This is a re-posting of a blog post that was put in my personal blog for lack of a place to put it. These are the type of articles I plan on posting here on "Voice of Reason".
Read on:
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I gave a coaching session today that will land me with a new student. (Yay!) She is a sophomore in High School and loves to sing. She had her faith as a singer shaken when put in the hands of a verbally abusive teacher, who apparently still teaches at her school. His bite is apparently as bad or worse than his bark which means he should be removed, but that's not my purview. I digress.
This very intelligent, bubbly girl and I had a very animated discussion about jazz vocalists and instrumetnalists and the apparent gap that seems to exist between the two. When I started singing and gigging regularly, some instrumentalists came across very icy at first. They were expecting something of me and I never knew what it was. So what is it about singers that instrumentalists are wary of? I have a theory. Newly formed, though probably nothing new to some.
Vocalists as a group have a bad rap as severe egomaniacs. Vocalists are the center of attention in front of a band and some people let it go so to their heads they become almost unbearable to deal with. So, when I first met with a band, it wasn't until we actually ran a song or two, and they could see that I knew my music that everyone started to show interest and the comraderie door had opened, and we could work and discuss the music.
Most instrumentalists have studied YEARS to get to a certain level of jazz performance. HOWEVER, with singers (and I am generalizing because it is more often than not) the general lot of singers are NOT long studied musicians and therefore rest on the laurels of the quality of their voice.
Just because you can sing, does not make you a 'jazz singer'.
As a long studied musician, and noticing how many singers don't read music has, quite honestly, annoyed the living hell out of me. If you are in the field of music, you need to learn the language. I sound like a "Merkin" speaking of any immigrant. But the same holds true for music. Why is it that vocalists believe that they don't need to read music to sing? Is this just a hobby for them? And even if it is, you need to know how to read music in order to interpret it and deliver a good performance. So, what's the deal??
Since time immemorial, I've seen it year after year after year. Someone who knows how to imitate and ape a certain singer will be chosen to sing with a band. But just because you listened to and learned a song by a certian vocalist and can re-create it to a 'T', doesn't make you a singer. Imitation is the purest form of flattery it is said, and a great way to learn your craft. But once a vocalist gets that music shoved in their face, the usual reaction is a look of terror, then asking it to be played for them and they will try to do it 'by ear'. The problem is, in order to do something 'by ear' you first need to have an 'ear'. Otherwise you're just trying to learn the song by rote. Again, I digress.
The number of singers who don't know the language of their craft is quite staggering. You would never see a trumpet player who has memorized a solo get recruited to a band, get the music and then freeze up. So why has the vocalist been led by the hand and guided and goaded and encouraged to just 'fake it' all this time?? High schoolers may have a more difficult time as music classes aren't built into the cirriculum, but if you're in college, you're close enough to a beggining theory class to do it for a quarter or semester and know just about everything you need to know to read music. For some reason, some singers have their heads so far up their asses, they think they're 'beyond' the music. It is for this reason that I think the jazz singer may very well be endangered. Who wants to work with a musician who doesn't know his/her music??
Well, little girls and boys, I'm here to tell you that ends now.
I'm going to do what I can to get vocalists who don't know how to read music to read. Every student I teach, if they're not already learning piano theory, they get piano theory from me. And it becomes part of the lesson. Ear training, the whole bit. If you want to learn to sing, dammit, you're going to learn to read music. If you want to make it in music, lead a band, start a band, or in any way become a performer you need to know how to read music just like your band does. No exceptions. That's fair, right??
I think so.
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