Here is a quick post on something that was stewing a bit on Choralnet a few months ago (I wrote some of this then but forgot to post the blog!) and which I was compelled to finally respond to: this was a Choralnet post wherein a male director called his adolescent young women singers "mousy and timid". Great attitude, right? Someone called him on this language immediately, but no one had offered up any significant tools to get his mind straight on this and simply be a more skilled, more understanding choral/vocal instructor- so I finally posted the following to the thread:
I
have been reading this thread for awhile, and every time I see the
title, the "mousy" name-calling still galls me. Men need to try a lot
harder to fathom what it is like to be a female singer at any age (but
especially in the adolescent and pre-adolescent years) and be more empathetic. I think I
can preach here to my fellow XY dudes since I have successfully directed a
professional women's choir for 6 years, directed special summer
programs for gifted SSAA singers, composed dozens of works for SA
through SSAA choirs, worked directly (again with my composer hat on)
with skilled directors of female choirs such as Emily Ellsworth, Janet
Galvan, Lynne Gackle, Nancy Menk, and Robyn Lana just to mention a few.
Please guys, become more sensitive, and here is what I REALLY want you
to do to educate yourself a lot more, and have way more tools for
success with your choirs:
Purchase the book "Finding Ophelia's Voice, Opening Ophelia's
Heart" by Lynne Gackle. It is full of brilliant insights into the
female adolescent voice and psyche. This is required reading. The other
required reading is "Conducting Women's Choirs", edited and compiled by
Debra Spurgeon. There are chapters on an amazing breadth of topics by
many great contributors (essentially a who's-who of the women's choir
movement over the last 25 years- but especially for this subject please
read the sections by Sandra Snow and Sandra Peter) which are invaluable
resources for anyone who directs women either in an SSAA type ensemble
or within an SATB ensemble. The Spurgeon book also contains Lori
Hetzel's U of Kentucky choir in a DVD demo of all sorts of important
vocal issues, plus vocalise/warmup issues. Buy these two books and sit down with them
for a week or two. They are both worth it to anyone in our profession.
And let's drop the term "mousy", please!
Lynne Gackle's book, published by Heritage/Lorenz:
 |
| Debra Spurgeon |
Paul Carey
www.paulcarey.net
You can see the Choralnet complete thread here: http://www.choralnet.org/view/442443#442757
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