it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing
come the second week in january, i start what is, in some senses, my first steady lecturing gig. a friend of mine who plays in a local, full-on celtic band has a steady gig every other wednesday at a local pub. in many ways, my upcoming teaching fellowship seems eerily similar -- without the free beer that annie and her friends get from ted the bartender for coming out. as january inches closer, i've been giving a lot of thought to my classroom persona. who am i going to be in front of a room full of 80+ students twice a week for four months? my teaching experience, up to this point, has mainly been comprised of seminars, and i'm at my most comfortable (and, as one friend kindly said, "my teaching best") when i'm working at cultivating that intimate, "let's talk ideas over coffee" kind of vibe. i like curling up and getting cozy with ideas, and i like my students to feel comfortable and safe enough to do the same.
before i left for the holidays, i poked my head into the room i've been allocated for next term and i was shocked to find that it is an old-style lecture hall, complete with descending stairs that resolve themselves in a puddle of podium at the bottom. i walked on to the main level, looked up and had the most startling sense of déja vu. i'd been here before.
a part of my life i don't talk about much is the five years i spent in training to be a classical singer. through a series of happy accidents, shortly after starting my undergraduate degree in english, i discovered i had "a voice" -- or rather someone discovered it for me. in the years that followed, as i tried to recover from a repetitive strain injury that prevented me from playing my beloved flute, i worked with a succession of vocal coaches who peeled away my layers of toe-scuffing, awww-shucksing, and who worked at breaking my many bad vocal habits. i eventually prepared, but alas, never fully performed, the role of zerlina from mozart's le nozze di figaro. i also did my share of master classes and recital performances, having the most fun when i was able to push musical boundaries (i don't know that my vocal coach ever forgave me for a particularly *ahem* mischievous performance of a number from kurt weill's musical one touch of venus!) i never had a clear idea of where i was headed with the singing gig. the language-loving part of me was attracted to the textual side of opera -- i was forever close reading a libretto or basing my interpretation of fauré on the cultural context of 19th-century french poetry -- so much so that in the end i knew, even with all of its shiny, sparkling appeal, singing wasn't my first love.
one thing i did take away from my five years as a mezzo soprano (who could still pop a high C when necessary) was an understanding of performance. when a singer walks on to a stage, there's a lot going on that the audience isn't aware of. choices have been made far in advance, strategies determined and practiced -- the stage persona is not something that springs forth from the performer like poetry from the pen of a Romantic overwhelmed by a spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling. no, it's as carefully rehearsed as the particularly nasty riff that comes between bars 19 and 22 (not unlike your most Romantic of poetry). knowing this, and faced with my very first teaching gig as a seminar instructor, i knew i had to make conscious choices about the climate i wanted to create for my students' intellectual growth -- my demeanor in a seminar is meant to allow the students to feel as though this is a safe space for them to get down and dirty with the text, and thus take control of their own learning.
walking into that lecture hall the other day made me wonder if my seminar persona (not to mention my voice, "flabby" after years away from the intense rigor of daily scales, arpeggios, and sit-ups -- yes, sit-ups) would carry. as i try to think about viable alternative models (spurred on by G's recent post that, among other things, talks about the erotics of the lecture!) two names come to mind: frederica von stade and renée fleming. please keep in mind that as i am discussing these two famed folk, i'm not talking about their voices -- voices that i've never felt i could match. i'm more interested in who audiences believe them to be when they are on stage. i'm thinking about what, if i can borrow a phrase from richard dyer, their "star personas" are, and how they might possibly influence who i am in the classroom next term.
von stade's was one of the first female classically trained voices i think i ever heard, hunkered down with the family watching a pbs broadcast of a carnegie hall christmas concert with wynton marsalis and kathleen battle. she was my earliest female operatic crush, the first i ever saw live, and the first to give me kind words of encouragement and her autograph.
on stage she embodies a certain blend of old-world elegance, tinged with mischievousness. she reminds me, in many ways, of my most serious female film crush, katharine hepburn. i admire her intellectual rigor, her willingness to push boundaries, and her ability to revel in what she loves, all while demanding of the audience full engagement with the material with which she presents them. these are all qualities that come across the minute she sets foot on stage. attending one of her performances, even when she's playing lehar's merry widow, is akin to settling in for a lovely evening of wrestling with your most abstruse french literary theorist; it's a serious commitment. i don't know that i can carry the burden of that model into the lecture hall with me, though it sits before me, an ideal performance that one day, maybe if i'm a really good girl and i practice my scales devotedly, i'll be blessed enough to give.
fleming is a performer more in my usual style (have i been doing this job long enough to have a usual style? i can't help wondering ...). there's an element of the "awww-shucks" in even her most obscure recital pieces with which i clearly identify.
don't get me wrong, she's no appalachian songbird, but her performances are always ringed with a sort of halo of human-ness, carefully crafted and strategically deployed as it is. she drops the barriers when the audience least expects it (she always looks stunning doing so!) and thus quickly wins the hearts and musical minds of hundreds of eager listeners. during her first performance in toronto, amid the rush of over twelve (!!!) encores, and after begging the crowd to "let a poor girl get some rest", she squatted down on her haunches, spilling hand-sewn silk dress all over the stage, and leaned forward and said, "okay, whaddaya wanna hear?". she followed the answer with an impromptu scat-filled rendition of "it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing". like von stade, fleming's persona is more an ideal hanging before me like a motivational carrot, forever just a little out of reach, than anything close to what i imagine myself achieving on a day to day basis.
after all this pondering do i have a clearer idea of who i'm going to be in the classroom? not on your life. i do, however, get the feeling that with a little careful rehearsal (and how one rehearses this, i haven't quite figured out yet), the instructor i've been for the past three years will carry well in a larger hall. selecting the repertoire (read: finishing my syllabus), that's another story.
before i left for the holidays, i poked my head into the room i've been allocated for next term and i was shocked to find that it is an old-style lecture hall, complete with descending stairs that resolve themselves in a puddle of podium at the bottom. i walked on to the main level, looked up and had the most startling sense of déja vu. i'd been here before.
a part of my life i don't talk about much is the five years i spent in training to be a classical singer. through a series of happy accidents, shortly after starting my undergraduate degree in english, i discovered i had "a voice" -- or rather someone discovered it for me. in the years that followed, as i tried to recover from a repetitive strain injury that prevented me from playing my beloved flute, i worked with a succession of vocal coaches who peeled away my layers of toe-scuffing, awww-shucksing, and who worked at breaking my many bad vocal habits. i eventually prepared, but alas, never fully performed, the role of zerlina from mozart's le nozze di figaro. i also did my share of master classes and recital performances, having the most fun when i was able to push musical boundaries (i don't know that my vocal coach ever forgave me for a particularly *ahem* mischievous performance of a number from kurt weill's musical one touch of venus!) i never had a clear idea of where i was headed with the singing gig. the language-loving part of me was attracted to the textual side of opera -- i was forever close reading a libretto or basing my interpretation of fauré on the cultural context of 19th-century french poetry -- so much so that in the end i knew, even with all of its shiny, sparkling appeal, singing wasn't my first love.
one thing i did take away from my five years as a mezzo soprano (who could still pop a high C when necessary) was an understanding of performance. when a singer walks on to a stage, there's a lot going on that the audience isn't aware of. choices have been made far in advance, strategies determined and practiced -- the stage persona is not something that springs forth from the performer like poetry from the pen of a Romantic overwhelmed by a spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling. no, it's as carefully rehearsed as the particularly nasty riff that comes between bars 19 and 22 (not unlike your most Romantic of poetry). knowing this, and faced with my very first teaching gig as a seminar instructor, i knew i had to make conscious choices about the climate i wanted to create for my students' intellectual growth -- my demeanor in a seminar is meant to allow the students to feel as though this is a safe space for them to get down and dirty with the text, and thus take control of their own learning.
walking into that lecture hall the other day made me wonder if my seminar persona (not to mention my voice, "flabby" after years away from the intense rigor of daily scales, arpeggios, and sit-ups -- yes, sit-ups) would carry. as i try to think about viable alternative models (spurred on by G's recent post that, among other things, talks about the erotics of the lecture!) two names come to mind: frederica von stade and renée fleming. please keep in mind that as i am discussing these two famed folk, i'm not talking about their voices -- voices that i've never felt i could match. i'm more interested in who audiences believe them to be when they are on stage. i'm thinking about what, if i can borrow a phrase from richard dyer, their "star personas" are, and how they might possibly influence who i am in the classroom next term.
von stade's was one of the first female classically trained voices i think i ever heard, hunkered down with the family watching a pbs broadcast of a carnegie hall christmas concert with wynton marsalis and kathleen battle. she was my earliest female operatic crush, the first i ever saw live, and the first to give me kind words of encouragement and her autograph.
on stage she embodies a certain blend of old-world elegance, tinged with mischievousness. she reminds me, in many ways, of my most serious female film crush, katharine hepburn. i admire her intellectual rigor, her willingness to push boundaries, and her ability to revel in what she loves, all while demanding of the audience full engagement with the material with which she presents them. these are all qualities that come across the minute she sets foot on stage. attending one of her performances, even when she's playing lehar's merry widow, is akin to settling in for a lovely evening of wrestling with your most abstruse french literary theorist; it's a serious commitment. i don't know that i can carry the burden of that model into the lecture hall with me, though it sits before me, an ideal performance that one day, maybe if i'm a really good girl and i practice my scales devotedly, i'll be blessed enough to give.fleming is a performer more in my usual style (have i been doing this job long enough to have a usual style? i can't help wondering ...). there's an element of the "awww-shucks" in even her most obscure recital pieces with which i clearly identify.
don't get me wrong, she's no appalachian songbird, but her performances are always ringed with a sort of halo of human-ness, carefully crafted and strategically deployed as it is. she drops the barriers when the audience least expects it (she always looks stunning doing so!) and thus quickly wins the hearts and musical minds of hundreds of eager listeners. during her first performance in toronto, amid the rush of over twelve (!!!) encores, and after begging the crowd to "let a poor girl get some rest", she squatted down on her haunches, spilling hand-sewn silk dress all over the stage, and leaned forward and said, "okay, whaddaya wanna hear?". she followed the answer with an impromptu scat-filled rendition of "it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing". like von stade, fleming's persona is more an ideal hanging before me like a motivational carrot, forever just a little out of reach, than anything close to what i imagine myself achieving on a day to day basis. after all this pondering do i have a clearer idea of who i'm going to be in the classroom? not on your life. i do, however, get the feeling that with a little careful rehearsal (and how one rehearses this, i haven't quite figured out yet), the instructor i've been for the past three years will carry well in a larger hall. selecting the repertoire (read: finishing my syllabus), that's another story.
posted by Amanda Bonner at 8:51 p.m.
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