Why cant people sing real songs in amateur competitions any more?
August 12th, 2008 | by songs |
kiwi asked:
Why do all the contestants feel that they have to wail out things at the top of their lungs?
Why do all the contestants feel that they have to wail out things at the top of their lungs?
They can’t sing out “I love you”. It comes out sounding something like “Iiiiaaaeeeaaiii looovvaahhehaeha yeeooaahheeoooeeo”. And I am left thinking “what did she say?”
When did the lyric become less important than the vocalization, range and fluctuations? Would a song not be as good if you could hear the lyric clearly? Would the contestant lose if someone else had put more extra sounds in their songs than they do?
Having always enjoyed a song more when I could hear it, I get really irked at these interpretations.
GRAHAM
2 Responses to “Why cant people sing real songs in amateur competitions any more?”
By lynndramsop on Aug 15, 2008 | Reply
this is an age-old complaint. Back in the bad old days of bel canto singing in opera, the critics also deplored the lack of text. This eventually led to the French and German schools of opera, where text was rated higher than the music.
In pop music, that wonderful diversion and nose thumbing at opera, text became all the more important, to further the disparity between “all that sound” and understandability of text.
Now it seems we have come full circle, with the vocalism taking over again, and text being left out of the mix. The main difference is that the vocalism just isn’t up to snuff, as it was in operatic days, now is it? Sure, there are many talented pop singers out there, but based on sheer beauty of sound alone, they’d better all stick to the text.
Yeah, I’m biased, I was trained that way, but I’ll listen to Tony Bennett any day, or Ella Fitzgerald or Sarah Vaughn. they had both beauty of sound and clarity of text.
.
By dansinger61 on Aug 17, 2008 | Reply
I sing in a community chorus, and our director has ALWAYS stressed diction as part of the full musical package. She has taught us some tricks of diction (where to put extra schwas, etc) that really make the text ring out clearly.
I have taken this technique to my private singing (I’m a cantor at a Catholic church). I am the least “trained” (i.e. operatic) of the cantors in the parish, but I often get compliments from the congregation that I am the easiest to understand.
So, text isn’t dead yet, at least not everywhere.