Transcript The Art of Vocal Performance

The Art of Vocal
Performance
- Whether it occurs in a opera house or on a
rock concert stage, singing is very much an art
form.
-Vocal performance is a distillation of many
factors that shape and refine it.
Culture Influences the Voice
-Every culture has its own style of singing.
-What is considered beautiful tone in some cultures might be
less appealing in others.
-Timbres sometimes reflect the sound of a country’s language.
-some languages slide up and down
-others have guttural sounds and even clicks
Vocal Timbre and Musical Style
-To express a variety of emotions in music and attain maximum impact,
we must choose the most suitable timbre.
Bel Canto
-The term that designates the operatic singing style is bel canto, which
literally means “beautiful singing”
-Bel canto – a style characterized by lyrical and flowing phrases, beauty
and vocal color, and brilliant technique.
Blues Style
-Blues – a genre of African American music that often expresses
frustration.
-the vocal timbres from males and females from all age groups reflect a
sense of sadness.
-the vocal quality is most often straight forward, folk-like singing that
dips and slides.
-helps convey the blues feeling
B.B King – Everyday I have the Blues
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4tL-zeVRbk
-Roots lie in the heritage of African American music.
-text and style originated in spirituals and work songs of enslaved African Americans.
-Blues lyrics are simple and direct
-express painful experiences that reveal the darker side of life.
-very honest, personal expressions address basic concerns in the lives of the poor and
downtrodden.
-express loss and heartbreak and the reason for it.
-W.C. Handy – “father of the blues”. He was the first to popularize this jazz form.
-His family frowned upon music, but he worked hard to become a performer.
-Eventually, he composed, arranged, and collected a large number of blues pieces, then
founded a music publishing company.
W.C. Handy – short documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQkLFTcdgH4
-Blues songs typically have many verses, each consisting of three lines.
-line 1 – states the situation
-line 2 – usually repeats line 1, making sure the listener
understands/for building tension
-line 3 – resolves the situation, often dashes the self-pity that was
built up in the first two lines.
Ex. Lyrics from “Snatch It Back Blues” by Buddy Boy Hawkins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=empu_3FLUPc
Gonna lay my head right on the railroad track,
Gonna lay my head right on the railroad track,
If the train come ‘long, I’m gonna snatch it back.
Improvisation
-Many blues songs became classics used by jazz artists as the basis for
improvisation.
-Remember, the term improvisation designates a type of spontaneous musical
invention.
-The practice has led to confusion about whether the blues is a form distinct from
jazz and other types of music.
-Whether it is used as the basic form for jazz, rock, or pop music, the predictable,
repetitive blues chord pattern provides the structure for highly individualistic
musical expression.
12-Bar Blues
-Usually the blues is based on a 12-bar harmonic pattern
that is repeated over and over.
-This simple framework gives musicians a means of
expression limited only by their imagination.
-To recognize a 12-bar blues tune, you must be able to
recognize the pattern of repeated harmonies that is based
on 3 chords.
-The tonic or I chord is the first pitch of the scale (C).
-The dominant or V chord (G7) is built on the 5th degree of the scale.
-The subdominant or IV chord (F) is built on the 4th degree of the scale.
-These chords are often made into dominant 7th chords (V7) by the addition above
the root tone.
Blue Notes
-Blues started out as a fundamentally vocal form. However, blues musicians quickly added
instruments, especially the guitar. – Ex. Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, John Mayer, etc.
-Guitarists, like singers, can ‘bend’ any tone they want sliding from pitch to pitch, creating what
we call “blue tonality”.
-Blues singers also ‘bend’ or flatten certain notes of the scale as they sing. The notes they bend
are called “blue notes”.
- Blue notes – selected pitches usually on the third and seventh degrees of the scale, whose
intonation is altered at the discretion of the performer.
Contrasts in Vocal Music
-There recordings of voices that sound like instruments.
-Sweet Honey in the Rock – female African American vocal group
-have been singing together since 1973
-name comes from a biblical story – the land was so rich that when the rocks were
opened, honey flowed from them
-Bernice Johnson Reagon – started the group – influences by a wide range of musical
styles
-won a Grammy for their antiapartheid song “State of Emergency”
-Apartheid was an official policy of racial segregation in South Africa until the early
1990’s.
-song protested the actions of the South African government and its disregard for
human rights.
State of Emergency
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGCAwU76XPs