Abstract

“Mimic the Muse” relies on the codified tenets of vocal pedagogy. For students not seeking a singing degree, the issues of posture, respiration, phonation, resonance, articulation, voice physiology, gesture, and text interpretation, to name several, can be overwhelming for the beginner, made worse by the “insipid” and rote fashion in which the subject is often taught. With “Mimic the Muse,” the student is able to accept the subject matter as a great cosmic adventure. The writer enlists the Nine Muses of mythology to “help” the students absorb the material. Preserving a basic kernel for which each Muse is known, the method takes creative license in placing each at the helm of each of nine author-assigned facets of vocal pedagogy. Superimposed upon this construct are the ideas of logos, ethos, and pathos, as championed by Aristotle in The Rhetoric. This method was developed for the Beginning Voice Class at Tulane University in New Orleans, and has been applied to the class for six semesters. The students have taken very well to the method, because this highly daunting discipline of vocal study has become less laborsome, and more “Herculean.” The writer is still working on the very best sequence in which to present the nine skills. The next step is to put the method in book form, in which each page would be tripartite, allowing logos, ethos, and pathos to run concurrently.