Developing a pedagogy for gospel singing: Understanding the cultural aesthetics and performance components of a vocal performance in gospel music

The purpose of this curriculum project was to develop a gospel vocal pedagogy handbook for teachers of gospel music and contemporary commercial music (CCM) (non-classical) styles. The handbook is intended to be a pedagogic resource which describes the cultural aesthetics of gospel music performance and identifies the components that should comprise a pedagogy for gospel singing.Gospel music is traditionally and primarily taught orally (i.e., through imitation, participation, and constant exposure to the gospel music culture). While this process of learning is imperative if one aims to achieve a culturally-viable performance of gospel music, most vocal instructors do recognize that imitation without guidance can potentially lead to damage of the novice singer's instrument, both musically and physiologically.Many pedagogic resources address techniques for developing standard vocal production, but only a small number of available resources address the types of vocal qualities found in CCM styles. Pedagogy resources that specifically address the needs of a gospel singer are even less available. To fill this need, this pedagogy handbook was developed and aims to: (1) describe the appropriate vocal techniques for gospel singing (2) present the cultural aesthetics of gospel singing specifically for the sake of pedagogy and (3) give pedagogical examples of how to combine vocal techniques with common stylistic traits found in gospel music performance.Developmental in nature, this handbook was constructed through a systematic process that consisted of: (1) content resulting from scholarly research on topics of vocal pedagogy, gospel music history, and gospel performance aesthetics (2) a formative evaluation by an expert panel of two gospel experts and two CCM vocal pedagogy experts, who provided feedback that contributed toward the improvement and further development of this handbook and (3) a summative evaluation by 14 voice-related practitioners whose feedback helped to evaluate the handbook's effectiveness in real-world situations.