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Beginning singers: Tips on training inexperienced Adults
Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 20:32:07 +0100
From: Peter Hill Subject: Choral training for inexperienced adults (long compn.) Thank you to all who contributed to this topic. It has all been a great help, and I hope this compilation will be also to all those who asked to be copied on the results. Although there is quite a lot of material here, it really does seem as though, from the formal academic point of view, not much has changed to modify the comment originally quoted from the Costanzo and Russell paper. But we are practical musicians, surely, and will try something that works even if there is no theory to back it up ;-) I have taken the liberty of editing some of the contributions slightly, for brevity, and some of the information quoted is second generation, i.e. I have followed up a hint given by a contributor and then included the replies. One word of caution: I have not yet seen most of the commercially published material mentioned, so cannot vouch for the quality directly. Items are numbered 1.1, 1.2, 2.1 etc as there appeared to be a number of valid sub-threads. Where possible I have quoted non- snailmail addresses, and both European and US sources if known. ************************************************************************ 0.1 Original query Some months ago we made a search in the musical and educational literature on the topics of (music OR singing) AND (education OR training) AND adults (those are Boolean ands and ors) and found an extremely limited response. However amongst the sparse set of hits the following text occurred: "A philosophical base and a foundation of research for methodologies in choral music education do not exist at the present time". (Costanzo & Russell; Methodologies in Music Education; 1992) This was a bit discouraging. However even more discouraging is that since then we have been unable to discover any effective refutation of the assertion quoted. It seems remarkable that very little background research or useful information exists when these topics are combined. An exception can be noted for the isolated topic of voice production, but apart from this virtually all the material we have been able to discover is concerned with young students or choirboys/girls. There seems to be an implicit assumption (in one or two cases explicit!) that after the age of 25 it is too late to do anything other than sit quietly and listen appreciatively. Of course it is possible to quote individual examples of good practice, but comparative studies seem to be absent. Can any members of this group please introduce a ray of light in our darkness, and perhaps point to useful material? 1.1 **************************************************************** I know of no body of instructional material or a specific training course, however I am a member of a community chorus that embodies exactly what you speak of. Our chorus grew out of 2 church choirs that came together to perform "The Messiah" at Christmas time. We have an elected Board of Directors, voice section leaders, volunteers who take care of the gritty details such as setting up risers, ticket sales, seasonal social get togethers, costume management, etc. But back to the training -- any member of the community may join, there are no auditions except for solos. Many of the people are in their 40's or 50's when they start. Some have previous experience in church choirs, secondary school choruses, some don't. We are all taught voice techniques, reading music, choral harmony, appreciation for the various periods & composers; using the music being rehearsed for the next concert. So now we are learning the music for the Christmas Concert, for instance. Our current director is a very talented and accomplished tenor himself, singing in a Master Chorale as his schedule permits. Our 2 previous directors also were very able to teach as we went along, as is Ken. So rather than learning from a syllabus we are creating the lessons as we continue in the chorus. The value of this experience to me personally cannot be measured. I thought I was forever sentenced to the sidelines - the "sit quietly and listen appreciatively" you mentioned. But I dared to try. I lip-synced a lot of my first concert so I wouldn't embarrass the others ;-). Now, after 3 years X 3 concerts and 6 holiday performances of "The Messiah" I am a creditable member of my section, I can even help the "newbies" with musical notation, I am singing the great music to the glory of God, my soul soars! If you would like to know more of Ken's methods, possibly I can put you in touch with him and you can hear about our chorus from the director's point of view. Nancy 2.1 ******************************************************************** I think the "Advance" series is great. It was designed for directors to take a short period of rehearsal time to cover basic lessons. It works for adults as well as classroom settings. For more information, you can contact the author, Allan Petker, at "apavane(a)aol.com." Allan Jeffries 2.2 ******************************************************************** Kindly send me a snail mail address and I will see that some information is sent your way. There are three volumes so far. Each volume has a series of graded lessons to be taught in a classroom setting. They were designed for the choral classroom and each lesson takes about 5 minutes to go through. The volumes are sold with a duplication license so that one purchase is good for life. Volume I is called Names, and covers names of notes, staves, clefs for the choral instrument, 24 lessons, $24.95. Volume II is called rhythm and covers rhythmic terminology, 40 lessons, $34.95. Volume III is called Intervals and is explained in 26 lessons, $34.95. Hope it fits your needs. Allan Petker 2.3 ******************************************************************** Available in Europe from: Banks Music Publications, The Old Forge, Sand Hutton, York YO4 1LB, England. (but not yet vol. III). Phone +44-1904-468472. E-mail pending. 3.1 ******************************************************************** I am using "Group Vocal Technique" with my volunteer church choir. I have found it to be very useful with many examples to employ. There is a book, video and rehearsal cards. Group Vocal Technique by Frauke Haasemann and James M. Jordan ISBN 0-937276-11-1 Hinshaw Music, Inc. Chapel Hill, NC 27514 Phone: 919-933-1691 Fax: 919-967-3399 It's a great book, all you'll need to get your volunteer choir on the right track! Bob Meyer St. Thomas More 4580 Adams Rd. Troy, MI US rjm0138(a)aol.com 4.1 ********************************************************** I read your post and I too am concerned. I recently tried to do some "research" into the area of adult education and music. I am the director of a Community Chorus and my very limited search came up with references mostly having to do with adult education and night school, or job re-training, etc. I am particularly interested in how adults learn. There is a lot of research about how children learn, or learning theory and brain research is quite popular. But what happens to adults as we get older and try and introduce them to musical concepts? Ken Pendergrass 5.1****************************************************************** John Howell May I suggest that you are looking in the wrong place. When you search "educational literature" you are going to find literature by people who are involved in education--i.e. teaching young students. And publishing "educational" articles and books in order to get and keep their tenure! And your Boolean search suggests that you are relying on existing databases--perhaps a good substitute for a true literature search sometime in the future, but hardly now. > Just let me suggest that there is at least one organization that is VERY heavily committed and VERY active in teaching healthy vocal production and healthy singing habits to adults, but you'll never find any of their literature or recommended materials with the kind of search you did. The organization is Sweet Adelines International, and they are pushing hard to upgrade the healthy vocal skills of some 30,000 adult women worldwide by building good vocal production into their competition scoring and by making excellent instruction available in every Region. > I'm sure there are others, as well, who are too busy DOING to waste their time WRITING about it! 5.2 (Query back from compiler to JH) 5.3 Reply from JH ****************************************************** Don't confuse the style, which by its very nature does indeed use a restricted harmonic vocabulary, and which by its very nature is closely allied to the popular singing styles of the past hundred years rather than the classical tradition, with the vocal production. (Whew!! What a sentence!) I have often advised potential voice students to work, and work hard, with the best teacher they can find, even if that teacher is teaching in a style that is not the student's area of interest. Good vocal production and good singing habits are matters of technique, and can be applied to any style. When you learn to type you can take that technical skill and write sonnets or write dirty books. When you learn to sing you can do opera, Broadway, or jazz and do it with healthy production and a greater chance of surviving. I've only been directing a Sweet Adelines chorus for a little over a year, and I'm still learning things that my other, extensive musical background never taught me. The majority of excellent, successful Sweet Adelines vocal coaches have never studied voice formally with what you and I would call "voice teachers." Instead they have spent 20 years or more learning from other Sweet Adelines and accumulating an enormous amount of practical knowledge backed up by sound theory. These same successful coaches are excellent at doing what is commonly done in a "master class" situation. They can listen to a chorus, a quartet, or an individual sing, recognize all the problems that may be present, but focus in on the one thing that needs to be done FIRST in order to deal successfully with any of the other problems. And more often than not it is the fundamentals, like breathing, that need work. The chords don't ring in a passage. Why? Because the vowels don't match. Why? Because the throats are not relaxed. Why? Because the breath support is not there. Why? Because healthy breathing habits are not being used. I am very fortunate to have an Associate Director who is an excellent voice teacher. Her "warmups" are 40 minutes of group voice lessons. I've committed the rehearsal time to long-term improvement. My chorus knows that we will not improve our competition scores unless we do this work and improve our sound, so they take this work seriously. (No, competition is not everything, but it can a serious motivator if kept in perspective!) And when I think back a little more than a year to my chorus's poor sound, physical stamina, and vocal stamina, and listen to them now at the end of 2 1/2 hours of reheasal, singing absolutely in tune, with mostly good vowels and mostly open throats and mostly good breath support, I KNOW what can be done with "untrained amateurs" and I'm enormously impressed by what THEY are doing. 5.4 ******************************************************************** Sweet Adelines International (SAI) is an organization of about 29,000 women in 617 chapters who sing four-part harmony. Sweet Adelines International PO Box 470168 Tulsa, Oklahoma 74147 Phone: 1-800 992-SING email: SAdelineHQ(a)aol.com (was SAdelines(a)aol.com(?)) 5.5 ******************************************************************** SPEBSQSA (men's equivalent): Harmony Hall 6315 Third Avenue Kenosha, WI 53143-5199 Voice: 800/876-SING (N.America), 414/653-8440 (International) FAX: 414/654-4048 (Harmony Hall) Sheridan Rd. FAX: (memb., admin, orders, shipping): 414/654-5552 Home page on the web: http://users.aol.com/prSPEBSQSA/home.htm General email inquiries.................info(a)spebsqsa.org 6.1 ****************************************************************** I am in the process of totally revamping my vocal techniques course. I believe that if all the music ed. majors are only going to have one semester of voice techniques, it needs to address vocal development from early childhood through adult. I want to structure the course in sections: 1) the unchanged child voice 2) the changing male and female voice 3) the young adult (fully changed) voice 4) special problems of adult voices (overuse, aging, affects of progressive diseases, etc.) I have the compilation from earlier this year on #1 and #2, and am now looking for texts and articles in all the areas to flesh out the course. I am happy with the adult vocal techniques book I am using ("Fundamentals of Singing for Voice Classes" by Charles Edward Lindsley) but would like to have the students also have at least one other text dealing with the other areas, especially the first two. I haven't decided if Cooksey is what I want to use and would welcome your recommendations. Regards, Patricia 7.0 Other recommended texts / media ************************* 7.1 ************************************************************* Discover your Voice, by Tona de Brett. Manual plus CD. Published by Schott as number ED12498. Europe; Schott, 48 Great Marlborough St., London W1V 2BN, England. Tel: +44-171-437-1246. Fax: +44-171-437-0263. US; EAMD Corpn., PO Box 850, Valley Forge, PA 19482. Tel: +1-215-648-0506. 7.2 ********************************************************** Sightsinging made really Easy, by Brian Beck. Manual plus tapes. 533 Oakcrest Lane, Coppell, Texas 75019-4082. Tel:+1-214-462-9248. 7.3 ******************************************************************** Improving Vocal Techniques through the Warm-up. M Knight, editor. Manual published by SPEBSQSA, as in entry 5.5 above. 7.4 ******************************************************************** A Road to Better Singing, by Paul Mayo. Manual and tape. Published by SPEBSQSA as above. 7.5 ******************************************************************** The Inner Game of Music, by Barry Green and W T Gallwey. Pub. Doubleday 1986. ISBN 0-385-23126-1. A psychological approach, but not specifically vocal. 7.6 ******************************************************************** There was a further reference to a CD - James Bowers' Masterclass (from Canada?), and a video by the King's Singers, but I do not have more information on these. Any clues would be welcome. ************************************************************************ This is the end of the compilation. Any errors or misinterpretations, please shoot the compiler, not the quoted author. Further comments, suggestions, amendments, criticisms are earnestly requested and welcome (but bearing in mind Zoltan Kodaly's comment quoted below please). Many thanks again to all. -- Peter Hill, Humber Harmony Chorus | While singing in itself is good, the Grimsby, England. G7IOY | real reward comes to those who sing, peterh(a)humbhony.demon.co.uk | and feel, and think, with others. This | is what harmony means. (Z. Kodaly) |
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I would like to learn more about this and if possible get a scholarship to learn more about music which help my church in Kenya to grow and draw near to God the more.