Classical voices get new life

Gillyanne Kayes and Jeremy Fisher from the West End are in Sweden to re-educate Swedish vocalists

[Photo - Eva Ericsson tutored by the singing pedagogue Jeremy Fisher. She works as a singing teacher herself, but is classically trained and wants to train singing styles aimed at musical]

Two unusual voices are in town. Stockholms Musikpedagogiska institut has invited Gillyanne Kayes and Jeremy Fisher, singing pedagogues from West End in London. By shouting, chuckling and acting, Swedish vocalists now learn to sing as they have never done before.

- It feels as if it sounded terrible, says Frida Andréasson.

- No, it was really good! Now, we take it again and then you try to sound like a calling child.

Gillyanne Kayes plays the first piano chord in Papa, can you hear me from the film Yentl. The English singing and speaking pedagogue is in the middle of her fifth day in Stockholm. After workshops with among others Nacka musikskola she now finalises one private lesson after the other at SMI, Stockholms Musikpedagogiska institut, in Östermalm.

Together with her husband Jeremy Fisher, Gillyanne Kayes has made herself a reputation as a specialist in non-classical singing. The couple teach in a number of institutions and have a long experience from the world of musical theatre. They have written books and lots of articles about singing in acting.

- You can very well be a bit nasal. This is very Barbara Streisand, the British coaches behind the piano.

For Frida Andréasson, in her daily profession music teacher at Scengymnasiet, the lesson is a chance to experiment with new singing techniques. Now she struggles with the complicated piece. In the text line "Papa, don't you know I had no choice" the sound level increases dramatically and her voice is full of desperation.

Gillyanne Kayes stops playing and looks content.

- Good! She actually has no choice, "she has no choice". It is fully correct of you to use that voice there.

The visit by the British couple to Stockholm is organised as a part of Röstakademin, SMI's open forum for everybody interested in voice and singing. The idea behind Röstakademin is to let more people than their own students take part in the knowledge and activities that the institution has.

Singing pedagogy has traditionally been about training the students classically. At SMI they were something of pioneers when they started to give singing tuition in other genres in the 70s. Today, pop and rock singing pedagogy is an area under development. But still, the teaching of Gillyanne Kayes and Jeremy Fisher is much about "re-programming" classical singers.

- Earlier, singing tuition was very much aimed at teaching the students to sing like their teachers. But the student maybe has a different type of voice and another personality. In the world of athletics they have different kinds of training for different purposes, and they are ahead of us. We also ought to adapt our tuition to the prerequisites and ambition of every singer, Gillyanne Kayes says.

She and Jeremy Fisher among other things work with "belting" - a singing technique that makes the voice extra forceful and intense. Gillyanne Kayes says that all their methods emanate from knowledge of human anatomy and physiology.

- The difficult thing is to incorporate that knowledge into one’s working methods. Naturally, our students are artists, not scientists.

Upstairs in a bigger room, Jeremy Fisher sits at a somewhat bigger grand piano. His student Eva Ericsson Berglund works as a singing teacher herself, but is classically trained and wants to train in singing styles aimed at the musical. For this Englishman it means teaching her to shout and cheer.

"Yeah!", "Yeah!", "Yeah!", "Yeah!". The loud calls bounce through the room, and then he asks her to sing the song in that voice quality.

- Consider that musical drama and classical singing are opposites. Classical singing shall be beautiful, structured and rounded off at the edges. To sing musicals on the other hand is more about drama than musicality. You must use a different voice depending on what you want to express. If you are classically trained you must re-learn everything you know from the beginning.

After a while she sings I'm not that girl from the musical Wicked. Jeremy Fisher accompanies and listens attentively to the beautiful, forceful song. Afterward he sounds enthusiastic.

- That was really good! But, I want to try a few things.

"A few" turns out to mean many. Eva Ericsson Berglund in instructed to keep her larynx higher, breathe differently, hold back the strength of her voice and to sing as if she were speaking.

When he asks her to repeat the piece "in her very airiest voice" it suddenly sounds as an entirely different song. More intimate, brittle and personal.

ADAM SVANELL (translated by Thomas Ifström)