Webb: Coyle Ch. 10 + Epilogue

 Ch. 10: I found the sentiment at the start of this chapter to be very interesting. The idea that a teacher's job is to get you as far as they can while teaching you how to be self-sustaining is beautiful in a sense. There is a quote in the movie School of Rock that weirdly fits this chapter and honestly a lot of the previous chapters. When Dewey Finn is talking to the school teachers, he says, "Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach, teach gym." Now aside from the humorous second half of the quote, the first half is very true in a way. I mainly thought of Linda Septien when I heard the quote. She didn't make the big time, but many of her students did. The idea that teachers walked so that their students could run is pretty accurate. As a teacher, I would want my students to be able to go farther than I ever could. Even if I were to be incredibly successful, I'd want my students to have the capacity to go even further.


Epilogue: The fact that Coyle puts his research and findings into practice for himself really contextualizes the entire book very well. Throughout the book, he goes on a myelin-building experience; learning different methods of coaching/teaching, seeing what worked and what didn't, and only keeping the most effective ones when he himself coached the little league team. But what I admired about the end was that, even though they lost, his time seemed even more determined and excited to play. I feel that for many of those boys, that was their ignition moment, and it was all because Coyle did his own research to motivate and train them the best that he could. It's honestly a great practical representation of what being a great performer is. You spend a lot of the early days learning the basics. You do research on different styles and techniques. You see what works well and how to best fortify and hone those skills. Slowly but surely, through practical use, you start to see improvement. To use my own experience, this summer was a very effective practical test of my skills as a singer. I noticed that I was able to hold my own vocally with people who were many years of school ahead of me. Why was I successful though? It was through a combination of years of great lessons and deep practice, but also realizing that the competitive aspect of the program was over. When performing, the only competitive part is the audition. Once you are there, you watch and listen. Observe what people do well and how your directors, conductors, and castmates work in rehearsal. If you have a double casted role, you look and learn from each other. As a result of all those things, I sang the best I ever did this summer. I definitely wrapped many new layers of Myelin that I will be able to refine and wrap further because of my practical experiences. The Talent Code shows all of this in great detail but really helped me understand the smaller points extremely well. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tougas- Voice Overview- 11/9

 This week in Voice Recital Hour, Kate Wilson performed L-Invitación a Voyage. Something that was really awesome was the placement remained the same through out each note. Every word was in the shape of an “ah” just with different lip shape to round out the desired vowel. This gave great resonance and each note could springboard off of the hard palate! Also, Kate usually takes a stance of putting one hand on the piano which in turn expands the area for the diaphragm and deeper breaths. One thing I noticed was that depending on high notes or low notes, Kate would move her head slightly in the same direction. This probably is more a psychological effect but leads to out of alignment breathing, actually making it more difficult to sing. I noticed this in particular because it is exactly what I worked on in my lesson this week. We had an awesome break through where I realized I had root tension due to moving my head up for high notes and so Laurie and I worked on singing an Ah then to ...
Read more

Dombroski-McCoy-Ch. 4

 I think reading about how stuff works inside our body is interesting. The fact that my vocal folds are 18 millimeters is crazy! I wonder if that’s why men sing lower, because their folds are slightly larger? It’s also wild that our folds oscillate hundreds of times per second when we sing. I was amazed to read that the when singing the F6 in Queen of the Night, the vocal folds vibrate 1400 times. I don’t feel the vibrations when singing so it’s strange to think about. I think it’s amazing the sounds we can make through the larynx, which is only the small size of a walnut/pecan.  It’s important as teachers to consider onset and phonation. If our students are singing with excess breath, we can know one of the reasons might be their vocal folds aren’t completely closed. It’s also important to consider the difference between adduction and abduction, and basically what the body requires for the voice to sound balanced. 
Read more

Camryn-McCoy Chapter 4

 There were a lot of things in this chapter I thought were surprising and interesting! First, the vocal folds are SO SMALL. Literally the size of a DIME in women and a QUARTER for men?! I don't know why I thought they'd be bigger than that, but still! The vocal folds are responsible for sound production, and can produce a sound loud enough to be heard over a symphony orchestra. That is insane to know just a tiny portion of our vocal folds create such a strong, powerful sound. Another subject I want to touch on is the glottal onset. Listening to the example given, the attack of the note sounds really harsh. When reading about this, I was surprised to see that these onsets can lead to vocal nodules. On the opposite side, an aspirate onset lacks energy, and sounds airy/breathy. There's little no none air support and flow in the voice. In doing this an excessive amount, it can also lead to voice problems, such as "chronic incomplete glottal closure and muscular tension dys...
Read more