A pedagogical guide to selected songs by Charles Ives for undergraduates

The purpose of this project is to introduce selected songs by Charles Ives (1874-1954) from a pedagogical perspective, analyzing the songs based on the identifiable technical and aesthetic challenges they present to the student and teacher of voice. I chose to focus on Ives’s songs because, in my experience as a vocal and opera instructor, I have noticed that works by American modernist and contemporary composers are not generally part of the standard repertoire taught to undergraduates in most voice studios. The literature available on Ives’s songs tends to focus on theoretical analysis and historical background, but not on pedagogy for undergraduates: in fact, there has never been an in-depth study of all of Ives’s songs from a pedagogical perspective (McAllister, 2012). My goal is to offer pedagogical materials that can be a starting point for teachers and students of voice at the undergraduate level, to gain exposure to vocal works by Charles Ives.Ope