Vocal pedagogy
Vocal pedagogy is the study of the art and science of voice instruction. It is used in the teaching of singing and assists in defining what singing is, how singing works, and how proper singing technique is accomplished.
For instrumental technique, see Musical technique.The anatomy of the vocal folds
Vocal pedagogy covers a broad range of aspects of singing, ranging from the physiological process of vocal production to the artistic aspects of interpretation of songs from different genres or historical eras. Typical areas of study include:[1]
All of these different concepts are a part of developing proper vocal technique. Not all voice teachers have the same opinions within every topic of study which causes variations in pedagogical approaches and vocal technique.
Topics of study[edit]
Pedagogical philosophy[edit]
There are basically three major approaches to vocal pedagogy. They're all related to how the mechanistic and psychological controls are employed while singing. Some voice instructors advocate an extreme mechanistic approach that believes that singing is largely a matter of getting the right physical parts in the right places at the right time, and that correcting vocal faults is accomplished by calling direct attention to the parts which are not working well. On the other extreme, is the school of thought that believes that attention should never be directed to any part of the vocal mechanism—that singing is a matter of producing the right mental images of the desired tone, and that correcting vocal faults is achieved by learning to think the right thoughts and by releasing the emotions through interpretation of the music. Most voice teachers, however, believe that the truth lies somewhere in between the two extremes and adopt a composite of those two approaches.[8]