How to Teach the Black American Vocal Music Aesthetic to Create Culturally Authentic Singers

Voice teachers today are encountering singers who are interested in singing music outside of the standard European based musical techniques and styles that have been used as the standard for vocal education. The European cultural aesthetic has defined the tools of teaching vocal technical ability. Those tools, while beneficial in learning about the voice, are not completely appropriate for teaching vocal music that is based off of Black American Musical styles, which includes all modern popular music, including musical theater. This workshop aims to give teachers a hands-on communal experience of how the music works, which gives the modern voice teacher tools for use in individual and group lessons.

We will learn about this aesthetic through the activities of movement, communal and individual singing, and listening. BAM is learned through oral and aural methods and is a communal art form that is best learned through communal practices that will inform individual teacher/student interactions. Participants will learn about the BAM vocal aesthetic itself and the tools of its creation: rhythm and pocket, improvisatory storytelling, and melodic and harmonic meanings of sound. The outcome will be for singers to learn how to utilize the vocal technical tools of intention and conviction to create culturally authentic sound while singing without losing the established vocal science and healthy singing practices that is standard in the present.

The activities and concepts taught will be as follows:
– How to feel the groove, upbeats and syncopation, and decipher beginning improvisation through communal movement and dance
– How rhythm and groove effect and change the timbre of the voice
– Harmonic understanding of emotional and functional chordal meanings while teaching vocal stamina and technical proficiency
– Learning organic improvisation and appropriate use of tone and vocal effects through communal singing of ostinato song forms

Conclusion: These practices are for the vocal teacher to personally experience the ways of singing Black American music to better understand the traditions, practices and techniques of the music in order to incorporate them into their individual or group lessons comfortably and to give educators first steps in the study of how to create singers that can be viable in the market of singing the styles under its musical umbrella.

Alison Crockett, BM, MM Adjunct Associate Professor Shenandoah University, Musical Director Capitol City Voices at Levine School of Music, Founder of Generations of Vocal Jazz, international recording artist in the genres of Jazz, Neo-Soul, House Music, EDM, Acid Jazz, Hip Hop