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CHAPTER I |
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ORIENTATIONS FOR THIS STUDY |
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Aims and Purposes
T
here is certainly no lack of printed material on the subjects of singing and voice culture. But it is inaccessible to teachers because it is extremely diversified and fragmentary and rather diffusely distributed throughout a variety of books, periodicals, scientific papers, reports of experiments and published interviews that have never been correlated from the standpoint of a definite vocal pedagogy. Furthermore, what is written about the singing voice is so often overlaid and interwoven with conflicting theories and extravagent conjectures that misinterpretations are inevitable. Where there is abundant verbal testimony to support a given procedure there is not one shred of documentary or experimental evidence. Teachers of singing fall an easy prey to unscientific writings on voice for want of orientation in the foundational principles of their subject and much inherited misinformation is thus perpetuated. The resultant confusion has been costly to education. It has discouraged research workers from making much needed investigations in the field of vocal education. Obviously, the work of classifying the known theories and teaching concepts must precede any further research in this area if serious blundering and repetitious effort are to be avoided. An analytical study and comparison of the many recent contributions to vocal pedagogy would facilitate the appraisal of teaching methods, old and new. Both pedagogy and research would be benefited by the juxtaposition and classification of the principal ideologies and methodologies pursued by the singing profession. The findings of such a study would provide the vocal scientist with a background of useful knowledge against which to formulate and test his own theories- The teacher would enjoy the counsel and caution of his contemporaries through an exchange of ideas gathered from a range of knowledge and experience wider than his own. Needless trial and error experience might thus be obviated and the teaching profession as a whole provided with a purposive viewpoint, |
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