Abstract
As the newest of the singing styles to be taught in music institutions and private studios, the pedagogy for teaching popular singing is in its early days relative to other styles of singing, i.e. classical, jazz and musical theatre. Nonetheless, given that there are now pop stars celebrating career lengths of over 50 years, pop singing has been in existence sufficiently long that, for teaching purposes, a cohesive picture of the desired ‘pop voice’ is emerging. While contemporary singing shares commonalities with other singing styles, the specifics are distinctive and non-generic, requiring a level of specialized knowledge, training and competence by the people teaching it. Though not intended to be exhaustive, a broad overview of the main requirements for teaching contemporary singers is the purpose of this chapter, presented under three main headings: Technique, Musicianship and Interpretation.
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Notes
- 1.
Sadolin has changed her use of the term ‘Belting’ in her model to ‘Edge’.
- 2.
Known variously as ‘mixed’ voice and ‘blended’ voice.
- 3.
See Sect. 4.1.4 for definitions of these terms.
- 4.
This sung Coda section has been reused in other more recent pop songs such as Rihanna’s hit Don’t Stop The Music (Def Jam 2007).
- 5.
See Sect. 4.2.2 for a definition of this scale.
- 6.
Or Ionian mode.
- 7.
Or Aeolian mode.
- 8.
Minor Hexatonic scale: 1-2-b3-4-5-b7. This scale came out as the third most-used scale in pop vocal melodies (after the Natural Minor scale and Major scale respectively) in a recent analysis of many charting pop songs conducted by this author.
- 9.
Being the Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian and Locrian modes.
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Chandler, K. (2014). Teaching Popular Music Styles. In: Harrison, S., O'Bryan, J. (eds) Teaching Singing in the 21st Century. Landscapes: the Arts, Aesthetics, and Education, vol 14. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8851-9_4
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