Techniques
for voice training
La educación de la voz; La eufonía
hablada y cantada, by Laura Neira (published
by Editorial Quorum with UMSA, Buenos
Aires) provides thoroughly proven theoretical
and practical strategies for voice training,
and is particularly useful for singers,
actors, TV and radio speakers, lecturers,
teachers and everybody else making a professional
use of his/her voice. Written by a well
known expert in the subject, this a thoroughly
updated volume coming in the footsteps
of her previous La voz hablada y cantada.
Including
new concepts enlarging the understanding
and working practices both of professionals
dealing with voice pathologies, as well
as those using daily their voices for
professional purposes, La educación
de la voz is divided into three main
parts, respectively entitled "Educación
Vocal" (Part 1), "Patología
y terapéutica vocal" (Part
2) and "Vicios vocales frecuentes,
su corrección" (Part 3).
Part
1 covers, among other things, essential
musical notions (including the duration
of songs and other key concepts); body
an breathing routines, sounds and resonance;
phonetic and phonological elements in
vowel sounds; voice techniques proper,
considerations on euphonics.
Part
2 specifically deals with pathological
aspects and therapeutics; while Part
3 examines frequent flaws in the use
of one's voice, and possible practices
for their correction.
A
very useful appendix brings passages
from interviews to famous opera singers,
including the late Spanish tenor Alfredo
Kraus (1927-1999) while on his visit
to the Colon opera house in Buenos Aires,
September 1989, giving a tip on the
secret of his voice techniques; mezzosoprano
Fiorenza Cossotto in September 1990
(defining her own technique as the "appoggio
de la voce sul fiato"; and Italian
bass singer Ivo Vinco, September 1990,
who says that "for singing, the
main thing is to breathe properly. One
breathes improperly when moving chest
and back", and adding that a singer
"with the passing of time, should
know what things should be corrected,
should enjoy his own voice, refining
his own technique".
By
way of curiosity, the Appendix also
includes notes on the different types
of patients approaching a voice specialist
for consultation or therapy; they include
the socalled "visitors" (advised
to undertake therapy but not truly willing
to do so, their prognosis is highly
reserved); "passive" ones
(patients for whom every hope seems
to lie in the therapist, not themselves,
establishing with the latter a not very
useful relation like that of parent-obedient
child; and "committed" ones,
the ideal type who really allow for
a useful encounter between therapist
and patient, truly able to develop some
kind of "self-help" technique
in the future.
Phonoaudiology
specialist Laura Neira is currently
at the head of Escuela Argentina de
Canto, lectures on the subject at UMSA
and Universidad Nacional de La Plata,
and has her own private practice. As
she says in the Introduction to his
book, "Within the enigmatic world
of voice therapies, fortunately there
no (proven) prescriptions, as each and
every person is a unique human being,
with his or her own living experiences,
emotions and feelings. That is why,
in displaying my own work method here,
I just want to share everything that,
throughout all these years of professional
practice, has been useful to me in my
work with patients and students, though
always keeping in mind the fact that,
in communicating with other human beings,
their attitude is the most important
element..." |
