White Christmas
Our Christmas tree is up in our living room again. We exchanged gifts, and we celebrated. I pray everyone has found reasons to celebrate this Christmas season, especially if the Birth of Christ isn’t one of them. His birth has no equal among my list of reasons to celebrate this Christmas and, come to think of it, this is true of every other Christmas I have enjoyed since I signed up to follow Him. Among this long list of other things to celebrate that enlivened our 2013 celebration of Christ’s Birthday is the marking of two years of existence for this blog. I am so happy to have the struggle of putting this little pile of pages together.
Ice Bronzed back yard at dawn.
I believe the reason I have come this far is the Birthday Baby our Christmas celebrations are all about. He has shown me value in things that, without His guidance, would have had little value to me. His promises He keeps and I rely on them. I believe that if you are reading these pages, and find something useful or even just some entertaining things on them, your discoveries validate a small part of my enlistment with Christ. For His part, and it is a very small sliver of what He has promised, every moment of being at a loss to know what to do for a student or lacking something to type into my little computer for this blog, He comes to my rescue. He always comes to my rescue.
The words I keep adding to these “RockwellBlake.com” pages I think of as little blessings. My blessings, that is. You reading this blog I also count among my blessings. Thanks for coming. If you keep reading, then I have my confirmation that these pages are worth writing.
Celebrations are usually full of interesting tidbits of entertainment. This year we have the best twisted weather.
Global Warming!
No doubt about it. It’s a first for me. The snow that came down all pretty and powdery just a little while ago is now “bronzed” in ice on our roof and in our back yard. Oh yes, we cannot forget the trees. They were not left out of the coating program. For me it is another reminder of just how interesting creation is. When Christ was born, shoes were not for babies and too simple to deserve electroplating . Besides, electroplating didn’t get invented until the 19th Century and didn’t get used on shoes until the 20th Century, but what we have on our roof, backyard and trees sure makes me think that Christ’s Father can remind us in many ways of His Pride and Joy. After all, insurance companies are always talking about the Power of Christ’s Father with the words: “Acts of God”. Why not fulfill my dreams of a “White Christmas” by freezing one into an H2O “bronzed” snow sculpture?
Better than Bronze
If our temperatures stay low enough, the ice will keep, our Christmas season will be white for quite a while, and we could slide across the ice directly into the New Year.
Part of our traditional way to celebrate is to view some of our favorite movies that use Christmas as their central theme. “Holiday Inn” always inspired me to reach for the Kleenex in previous viewings, but, this time I found myself focusing on the singing so much that I was distracted from the emotional flow of the play. Bing Crosby and all his friends have lessons to teach, and I studied so hard that I did everything but take notes….. Tenors don’t take notes.
The Little Ausable River
On the other hand, “White Christmas” came through for me. There is nothing like sniffles and nose blowing to confirm that such a work of art has had the intended effect. Debbie and I, each Christmas time, dust off these old classics as a reminder of what once was seen as really valuable, even by Hollywood. We still have “It’s A Wonderful Life” and “Miracle on 34th Street” to visit again this year. I have my big box of Kleenex at the ready.
Up Close Ice at Dawn
Please accept my gratitude for coming to read what I have to say. Two years ago, I didn’t expect anyone to be interested. Wonders really never cease. My prayers are with you that you have blessings to celebrate this “Holiday Season”. Come back, please, and often so that your visits will add to the great number of blessings I have available to help with any attack of insomnia that I may suffer in the New Year coming. I pray that we all sleep well, when we want to, in 2014, and that we all find ourselves enjoying ever more blessings. Bing Crosby will remind me to count them next Christmas.
How to walk on water.
Lesson One
Life is full of interesting things. So full, in fact, that a tenor, like me, has a really hard time just keeping things in order. I made reference in my last blog to the cold into which we are moving with the seasonal and political climate change that is taking place in the North Country, where I live. This year’s “climate change” has been particularly interesting, and distracting for this tenor. If you care about life as a local issue, and want to have a look into the gazing pool that’s been distracting me from singing, Garcia and other important matters, come have a little look: “Public Hearing or is it Public Debate?” or “Rules, rules, rules why can’t we just count the votes?”
Many years before I arrived at retirement and the distractions of local climatology, my thoughts began to drift toward an image of what a very young student may have encountered in his/her first lesson with Manuel Garcia. This daydream has been with me for a long time and recently tugged my attention off the Plattsburgh political puddle long enough to write this blog.
First things are often not numbered #1. This happens in Garcia’s books. Chapter 5 of his first book speaks to this truth with the words “this first study”.
CHAPTER V
THE EMISSION AND QUALITIES OF THE VOICE
By this first study we prepare the tone, the basis of the talent of the student. The quality of the voice, we could not affirm too much, is the most precious element in singing. My father often said that the beauty of the voice constituted ninety-nine percent of the commanding power [puissance] of a singer. Now all uncultivated voices are, without exception, tainted with several faults, or less developed in certain regards than their usual good qualities may allow. Some voices are tremulous, others nasal, others guttural, veiled, harsh, schrill, etc., while many lack power, range, steadiness, elasticity, or mellowness. The teacher should not only correct these natural or acquired faults, and, while correcting them, prevent others from taking their places, but also discover and develop, among all the qualities of tone which the student’s voice presents, that one which combines to the highest degree all the desirable conditions.
Garcia part 1 page 36
If it takes Garcia four chapters of definitions and explanations to get around to talking about teaching the newest arrivals to the vocal life, I guess it’s OK for a tenor to take two years of blogging to get around to it!
In his writings, Garcia advises to make students work with the “A” vowel at the beginning of a student’s vocal voyage. I believe his advice is the best and the above quote gives us a wonderful send-off on our quest to discover the best “A” a student can make.
In my first lesson daydream I see a student positioned in front of the full length mirror that stood sentinel in Garcia’s studio. I hear Garcia telling the student to affect a relaxed smile and to begin singing a note on the vowel “A” with a precise beginning (Glottal Attack) and to sustain it for the duration of the breath available to the student. I can hear Garcia telling the student to keep the same volume from beginning to end of the note sung. I can hear him correcting any deviation in pitch. I have many images to insert into my daydream of that first lesson with the ideal maestro; all of them from his or his student’s pen. Considering all the years that have passed since Garcia last trained a singer, the relevant knowledge we moderns have discovered, which Garcia didn’t write down, seems to amount to almost nothing. That is why I often tell my students that lessons are not about me. They are about Garcia. As a small aside: the Garcia “secrets” are where the true danger to the student of singing resides. A teacher unaware of the secrets can ruin a beautiful voice or any voice for that matter. But, I will get to the secrets one step at a time.
Getting a student to phonate the “A” vowel I believe Garcia wanted to hear is a special task. It is a good idea to review “Round Timber” because it became one of his secrets when Garcia deleted it from the later editions of his big book. As you will note in the above quote, Garcia’s, and therefore my, first objective is to clean house. Get rid of extraneous affectations that sully the vocal instruments “natural” character. Now this word “natural” is going to be a problem for many, if not the majority of pedagogues. If you are one of them, get over it! I could annoy you even more. I could take inspiration from Garcia Sr. who “often said that the beauty of the voice constituted ninety-nine percent of the commanding power [puissance] of a singer.” The “beauty of the voice” is a gift of God, and Garcia retains only 1% of merit for the pedagogue. No one but The Creator can build a “Stradivarius” Soprano Voice.
So, what should we do with a messed up “A” vowel? Corner the singing student into producing the correct “A” without singing it. That is to say: just speak the “A”. If you know what a person sounds like when he or she expresses extreme satisfaction with only the vowel “A”, then you know what we are looking for. Have a quick look at “Trick and Treat”. In the seventh paragraph resides the advice that I reiterate here. Singing the best possible sound (most beautiful) that your voice can produce will ultimately include a message and the best one would be “satisfaction”. “Joy” would be good also, but satisfaction usually suffices. Yes, one vowel and one message may seem a piece of cake to produce, but I was surprised to discover how difficult it can be to get the job done.
So let’s get down to it. Think of a tenor, and a soprano out in the sun playing soft ball. They are so intent on winning a hard fought game that they forget all about drinking enough water to keep their mucous membranes expressing fluids that do not coagulate.
The soprano throws the final pitch and the tenor strikes out; end of game, soprano wins. After congratulatory hugs all round, the soprano makes the discovery that her mouth is really dry. The tenor eventually comes to the same realization and both head for the water cooler. The soprano is ushered to the front of the line that had quickly formed at the plastic oasis, and the tenor is pushed aside to make room for her, she receives a big glass of wonderful
ice cold water. She puts the glass to her lips and very un-daintily downs the contents in one fell swoop. When all that cold liquid gets down to cooling the sopranos overheated interior she inflates her lungs to the maximum possible and expresses the most satisfied “Ah!” imaginable. Now you have an idea of the sound I want to hear sung. I believe Garcia would have sought this sound as well.
Anyway we are coming to the close of lesson 1. One note held, expressing satisfaction with the vowel “A”. If the voice is beautiful, even just one note can satisfy someone like me, thirsty to hear the best sound the best instruments on earth are capable of making.
So, are we supposed to forget the tenor who can’t bat softballs thrown by sopranos? Yes, because the noise I expect from him is for another lesson.
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How to use Classical Music
I think it’s an idea who’s time has come. “Young Person Repellent.” Please click on the live link.
Maybe some of us could suggest our favorite recordings to the McDonalds Corporation. The last time I sat in one of their outlets, in Europe by the way, I would have loved to hear something with a tune. If I ever get to Australia, I’ll go looking for the Opera loving MacDonald’s outlet mentioned in The Telegraph article.
I am sad that there is a people deterrent quality attached to Classical music and Opera. It has been hard at work, of late, at the Box Office in the venues built for these musical styles, and it was only a matter of time that the effect would be recognized and used by the likes of McDonalds.
Perhaps we can expect water boarding to be replaced with exposure to full length Wagner Operas. I know I would give up all the secrets I have if I were faced with that threat.
Read MoreTrick and Treat Part 2
Shiver time is upon us. Temperatures are down to ice forming levels, local candidates are telling us what they want to do to us…… pardon me… for us, if they are elected on November 5th and Halloween is already in our rearview mirror. Scary things are still everywhere to be found if one just looks for them. It makes sense to me that people should shiver at what some of our local politicos say, given the arriving cold temperatures outside. It seems to me that many of them would not mourn to see some of us, as a result of taxation, shiver in our
Town Board of Plattsburgh New York
own homes… that is if we can even afford to keep our little huts. I hope a few of my fellow North Country Citizens will find the signs of these times shivery and get out to vote on 5 November… That’s tomorrow isn’t it? Being out in the cold is a long tradition in Clinton County, and tax auctions are especially shiver inspiring.
My favorite hut – I wear fur so I don’t shiver.
Shivering isn’t fun, but at least it’s not somnolence inspiring. After publication of my previous blog on the trick of talk, I received a note from a reader. In part he wrote:
In those brief minutes of run-throughs of Operas traditionally granted in German/Austria etc. houses, I would often ask a younger singer to not sing but try to recite the text and then sing it as you said. Unfortunately 90% of them were unresponsive and as a result they sang the “telephone book”. But those few exceptions who tried it went from student to artist in a heartbeat.
Rico Saccani via Email
Now, if you think of it, there is no way to imagine the recitation of names and numbers to be much more interesting or entertaining than traffic noise. Take it from me, even traffic noise can promote sleep. At least that was my experience when I spent long periods on Manhattan Island singing at Lincoln Center. Going to bed over Broadway was a special challenge at first, and then little by little the taxis, busses and trash trucks were just as good as the crickets of home for lulling me to sleep. A bedtime story read from the top of the “L” listings in the New York City White Pages would certainly have had the same effect.
Stark wrote some supporting words for my trick:
Despite the disagreements in the pedagogical literature, we cannot ignore the common theme that runs through so many works – namely, that there is something special, perhaps even ‘secret,’ involved in singing according to bel canto principles.
Stark, James (2003-03-28). Bel Canto: A History of Vocal Pedagogy (Kindle Locations 346-348). University of Toronto Press. Kindle Edition.
Vocal author Edgar Herbert-Caesari maintained that the foundation of the old Italian school, from Caccini onward, is the ‘completely natural voice … that, without training, is able to articulate, enunciate, and sustain with perfect ease and freedom all vowels on all pitches in its particular compass’ (Herbert-Caesari 1936, 4). These views are unrealistic. Why one may ask, if the techniques of bel canto are so simple and direct, has great singing always been the art of the few and not of the many? Or, if Herbert-Caesari thought bel canto was just natural, untrained singing, why did he bother to write a book about vocal technique?
Stark, James (2003-03-28). Bel Canto: A History of Vocal Pedagogy (Kindle Locations 361-369). University of Toronto Press. Kindle Edition.
James Stark tells us there is a bel canto “secret” running around in vocal literature. He further tells us that Edgar Herbert-Caesari did not capture or cage that runner in his theories. It is an interesting tactic that Stark employs to set up Herbert-Caesari as a crazy believer in “Natural Talent”. After all, why do we need voice teachers at all if the theories that Stark says Herbert-Caesari wrote down are true? (I know how to use the open question argument technique, even if I don’t like it much.) Voice Builders of the World should unite under the banner: “Hebert-Caesari – HERATIC” and advocate the burning of his books. That would be honest.
It is a joke, isn’t it?
Garcia had his say just a few years before the trio of Blake, Stark and Herbert-Caesari was born.
The true accent which is communicated to the voice when one speaks without preparation, is the base on which the singing expression is patterned. The chiaroscuro, the accents, the feeling all then take an eloquent and persuasive aspect. The imitation of the natural and instinctive movements should then be, for the student, the object of a very special study; but there is another means which will not serve less to initiate him into the secret of the emotions, and which we recommend to his zeal; here is this means; to isolate himself completely from the character which he is supposed to represent, to place himself face to face with that character in his imagination, and let him then act and sing. By reproducing faithfully the impressions which will have been suggested to him by that creation of fantasy, the artist will obtain much more striking effects than he would attain by beginning work straightway.
A Complete Treatise on the Art of Singing Part 2 PAGE 140
As a footnote to the above text:
This advice is precisely that which Talma gave to a young man. This beginner was wearing himself out with vain efforts of declamation in the study of the role of Oreste; “You are deafening yourself: it is impossible for you to know what you are doing, because you do not know yet what you want to do; you have not determined in advance what effect you want to produce. Declaim your role without pronouncing a word.
Place your character before you, and then listen to him: judge his manner of acting and his delivery; finally, when you are satisfied with the performer [t’artiste] which your imagination portrays for you, it is then that you can imitate him and declaim aloud.” This precept of the most capable French tragic actor applies to every point in the art of singing. When the singer has learned an aria, if he wishes to render it with as much expression as he can impart to it and to embellish it with all the ornaments which the melody and the nature of the piece permit, he must concern himself with the conception before thinking of the performance. He must sing mentally, as it were, while his imagination places before him the character he will portray. When he has thus strongly conceived the dramatic situation, when he is well penetrated by the emotion traced by the composer, in short, when he has created for himself an ideal which is as perfect as possible, it is only then that he will put to work all his imitative faculties, that he will display all his means of expression and execution, in order to approach the pattern which his thought has offered to him as a model.
A Complete Treatise on the Art of Singing Part 2 PAGE 140, 141 FOOTNOTE
As you can see in Garcia’s text, my trick is not new. The principle underpinning it is one of the “running secrets” Stark would like to capture. Herbert-Caesari may have inflated it into his own “Theory of Singing”, but Stark gives us no theory at all. It’s Garcia who gives us something to work with. See “Expression“
I simplify the Garcia advice down to the bare essentials. How you say what you say can live happily inside how you sing what you sing, and without a lot of magic mystery. The tools you use to make the spoken phonation and the sung phonation are the same tools in both cases. There is no magic here. What you hear you can mimic, and that includes mimicking yourself. These things rest on natural abilities, but they do not replace vocal technique. They can, however, confuse the ignorant….
Read MoreTrick and Treat
Parents are towing kids to cash registers all across America carrying flimsily made scary costumes, some with accessory makeup kits, in preparation for the big haul of chocolate that the little people so look forward to collecting every 31 October. With the way things are going nationally and locally, I can imagine there would be many parents seeking alternative costuming. Take, for example, the organic number displayed in the photos a proud Grandparent is allowing me to embed in this Blog.
By the way, behind those traditional inorganic costume preferring parents at the registers are people like us. You know: the home owners who can pay our land taxes and still have enough in the budget to afford Halloween candy. The Trick/Treat word paring that’s been bouncing around my mind lately has inspired a new thought into the mix of the many echoes in there that won’t go away. I teach a trick that has turned out to be a universal treat.
The treat is that it works. It works in many ways, not the least of which is the liberation of the voice from the tyranny of the thinking part of the brain. The idea of the trick is to put the ears to work, and the calculating part of the brain out of the way. 
I keep repeating a principle in my studio and on the Master Class road so much that I forget to mention it with the same insistence on the blog. Now I shouldn’t forget, because it underpins so much of my understanding of vocal matters and should challenge quite a few of my readers. You cannot think your way to excellent singing or even good singing. Do think “Tenor”. He doesn’t think, he sings. You know: “I sing therefore I am!!!..Uh!….. a tenor.” Oh! Just a minute… For the tenors: I’m plagiarizing a quote: “I think therefore I am”, which is a bastardization of, and plagiarizing the Bible for God’s self-definition: “I Am”. Let’s get past the looming argument over the meaning of “Truth”, and just remember chronology is important. Who wrote what first is all I care about here, because chronology is also an underpinning principal of the trick I want to talk about.
Trick: Recite the words of the song or aria you are seeking to interpret. (My apologies to those who say interpretation cannot be taught.)
The recitation I’m talking about is more than correct pronunciation. I’m talking about speaking the words with every ounce of emotional content you can give them. As if you are reading the words for a radio program. The listener needs to hear in your voice as you recite every bit of character and drama necessary to give the listener everything necessary for understanding and believing what you say and that you mean it. Listen closely to the sound of your voice, and then sing those words intending to drag every inflection of your spoken rendition into the melodic line.
Treat: You will sing those words with at least some of the expressiveness you attain in your recitation. If you are able to appreciate the result, you should be able to bring more and more of the emotional content of your recitation into the song or aria in question. You may also begin to have some cross pollination from your improved singing back into your declamation. 
Now I’ve got to warn you away from the inhibition consultant that might tell you to be careful not to disturb the composer’s music. If you go for the gold and do a great job of recitation, you will certainly have your own rhythm for the words, and if you allow (please do) that personal rhythm to distort the rhythmic structure of the composer’s melodic line, you will have created a unique interpretation, and probably gotten your pianist/vocal coach all upset.
I know that was the effect I had on some of my good friends at the keyboard. Not every pianist I ran into was a stickler for rhythmic purity, but the majority was. Please don’t let injecting a little language inspired jazziness into the note values be the end of the game. Listen carefully to yourself declaim the words. When you do a convincing job. The inflections in your voice are going to be very complicated and the variations are not going to be limited to rhythm. You will hear lots of variables related to volume and color. Volume differences you make among the words will be easier to inventory than the many color differences which your voice will put into each phrase and even each word.
My last bit of advice is to work the song or aria or recitative or duet or trio…….. Ok!!! I know I do run on a bit. Work one sentence at a time. Get each phrase of the words you say as close to your spoken expressiveness as you can. If you feel you are not as successful as you would like to be, work the text one word at a time until you get results. It is beyond difficult to describe with any accuracy or completeness the sonic result of a great recitation of a text. The ability of your brain to retain a memory of it is also beyond measure. 
Lately I have been listening to a lot of success taking place with the implementation of the above trick. One of the participants in this game is so good at the mimic process that he is deluged with requests to put various famous figures on display by mimicry just about any time he finds himself in friendly company. I’ve seen this happen even in the hallway of a public building. “All the World’s a stage.” Forgive the depressing message in Shakespeare’s play, but just imagine getting someone with a great singing voice to sing those words just as the actor declaims them in the clip. 
If Mr. Sandow’s nightmare for the future of classical music doesn’t happen, then my students have a shot at finding a home in Classical Music. If they follow the above trick, they will also stand out in the crowd that mostly seems to be reading the telephone book when singing.
There will be a Part 2.
I hope you will look forward to it.
If I can pull my eyes from the fall foliage, it will come.
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