Music Education
English speakers, this one’s for you. You might have already discovered that singing in your native language can be trickier than expected, sometimes even more than singing in a language you don’t speak well. When you’re in the rehearsal room getting note after note about your unintelligible
Music Education
When it comes to sorting out a nasty bit of coloratura, stutter-inducing patter, or rhythms that make your eyes cross, slow practice is where it’s at. Conversely, sometimes it’s just as handy to try speeding things up. Music that’s meant to be slow can come with side
Music Education
Many musicians spend their early years of training – and maybe some of the later years – fighting a cold, hard fact about their practice habits: the slow way is the fast way. Slowness is the magic ingredient that makes the idea of repetition valuable. When a singer or an instrumentalist is
Music Education
No matter what voice type you are, it’s fair to admit that plenty of your most applause-worthy moments come with high notes. Fast high notes, loud high notes, entire-lungful-of-air high notes – they’re what we’re all waiting to hear. There, I said it. When it comes to producing
Music Education
What would opera singers be without their stretchy, malleable tempos? More specifically, where would they be without the unwritten rules – “performance practice”, they’re often called – about when you simply must take some extra time? Opera is no place for heartless clockwork; but when it comes to mastering operatic skills,
Music Education
DEVELOP A PLAN FOR DRILLING THE TRICKY BITS IN YOUR MUSIC One of the skills you should take with you as you leave post-secondary education is a solid method of learning your own music. While you still have support from regular coaches and teachers, get specific about the steps you
Music Education
Singers have a better handle than most when it comes to mastering foreign languages. Rolled R’s, umlauts, they do it all. For singers whose mother tongue is English, there are a few common traps that come up when they’re asked to sing in any of the other common
Music Education
Harlekin’s aria is one of the more thoughtful, organic uses of the “song within the song” device in opera. In Richard Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos, Harlekin is part of Zerbinetta’s comedy troupe; when he and his fellow players are thrown into a serious case of stage improv, he
Music Education
The relationship between a singer and a voice coach is something unique, often full of a huge amount of mutual respect for what the other brings to the table. It’s a dynamic that’s not quite the same as the one between a singer and voice teacher, largely because
Music Education
Singers know well that bel canto opera is demanding stuff. For pianists, a quick glance at the sparse, simple accompaniments in the arias by Bellini, Donizetti, and Rossini can give the false impression that the repertoire is simple. The notes may be straightforward, but there’s more to the art
Music Education
Opera is opera is opera, right? Lots of singing, some love affairs and some deaths? Well, of course. But within the broad term of “opera”, there are subgenres which all offer something a bit different. Whether you’re looking for some clarity on the operatic styles, or you’re hoping
Music Education
If you don’t recognise the term, you definitely recognise the device. Diegetic music in a show – be it television, film, or even opera – is essentially music that the characters hear as well as the audience. In film and TV, often we realise that music is diegetic because it stops
