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SATA reviews...
Singing and the
Actor (2nd edition)
Gillyanne Kayes
Published by A & C
Black, 2004.
ISBN 0-7136-6823. Price: £14.99
Review by David Carey*
The second edition
of Gillyanne Kayes' Singing and the Actor retains the original's
commitment to providing an informed and practical training programme
for the contemporary singing actor, and also preserves its essential
structure, but in many other ways improves on the first edition. The
text has been given a thorough revision to allow for new insights
and further information, clearer presentation and a fresh tone.
In particular, Kayes
has addressed the needs of readers who have different learning
styles by including a range of 'strategies for processing
information and developing muscle memory', and there is also a more
detailed consideration of important aspects such as registers and
gear changes, and of working with different voice qualities.
For BVA members who
have yet to read this manual by one of our leading vocal trainers,
it consists of three main sections: How the Voice Works, Training
Your Voice, and Working the Text. How the Voice Works provides the
reader with a clear and practical understanding of the functional
anatomy of the voice, how it works (obviously!) and, perhaps more
importantly, how and why it may not work. Individual chapters
introduce the reader to the vocal mechanism, in particular the
larynx, and to key concepts such as constriction/deconstriction,
effort monitoring, laryngeal postures, and breath support. The
reader is asked to engage actively with the material by means of
valuable practical exercises that serve to develop awareness and
control, and by song assignments that provide the necessary
application and development of concepts and skill.
The second section,
Training Your Voice, focuses on the real substance of a singer's
training - range, resonance, gear changes, vowel placement, and
dynamic control. Further key concepts are introduced and applied
incrementally through exercises and assignments: sirening and
mirening (sirening while mouthing words simultaneously), opening and
closing the nasal port, anchoring for vocal support, thick/thin
folds, twang, and medialisation of vowels. While much of this work
may now be familiar, particularly for singers and teachers with a
background in Estill Voice Craft, Kayes not only presents it in a
clear and accessible form but has also integrated it into a
pedagogical process which has clear application to the singing
actor.
Section Three:
Working the Text takes the reader through the process of preparing a
song for performance. Kayes demonstrates how to apply all the tools
and concepts previously explored to the reader's own choice of song;
she addresses issues of singing the text, such as maintaining vowel
integrity, bringing clarity to consonants, and communicating the
text with meaning; she also considers advanced work on creating
voice qualities such as falsetto, cry and belt and their use in song
interpretation before concluding with a worked through example of
applying a useful 5 point process to the song Anyone Can Whistle.
This is a highly useful text, not only for singing actors and their
teachers, but also for all voice professionals interested in the
specific development of the voice as an expressive instrument. The
only criticism I have is that, while there is a number of very
useful phonetic charts at several points in the text, these are
insufficiently referenced or explained. In all other respects, this
is a very well presented and illustrated practical handbook, which
constantly engages the reader as a partner in his/her own learning
process.
A new CD Audio Guide
to accompany the book containing examples in both the male and
female voice of all the voice qualities described in the book is in
the final stages of production and will be available through Vocal
Process.
*This review first appeared in the British Voice Association (BVA)
newsletter 'Communicating Voice' and on the BVA website:
http://www.british-voice-association.com
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Vocal Process SATA-related
products include:
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Singing and
The Actor - the book by Gillyanne kayes |
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The SATA Audio
Guide on CD |
Click on an image
(above) to find out more
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