I arrived back home from Torino just in time to see our North Country trees alight with color. Along with putting things in Snow ready order, it also seems good to me to continue delineating the syllabus that Garcia’s writings suggest to me. Reading and pondering his writing leads me to believe in these torturously small steps.
In Torino, a Master Class participant handed me an opportunity to apply these tiny Garcia steps. I used exactly what I described in Lessons 1, 1.001 and 1.002. The lesson material needed to be well packaged for a Master Class participant of long vocal experience. He wanted answers to the nagging question for which many vocal students never find even one answer:
Close to HOME
“Why can’t I sing as well as so many other singers are able to sing.” This particular answer seeker has a vocal instrument worthy of consideration, but his sound was terribly encumbered by many, varied, extreme and extremely contradictory adjustments. He allowed me to suddenly situate him inside Garcia’s starting gate. I knew Garcia’s principles would work if I could ease this singer into accepting them. He accepted and they worked. His voice began to reorganize and the faulty phonation gave way to a sound production much easier to listen to, even pleasant and promising to become reliable. My hope is that he will have the force of character, attentive ears and good taste to continue the work, and keep improving.
Closer to HOME
I feel the need to talk about just one more thing before leaving Torino for today. I repeated myself in that Master Class on many things, but I made tatters of the words: “Impose the rhythm of the language of the text on the composer’s music!” Composers have the pitch prerogative. Singers, however, can successfully play with the accent and syllable duration to make the composer’s vocal line correspond with the language. Language is made up of many components, but the most important characteristics of the words are pitch and rhythm. Even film writers are aware of the importance of pitch in elocution. So when we give that tool to the composer we should be under high motivation to resort to using the equally important tool, rhythm. Tempo Rubato is not evil.
Now I’m ready to return to basics, and add another pitch to the scale. There is no room for any of the deficiencies or defects I discussed in the previous lessons. The singer travels one pitch higher. The result should be that the basic quality of the sound on the lowest pitch remains on all three pitches with only the slightest diminution of weight or some might say heft or darkness or others might call it caliber or warmth or, or, or,,, Yes, these vocal issues are just as invulnerable to my linguistic description as they were to Garcia. Garcia knew what he wanted to hear, as did just about everyone in the “Italian” School back then. One day I hope to include at least one successful example from one of my students, but, until then, we will have to put up with the limitation of language.
As I passed through this .003 lesson stage with my Torino Master Class participant, I was reminded of a difficulty. Singing an ascending three note scale can be a challenge in itself, but singing down the scale can be an even more difficult voyage. It is common to attain victory in ascending the scale, and then to be unable to return to the original sound on the lowest pitch. Remember, the sound quality remains with each higher pitch, but the apparent weight of the sound should become progressively lighter as the voice ascends the scale. Going down the scale successfully will necessitate a reversal of this sonic sliming of the voice. The goal is to have the most beautiful sound on the first pitch which stays just as beautiful if almost imperceptibly slimmer on each higher pitch, and then to find the way back down to that starting pitch displaying all its fulsome glory. A student failing to find that initial fullness of sound at the bottom of the descending scale and not being able to discern any difference for himself or herself, is displaying either a tin ear or total inattention. The hearing system can be trained, and the singer can give more attention to the project. When the student can get this little hurdle behind him/her, we have confirmation that the student’s ear is developing the ability to observe his or her own voice as it operates.
It may have been revealed that Garcia himself suffered in his youth from something like the above difficulty when some of the history of his lessons with his father was reported by his biographer:
The monotony of the first portion of this training evidently became very wearisome in time, for Señor Garcia would afterwards recall how one day, after being made to sing an endless variety of ascending scales, his desire for a change became so great that he could not resist bursting out, “Oh dear! mayn’t I sing down the scale even once?”
Mackinlay, M. (Malcolm) Sterling (2011-09-07). Garcia the Centenarian And His Times Being a Memoir of Manuel Garcia’s Life and Labours for the Advancement of Music and Science (Kindle Locations 365-366). Kindle Edition.
Can you imagine what his daddy might have said?