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Becoming an Artist: Interpretation, performance, and a lifetime of singing

Additional Information

Authors Robert Caldwell and Joan Wall
ISBN 1934477397
Length 284 pages
Price $51.95
Kate McCaffrey

“The authors of numerous singing manuals, Caldwell and Wall (voice, Texas Woman’s University) present a remarkable resource for voice teachers, bringing together and building on much of the current and historical theory of vocal technique and training. Singers, coaches, and choir directors will also find much of value if they are not daunted by the quantity of information presented. Each volume includes many vocal exercises and interesting case studies. The first two volumes will be especially useful for beginning teachers. In a field rife with jargon and elusive imagery, the authors share suggestions to improve communication with students. In addition, the sections on teaching anatomy, acoustics, and the science of sound are very detailed. Volume 1 – Beginning the Process, investigates teaching and learning at various levels. Volume 2 – Mastering the Fundamentals, covers breath management, muscle awareness, and the use of resonators. Volume 3 – Advancing the Technique, offers exercises and information of value to the advanced student. There is also an excellent section on teaching belt tone for musical theater students. Volume 4 – Becoming an Artist, addresses important areas for aspiring professionals, including learning a score, preparing texts, and communicating with an audience. Volume 5 – Managing Vocal Health, gives advice on when to send students to a physician and what to expect from a physical exam. Medical procedures for treating various vocal disorders are also dis used. Vocal study is a lifelong process as the “instrument” matures and then ages, and teachers and students work at a wide range of abilities – something this work’s multilevel approach effectively addresses. There are many more concise (and less expensive) books on vocal technique available, but nothing as comprehensive or as potentially rewarding for the serious voice teacher. Highly recommended for academic libraries and large music collections.”
Library Journal

book for performance excellence

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  • book for performance excellence

Becoming an Artist delves into the depths of the music, working out ideas and experience-inducing exercises that help you lead your students into richer expressiveness—a deep and satisfying experience.

Table of Contents

Introduction

While integrated with the vocal techniques described in the previous books and integrated with Breath, Vocal Folds, Vocal Tract, Resonance, and The Human Voice, this text offers a plethora of tools and ideas you can give students about what to do with a new score and begin to work as an artist. Like the other books in the critically-acclaimed Excellence in Singing series, it is part of the integrated vocal pedagogy multimedia platform, so it follows the basic pattern of essays followed by pragmatic exercises, which allows you to mix and match the materials to build a curriculum suited to your precise needs. It helps you help your students make fine distinctions about what to notice and respond to in the score and within themselves—all in a systematic series of principles that are easy to grasp, yet profound to implement. Throughout, there is a tone of exploration and self expression, a tone of reverence toward what it means to become an artist.

It begins with ideas and exercises for working with the vocal line, giving you a smooth connection between technical execution and musical expression.

The next section connects the structure of story to interpreting a song, giving you tools to teach your students a framework for finding the dramatic and cohesive elements in the music and text.

It then includes an innovative section for integrating the many parts—the technical, muscial, dramatic, emotional, psychological aspects of the work—into a gestalt of the final expression. These exploratory exercises are fun, interesting, and often profound in what they reveal and what they galvanize in the performer.

It then includes a full section on performance—the act of walking out in front of an audience and creating something special and memorable.

Fun and interesting stuff.

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To get a sense of how Becoming an Artist fits into whole platform, consider following these links, especially the sample chapter Breath, which follows the essay with exercises pattern of nearly all the written materials:

overview of the pedagogy multimedia platform

organization of the pedagogy multimedia platform

reviews from across the multimedia platform

why multimedia?

sample chapter 8: “Breath” (from Mastering the Fundamentals)

sample clip of “sound at the vocal folds” (from The Human Voice)

sample clip of “formants” (from The Human Voice)

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