Art Of Singing Research Articles

Remembering Barbara Doscher: Reflections from Her Students and Colleagues

Abstract: In this article, former students and colleagues reflect on the life, career, and impact of Barbara Doscher (1922–1996). In addition to personal reminiscences, Doscher’s pedagogy is also explored, collectively depicting a comprehensive portrait of her teaching style, maxims, and core beliefs about vocal technique and the art of singing. These short essays are presented for a new generation of singers and teachers who have not had the privilege of directly experiencing Doscher’s tutelage and provide deeper insight into the work and career of one of the most important voice pedagogues of the twentieth century. This article was originally published as an appendix for the 2023 paperback second edition of The Functional Unity of the Singing Voice and is reprinted here with permission of the publisher.

The Chief Directions of Scholarly Activity of the St. Petersburg Conservatory

The St. Petersburg Conservatory, the oldest higher music education institution in Russia, celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2012. Such a significant date provides a good reason to summarize the results and determine the prospects for further development. In this regard, the review of the Conservatory’s scholarly activities proposed in this article returns numerous times to the events of the jubilee year as one of the essential points of reference. The article highlights the academic schools, the priority thematic areas in the study of music theory, music history, folk music, the early Russian art of singing (including here the theory of fret organization, the current issues of the legacy of J. S. Bach, the study of the works of Russian composers and those outside of Russia, issues of the philosophy and aesthetics of music, the history of the Conservatory, work with archival materials, publications of sources and documents); the interaction of the scholarly and educational processes characteristic for the Conservatory is highlighted; information is provided about the conferences and symposia, scholarly publishing projects and contacts with international musicological organizations (IMS). Particular attention is paid to the sensational disclosure — the discovery at the St. Petersburg Conservatory of the orchestral voices of Igor Stravinsky’s Funeral Song, an early work by the composer, long considered irretrievably lost.

Pensamiento cultural y elementos filosóficos del canto y la danza en las películas indias

Abstract: Art is the embodiment of national culture and spirit. Singing and dancing are one of the earliest and richest forms of human art. It is not only the product of experience and emotional experience but also the transcendence of vulgar daily life. As the most distinctive feature of modern Indian films, the art of singing and dancing inherits the traditional Indian aesthetic ideas and religious philosophy in the modern audio-visual environment can be found. It maintains a distinctive national impression in the tide of internationalization. This kind of art form is of great significance to the exploration of the nationality of Chinese singing and dancing art.

With Gratitude

“With Gratitude” expresses the essence of Thanksgiving as a time to appreciate the significant impact of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS). NATS president Diana Allan offers her gratitude to NATS members and leaders for their dedicated efforts in advancing the art of singing and voice instruction. This column also highlights NATS’ role in vocal music education, the changing landscape of voice habilitation, and the need for collaboration and adaptation in this evolving field and celebrates NATS’ international expansion, acknowledging the contributions of leaders and members from various regions. Many upcoming and diverse professional development opportunities are highlighted, including workshops, competitions, and conferences. The column celebrates the dedication of NATS leaders who volunteer their time and energy to enhance the organization’s initiatives, ranging from expanding NSA categories, to developing AuditionNow, and to supporting fellow members.

Literacy Transmission of Isan Lam's Melodies to Inherit MoLam's Performing Art

MoLam is a cultural performance art in northeast Thailand. MoLam is a profession that requires the high art of singing and relies on literary aesthetics and elaborate melodies to attract listeners. The objectives of this study were to: 1) research and collect information about Isan MoLam's performing arts, 2) explore the current conditions and problems affecting MoLam's performing arts literacy inheritance, and 3) investigate the process of transmission literacy to inherit MoLam's performing arts literacy. Descriptive analysis was used to examine and data from documents and fieldwork. The results of this study are as follows: (1) According to MoLam research, when the colonial country invaded this region, the Thai-Lao ethnic culture in northeastern Thailand and Lao PDR was split. On the Thai side, individuals flocked to the center area to meet with Siam. MoLam in the Northeast has steadily developed since then, and it may be classified into four types: (i) non-dramatic MoLam, (ii) dramatic MoLam, (iii) ritual MoLam, and (iv) miscellaneous MoLam. (2) As Thai society enters the internet era, there are numerous popular entertainment mediums, leading people's morals to shift and lowering people's interest in viewing MoLam performances and roles. The goal is to find a way to pass down this performance art to future generations. (3) Literacy transmission: After synthesizing the material to be taught, the students are separated into two groups: (i) MoLam singing has been practiced by a group of elementary and high school students; (ii) MoLam singing, and music have been practiced by a group of students at higher education institutions. Under the established parameters, both groups have extra talents. In conclusion, this study may be utilized as a model for conveying local wisdom information.

Reclaiming Singing as Art: The Trouble with Mechanics

The teaching of singing is increasingly influenced by research in the fields of health science and acoustics to the extent that teachers could be excused for thinking that they need a science or other technical degree in order to teach singing responsibly. While it is a step forward to increase the accuracy of our teaching language and the precision of the mechanical aspect of instruction, the author cautions against and draws attention to the growing risks of falling into the trap of a single-minded focus on mechanics in the voice studio. The author considers the increasing reliance on mechanical models for voice teaching, offering viewpoints from philosophy and poetry in a reminder to maintain balance in the modern voice studio. KEYWORDS: Classical and contemporary voice pedagogy, Voice science, Singing and psychology, Singing technique, medicalization, singing and performance, whole versus parts, art versus science, art of singing, mechanics, mechanistic teaching, the humanities, John Dewey.

Voice capabilities of the singer and her hygiene rules

This article provides detailed information about the reforms in our country, the attention paid to the art of music, in particular, the development of the art of singing, the singer’s voice, sounds, sound waves, and types of sound.

The Importance of Diction in the Art of Singing

The idea for this article’s subject started from the importance of diction that accompanies the music. It’s essential to be able to understand very well the words that are sung, because they give the “tone” of the entire lyrical-dramatical action. The listeners will perceive the emotion that is conveyed through the verses, and the music, as a unity. I have listened to various interpretations of singers that approached arias, leads, etc, who don’t have good diction, therefore in their musical discourse I could hear the predominance of the vowels A - E - O - U, and I could barely hear the consonants. This way, instead of following the lyrical-dramatic action itself, brought by the music and the words, I was experiencing auditory discomfort. In order to bring their own interpretation to the musical language, and to express mastery, the artist must have theoretical knowledge, and technical training and use them precisely. This way they would be able to reach high performances of the vocal tract, which will lead to the harmonious delineation of a singing style that matches the demands of the musical piece.

Mancini vs. Manfredini, or the Tril Controversy

Giambattista Mancini and Vincenzo Manfredini, two great masters of the art of singing, engaged in a long-running controversy at the height of the 18th century over the training of the voice, but especially over how to perform the trill. Their dispute, which lasted more than twenty years, demonstrates the growing interest in the method of balancing the inventiveness generated by the use of ornamental formulas with the acquisition of vocal stability based on rigor and competence. The methods of applying these fundamental principles set a precedent for intense controversy, which ultimately proved to be both constructive and creative, with the happy consequence of a significant evolutionary leap in interpretive variety.

The Decay of Singing: Remembering the Castrato

AbstractThe advent of a new political regime in Italy in the 1790s led to decrees banning castrati from the stage and the closure of the singing academies where they taught. But seventy years later the composer Gioacchino Rossini looked back to the castrati as the last adepts of the art of bel canto: “As to the castrati, they vanished, and the usage disappeared in the creation of new customs. That was the cause of the irretrievable decay of the art of singing.” This essay focuses on the eighteenth-century castrato Gasparo Pacchierotti—friend of Charles, Frances, and Susan Burney, idol of William Beckford—and on the efforts of the novelist and critic Stendhal to “remember” Pacchierotti’s lost voice. Stendhal never heard Pacchierotti in his prime, but in his 1824 Vie de Rossini he declared that the art of bel canto had reached its apogee with Pacchierotti in 1778: five years before the writer’s own birth. Stendhal sought to demonstrate that the lost voice could be remembered by way of both historical evidence and the textual and viva voce “recordings” of earlier listeners: Beckford, the Burneys, and the singer Gabriel Piozzi. In Stendhal’s erotics or mnemonics of musical sensation, such textual and performative recordings allow us to remember the sensations elicited by an absent voice as vividly as the phonographic or digital recordings on which later listeners would rely.

Singing (vocal) as a component of ballet: the experience of interpreting the phenomenon in the context of artistic trends of the early 20th century

The article is devoted to one of the forms of creative synthesis of types of art, which is being actualized in the modern space-time of musical and stage compositions, including through its own historical and genetic code. Singing in ballet appears in the context of art of the early 20th century as a common aesthetic phenomenon. However, music criticism and academic science have not yet provided the explanation of its mechanisms (image-aesthetic, psychological, form-creating, communicative), its overriding tasks in the concepts of modern musical theatre. The experience of problem statement in the field of interpretology provides the relevance of the topic of the article and determines the novelty of the obtained results.
 The purpose of the article is to reveal the preconditions and content of the functional unity of the art of singing and dance against the background of artistic trends of the early 20th century (starting with “Pulcinella” by I. Stravinsky).
 The creative tandem of dance and singing has its roots in ancient Greek culture, on which the creators of the French tradition of ballets du court (J.-B. Llully focused. In the realm of «mixed genres» of baroque music, the «golden age» of homo musicus began. The latest history of singing in ballet begins with I. Stravinsky, his «Pulchinelli». The obtained results of the research of the problem “What is singing in ballet — a tribute to history or an invention of modern culture”? First, the presence of the “genetic code” of this phenomenon in the art of Western Europe of the Modern times; secondly, the regularity of the tendency to synthesize singing in the art of ballet as a manifestation of neoclassicism, closely related to the historicism of compositional thinking of I. Stravinsky.
 The conclusions outline the preconditions and content of the functional unity of singing and dance in the format of artistic trends of the early 20th century: 1) the historical and cultural code of French art (singing — dramatic play — dance); 2) personal self-reflection of I. Stravinsky (his relations on the basis of creative cooperation in the early 20th century later formed a wide range of communication for artists: O. Rodin, A. Modigliani, K. Monet, P. Picasso, V. Kandinsky); 3) imitation of pre-classical, pre-baroque, and ancient folk traditions. In general, the revival of the function of singing in ballet of the 20th century took place on the basis of musical historicism and serves as a mental sign of the birth of neoclassicism.

VOCAL TONE PRECISION DETECTION USING HARMONIC PRODUCT SPECTRUM (HPS) AND K-NEAREST NEIGHBOR (KNN) CLASSIFICATION

The progress of the digital era that is happening today, encourages rapid development in technology and science, one of which is in the field of art. Of all performing arts, the art of singing is the most complex, which requires a lot of preparation and practice. Everyone has a different type of voice. Males generally have three types of voice, namely bass, baritone, and tenor, while women generally have three types of voice, namely contralto (alto), mezzo-soprano, and soprano. However, not everyone knows what kind of voice they have. Therefore, this study will focus on classifying the human voice. In this study, the author uses the Harmonic Product Spectrum (HPS) and K-Nearest Neighbor (K-NN) algorithms. The data used is in the form of primary voice recording data obtained from 258 participants (male and female), where each person has 8 sound files, namely do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si, and do'. saved in .wav format. From the research conducted, the test was carried out using the K-NN and K-NN methods with Hyperparameters. The results obtained in the form of accuracy of 74% and 81%, so that the Harmonic Product Spectrum (HPS) and K-Nearest Neighbor (K-NN) algorithms give good results for determining the type of human voice.

A stylistic approach to Mihail Jora's pianistics as reflected in the cycle “Five Songs for Voice and Piano on Poems” by Octavian Goga, op. 11

Jora’s songs are musical architectural miniatures with a significant dramatic component, carefully wrought with regard to prosody and diction. The performer’s stage presence, gestures attitude next to sound, and word are constitutive parts of the musical discourse. The philosophical state that the composer projects in his sonorities are specific to the early 20th century. His interest in philosophical concepts and his views on life, the attention to love, nature, and symbolism are found in the selection of the lyrics alongside compositional means, prosody, the art of singing, and that of piano playing.

An English Composer and Her Opera: Harriet Wainewright’s Comàla (1792)

ABSTRACT This paper discusses an opera by the English composer Harriet Wainewright (ca.1766-1843), namely Comàla, which received its premiere at the Hanover Square Rooms, London on January 26, 1792. The composer was from a Liverpool family of Wainwright (variable spelling). In her Critical Remarks on the Art of Singing (1836) she describes her musical ability as a young woman. Moving to London she cultivated an introduction to influential figures in society and attended opera performances, where the singing of stellar castrati such as Pachierotti or Marchesi fascinated her. Possessed of a fine soprano voice she studied harmony and counterpoint with John Worgan, an organist at Vauxhall Gardens. She decided to compose an opera herself and spent about a year writing Comàla, a dramatic tale from the poems of Ossian. But she was unable to find a theater in London that would stage the opera; it had to be performed as a concert piece, the lead roles being sung by Sophia Corri and James Bartleman. Critics, including Burney, were fulsome in their praise of the work, and Haydn’s publisher William Napier eventually brought out a full score in 1803. Disappointed at not securing staged performances of Comàla or her earlier opera (Don Quixote) Harriet left for India in 1796 where she married Col. John Stewart, an officer in the British Army (East India Company) in 1801. She had Comàla performed in Calcutta by amateurs, singing the main role herself. Returning to England as “Mrs. Col. Stewart” she continued to compose songs and choruses after her husband’s death in 1820. She died in London at the end of 1843.

Vocal technique in the formation stages of the lyric artist

Singing is the way of expression through which feelings, experiences, an ideational content are poetically expressed; in its absence the vocal qualities cannot justify the purpose of the interpretation. The topicality of music education for young performers is determined by an appropriate approach to the process of knowing the essential structure of singing, by understanding and mastering the multiple styles and ways of interpreting each genre, all in conjunction with an integration of historical views on the art of singing. Finding directions of orientation and thinking in the field of vocal interpretation, corroborated with the identification of some intrinsic values of it will contribute to achieving a stable foundation on which the lyrical artist can build a career in interpretation.

A Stylistic approach to Mihail Jora's pianistics as reflected in the Cycle Five Songs for Voice and Piano on Poems by Octavian Goga, op. 11

Jora’s songs are musical architectural miniatures with a significant dramatic component, carefully wrought with regard to prosody and diction. The performer’s stage presence, gestures attitude next to sound and word are constitutive parts of the musical discourse. The philosophical state that the composer projects in his sonorities is specific to the early 20th century. His interest in philosophical concepts and his views on life, the attention to love, nature and symbolism are found in the selection of the lyrics alongside compositional means, prosody, the art of singing and that of piano playing.

Methodology of teaching “vocal” subjects

In this article given information about the art of singing, singing, vocals, its types, the importance of vocal science for students, all four singers in the process of teaching vocal art to students - teachers in the teaching of the four basic principles and vocal science there is talk of paying attention to some key aspects.

The role of national music in education of youth

This article identifies effective ways to nurture young people through national music. A good song is a good song with its aesthetic impact, social function, educational function, and vitality. The art of singing is inherently wide-ranging and wide-ranging. Music education and moral education through music also begins at school. Moral values are stable only when they are tested many times, and they motivate a person to act in life as a real support. The invitations, exhortations, and instructions in the thoughts and melodies of folk songs are the product of vital conclusions that have been re-examined and refined as a result of his centuries of experience.

VOCAL METHODOLOGY: ON THE PROBLEM OF SYSTEM RESEARCH

The purpose of the article is to systematize the scientific methods of learning the art of singing on four levels of vocal methodology. The methodology of the study is revealed at the philosophical, general scientific, specific scientific and technological levels, with its foundation comprising: a systemic approach to systematize and summarize the methods of learning the art of singing; analytical - to study the scientific experience of humanitarian knowledge in solving the stated problem; cultural studies - to study the essence of the art of singing as a phenomenon of musical culture; axiological - to identify the value of vocal methodology and the definition of values in the art of singing. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the systematization of scientific methods of learning the art of singing at four levels of vocal methodology. Conclusions. The vocal methodology, which we consider as a system of scientific metamethods of knowledge essence and specifics of the art of singing at four levels: philosophical, general scientific, specific scientific, and technological, is at the beginning of the path of reflection and research. The identification of methods of learning the art of singing at the four levels of vocal methodology enabled us to systematize general, general scientific, and special methods aimed at solving the current problems of vocal science.

Русская вокальная школа: традиции и перспективы

Russian vocal school as a significant part of the Russian and unique phenomenon of world musical culture, developed and developed as an original direction of vocal professional performance and vocal pedagogy. The evolution of vocal performance and vocal pedagogy, the formation and development of the Russian vocal school and its traditions have shown that vocal pedagogy develops together with vocal performance, analyzing and generalizing experience, creates and tests its methods, develops singing attitudes and develops pedagogical technologies that contribute to the education of singing culture. Russian singing traditions and vocal education, their scientific research and reproduction, identification of prospects for the development of the modern Russian vocal school, identification of ways to continue existing traditions, development and scientific justification of new vocal and pedagogical technologies are relevant today. The perspective of the development of the Russian vocal school is seen in the reproduction of traditions, scientific justification of its pedagogical foundations, in the formation of performers who have a high level of motivation for singing activities and physiological potential for mastering various phonation techniques, able to learn new things in the art of singing.