singing classes

[melia]

Does any pianist here take singing/vocals classes or can already sing very well? I've been thinking about it and am wondering if I should take classes but a bit hesitant as it will cost me money and time.  I admit I don't really like to sing, maybe because I don't know how!   I realize that a musician should be able to sing well or at least not out of tune! Okay, I'll get to the point: Do you think that taking singing lessons will make me more musical and play better?  For those who are taking singing classes, did it help you?

[whynot]

This is really interesting!  What a great question.  Do you truly dislike singing, or do you sing when you're alone but dislike being heard?  It mean, it just depends.  Would singing help with musicality?  Maybe.  It's really helpful for accompanying and playing chamber music in general, but actually having any secondary instrument helps with awareness in playing with others and also gives you more ideas on how to be musical (like imagining breathing, imagining bowing, percussive things etc).  I do sing, and I think about some aspects of playing from a singing perspective.  But I'm really curious about whether it's something you'd like to know more about.  Maybe so, or maybe you'd get what you're looking for through another instrument that appeals to you more.  Because whatever you take on, it's a real effort.  You'll be practicing it and thinking about it a lot (in addition to the money aspect), so maybe there's something else you've always wanted to play?  Cello?  Oboe?  If there's something you picture yourself doing, that you love the sound of, that you can imagine how you would feel doing it, that's probably the one.  Just a thought.  Very best wishes, whatever you do. 

[asyncopated]

Hi,

I'm learning to sing and play the piano at the same time!  Duh, not at the same time, together. Hmm...  that's not right either, separately, but at the same time.

Anyway, imh you are right to say that it costs a lot of time and money, and at the end of the day you should do it only if you love it.  I think singing helps alot with understanding of sound.  My (vocal) teacher teaches bel canto, which means the she continuunally assess my singing technique, and makes funny gestures and faces to try to get me to do things correctly.  When I do sometime correctly she makes me repeat it again, many times over until it becomes a habit.  The process is pain staking and unbelievably slow to say the least.  But at the end of the day it is worth it. 

There are many who say that you have to achieve a lyrical tone on the piano, and i think there there is no better way to become more sentitive tone (of any sort) than to sing.

Of course, the techniques, the hurdles you have to surmount and solutions are completely different for both insturments. 

There are several good pianist who started of as singers and accompanists before embarking on a solo career. 

If you sing in a choir under a good conductor, the conductor's job is to try to get the choir to produce a good tone for the music s/he is presenting.  Good conductors have a lot up their sleaves and I find that I learn alot from them.

Sorry for being to incongruent.  I need to rush of to singing lessons!

My advice is try out vocal lessons for a while, say 3/4 months.  It takes at least that amount of time to see any results.  If you like it, stay with it.  If you don't, give it up.  It does help with playing the piano as well as many other things in life!


al.
 

[m1469]

My first reaction was, yes!  By all means, sing, sing!  It gives a perspective unique to singing, but valuable to any musical study.  In my opinion, the more perspectives one has to draw on, the better (this includes "non musical" perspectives as well).  I do feel that whynot and asyncopated have a good point; ideally it should be something that is enjoyable for you, though I believe in well-roundedness and within that pursuit, at times we experience things that are less on the enjoyable side and more on the educational side.  Singing classes for instance (not necessarily private lessons), would be a great way to dip your toe in the water. 

With that having been said, I have done musical things which I resisted deeply, but I am now grateful I had done.   Conducting, for example, is one of those things.  Now I am quite grateful  that I had those experiences with conducting because I gained a musical perspective that I think is unique to conducting but important to any musical study.  Developing the complete musician is very important as one focusses that study within a chosen instrument and whynot's suggestions about other instruments are good ideas for anyone in my opinion. 

Personally I enjoy singing quite a bit and in my mind there are definitely things that carry over from what I learn in my experiences singing to my study with piano.  Also, my experiences singing in choirs has been a very important step for my own musical development from the standpoints of aural training as well as learning from the musicians sitting beside me, the pianist accompanying the choir and the conductor himself.

One of the reasons I feel strongly about singing as an important musical learning tool is because using our voice is, for most people, a most primal form of audible communication.  I find myself forever striving to achieve with the piano, a similar (from the same source) primal openness that our vocals can provide.  There is an honesty in singing and one's expression through the voice :  A baby's cry, a person's laughter, etc are all forms of this honest expression.

I just have to pull a passage from the book "Effortless Mastery" by Kenny Werner, p 32

   from Hazrat Inayat Khan, The Sufi Message p 51
***
"In the beginning of human creation, no language such as we have now existed, but only music.  Man first expressed his thoughts and feelings by low and high, short and prolonged sounds.  Man conveyed his sincerity, insincerity, disclination, pleasure or displeasure by the variety of his musical expressions."
***
Kenny Werner goes on to say :

"Language is the retention of rhythm without pitch.  In this way, poetry was born in music."

***

I can't help but feel like exploring these aspects through singing can be helpful for almost anybody and then applied to their study of any other respective instrument.

Just my two cents.


m1469

[kaff]

It's a great question, and I agree with everyone else who thinks it is generally beneficial.  I've done quite a lot of vocal training and choral and opera singing, which I enjoyed very much for its own sake, but which has also helped the following aspects of piano playing:

1. All round musicality (already mentioned in previous replies).   Particularly gives you a better understanding of a composer's music if you have some experience of more than just his piano music.  I don't think it's possible to play e.g. Schubert well on piano if you haven't also studied at least some of his songs.
2. Sight reading.  Singing at sight can be quite difficult, as you have to have a far greater understanding of relative pitch than playing piano at sight (where you only have to know which note to press, not what pitch it should be at).  If you can learn to sight-sing well, it will help sightreading on the piano.
3. Improving performance skills.  Specifically, if you feel "exposed" when you sing to someone else, even if only your teacher, learning techniques to overcome that will help your performance on the piano too.
4. Voicing.  Particularly if you get involved in choral singing, you will develop a much greater appreciation of the use of different voices in piano music.  Makes it much easier to understand Bach, for instance.

Go for it!  At least, give it a go for a few months, and then tell us how you find it.

Kathryn