What’s So Great About Books?

The great thing about books is that each one can be a stepping stone for a time crossing adventure. I have enjoyed many a Sci-Fi fable that carried me into the undocumented past as well as into an imagined future. Looking into the future is getting ever more popular, but looking into the documented past seems to have ever fewer practitioners. I hope I can entice you to follow me as I try to dust off some of the past. I am especially keen to use the books that Garcia wrote and will include any other that might fall to hand.

Speaking of falling to hand, I found a new book that is the inspiration of this blog. It was published in 1915. That would be nine years after Garcia died, and four years after the birth of my voice teacher, Renata Booth. I managed to trip over it while surfing the net. The title is: HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT, and I am happy I found it for two reasons.

1. It is a reprint of a book written by Manuel Garcia’s last student and biographer, Herman Klein.
2. It contains part of Mr. Klein’s effort to create a way to teach singing utilizing the technology available to him.

Unfortunately, the Gramophone disks that were packaged with the original books, THE HERMAN KLEIN PHONO-VOCAL METHOD BASED UPON THE FAMOUS SCHOOL OF MANUEL GARCIA, are still collecting dust somewhere, and are not included with this new edition. I am a tenor. A kind reader found one set of disks for me uploaded to You Tube.

Ideas and actions taken should not be defamed just because they failed to be effective when first conceived and tried. I believe that Mr. Klein had ideas that came to him about 100 years before technological advancement could make his ideas practical.  We hear a lot of talk and read pages populated with the phrases “Wrong side of History” and “Right side of History”. I think Klein lived his life in the wrong epoch of History. If time travel had been possible for him, his ideas would certainly be workable today because of the technology available.

Want to come for a ride?

There is nothing new under the sun.  I keep reading those words in a book I undusted some years ago, and I believe them to be true. My discovery of the Klein book reprinted by Daniel Shigo put me on notice that my thoughts also submit to the above quoted truth recorded in Ecclesiastes. I’m full of thoughts about what we can do to overcome the growing apathy toward our Operatic Art, and how to recover what seems to be getting lost like litter on both sides of the path of History. They are my own thoughts, but I know better now than to believe that they are new.

In Torino, the last time I was there, I laid out much of my thinking while sharing the company of Armando Caruso. He became very enthusiastic about my ideas as I joyfully spoke of them in my delusion that they were new. After all, the technology I wanted to employ is new, and not yet utilized to teach singing. Learning at distance is not new, but, as far as I know, teaching singing in a similar way would be new.

Armando decided he could help me to open a window on the Internet through which everyone could watch the process of preparation for becoming an Opera singer.

Unfortunately, the Master Class that was going to be our debut effort at Internet window opening suffered the same fate as Klein’s “Method”. That does not make it a bad idea, but certainly a bump on the road of History. However, my dream of a Master Class with an open window on the Internet through which anyone can come watch us do what we do, still has a chance to be realized. Whatever the reason for our lack of participants in our first effort, Armando is committed to trying again.

What I want to invite everyone to do is come and work at becoming a better Opera singer. That’s what my Master Classes are all about, and it is a complicated thing that needs serious study. The world of Opera is changing as is everything about the world, but humans are not things,,, well, at least not according to what I believe, and our structure has not changed since Opera became an art. So what I want to do is teach Garcia’s 19^th Century method to 21^st Century humans in “full” view of the world. Putting Garcia’s book back in print is a good first step. Blogging and putting on the internet my thoughts on what Garcia wrote is another. Teaching that method in front of an open window in a way that visually and sonically explains the content of the book is another big step. In this way all students of singing can evaluate their own work in light of the Garcia way, and at the same time everyone interested in Opera can see and hear Garcia progress in the making.

The advancement that makes Klein’s original intent practical:

This should be in the shoulder/music bag of every student of singing.  It should be the surrogate teacher for every Performance Artist. It can be the best study partner you will ever have. One of the most important qualities you’ll find in one of these things is honesty. It will not lie to you. Neither will I, but what a teacher tells a student should be tested by the student. Your video recorder will either confirm what your teacher is telling you, or you should change teachers. Don’t let any maestro talk you into leaving your equipment at home or turned off during your lessons.

This technology was not available in Klein’s day. We can now judge for ourselves if we are doing well in our studies. It is sad that Mr. Shigo didn’t go the extra mile and include the content of the records Klein produced. It was, after all, the truly new part of Klein’s publication. If Mr. Shigo had reproduced those disks, we all could hear what Klein and perhaps Garcia himself would have defined as good execution. Then with our new technology we could complete the circle Klein may have had in mind.