Barbershop vs Opera

Letter in my inbox:

I'm having vocal difficulty while singing Barbershop Tenor or Lead. I sing flat sometimes, and it really bothers me just how fast that I can drop in pitch. I struggle with it constantly. It's one of the main things that we're working on in my vocal training. Also, my voice cracks a lot more than it use to. We're working on that too.

Should I go back to singing tenor? or Lead? or not at all? I'm told that I should not push at all in barbershop tenor. I'm not sure that style of singing is compatible with my classical training. I love classical singing, but I also love barbershop. My voice teachers think that my voice is better suited for classical. I want to make myself happy, but I love to make others happy as well.

Yours, T.

They are right: you do not push at all singing barbershop tenor... or any other part, either. It strains the muscles and sound, is not pleasant, and often under pitch. You hear singers doing that in both styles of music, and it's unpleasant in both.

Yes, I do sing both classical and barbershop, and do well at both. The "Do Not Strain" rule is true in both classical and barbershop. so is "Beauty At All Costs." You have to make them come true for yourself. No director or coach can MAKE you do it. They can remind you, yes, but you still, every note, have to do it yourself.

I see only a few reasons to choose one style over the other. One is what suits your personal voice best. Luciano Pavarotti is a fabulous opera tenor. That voice as barbershop tenor, or even lead would not be a good fit. There is also the matter of availability of opportunities and competition for performing spots in your area: If you have many opportunities to sing and perform in one role and few in another, that will be a factor on what to chose. Another reason is time. Every minute you are working on barbershop tenor, you are not learning classical or operatic literature and technique. You might only have the time to master one. Which do you chose? What fits best. If you have all the time you want, do both.

Yes, there are different techniques... you have to consciously shift back and forth - chest, head, heavy, light, full, falsetto - between styles and within styles. Do both? Sure. just realize it's two separate studies with much in common and some at odds. Keep them straight, you will do fine.

The last part - you need NOT make a permanent decision. Ever. Try both. Try one. Try neither. Change you mind. It's all good. What makes you happiest? What makes more of everyone else on the planet happiest? If you make a wrong choice, as long as you don't burn any bridges, all is well.

Yours, Gary Shannon
I teach online voice lessons! www.voice-mentor.com My passion: Your art.

NEW MUSIC TERMS, SILLY

ALLREGRETTO: When you're 16 measures into the piece and realize you took too fast a tempo


ANGUS DEI: To play with a divinely beefy tone


A PATELLA: Accompanied by knee-slapping


APPOLOGGIATURA: A composition that you regret playing



APPROXIMATURA: A series of notes not intended by the composer, yet played with an "I meant to do that" attitude


APPROXIMENTO: A musical entrance that is somewhere in the vicinity of the correct pitch


DILL PICCOLINI: An exceedingly small wind instrument that plays only sour notes


FERMANTRA: A note held over and over and over and over and . . .


FIDDLER CRABS: Grumpy string players


FLUTE FLIES: Those tiny mosquitoes that bother musicians on outdoor gigs


FRUGALHORN: A sensible and inexpensive brass instrument

GAUL BLATTER: A French horn player


GREGORIAN CHAMP: The title bestowed upon the monk who can hold a note the longest


PLACEBO DOMINGO: A faux tenor


SPRITZICATO: An indication to string instruments to produce a bright and bubbly sound


TEMPO TANTRUM: What an elementary school orchestra is having when it's not following the conductor

You might get a groan out of this.

Dear Gary,

You ought to get a groan out of this.

C, E-flat, and G go into a bar. The bartender says, "Sorry, but we don't serve minors." So E-flat leaves, and C and G have an open fifth between them. After a few drinks, the fifth is diminished, and G is out flat. F comes in and tries to augment the situation, but is not sharp enough. D comes in and heads for the bathroom, saying, "Excuse me; I'll just be a second." Then A comes in, but the bartender is not convinced that this relative of C is not a minor. Then the bartender notices B-flat hiding at the end of the bar and says, "Get out! You're the seventh minor I've found in this bar tonight." E-Flat comes back the next night in a three-piece suit with nicely shined shoes. The bartender says, "You're looking sharp tonight. Come on in, this could be a major development." Sure enough, E-flat soon takes off his suit and everything else, and is au natural. Eventually C sobers up and realizes in horror that he's under a rest. C is brought to trial, found guilty of contributing to the diminution of a minor, and is sentenced to 10 years of D.S. without Coda at an upscale correctional facility.

Dan

P.S. Have a great Christmas

Voice Lesson Zero

Even before I meet students for the first time, I give them this haiku:

~~~~~~ You, singer, must sing! ~~~~~~
~~~~~~ It matters not WHAT you sing ~~~~~~
~~~~~~Only THAT you sing.~~~~~~

Anyone can start improving vocally with just this one lesson.


Yours, Gary.

Vowels

And the home of the brave...




aaaaaaaaaaandtheeeeeeeeeHOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMM
ooooooooftheeeeeeeeeBrAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAVe

it's the vowels that get most of the singing.


You'd think five vowels.. A E I O U, and sometimes Y (and even W) ... would be enough, but they are not. Dictionaries have pronunciation keys on most pages. They ALL have 12 or more distinct English vowel sounds. Wikipedia gives 30 different sounds in English:

ă pat, bad, cat, ran
ăr parry, carry
ā pate, bait, play, same
ä pa, father
är part, arm, bard, aria
âr pare, hair, pear, there, scary
ĕ pet, bed, bet, end
ĕr perry, merry
ē pete, ease, see
ĭ pit, sit, bit
i pee, midi, very, ready
ĭr pert, syrup, Sirius
ī pie, my, rise
îr peer, here, near, serious
ŏ pot, not
ō oat, go, hope, know
ōr port,hoarse, glory
ô paw, law, caught, saw
ôr horse, more, laureate
oi poi, boy, noise
o͝o, put, foot
o͝or, poor, tour,
o͞o, poo, lose, soon, through
ou pout, house, now
ŭ putt, run, enough, up
ûr purr, fur, bird
ə uh, about
ər per, enter


Critically, 30 vowels is too many. When I sing them out loud, long and slow, some of those those vowels sound the same to my West Coast USA ear: ä pa = ô paw, i pee = ē pete. (Say these out loud. Do you hear a difference? if yes, then it's two different vowels to your dialect of English. If not, it's all one.)

Further, some of those vowels are made by smooshing two other vowels, gliding one into the other (called diphthongs). oi poi = ō oat + ē ease. ou pout = ô paw + o͞o lose. Diphthongs are sung as one simple vowel (almost always the first one) followed briefly by another. Practice it by prolonging the first vowel, then second vowel is a quick glide away from the main vowel just before you make the next sound.

Then there is R which could get its own article... and will. Classical singers (and almost all other languages singers) treat R as a diphthong following the main vowel.

I go with a simpler list for practical purposes.
(this from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_phonology)

Lexical sets representing
General American full vowels
FLEECE GOOSE
KIT FOOT
FACE NURSE GOAT
DRESS STRUT THOUGHT
TRAP PALM

This list omits long i, while thought and palm are very similar in many English dialects.

Simple to think this way:
a e i o u, long and short, gets to ten (Face, fleece, Pie, goat, goose, palm, dress, kit, thought, foot) then add these three: Nurse, trap, strut

Since R in spoke English can change the vowel, so that's another 13 vowels you CAN learn, but they're rarely sung, even by American singers.


Exercises:

Do long tones on 13 different vowels.
Take any vocalize. Run in on 13 vowels.

Lots more on this subject later.

Affordable Voice Lessons

Real simple:

For a live vocal teacher, I have really low rates, but even those can be too much for regular lessons for young singers and struggling artists.

This little offer is a good-looking prospect:




I have a few occasional students who pay them a one-time fee to buy and use this, then contact me for a short lesson when they get stuck and are not improving. I put them back on track with my online voice lesson (seven minutes is usually enough) and away they go.


Keep in touch.

Voice Lessons Online

While most subjects must be taught face to face, music performance is successfully taught online. Is anyone else doing this? I tutor a score of folks each week this way now from my website, some of them local (even through Wyzant), but many more of them are from all over the world from places I could never physically visit.

Instead of connecting to a student in a physical space, we connect in a virtual space. My student and I are both at home on our own computers, with an audio headset, a common chat channel and sometimes a mini-camera active. We can tutor over Google-Talk, Second Life, There, MS Chat, or Yahoo Messenger, but my favorite music-teaching platform is Skype. Skype service is free for all, the sound and video stream is fantastic and I can inhibit new callers so the student and I are not distracted by incoming calls during our session.

I always spend the first few moments of the tutoring session making a good connection so we can hear and see each other clearly. If static, break-up or background noises interfere at all, we spend a few moments taking care of those, checking connections and setting levels. After that, the online tutoring session is very like a live face-to-face tutoring session.

There are some differences, of course. We can see and hear each other clearly, but I cannot point to a symbol on a physical paper page to direct attention to a detail. I cannot touch the student to correct a posture or hand position. However, I can instantly send a link to a website video, picture, or article that we can look at together and talk about right then. I can chat notes about an exercise while the student is singing or playing without distracting her and send it immediately on completing without distracting her from focusing on her performance technique. Using a recording program, I can make and upload short clips of our session so the student can review them after our session. In trade off, I think the online session offers the student more resources than the face-to-face.

I do not think this practice is widespread yet, but it’s effective and economical for teaching vocal and instrumental practice and technique.