5. The importance of singing
Feb. 4th, 2008 04:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
franceslievensRemember these? I had to skip #4, because my copy of His Dark Materials is elsewhere. Today I give you a very important #5.
Do you sing?
There was a time when my answer wouldn't have differed so much from any of the answers you can give me, my dear reader. "I sing in the bathroom (great acoustics)," or "I sing along to the radio," or even "I used to sing in the church's choir." Some people would say I had a nice voice, others would give me foul looks for singing, because in the relative safety of my room I considered myself alone, not taking into account that singing penetrates walls or open windows. Fortunately singing is usualy handled with the same care as is very loud obnoxious sex: You don't mention it to your neighbours when they sing out of key.
At this point singing was an unfulfilled dream in which I was the singer of the band. Even though I played guitar I have always been very humble about my mastery of that instrument. I never wanted to be the guitarist. It always came second to being the singing front-woman of whatever music I was listening to. The guitar was simply part of the image. Tracy Chapman looses all her credit without the guitar. Sinéad O'Connor played a heavenly acoustic set on MTV with just her guitar. The choice for my instrument at age 10 must have been a choice for the singers and music I saw on the television. I strongly believe I chose to sing, but didn't consider the need to learn to sing.
Why would a person sing anyway? What they teach you at the music academy is a classical technique to sing opera and classical songs. The technical skill of the singers quickly overtakes their feeling for the music, which leaves the listener with nothing to invest in. One can feel awe at the great technical souplesse of the coloratura when she reaches the crazy high notes Mozart gave his Königin der Nacht in Die Zauberflöte, but hardly ever does this provoke the deep emotions other kinds of music have. Operatic voices do have a tendency to sound robotic and flat. The singer who can sing and act is a rare gift.
Though in the acting also lies the joy and emotional strength of the song. When you sing, you pretend to feel the heartache, the joy, the anger hidden in the melody and words. As Roberta Flack so poignantly put it in Killing Me Softly With His Song music has the ability to evoke great emotional depths. When one sings, one seems to lay bare her innermost feelings. Singing is attractive. The singer is desirable, because she has no emotional secrets. She dares to open up in public, and talk about her true nature. The audience, moved by so much emotion, forgets about possible pretense, and embraces the musical feelings as real.
In general people are scared of singing. The raw emotion – so good at enchanting the listeners – is a tricky thing to fake. Emotionless singing, flat and scared voices concentrating on technique, won't convince the hard judges. Singing needs the proverbially heart on the tongue. It also needs the détente which lets you speak freely. We sing with all the tension removed from our bodies, and in reverse singing removes whatever leftover tension there is. In that state a singer can bewitch her audience and evoke emotions that might or might not be hers, feel them even, and so she lays her soul to bare, even though it isn't her soul she's singing about.
Do you sing?
There was a time when my answer wouldn't have differed so much from any of the answers you can give me, my dear reader. "I sing in the bathroom (great acoustics)," or "I sing along to the radio," or even "I used to sing in the church's choir." Some people would say I had a nice voice, others would give me foul looks for singing, because in the relative safety of my room I considered myself alone, not taking into account that singing penetrates walls or open windows. Fortunately singing is usualy handled with the same care as is very loud obnoxious sex: You don't mention it to your neighbours when they sing out of key.
At this point singing was an unfulfilled dream in which I was the singer of the band. Even though I played guitar I have always been very humble about my mastery of that instrument. I never wanted to be the guitarist. It always came second to being the singing front-woman of whatever music I was listening to. The guitar was simply part of the image. Tracy Chapman looses all her credit without the guitar. Sinéad O'Connor played a heavenly acoustic set on MTV with just her guitar. The choice for my instrument at age 10 must have been a choice for the singers and music I saw on the television. I strongly believe I chose to sing, but didn't consider the need to learn to sing.
Why would a person sing anyway? What they teach you at the music academy is a classical technique to sing opera and classical songs. The technical skill of the singers quickly overtakes their feeling for the music, which leaves the listener with nothing to invest in. One can feel awe at the great technical souplesse of the coloratura when she reaches the crazy high notes Mozart gave his Königin der Nacht in Die Zauberflöte, but hardly ever does this provoke the deep emotions other kinds of music have. Operatic voices do have a tendency to sound robotic and flat. The singer who can sing and act is a rare gift.
Though in the acting also lies the joy and emotional strength of the song. When you sing, you pretend to feel the heartache, the joy, the anger hidden in the melody and words. As Roberta Flack so poignantly put it in Killing Me Softly With His Song music has the ability to evoke great emotional depths. When one sings, one seems to lay bare her innermost feelings. Singing is attractive. The singer is desirable, because she has no emotional secrets. She dares to open up in public, and talk about her true nature. The audience, moved by so much emotion, forgets about possible pretense, and embraces the musical feelings as real.
In general people are scared of singing. The raw emotion – so good at enchanting the listeners – is a tricky thing to fake. Emotionless singing, flat and scared voices concentrating on technique, won't convince the hard judges. Singing needs the proverbially heart on the tongue. It also needs the détente which lets you speak freely. We sing with all the tension removed from our bodies, and in reverse singing removes whatever leftover tension there is. In that state a singer can bewitch her audience and evoke emotions that might or might not be hers, feel them even, and so she lays her soul to bare, even though it isn't her soul she's singing about.
