Ranging from medieval music to Madonna and beyond, this book covers in detail the many aspects of the voice.

Now newbie songwriters can learn the craft—and sing their own praises online Beginning songwriters can hit the right note by starting out with the basics in this guide, including: • How to create melodies • How to create many different harmonies • Techniques using deliberate rhythm and stylistic changes • How to enable one's songwriting to grow and evolve • How to deal with songwriter's block • The best places to upload one's work for maximum exposure and opportunities

Yoga, Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais Method, Pilates, Body Mapping… These techniques all promote optimum vocal performance through mind-body awareness, but where should a singer begin? So You Want to Sing with Awareness welcomes singers into all of these methods, allowing them to explore each option’s history and application to singing and determine which methods may best meet their needs as performers. With this unique volume in the So You Want to Sing series, editor Matthew Hoch brings together renowned expert practitioners to explore mind-body awareness systems and introduce cutting-edge research in cognitive neuroscience and motor learning. Carefully curated for singers’ unique needs, the book also includes essential discussions of anatomy and physiology and vocal health. The So You Want to Sing series is produced in partnership with the National Association of Teachers of Singing. Like all books in the series, So You Want to Sing with Awareness features online supplemental material on the NATS website. Please visit www.nats.org to access style-specific exercises, audio and video files, and additional resources.

Cabaret performances are often known for bringing alive the Great American Songbook from the 1920s through the 1950s for contemporary audiences. But modern-day cabaret does much more than preserve the past—it also promotes and fosters the new generation of American composers and creates a uniquely vibrant musical and theatrical experience for its audiences. So You Want to Sing Cabaret is the first book of its kind to examine in detail the unique vocal and nonvocal requirements for professional performance within the exciting genre of cabaret. With a foreword by cabaret legend Lorna Luft, So You Want to Sing Cabaret includes interviews from the top professionals in the cabaret industry, including Michael Feinstein, Ann Hampton Callaway, Roy Sander, Sidney Myer, Jeff Harner and many others. There are also chapters devoted to crafting your show, lyric connection, “do-it-yourself” production and promotion, and working with your musical team. David Sabella and Sue Matsuki have crafted the perfect one-volume resource for both the aspiring cabaret singer and the singing teacher who seeks to learn more about this unique art form. The So You Want to Sing series is produced in partnership with the National Association of Teachers of Singing. Like all books in the series, So You Want to Sing Cabaret features online supplemental material on the NATS website. Please visit www.nats.org to access style-specific exercises, audio and video files, and additional resources.

With their rich and complicated history, spirituals hold a special place in the American musical tradition. This soul-stirring musical form is irresistible to singers seeking to diversify their performance repertoire, but it is also riddled with controversy, especially for singers of non-African descent. Singer and historian Randye Jones welcomes singers of all backgrounds into the style while she explores its folk song roots and transformation into choral and solo vocal concert repertoire. Profiling key composers and pioneers of the genre, Jones also discusses the use of dialect and other controversial performance considerations. Contributed chapters address elements of collaborative piano, studio teaching, choral arrangement, voice science, and vocal health as they apply to the performance of spirituals. The So You Want to Sing series is produced in partnership with the National Association of Teachers of Singing. Like all books in the series, So You Want to Sing Spirituals features online supplemental material on the NATS website.

Bel canto, or 'beautiful singing, ' remains one of the most elusive performance styles vocalists strive to master. During the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, composers routinely left the final shaping of recitatives, arias, and songs to performers, and singers treated scores freely so that inexpressively notated music could be turned into passionate declamation. In other words, vocalists saw their role more as one of re-creation than of simple interpretation. Familiarity with the range of strategies prominent singers of the past employed to unlock the eloquent expression hidden in scores enables modern performers to take a similar re-creative approach to enhancing the texts before them. In this first ever guide to bel canto, author Robert Toft provides singers with the tools they need not only to complete the creative process the composer began but also to bring scores to life in an historically-informed manner. Replete with illustrations based on excerpts from Italianate recitatives and arias by composers ranging from Handel to Rossini, the book offers discussions of the fundamental principles of expressive singing, each section including a practical application of the techniques involved. Drawing on a wealth of documents from the era, including treatises, scores, newspaper reviews, and letters, this book captures the breadth of practices singers used in the bel canto period. Complete with six scores (recitatives and/or arias) for performers to personalize through the old methods, and a companion website offering demonstrations of the principles involved, Bel Canto is an essential resource for any singer or vocal instructor wishing to explore and master historical techniques of interpretation and re-creation from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

In recent decades, world music styles have been making increasing inroads into Western popular music, music theater, choral concerts, and even concert hall performances. So You Want to Sing World Music is an essential compendium of these genres and provides technical approaches to singing non-Western styles. Matthew Hoch gathers a cohort of expert performers and teachers to address singing styles from across the globe, including Tuvan throat singing, Celtic pop and traditional Irish singing, South African choral singing, Brazilian popular music genres, Hindustani classical singing, Native American vocal music, Mexican mariachi, Lithuanian sutartinės, Georgian polyphony, Egyptian vocal music, Persian āvāz, and Peking opera. Additional chapters offer resources for soloists and choral directors as well as primers on voice science, vocal health, and audio enhancement technology. The So You Want to Sing series is produced in partnership with the National Association of Teachers of Singing. Like all books in the series, So You Want to Sing World Music features online supplemental material on the NATS website. Please visit www.nats.org to access style-specific exercises, audio and video files, and additional resources.