Course reports

It's been a busy few weeks for Vocal Process with several courses in London, Motherwell and Mansfield.

With One Voice was back at RADA on 28th April. This course is the final taught unit of Integrated Voice Module I. The overall aim of the course is to emphasise the link between singing and speaking. Here is an extract from a report by Ruth Hamilton (Integrated Voice participant) on her experience of the course.

“It is only recently that I have entered the arena of vocal coaching. After singing and performing for ten years with relatively few vocal lessons myself, the choice to become a teacher, was a daunting prospect. I have developed my own singing voice through performance experience, through explorations of my own sound and also by listening to other vocalists.
The course highlighted for me the different methods of approaching text for both actors and singers. The exercise, in which we explored the spoken text of “I remember”, was an interesting way to discover sounds, rhythms and meaning incorporated within the words. This exercise gave us the time to experiment with the words and build our own character from the text and some further suggested impetus.

We then moved on to learn the text as a song and we were faced with the new dimension of music. With that came the imposed motivations and intentions of the composer. In one way it became difficult to use our previous work on the spoken text and apply the same intention to the song because for some of us the music didn’t lend itself to the character we had created. On the other hand it was quite easy to find a new motivation because the tune and phrasing alone were very descriptive and suggested a certain mood and character.
From this exercise sprung the question of whether one should unlock the meaning in the lyrics and adapt the song to make it true to you, or to focus on performing the song how the composer intended it. In the early C20th, Elsie Fogerty developed “a fundamental principle of (spoken) voice teaching, “that we are developing expressive skill in order to serve the writer’s intentions not the speaker’s ego””. Is this also relevant as an approach to song and lyrics?

The answer doesn’t appear to be black-and-white when it comes to approaching song. For example, a classical singer is likely to prioritise an evenness of tone over expressing the emotion of the text, in order to do justice to the musical composer, whereas a musical theatre performer may approach a song in a similar way to an actor approaching a script; making the words and character the focus. A jazz singer, on the other hand is expected to take a standard and make it their own through musical and rhythmic improvisation, in some instances resulting in the original melody becoming unrecognisable.

In terms of my work as a vocal coach, this course has shown me the benefits of using speech and singing side-by-side. In future I intend to experiment with different approaches to teaching students new songs. Rather than taking students through the lyrics and melody at the same time, I will attempt to teach them the tune without words and then separately tackle the lyrics and rhythm. Often students concentrate so hard on the melody and hitting the right notes, that they have no idea what they are singing about. With this method, there is more chance of a student remembering the words and they may also gain a greater understanding of the song.

Currently, I have little experience as a voice diagnostician, so the tips from the course will be invaluable. However, I am lucky enough to be in a position where I have the opportunity to explore many of the ideas that were introduced on the course, throughout my future career. I hope develop my own style of coaching based on both the academic theories that have been introduced to me, and that which I find to be successful in practice."
 

Successful Singing Audition made a welcome return to Motherwell College in May. In a fast-moving programme Gillyanne and Jeremy worked with 15 students to improve their abilities under pressure. A large number of topics were covered, including technical vocal issues, voice balance, dealing with the pianist, 16-bar choices, suitability of repertoire, finding your way into the song, the physicality of singing, playing the song and the emotion, and song landscaping. Our congratulations to the students for staying with the process - the level of concentration and attention was exceptional.
 

There was another Successful Singing Auditions at Expressions in Mansfield. Gillyanne travelled up for the day to work with the students there. We see surprisingly similar problems with students wanting to achieve their best in auditions - it's the main reason we wrote the book Successful Singing Auditions. The school had arranged for everyone to sit in on the masterclass and for 8 singers to be put through their paces. Although the audition was run in the same way for each singer, I had different expectations for those in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd year of training. These students were not phased by hearing that they were to cut their songs down to 16 bars (though some made unusual choices!) and, almost without exception, had chosen material that was suitable to their vocal and physical casting. This meant that I had more time to work on 'playing the song', helping the singers to communicate their song-map and tempo clearly to the pianist and offering technical tips for making the song work better.

Congratulations to Expressions for staying ahead of the game.
 

Singing and the Actor Training The next London Singing and the Actor Training will take place on 13-15 July. The Singing and the Actor Training course is packed with information, techniques and training on vocal styles and sounds based on Gillyanne's groundbreaking book. You will have plenty of tools to take away with you at the end of the 3 days that you can use to improve both yours and your student's voices. Gillyanne will be teaching this course assisted on this occasion by Gill Main. Gill teaches at the London Studio Centre and has facilitated on a number of Vocal Process courses. Singing and the Actor is a stand-alone course but also acts as an entry to the Integrated Voice^TM training programme. If you are planning to join Module One this year (starting October 2007) and have not yet attended a Singing and the Actor Training course, book this course without delay!
 

Integrated Voice Module One is drawing to a close once more as the participants complete their assignments. This is the third year that we have run the course and we are very pleased with the way it is developing. There is now more project work in the assignments, enabling the participants to focus on applying what they have learned in their work environment. So, for example, one participant chose to work on a Portugese song for her Practical Phonetics assignment, as she is interested in World Music. Typically, a number of the participants have achieved or are planning an 'upgrade' in their work life, due to increased confidence in their diagnostic ability, teaching strategy and awareness of personal voice use. Singing teaching in the UK is an unregulated activity and although there are a few training programme around, we think that Integrated Voice, with its multi-disciplinary and genre-eclectic approach is unique. Vocal Process is passionate about supporting teachers on their journey to excellence.
This year we are saying 'goodbye' to Meribeth Bunch Dayme as a tutor on the course. Meribeth has retired from teaching Vocal Anatomy for Voice Professionals and is concentrating on new ventures under The Alchemy Programmes. We know that everyone who has been taught by Meribeth on the Vocal Anatomy course will want to join us in thanking her for her knowledge, insight and special approach to this subject. This year's (2007) Module One course will have a triumvirate of tutors for the vocal anatomy unit: Sara and Tom Harris, of Queen Mary's Hospital, Sidcup and Jacob Lieberman, an osteopath specialised in voice and postural problems. All three have taught courses for Vocal Process before and we are delighted welcome them to the Module One faculty.
 

Netvotech

Gillyanne and Jeremy appeared as keynote speakers at the end of May for Netvotech, the Network on technology and healthy human voice in performance. The network is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and aims to discover ways to use technology to enhance vocal performances for both the performer and the audience. Vocal Process has always used technology to communicate complex vocal concepts in a clear, straightforward manner. The presentation focussed on our current use of technology in training, and included the simple (our free tilting larynx template and ebook 86 things you never hear a singer say), the informative (this eZINE, the 200-page website and Jeremy's blogging), and the educational (free articles, internet singing lessons using Skype technology, and of course the Voicebox Videos, the UK's first downloadable endoscopy video ebooks). Jeremy also gave live demonstrations of using simple voice analysis programmes to enhance and improve singers' techniques and perceptions. It was a fascinating day and it was encouraging to see the collaboration between the performers and the scientists.

If you want to find out more about Netvotech, click on this Netvotech website link.
 

Jeremy's blog this month contains news of singing and brain function, and the first few days at Scarborough in charge of the UK's last remaining resort orchestra.
http://www.singingcoach.blogspot.com