Article Review
How to prepare the future generations of professional singing teachers? What special voice pedagogy programs are the most successful? What are their curricula, educational philosophies, facilities and special feature? Darelene Wiley and Patti Peterson as the representatives from eminent graduate voice pedagogy programs share their experience with the readers about the important issue, how to teach a voice teacher in the Teaching Voice Teachers article published in the Official Journal of the National Association of Teachers of Singing, Nov 2008.
The first part of an article is written by Darelene Wiley, who is a highly recognized voice teacher who works in lieder, opera and oratorio. In her study, she declares that the main project and the content of the voice pedagogy program at the University of Texas in Austin are affected by highly multiplicity and international student population. Their main objective for the UT-Austin pedagogy program is to provide their students the access to a technologically rich educational environment by utilizing and uniting rich experience of the pedagogues. The main point in this program is given the amalgamation of the instruction and technology. The campus provides a great number of a different advanced trainings and grants to encourage the progress of a voice pedagogy program. Until 1998, the teaching methods were poor and ineffective. Nowadays the graduate and DMA classes of Technology in Applied Voice Study are taught in special voice laboratories. There are interactive spectrography programs as a supplementary material which helps to master better subjects. The DMA degree in Applied Voice with Pedagogy Emphasis is made for the most skilled and gifted students. For today, only four out of forty students are admitted to this new voice pedagogy program. This opportunity will help them in future to keep the best positions in universities and collages. In their first tenure track the candidates must teach such subjects as courses in voice pedagogy, survey courses for nonmajors, nonmajor applied voice and the history of music for majors. Thus, the Voice Pedagogy Program ensures the most effective training for students in all essential subjects. The best support provides the Butler School of Music which offers a DMA in applied voice with Pedagogy Emphasis, a MM and BM in Pedagogy and Literature. The Voice Performance Specialization in voice pedagogy includes 56 academic hours. The 6 hours of electives will include students’ professional research. The observation will be led by the Texas A&m University System Health Science Center. The topic of the research is the voice disorders. Furthermore, the student must master basic courses in German, Italian and French. This program helps students to develop their singing career, they study voice, take part in professional art or opera song coaching, they discover the performance possibilities. Author thinks, that the most important advantage of a pedagogy degree in the voice teaching program is the voice lab. It was founded in 1998 with the grants from Intel, Microsoft and the College of Fine Arts. There are two targets in this intensive study course: a voice instruction and singing voice research. The teaching experience and advanced PC experience are a method for this course. The research in this lab concerns the different level of students. The accountabilities of this course insert installations of software and hardware, writing protocols, programming, recording, translating, editing, data analyzing, website design and grant writing. The 32-week voice pedagogy course prepares graduate students for professional teaching in both higher education and in the private studios. As for the course, it consists of different course topics. Also, there is a four-week discussion of appropriate vocal literature and additional published resourses, three weeks of teaching practice of nonmajor voice students who enfold for Voice 201. The UT voice faculty strongly encourages students to join them, that is the main cause of the Applied Voice with Pedagogy Emphasis success. The second part of an article is written by Patti Peterson, whose soprano includes such studied: piano voice, voice pedagogy and movement. In her study, she declares that both the undergraduate students and doctoral candidates complete from one to three voice pedagogy courses at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Their philosophy is to make all the singers understand that the voice works both automatically and acoustically. Author thinks, that a creative singer/teacher is a person with a big a strong pedagogical background teacher who is well-informed about all the subjects. This program helps singers to generate the ability to assess their own vocal progress by providing students with the competent teachers. As to undergraduate voice majors they achieve a Bachelor degree in Music in a basic voice pedagogy course. These courses are led by a voice professors and choral specialists and they are open to both BA and BMT students. Masters and doctoral students complete two semester pedagogy course. The first one is a theoretical that delves into voice anatomy, the second is practical that teaches all the vocal methods. There is a third course for those who focus their on the young voice from childhood to teenage years. The main advantage of this program is a small lab with VoceVista™ software and electroglototograph. Masters on pedagogy must write 30-50 page pedagogy thesis. Doctoral students must write a pedagogic thesis too, but it must be a project research paper. The DMA students who want to teach in academia receive an assignment for 1-3 years. The University of Colorado offers a Professional Certificate program for post-masters students. Cu Boulder’s College number of students is about 500, 120 are singers. The teachers are all professional and experienced pedagogues who master a great number of voice educational methods.
As for conclusion, we may stress that both Darelene Wiley’s and Patti Peterson’s voice educational programs share the same concept and content – to provide their students the access to a technologically advanced study environment by utilizing and uniting rich experience of the professional pedagogues. Their curricula have some differences, but both provide the same methods of widening both the basic specific knowledge.
References
Wiley, D., Peterson, P. (2016). “Teaching Voice Teachers”. The Official Journal of the National Association of Teachers of Singing. Nov 2008; 65, 2, p.175-180. International Index to Music Periodical.
