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SATA reviews...
Singing and the
Actor (2nd edition)
Gillyanne Kayes
Published by A & C
Black, 2004.
ISBN 0-7136-6823. Price: £14.99
Review by David Carey*
The second edition
of Gillyanne Kayes' Singing and the Actor retains the original's
commitment to providing an informed and practical training programme
for the contemporary singing actor, and also preserves its essential
structure, but in many other ways improves on the first edition. The
text has been given a thorough revision to allow for new insights
and further information, clearer presentation and a fresh tone.
In particular, Kayes
has addressed the needs of readers who have different learning
styles by including a range of 'strategies for processing
information and developing muscle memory', and there is also a more
detailed consideration of important aspects such as registers and
gear changes, and of working with different voice qualities.
For BVA members who
have yet to read this manual by one of our leading vocal trainers,
it consists of three main sections: How the Voice Works, Training
Your Voice, and Working the Text. How the Voice Works provides the
reader with a clear and practical understanding of the functional
anatomy of the voice, how it works (obviously!) and, perhaps more
importantly, how and why it may not work. Individual chapters
introduce the reader to the vocal mechanism, in particular the
larynx, and to key concepts such as constriction/deconstriction,
effort monitoring, laryngeal postures, and breath support. The
reader is asked to engage actively with the material by means of
valuable practical exercises that serve to develop awareness and
control, and by song assignments that provide the necessary
application and development of concepts and skill.
The second section,
Training Your Voice, focuses on the real substance of a singer's
training - range, resonance, gear changes, vowel placement, and
dynamic control. Further key concepts are introduced and applied
incrementally through exercises and assignments: sirening and
mirening (sirening while mouthing words simultaneously), opening and
closing the nasal port, anchoring for vocal support, thick/thin
folds, twang, and medialisation of vowels. While much of this work
may now be familiar, particularly for singers and teachers with a
background in Estill Voice Craft, Kayes not only presents it in a
clear and accessible form but has also integrated it into a
pedagogical process which has clear application to the singing
actor.
Section Three:
Working the Text takes the reader through the process of preparing a
song for performance. Kayes demonstrates how to apply all the tools
and concepts previously explored to the reader's own choice of song;
she addresses issues of singing the text, such as maintaining vowel
integrity, bringing clarity to consonants, and communicating the
text with meaning; she also considers advanced work on creating
voice qualities such as falsetto, cry and belt and their use in song
interpretation before concluding with a worked through example of
applying a useful 5 point process to the song Anyone Can Whistle.
This is a highly useful text, not only for singing actors and their
teachers, but also for all voice professionals interested in the
specific development of the voice as an expressive instrument. The
only criticism I have is that, while there is a number of very
useful phonetic charts at several points in the text, these are
insufficiently referenced or explained. In all other respects, this
is a very well presented and illustrated practical handbook, which
constantly engages the reader as a partner in his/her own learning
process.
A new CD Audio Guide
to accompany the book containing examples in both the male and
female voice of all the voice qualities described in the book is in
the final stages of production and will be available through Vocal
Process.
*This review first appeared in the British Voice Association (BVA)
newsletter 'Communicating Voice' and on the BVA website:
http://www.british-voice-association.com
Review by Melissa Johnson**
"In the second edition of Singing and the Actor, author Gillyanne
Kayes provides a valuable manual to help musical theatre singers
develop a clear understanding of their vocal instrument. Vocal
technique texts are frequently dismissive of musical theatre,
insinuating that singing in this style will cause permanent vocal
damage and is therefore inadvisable for serious singers. Instructors
of voice in theatre programs will be encouraged by Kayes, whose
technique focuses positively on the many different vocal qualities
needed to correctly perform in the genre.
The first section of the book begins with the fundamental question,
"How do I make the notes?", and concentrates on the apparatus of the
voice in a very detailed technical manner, complete with diagrams of
the vocal mechanism. The author's admonition to singers is, "to take
charge of your own voice: to feel, visualize and to listen for
yourself, rather than relying on the teacher to do it for you"
(vii). The text strives to help singers become completely familiar
with all possible positions of the vocal tract and understand their
instrument's full range of possibility, rather than be overly
dependent on the feedback of voice teachers to make corrections.
Issues of larynx position, vocal fold tension, and breath support
are explored in detail. For every concept, Kayes presents several
specific practical exercises designed to monitor and self-evaluate
the concepts. Singers using the text must work through all of the
exercises provided for each concept in order to discover which
approaches help them connect with the key physiological and acoustic
ideas being presented. If time is put into this part of the program,
the results will show in section three. The payoff is a quite useful
vocal technique.
Whereas the first section of Singing and the Actor explains the
process of sound production, the second focuses on controlling the
quality and character of that tone. Kayes gives detailed and
thorough explanations of vocal issues such as resonance, register
changes, nasality, and dynamics. Of particular interest in this
section is the notion of external and internal anchoring of the
voice, what Kayes calls "support [End Page 198] via a muscular
voice-body connection" (75). Something completely different from
breath support, "anchoring" clearly demonstrates the considerable
amount of physical strength needed for projection of the voice.
"Anchoring" offers a practical way to express to voice students the
inherent athleticism of good musical theatre singing.
Section three, "Working the Text," synthesizes the mechanical,
physical, and artistic dimensions of singing the genre to focus on
Kayes's six voice qualities: speech, falsetto, cry, twang, opera,
and belt. Kayes comments that she "expect(s) advanced performers to
make straight for this final section," though in fact the
specialized vocabulary of the book could make that very difficult
(119). Nevertheless, the author's point is well taken: the most
exciting and original part of the book is the discussion of voice
qualities. First, Kayes describes the sound of each quality, using
multiple examples of recordings to illustrate clearly the
characteristic of each. For instance, an example of twang quality
would be the song "Take Back Your Mink" from Guys and Dolls as
performed by Kim Kriswell (155). Kayes then explains exactly how to
make each of the vocal qualities in terms of the sound production
concepts presented in sections one and two. For example, belt voice
is explained as "a mix of speech and twang with a high larynx and
tilted cricoid" (158). The technical information taught earlier in
the book is now indispensable: "The tilted cricoid (the lower
section of the laryngeal cartilage) helps you to sing high notes
with thick folds without traumatizing the voice" (158). While this
is a meticulous discussion of vocal production, after the
preparation of sections one and two it is very clear and useful.
Kayes effectively demystifies good vocal production through her
careful and readable explanations. Singing and the Actor requires
thorough study and dedicated trial of all the exercises in order to
reap the benefits of the material, and for that reason vocal
students may still need guidance by a skilled teacher in order to
take full advantage of the lessons. There is a pervading sense
throughout this book that asking the voice to explore its limits and
even to try "things that are normally considered poor technique in
singing" will only give the singer a fuller awareness of what is
possible (24). It is uplifting for voice instructors working in
musical theatre to find a guide that is not fixated on the single,
ideal sound of a voice, but instead teaches the flexibility of a
well-exercised and technically-informed vocal instrument."
*This review first appeared in the journal Theater Topics, Volume 16
No 2.
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Vocal Process SATA-related
products include:
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Singing and
The Actor - the book by Gillyanne kayes |
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The SATA Audio
Guide on CD |
Click on an image
(above) to find out more
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