Vocal pedagogy is the study of the teaching of singing. Vocal pedagogists (or vocal pedagogues) are people who study the teaching of singing. To some extent all voice teachers are vocal pedagogists because vocal pedagogy informs them about not only how to teach singing but also is responsible for defining what singing is, how singing works, and how proper singing is done. Professions that practice the art and science of vocal pedagogy include vocal coaches, choral directors, vocal music educators, opera directors, and other teachers of singing.
Vocal pedagogy covers a broad range of aspects of singing, ranging from the physiological process of vocal production to the artistic aspects of interpretation of songs from different genres or historical eras. Typical areas of study include:
- Human anatomy and physiology as it relates to the physical process of singing.
- Breathing and air support for singing
- Posture for singing
- Phonation
- Vocal resonation or voice projection
- Diction, vowels and articulation
- Vocal registration
- Sostenuto and legato for singing
- Other singing elements, such as range extension, tone quality, vibrato, coloratura
- Vocal health and voice disorders related to singing
- Vocal styles, such as learning to sing opera, belt, or Art song
- Phonetics
- Voice classification
All of these different concepts are a part of developing proper vocal technique . Not all vocal pedagogists have the same opinions within every topic of study which causes variations in pedagogical approaches and vocal technique.
History
Within Western culture, the study of vocal pedagogy began in Ancient Greece. Scholars such as Alypius and Pythagoras studied and made observations on the art of singing. It is unclear, however, whether the Greeks ever developed a systematic approach to teaching singing as little writing on the subject survives today.
The first surviving record of a systematized approach to teaching singing was developed in the medieval monasteries of the Roman Catholic Church sometime near the beginning of the 13th century. As with other fields of study, the monasteries were the center of musical intellectual life during the medieval period and many men within the monasteries devoted their time to the study of music and the art of singing. Highly influential in the development of a vocal pedagogical system were monks Johannes de Garlandia and Jerome of Moravia who were the first to develop a concept of vocal registers. These men identified three registers: chest voice, throat voice , and head voice (pectoris , guttoris, and capitis). Their concept of head voice, however, is much more similar to the modern pedagogists understanding of the falsetto register. Other concepts discussed in the monastic system included vocal resonance, voice classification, breath support, diction, and tone quality to name a few. The ideas developed within the monastic system highly influenced the development of vocal pedagogy over the next several centuries including the Bel Canto style of singing.
With the onset of the Renaissance in the 15th century, the study of singing began to move outside of the church. The courts of rich partons, such as the Dukes of Burgundy who supported the Burgundian School and the Franco-Flemish School, became secular centers of study for singing and all other areas of musical study. The vocal pedagogical methods taught in these schools, however, were based on the concepts developed within the monastic system. Many of the teachers within these schools had their initial musical training from singing in church choirs as children. The church also remained at the forefront of musical composition at this time and remained highly influential in shaping musical tastes and practices both in and outside the church. It was the Catholic Church that first popularized the use of castrato singers in the 16th century, which ultimately led to the popularity of castrato voices in Baroque and Classical operas.
It was not until the development of opera in the 17th century that vocal pedagogy began to break away from some of the established thinking of the monastic writers and develop deeper understandings of the physical process of singing and its relation to key concepts like vocal registration and vocal resonation. It was also during this time, that noted voice teachers began to emerge. Giulio Caccini is an example of an important early Italian voice teacher. In the late 17th century, the bel canto method of singing began to develop in Italy. This style of singing had a huge impact on the development of opera and the development of vocal pedagogy during the Classical and Romantic periods. It was during this time, that teachers and composers first began to identify singers by and write roles for more specific voice types. However, it wasn't until the 19th century that more clearly defined voice classification systems like the German Fach system emerged. Within these systems, more descriptive terms were used in classifying voices such as coloratura soprano and lyric soprano.
Voice teachers in the 19th century continued to train singers for careers in opera. Manuel Patricio Rodríguez García is often considered one of the most important voice teachers of the 19th century, and is credited with the development of the laryngoscope and the beginning of modern voice pedagogy.
The field of voice pedagogy became more fully developed in the middle of the 20th century. A few American voice teachers began to study the science, anatomy, and physiology of singing, especially Ralph Appelman at Indiana University, Oren Brown at the Washington University School of Medicine and later the Juilliard School, and William Vennard at the University of Southern California. This shift in approach to the study of singing led to the rejection of many of the assertions of the bel canto singing method, most particularly in the areas of vocal registration and vocal resonation. As a result, there are currently two predominating schools of thought among vocal pedagogists today, those who maintain the historical positions of the bel canto method and those who choose to embrace more contemporary understandings based in current knowledge of human anatomy and physiology. There are also those teachers who borrow ideas from both perspectives, creating a hybrid of the two.
Appelman and Vennard were also part of a group of pedagogists who developed courses of study for beginning voice teachers, adding these scientific ideas to the standard exercises and empirical ways to improve vocal technique, and by 1980 the subject of voice pedagogy was beginning to be included in many college music degree programs for singers and music educators.
More recent works by authors such as Richard Miller and Johan Sundberg have increased the general knowledge of voice teachers, and scientific and practical aspects of voice pedagogy continue to be studied and discussed by professionals. In addition, the creation of organisations such as the National Association of Teachers of Singing (now an international organization of vocal pedagogists) has enabled voice teachers to establish more of a consensus about their work, and has expanded the understanding of what singing teachers do.
Topics of study
Pedagogical philosophy
There are basically three major approaches to vocal pedagogy, all related to how the mechanistic and psychological controls are employed within the act of singing. Some pedagogists advocate an extreme mechanistic approach that believes that singing is largely a matter of getting the right physical parts in the right places at the right time, and that correcting vocal faults is accomplished by calling direct attention to the parts which are not working well. On the other extreme, is the school of thought that believes that attention should never be directed to any part of the vocal mechanism--that singing is a matter of producing the right mental images of the desired tone, and that correcting vocal faults is achieved by learning to think the right thoughts and by releasing the emotions through interpretation of the music. Most pedagogists, however, believe that the truth lies somewhere in between the two extremes and adopt a composite of those two approaches.
The nature of vocal sounds
Physiology of vocal sound production
There are four physical processes involved in producing vocal sound: respiration, phonation, resonation, and articulation. These processes occur in the following sequence:
- 1. Breath is taken
- 2. Sound is initiated in the larynx
- 3. The vocal resonators receive the sound and influence it
- 4. The articulators shape the sound into recognizable units
Although these four processes are to be considered separately, in actual practice they merge into one coordinated function. With an effective singer or speaker, one should rarely be reminded of the process involved as their mind and body ar
Fish-Lloyd - Fundamentals of Sight Singing and Ear Training
Fundamentals of Sight Singing and Ear Training . Arnold Fish and Norman Lloyd . An essential part of musicianship! This realistic first-year program of sight singing and ear ...
Coast Learning Systems
The theory, ear-training, and sight-singing aspects of the course are progressive and complementary ... Rock & Roll Online, Introduction to Jazz, Music Appreciation, Music Fundamentals ...
Ear Training for vocalists. Singers instructional books and DVDs
Arnold Fish and Norman Lloyd: Fundamentals of Sight Singing and Ear Training
Amazon.com: Fundamentals of Sight Singing and Ear Training ...
Amazon.com: Fundamentals of Sight Singing and Ear Training (9780881337204): Arnold Fish, Norman Lloyd: Books
Ear Training and Sight Singing from Just Gotta Sing! Gear for Ear ...
Free Ear Training Sight-Singing Tip By Vocal Coach Yvonne DeBandi ... It introduces the fundamentals of music notation in a clear and easy ...
Ear Training & Sight Singing | W. W. Norton & Company | W. W. Norton ...
Ear Training & Sight Singing; Form, Analysis & Style; Music Fundamentals; Orchestration ... Ear Training and Sight Singing Gary S. Karpinski. The Manual for Ear Training and Sight ...
Course Description - Music Theory, Sight Singing & Ear Training I
MUS 1121 - Music Theory, Sight Singing & Ear Training I: This course is a beginning study of the fundamentals of music and musicianship ...
Singers.com: Arnold Fish and Norman Lloyd: Fundamentals of Sight ...
Product Details Arnold Fish and Norman Lloyd: Fundamentals of Sight Singing and Ear Training
Vocal Instruction - Ear Training, Pitch, Sight Reading and Sight ...
Ear Training, Pitch, Sight Reading, Sight Singing Instruction books or ... for sightsinging fundamentals, with over 300 examples and exercises. Read More at MusicRoom Sight Singing Made ...
Amazon.com: Ear Training and Sight Singing (9780393095197): Maurice ...
This item: Ear Training and Sight Singing by Maurice Lieberman ... Fundamentals of Sight Singing and Ear Training. by Arnold Fish