Merry Christmas – Post Dated
It is the night after… Excuse me… I am such a tenor. Christmas night is ended, and the Morning After in Plattsburgh is still dark. My joy of celebrating the birth of my Savior was yesterday, and today I have the joy to celebrate the gifts that I know I will never merit. His coming to earth is reason enough to throw a party, but knowing why He came, makes for a lifetime full of happy tears and smiles. There are lots of moments filled with doubt, disappointment and impatience, but these are not among the gifts I celebrate. They are a part of our life on Earth that we all share to some degree or other. Even though these things are so mundane and common to us all, small as they may be in the grander scheme of what life here has to offer, I am none the less staggered every time the Christmas season overtakes us, that He chose to come share them with us. He shared many more negative aspects of human life that we artist types, if we are allowed, only get to depict. Do we suffer? Give me a break. I know that I am blessed. To be able to do this blog is a blessing. To be able to reprint Garcia’s voice bible is a blessing. To be able to own and read The Bible without fear of reprisal is a blessing. To have family and friends with whom I can share the wisdom of God’s Bible and Garcia’s bible is like, so amazing. So, I am blessed, and I pray you all may find your way to celebrate the blessings you enjoy. So here you have the end of my idea of a very long winded postdated Merry Christmas.
I am so happy to receive a question that is a nifty little gift. It happens to bridge two conversations I so want to pursue with all of you.
Conversation number one (What does Chest Voice and Falsetto sound like?) is already started with my last blog, and conversation number two starts with the gift:
Maestro Thank you for your Book, it is great! It has been a week that I received it and it is keeping me busy. I read it almost every day… and I am already doing some of the exercises. I have a question, if I may ask you. Garcia is very specific about the blending of the registers… if the tenor voice is one from low to high in chest voice, why would he use the term blending the registers, or would prescribe exercises in chest and falsetto at the same time? Pardon my ignorance, could it be possible that Garcia wants us to start singing in falsetto to develop it, make it stronger, to the point that it sounds, or it becomes chest voice or like chest voice? I am sorry, some light on this would be great, thanks!
My Face Book friend has discovered a dissonance that tripped me up when I first read the book he bought from my webstore that he calls mine. It is not my book, but I am happy he bought it. He noticed that Garcia would seem to speak with a forked tongue. I believe the truth is that Garcia made a wonderful invention, the laryngoscope, with which he discovered the most important difference between boys and girls. Not the difference that makes public bathroom door icons a modern controversy, but the much more important Vocal Pedagogical difference. Boys have two functions, one register. Girls also have two functions but three registers.
Now, forked tongues are not all developed for seeking victory on Election Day, even if some feel they are essential. A tongue can get forked by circumstances. In Garcia’s case, giving the appearance of a fork in his tongue could have been avoided by eliminating all the text rooted in his opinion expressed in the original edition of his book. When he researched Vocal Function with his little mirror, a decade after his book was first published, he made a key discovery that made him reedit and publish a new revised edition. The expressions that he did not revise give rise to questions such as the one above quoted.
There is another reason to see a split in Garcia’s tongue. It comes from the loose way Garcia used the terms “register” and “voice”. It would have been easier for me if he had been much more pedantic in his word usage, but he was only human. He wasn’t a tenor like me, but, you know, not perfect. Much of his advice to “blend the registers” was about using two different vocal functions on single pitches. That is to say: Sing a note in Chest Voice and then in Falsetto. The word “blend” is more about hiding the transition from one function to another. He didn’t even have a machine to make smoothies back then.
If you turn to page 209 in A Complete Treatise on the Art of Singing: Part One you will find Garcia’s revised treatment that contains Garcia’s new thinking resulting from his use of the laryngoscope. Garcia’s advice for the early stages of study to train tenors to resort to Falsetto on the way to the upper range of the voice, found on page forty eight did not get changed. So what’s up? What would seem at first to be simple advice to be cautious is really Garcia directing the training of a beginner toward finding, with the guidance of a good teacher, one of Garcia’s “Secrets”. On page fourteen of his “Hints On Singing” he discusses the early stages of instruction:
Q. Why do you not use what is called the “messa di voce”?
A. The use of the “messa di voce” requires a singer to be expert in the control of the breath and of timbres. At this elementary stage it would cause only fatigue.
In the same “Hints” he expands on the benefits of learning the “Messa di Voce”:
Just how should a singer start the mystic “Messa di Voce”? The answer is lurking inside the last paragraph of page forty eight in A Complete Treatise on the Art of Singing: Part One. The upper Falsetto singing suggested by Garcia, which should be approved by Garcia’s definition of a “good teacher”, is the beginning point for a tenor to use in his crusade to master the “Messa di Voce”. Once a singer has that sound established, he can turn to page one hundred thirty three in the Treatise to confront the “Messa di Voce” exercise. Word use becomes problematic on page one hundred thirty five of the same Treatise. Garcia advises the student to go from “falsetto” to “chest register”, and I can understand that some might think he is talking about moving into a different note range or something. But he really means falsetto (IGC) to chest voice or CGC, and then in the very next sentence he decides not to repeat himself with “chest register” and writes “chest tones” instead. No pedant in sight.
One great singer who knew his ideal falsetto sound for just about every pitch was Leonard Warren. I think almost every note in this song could be a perfect beginning of a wonderful “Messa di Voce”:
Now the full answer to the question asked by my Face Book friend: Garcia wants you to know Falsetto and Chest Voice so well that it is hard to tell when you move from one to the other. The ultimate end of the advice with which you are struggling is the “Messa di Voce”, which is the best training tool for establishing mastery in this area.
Read MoreWhy am I here?
I made it to Torino and am hard at work with eight singers and enjoying the company of three auditing onlookers whom I hope will receive something useful from our work.
The final concert is coming tomorrow, Saturday 20, 2014 at 6:00 pm, and I think I should explain to everyone what I think it’s all about. My name isn’t Alfi, but I do have an answer.
When the youngsters, I’m trying to help, face the public we have invited to come to the Circolo della Stampa di Torino to hear our little concert, they will fulfill the spirit and substance of what it’s all about: No matter how hard we may work together during this Master Class, in the end, it is what happens in the performance that counts.
I am here to do everything I can to help these young people make that performance as close to perfection as possible. What do I intend to see happen? Well, let me try to explain myself by listing my employers. I know I am not an authorized employee of anyone on my list, but I feel the same responsibility as if I had contracts with all three.
- The Singers:
Everyone seeking to be a singer by profession is eligible for employer status. For example, this website is for you, if you are trying to find your way to that small spotlight center stage where you will have to stand and deliver. My being in Torino is part of my effort to walk the walk. After all, this website sure is a lot of talking the talk.
- The Great Creator
My most important employer is the most creative person I know: My God. Now, I know me saying I believe in God and His creative power may seem to many of you to be an aside. It is, however, central to everything. Singers have voices because God forms them while the singer is in the womb, not because of a chance digestive event during the singer’s gestation. Not for any other reason than God’s gift. So I am happy to say that I am working for God to see that as many as possible of his gifts of voice to singers receive loving care, and that He may enjoy the product of those gifts as my singing students engage in their creative work. By the way, I also believe that we are creative creatures because God is creative.
- The Audience
Unlike the theaters of the world, I do not forget that “elemental employer”, the audience. I believe that without other peoples’ ears there is no performance. It is always just a rehearsal, or worse; a hobby. I am working for the people still warming the seats. Singers are remarkably hard to convince of the peculiar relationship an artist has with his fellow human beings. Anyone wishing to be a professional using his or her voice for a creative purpose has to understand that the voice is for communicating and as such a communication must take place, and it must be with an audience. Eventually, we’ve got to sell a sufficient number of tickets for participating in that communication to justify the professional level fees for services that theatres are finding harder and harder to pay these days. I stand as ambassador from the ticket buying public, and do my best to direct each gifted singer toward an interesting and satisfying conversation with my employer who continues to buy tickets and hopes to be entertained.
The theater directors of the world seem to forget the audience, and I believe the crisis in the performing arts has its majority explanation in that forgetfulness. It is perhaps the largest problem for a singer as well. Forget your audience, and it will forget you….
Oh! Let’s not forget all those audience regulars who have decided to stop buying tickets. I have no idea how to get them back into the seats, but I know why many of them decided to stop keeping those seats warm.
Singers who only fear their audience are shoulder to shoulder with the theatres of our day, and together they are the ones who can bring about the future feared by everyone who loves the performing arts.
We sing for an audience because that’s what professionals do. You can’t leave God out of the equation. He can certainly listen in while we’re at it, and, by the way, He can even hear and enjoy the voice of someone who only possesses enough courage to break out in song in the shower. That individual would not be my ideal student no matter how beautiful the voice. I don’t argue with God, but a great voice is often just not enough to make it in the professions.
Read MoreWhite 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.
Merry Christmas 2012
Snow on the ground, lights in the tree, fruit cake soaking up the Bourbon, Champagne on the chill, family to arrive in the morning and only a few gifts left to wrap. That’s what I call a great prelude to Christmas, and God has allowed me to arrive at this very reality. We celebrate Christ Jesus, our Savior Born.
Let’s not get bogged down about the actual point in our time line when Mary gave birth to Jesus. Let’s avoid quibbling about the reality of His Existence. Let’s even evade justifying why we put up such a fuss on 25 December every year. I know why I do, and you are free to find your own reasons.
One of mine is a very small thing in the greater scheme of life and history. Writing a blog, and that blog only being about vocal things, makes my thing shrink even smaller. I am still going to jump up and down… only a few times because of my advanced years. Those few jumps will be for joy that a year has come full circle from the birth of this little blog. One year ago I would not have guessed that my subscribers would be so numerous. Some time ago the large number of update announcements caused my email server to block them all. I never knew about email per hour limits. Now that I do, everyone who signed up, (thanks for doing so) should get a heads up about this Christmas blog. I’ll do one jump, at least, for that.
The year was a great time trip. It was interesting writing, corresponding, teaching and learning. That learning thing keeps me humble and young at heart. No small thing for a tenor. Anyway, I have learned that I have so much to say and so little talent for saying it. I keep learning that fact every time I face my computer screen wanting to put my thoughts in rational order, and, even after coming to some grudging contentment with the results, my wife, Debbie, has the best editing talent for finding weaknesses in my texts. I need her in many ways. Being my net for this high wire act is only a small sample.
The year even had a trip to Europe that I blogged about. Travel is a great education, and I am happy to say that my expectation to learn things was well fulfilled. Those things may not all be positive, but one, that good and possibly great voices are not extinct, was a welcome revelation. That is worth at least one lift of the Champagne glass.
Thanks for following my writing efforts.
I want to be useful. If I can be useful to you, I will call it a blessing. Don’t get me wrong. It would be a blessing for me.
PS. It is now Twenty four hours later than when I started this blog. Six hours have passed since Christmas Day began in Plattsburgh. I got the last gifts wrapped, a lot of the little bit of snow that decorated yesterday morning is gone, items chilling and soaking are still undisturbed and family is still going to arrive…. Unlike me they may be on time. I let Midnight pass without posting this blog which is only explainable. Not excusable. But….
God knows my heart, and knew that I had to get to bed on Christmas Eve and get those gifts wrapped and this blog done early on His Birthday. I fell asleep trying to count my blessings…. I’m afraid I only got through the top of my list. Christ, Debbie, Dot… well I drifted off and can’t remember any of the other visions my dreams brought me. Life is good and everything else hangs on those top three.
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Merry Christmas 2011
Merry Christmas to all. The day is here. We all cheer the snow that may not be here, especially those of us who view our computer screens in Miami or San Diego. Three cheers that the snow is up north somewhere! If we have it, I lend my voice to the cheering. I really love snow. It has become my vision of clean. In the North Country where space is ample and forest hides most everything, we Rock Eaters tend to pile up junk in our back yards among the non-functioning vehicles we are just not ready to send to the junk yard, the fishing shanties that need repair, the fishing boats that leak and the burning barrels that the State of New York used to let us use to keep the piles of junk a little shorter. When I was a little shaver those shanties, unmoving cars that should be pulling the leaky boats, burning barrels and junk piles just didn’t register on my thinker when I looked at them. It was the effect of the first Big Snow every year that made me take notice of all that stuff because the undulating blanket of snow just so beautifully took them out of sight. Now I can’t tell you when I began to think of our back yard as an unpleasant sight, but in a year I can’t name I did begin to suspect there might be a better way to decorate the dirt out back, but I never questioned my developing opinion that the yard, back and front, could never look better than when enough snow fell to redecorate everything. My word for that special beauty that only snow can give the eye is “clean”.
Clean is also a wonderful word to ponder at Christmas. It is exactly the goal each of us Christians wanted to attain, and it is one of the gifts that we are blessed to have from that Wonderful and Marvelous Savior whose birth is the reason this holiday is legally recognized by the State of New York….. You know, those guys and gals in Albany who stole our Rock Eater rights to pollute the air with our burning barrels whenever we want to, no matter who complains about it. At least they haven’t gotten around to Christmas….yet. Anyway, I always have clean in mind when I celebrate the birth of Jesus and even just a little bit of snow dresses up the day in a way no other decoration can achieve for this old man of song.
The word clean always bubbles to the top of my vocabulary as I try to coax voice students toward discovering the gift they have received. My studio is populated with students who suffer various vocal realities that seem, in my mind’s eye, to look a lot like my childhood back yard. Admittedly, the elements are completely different. What would a fishing shanty missing a sled blade have to do with a singers way of phonating? The fact is that the once useful items that populated that old back yard represent, for me, parallels with the ever useful vocal tools that each of my students employ in totally inappropriate ways. The more I am able to dissuade them from these practices the cleaner their voices become.
My Christmas message to all singers and those who wish they were singers is this. You already own a vocal instrument that was gifted to you at conception within your DNA. Except you be mute, you make a noise with it. If the noise your gift produces happens to be a beautiful sound then you have been given a rare gift. No voice teacher is going to give you that. A voice teacher can only guide you, and the best guidance is to do a metaphorical handshake with your gift. Everything your voice can do and will do for the rest of your life rests on the DNA coded structure that started forming when egg and sperm first met. Who do you think you have to thank for the exact configuration of that code donated 50/50 by your mom and dad? Not Professor Gotchaby Thethroat. Not me. Not mom and dad. Especially not yourself. Think of this Christmas as a great opportunity to celebrate the fact that the word “gifted“, if applicable to you, contains no reference to human agency. There is no room for even you to be proud.
I think you can work it out for yourself.
PS. If you’re a tenor, come back later and I will….. Better yet, use the “Please write” page.
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