Subject: RE: Criticism at singarounds
From:
Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Nov 13 - 07:10 AM
Found this response I gave to somebody way back - more or less sums up the "Criticism" side of the Critics Group.
Jim Carroll
Thanks for your response; the method I described seems to be the general one at present. The classes I attended (out of curiosity more than anything else) were given by ****** ****** ****** ****** I have to say I got nothing from any of them and in ****** class (which was probably the best of them) we had the added obstacle of singing in a language most of us did not understand (Irish).
As singing classes seem to be growing in popularity, I thought it worth raising the question of how they are conducted.
How did MacColl teach? - in a word, he didn't. When he was approached to take classes in the early sixties he gave it some thought - and turned down the idea. Instead, he adopted a technique which had been used in Theatre Workshop and other theatre companies; that of group participation.
A singer would be asked to choose a number of songs (anything from say three to half-a-dozen) and present them as if they were performing in front of an audience (including introductions, if appropriate). Often the type of audience was specified (regular club attenders, aficionados, totally unfamiliar with traditional song etc). The only criterion was that the songs should be contrasting (in tone speed, pitch, dynamic - whatever).
At the end of the performance there would be a discussion, the starting point being whether the audience was moved or convinced by the singing.
A general discussion would then take place, usually opening with the technical aspects, then touching on the singer's analysis of the song. It was expected that any discussion of the performance was positive, and that the good points of the singing were given as much attention as the weaknesses.
More often than not some sort of a consensus was reached and suggestions would be made as to how the singing could be improved. The aim was that these suggestions were limited to the main problems and did not give a singer too much to be handled in one sitting. Some practical work would be tried on some of the suggestions made
MacColl would usually take no part in this discussion, except to make sure that any points and questions raised in the discussion were clear to everybody. At the end of the evening he would summarise, not necessarily on the specific nights work, but often on the general aspects of singing and songs that may have been relevant to what had been discussed.
MacColl wrote very little on his ideas on singing, so the recordings of these 'soliloquy's' are the only records of his approach (many/most were recorded and are housed at Birmingham Central Library). To say that they were 'inspiring' would be to grossly understate; you often left these sessions walking a few feet above pavement level. They were superb and I still get a buzz from listening to them (we have a full set of 200 odd tapes of them here).
MacColl's main contribution to the work of the Critics group was in the exercises he devised aimed at technical aspects of singing; voice exercises aimed at extending range and producing tones for different types of song; relaxation routines based around breath control etc. Particularly important were his ideas on 'efforts' in singing, based largely around work he had adapted from Laban's theories of movement as applied to dance (his ex wife, Jean Newlove, was a Laban movement teacher).
He also did some work to assist singers to relate to and get into the songs, based on Stanislavski's theatre 'method'.
The method of work adopted was demanding; on the one hand a singer had to be prepared to sit through an analysis (albeit friendly) of their performance, but once you accepted this, it became easy and one of the problems was that a group of more than a dozen plus could not meet the demand of the people who wished to be worked on. These 'group criticism' sessions were only part of the Group's work and certainly did not happen more than once a month, if that.
There was no obligation whatever on the part of the singer, to take up the suggestions made during these sessions, but it was expected that singers should go away and work on their singing and maybe bring one or two of the songs back some time later to see how/if any progress was being made.
The plus side of working like this was that once you sang at one these sessions, you could sing anywhere – they were great for getting rid of inhibitions. One great advantage was that, because the whole group was involved, not just the singer, everybody took something away from the session and the abilities of the group members developed as a whole.
The work done was long term and ongoing; The Critics Group met weekly for nearly ten years and while there were people who joined and left after a time (Gordon McCulloch, Luke Kelly and others for instance) there was a permanent core of singers who were in at the beginning and stayed to the end.
There were problems with the methods of work adopted, but by and large, the pluses far outweigh the minuses, and it worked - sometimes spectacularly.
The whole approach was based on the idea that anybody who got up to sing publicly was bound to generate opinions and criticisms of their singing, so anybody wishing to improve might as well turn those opinions and criticisms to their advantage by listening to them and seeing if they were of valid and of any help.
It more or less guaranteed that nobody involved was able to impose their style/idiosyncrasies, mannerisms on others. This said, MacColl's charisma, as a singer and as an individual could dominate the proceedings, but as long as you went in with your own agenda, you took away what you needed and rejected the dross. As far as I can see this dominance of the individual is one of the greatest dangers to singing at the present time – I sometimes cringe when I hear who has set themselves up as a 'singing teacher'.
It has always struck me as odd that the singing of traditional songs is the only creative pursuit where the exponents consider themselves above criticism.
Sorry this has been so long-winded; but you did ask, and I am trying to sum up ten years of work.
Jim Carroll
|
sj
