Have just had a day at a competitive music festival (my first)with c10 of my pupils. They had all wanted to do the Music Theatre section...I was a bit concerned as I feared it would be the dance school and stage school children. ...but thought it would be good experience for us all... well it was..in that they all sang tunefully..projected well...basically I have taught them well and they sound wonderful...they all performed their songs...perhaps as they would in a concert or exams.. In the youngest class they were placed first and second...but the other classes...as they got older were very very stagey...the sort of voice I despise because they are either nasal or throaty or both...and belted out...and you can bet the voices won't last.
Next festivals I will do classical and only a few in the Music Theatre class.
The point in this post is that I was really upset that an adjudicator could mark children well when it is obvious that they are not producing their voices correctly...I do admit that they performed well...but technique and tuning were often appalling
Does anyone out there share my frustration and concern at young voices being damaged in this way...sorry I just needed a rant.

How old were the children you are talking about? Mostly in festivals I have heard adjudicators slating bad technique, especially belting in the adolescent years, and talking about how important it is to choose an appropriate song. The ones I have seen have always marked down for this, and delivered a mini-lecture about it. I wonder if the adjudicator concerned was affiliated to the Federation? I once went to a festival where there were several classes going on at the same time - one adjudicator, brought in at the last minute was not affiliated - and there was a marked difference in her adjudication technique.
I presume they don't perform like that in their lessons? How frustrating for you. But how useful for you to see their perfomances so that you can guide them in the future. Put students on a stage and they will do something you don't expect!

I was in such a fury that I was probably unclear... my pupils were great...they projected as well as each was able...were in tune...didn't force their voices..performed as well as they could...tried to smile. The children....not mine...who won often sung out of tune... forced their voices...sang through their noses or throat....but performed really well...they were Music Theatre classes so I understand the importance of the performance....but to the detriment of musicality and voice production? I was worried mine would be out of place...they weren't totally as there were others like them..but the stage voices won most of the time.. I just feel I have my work cut out now insisting to my pupils that this is not the way to sing.
Have got a few more classes today.. wish me luck...I feel like I might explode.

The thing is though, if these children follow on with this style of singing, they could well end up with a decent sounding voice. There's nothing wrong with a large, belting voice in the West End: it creates and amazing effect and is just as much a genuine technique as the more classical ways. I know you're talking more specifically about kids singing through their noses not sounding good, but they've got to start somewhere.

Yours,

The Devil's Advocate.

I think country girl is talking about children of the age who shouldn't be belting - full stop. At that age it can do untold damage to the developing voice and then they won't end up with a decent voice at all. There is, as you say, nothing wrong with a large belting voice, in fact it's a "must" in some West End musicals, and it is a technique in its own right. However, forced, out of tune singing, which is the point of country girl's post, has no place in either genre.

[quote name='freda_bloogs' post='671947' date='Mar 2 2008, 01:57 PM']
[quote name='dcmbarton' post='671877' date='Mar 2 2008, 10:52 AM']
[quote name='country girl' post='671874' date='Mar 2 2008, 09:46 AM']
The children....not mine...who won often sung out of tune... forced their voices...sang through their noses or throat....but performed really well...they were Music Theatre classes so I understand the importance of the performance....but to the detriment of musicality and voice production?
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This sounds horribly familiar from what I've seen in talent competitions, amateur shows etc. They seem to think it sounds nice too
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The thing is though, if these children follow on with this style of singing, they could well end up with a decent sounding voice. There's nothing wrong with a large, belting voice in the West End: it creates and amazing effect and is just as much a genuine technique as the more classical ways. I know you're talking more specifically about kids singing through their noses not sounding good, but they've got to start somewhere.

Sorry had trouble with quotes today....
I think it is freda bloogs...devil's advocate...who I am trying to reply to..... I have had a number of children come to me from other teachers or saturday morning stage groups... who have done untold damage to their voices...including nodules. Very few young voices are designed to cope with the style of singing they are being encouraged to go for..... at this volume....it is important to produce the voice correctly and learn to project safely as the technique improves and the body develops. Teachers who allow children to do otherwise are acting irresponsibly.

With children I tend to go for natural voice production until their voices start changing, then more resonance is added, only when they get to about 15-16 do I bring the plaing far enough forward that they are placing "in the mask". However throughout that, they must work on evening out passagio, keeping the throat open and relaxed. Nothing must be forced.

Just because the placing is that far forward, it does not mean strain - far from it, if they can't return to the float postion they are doing something wrong.

Lots of exercises are done to relax the voice. Head voice remains head voice, middle voice remains middle voice and chest voice remains chest voice. The passagio are remain in the same place, the placing is just further forard without any strain on the neck. It's a perception.

The results amazing, but not a fast track to nodules, because when I use backing tracks, I'm so posture aware, the minute I see bad posture I correct it. When playing the piano, I can hear bad posture.

There are ways of getting teenagers to produce a "stagey sound", but the vital things are firstly, don't start too young, and secondly, be aware that vocal physiology does not change whether you are teaching natural voice, bel canto or belt and mix.

Quite....my frustration is how an adjudicator could let this go... there were so many singers using their throats... even in the under 10 class. I am horrified. I can put up with the stage sound if I can see and hear there is no damage being done.

I'm not a singer but I have certainly seen the belting you describe going on at our local festival and in school shows etc. Hopefully, your pupils and their parents will understand what you are doing if you explain to them about the potential damage. It is so frustrating to see sub-standard work being rewarded. Perhaps you should think about writing to the festival organisers about this adjudicator. Obviously nothing can be done this time round, but perhaps they will not be invited back... It doesn't sound as though this adjudicator is a proper vocal specialist. Such a shame when you and your pupils have put in a lot of hard work. Ignore the idiots and congratulate yourself on a job well done.

My reason d'etre is to save 10 year olds from the "pop idol" sound! It works and their voices sound so much better for it. The when they are old enough they can go back to belt and mix. For goodness sake at 10-11 you can spend time teaching mic tecnique and hope you've got a decent sound engineer if they nee to fill a large space. How many people perform that sort of music acoustically professionally? Not many They're all wired up on radio mics so you might as well get people to song properly and then put a radio mic on them for a performance.

However music festivals don't work that way.

I'd rather a child sang quietly but well than strain.

Quite right Jod. But as music festivals don't work that way, the key is in the choice of song, which is being made part of the marking criteria more and more.

Thank you all...am beginnng to calm down....have had some pupils today.... and for one it seems that the mere experience of singing in public has given confidence....and older ones have come up with a similar response to me. Yes I have considered writing to the commitee...and probably will.

My position as an aging male teacher is this

1 I will not teach kids under the age of 16 or so to sing - my experience is that they want to sing material which in my view is far to "old" for them. I don't like 13 year olds tryting to vamp it up or push their voices too hard. We also get the dreadful X Factor situation and "pushy mum " very much in view in this area. I don't want to be vamped and I don't want to teach it

2 I feel the weekend stage school courses do far more damage than good, they kids may be more confident when performing but their idea of singing is unsupported shouting.

3 For every voice that "makes it " hundreds more are damaged, unsupported belting is death to voices

I don't have any trouble getting them to sing appropriate repertoire - I just don't suggest anything else. Never had any problem.

Appropriate material is another issue I felt strongly about from this festival experience...under ten category...the winner sang On My Own...Les Mis...another sang As Long As He Needs Me... Oliver...(I know it is a Grade 2 song)...how innapropriate are they.....

Quite! I have a students' concert in the summer with a theme of love. Everyone chooses their own song - with some suggestion from me. Some songs the children are doing include Mother of mine (duet by two brothers), When she loved me (Toy Story 2 about love of a child for her doll - sorry if I'm insulting your knowledge, but I didn't know it!), Castle on a cloud, Where is love, the Second Minuet. It's not hard to find appropriate songs, even with my theme, and even easier without it for festivals!

Oh how true. The number of 14 year olds who want to do "All that Jazz" from Chigago and I say "I don't think so".

I'm teaching it to a lass whose just about to get married (so she is over 18 and I'm happy dealing with these issues with an adult) and performed it to her backing track CD. By the end she had no illusions about what it was about!

I just asked her did she know what I meant by "Stratosphere" and she she said yes, and didn't really want to go into any details. Suddenly she realised the importance of the purchase of some "aspirin at united drug".

Yet 14 year olds want to sing this song, and their parents don't realise it is completely age-inappropriate.

...and this is without the double murder commited immediately before the song commences.

Now even though I am a Soprano, "All that Jazz" lies so well in my Chest register its one of the few songs I really can perform, but I don't want to teach 14 year olds songs that I'd want to sing in fishnets, Corsetry a revealing dance skirt and a pair of heeled dance shoes with vamp make-up. It's too Adult.

Do they realise what the title is a Euphemism for?

When I was asked to teach it a Stagecoach class, they had no idea (fortunately) and a lot of the girls were very uncomfortable and would rather have been a chorus of nuns from the Sound of Music.

I agree partly, but the problem is: There are a lot of classical songs that are theoretically also completely inappropriate because of their ambiguity. But very few people ever seem to wonder if some Arie Antiche or English Renaissance and Baroque Songs should rather not be sung by a certain age group (apart from vocal issues). Where's the difference really? We certainly will overdo it by not allowing children to sing about love or relationships. A 12 year old girl who maybe had the first crush on someone will surely understand what she is singing about, and I really don't see a problem here. But of course we can do it like the monkeys and close our eyes towards those facts ...

I would be much more concerned by vocal health issues than lyrics, unless they are really COMPLETELY inappropriate. "All that Jazz" certainly is

And there is another point: Younger beginners (older ones alike ) are sometimes very shy. I have had a couple of young girls I really had to get out of their shell, and it is usually easier to start off with something they know to give them confidence. Once this has happeed, it is lots easier to "sell" the kind of repertoire they would have refused at the start.

You can't stop them singing along to their favourites at home anyway, and I'd rather have them work on a so-called "inappropriate song" under supervision and with an APPROPRIATE voice than belting away at home while they sing nursery rhymes in their lesson (slight irony here ).

Age-inappropriate. Hmm. These are musicals after all, and not 'real life'... If they are old enough to see it in the theatre or on the big screen, what is wrong with singing it? At what point do we draw the line. Should secondary school children not put on 'Julius Caesar' as their school play because there is murder in it? I can't quite get my head around this kind of arbitrary censorship...

Well said

MrB its not the double murder that is the issue with "all that jazz" It's a song that to say it releases the inner strumpet it putting it mildy. To get under 16s singing smacks of paodophilia.

Ten year olds singing As Long as He Needs me...no excuse for this...let's let them keep their childhood as long as possible...to sing a song well you have to understand it...I do explain songs to pupils but avoid intense love songs until they are old enough to understand....don't get me wound up again....I was just calming down

So you are accusing anyone who countenances a pre-16 year old singing that song as a paedophile? I think you need to be very careful with the type of language you are using here...

I'm just being careful over the over s'exualisation of young girls. This is a song all about solciting and s'ex, and it's highs. Now as a 38 year old married woman I have no problem acting that sort of role, but I would feel very uncomfortable getting a group of teenagers whose bodies are reaching womanhood to do the same thing.

I mentioned the age appropriate song thing because I am male - my age. I have had 15 year olds who were singing All That Jazz. The area I live in is North East London and Essex. That is what young female singers want to sing - it is either that or rather explicit RnB

I think it inappropriate that I should teach this, but that is my position and I would not say that it is wrong, just that I feel it is not suitable for me to teach young girls that kind of material.

How do you deal with the subject matter then Tony?

I do see your point here Jod, but dare I say that you may be taking a little old fashioned view on the matter? Kids are swearing in playgrounds by the age of 10 and know far far more about ### drugs and rock n' roll than kids 30 years ago. I don't think allowing them to sing a song such as this is really going to harm them too much. I turned out all right and I was "kicked in the nether-regions" then "shot" during a number of performances of this song. The audience thought it was funny, I thought it was funny and everyone had a good time. I was 15/16 the first time.

What about "Le Violette"?
"Where the bee sucks"?
And nameless others ...

Don't get me wrong here: I wouldn't let a 10-year old sing "As long as he needs me" because it is far too low and vocally (!!!) not advisable. But as for the lyrics: There are so many classical and traditional songs who are not any better (or worse) ...

My way of dealing with it is not to teach under 15s. I have tried and it has been uncomfortable because usually there is also pushy mum or dad in the background

Kids may be more precocious, that is not my point. It is the suitability of a mucher older male teacher trying to teach such material. I have no problems with teaching older female singers but they what the lyrics mean

BTW Jazz or jass is or was a very rude word like the one beginning with f

What's wrong with "Where the bee sucks"? It's from A midsummer night's dream. It's a little bit on the sissy side, but I learned it when I was about 10-12, right alongside the rest of the usual treble fare (Where e'er you walk, Art thou troubled, Panis angelicus, etc.). "When daisies pied" is a maybe a little bit dicey, but my main objection to that at the time was that it had sissy stuff about flowers (still had to learn it though).

T.

Along with 'On my own', 'I dreamed a dream' etc sung by 12 year olds, the one I really dislike is 'I don't know how to lurve him' .

Call me old fashioned, but I don't want to hear pre-teens, or even 14 year olds, singing ' And I've had so many men before, in very many ways.. he's just one more'. There are so many age appropriate Musical Theatre songs, I don't think we need to resort to these adult ones. And I don't mean that they need to be restricted to Edelweiss either. Hal Leonard has produced a whole volume of useful songs - 'The Teen's Musical Theatre Collection' which I've used for quite a few years.

There's nothing wrong with "Where the bee sucks" (which is originally from "The Tempest" I thought? ), not in the context it is originally set in. It's the interpretation of some people who see it as ambiguous (i don't btw, not this one), and that's exactly what I am referring to.
Same with "Le Violette" - can be seen very harmless, although that one is definitely more on the dicey side.

What I meant was that some people don't seem to be concerned at all as soon as kids and teens sing more classical or traditional repertoire. In some, more advanced cases they even start to sing French, Italian or German repertoire, and although they might mostly have a rough translation, the question would also be: Do they always understand what they sing about the flowers, birds and bees?

Again: I am really a friend of appropriate repertoire for certain ages, but I think we are getting a bit too sensitive over certain things these days. It is deemed okay for a teen to sing flowery ambiguities which directly mean *whistle*, but it is not allowed to sing about far less extreme things in a more direct way (e.g. a loving relationship).
If a 12 year-old dies to sing "My heart will go on" because she loves the film, I really don't see a big problem there. Provided we teach them the right technique and not to be a copycat of Celine Dion. That does NOT mean I suggest this repertoire.

But as I said: They will sing it anyway, and then I'd rather have them sing it under supervision to make sure they won't hurt their voices ...

Ariel, of course! I dunno why I put MSND - probably just thinking of fairies.


Never heard of it, but from the title I'd just assume it was wussy and automatically have zero interest in knowing anything about it.


What's to understand - it's just a bunch of sissy rubbish about flowers and so on.
Loads of folk songs are even worse - things like I will give my love an apple and The Ash Grove. The tunes are fine, but the lyrics are wussy.

Some other songs just make no sense whatsoever. RVW 'The Call' for example.

Way too many songs are about stupid things like flowers and fairies and not enough are about anything interesting. Five Eyes is cool - cats and rats. 'This is the relieving guard' is fun. And any church stuff is fine. But it'd be nice if there were more classical songs that were about non-sissy stuff (with no flowers, no cutesy stuff, no mythological beings (apart from dragons or similar) and definitely no love).

T.

What some of us might find wussy, too soft or not interesting at all will always be a matter of taste anyway.

But a closer look into classical repertory reveals that the "stupid flowers" and nature images are very often used as a sort of code and not just as "sissy fairy-stuff" - sometimes it is so obvious that they could have named it straightaway

Anyway. I don't see anything worse in naming it in a straightforward manner than in using some sort of "stupid" code.
Oh no, sorry: I forgot that teens are too stupid to understand it and really believe in birds and bees - obviously only mine who don't

I know, but there's /loads/ of sissy songs available for the people who like them and not nearly as much for the people who don't.
There's more choice if you move away from classical stuff, but my background is classical (mostly church) music. So singing songs from musicals and the like feels a bit weird and I don't really change the way I sing, so it sounds silly. (Imagine singing 'Little People' as if it was "Pie Jesu' and you have the general idea.)


I didn't think I was particularly stupid, but I've always taken the songs at face value. If I'm understanding you correctly, there's a whole subtext I've completely missed.

T.

So, in the light of Teigr's reply, is there anything wrong with youngsters singing about flowers, birds and bees if their understanding of it is at face value? I'd prefer that to them singing songs which openly deal with adult emotions.
Aside - I remember a 10 year old singing I cain't say no - "I know'd what's right 'n' wrong since I been ten" at a festival!

If you've never had the "code" explained to you, why should you know.

You might investigate Early lutes songs by eg Dowland. The words can be more explicit than you might think suitable!

Val

I'm not even that young anymore. But I was about 8 when I started singing some of this stuff, so by the time I was old enough to understand things like subtext I was so used to singing silly songs about flowers that I didn't pay any attention to them, beyond a brief grumble.



Thanks. I was starting to feel a bit stupid for not having picked up on it and, even more, for struggling to see it even now I've been told it's there.



I'll do some exploring.

T.

"Come again Sweet Love doth now Invite" is one I don't like teaching to students "before the watershed", but of all the Dowland songs, that is maybe one of the more explicit.

I had great fun explaining "the code" as part of my programme notes and viva for my LRSM. I was singing Bess of Bedlam.

I don't think I'm particularly old-fashioned in my views. On the one hand teenagers are growing up faster, on the other there's a lot of fuss over the over sexualisation of teenagers. It is a balancing act. The age of consent is 16.

I suppose when "Lady Chatterley's Lover" is set as a GCSE text rather than for A level I may change my mind.

It's not a case that they know what it's all about that bothers me, its the fact that I may appear to be condoning it without parental consent that gives me the problem.

Now if a 15 year-old with the right voice, and a liberally minded set of parents asks to sing All that Jazz, well that may be different.

However, surely I'm allowed to put some songs on the equivalent of the "top shelf".

Thanks David, that puts it all in a nutshell ...