Unleashing Musicality through Melodic Deflection
Donald R. Mathis · Journal of Singing · 2015
[Editor's Note: This article is published posthumously, as noted in my last Editor's Commentary, its author having passed away in 2013. I am grateful to Joan Mathis, the late author's wife, for tending to the few editorial suggestions for a revised manuscript, and, while unable to clarify a few matters about which I had questions, I am pleased to honor a committed life of music with this publication.]In the last analysis, melody is what lives at the heart and constitutes the soul of music. All other musical elements build upon this fundamental one, and exist primarily in their relationship to it. The centrality of melody to music making takes on a richer, foundational dimension when wedded to text. Text contributes its own unique content to the act of musical communication, and carries with it added intellectual and emotional relevance.This article focuses on the often misunderstood and overlooked skill that enables singers to sing texted music with power and impact; it is called phrasing. Artistic phrasing embraces the inherent beauty of a melody, reveals the meaning of the composer's and poet's intentions, and brings those deeper intentions to life for singers and listeners.The principles that follow-drawn from more than a half century of experience as a professional singer, voice pedagogue, and choral conductor-offer a concise overview of the key elements to be mastered regarding what this author terms deflection. Melody's power is unleashed through what is called melodic sculpturing, applying subtle deflections to melody that are beyond what traditional notation systems can present graphically. Traditional notation is two-dimensional, a graph of pitch (the vertical) across the arena of time (the horizontal). The deflections that sculpt the melody add a third dimension to traditional two-dimensional musical notation in approaching a sense of depth.The human voice is the ultimate expressive instrument; it conveys personal emotion and thought more directly than any other sound medium. When directing texted music, conducting gestures emerge and draw their character from the shapes and accents of language, and refined communication of melody will be directly impacted and shaped by the conductor's gestural choices. In a similar way, rhythm draws its essence from the internal organization of prosody; the resultant melding of the two provides the avenue that makes communication and meaning possible in the singer's art.The sculptor utilizes substances that take on meaning only when imbued with symbols of shape or thought. This is true of all the visual and performing arts, but it is especially true of vocal music that blends the art of literature and music into one. Singing is the only art that serves two masters, melody and text.Although the principles elaborated below are focused primarily on the challenge of conducting and singing in a performance setting, they can become a powerful part of the teaching experience in rehearsals. The performer must learn from these deflection principles how to emanate the lifts, shadings, marcatos, staccatos, and subordinate movements for visualization. The author came upon these deflecting principles by studying some of the great artists who presented and indeed inculcated these practices.Most musicians learn a great deal in school about harmony, contrapuntal techniques, structural analysis, and basic compositional techniques. However, little attention sometimes is paid to the relevance and structure of melody-the element we most substantially seek to control in singing and conducting. The noted composer, Paul Hindemith, commented on this notable void in music education.It is an astounding fact that instruction in composition has never developed a theory of melody. Every student learns harmony, and from the traditional theoretical instruction, one would think that the handling of tonal materials depended mainly on a knowledge of harmonic facts. …