On Feb 15, 2006, at 2:04 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't, but if you stuck the pin in the person you were trying to harm, you *know* for a fact that they'd feel it. Likewise, if you want someone to play as softly as possible, just write "as softly as possible."
You seem to be assuming that a musician can be relied upon to follow simple directions. That might be true for instrumentalists, but Verdi was writing for opera singers....
I kid, but the point remains. Verdi was a practical man. He resorted to voodoo because non-voodoo wasn't working. Or so he says.
I use voodoo with singers all the time. We vocal coaches are always talking about things like "brighter" and "darker" tones, "covering", "placement", "inner smile", "sing through the top of your head", etc. Taken literally, these terms are close to meaningless. Even the terms that seem to be real physical descriptions turn out to be inaccurate representations of what is actually happening physiologically. And yet the terms achieve the desired results, so even if they're voodoo, they are voodoo that can sometimes work.
The voice is an odd instrument, and it can be useful to play mind games with singers. In my experience with amateur choruses I've found that I sometimes get good results just making up crazy imagery that puts singers in a certain frame of mind. On the whole, it's much more effective than simply asking for what I actually want.
I have a policy of always being honest with my choristers, and I tell them that any time they want to know what the purpose of a certain exercise is, they can ask me. Sometimes they ask me about my crazy imagery, and I tell them: Something like, "What I really want is for you to sing with a more relaxed tongue and throat so that there will be a freer tone, but telling you that doesn't make it happen, so I'm trying out imagery instead until I find something that does the trick." I'm completely open about my voodoo -- as was Verdi.
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