A Spectrum of Voices: Prominent American Voice Teachers Discuss the Teaching of Singing. - book review

by Elizabeth Blades-Zeller. Scarecrow Press (4720 Boston Way, Lanham, MD 20706), 2002. 228 pp., $45.

Imagine if, as an interviewer/moderator, you could gather together several of the most successful, most recognized voice teachers in America to chat about the art of voice teaching over a long, long period of time--even days or weeks. You could find out about them not only as teachers, but as human beings. You could learn what attracted them to the art and what keeps them attracted to it, in some cases, for decades. Imagine that you could include in the discussion a number of wonderful pedagogues who are no longer living, but whose ideas and convictions live on in their vocal progeny.

Elizabeth Blades-Zeller, herself a singer and vocal pedagogue, essentially has assembled just such a group between the covers of her interesting and well-organized volume. Discussions in the book, an outgrowth of her doctoral thesis, are structured in three major areas: Vocal Concepts, Training Singers and Teachers' Professional Training. Most of her information was-,, garnered through a series of in-person interviews with each teacher, electronically captured for her own reference on audio and videotape. She also gathered information from some with a second taped conversation.

Her selection process of determining whom she would include in her quest is quite interesting in itself. Trying to remove her own bias as a researcher from the selection, she created a survey, which was sent to several universities and conservatories known to have active, important voice departments, as well to the officers and governors of the National Association of Teachers of Singing. She asked directly for help identifying "exemplary teachers of applied voice, teaching in the United States." A few names became apparent as widely recognized and respected. Some of those names include (at the time of writing) Marcia Baldwin from the Eastman School of Music; Oren Brown from The Juilliard School; Barbara Doscher (deceased) from the University of Colorado at Boulder; Shirlee Emmons, who teaches privately in New York; Barbara Honn from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia; Richard Miller from Oberlin College Conservatory in Oberlin, Ohio; and Laura Brooks Rice from Westminster Choir College at Rider University, as well as several others. There are twenty names in all. It could be argued that other important names were omitted, yet Blades-Zeller acknowledges the difficulty of narrowing down a list of this sort. It is clear she made every effort to objectify selection in a very subjective art form.

The format of each interview begins with a question as it was posed to each of the teachers, such as the first issue addressed: "Describe your approach to teaching the following concepts of vocal technique: posture; breath and `breath support': (appoggio); tonal resonsance (i.e. voice `placement' or `focus'); diction; registration; unification (i.e., evenness of voice throughout the range); tension mediation and elimination." The teachers' responses follow and are quite diverse and interesting in both the content of the answers and the ability of each teacher to clearly articulate his or her concepts. Not all the teachers appear to have answered all the questions. Also, some answers are quite long and involved, while others are quite terse.

As might be expected, much of the first part of the book is devoted to how the physicality of singing is taught. There is a wide divergence of approach. To guide readers through some of the terms bandied about by vocal experts, Blades-Zeller includes a very helpful, efficient and effective glossary of terms. Probably the most interesting sections of the book deal with how the various teachers approach artistic and professional development. These sections reveal the teachers at their most human, and several of them speak with compelling efficacy of their love of teaching and of the art of communicating, either as singers themselves or as teachers of singing.

Blades-Zeller has been thorough in the questions posed to each teacher, touching upon a broad gamut of what it is to be a teacher of singing. In the third portion of the book, it is interesting to read how the teachers themselves were trained as singers and teachers. Some faithfully follow paths shown to them by honored teachers; most reflect their own bent on what they learned, putting together a path for themselves and then finding effective ways of communicating it to students, in some cases, for several decades.

This book would be enjoyed by anyone who has an interest in voice teaching, especially in the classical training of singers. The book's focus is, after all, exclusively on the teaching of classical singing. The book would be enjoyed by teachers of classical singing, students of classical singing, teachers and students of vocal pedagogy, and professional singers and coaches who are interested in gleaning insight into how their respected colleagues deal with given issues--technical, psychological or spiritual.