Kasey Eck, Choir Curricular Office Choir@wmea.org
Reimagining Tone through Color
L ove it or hate it, much of musical artistry can be described through metaphor. The quest for a resonant, fully-realized, and age-appropriate tone in our singers can sometimes
perspective as singers connect imagery, colors, and even textures with a physical process in the body. The Individual Colors can be used to validate and empower our sing - ers. For example, once my students have reached a con - sensus about their individual vocal “colors,” we spend time validating and celebrating the uniqueness of their individu - al vocal contribution. I invite students to bring in an object, drawing, piece of fabric, etc. to create a collage of our col - lective voices that is displayed in the classroom. Over the years, it is also fascinating to hear students reflect on their voice change journey. What was once a “light peach” vocal tone can become a more “burgundy” tone over the course of four years. Students learn to identify what was physio - logically happening at the time, but colors help to validate and encourage them from exactly where they are. The Score Using color associations in a more broad sense can save time in rehearsal by getting singers on board with your tonal image/interpretation and the composer’s intent right from the start. Singers enjoy analyzing what vocal “color” they believe the whole song should be. I will often zoom-in farther and ask singers to design their phrases in colors as a temporary substitute for terms such as crescen - do or decrescendo. Singers have amazing visual creativity and capacity for abstraction when they are asked to make deeper associations in this way. Using color (or color gra - dients, in the case of crescendo or decrescendo moments) brings a more three-dimensional aspect to their music making that accounts for desired tone color, phrase shape, and artistry all in one short discussion. If singers can also associate color in a song with emotion or mood, this often motivates them to address fundamentals in a more specific and nuanced way. Colors invite them in and provide a nuanced vocabulary which better builds their relationship with the tonal demands of a piece of music. The Storytelling Of course the goal of any well-developed vocal tone development is to most effectively realize the story they are telling. Colors can be used phrase-by-phrase to help singers “translate” the story and the emotions they are trying to portray. Using a vocabulary of color associ - ations can jumpstart the process of the “fourth wall” for both choral and solo singers. Often color associations can lead to specific imagery, which can lead to ideas of scen - ery, which can lead to narrative development based on the poetry, etc. The options are limitless! It is a fun process to see students trusting their own capabilities as a storyteller and gaining agency in their vocal production. Ultimately, this is what I want students to take with them. We never know what connections might be made from extra-musical associations unless we take the risk and open ourselves to what we might discover.
feel like the most elusive and important part of our work. How do we take an instrument like the human voice, a mechanism largely concealed from external analysis, and sympathetically uncover the potential within another singer? I believe that we all can benefit through frequent use of association with our singers, using the inspiration around us and within us to elicit authentic discovery in our rehearsal processes. For singers of all ages, I would argue that using meta - phor specifically through color association can be a helpful tool in building awareness of vocal concepts such as vocal weight, placement within the pharynx, phrasing, com - poser’s intent, and overall self-confidence. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple…colors have limitless meaning that we can utilize beyond the black-and-white of a musi - cal score. I invite you to think of a time when a conductor, frustrated by several rounds of what I call “faster-slow - er-louder-softer,” finally threw up their hands and said, “Okay, have you ever seen how (insert life experience here)? Sing it like THAT!” It is a generality, but I would bet that most likely, the results were more successful with the metaphor than with the previous attempts. Concrete and precise instruction of course has its place in our teaching, but without a bit more depth, we are missing something so fundamentally human in our teaching practice. The following are some ways this idea can be incorpo - rated into the rehearsal space: The Body Color associations can be an engaging “way in” for less experienced singers to learn about vocal technique and tonal concepts. At various points throughout the school year, I invite my high school singers to sing a vocalise in turn, one-by-one, until we have heard every voice in the room. Using a vocabulary of colors rather than technical terms, singers identify what “color” they believe best fits each singer. It is incredible to hear what associations they offer, and adolescents in particular love this kind of safe self-discovery. Without introducing a ton of technical terms, singers are also able to effortlessly discuss vocal weight, placement, resonance, vibrato, and overall timbre with - out getting overly technical and disrupting the intuitive/ creative process. More resonant singers are identified with richer colors, more nasal tones with brighter colors, and some are even associated with textures, such as velvet. I will begin to interchange the more scientific vocabulary as students gain awareness, using this exercise as a spring - board. The exercise is also rewarding from a neuroscience
Voice of Washington Music Educators Association January 2023
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