Style Conscious 2

"We have to reproduce faithfully what's on the page in classical music".
Renee Fleming again on Desert Island Discs.

Well, yes and no - it depends. What standard musical notation doesn't show you is how to move between the notes. When singers are discovering a new musical genre, they sometimes need a little help!

I often work with classically trained singers who want to widen their choice of working styles. Working with a singer/teacher this week who has travelled from the opposite direction. She is a fairly accomplished jazz/blues singer who has just discovered a classical setup. It’s a big voice! We’re working on full lyric repertoire, and it's been interesting to note that for her, the change of vocal setup makes her feel that her voice is freer and more powerful, although the sheer size of the noise scares her a little. Ironically, when she came for the session, she was singing exactly what was on the page, moving cleanly from note to note (like a conscientious instrumentalist).

I had to explain to her that big lyric voices, particularly in operatic repertoire, tend to move between the notes in a different way to singers in other genres. So I have had her sliding between the notes, singing through phrases on a voiced fricative (vv), and generally connecting notes and pitches without the words. She certainly found it easier to sing the repertoire (Countess, Tosca, even French song).

This repertoire needs the singer to add connection between the notes, slides (supported smearing between the pitches) and linking shapes, together with a much bigger arching shape in the phrase.

Core Tone
The other thing that matters is keeping the "core tone" throughout the phrase, and not disappearing at the ends of phrases. One definition of maintaining core tone is that the sound stays focussed and alive, and remains present even when getting softer. If you're a classical singer, that's one of those "but of course" moments. But to someone new to the genre, particularly a singer who is used to creating widely differing sounds within a phrase, there's an element of "Do you mean I have to do that ALL THE TIME?"