Finding Your Voice

[unzeugmatic]

If you want to get a sense of the self-involved arrogance of some practitioners of European classical vocal tradition, go browsing through YouTube for the various lessons on vocal technique people offer. I have no issue per se with anything that's being taught, and in fact most of it I'm finding useful and interesting (as somebody who spends a hell

Comments

[xeger]

Heh. I've been recently trying to sing again, and my voice is being wholeheartedly uncooperative! It'd be so much easier if I couldn't hear that I'm out of tone and tune... and that's whether we're talking about a natural voice or a groomed voice!

*gah*!

Yes!

[ext_565387]

Really well put. Thank you. I like that distinction of the three super-artificial styles, but it's interesting to me how even in "non-trained" styles there's so much variation: Shapenote vs South African gospel vs Tyrolean yodeling... I think there's a lot more traditions out there with wierd, highly artificial aspects to them, which set traditional styles tend to form around. Jewish cantors? Muzzein calls to prayer?

Re: Yes!

[unzeugmatic]

I think there's probably a lot of directions you could take the conversation from what Tim said (and it was a passing remark, that I may not have gotten down precisely). Even if people disagree vehemently, it's still a very compelling sort of observation that would lead even the disagreement down interesting paths of what it means to "just sing

[metallumai]

I don't particularly care for Tim Erikson, and remarks like that "only 3 kinds of completely stylized singing" kind of sum it up. Many more groups than those three are quite stylized, and just as provincial and arrogant about it as any cenventionally-trained opera singer. And, there are just as many highly trained singers from many cultures who appreciate other styles than their own. People within those disciplines are all told about a "Right" way to sing, and for their purposes they are correct.

[unzeugmatic]

What Tim (who may well not have used the word "stylized") was responding to was the observation somebody made that the way shapenote music (and other related traditions, from which it sprang) was traditionally sung by its practitioners is not how one is "supposed" to sing, according to his particular training -- the questioner was not saying this was bad, he was just pointing out what he was hearing as a difference. Tim was asked to comment on that discrepancy, and the response of pointing out that there are things about shapenote singing that are shared worldwide (in comparison to some less universal aspects of the Western musical tradition, the very things the questioner was noting) was, I thought, an interesting one

[annelimk]

I find your comments about Oak, Ash and Thorn vs. Chanticleer to be very interesting. I don't know which OAT CD you were listening to; I started going to OAT concerts right after moving to California in 1983, back at the "old old" Freight and Salvage

[unzeugmatic]

I hope it's clear that I didn't mean this to be a criticism of the group -- what I was trying to convey was how their CD (which I'm listening to a lot, it's the CD in my car and there's no reason to switch it out for a bit) made me think about very different approaches to singing the same songs. (The CD is all a cappella

[lucy_the_uni]

This is lovely. You are, as usual, so great at putting this sort of thing into words.