When a freshman voice student arrives at a music school, fresh-faced and 18 years old, in most cases, they are not ready to tackle the challenges of opera roles and arias. Typically, they don't have the stamina or vocal strength and they arrive at school ready to sing.
Most voice teachers supply voice majors with a steady stream of art songs to help build their vocal technique and stamina and prepare them for the rigors of opera to come. Art songs teach a young singer the process of learning music. A good voice teacher can use art songs to create a checklist for singers to use so that they can approach any singing project:
- Translate the words and study the poetry
- Learn the history of the song, including about the poet and the reason the pome was written
- Think about what the poem means to you as an artist
- Learn the notes and rhythms (wait... that's step 4?)
- Collaborate with a pianist again and again until you can perform the song well
I would not ask you, the casual listener, to go through these steps. Hopefully by seeing this approach, you can get a sense of why art song is so important to young singers artistic growth.
I have had a great deal of fun returning to my art song roots over the past couple of months to create my new Denver Art Song Project collaboration. Please do check it out and remember, there will be more to come on June 15, 2015.
Happy Listening,
No comments:
Post a Comment