On 9 Feb 2006 at 19:36, Mark D Lew wrote: > This rhythm discussion reminds me of some of my experiences coaching > opera singers in recitative. On the one hand, when they sing it > strictly by the metronome, it sounds cold and lifeless and it doesn't > communicate the text. But then when I tell them to stop being so > literal to the page and go with the natural flow of the text, they > lose all sense of the beat and it just sounds like mush. Then when I > complain that they've lost the rhythm, they give me a baffled look as > if to say, "but you just told me not to worry about singing it in > time". > > Some singers get recitative and some don't. For the ones who don't, > it's really hard to teach.
Boy, is that ever true. It's such a challenge to accompany these people who don't get recitative. I believe that the reason, though, that they don't get it right is because they don't pay attention to both parts of your instructions. When you say "stop being so literal to the page and go with the natural flow of the text" they do the first part (stop singing the rhythms literally) but never quite figure out what "the flow of the text" is. They seem to think that means a string of undifferentiated equal notes. While that may work in "patter" recitatives, it's not musical. What I've found that usually helps is to make them determine what words they'd accentuate in speech, and then having them make those notes longer in singing. The funny thing is that if you have them speak the words, they usually get the right speech rhythm, but then cannot seem to convert what they are doing in speech to its musical analog. -- David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
