I just put two new pages in the “Tool Box”. You can find them by clicking on the titles
Please take time to read those pages. They are short, for now.
Look closely at Garcia’s text in “Analysis” for the content behind the immediate message of the words. There is almost always more to discover than meets the mind at first reading. Garcia lists things he has not defined anywhere in his books: dampened and shrill timbres, trembling tone, noisy and misplaced breath, and then absolves himself for leaving them off his pages by admitting that they would seem to be so far outside the boundaries of the singer’s art as to be considered “grave errors”. They are surely errors in the preliminary study of singing. They are errors because this early study should be dedicated to training the voice to work like an instrument. Well, I always knew that one man’s pleasure would find somebody calling it poison, but here we have a poison that should ultimately become everyone’s’ pleasure.
“we considered the voice as an instrument whose range, purity and flexibility, elements necessary for correctness of style, had to be developed. “
This text is more evidence that supports some of my assertions in “Climbing Stairs”, and the pages that follow in Garcia’s book are the antidote to my displeasure with the status quo I put into “Barcelona and Friends”, but what does this Analysis stuff have to do with Soup and Sandwiches?
Remember “So Why Should Anyone Belt?”? Food is one of my favorite things. It does reside a few levels below singing, but it is in my top ten. That’s one good reason why I put a picture of a pizza place with my name on it on top of that Belting blog, and why I want to make a parallel between Garcia’s books and the title of this blog.
Garcia’s part one is all about how he “considered the voice as an instrument” and it is complicated like a sandwich. You put a sandwich together, and the component parts produce an effect in the mouth that is distinct with every combination possible, given your pantry. After you take that first bite, you can always take the sandwich apart and list the components. You could have done that yourself as you made the sandwich if you were the one engaged in the art of sandwich making, but the disparate parts are recognizable to anyone who wants to disassemble that sandwich. Vocal technique is just like that. Garcia built a book, A Complete Treatise on the Art of Singing, part 1 that is a pantry full of components that come together and then come apart like parts of a sandwich, even a Dagwood.
Garcia’s part two is all about “arriving at the most intimate resources of the skill” which is complicated like soup. Try as you might, you will not be able to take that soup apart in the same manner available to anyone contemplating a sandwich. You will be off to the lab to play with test tubes and spectrographic equipment to discover the flavor components squeezed in between the H2O molecules that host them in the bowl. If you want to know about soup from my perspective, take in the movie “Tampopo”. Garcia wades into the soup to tell us of things that, especially today, have fallen off the table of pedagogical discussion. Ms. Karen Sell puts us on notice that these things are no longer “intimate resources”. She might as well declare there is no such thing as Soup. On page 2 of her book she sets the tone with:
(a) A title which may give a preliminary clue to interpretation. Hoole suggests that interpretation as a subject cannot be taught.
but it can be cultivated in all but a small minority. Anyone whose personal desire is to learn a musical instrument must, by the fact that they are interested, suggest at least some basic interpretational senses on which to build (1995. p. 12).
Hoole, Ivor (1995) ‘Once more with feeling’, Music Teacher, September, 12-15.
I’m sorry to admit that I was not able to source this magazine.
Ms. Sell further rounds out her opinion on page 153 with a quote:
In the final analysis interpretation cannot be taught. If the student does not have enough creative imagination to react aesthetically to the text and the music, and enough freedom of personality to express what he feels, no amount of instruction can redeem the situation (1994, p. 29).
McKinney, James C. (1994), The Diagnosis and Correction of Vocal Faults,
Nashville: Genevox Music Group.
I do want to cut a break for Ms. Sell in this area of the vocal arts. There was a “Ha Ha” saying I picked up in the years 1969 – 71 during which I had my introduction to the University system for which she wrote her book, and it went something like this: “He, who can, does. He, who cannot, teaches. He, who cannot teach, teaches teaching methods.” I would guess one must take seriously the second paragraph of the Preface of her book:
This book is a revised version of my Middlesex University doctoral dissertation. Unlike many such works, however mine is not of the kind which could have been produced at or near the beginning of a career. On the contrary, it arises from many years of performing as a soprano, of teaching in educational institutions from primary to tertiary, of working in private practice at home and abroad, of lecturing to professional bodies and conducting workshops and master classes, and of serving as a voice consultant to members of the health professions.
Sell, Karen: The Disciplines Of Vocal Pedagogy: Towards An Holistic Approach, June 30, 2005 unnumbered Page: Preface
I do take seriously this self-introduction, and suggest that you Google her name in search of any audio visual record of her performing career as a soprano…. So what did you find?…… Yes I know. I found the same nothing. May we assume she might have a certain deficit in the area of interpretation, if none of her efforts to interpret have survived? It would explain her affinity for quoting people who say interpretation is un-teachable. If her deficits were vocal and organic in nature I would stand corrected, but for the fact that I have no reference point from which to judge or even make conclusions.
Today, since the modern pedagogical literature design’s them as un-teachable, teaching these “intimate” interpretive things would seem to be in the same category as cooking. For voice teachers who always eat out, it would be logical to say “Not my job!” Garcia had the holistic approach that Ms. Sell pretends to publish in her defense of the pedagogical present.
Garcia tells us how to interpret. Although his voice was not good enough to make a career as a singer, his life with his father was more than enough preparation to begin his career teaching singing, and enough to begin his meticulous research that resulted in some great singers being prepared for the stage, and the writings that we still have today that are like a great big key to the House of Singing. If you open the door and walk into the kitchen you will find that virtual vocal Sandwich and bowl of Soup. Garcia’s recipes are on the counter beside each one of these complementary dishes. Beside the Sandwich sits Garcia’s recipe: his big book part 1, and beside the Soup you will discover his big book part 2.
