Ep. 9: Is classical technique the best way to learn to sing?

In this episode we'll be unpacking the common stereotype that classical singing is better, healthier, and makes a singer more versatile.

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Transcript

Nechama Leah: 0:18

Hello and welcome to the Jewish singer podcast. I am so excited that you're here. Thank you so much for joining me. I am like unnecessarily excited to do this episode with you because, um, I feel like this is a misconception that's been floating around for a really long time and it's a good thing to clear out. So today we're going to be talking about classical versus contemporary singing. So I was having a conversation with someone over Instagram, and she mentioned that she thinks that classically trained singers have a better understanding of their own voices and just how to use and manipulate their voices. And I thought that was so interesting. And honestly, we didn't dive too deep into the conversation as to why she thought that, but obviously that was her personal experience. And. Also, somebody else a few weeks ago on Instagram asked me, she reached out to me, I had never really spoken to her before, and she asked me about my experience with classical versus contemporary music, because she has a voice teacher who was really trying to dissuade her from learning contemporary music or contemporary ways of singing, and was advocating that classical singing was superior, To other styles and techniques and so I just thought that it's really important if you guys are Hearing things about this through other voice teachers or just like from Friends and this stereotype is still kind of going around. I think it's really important to to talk about it okay. So the first thing I want to say is if you have a voice teacher that does not let you study a particular style or learn particular techniques and songs that you want to learn, run, okay. Run from them. Um, this is not a teacher that has your best interest at heart. Okay. I can, I can say that with confidence because. By now in the voice teacher world, I think we're far enough along that most people are realizing that crossover singing is awesome and crossover singing is valuable. And someone who just doesn't want you to, to study some other kind of style, it's just probably not equipped to teach it to you. Um, and they're holding onto some kind of like, well, this is better. It's not better. Okay. Oh, I just like totally ruined my, my thesis statement was going to get there eventually. So maybe you don't need to listen to the rest of the podcast. Just kidding. So listen, that's the first thing. I just want to make sure that you are comfortable and safe with someone who is going to listen to you because at the end of the day, you are the boss. You're the boss of your voice. You're the boss of what you're studying and what you're singing. And zehu that's it. A teacher who tells you that one technique is superior to any other is wrong, just that's it, it's wrong. Um, and every singer has to find their own style and their own niche and their own teacher that's right for them. And just because someone is a great teacher, like maybe they have like a particular niche and they're great at that, that doesn't mean they'll be the best teacher for you, even. Um, there's a lot of trust involved, et cetera, et cetera. That's actually for another episode. So anyway, these conversations that I've been having have prompted me to want to set the record straight and speak a little about the differences between classical training and contemporary singing training. So if you don't already know, I have a bachelor of music degree in vocal performance, and I studied vocal performance. Classical voice, opera, in particular, when I was at college. At college? Makes me sound British or something, huh? I also grew up doing musical theater from when I was very young. After college, I went back into musical theater was doing community theater and some professional theater work. And I was, uh, Also a singer at a church. Don't worry. I wasn't Jewish yet. We sang a lot of folk and jazz styles. I was a backup singer for a little bit in an Afro funk band. And I was like, had these like shaker things and was like doing the whole thing. It was so fun. Um, I've sung a lot as a choral singer. So, yeah, I've experienced the, you know, the gamut of I've run the whole, is that the word I've experienced in a whole array of styles of music. And about four years ago, I started a voice teacher certification program, which really deals heavily with like CCM contemporary music training. And so I have studied. Extensively in both realms. Okay. So just to give you an idea of, of my authority to speak on such matters. Okay. So we're just going to work with two umbrellas today. I'm going to call it classical music and I'm going to call it contemporary music, which. will lump in and under that second umbrella, pop, musical theater, jazz, and other modern styles. Even though I know that each of those subcategories might have their own nuances of technique and also some overlap with classical singing. So first I wanted to just define what I mean with each category. What are they in case you're not so familiar? Classical technique is head voice dominant. You're going to want to be singing a lot in head voice. When I was studying opera, my teachers would basically say, that it's forbidden to sing in full chest voice, even when there will be times when we would be coming down into low parts of the range, it would still be expected that we would have that sort of heady covered sound down there. Yeah, it was just expected that the head voice sound would dominate. That's just, that was the reality. That's the style. That's the aesthetic. And the classical sound is also more what I'll call breath heavy. What I mean by that is that the singers usually tank up more air. So we're really concerned with like movement of the rib cage and opening and getting. a lot of air into the lungs and using a lot more air in the sound. Okay. Cause they want that sort of spinny full sound with lots of vibrato and volume also, right? Because in classical singing and opera in particular, They are singing to large halls. I mean, the halls are made for acoustically for this, but they're having to get, you know, to the back of the hall with their voice. They need a lot of volume. Um, classical, classical singing can also be described as having like a darker sound to it. Okay. So you're thinking like, Oh, right. And it's like. Everything's a little bit here. Okay. Um, here's your little concert for the day. Uh, okay. So that's classical. Hopefully that was like a very short, snippet of how to describe that. And then the next umbrella, contemporary singing as we'll call it, requires full access to chest voice. And also uses head voice, and I would argue has a broader variety of sounds in it. So you're gonna hear maybe a more covered tone, like you would in classical, the, Ah, particularly in jazz music. I think. And you'll hear super bright and brassy timbres, you know, in pop and musical theater. That kind of thing. And you'll hear chest voice being used, of course, in the lower parts of the voice, but also being taken up higher into the range. So you're getting that belty quality. So I would say overall that the mixing, if that term makes sense to you, the, the mix voice that we're looking for tends to be a little bit more chest dominant as a general, as a generalization in contemporary music. Okay, so we have the question of which one is better, which one is healthier, which one is ideal for you to be studying, and I guess you already know, hopefully you already know that I'm going to say that neither is better than the other. And whichever, whichever style that you study, you are going to come away with a specific set of skills. That's it. Really. Okay, so there's no, there's no moral assignment of classical music. And this is interesting, I think that part of, we have a little bit of like a vestige of, the, I want to call it like elitism of classical Western music. That's just kind of like hung on. And so there are still teachers, particularly in academia who view classical music and operatic singing as superior, just because that that was the vibe of the, of the times back then when classical music was, was really in its heyday, you know, we're talking about hundreds of years ago. And, you know, those singers, those classical singers were very highly trained and, they studied really hard. And so there's this attitude that. Classical music is better for that reason. And it's not true. And so many singers today are just as well trained and just as proficient. Um, having gone the other route, having gone, you know, musical theater route, for instance. Think about all the singers on Broadway. Some of them probably have never had any classical training. I mean, a lot of them probably have because they do kind of crossover stuff, especially if they're doing more legit type of musical theater where they have to have a bit of a head voice dominant mix, then they're going to, they're going to cross train, but on the whole, it's not like they're studying to be opera singers. And they're like, okay, I'm just going to go do a Broadway show. No, they work and they work and they work and they train. In that style. Okay, so if you study classically. Here's what you will, the skills that you will learn. You'll come away with, you know, a very developed head voice. Chances are, it's not always the case, but chances are, you will come away also with an underdeveloped chest voice. You'll probably be able to sing beautiful classical repertoire. Your vibrato will probably be very well developed and maybe even a little broad. Yeah. So now you ask that same classically trained singer to bust out a pop song. And unless they've already spent time singing that style before, they will probably not be able to sing it stylistically accurately or appropriately or even if they have sung that music before, they might still struggle to sound poppy. They might be a little too breathy, too loud, too heady. It depends, um, in my own experience. So I grew up, you know, singing along with the radio. Singing in a poppy style wasn't foreign to me necessarily. For some reason, I, I had an affinity for a headier sound. I was always going around the house singing Phantom of the Opera and, you know, like, that's like, great. I don't even know what I was doing. You know, it's so hilarious. I'm just remembering this right now. My mother was like, you're going to be an opera singer one day. Oh my goodness. I did. I was an opera singer for a hot second. Um, but that didn't, that didn't last so long. Just a little tidbit of my life. I didn't start taking voice lessons and really studying until I was about 19 when I was in college already. And I was in college to study violin because I was a violinist and I've been doing that my entire life. And then I started taking classical lessons and input that I got from the teachers was very much like everything needs to be covered. Oh, it was always kind of about this, like lower your larynx and make space and oh, oh, right. So everything was in that head voice. Um, and I already had, I came to singing with a bit of tension. I won't say a bit. I came to singing with a lot of tension and I think I have partially had to do with my violin playing and just like what I did, like with my neck and around all around my violin sits right there near my larynx and I tend, I tended to, Grab and hold and stuff like that. So I brought that. I associated making sound with that tension on the violin, and I brought it with me to the singing, even though it was a different instrument entirely. So I had a lot of tension and I never really learned how to use my chest voice in a way that was. Like relaxed and free and then you put on top of that, everything has to be head voice, right? With classical singing. So you put on top of that, everything is, oh, so everything's tense and everything's in head voice. And then I want to go to sing, you know, something like musical theater or something like pop music. And I'm just not set up for it, you know, um, I did okay with what, you know, Um, Was naturally there when I grew up, you know, singing along with the radio and everything, but it wasn't a balanced sound. It wasn't, it wasn't comfortable. It wasn't relaxed. It wasn't free. Okay. And so I've only just done like the Tikkun on all of that, like in the past four or five years and learned how to use my voice in a more balanced way all across my range. So for me, all that classical training showed up as like when I wanted to go sing in the lower parts of my range, sing with more chest voice, if I wanted a more belty sound, poppy sound, it was hard for me. Everything kind of came with a bit of head dominance. And so even though I could, I could like belt, like I could, you know, kind of sing the high stuff when I was younger belt along with Kelly Clarkson because I had this developed head voice, but it lacked the grit and the belty quality because I hadn't learned how to do that. In the lower parts of my range. I hadn't, I hadn't developed my chest voice and I hadn't learned how to make that, Ah! That like, that grit come out. So, that is not something that I could learn. in my operatic training. It's a completely different skill set. It's a completely different sound. So for me to say, like, if I study opera, I could sing like Kelly Clarkson. Not really. I mean, a little bit it helped me because I really, I learned how to extend my range, but it didn't, it didn't help me to really, uh, mimic those particular sounds. Okay. So, on the other side of the spectrum for somebody who only studied contemporary music, they may not be used to the breath management required for classical singing. And they would probably have to learn some of the vocal tract shaping necessary for classical singing. So, like I said, everything was a little bit like, Oh, oh,"voi che sapete" um, just busting out my Mozart for you. That is completely foreign to somebody who is used to singing, pop and musical theater. It's a completely different setup. It's not better. It's not worse. It's different. But like I'm saying, it's a skill. It's a skill like any other skill. And so someone who has really trained to become a proficient singer in one style, I'm sure they would not have any problem learning the techniques to accommodate another style. It just means that they, they have to learn them. Okay. but if you're comparing someone who has never taken any voice lessons in their life and sings pop music all day, who studied classical voice, And saying, well, classical is better because, look, look how they compare, like, this person is so much, so much better. Look at her voice. Okay, well, one of those people has never studied at all, so you're not comparing apples and apples. And I think sometimes that's, that's an aspect of this conversation, is that people are like, well, classical, look at her. She studied classically and she just has such a command of her voice. And, and this person over here, she's just, you know, whatever. And it's like, well, that person didn't really study anything so it's what you're not, what are you comparing? You know, I'm just using that as an example. I don't have any particular people in mind when I'm saying that. Also, also, it's really important to take into account that each singer is so different and their vocal needs are different. For someone who struggles with a lot of weightiness in their voice, meaning someone who, uh, wants to bring up that chest voice really high. Then studying classical technique might be super great for them because they'll be forced out of that and into head voice. And then slowly they can, bring back to center some of that balance. Conversely, someone with a light chest voice. Which, if you have no idea of these terms that I'm throwing out, go back to episode, I think seven about vocal balance. And I break down all of this. So somebody with a lightness in their chest voice, so not enough thickness and probably not enough vocal cord closure. Will not only need to address that before they can sing pop music successfully, but they might also struggle with classical singing because operatic singing still requires for sure, vocal cord closure and some degree of cord thickness. Okay. So if You can hear this sometimes, like, in classically trained singers. They, they're, they sound like princess fairies, you know? But sometimes they're lacking, like, a little bit of, of more depth and, and closure of the sound. So, if we're getting like, Okay, that's a nice soprano y sound, but it actually, I'm not singing on my full chord. Okay. So if I were to do, okay, I finally got there to a bit of a thicker cord. Okay. So if I'm, if I'm not able to do that, I'm only ever going to be able to sing that light Princessy, whatever, and operatic, sometimes operatic music really, you need more beef behind the sound. So it's not just floaty, heady voice in classical singing either. So you get the sense already that they really complement each other, and that's why I'm a huge fan of crossover singing. And so, If you get the opportunity to sing some classical stuff that you've never sang before, like, why not? Try it out. Like, if that, if that floats your boat, do it. And vice versa, if you are a classical singer, but you, you know, love you some pop music, why not? Why not train in some of those sounds? So you see there's not a one size fits all when it comes to what's best for a voice. And furthermore, there is no such thing as classical singing being healthier. Okay, I really want to drive that home. There is no such thing. As classical being healthier, there is no such thing as belting being unhealthy. There is balanced, sustainable singing. And then there's singing that's not that, and that needs work in any genre. Okay, so I also want to be clear that I'm not here to call anyone out on their opinions about which styles are better to sing, but I do think it's important to get rid of the misconception that one is inherently better than the other, or that sets you up to be better prepared to sing all genres. Because at the end of the day, it's not true. Every singer comes with their own affinities for certain styles that have developed over time. And my guess is that the person that said this, Already has a very well versed, chest voice and can do all of that and that working on the head voice classical singing made her, it just opened up the possibilities in her voice for her. And so for her, it's, it rings true. That studying classical music means that she has all of these sounds and capabilities available to her. And I think that's amazing. And that's so true. But that could not be somebody else's experience. And really, I'm not, I'm not talking about her and what she said. It was the, it was the impetus for me to talk about what I know is a, a topic that's out there in the singing world right now. And so I want you to know that you don't need to study classical music in order to be a good pop singer. Or, you know, a good Jewish music singer and you don't need to study pop to sing opera. Okay. Will it make you a more well rounded singer? A hundred percent. Sure. Why not? I am so grateful for my classical training, even though I don't really sing that style anymore. And since learning technique in other styles, I feel so much more grounded and capable of singing the things that I want to sing. And so at the end of the day, like, that's what you have to go off of, you know, what do you like to sing? And then study that with a skilled teacher. And don't let anyone, going back to the beginning, don't let anyone tell you that the direction that you want to go is the wrong direction. You are the boss of you. You are the boss of your voice, gonna say it again, and the important thing is that you find a teacher and develop a trust with the teacher who can help you to sing the way that you want to sing. That's really the, um, that's really the key. Ooh. Okay. That was a doozy. I hope that was helpful for you. And if that resonated for you, or if you have any questions, please come find me on Instagram at@nechamaleahmusic and I'll also leave my email in the show notes below. I would really, really love to hear your feedback about how you are liking these episodes so far. And if you're loving the show, can you do me a solid and rate the podcast on the platform that you're using, Spotify or Apple, wherever you're listening, I really, really appreciate it. I thank you so much for listening. Have a beautiful rest of your day. Happy singing.