Sunday, November 11, 2012

Shapes for the visual singers

Essential for successful learning is the teacher's ability to adjust the pedagogy to the person being taught. This isn't anything new. People are different and prefer different ways of learning and different ways of interacting.

Before I encountered CVT - which thankfully acknowledges individual differences as a core part of the pedagogy - I have done a great deal of studying on personal development. There are several different methods and models for altering pedagogy according to learning styles, as well as critic to the whole idea of it. But there is perhaps no need to necessarily believe in or practice any specific theory or model at all, as long as you keep your eyes open to the fact that people work differently and that different problems may need different solutions. It only takes some sober thinking to realise that if you are trying to teach or learn something and it's not working, it's crucial to try something else!

In vocal training, some singers learn well by copying sound examples, which is one good reason for the common myth that some people seem "gifted" with a good singing voice. They have simply done a lot of copying! Music sung by people in their environment or perhaps played on the radio. Auditive singers are also the reason to why an important part of being an Authorized CVT-teacher is to be able to demonstrate all sounds.

But then again, the sound example may help the auditive singer a bit, but perhaps not give the whole solution. Or another singer might need something completely different. Maybe they will find anatomical explanations helpful or maybe they find their way through a metaphorical inner visualisation.
Some will want to have hands on and feel what they are doing while others will want to see illustrations and diagrams of what to do. To be able to teach the singer what they want, it's crucial to be able to meet these needs. And if one trick doesn't work, it's time to pick up the next.

In my teaching I often find great use of shapes. Showing a shape representing the sound can help many singers (obviously not all), to actually produce the sound. For some, that may be about inner visualisation and for some about anatomy. Surprisingly, the fictive shapes that happen to be most efficient in visualizing sound, are quite similar to what is actually going on anatomically!

Mostly I show the shapes with my hands or sometimes I draw them on the board. But today I have tried to illustrate some of the shapes I often use in print. If you find them useful please let us know! Feel welcome to share too (- and we are happy for a link back here if so). Perhaps you have other shapes or tricks that work well for you, please share!

- Annika 





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