Instruction Aimed at Performers, by Misti Shaw and Emily Vickers, MLA Denver 2015
Script (accompanies powerpoint)
Today, I’m going to share with you three different library sessions I prepared that were aimed at the student performer, rather than the student researcher. As the music librarian at DePauw University, I conduct integrated instruction for the school of music’s undergradatues, of which there are approximately 170. I do visit music history courses several times a semester, but I’ve been striving lately to try and find opportunities to reach students about skills they can learn that will benefit them as performers.
For the first collaboration, I am joined by Emily Vickers, who got her bachelors in music from Chapman, where she studied with our very own Scott Stone. She’s now pursuing the double degree at IU. She co-taught this first session, which was a huge help. She’ll come to the podium soon to discuss her role in the session.
SLIDE
So, this first collaboration is indeed aimed at student performers, but the setting is an opera lit class.
SLIDE
I work with the professor often in delivering instruction to his music history sessions, and he really liked a session I started doing for his upper level topics courses where students got hands-on experience with reference tools, including collected editions, works lists, and thematic catalogs. He wondered if I could create an activity for his opera lit class, and this excited me--the class is full of singers, and I thought it’d be cool to have them work on an activity that might help them in the real world as performers--in particular, opera performers.
SLIDE
For someone who wishes to prepare a role for an opera, I thought the following skills might be worth learning:
-how to select and distinguish between quality score editions
-knowing how different types of scores differ from one another
-using a critical edition and its commentary to know what the “issues” are, or known errata
-related: a basic understanding of how composers, librettists, and publishers worked together (for example: sometimes a composer sent the score in bits and pieces, sometimes changes were made during or after the fact--all those things that can contribute to discrepancies in scores)
-using a book aimed at helping people make performance-related decisions
and finally: consulting other tools that can help, including dictionaries for musical terms
Because I wanted students to do this activity during class--and because I wanted them all to lean the same material--I thought it’d be best to make this a group-work type of activity that could be divided in half--so really, two activities that each addressed the skills I wanted them to learn. I divided the class in half--one group of 6, one group of 5. And each group would spend half the class working on one activity, then the rest of class working on the other.
But as I started thinking about students learning to use critical editions and commentary without me sitting with them--I got a little nervous. I needed another instructor, someone to sit with the other group--and that’s when I asked Emily Vickers if she could help. Emily is a first year music SLIS student at IU, and a former student of Scott Stone!
SLIDE
She agreed to help, and since she agreed early on, I thought it’d be great experience for her if she could take my skills list--the things I wanted students to learn--and create her own activity. With the added request that she present this with me here today!
I’m going to explain the activity I designed, and then she’s going to come up here to discuss the activity she designed.
SLIDE
For my activity, students were going to work with the Verdi collected edition. I chose this edition for two main reasons--
1, the critical commentary is in English, so it’s easy for undergraduates to use, 2)
SLIDE
it’s a really beautiful edition--huge, and bright red. It’s nice when a fancy edition of a score can be visually memorable.
SLIDE
I also wanted students to consult a dictionary of musical terms, and I wanted them to consult a special book that I love, called Divas and Scholars: Performing Italian Opera, by Philip Gossett--an appropriate book too because Gossett is the general editor of the Verdi edition! It’s good for students to be reminded: these editors are real people who make many useful contributions for performers!
I’ll walk you through the activity now.
The students each got their prompt and their mission, and it started like this:
SLIDE
You’re conducting La Traviata. You’re going to study the scores in order to prepare for the first pit rehearsal. You select two sets of scores--the Schirmer edition, and the pretty red collected works edition, which comes with an accompanying volume of critical commentary. Since the critical edition outlines potential issues with the score, you start thumbing through it, to see what you should be aware of.
SLIDE
In the critical commentary volume, flip to the critical notes section for Act 2, scene 4. Find the comment that addresses measures 107-110. In your own language, what is the comment telling us?
SLIDE
So: what the comment tells them is that at this point in the score, the piccolo measures are present in the full score, but not in the piccolo player’s actual part. Only, piccolo isn’t spelled out. They know it’s an instrument, but not which one.
They now have to consult where this happens in the score--
SLIDE
It’s blurry, but on the top left, they see Ott. And on the right, a note with an asterisk. these are singers. Are they going to know what instrument the abbreviation Ott refers to? No, probably not.
SLIDE
So the whole group had to head upstairs to reference, find a music dictionary, and look it up. They finally realize it’s the piccolo. The group loved this part, by the way. They raced each other up the stairs because they were in a contest--administered on their own--to see who could get the answer first.
At this point, the prompt asks them: Knowing about this, as a conductor, what actions will you will you take, and to whom will you address those actions?
And next: If you were the piccolo player here, would you consider it YOUR responsibility to know about this? Or the conductor’s?maybe the ensemble librarian? I don’t give them a correct answer, I just ask them to hash it out between them.
Then, the group moves on to another commentary example in Act 2, scene 5--the Violetta duet with Germont.
SLIDE
“Find the comment that concerns measures 44-48, and find the same measures in the score. Compare the score example of the commentary with what’s in the score. Does it match?
Here, what they’re looking at is an example of a misprint note in a chord, and the misprint comes in the cello part. In the collected works score, the misprint was corrected--there is a D natural there rather than a dastardly d-flat.
SLIDE
Next, they check this measure in the Schirmer score. Is the wrong note there? Why yes it is! I ask them how they think this mistake came about--copyist misprint? (yes, some sort of copying mistake).
I ask: if you’re the cellist in the pit, are you gonna play the d-flat--when it ought to be a d-natural--in your part when you see it? Everyone agrees that they would hear how terrible the note sounds, and immediately instruct their section to correct to a d natural. I happily remind them at this point that they have their theory and aural training skills classes to thank for how quickly they concluded that a d-flat should never be played, because it doesn’t fit the spelled chord.
Now, the group pivots to Rigoletto. The prompt:
SLIDE
You scored a role in a small chorus on Rigoletto. You flip through the critical commentary since it went so well with La Traviata. In thumbing through, you land on extensive commentary for measures 369-373 for scene 2. What’s going on here?
The students don’t really know what’s going on--the commentary here is confusing, so I ask them to consult the score.
SLIDE
They’re still confused. And they’re supposed to be. This was all part of my evil secret plan. At this point, I suggest that it sure would be helpful if someone had written about this in plain language that a performer could understand. Someone to hold your hand and gently lead you through the crazy world of opera score errata. That’s when I whip out Gossett’s book. I’d already put a post-it in the book for the relevant pages where this commentary is discussed, but if we’d had more time, I would have made them search for it in the index.
SLIDE
They gathered around the page and I made them read the explanation:
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Verdi had originally written that in the revenge scene, the guys were gonna meet later that evening to revenge so hard. But later, Verdi decided there was too much action happening, and they should revenge the next night. The first time the phrase about meeting is sung, it was corrected to “tomorrow night.” But later in this song, this line is repeated, but someone forgot to change the meeting to tomorrow--they sing about meeting later that night. Gossett points out that the majority of professional companies perform this song with the mistake, unknowingly.
So at this point, the students understood what the commentary was getting at. With Gossett’s lyrics in front of them, they revisited the score: was it corrected there? Of course, yes. But then I asked them to check the Schirmer score.
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Was it corrected? Heck no, the mistake was there. They’re still set to meet that evening, instead of the next night.
They were legitimately impressed by this--that a mistake of this sort could be reprinted and performed for years, with no one the wiser. It was the perfect example for them to try and understand the value in consulting a critical edition.
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When the first group finished this activity, the students started asking about other composers: Does Mozart have a collected works? Yes, we talked about it sophomore year. Oh yeah! well where is it can I check it now?
That question made me feel really good. This activity took approximately 20 minutes. Now, Emily is going to come up and talk about the 20 minute exercise she designed, and what it entailed, and how it went!
Emily’s portion of the presentation:
[SLIDE – BELLINI TITLE]
My activity was centered on the aria, “Casta Diva”, from Bellini’s Norma. Our project was to look at transpositions of the aria in various score editions, and try to figure out which was the most “correct” score.
[SLIDE – SKILLS]
The main skills and concepts I wanted to focus on were
· The ability to identify discrepancies between score editions
· To be able to utilize a variety of resources to make informed performance-related decisions
· To understand the importance of knowing performance & publication history in making these decisions
It was also my hope that they would come away from this activity with a better understanding of their opportunity as musicians to contribute to scholarly discussion, performance tradition, and musical education of their audiences.
[SLIDE – BILBO]
I decided to format this activity like a choose-your-own-adventure story, with multiple-choice questions to serve as checkpoints and to guide discussion.
[SLIDE – THE CONCERT]
Their challenge: You are selected to perform the aria, “Casta Diva”, from Bellini’s Norma with a local orchestra. They’ve asked you to decide which edition you want to use for this performance, and to explain why you chose that version. They will print your response in the program notes, giving the audience a chance to learn about the history of opera performance.
[SLIDE – QUESTION 1]
Their first question:
In your research, which of the following resources will you use?
a) Music library, WorldCat, your music librarian, IMSLP, New Grove, Naxos….
b) The research fairies that live in your bookshelf
c) Nothing, because the conductor will tell you what to do
[SLIDE.2 – ANSWER BOX]
Much of my question and answer material is quite silly and the answers were very obvious (I hope), but I tried to create questions based on situations they would actually encounter in their own research.
[SLIDE – CHAPTER 2 – SOURCES ACQUIRED]
It turns out our search for sources is successful!
[SLIDE – YOU FIND]
You find several fabulous sources – a few scores, a book by Philip Gossett, a thesis by Airlie Jane Kirkham on bel canto arias, and several recordings.
[SLIDE – SCORES]
Their first task is to examine the 5 scores and identify any major differences between the versions of “Casta Diva.”
The students were really excited to go through the scores and figure out what might be wrong. They talked through variations they found in text, translation, dynamics, [SLIDE] before realizing that there are three different keys: D, F, and G.
[SLIDE] This is their first major challenge – which key is the correct one?
[SLIDE] They were beyond suspicious of D, and they think that F might be correct simply because 3 of the 5 scores are in F.
Do they have enough information to choose a score at this point? They decide they really don’t. And of course they don’t, because that would be far too simple, and this activity would be over in about 3 minutes.
[SLIDE – CHAPTER 3]
And so we begin our research!
[SLIDE – QUESTIONS]
Our next source is Gossett’s Divas and Scholars. At this point the students are faced with three options for finding the information they need, keeping in mind the various transpositions they just observed in their scores. They can:
a) Read the entire book
b)Check the index and find page #’s for relevant topics
c) Use the tried and true osmosis learning method
[SLIDE.2 – ANSWER BOX]
Off we go to the index!
[SLIDE – PICTURE OF INDEX]
For the sake of time, the prompt gives them some hints on quickly finding the information they need.
They all gather around the book and read through the pages they’ve found in the index and find Gossett’s discussion of transposition issues in “Casta Diva”!
[SLIDE.1 – WHAT DOES GOSSETT SAY]
- The students discover that although the autograph manuscript has “Casta Diva” in the key of G major, most publications show it in F major.
- The reasons behind this transposition are unclear - Gossett explains that it’s widely believed that Bellini himself provided this transposition for the premiere, but there isn’t any evidence of this.
- They also find Gossett’s harmonic analysis of the transition leading up to “Casta Diva”, in which he shows that this transition works really well for G major, but not at all for F major.
Most of the students are now completely convinced that the only score they should even consider using is the one in G major, since the autograph score is also in G major.
They are also completely baffled by the fact that there are so many scores printed in F, and one in D. Why would publishers do that?
We decided to do some more exploring, moving onto [SLIDE] “An Aural Analysis of Bel Canto.” This thesis gives an overview of bel canto tradition in the operas of Bellini and Donizetti, and provides an analysis of two arias, one of which is “Casta Diva.” The analysis covers 6 recordings by various singers, two of which we will focus on.
[SLIDE – SECTIONS AND THEIR CONTENT]
For the sake of time, I chose 5 sections that we would look at, which covered
- The history and characteristics of bel canto,
- a brief overview of Norma,
- the bel canto elements of “Casta Diva”, and
- comparisons of performances by Maria Callas and Joan Sutherland.
I gave each student a different section and asked them to take a minute to read through this on their own. They had an awesome discussion about how this related to what we knew already, and where else they could go with this.
[SLIDE – DISCUSSING]
We learn from Kirkham that Callas and Sutherland have both performed “Casta Diva” in G and F, which makes the students question their entire lives up to this point, because 2 minutes ago we were so sure that G was the best way to go.
We also see that Kirkham discusses characteristics and performance practice of bel canto style
One of my favorite things to come out of the discussion was the fact that Kirkham and Gossett focused on different concepts that were equally valuable in this situation. It led them to wondering - what else has been written on this aria? What else could we find?
If we’d had more time, this would have segued perfectly into a couple other activities I had in mind, including a listening activity.