Re-evaluating the Importance of Classical Technique in High School Vocal Instruction

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"I'm afraid... to learn classical technique," is what I've heard approximately 30% of high schoolers say. God knows, a few more are thinking it. But it isn't necessarily that they're afraid to learn classical technique, no, what they are really saying is, "I have no intention of singing like this in the future. My heart is in [insert genre]."

So, why are we still insisting on teaching teens bel canto? When a person sings classical versus pop, the vocal tract assumes a different shape. Vowels are different, breathing is different, affects are different, vibrato is different, and resonance is different. I've heard college professors get on their voice majors about singing a "pop" vowel in Schubert but yet there persists this notion that if a "person is taught to sing classically, they can sing anything." I don't know about you but I certainly don't want to hear excessive vibrato or overly tall vowels in Camila Cabello's songs.

I spend about half my time in the voice studio deconstructing classical technique when it sneaks into other genres. When students sing musical theater, pop, and folk music for the first time, they have some of the following well-intentioned tendencies: 

1. a hyperflexed soft palate (result of being told to LIFT THE SOFT PALATE! HIGHER!) that sounds like a yawn in the singing voice
2. carrying head voice too low and therefore bottoming out/fatiguing the vocal cords at a faster rate (also, not getting the proper resonance)
3. carrying too much weight into the lower passaggio and then "turning over" into an excessively breathy head voice
4. distending the jaw; lowering the jaw beyond a finger and a half will force the larynx up and the tongue to retract making singing effortful and dangerously fatiguing 

Although some of these habits can come from hormones rapidly changing during puberty, others (the jaw, hyperflexed soft palate) are a function of a trained technique and muscle memory. These habits are disadvantageous for all genres but they develop from good intentions. Good intentions to blend in a choir, to attempt to find a sense of support or increase in volume/amplitude, to sound darker or older, etc. 

These good intentions bleed into other genres where the sound expectations are much different. Take me, for example: I exemplified all of those habits and was often rejected by musical theater companies because I was attempting to sing MT through a classical vocal posture. It wasn't quite right. It took me years to understand that the genres had different vocal demands and expectations, and that I could not expect my classical technique to carry over into country, jazz, MT, and pop. It's like showing up for a tap audition in a tutu and pointe shoes. 

Unlike me, my students are more self-aware and informed. They know what the sound demands of certain genres are, they research it, and they practice it. Very few of them have ever expressed interest in pursuing a classical technique and feel obliged to meet the demands of choirs they are in, competitions their school does, or auditions for MT-dominant programs that require an Art Song. Worried that they will upset their teachers, or let them down, or think less of themselves for not pursuing classical music, they are often complicit with the teacher's, choir's, competition's goals. 

There is a disconnect between students' musical goals and a classical music education that we keep trying to desperately make them learn. As a former music educator, I never understood why we needed to shove Mozart down people's throats when kids responded much better to Bruno Mars. Growing up on a steady diet of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Frank Sinatra, and Ella Fitzgerald, it would be reasonable to think I'd be predisposed to classical music. But the truth is, I love nothing more than singing a simply folk song or jazz ballad. But the only way for me to keep my hand in music at institutions was through classical music. So I complied, just like so many before and after me.

Do I believe classical singing and music should be eradicated from a K-12 curriculum? No, not at all. What I'm saying is that other genres need to be honored as much as we honor classical music in school and at competitions. We need not tell the talented pop singer than her voice could use some more "fullness" at the top or to use more vibrato. We need not tell the rock singer than vocal fry is dangerous for the vocal folds (for it is inherently false: the folds are the most relaxed during fry). If they don't like Mozart (which, you're in good company with me if that's the case), it's time to stop imposing it on them. 

It's time to give young singers more autonomy.