A new training technique for using the Bel Canto method to sing Chinese songs

The Chinese vocal art has a long history. Traditional Chinese Opera Singing and Folk Style Singing had always been the two main singing styles in China. During the days of the May 4th Movement (1919), Bel canto was introduced to China. As a foreign singing style, Chinese Bel canto singers are faced a number of challenges. Comparing to performing songs in European languages, performing songs in Chinese may not sound like the original Bel canto. Many techniques of Bel canto cannot be truthfully reproduced when singing Chinese songs. However, there are more and more foreign singers starting singing Chinese songs on international stages. Therefore, it is necessary to study how to perform Chinese songs with the highest aesthetic standards of Bel canto, while still keeping the original spirit of the song. \nTraditionally, Bel canto singers are trained using The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) for their articulations. However, Chinese characters are not labeled with IPA natively. The pronunciation is labeled using Chinese Pinyin. This gap in pronunciation labeling makes it hard to transfer techniques trained for singing European songs. In this paper, the author proposes a new method for training Bel canto singers to sing Chinese songs by labeling the Chinese characters with IPA. IPA is one of the useful tools for Bel canto training, it is used here to label Chinese songs. The students are instructed to sing the songs using Bel canto techniques trained with IPA. \nThe author experimented this idea with eight (8) students. They are divided into two (2) groups. Group A are trained with the additional IPA method. Group B are trained with normal methods without the additional IPA method. The experiment results show that the IPA method brings significant additional improvements. The author therefore proposes a new integrated training technique with the IPA method. This method should bring positive impacts on the performance of Chinese students who are learning the Bel canto style.