Highlights
"Sing First, Talk Later"
Part One: The First Steps to Singing Easily encourages students with a broad, basic overview of healthy vocal technique, including breath and posture, good practice habits, repertoire selection, interpretation, and performance—just enough to get students started.
Part Two: Improvisations and Songs is an annotated anthology of songs, many new to this edition and chosen with the needs of beginning singers in mind, offering over 70 traditional songs, hymns, rounds, jazz standards, new popular music, songs from film and musical theater, and art songs and arias, appropriate for all skill levels and voice types. Comprehensive annotations provide historical context and performance notes for each song, and translations and IPA now appear alongside each non-English-languge text. In addition, all public-domain songs from the first edition of The Singing Book remain available on the Student Website.
Part Three: How the Voice Works builds on skills introduced in earlier chapters, covering alignment, breathing, phonation, resonance, articulation, healthy vocal production, and solutions to common problems.
Balanced Whole-Person Approach
The Singing Book recognizes that a singer is an instrument and that a singer's whole body must be engaged in the act of singing, from the vibration of the vocal chords to the meaningful expression of text. Combining a simple, accurate presentation of signing technique with confidence-building exercises, The Singing Book teaches both the physical and the mental skills necessary for enjoyable performance.
Introduction to the Vocal Mechanism
Providing a concise yet scientifically accurate and thorough introduction to the vocal mechanism, including anatomical illustrations, The Singing Book shows how the voice works and how to keep it healthy. "Finding Out for Yourself" exercises enable students to experiment with efficient and inefficient ways of singing, discovering for themselves the habits that produce the best results. The Singing Book also offers solutions to common vocal problems and an entire chapter devoted to vocal health.
Outstanding Repertoire
Carefully chosen based on user feedback to build vocal skill systematically, the 74 songs in The Singing Book are both appealing and pedagogically useful to singers at all levels.
- 4 improvisations, 32 traditional and group songs, 20 popular songs and jazz/musical theater standards, and 18 art songs and arias including more Italian selections
- Over 25 new songs including "Someone Like You" from Jekyll & Hyde, "True Colors," "You Raise Me Up," "Star vicino" in a fresh new arrangement, and the Pirate King song from Pirates of Penzance
- Songs to suit all voices in comfortable ranges with additional keys and printable sheet music available on the Student Website
- Unique improvisations to promote creativity, and simple rounds and group songs to build confidence
- Expanded annotations for each song, offering historical context and suggestions for further listening ("If you like this song, try…"), as well as idiomatic translations and IPA pronunciations alongside all non-English-language songs
Copyright © 2007, W. W. Norton & Company. All rights reserved.
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