8 out of 10 singers can't agree...

We recently completed the three-day intensive Vocal Process Core Training Course in London. It is fascinating to work with people from different disciplines. The course participants this time came from classical, musical theatre, rock, choral, and spoken voice backgrounds. Gillyanne and I love this type of mix - our participants bring so much with them to the course.

To break the ice at the beginning, I played several short extracts from commercial recordings of various artists and asked the participants to write down their thoughts, comments and general opinions of the singing and the singers. I included some of my personal favourites - Birgit Nilsson and Bryn Terfel singing opera, Lea Salonga and Kristin Chenoweth singing Musical Theatre, Christina Aguilera singing pop, and an Oasis track as a starter. As far as I was concerned, all the singers were singing healthily, and were very good exponents in their particular style genre.

Well, it seems that one person's vocal goddess is another's wailing shrew. The comments ranged from warm and beautiful to boring and whiny (usually referring to the same track). No-one agreed on all the tracks, and there wasn't a single track we played that everyone liked. Some participants didn't like a particular musical style, some found the voice production unnerving, but most had definite opinions on each track. Isn't it fascinating how music invokes such strong reactions?