I have a friend who sang with me in college (who was better than me) who is now a professional country singer. A girl I currently sing with in the opera sings jazz on the side, and another one is the lead singer of a local indie band. My voice teacher also sings contemporary Christian music. When I'm not singing opera, I sing early sacred works. All of these have stylistic differences but the basics are all the same. I actually lost a vocal student after one lesson a few weeks ago because she couldn't (or rather her mother) couldn't get that. She was about 14, an aspiring contemporary Christian singer with a youtube channel, and at her first lesson I asked her to sing for me. She sang a contem. Christian song, extremely breathy and unsupported. But that is exactly what I expect from 14 and no lessons. I asked her to sing a scale and got the same thing. So I proceeded to explain an exercise I was going to teach her and how we were going to work on breath support and get the breath out of her tone when her mother interjected, "but that's her style. That's what we like, we like breathy." To which I replied that if they liked the breathy sound and wanted it to be her "style" that was fine but as a singer she should be capable of singing a scale properly, and that was my job. I could tell she wasn't trying for the whole rest of the lesson, and she never came back. Voice teachers know this kind of student to be the kind that don't really want to learn, but just want affirmation that they are awesome, and in this case the mother just wanted that too. Breath support would have solved 90% of carrie's problems based on last night alone (the only time I have ever heard her sing live, which is a better indication than a studio recording). No matter what your taste is, the phrase is not "You can (gasp) sing most (gasp) anything!" She did it every single time, which indicates it was deliberate and rehearsed that way. Same thing with all of Amanda segfried's sustained high notes being cut in half in les mis. It is amazing how breath support effects so many things!!! I have another student who had a bad habit of "chewing" her notes (too much jaw movement). She couldn't get through long melisma passages in one breath. I got her to hold her jaw still and all of a sudden without changing anything else she had the breath to get through it! Stylistic differences are one thing but basics are basics.
When I teach music history or theory, I always ask the same question at the very first class -- "what is music?" The answers nearly always have something about "pleasing," " pleasant," or "sounds good." That is wrong. Music is organized sound and silence. It doesn't have to sound good, because what sounds good to you may not sound good to me. In other cultures, "pleasing" is a very dissonant, buzzy tone, and they think our perfect fifths sound "bad." To me jazz sounds like a cat being thrown at a piano but it is still music. If I'm teaching older women I know to expect something about rap not being "real music" but it most certainly is.
I enjoyed the production. It was fun. I was disappointed in carrie's singing and acting ability, but that did not keep me from enjoying the show. I had higher hopes considering her supporting cast, but apparently her primary role in the production was to draw an audience, and as such she did her job. If they wanted a better singer they certainly could have gotten one so that was not the point.
In closing, it does irritate me to hear people belittle what I and my friends and millions of others I don't know work very hard at. I would never call myself a football player just because I throw a football in my backyard but apparently that is the equivalent of what it takes to call yourself a singer these days. Our American culture does not value vocal talent like it used to. We would rather see half-naked bodies dancing around and cranking out auto-tuned albums. I have a chorus of middle-high schoolers right now who, most of them, until this past September, said they had never sang anything in their life. Not in church, not at home, never. (And -- side note -- because I didn't know the "cup song," I didn't know anything about music, according to them. Of course I came back the next day knowing the cup song!). To me that is so sad. To me that is indicative of a culture that doesn't value musical ability as a skill, just as entertainment. Singers even 30 years ago had more skill than the average pop star does today. I had a high school boy who came to me wanting to learn how to conduct so he could try out for drum major. He consistently conducted backwards and after many many corrections finally he said "it doesn't matter! Both ways are right!" No, both ways are not right. I told him to go ask his band director. I don't know if he ever did, but I know he didn't make drum major. Music, like all art, can be a very personal thing, and so taking instruction and correction can be emotional. But you have to if you are going to grow. I still take lessons and my teacher still takes lessons. In fact, right now I am working on bringing my tone more forward. I've been working on that for about a year now.
Anyway now I am just rambling.
Sent from me.
