The Omnivorous Voice - navigating taste & cultural expectations in singing with Guro von Germeten

Join Dr Gillyanne Kayes and Jeremy Fisher in a fascinating and deep episode on the omnivorous voice, featuring Dr. Guro von Germerten. 
Guro shares the highlights from her PhD on musical tastes and vocal techniques. From her emotional childhood experience as a pianist to her groundbreaking research on the omnivorous voice, Guro discusses the complexities of taste, tradition, and cultural expectations in musical performance. From the process of PhD defence in Europe, to the concept of musical omnivorousness, and the hidden problems of musical taste, this episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in music education, vocal performance, and the evolving dynamics of taste and authenticity in the arts.

00:00 Crushing dreams with a single comment
02:17 How did Gillyanne and Guro meet?
03:10 How a PhD defence works in Europe
05:36 The omnivorous voice
08:13 Cultural and ethical implications in Musical Theatre
13:24 Shortcutting in casting musicals
16:07 Uncovering your own biases
19:18 The role of taste in music and performance
27:08 A rebel with an accordian
31:17 Does the composer actually know?
33:30 Taste and values on the Accreditation Programme
35:22 We are also music lovers
38:30 When musical tastes collide


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Find out more about Guro
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzMK7LpMRkYvfWTK1DynaKw
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/gurovongermeten/
Guro's full PhD Dissertation on The Omnivorous Voice can be found here: https://nmh.no/en/research/projects/guro-von-germeten-completed-phd


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Transcript

The Omnivorous Voice - navigating taste & cultural expectations in singing  with Guro von Germeten

I was playing a Rondo alla Turca, from Mozart, and I remember an authority person, a composer that I really looked up to came to me and said, if you keep on playing Mozart that way, he will turn in his grave.

For a 10 year old loving to play the piano. 10?! Yeah, it was, um, it makes me emotional because it has influenced so much about what I thought about music. And that it was this standard of music so high that even, you know, just sitting down at the piano and rehearsing something, if you were not perfect, if you were not good enough, if you didn't understand the true intention or whatever people talk about from the composer, you will sort of ruin the music and you will offend the people that wrote it and you will, You have to obey some sort of idea, otherwise you are, uh, pissing on art. 

This is A Voice, a podcast with Dr. Gillyanne Kayes, and Jeremy Fisher.

Hello and welcome to This is a Voice, season nine, episode nine. Podcast where we get vocal about voice. I'm Jeremy Fisher. And I'm Dr. Gillyanne Kayes. And today we have a very special guest, the singer, teacher, researcher, Guro von Germerton, who's going to be talking with us about the omnivorous voice. Hello.

Hi, Guro. Hi, good morning. from Norway. How did we do with your name? I think you were quite all right. It's a very difficult name outside the Scandinavian context. Uh, and it's a part German and a part Norwegian name. And with a lot of vowels that are very typical for our language, but that you don't find so many other places in the world, all this you and, Ooh, this very soft vowels.

So, is a typical name from the Norwegian language, but you did ok. Yeah, thank you. I mean, actually, they're beautiful vowels. So, Gillyanne, how did the two of you meet? 

Last November, I acted as an opponent for Guro's PhD defence and she is now a doctor. Yay, congratulations. She has a PhD It was a very, very successful defense. And actually, that was the very first time that I'd acted as an opponent. I'd never done that before. read lots of PhDs before. Um, but being active as an opponent is something we don't do this in the UK.

I think they do it in the US and they do it, um, in most European countries. So for me it was a fascinating journey as well. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Because a lot of UK will not know what you're talking about. What is the whole process? Okay. Um, Guro, do you want to explain how it works? Yeah, in Norway we have a very, um, long tradition of having our PhD defense going public, so to say, that it should be a public event.

Um, and then we need opponents because the, the PhD candidate need people to discuss their work with and people have read the whole thing and really, try to grasp the the good sides of it, but also trying to question to, um, to bring the academic discussion forward, uh, so to say. It's a very long ceremony actually in Norway, um, it's about four hours in total, where first you get a sort of a trial lecture, where I had to talk about something for 45 minutes that was not in my PhD, but was some sort of connected or expanding it, or maybe some areas that I had neglected, which was in my case.

And that was the first part, and then you have to pass that to actually defend your PhD. So it's to, to show that you don't only know your topic, but you could actually expand your academic sides and, and, and do more. Um, and so that's the first part. And then we do a sort of presentation, traditional presentation, conference presentation of the work itself.

And then we have, um, two blocks where both opponents sort of lead the discussion And, and ask me things about, uh, both the process of the PhD and the content and where to go from, from here and, and how does this work even mean something and all of these types of questions. And, and we even have a tradition in Norway that also the public floor can join in if they have questions.

So it's, it's a long ceremony of, of four hours and every part of the ceremony has to be, um, passed to, to grant or to be granted a PhD title. So it's It's quite intense. It's very, it's very intense. Yes. Um, and I will say that I think you defended yourself very well because you had, um, quite a challenging, um, lecture title.

that had been put together by your opponents from the reading that we'd done. I mean, do you want to share what that lecture title was? Can you remember? Oh, if I can remember

! Well, it was about this concept that I'm sure we will talk about, uh, more in depth, this, this omnivorous voice. And it has to do with, with the sort of racial and colonial connotations of this term, um, because, uh, If we, if we dig right into it, this omnivorousness means, or it's originally a term that describes animals that feed off a wide variety of food and engorging on both meat and plant origins.

And it's sort of a bodily resourcefulness and a way to enhance the animals chances of survival. So it's, it's, it's a word that originally contains these, uh, aspects. And then it's been used as a metaphor of. activities of the mind, like a child with curious omnivorousness, like interested in all different types of topics.

And, and yeah, I think we all are those kinds of persons. Um, or it could be like, you know, just taking in whatever is available without caring about quality or, or any wish to go in depth, just like, okay, this book came to me at the kiosk, I will read this, or I'll switch on the telly and I just, you know, take in whatever is on.

And so it's a term that can be used with both negative and, and, and positive connotations, which I believe is a very interesting, uh, when words do that. It is, yeah. So someone who was very omnivorous, taking in everything, might also not have much what we would call discernment. Discrimination, yeah. About what it is that they're, they're absorbing.

Mm hmm. Um, that's, that's fascinating. Mm hmm. Okay. And with terms to, to voice, of course, I use this term to describe the sort of vast potential of aesthetic possibilities that I believe we are born with. And the way that we sing or the way that we speak is so formed by our cultural expectations. You know, the, we've been talking about vowels today in the Norwegian language compared to the, to the English, British English and American, you know, you build your voice.

Totally different with learning those languages and also the expectations, how to behave, how to be, what is the traditions, what kind of style genres are you interacting with and everything. So I use this term to describe sort of. performers that gorge on a wide variety of musical styles and genres to come alive as performers.

And we will talk about musical theater performers, which are performers who do this, you know, they, they do a classical, uh, musical theater production one week, and then they might do a rap one or a rock one.

 And I think this ability shows also the flexibility within our voices to be reassembled or change or expand or being developed, Uh, if you want to, or if it's demanded for, but of course in this, um, gorging on, this sort of lashing onto, absorbing, maybe even appropriating different genres, different styles, different traditions, there's a lot of problems that could occur.

you know, who, who is quote unquote allowed to sing what, uh, who are going into this relationship with power and, and taking genres and taking traditions and adapting them and manipulating them or changing them or making them even unaccessible to their original, uh, cultural tribes, so to say, or, and, and of course, this has some sort of ethical and reflexive, um, challenges linked to it that I was asked to, um, to talk about in this trial lecture because also this metaphor of eating, devouring, uh, all of these things has some sort of, uh, violent connotations to it and has also been used in these lecture.

colonial settings where some, you know, some people have been seen as produce, uh, for other people, you know, where, where we're slaves and coffee, you know, where we're on the same level, uh, for example, or this sort of hungry listening where we use other people's um, culture as sort of ingredients in our own stew, so to say, without any sort of taking in the power dynamics between these stuff and, and linking it back, for example, to musical theater.

Musical theater is a white art form. It is a middle class art form. It is a sort of privileged art form where composers and producers. And, and, and people have sort of used all sort of musical and cultural expressions to, to, to tell their stories. And in a very short manner, you know, you have to put in everything in a show in three hours.

So everything is sort of shortcutted. You know, you'd use this, and then you'd say, oh, this pentatonic melody it's oriental, or this cross rhythm is, is, is more Latin American, without any sort of, oh, is it like this, or is this a cliché, or what kind of meaning Do we ascribe to all this, this musical content that we use?

There is so much that we want to unpack in what you said, it's so amazing. And I want to say that obviously this discussion is ongoing, particularly in musical theatre. The understanding of, um, we could call it the provenance of certain musical styles, um, and obviously also to do with casting, um, you know, teachers and students get very worried about, can my students sing this song?

You know, do they have the right background? Um, And I think it's actually very good that we're having these discussions, so long as we have them openly, um, and without fear, because if we suddenly start to say, oh, this is a dangerous area to go to, we mustn't discuss this, then of course we don't have the discussion and, and we lose the creative opportunity.

I, and that's something I must say that I feel quite strongly about. I want to, I want to unpick something because I think this is really fascinating, something that you've said. um, which is about musical theater specifically, in that a musical theater show can contain multiple genres, multiple styles, and therefore multiple backgrounds, uh, whether those are, um, appropriate for the situation or not.

And I was trying to think while you were talking about, Any other genre that mixes, hang on, that puts a mixture of things in into the same situation, and I actually couldn't think of one. So for instance, in opera, you might have a Chinese themed opera, as in Turandot, I think that's Chinese. But it's the whole opera. So you don't then mix something Brazilian in there. Um, that doesn't happen, it doesn't tend to happen in classical music. But in musical theatre, you could have several genres, several eras, one after another, in the same show.

Um, but also I was thinking of contemporary commercial music. And again, you might mix genres to get a style or an ethic or an element, but that element would probably stay all the way through the song. You wouldn't necessarily do several different things in the same song. You know, there may be exceptions for that, but the norm is that you find a style and you stick to it.

Musical theatre is very different. Musical theater is very different and I think the whole genre is sort of build up on this shortcutting in lack of a better word. I mean, because it's also very, it's not just a genre, but if we think about voices as well, the way a voice sound, we believe that that sort of the sound of the voice, the sonics of the voice itself has sort of meaning.

And, and we use a lot of, you know, the, the, the, the young lover is always a soprano, is always very light and bright and things like that. And the, the, the, the male love interest is always the tenor. You never see a dark bass. It's like, no, if you are the dark voice, you are the dangerous one. Or if you have a dark female voice, then you are older or you're a witch or you're evil.

We use all this sonic connotation to shortcut meanings. And on one hand, it's, it's a reflection of how we behave in everyday life. It's our culture. But also, when we are not critical about it, or when we are not reflexive about it, we sort of, reproduce cultural expectations and shortcuts and stereotyping, which actually can be really, really damaging as well.

And there are some really good articles written about it. Asare, for example, is talking about this black Broadway voice that, that sort of responses and, and says like, we don't all go to the same church, you know. You know, there's expectations that one meets because one looks a certain type, one should sound a certain way.

And I think that's a danger in musical theatre as well, that we play so much with these shortcuts. That, like, a person sort of doesn't stand there on stage, It's not as much as just oneself, uh, constituting something in real time, but it's like the burden of standing in for a whole group of people or a whole sort of thing.

So it is, it is a minefield in many ways. It's an exciting minefield, but it's also, um, quite interesting to go in and look at it and discern it in a critical way as well. I'm thinking, I'm wondering if this is a failure. Do you see this as a failure in musical theatre? Because essentially what I'm hearing is that you're using, if you take it from the situation of the storyline, then you want um, visual or emotional or audible shortcuts in order to get the audience straight into the story.

But do you not think that this is then a failing in musical theatre because you're using them, if you look at it from a musical angle or a, or a, um, a historical angle, then maybe there's a flaw. Before you say anything, Guro, I wondered if what you were thinking of is that there's a danger that we embed certain cultural viewpoints that perhaps need reinvestigating.

Um, I don't know if that's what you were thinking. Maybe we should ask you a question again and I'll zip up this time. Oh, I think the question stands. So rude of me, sorry. No, I think, I mean, I think that's how life is in many ways. We have this idea of representalism or what, how you can say it in English, this, this thing that there is some sort of essence when we do art, that we have to like reproduce and, and present, And, and that's a very, it's a very symbolic tradition that we have done within the arts that also when we look at art, we have to interpret it like this is a symbol standing in for something else.

And the job with art is like looking into what this actually means, you know, this, this type of things, instead of saying, uh, what art does in that moment. When I see this person sounding this way on this stage, what does that do to me? What does it put in play? What is happening next? And all of these things.

And, and I think a lot of these discussions these days, as you said, Gillyanne, these, these, these things about we are getting afraid of, you know, Or some people are getting afraid. Can we do this? Can we sing this song? Can we use this with our students? And I think all of these discussions are never a simple yes or no.

I think it's about dwelling in the complexity of it and saying like, okay, if my school is producing these types of shows every year, where we present these type of people on stage every year, or we assign these types of songs to our students every year, What does that put in play? What is not being told?

What is being reinforced? What is being reproduced? So it's, it's more about this awareness. And that's where I love your, your, um, co opponent as well, Nina Sun Eidsheim, Professor of UCLA, who has wrote an excellent book called The Race of, um, Sound. The Race of Sound, yes. And she talks a lot about this awareness of that We hardly can say something about the person that we listen to by listening to their voices.

What we can say is something about ourselves listening to that voice being, uh, expressed or being used in that sort of manner. And I think that's the important discussion to have with our students and with ourselves and with the business and everything, like. What is, what are my beliefs that makes me want to showcase these voices in these ways or these persons?

Not showcase or what do I do by putting these people on stage and not these or these sounds on stage and not these and, and if I now, do shortcuts, what kind of effects do these shortcuts produce, and are those the effects that I want to be produced in a way? It's even, it's even recognizing that you're using shortcuts at all.

Yes, absolutely. And not, not having an awareness of it. 

You know, um, Guro, I just want to thank you for having dug straight into a really, really deep issue that I think is, is very much in, certainly in every singing teacher's mind at the moment in terms of how we can manage inclusivity, how we can develop creativity and expertise with our students and having an awareness of, I think where I want to go next, perhaps, is to talk to you about taste.

Some of the things that you're talking about right now, are this is someone's taste. Sometimes, sometimes they don't realize the background of that and then how they're further influencing other people's taste. Absolutely, and taste has been one of my core elements in this PhD. Uh, and of course, I didn't say that when we talked about this omnivorous, uh, word or this term, but, within cultural sociology, omnivorousness has become a term that actually describes contemporary taste patterns, to start there, where we'd see that it's no longer high status to just visit the opera or search for refinement or exclusion or really like, you know, um, digging into high art or fine art or whatever we choose to call it, but we see that it's more and more about being able to attach to and experience different types of Cultural expressions and going to a bluegrass concert one day and then going to the opera the next day, uh, sort of brings about more status or social, uh, you know, um, yeah, status than, than, than being searching for refinement or exclusion or, or wanting to, to do just one thing.

So omnivorous in this term describes a cultural consumer that gorges on or has broad taste patterns. And then of course, um, this sort of what is then taste was a question. Ooh, I love that question. I love that question. That I was sort of occupied with because in a lot of these discussions about taste, we talk about the consumers. First of all, we talk about why do we love the things we love and how do we love the things we love and, and, and.

There's a lot of, uh, theoretical traditions, for example, Baudrillard, that is very occupied with taste is being a result of your class and your habitus and you're, you're not sort of determined by all of those things. And that makes you love certain things, or it makes you, um, have disgust or distaste or, or, you know, put aside other things and things like that.

And these sort of theories also, uh, important as they are because they are addressing what you are talking about, Gillyanne, this, this sort of that taste can be a power play. Mm hmm. I can sort of do my teaching in singing or my musical directing opera or in a musical theater show based on my taste. And I can sort of, um, legitimize my taste by saying, well, there is such a thing as good taste and there is such a thing as bad taste. And again, this very binary idea of, of taste and, um, coming from, um, Complete Vocal Technique that we might even dig further into as well, uh, which is a vocal way of, of teaching voice where a very important core element is separating vocal technique and vocal taste.

Meaning that what I am here to teach my, or offer my students is a way to allow them to sound the way that they want to be heard, uh, in a way that is healthy, meaning that it's sustainable, that they can do it over a long time, that they won't sort of get into trouble by, by singing in that way. And also to make them the, the leaders of their own vocal sound and, and, and sort of being charge, in charge and doing the tasting themselves. But then we see in a lot of training and I'm, I was a classical trained, um, singer as well, where it was this idea, very, very specific idea of what beauty was, only that it was this idea of beauty, but it was also a lot of time you have to sound in this way. to sing, sing sustainable. And, and this attachment between right and beauty and everything was mixed up in a sort of, yeah, very unhandable, which made you also feel guilty for wanting to sing something else, getting afraid that if I do these different types of sounds that perhaps doesn't sound pleasant, I am automatically ruining my voice.

Oh, yes. And then sort of also not trusting yourself because a lot of the times when I do extreme things with my voice, like extreme vocal effects, I felt a sort of release. I felt like my, I felt suddenly my breath, breath flow was really like, and I felt that going back then to singing classical was like, Oh, now I got the nerve or, you know, now I get the energy to, to pull the phrases through.

And then. Always this guilt of like, no, but now I'm ruining my voice or my people are telling me this is ugly or all of these things. So, so that was sort of the motivation of digging into this. This term of taste and then also stating that this omnivorous voice and in musical theater that we see that our students and our the singers, they have plural tastes.

They don't like just one thing, but they like the, and that they also back to discernment that they can discern between. styles also. So it's not only like, Oh, I like rock or I like pop, but I like this rock music. Or for example, I think I use in my PhD, an example of me that I love all types of musical theater, but I have this really thing for Sondheim musicals and you know, all the Sondheim's musicals, I like Company the best and of all the Company, you know, production that I like, then I like, you know, Actually, the ones that are gender bent the most and all these gender bent, I, um, productions, I like the one that Broadway did better than the West End, but what I liked most about this show was like this particular singing, do singer doing that particular song.

And what I liked most about that was that phrase in those two bars. No, I mean, It acts on so many levels. And when we talk about taste, we tend to keep it on a level of genres and no, I like pop music or I don't like pop music. And we see that in our teaching, it goes down to like this nitty gritty of, How to form this phrase, how, what sort of idioms to use, how to stress a word, or how to rush a phrase, or lay back, or where to breathe.

I mean, all these small things are also tokens of taste. Yes. Yes. And then the question becomes, who tastes matter? Is it my taste as a teacher or is it the student's taste? And then when we go further and students get booked, students are taken on by agents and they go into the theater to perform. Who is ruling the taste then?

It could be the musical director. It could be the director. Mm hmm. I love that you've just got to Developing Taste in Students, because I really want to go there. But I also want to say something about my favourite line from your PhD, because you, you talked a lot about your own background, you know, the position of the researcher.

Like to PhD, particularly like to this bit. That's exactly what you've just been talking about. I laughed out loud and highlighted it. I said, I discovered that the voice is so powerful that it could awaken the dead. Yeah, I was, I was, I was talking about my background and I was talking about two statements that I heard early in my own musical life that really, not only did sort of influence and form the work of my PhD, but it had influenced my own singing, uh, and playing.

I was also a piano player, um, in, in so many years and not in a positive way. And the first one was what we talked about a bit earlier, this thing of, you know, you're such a classical singer, you have such a classical voice, you would be perfect for Mozart or Rossini, but you would never be able to do pop music with that instrument.

And, and this idea that I was born not only, either you are born to be a singer or you're not born to be a singer in a way, and that you are sort of, uh, not only that, but that you are born to become a specific type of singer, like suitable to one fixed repertoire. And that was like determined before you even were born, you know, this sort of idea.

Uh, and that was really like conflicting for me because I had this secret dream of doing accordion and sounding crazy. And I was a rebel since I was little, but I was so trained. And also within my musical context to be quiet, sing high pitch, being soft, not use what I call any like metal to the sound or like raw sounds, not very much volume, no chest voice.

Only head voice or neutral as I call it and very specific, uh, and, and it was so conflicting that I had all these other things in me, but I got this, served this idea that that was not something I was born into. So that was the one statement that sort of, um, has inhibited me, but also, um, has expanded into this research and trying to break those ideas about what it is.

I really want to talk about this. I really want to talk about this. You should let her tell you about the other statement. Oh yeah, sorry. And then the second statement was this. That was actually my, my piano playing, piano playing days where I was, playing a Turkish march or a Rondo alla Turca, from Mozart from Mozart, and I remember an authority person, a composer that I really looked up to came to me and said, if you keep on playing Mozart that way, he will turn in his grave.

And that sort of, uh, statement was like, uh, I mean, for a 10 year old loving to play the piano. 10?! Yeah, it was, um, it makes me emotional because it has influenced so much about what I thought about music. And that it was this standard of music so high that even, you know, just sitting down at the piano and rehearsing something, if you were not perfect, if you were not good enough, if you didn't understand the true intention or whatever people talk about from the composer, you will sort of ruin the music and you will offend the people that wrote it and you will, you know, that you are sort of a slave or sort of a, You have to obey some sort of idea, otherwise you are, uh, pissing on art.

Yes, yes, you must be obedient, you must follow the rules. Yeah. And, um, it's never ever good enough. And, uh, yes, don't piss on art. Okay. Good for you. Now I have to. Good for you. Now I have to say something because that, I feel so strongly about this. Um, first of all, what a shit. Thanks. Because it's completely, it's actually, I very rarely say this, but it's a wrong thing to say because it's based on nothing.

It's like, that's his taste. It's not Mozart's taste, because Mozart can't tell you. And the second thing is, you know, you're playing a piece by Mozart and given what we know about Mozart's personality, I would imagine he'd love it. He'd be thrilled to bits. He would find it funny. He would, you know, the last thing he would say is, that's not right.

But it's very interesting. I feel very strong. I mean, a little story. When I was at music college, uh, I had music written for me, so I was doing first performances. And, um, there was one particular piece which was a phenomenally difficult piano part. And it was my solo movement in a group of, there was a group of four movements, there were four of us playing.

And I was worked so hard to get this piece up to the speed that the composer insisted on. It said in the score crotchet equals 156. And I went to the composer after about a month of working on this and that's a long time for me. And I said, I'm really sorry. I can only get it to crotchet equals 144. I literally cannot play any faster.

And he went, Oh, that's fine. And I went, right, now I understand about composition, now I understand that the composer actually doesn't know what they want. They, they give indications, they give guidelines, but actually it's up to the performer to take it off the page and make it their own. And that's where I want to go to, from what you were saying earlier about taste.

And taste is really interesting, because for me, we've just done a whole session in the Accreditation Programme on values, what our values are. My number one, top of the list, is congruency. So when things are congruent, when they match, when they work together. And the thing for me about congruence in this situation is, I I'm very happy to accept anyone's version, anyone's taste, if it's congruent with them.

So if they fully believe what they're doing, I'll go with it. If they make it work, I'll go with it. You know, I love it when people take a piece that's already existing and has a very strong history of how it's performed and then they bring a brand new thing into it and I go, Oh, that's really good. I love that.

And I think this is about, this is why I think. Yeah, and also this is the difference between classical music and almost anything else. In classical music, you are supposed to follow what you believe the composer's intentions are supposed to be. Even when the composer is there in the room with you, sometimes you don't even know that.

But certainly when the composer's been dead 300 years, it's highly unlikely that you know that. But there's a lot of research that goes into music theory and you go, okay, I'll go with music theory. If you take a Baroque piece and you played it 50 years ago or sang it 50 years ago, you would not sing it like that now because more research has been done.

Therefore, were the people 50 years ago wrong? They were going with the information that they had, but tastes have changed. So are we correct now? Which is also a really interesting question. How would we ever know, other than digging people up, reanimating them and asking them? And even then, they'd be working in their own historical taste situation.

In their own cultural situation. Yes, yes. And I think the interesting thing about taste, because I think taste is also a very positive, generative, creative force within us. I think it is, it drives so much of our artistic processes and, and, and the reason why we wake up in the morning and write something or go to practice.

I mean, it is this love that we have. And I wrote an article in, in the PhD that's called We Are Also Music Lovers, because when we talk about performers, we talk about craft and we talk about tradition, or we talk about style, or we talk about authenticity that I'm sure we'll get back to, but we seldom talk about the heart and the love that we have, uh, for the music and the way we attach ourself to this music and how we are transformed by playing the music that we attach ourselves to and how, uh, these genres are transformed by us attaching us to them and performing them again and again, again, because every, every time we play a piece, it will be different, different body, different place, different type.

And I think the key word in this is this, uh, negotiation of taste because you were talking about students coming out and, and who is deciding the taste. It's the musical director and everything. And I mean, if I musically direct a show, I am there because of my taste. I have used my taste to make an artistic signature.

I've gotten the trust to lead the show. And of course I will have some preferences. And the interesting part is, However, how this negotiation go about. Because I will have a taste, the director will have a taste, the, the, the tradition of the way that the piece has been performed throughout its own performance history is a taste that is brought to the table.

The audience expectations are tastes that are brought to the table. And, and the performers as well. They have trained something into the system that is part of their tastes. And then you have the technicians, you have the microphones that are being used. Are we having a lot of, uh, reverb? Are we, are we having a dry sound?

You know, all of these things, we have, we have this ongoing testing and negotiation of tastes going on. And I think the interesting part is to know that this is not static. We will never, ever do the same thing. When we do 108 performances of Les Miserables, then every performance will be different.

They will have similarities, but they will Yes, please. They should be different. And they should be different. And, and they are, and it could be again on this micro, microesthetical level, but it is humans that are doing stuff real time. So everything will be different and still somewhat the same. I think that's also the interesting part here.

And, and, and I think the bringing awareness to this discussion and, And, and, you know, asking our questions, uh, asking these questions to and with our students and making this a conversation and also understanding that sort of bringing your own taste to the table doesn't mean like throwing out everything that has ever been done before, but it could be about stretching this phrase there or adding, um, I, I use an example in my PhD where I worked with a student that I called Sarah, who was doing a piece from The Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder.

And this is very, like, what we call legit musical theater singing based on classical idioms and, and, and, and it's supposed to be sung with long vowels and a legato line and changing into neutral head voice on a specific, uh, um, place in, in, in the range and, and everything. And then this student who was like coming from the pop world and was trying to do legit singing and she was like applying all the rules and she did it really, really like believable. She was, she was good at adapting, like understanding what What sort of codes are in play here and how can I change my instrument into obeying to the tradition in a, in a lack of a better word. But then she came like after doing this, she, she came to a place in, in that song where it's, I don't remember the lyrics, but it's like, Why are all the men so dreadful, dreary, dull, or something, uh, and, and when that phrase came, she just broke out of, uh, the legit singing.

It was like, why? I mean, you know, it was just like, and then like back into the legit, uh, in, in, in, in, yeah, in just in a few seconds. Yes. And, and for me, uh, and this was the time it was Corona. So we were, we were working on Zoom. Uh, so of course all the other students that were watching, they saw the way that I lit up when I heard that.

And I'm like, and then they, one student, one cheeky student wrote in the chat, like, I think Sarah just booked a job and I love that because we had also, you know, created a space where. Taste is also something not dangerous to show. Love for music, love for being enthusiastic, being touched and moved by what happens in the room with our singers is also welcomed.

But you have to frame it to make sure this is my taste. This is what makes me kick. And if I would have been the musical director of that show, I would have kept that. I find these really interesting and impactful and I would have kept that, but this could also be what totally would not make her book the job with somebody else.

And this is also the discussions with the students is like, so how does Sarah feel about it? Is this something she wants to keep or this something that she wants to tame? And if she tames it and goes back to the traditional way of, um, doing it with no excess vocal effects. She's also making a choice into sort of fixing and stabilizing a genre.

Also conforming. Conforming, but also, yeah, but that's also a way of bringing a genre forward. That is to conform. And on the other hand, if she chose to, uh, do that vocal effect and, Even if this was a real job and she chose to do it on stage and other people were inspired by her and starting to do it, it's like, Oh, it's kind of cool to just, you know, you can add air to a classical sound, you can add some rough vocal effects and it makes it interesting.

It makes it perhaps meaningful as a person of, of blood and flesh or, you know, a real person. Uh, but I think that's the interesting of talking to the students that either if you do a active choice or a passive choice. You are still part of making a genre, the future of a genre, and hopefully we can get there that our students know that they are part of the business and the professional future and that they start making these choices consciously and saying, do I want to bend a bit here or do I want to comply? Do I love it when it's really traditional? Do I love it when it's experimental? Do I love it when the melody goes up there instead of down there? Do I want to do the riff of Elphaba the way it's always been done?

Or do I want to make my own riff? Because there is some possibility for a riff here. And I'm always in a negotiation, will the audience be Disappointed if I don't do exactly that riff that they have. Yes, indeed. Every recording, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know? And, uh, and so we have this ongoing negotiation that I think is so exciting if we are aware of the game that we are playing. 100%.

Oh, this has been so interesting. I mean, so many fascinating things come up and so much more that we want to talk about, but we are going to have to stop you and bring you back next time. You're going to come back and talk to us again. Please. Thank you. We'll see you next time. Bye. Bye.

This is a voice, a podcast with Dr. Gillyanne Kayes and Jeremy Fisher.