Katharin Rundus had several specific goals in mind when she wrote her first book, Cantabile: A Manual about Beautiful Singing for Singers, Teachers of Singing and Choral Conductors. First, as the director of Vocal Studies at Fullerton College, she wanted to engage the current generation of students who were having difficulty with the standard vocal pedagogy texts of our time. Second, she wanted to write a practical manual for voice teachers that could be kept close at hand for use in the studio. Third, she wanted to provide voice-building exercises for choral directors who may not have had significant voice training. Last, rather than replacing other books, she wanted to continually refer readers to other sources where further information could be accessed.
She clearly has met these goals as the book has found its niche in the world of vocal instruction.
Now, Rundus brings the same principles of efficient and expressive singing to a new audience with her latest publication, Cantabile: Voice Class. We recently discussed the book over e-mail.
The “parent book,” Cantabile: A Manual about Beautiful Singing, has been received well and is used regularly in college and university classes. In what ways did you feel it was perhaps not the right text for the singers who are the target audience of Cantabile: Voice Class?
At Fullerton College, we attract a large number of students who want to be voice majors. Not all—but many—have had little or no voice training, but they come to us from high school vocal programs that have taught them a love of music and a desire to explore it as a vocation. They absolutely “gotta sing.” We have found that they need a semester of Intro to Music Theory before they can really take full advantage of private lessons. So I have developed a first semester voice class for voice majors (some universities call this “Voice Boot Camp”) that is designed to help them understand the discipline of being a music major, introduces them to singing in Italian and the “little Italian arias,” and IPA. It also serves as a gateway to the Applied Voice Private Study experience that comes next for them. I have been using my own voice curriculum and material with this for 20 years, along with the standard little Italian songs and arias.
In addition, I have been hearing from my colleagues that teach avocational voice classes that the standard anthology texts have gotten so expensive that it is hard to get students to buy them for a one-semester class exploring singing. Almost everything is now available on the Internet for free, and copyrighted songs can be purchased and downloaded individually at a great savings for the students.
What class voice teachers were wanting was a reasonably priced text that would contain vocal foundations (“anchors”), require some critical thinking, and be a stepping-off point for those that were going to continue in further study. Cantabile: Voice Class [CVC] was written to accommodate that need as well as the “boot camp” process that I am teaching.
What were some of the bigger challenges or significant changes you had to make in adjusting the terminology to address this different audience?
The significant change between the two books is that CVC is intended for a one-semester class for beginning singing learners. Students don’t need to know everything I know. They need a chance to experiment (and “fail” and do over) and grow their voices with just enough technical information so they are singing freely, in a strong, healthy, and beautiful manner. If they are hungry for more technical information, I direct them to CVC and also to the other standard texts.
Ideally, this will not be the last opportunity for them to get technical information—but if it is, it is accurate information. So the challenge was to take a lot of technical information, decide what is absolutely necessary for the learners to work with in one semester, and make it interesting and practical so they will be motivated to engage in the practice that is necessary to grow in performance. Having now said that, I realize that it is a lot to do and expect.
In the first book, you use icons to designate the different sections of each chapter. You do this in Cantabile: Voice Class, as well, though the icons are slightly different. For instance, the Science icon has become the Anchor, which emphasizes fundamentals and the building blocks of singing. With your background in voice science and vocology, how did you decide how far in depth you could go in these sections?
For me, you can never know enough about voice science, but the “Anchors” are a little bit more finite. “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” The Anchors are intended to be bites.
Similarly, the Imagination icon designed to strengthen understanding and execution has been replaced by a Heart icon emphasizing the emotional and psychological aspects of singing. What do you see as the primary differences between the topics that fall under these designations?
The difference between the Imagination icon and the Heart icon is that the Imagination icons are teaching tools. Students learn with their imaginations as well as with knowledge, so Richard Miller notwithstanding, sometimes a good metaphor or simile helps drive home the technical message. I use a lot of concrete “manipulatives” in my teaching, a funnel for the vocal tract, for instance. I can talk and demonstrate forever about an open vocal tract, but with some students I just point out that “we are trying to create a space like a funnel, wide end in the back of your throat” and show them my funnel, and they are there. That is what the Imagination icons are intended to facilitate.
The Heart icon in CVC is there to remind all of the learners that the only reason we sing is to communicate and appeal to the audience’s emotions. The only reason we are learning to sing with technical efficiency is so we can better communicate “Heart.” In CVC, the Heart icon points out that we don’t sing notes, rhythms, and technique—we sing stories, thoughts, ideas, and emotions.
You also include a section on “Attentive and Deliberate Practice” that was not included in the first book. Why did you feel it was important to include that in Cantabile: Voice Class?
I included “Attentive and Deliberate Practice” in CVC because I have recently done some serious study and thinking about it (including motor learning as it pertains to singing, growth mindset vs. fixed mindset, and what motivates students to practice), and it is probably more important to performance result than minute technical study.
In the second edition of my first Cantabile book (I’m working on it right now), I will include information for teachers on these important aspects of teaching singing.
What are your hopes for Cantabile: Voice Class? What sort of impact would you like it to have on the singing community? What sort of feedback/reaction are you getting so far?
My hope for CVC is that teachers and students will find it interesting and accessible and will use it. I believe that it would be great with high school students, either in voice class situations or as part of a strong choral program. As mentioned earlier, it was written as a lower-division voice class text, and that is where I believe it will have the greatest impact. But I would encourage your audience to look at both books and see how they can use them as stimulation for their own teaching and singing.
I believe it represents some of the “best practices” for teaching class voice and I would love any and all feedback as to how it works in different situations. I have used it for two semesters with my entry level “boot camp” classes, and the student response has been very strong. They appreciate that it is clearly written and understandable, with not a lot of language that is confusing for a beginning singer. They feel that it is just about the right amount of knowledge that they need in order to improve their singing performance in one semester. They like the critical-thinking questions at the end of the chapters and they like the fact that the chapters are not 20 pages long. And, of course, they like the price, compared to other texts they are required to purchase.
Book Review
Readers familiar with Cantabile: A Manual about Beautiful Singing for Singers, Teachers of Singing and Choral Conductors will find both similarities and differences in the new Cantabile: Voice Class. While the second book, intended for beginning singers, is significantly shorter (only 47 pages compared to the 189-page first volume), author Katharin Rundus does not skimp on content.
The chapters of both books follow a similar progression and cover largely the same topics. Many of the diagrams and pictures from the first volume are reproduced in the second, though there are fewer of them and they are less anatomically specific (for instance, there are no depictions of the vocal folds or larynx). Similarly, readers of CVC are spared the discussions of source/filter theory, formants, and spectral analysis that are less applicable to beginning singers.
The vocal exercises used in CVC are either the same as in the first book or reprinted with minor adjustments, and all sections addressed to choral conductors are, understandably, omitted.
Unlike many class voice texts, there is no anthology of repertoire included. Rundus instead makes suggestions (via the book’s website) of songs in the public domain that may be accessed at little or no cost to the singer. This option keeps the price of Cantabile: Voice Class much lower and, therefore, the accessibility of the book much higher by avoiding the cost of reprinting copyrighted material and the expense of printing additional pages, some of which may never be used.
For all that was removed, however, the core principles of Cantabile: A Manual about Beautiful Singing are unmistakably present here. The images and ideas that make the first book so effective are appropriately tailored for the second book as Rundus presents the terms and concepts of vocal pedagogy in a manner that makes them accessible and intelligible without being watered down. In fact, teachers may consider using the first book as the “instructor’s manual” for CVC, bringing its more in-depth information to students as needed.
The author’s thorough knowledge and varied background as a voice teacher, choral conductor, classroom teacher, and voice scientist has helped Cantabile: A Manual about Beautiful Singing successfully fill a void in vocal pedagogy instruction since its release in 2009. Cantabile: Voice Class is similarly poised to become a standard text for teaching beginning singers.
– Brian Manternach
