Sigma Alpha Iota

PAN PIPES • FALL 2017 • sai-national.org 12 D ue to the new demands on singers today, students are eager to gain knowledge in all genres, not just classical voice. We know how to effectively teach and sing musical theatre, but what about contemporary voice? What about jazz voice? e idea of the jazz voice can be daunting to anyone, "Don't I have to sing in my lowest register? Won't I hurt my voice?" Well, the simple answer is no, you will not hurt your voice if you know how to cross genres healthily. With these questions in mind and discovering answers from my own experiences, I sent in a presentation proposal to e International Congress of Voice Teachers 2017 to present "Crossing the Genres: A Classical Singer's Guide to Jazz". I wanted to give the attendees the basic tools to teach a healthy jazz technique coming from the classical traditions. And I soon found out that many teachers are curious about this topic as my proposal was accepted to present! e International Congress of Voice Teachers (ICVT) happens every four years; think of it as the Olympics of voice conferences. is summer, ICVT 2017 took place in Stockholm, Sweden, considered to be the Venice of the North. All events took place at Kungliga Musikhögskolan (e Royal College of Music), with the theme being on Tradition and Science in Harmony. From August 2 nd to August 6 th , the days were jam-packed with seminars and presentations on a variety of topics in teaching and performing, such as "Exploring Interactivity in Lessons with Voice and Video" by Catrina Seiffert, "Power of Cabaret" by Kim Spargo and Emma Knights, and "Comparison of Male and Female Acoustic Register Transitions" by Kenneth Bozeman, just to mention a few. Masterclasses were presented daily as well as a variety of concerts to attend. "Crossing the Genres" was presented in the Main Hall at Kungliga Musikhögskolan on Friday morning. With my two collaborative voice professors, Yvonne Gonzales-Redman and Sarah Wigley-Johnson, we focused on classical style warm ups in the jazz idiom and a few stylistic changes to a jazz standard, to get teachers comfortable teaching jazz. A "Great" way to get students comfortable with their jazz or classical voices is to start them off with the Great American Songbook. e Great American Songbook is not actually a songbook, but a variable list of American standards from the 1920s–1950s that were created for musical theatre and Hollywood films. ese popular tunes have stood the test of time, because they are tuneful, repetitious, and have a fantastic storytelling aspect that novice and trained singers can easily portray and make honest. It is also a great teaching tool equally beneficial for classical singers looking to enhance their chest/mix voice and for belters to enhance head/mix. It really forces the students to get comfortable in a range they may not be used to using. Although many classical singers are familiar with these composers, one of the biggest hurdles and possible insecurities of performing American Songbook repertoire in the jazz idiom is scat singing. To get students comfortable with a jazz sound, you should have them doing warm ups ascending and descending on a major 7 th and 9 th chord, minor and major (see examples a and b). Guide them into singing up a half step or down a half, every time, just like a classical warmup. It is imperative that the students use "forced creativity" in the scat syllables. Let them make up different scat sounds every time. Jazz is having absolute creative freedom in music. Once they are comfortable with a the 7 th and 9 th chords, the goal is to add in to each chord passing tones, turn figures, and neighboring tones. Soon, these jazz warm ups will become like an etude and get students listening in a different way. Once students are comfortable singing the 7 th and 9 th chords with passing tones, turn figures, and neighboring tones, the next step is to take a Great American Songbook tune, learn the melody, and slowly begin to change it. e first step is to sing the melody with scat syllables. Get comfortable in trying new sounds and imitating instruments. e next step is to sing the inversion of the melodic line, which is to change the direction of the pitches (see example c). Normally, you would only change one or two pitches in each phrase, but get students to be creative and try singing the whole phrase inverted! e next step is to try singing the song with back and forward phrasing. Back phrasing is to sing behind the beat and forward phrasing is to sing ahead of the beat. You would never use one without the other (see examples d & e). You want to create that yummy push and pull to make the song more interesting to you and the listener. All of these should be done to the extreme as a learning tool for your student. ey can be extremely fun and you need to feel free to make mistakes. Two fantastic apps available on your phone that you can utilize outside the studio to help you or your students get comfortable with scatting and the Great American Songbook tunes are ScatAbility and iReal Pro. e first is ScatAbility, which is an app for scat singing. e app allows you to listen, call, and imitate to get you scatting quickly and musically. is was a training tool we displayed during our presentation. e second is iReal Pro, which is soware that organically generates a customizable rhythm section backing track for use in practice situations. You can download chord changes for much of the American Songbook tunes right on your phone and practice from the comfort of your home or even create your own charts to practice with. Studying jazz and utilizing my chest and mix voice in this manner has made me more marketable as a teacher and performer, as I have just been hired to teach all genres of voice performance at e University of Illinois at Springfield. I truly believe this is the future of vocal education. I would like to thank Sigma Alpha Iota Philanthropies for awarding me the Professional Development/Education Grant. e knowledge that I gained from attending ICVT has been extremely beneficial. I highly advise and recommend to my fellow sisters to attend ICVT 2021 in Vienna, Austria. e seminars and masterclasses presented le me inspired to continue on my musical journey! VOCAL JAZZ Crossing the Seas: An SAI's Guide to ICVT b. Minor 9th a. Major 9 th

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