Okay, so I have been teaching voice lessons again for the last couple of months. I have a couple of young, private students and five that I teach for credit at the community college. It is interesting to be back in the swing of teaching and getting to know voices again. Most of my students are pretty good, which is nice. They are, for the most part, learning their music rather quickly (a phenomenon I am not used to) so we began to talk about adding to their repertoire for the semester. My first thought is to add some "interesting" American music. My old students will know that I have a certain affinity for American composers like Samuel Barber and Ned Rorem and Charles Ives. So, I brought in Barber's Hermit Songs and several Rorem songs. Well, these were not a hit by any stretch of the imagination. I only had one of the students really take to any of them. Comments were along the lines of: "Well, I've heard music like that before, I just never thought of singing them myself."
For you classical vocal aficionados: How far along in your study did it take for you to develop an ear for quirky music? I admit, the first time I heard Barber songs was when I was in high school and my voice teacher always tried to get me to sing "The Monk and His Cat" and I told him I hated it. Now, it is one of my favorite American art songs.
OK, this was a really nerdy post that does not pertain to most of my readers (all three of you), but I rarely ever post on anything musical and thought I would give it a shot. The picture above is Ned Rorem, a man who lives on Nantucket. . . really.
UPDATE & NDY GIG
12 years ago
6 comments:
Was that three of your readers who might actually know what you are writing about here or were you saying that you only have three readers?
As an academically trained vocalist, I am somewhat of an anomaly. I began my formal training as a pianist, then as a wind player. I was first introduced to 20th century American literature when I was in late jr. high/early high school. In my opinion, most modern vocal literature is tonal, even sing-song by comparison to John Cage's prepared piano, Paul Hindemith’s wind concerti or David Maslanka’s wind and orchestral ensemble compositions. By the time I was studying aleatoric music, tone rows and the like, I had been sufficiently desensitized to these sounds. I write this in an attempt to answer the, “…how far along in your study did it take for you to develop an ear for quirky music?”
As for the “classical vocal aficionado” portion, I should say, by the time I was singing modern choral works or listening to/attempting to perform contemporary solo vocal works, I already had significant exposure to these sounds. I actually preferred contemporary vocal settings to contemporary instrumental works. If by, “develop an ear” you intend, “develop a taste for,” that is a different story. I appreciate, am even often quite fascinated by these works, but in their more extreme (pushing the tonal envelope) form, enjoy might be a strong word. That said, I was just listening to a vocal setting by Samuel Barber last Tuesday… just for fun! It’s hit or miss. There are reasons. I won’t unpack them now. Another time perhaps.
Barber and Rorem are not exactly Hindemith or Cage for goodness sakes. The songs I chose were tonal songs, just quirky and I like it that way. But that is because "normal" music gets boring to me after a while and I like the challenge of something a little off kilter. But to perform something like Schoenberg or the like, is really beyond my interest.
I can still hear you singing "Hurley Burley" in my memories. Odd memory...
Yeah, Hurley Burley stands our for me too.
Have you considered something by Wilson, Holland, or maybe Ronald and Ernie Isley?
Ah, come on dude. You know every once in a while you just wanna break out in a little "Pierrot Lunaire." Sometimes I employ a bit of sprechstimme when communicating with my 4 & 8 year old boys. Not on purpose, mind you. It just comes out that way. You will have a difficult time convincing me, as you navigate life, that the lyric melodies and complex harmonies in your head don't sometimes give way to sprechgesang accompanied by violent, unplanned dissonance. Hmmmm? Like even now as you read this post? Yeah? I thought so. What do you have to say now, big guy? Hmmmm? Whether you're interested or not, you can't control the Shoenberg in your mind. Muahahaha!
Just because I do not enjoy the thought of performing Erwartung or a lovely Berg setting does not mean I have no interest in them at all. It just means I do not want to perform them. I have enough issues with sanity and keeping a clear head, why sabotage my mental health with music written by some of the oddest composers in history?
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