| I don’t think anybody would argue
with me that tennis is a socially constructed discourse, but in
order to get some other ideas working I need a different sort of
example. Suppose I take this tack: Someone has told me that I have a
good voice and that I should study singing. This example has two
advantages for me, the chief of which is that I know a good deal more
about singing than I know about tennis. But the second advantage is
this. Singing as a discourse seems to involve possession of "a
voice," a something given which nonetheless can be named in a way
that might suggest simplicity and naturalness. Let’s leave this
thought hanging in the air. How shall I study singing, and what will be
the nature of my learning?
I will learn to sing almost entirely by doing it in the presence of a mentor. To some extent I will learn from listening to others. There will be some great exemplars whom I will seek to emulate (or perhaps surpass). I will listen to their recordings, listen to them in person when I am able. But mostly I will learn to sing by doing it in the presence of a mentor—note the analogy with the tennis coach. My mentor will show me how to breathe by demonstrating to me, will observe my breathing and body language, advising me to do this or that, to bend my knees (or not), to relax my shoulders and thorax, to breathe so as to expand my body below my chest, may prescribe breathing exercises or singing exercises designed to promote good breathing habits, may take a hands-on approach and feel my body as physicians do. The process is physical. I am never prompted to feel unembodied as I learn. As I begin to learn to speak on pitch, and as I explore the sounds I am capable of producing, my teacher may suggest metaphors to me that help me internalize attitudes towards those sounds. I may hear about something called the "passagio," a resonance myth, or I may be encouraged to think about "placing the tone" in some way. I may be told to "suport" my singing by my breathing or to "sing on the breath." I will hear a lot about singing "naturally," avoiding "forced," or constricted sounds. I will be told to sing "legato," "with a line;" my teacher may make hand gestures to show me what "line" means. If I encounter difficulty with conctete musical gestures, my teacher will help me to overcome those difficulties (or not). The goal is to help me to internalize (I should probably put "internalize in quotation marks, too) a technique which can be applied to the making of musical gestures of a certain kind, both those I presently know and am able to make and those I may encounter the necessity of making in the future. In the end (and there is so much more to it than these few examples) I shall have acquired the ability to sing without thinking too much about the physical process. I will come to think of my "voice" as my "instrument." I will understand what that instrument’s capabilities and limitations are. Much of my understanding will be "by feel." I will come to know how certain sounds and vocal gestures "feel," and I will develop loci of control involving those "feelings." But there will be a theoretical level to my thinking about my "voice," as well. I will think of myself as a certain kind of singer. I may have entered vocal study thinking I had one sort of voice and discovered in the process of study that I possessd another. Suppose I had thought that I was a "bass," and suppose that my teacher had corrected me and explained to me that I sas a "spinto baritone," or a "basso cantante," or (perish the thought) a "lyric tenor." What might such characterizations mean, and what would have been the nature of my mischaracterization of my "voice" in each instance?
[Posted At Howard Rheingold's Brainstorms, 23 March 1999] |