Your Questions Answered
There
are three new YQAs on the website this month. A Grigg has sent
in a question about breathy tone, and Matasha Allen has asked about
breathiness in high notes. Jeremy and Gillyanne both give their
thoughts on breath and voice. The third questioner, JB, asks about
different ways of learning new vocal styles, and we have turned to
our Pop coach Gill Main for a reply. Jeremy also has news of a
computer programme that might help!
Click here to read more. If you have any questions you would
like our panel to answer, send them by email to
YQA@vocalprocess.co.uk
Vocal Process INSET
Stagecoach
Theatre Arts is the UK's largest provider of theatre training to the
under 18s. On November 7th Gillyanne gave the first of a series of
Staff Workshops for Stagecoach on "Safe Singing for Young Voices."
In the two-hour session Gillyanne worked with the tutors to define
sound qualities used in for Musical Theatre, including access
exercises; offered some fun routines for training and warm-ups;
discussed the do's and don'ts of belting; and gave out resources for
dealing with adolescent voice change. It was a practical session,
with the group trying out the techniques for themselves, and
included a question and answer session on vocal care and development
for their young singers.
Vocal Process will be providing regional in-house training for
Stagecoach teachers across the UK through 2006.
GK
and JF are now teaching regularly in Scotland.
 The MA
Performance in Musical Theatre at the RSAMD is now in its third
year. The picture shows three former students appearing at the
Edinburgh Festival. Gillyanne and Jeremy are consultants on the
course and so visit regularly, particularly during the first two
terms of study. The Vocal Process commitment to training for Musical
Theatre in Scotland is extending to Motherwell College (regular
masterclasses for students taking HND in musical theatre) and to the
Glasgow Academy of Musical Theatre Arts, where a similar masterclass
is being organised. If you would like to discuss a tailored course
for your institution or organisation in Scotland, please phone or
e-mail for dates and availability.
Course News
Endoscopy course
We are
delighted to be welcoming another husband and wife team as guests on
our faculty – Tom and Sara Harris. Tom and Sara are well-known in
the voice world through their work for the British Voice
Association, the Sidcup Voice Clinic and through their seminal text
– The Voice Clinic Handbook (with John Rubin and David Howard). Sara
will be scoping a number of the participants, and Tom will be
describing what we might be seeing during an Endoscopy session. We
have two places left on this course, so if you would like to attend
and have already attended other Vocal Process courses, send us an
email.
The
Developing Voice
New
course, new tutor. In eZINE 12 we welcomed Jenevora Williams as an
advisor to Vocal Process. Jenevora specialises in working with
children and adolescents and is engaged on PhD research into the
vocal health and development of boy choristers. Her new course for
Vocal Process covers developments in the voice from infancy through
childhood and adolescence with recommended techniques for
stabilising male and female voices during the period of change.
Jenevora currently teaches at the Junior Department of the Royal
College of Music, on the MPTT course at Reading University, and is
vocal advisor to the National Youth Choir. We expect this course to
be full, so are giving you plenty of warning to book your places.
The course will run on Saturday May 20 2006 in central London.
We are
also planning two hands-on day courses for performers – a Successful
Singing Auditions day in London, and a brand new course, Vocal
Process Top Techniques. More details in the next eZINE!
New
reviews and articles on the website
For some
time Jeremy has been writing reviews and articles for The Music
Teacher and Classroom Music magazines. Vocal Process has just
received permission from Rhinegold Publishing to add these articles
to the website. The first to appear on the site will be an extensive
article written by Jeremy and Gillyanne on the history and practice
of Musical Theatre, first published in Classroom Music. Future
articles include reviews and programming tips by Jeremy for the new
Associated Board, Trinity and Rockschool vocal syllabi.
(Jeremy’s
latest book review for the Music Teacher magazine, on The Singing
Neanderthals by Steven Mithen, will be published by Rhinegold in
2006.)
We are adding a new section to the eZINE in order to cover some of
the books, CDs and music that appear on our doorstep, the courses we
attend and people we meet. Both Jeremy and Gillyanne write “from the
inside out”. This means reading the book, working the workbook, or
participating in the course, so that what is written is based on
first-hand experience. The first of these eZINE reviews appears
below. If you would like us to consider your book, CD or course,
please email details to
info@vocalprocess.co.uk
Review
Jeremy
writes: For the last month Hatstand Opera
www.hatstandopera.co.uk has been putting together a new show,
Love, Lust and a Damn Good Chardonnay. It premieres on December 16th
and, as usual, I’m singing in it. Usually I sing in my best RP, so
it was quite a challenge to discover that I am to play the part of a
New York Jewish detective. To stop the rising panic I turned to my
copy of Paul Meier’s “Accents and Dialects for Stage and Screen”.
 Paul
is a professor at University of Kansas and one of the brains behind
the excellent web-based archive IDEA (International Dialects of
English Archive) at
www.ku.edu/~idea. The seventh edition of this comprehensive
publication includes almost 300 pages (spiral bound for convenience)
of instructions and examples on 21 accents and dialects commonly
used by English-speaking actors: General, Southern and Deep South
American; New York and Yiddish; Cockney, Hampshire, Liverpool,
Yorkshire and RP; Welsh, Irish, Northern Irish and Scottish; Indian,
Australian, French, German, Italian, Russian and Spanish. Also
included are 11 CDs with spoken examples of all the exercises and
signature sounds.
Each
dialect contains the same route through the following information,
reflected in the accompanying CD:
- up to 20
signature sounds with individual words
-
additional features
- a
description of the rhythm, stress, intonation and tone
- the
signature sounds in the context of a sentence
-
descriptions of the real-life recorded examples to be found on the
IDEA website (internet access required)
-
co-ordination exercises – sentences containing repeated examples of
each
- signature sound
- two
monologues, male and female, taken from published plays or films.
This
combination of written work, audio CDs and internet examples works
extremely well. In the co-ordination exercises each sentence is
notated in two ways – the phonetic spelling, and the relevant
signature sounds as they appear. Paul’s voiceovers on the CD are
effective and beautifully graded, as befits a professional voiceover
artist. He is a Brit living in America, and his own speaking voice
has an attractive transatlantic echo. On the CDs it is useful to
hear the same voice move into a different dialect within the same
sentence. This makes it much easier to experience the
character/psychology/pace changes inherent when actors shift
accents. As someone fairly new to phonetics and dialect work I found
the demonstrations and descriptions of the rhythm, stress and
intonation a revelation and the single most useful piece of
information for altering my own dialect setup. The workbook is
comprehensive and well-structured, with everything you might need.
However, if you want personal input on a particular role or piece of
dialogue, Paul does phone consultations.
I can
personally recommend this book. For the latest edition Paul has also
added Afrikaans and DownEast New England, together with a 12th CD.
It costs $99 plus shipping from the US. The dialects are priced
individually at $20.95 so this book represents excellent value for
money. You can buy it directly from Paul’s website at
www.paulmeier.com.
As for my
performance, - I’ll keep you posted!
Putting
a face to the voice
 Many of
you may have already talked to one hidden member of our team. Gunvor, our PA, hails from Copenhagen, and is working for Vocal
Process twice a week. She is a singer, and is also studying
Marketing and Advertising at the London College of Communication.
She has first-hand experience of how we work, and knows our Core
Training course from the inside, both as an organiser and as a
participant. If you have any questions about the Core Training
course, or about our work in general, ask Gunvor. She is also the
person to talk to if you want to book a consultation or lesson with
either of us. She is manning the phones in our office on Mondays
(9-12) and Fridays (9-6).
Vocal Process Christmas Cracker
This year,
instead of a prize draw, we decided that everyone should get a
Christmas present from Vocal Process. So Jeremy set about creating
his first ebook, entitled “86 things you never hear a singer say”.
Jeremy: "I
have wanted to write ebooks (downloadable books) for some time, and
saw a one-liner on the internet that made me laugh: 'What will you
never hear a phone customer say? Could you put me back on hold.., I
was enjoying the music...' I immediately wrote the first five lines
for singers and emailed them to various friends and colleagues. I
was astonished at the speed with which everyone wrote back (my, how
everyone loves a soprano), and what began as a 'Top Five' email
developed into a 20 page ebook. The ebook is divided into sections
based on voice type and musical style, and includes contributions
from opera singers, West End singers, writers and two distinguished
heads of department. Also included is a
diss-claimer - "I love
singers. I’ve worked with singers all my professional life. I
married a soprano. Enough said."
The Vocal Process
Christmas Cracker is available to download free of charge by
clicking this link and following the instructions
Have a great Christmas, and see you in the New Year.
 
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