Beginning voice lesson books or free resources?

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Permalink Reply by Jeff on June 8, 2011 at 1:04am

You can't go wrong with the "24 Italian Songs and Arias" book.  Great book to teach students how to sing on the vowels, shape vowels, work on phrasing, etc..

 

http://www.borders.com/online/store/TitleDetail?sku=0793515130

 

It's just a song book though.. I'm not sure what you're looking for.  That's the "go to" book I used when I was teaching choir/private lessons..  

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Permalink Reply by Josh Simpson on June 8, 2011 at 2:16pm

Thanks, though I actually have that book.

 

What I'm looking for is simple "standard" classical songs and things like that.  I would like some in English.  I seem to remember my freshman year in college as a tenor I had a green book with "All through the Night" and songs like that.  "O Mistress Mine" may have been aother one.  The bass/baritone was brown or red, I believe.

 

Also, some broadway tunes compilation might be a nice contrast as well.

 

As for the free resources, that is until I get the books in the mail.  also, looking for a good print out of exercises. 

I used to have all this stuff, but I moved for grad school, and some of it got lost when my parents moved to another house.

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Permalink Reply by Stevo on June 8, 2011 at 2:57pm

I'm with you and will be watching this thread.

 

FWIW, I looked into this a while back and even asked our part-time Christmas/Easter choir director if she would give coaching. Then I saw/heard how one of her private students sounded and I decided to avoid that. (Nothing like a Kermit the Frog number to dampen things...)

 

Since then, I've focused on listening to myself and comparing my voice to the ones I want to emulate. In addition to that, I've tried to learn about voice preservation - proper breathing and proper use of vocal chords.

 

I don't care what "proper" vowels sound like, I prefer blues singers or Bruce Springsteen to "proper" pronunciation. However, there are certain ways that you just don't want to annunciate - that's where it's valuable to listen to recordings of yourself.

 

But man, I'll take any advice I can find.

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Permalink Reply by Jeff on June 13, 2011 at 1:11am

Have you used the "First book of Soprano" , "First book of Alto", etc..  books?  I remember hearing a lot of solos from those books while I was in college.  

 

http://www.buy.com/prod/the-first-book-of-soprano-solos/q/loc/106/3...

 

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Permalink Reply by Greg Moore on June 13, 2011 at 5:06am

Josh -

There are a number of factors involved:

What are her areas of interest and/or need?  Is it to improve the quality of voice and learn good vocal habits, to get some repertoire, to learn how to sing in a worship band, to qualify for a select group, or some other purpose, or all of the above?

Does she read music at all.  Lots and lots of kids can memorize and entire song, but have yet to attach pitch memory to visual memory.

Does the girl have any piano, even enough to bang out a melody or something close to it?

My wife is an experienced voice teacher, whose typical student is a teenager who has not had lessons before.  Someone may have said, "wow!  you have a nice voice; you ought to take lessons", and here she is.

She normally finds a general interest area, but knowing that people sing for all sorts of occasions -- and ought to have a varied experience -- has them learn from real music, right off the bat.  A few sources:

Highly recommended:  "56 Songs You Like to Sing", G. Schirmer.  Ours was $9.95, around 1970, but classical music is ridiculously cheap today.  This book is loaded with favorites from many eras and nationalities, with well-written accompaniments (for instance, Brahms' Cradle Song uses the actual piano part; the "Habanera" from Carmen sounds like the real thing)

You might be able to obtain, locally, any one of a number of Disney collections.  These give songs her friends can recognize; the ranges are normal for human beings, the melodies are high-quality and the poetry generally good.  They are also cheap, considering the number of songs you get.  A musician is going to invest in their heart's-desire-trade.  If I were going to be a chemist, I'd pay way more in lab fees than for several music books.  If I'm on the baseball team, I'd pay hundreds, even into four figures, for equipment before it was said and done!  

I've hunted up music recently for various occasions, and was pleasantly surprised by musicnotes.com, a paying site (around $5 for a song with piano score).  Can't say that I found anything in free sites (and "free" often means joining a club of some sort and getting endless emails or agreeing to things you aren't sure you want to agree to).

I hope this helps in some way!

 

 

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