts/music/13midg.html?emc=eta1

The article is observant with respect to some (not all) vocal teachers and colleges. Singing in a college opera hardly prepares one for the real world of opera let alone a vocal career. Unfortunately, in many cases, the emphasis is on fee generation and not on guidance. Effective guidance directs you to the tools and aids which you must employ and constantly master to progress in your art. Music and theory are only a small part of it. Singing is a performing art and all performing arts, first and foremost, are arts of communication. Whether one is a dancer, singer, actor, orator, lawyer, professor or any one of a number of professions, one cannot be interesting or the least bit persuasive if one cannot communicate what one intends to the audience whether that audience be a theatre audience, judge, populace or a body of students. In the case of the singer, he/she must be able to paint a mood, convey a picture, express a thought of the character without loss of meaning, conjure up atmosphere from mysterious to romantic, and to do all of this in a most convincing manner so that the audience feels it is real and can identify with it. So some of the neglected fields, which must not forever remain neglected so far as you, the singer, are concerned, are drama, literature, poetry, history, sense of geography, knowledge of religions and beliefs, foreign cultures, painting and sculpture. In addition, you need to understand at least French, German and Italian and for today's American audience, Spanish. The more languages you can understand, the better. You must be ready to explore all genres of music. As Duke Ellington said "If you like it, it's good." Not a bad piece of advice. Good music lingers in the listener's ear. It is easily remembered by the layman. Music without melody can be interesting but it is not music. It is like poetry without emotion. It is not poetry but verse. Music without melody is merely musical form even though some musical form can be damned fascinating.

But back to tools:

I have often said, "if you can't say it, you can't sing it. If you cannot say the words with the emotional expression that was intended by their author, you surely cannot sing them." Yet what teacher of the many teachers actually teaches that? Most singers have never thought about the very essence of their piece: the words. Most singers never even realise they are reciting fine poems or literature most of the time.

Tools, tools! Drama! Do yourselves a favour, rent the video, "The Corn is Green", with Bette Davis (not Katherine Hepburn). Miss Moffat labored day and night to push a young illiterate, Morgan, into a better world, for she recognised a potential artist and greatness in the boy. The path was stormy. Morgan was pushed to the point of rebellion but eventually with mighty effort on both their parts, he won a scholarship to Oxford. He came back from that brief enrolment to his little Welsh village exulting in his new world. To the best of my memory, I will paraphrase his new-found realization that the right tools had been placed in his hands:

".....but I have been to Oxford, and come back, since then! I have come back - from the world!

Since the day I was born, I have been a prisoner behind a stone wall, and now somebody has given me a leg-up to have a look at the other side.....They cannot drag me back again, they cannot. They must give me a push and send me over!........

.........I saw the moon. Against that moon - I saw this room; you and me sitting here studying, and all those books - and everything I have ever learnt from those books, and from you, was lighted up - like a magic lantern: Ancient Rome, Greece, Shakespeare, Carlyle, Milton.... Everything had a meaning because I was in a new world - my world! And so it came to me why you worked like a slave to make me ready for this scholarship."

Yes, Miss Moffat had directed Morgan toward the right tools and Morgan had picked them up and mastered them. Right now, the most important tools you must master are the meanings of words and how you bring those meanings to your listener. Do that, and your voice will take its true shape and color. The size of your voice is not that important. Just so long as it carries and there is a true artist's mind behind it, you will succeed.