Classical Vocal Instruction Does Not Help All Singers

I attended a high school’s annual pops concert tonight. Their theme was “American Bandstand”. It is unfortunate that there is such an unnecessarily large gap between some performers’ ability to sing a pop song and others.

If a young singer is frequently asked to sing songs of a particular genre, why ignore that genre in the technical training? Or are the teachers having the students sing their pop selections for them, but have no idea how to make it both sound authentic and be healthily produced?

I am sure that most of the young people know the kinds of sounds they would like to make in the popular genres; they need help to make those sounds. It would be nice if more of the voice teachers were on board with the actual tasks that the students have to perform. It would be much nicer still if the teachers knew how to produce the types of sounds needed.

There are pedagogical approaches out there, such as Somatic Voicework™ The Lovetri Method, that take the technical concerns of Contemporary Commercial Music seriously. We need more of this kind of instruction to help these kids sing optimally.