Chapter 1 - Listening
Trying to describe singing can be extremely subjective, but according to McCoy, using a continuum can help clarify what you hear in a singer. Here are the continuums from the book: Bright/Dark, Back/Swallowed, Breathy/Clear, Clean/Raspy, Healthy/Damaged, Nasal/Non-Nasal, Vibrant/Straight tone, In tune/Not in tune, Good diction/Poor Diction, and Stylistically correct/Stylistically incorrect. One important distinction McCoy makes is between breathiness, which sounds like white noise like a hiss in the background of the tone, and raspiness, which sounds like hoarseness and can be coarse and gravelly. Also, he clarifies that "healthy sounding voices are generally free of unwanted noise," (Page 3) meaning that they are clean and clear, rather than breathy and raspy. McCoy also discusses critical listening in this chapter, which is listening with open ears, focusing on the details of the sound (this is not listening for enjoyment). This first chapter is crucial for any of us that plan to do any kind of voice teaching in the future. This critical listening should be the first step as we hear our students sing for the first time. We are not listening to necessarily enjoy the singing, but to evaluate it for details to establish a clear understanding of our students voices. These continuums help give us the language necessary to describe what is happening in a student's voice, and then to adjust our teaching to appeal to that specific student.
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