vocal ped final

Early roots: Antiquity to the Renaissance

Ancient Greek and Roman theories

  • Singing as a part of a complete humanistic education

  • The connection between music, voice, and rhetoric

Roman Catholic Church

  • Pope Sylvester established a “school of singing” for liturgical services

Renaissance (14th-17th cent.)

  • Early vocal instruction as a part of music education


The Baroque period (1600-1750)

Rising importance of the voice in opera

  • Vocalists take on solo roles, enhancing the importance of voice training

Vocal Ped in the Baroque period

  • Transition from music ed to focused vocal training

  • Early vocal pedagogical treatises emerge

  • Influence of Italian vocal schools (e.g bel canto)

Pier Francesco Tosi (1653-1732)

  • Author of Opinioni de’ Cantori Antichi e Moderni (1723)

  • Focused on style, execution, and literature rather than technical training

  • His work primarily aimed at training castrati 


Classical and Romantic Periods

  • Italian for “Beautiful Singing,” marked by a flexible, florid singing style

  • Defined a specific Italian operatic style with legato melodies and coloratura

  • Associated with Italian opera composers like Rossini, Bellini, and Donizetti


Development of Bel Canto:

–Emphasized pure tone, phrasing, and vibrato

–Key pedagogues: Nicola Caccai, Giuseppe Concone, Henrich, Panofka, Mathilde Marchesi


Manuel Garcia II and Scientific Pedagogy

  • Invention of the laryngoscope (1854)

  • development of the voice register system

  • Focus on vocal health and mechanics


Romantic Period Influence

  • Greater emphasis on emotional expression

  • Rise of virtuoso singers, particularly in opera


20th Century: Revolutionizing Vocal Ped

Scientific advantages

  • The integration of physiology and acoustics into voice training

  • Development of fields like phonetics and acoustics 

Influence of Key Pedagogues and Methods:

  • William Vernard and Ralph Appelman apply scientific principles to voice training (67)

  • Richard Miller’s The Structure of Singing (86): focuses on vocal function

  • Johan Sundberg and Berton Coffin: Acoustic theory for classical voices

Emergence of Voice Science and Technology

  • Voice analysis software and laryngeal imaging for better training

  • Incorporation of medical insights to prevent vocal injuries 


Integration of Classical and Contemporary Techniques:

Blurring the lines between classical and contemporary voice training

Training across various genres: classical, pop, musical theater


Holistic and Health-Oriented approaches:

Focus on the psychological, emotional, and physical aspects of singing

Body awareness, mindfulness, and movement are becoming integrated


Vocology and Ingo Titze:

Vocology focuses on voice habilitation (care and training)

Ingo Titze is known for his research on SOVT exercises (Semi-Occluded Vocal Tract)


Contemporary challenges and directions

Diversity of vocal styles and voices

  • Teaching diverse voices across genres remains a challenge

  • Balancing non-classical vocal styles with maintaining vocal health

Ethical Considerations in Vocal Pedagogy

  • Psychological and emotional aspects of voice training

  • Addressing vocal abuse, exploitation, and safety issues in teaching

Vocal Pedagogy and Accessibility

  • Addressing disparities in vocal education worldwide

  • Creating inclusive pedagogical practices for a diverse student population 


Anatomical terms

  • Tympanic membrane- eardrum

  • Semicircular canals

  • Cochlea

  • Cilia

  • Ossicles

  • Auditory nerve

  • Eustachian tube


Auditory feedback

  • External: sound waves from our mouths that hit surfaces and come back to our ear

  • Internal: larynx vibrating.



Declarative learning- know that, top-down

Procedural learning- know-how, bottom-up


The ultimate goal- free, easy, and flexible voice 


3 stages of learning

  1. attention/sensory register 

    1. Records and holds all stimuli very briefly, giving the learner the choice of attending to or disregarding it. 

    2. Research indicates that visual info is stored in the sensory register for less than a second, while an aural stimulus remains in storage for 2-4 seconds.s

  2. Working memory (short-term memory)

    1. Information is stored for 5-20 seconds; cognitive processing takes place at this stage.

    2. Very limited capacity; first defined by Miller (1956) as 7 units, plus or minus two. Research specific to music supports this, suggesting that the length of rhythm and tonal patterns be limited to no more than 5-9 notes for echo-learning and dictation activities.

    3. Chunking can increase this limit by combining units into organized chunks, with each chunk then becoming a single unit.

  3. Long-term memory

    1. Meaningful learning results when new info is organized so that it connects to stored knowledge and is thereby anchored in long-term memory

    2. The capacity of long-term memory is unlimited.d


Attentional focus


Feedback

  • Immediate augmented- like during a lesson

  • Terminal- like the next lesson

  • Concurrent augmented- during a performance


Body, breath, and vowels (resonance) 


Alignment vs posture


Alignment- full body, not only the body but aligning the voice during warm-ups for whatever task is at hand

Posture- waist up, just your body


Muscular antagonism 

Two muscles that work together, like when bending or straightening your arms



Goals 

  1. Move a singer's body into a baseline state of relaxation 

  2. Calibrate the student's body into a state of readiness 

  3. Connecting the body to the emotions in music 


Alignment

  • Stretching to help release tension

    • Shoulder shrugs 

    • Massage 

    • Ragdoll 

    • Breathing stretches

      • Ragdoll breathing fast 

      • Handcuff breathing 

      • Over the head one hand higher than the other 

    • Leaning side to side breathing with leg up then center 

  • Imagery

    • Uncooked spaghetti arms vs cooked spaghetti arms


 


Breathing/respiration 

4 phases

  1. Inhalation*

    1. External intercostals (spread the ribcage)

    2. Diaphragm 

  2.  suspension

  3.  exhalation*

    1. Internal intercostals 

    2. Rectus abdominis 

    3. Transverse abdominis

    4. External and internal obliques

  4. Recovery* 


All are connected to the rib cage and spine. 


Breath support vs breath control 


Support- relationship with the muscles for inhalation and exhalation to regulate the amount of subglottal air pressure (hey that's muscular antagonism)

Glottis- vocal folds

Subglottle- below the folds/ trachea 


Subglottle pressure is the pressure we want to create in order to get the folds to vibrate


Control- the speed of  the air 


4 types of breathing 


Clavicular- chest 

  • Doesn't have the support although it has a lot of air

Thoracic

  • Bottom of rib cage

Abdominal 

  • From the tummy, the feeling lower in the body

  • No expansion in the rib cage 

  • Not fully opening

Apaggio 

  • Combination 



Test 1 topics

  • History of vocal ped

  • Vocal quality vocab (listening chapter) 

  • Brain and motor learning

  • Body and alignment principles

  • Respiration and breath