Vocal Pedagogy and the Alexander Technique: a reflection

This article is a reflection about the role of the Alexander Technique and its application and influence in vocal pedagogy. It is based on more than seventeen years of active teaching as a qualified Alexander Technique Teacher and as a professional singer, working alongside vocal pedagogues, teachers, students and professionals. Its objective is to reflect upon the role of body awareness, psychophysical and emotional consciousness, and wellbeing in the realms of vocal pedagogy and singing.

Documentary shooting and samba

This article addresses the film Partido alto (Leon Hirszman, 1976­–1982), a Brazilian music documentary that showcases two sessions of partido-alto, a traditional, improvisation-based genre. The film highlights a separation between the diegetic music world, which is based on improvisation, and the technical approach to register it. First, it foregrounds the process of recording popular music through the noticeable presence of a microphone that strives to follow each singer’s unpredictable interventions. Then, the young professional singer Paulinho da Viola joins in on the performance with nonprofessional singers, working as a mediator between the official music scene and popular traditions. I suggest that, by using cameras and microphones to approximate a popular, nonrecorded form of art, the film raises some crucial issues in the history of samba. In particular, the ways in which cinematic techniques such as the sequence shot and voiceover are employed in the film allows us to reflect on the dichotomy between improvisation and recording, as well as the role of cultural mediators. Paulinho da Viola lies at the centre of these strategies, for he assumes an expert commentator and interviewer role, while also being a participant in the popular community.

The Lives and Voices of Professional Female Singers

This chapter explores the meaning of the professional female voice through the experiences of three singers from the 1830s and ’40s: Adelaide Kemble, Clara Novello, and Marianne Lincoln. It continues the argument of Chapters 2 and 3 by exploring how contemporary divisions over the sound of femininity affected the ways singers chose to use their voices. Their letters and diaries show how they were caught between a desire to develop their professional technique and artistry, and an equally strong anxiety that, in doing so, they might contravene feminine norms expected by important sections of the public and even by family and friends. These case studies thus expose the ongoing tensions between the ideals of the professional singer and of femininity in British musical life, but they also indicate that, through complex, sometimes agonising negotiation, it was increasingly possible for these women to develop successful careers as professional female musical artists.