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 MoreFunctional Fun and Games
To tell a student to stay away from Falsetto is to turn him away from about half of the possible vocal effects that an artist should bring to his interpretation. In ages past, music was written with an expectation that an artist would use every tool he or she had developed over the course of their studies and experience to bring forth the best possible interpretation of the best efforts of composers and librettists. Falsetto is one of the foundational and indispensable essentials that an artist cannot ignore. Garcia embeds discussion of this Vocal Function into forty four pages of his first book. Gigli was a master manipulator of Vocal Function and put Falsetto to great use in his rendition of “Dalla sua pace”.
Gigli’s Way
A complete analysis of Gigli’s rendition of “Dalla sua pace” might be fun to do, but a blog is no place to wedge such a project which deserves a book length treatment. Besides, it would be way too much information for my “Twilight Zone” tenor to have to process. I think it would be a good thing to just mark the score where Gigli and Pavarotti sing in Falsetto and where they sing in Chest Voice so that everyone can see marked in the music what I hear in their singing. That would be concerning, Chest Voice and Falsetto use specifically, and we can compare how these artists used of these precious tools.
Pavarotti’s Way
I think it’s a great way to start a discussion about the audible effects that result from the use of these tools. I am beginning to wonder just how many of us know what Chest Voice sounds like, and what Falsetto sounds like, not to mention the differences between them. Talking or writing about them is really useless if we cannot agree on what we are hearing when we are listening to the same thing. Saying, “I hear Falsetto” when Chest Voice is being sung is like saying “I hear ducks” when there are only chickens singing in the barn yard. You may love ducks. I love them roasted, but, if they are not making noise, you can’t hear them….
Well, we could accept that some Post Modern tenors might believe that they are hearing ducks, but,,, well,,,, we could end up with the question: “What is a duck, anyway?” and that is a subject for a different blog.
When I hear Chest Voice, I think of Red. When I hear Falsetto I think of Blue. So I marked the Pavarotti and Gigli piano/vocal scores attached to this blog with bars of Red and Blue to show you where I hear chickens and where I hear ducks….. Sorry….. You get the picture.
Please print out my red and blue lined piano vocal scores of “Dalla sua pace” so you can follow along while I hope you will listen to these great Dead White guys yet again.
I want my “Twilight Zone” tenor, and anyone else interested, to hear just how differently this aria can be sung with admirable results. I have to admit that singers, or opera fans for that matter, can be partisans so radicalized that they would be unable to appreciate these artists’ singing beyond making the statement: “I hate Gigli and love Pavarotti!!” or “I hate Pavarotti and love Gigli!” with the possible added epithet: “Who cares about Mozart anyway? Let’s listen to these guys sing some real music!!” Oh!!! I almost forgot to include: “Gigli and Pavarotti are dead. Like so yesterday. I mean, like, you know, can’t we just forget about all that old stuff, and Mozart! Wow, what a dinosaur.” I hope no one takes offence. I might have to create a “Safe Space” on my blog.
Getting back to what I want to talk about. Gigli used Chest Voice sparingly but Pavarotti used Chest Voice almost exclusively. Which is the better interpretation? I like both. As a partisan, myself, I rate the gifts that God gave these artists differently. Luciano had the greater vocal gift, but Gigli was gifted with greater imagination and courage. Luciano accepted the inevitability of Falsetto when he decided to approach soft singing. Gigli made his singing live in Falsetto until he decided to express himself with louder singing. Most of Luciano’s interpretation was in mezzo forte to forte, so Chest Voice was his best friend. Gigli made mezzo piano to pianissimo his favored area of expression and Falsetto was his even more useful friend. I don’t expect everyone to agree with me, and hope, before you leave, you will add your opinion in the first comment space (not “Safe Space”) I have offered on these blogs. I hope you will comment on this subject, Falsetto/Chest Voice, as well as the artists represented here. It is a free country that we live in, and free will is one of my favorite God given gifts. So you can opine any way you want, on any subject you want and this benevolent dictator, me, will let every sane person participate.
I feel the need to provide a discussion area now, because getting Garcia’s book into your hands is a commercial exchange. Just ask the tax man. This three way conversation inspires me to cut him out as best I can, and the exchange of ideas has yet to be taxed in America. So let’s tell each other what we think and let the tax man take a hike. Merry Christmas to us all and let the tax man be happy with his day off.
Next time I’ll talk about Falsetto being no place to hide vocal difficulty.
Read MoreNuts and Bolts
So I’m back with advice for a young man from “Twilight Zone”. You may remember that I created this fantasy place in my last blog….. I’m sorry. I have to admit to stealing that label from an old television show. In that blog I also named the young man I met in that pleasant region “Ottaviohopful”. We had only a short time to work together, but I still remember his voice, and the vocal difficulties he faced at that time. Measures ten and eleven of “Dalla sua pace” are probably offering him a challenge common to most tenors just starting out, and sometimes observable with singers of long experience.
Just to be sure you and I are on the same page, I will insert “Ottaviohopeful”’s note as a reminder here:
Dear Maestro Blake,
I’m the younger tenor of “Twilight Zone”. I write to you in order to inform you about my situation and conditions. With my teacher I’m studying Dalla sua pace and I confess I have some problems. At first the teacher told me that I must study the aria “with ‘voce piena’ because today even lyric tenors not only leggero tenors sing Don Ottavio”. So I sing with “voce piena”, but, altough I succeed in singing the first two G, when I’m singing “quel che le incre-E-SCE”, when I should sing F, I find this passage very difficult. The throat closes by itself. I don’t know what I should do. I remember your advices in “TwiliteZone”, I remember you spoke about falsetto and I read on your site that you say about falsetto in relation to Una furtive lagrima. Falsetto is very very important, so I don’t understand why my teacher forbids me to use it. He says “With falsetto singing, orchestra covers you”. I cannot believe it and all people who would like to teach me to sing tell me the same thing. So, according to them, is better that I sing like a slaughtered capon; and according to them, I cannot lower the tone because “in theater never could you make this [singing in falsetto] because the conductor wants the right tone”. I’m desperate. I run away from this people and still do not have a teacher. I would like to come in “MasterClassVille”, but it’s impossible to me. I hope to find a real teacher as soon as possible. According to you, what should I do?
Thanks!
“Ottaviohopeful”
Given the vocal advice “Ottaviohopeful” mentions in his note, I expect he faces the most common vocal ordeal a tenor had to undergo and resolve in previous centuries. There are lots of examples today that testify against this once inevitable hurdle being a barrier one had to surpass on his assent to
“the rank of distinguished artist“.
A Complete Treatise on the Art of Singing: Part One by Manuel Garcia II page 1
Luciano Pavarotti gives us a really good example of how “Ottaviohopeful” could please his teacher. The full Monty you can review here:
Now the part we are interested in are these measures:
Luciano sings these notes in Chest Voice and shows us how he could choose to sing in Clear Timbre or Dark Timbre on an F natural. The evidence that proves he could do this is sitting on You Tube where he sings the first F natural in measure 11 in Clear Timbre and the second F natural in Dark Timbre. In the century that has past into so like yesterday status one could have heard this binary way to do these two notes described this way:
Luciano sings open until the second F natural which he sings closed or covered.
Or:
Luciano sings normally until the second F natural when he goes into passaggio.
Or:
Luciano canta normalmente fino la seconda fa naturale dove si gira la voce.
My French, Spanish and German are just not good enough to go on.
Anyway, Luciano was a great technician, and did his thing with wonderful consistency, but was no automaton. Luciano gives us a lesson on his freedom of Dark Timber use when he returns to this phrase in measures 45 and 46.
Now we have Luciano singing the E natural and both F naturals in Dark Timbre, or “closed/covered”, “in passaggio” or “girato”. This variation on his first foray through this phrase shows how a tenor can change Dark Timbre use or in standard singer talk “move his passaggio” around. When he arrives at measures 57 and 58, he does exactly the same “passaggio” thing as in 45 and 46 with a little more support for added volume:
It’s possible that even Luciano could have been complicit in influencing my young correspondent. Luciano made a statement that is just so tenor I can’t help but smile. He speaks about being “a real tenor”, and demonstrates what he is talking about. He then falls into his own trap to demonstrate that he himself can deviate from being the “real tenor” he considers himself to be. He sings the F at the top of his E flat major scale “open”, just like he did with his first F natural in measure 11 of Dalla sua pace. I have to say that all the sounds produced by Luciano’s voice were wonderful. He was a real tenor, not withstanding his own standards. (Click the above blue text links to see and hear what I’m talking about.)
I have an idea that “Ottaviohopeful” was trying to do what Luciano did with this phrase, and it probably felt like he was trying to push a bolder up a steep hill using his larynx to push it. If you listen to some of the other tenors, who’s YouTube examples I include in my previous blog, you may be surprised to hear big differences in the ways that these other tenors sang the same notes that Luciano sang. They are all real tenors,,, even I make the grade, but Luciano as well as the teacher mentioned by “Ottaviohopeful” may think that we are redefining the word “real”.
I’ll be back again with my thoughts on the relevant things I hear in the singing of those other “real” tenors.
Read MoreEverything happens for a reason.
I believe that things happen for a reason. Although this tenor started trying to answer the question Hal David asks Alfie long before he wrote his lyrics, I haven’t found all the answers. I expect Alfie and the rest of humanity to come up short in their ability to consider all things and give a perfect summation. I wish we could all agree that we suffer this limitation, but that is not our lot in life, and I know that there are only a few who share my first statement of faith. To say: “Things happen for a reason.” is to say that meaning exists. Heady stuff for a tenor, don’t you think?
OK, since a tenor would certainly risk a migraine by trying to understand everything, I’ll save myself that pain in the brain by dialing back my focus to my last couple of days inhabiting the above location: Latitude: 44.718231 and Longitude: -73.403633.
It was only a few days ago that I made my first reference to the above page on the internet and added a few comments to the following page:
The text is a little hard to read in the image above, so here it is again, if you don’t want to visit that page to be able to read it:
On these pages we have an extended analysis of the phenomena Falsetto and Chest Voice as they were understood before Garcia came along to add to this discussion the conclusions he derived from his own research. There is a really important facet to this “preamble” to Garcia’s method. Falsetto and Chest Voice were very well recognized as distinct vocal products. There was no consensus as to their mechanical production, but no one had to be instructed in how to recognize these phenomena. Sadly, I see confusion everywhere today.
When I completed these chores, I started cleaning up my email and tripped over the following missive. I keep the identity of my correspondent and his location anonymous with fantasy names.
Dear Maestro Blake,
I’m the younger tenor of “Twilight Zone”. I write to you in order to inform you about my situation and conditions. With my teacher I’m studying Dalla sua pace and I confess I have some problems. At first the teacher told me that I must study the aria “with ‘voce piena’ because today even lyric tenors not only leggero tenors sing Don Ottavio”. So I sing with “voce piena”, but, altough I succeed in singing the first two G, when I’m singing “quel che le incre-E-SCE”, when I should sing F, I find this passage very difficult. The throat closes by itself. I don’t know what I should do. I remember your advices in “TwiliteZone”, I remember you spoke about falsetto and I read on your site that you say about falsetto in relation to Una furtive lagrima. Falsetto is very very important, so I don’t understand why my teacher forbids me to use it. He says “With falsetto singing, orchestra covers you”. I cannot believe it and all people who would like to teach me to sing tell me the same thing. So, according to them, is better that I sing like a slaughtered capon; and according to them, I cannot lower the tone because “in theater never could you make this [singing in falsetto] because the conductor wants the right tone”. I’m desperate. I run away from this people and still do not have a teacher. I would like to come in “MasterClassVille”, but it’s impossible to me. I hope to find a real teacher as soon as possible. According to you, what should I do?
Thanks!
“Ottaviohopeful”
I answered this email a long time ago, but here it was again screaming at me to answer it,,, again. Everything conspired to suggest this blog. There is a reason things happen and the best answer I can muster to this young man’s email I will put in full view of anyone who wants to know what this argument is all about. I know, I know, no tenor can know all that there is to know about anything, but this website is about this tenor presenting the content of his mind, and what’s contained between my ears will certainly not tax the internet’s storage capacity.
Composers of the ancient past often had to improvise when they faced unfortunate cast members. Rossini cut the tenor aria in the first act of SEMIRAMIDE when he got to know John Sinclair, his first Idreno.
Rossini took his self-editing activities as protector of the Venetian public so seriously in 1823 that he chopped Mr. Sinclair’s second aria roughly in half and revised and reduced the number and difficulty of the notes the audience would be forced to hear from this English singer. By the time Rossini finished, what remained of “La Speranza Più Soave” was only slightly more difficult than Mozart’s “Dalla sua pace”.
Pragmatism is a necessary attitude for anyone hoping to make a career in “The Arts” and Rossini seemed well supplied.
Unlike Rossini’s experience with writing and producing SEMIRAMIDE, Mozart knew the voice of his first Don Ottavio before he composed DON GIOVANNI, and he wrote “Il mio Tesoro” for Antonio Baglioni for the Prague premier.
When Mozart got to Vienna for the first revival of his Opera, he found Francesco Morella in the tenor role. Oops,,, this one needed a new aria. I happen to like the Mozart way of accommodating a less than consummately capable tenor, because, as a result, we tenors of the future, like me, receive more music with which to work. The following is my rendition without the distortion I found in the previous embed I used:
If you have the liberty to be a complete artist, singing “Dalla sua pace” is only slightly more difficult than falling off a log. It becomes a complex conundrum when your professor instructs you to sing it without recourse to Falsetto.
Here is an Italian using more Falsetto than Chest Voice:
Here we have an Italian using more Chest Voice than Falsetto:
Here is an Englishman intermixing Lots of Falsetto with occasional Chest Voice insertions.
Here is a Canadian playing the same game as our Britisher with a lot better control:
A tenor from Peru does a good job of it too:
All in all, Falsetto is not missing from these performances and should be used to build an interpretation. It should not be a refuge from vocal challenges. In only one of the above examples does a singer seem to use Falsetto as a way to overcome apparent vocal difficulty. You figure that one out.
I’ll be back next week with the nuts and bolts advice for my email correspondent.
Read MoreGarcia is Now Open
Silence is a wonderful thing. Now I enjoy my mornings back in my easy chair luxuriating in our North Country predawn quiet. The noise of fellow hotel guests moving about, trash cans being upended by intrepid collectors keeping a big city livable and LA traffic now only serve as memories to help me appreciate my present environment.
Going West to LA was noisy, but was more vacation than work. I had a wonderful time reconnecting with my friends who were gathered together by Palm Springs Opera Guild of the Dessert. They let me add my ears to a two day parade of auditions dedicated to the youthful. It was just as educational as last year’s outing and twice as satisfying, notwithstanding the melancholy caused by a missing essential element. Michael Cressey departed the Earth shortly after last year’s auditions where we often huddled together trading opinions on the singers we were hearing. Friendships take time and shared experience. I think it’s called bonding these days. I missed the enthusiasm and dedication with which Michael inspired me to look forward to developing his friendship. It is always hard to wave a final salute to those whom one knows well, but one usually has lots of memories to serve as reminder and comfort during the ensuing separation. It is really hard to say goodbye while holding onto only a few remembered shared shards of time spent in service to a composer we both love, but it is what I have and what I will hold.
I was twice as satisfied this time by two singers who sang last year and came back displaying improvements related to advice I had given them at those first auditions in 2015. It used to be jump up and down fun to have an audience applaud my work, but now, young singers showing me that they can put Garcia’s tools to good use is what puts the spring in my quads… Well,,,, whatever spring my old quads can contain.
Now the work begins today. You can click → Garcia to find the page I am dedicating to him and his writings. I have a small pile of newly edited and printed books in my office that I hope will find new homes in the hands of the singing obsessed. Now that the shipping department, that would be me, is back from his recent West Coast vacation, we (tenors are complicated) can offer these books for sale.
I had a note from a new subscriber which I would like to answer with the rest of this blog. A certain far away tenor asked me:
I’m from Taiwan. I’m supposed to be a Rossini tenor myself but can’t seem to sing past my high B and Cs, which is essential in singing Rossini arias. I’m intrigued by what you say about the voice having no passaggio or break at all. Maybe that’s the problem we all have- when we think it’s there, it really is, or we will “produce” one. Can you share the secret of getting rid of the break in the high register? I’m just dying to get to those high Bs and Cs- I either crack or flip to falsetto on those notes no matter what I do.
His question is not “far out” it is really “right on”. The problem he and everyone, including me, faces has to do with a grand misunderstanding of vocal technique. He describes, as a break, an inability to maintain Chest Voice, or CGC into the highest notes required by Bel Canto composers. His difficulty is assuredly related to an effort to maintain the conformation of the vocal instrument all the way to the top notes written by the composer. It is the wrong idea. Such an effort is related to vocal traditions built up since the advent of Verdi. It could be wrongfully labeled “Verdi technique”, or more wrongfully declared to be “Vocal Technique”. I tend to denigrate this “hold everything where it is” way of singing by calling it part of “Modern Vocal Technique”. If we are going to find those elusive high notes while maintaining chest voice, guys, we have to give up on stasis. In order to attain those high notes in Chest Voice we have to allow the larynx to rise and the pharynx to diminish in caliber enough that the vocal instrument formed above the vocal chords becomes amicable to those high pitches and not present a cavity so large as to over tax the chords’ musculature. When the vocal cavity is over-sized for the strength of the larynx, you can only expect Falsetto or IGC to result… Oh,,, sorry, one can find the more drastic vocal result of total disorganization. That would be the crack or my preferred Italian moniker “la stecca”.
Read MoreGoing West!
The dust of election day is settling and I’m getting back to Garcia. Oh,,,, I can’t forget Rossini. So, tomorrow I will be on my way to participate in a talent search in the name of Rossini. I’m lending my ears to The Palm Springs Opera Guild Of The Desert to hear a few hopeful youth sing some music of Pesaro’s Swan as we look for another winner for Peggy Cravens Rossini Award.
By the time I get back from visiting California, I will have added a bunch of stuff to the single page now standing guard over my virtual Garcia garden. I want it to be a worthy a companion to the grand master’s writings and since a few copies of A COMPLETE TREATISE on THE ART OF SINGING: Part One are stacked in my office ready for distribution, I should serve Garcia as well as Rossini while I’m on the road.
Now that I have “Book (self) Publishing” sufficiently understood to get started, the Garcia sales channel will open as soon as my shipping department manager,
you know who,
gets back from warmer, dryer weather out west.
I really do hate to leave my furry friends and the love of my life, Debbie, who took our picture, behind but retirement does not mean domestic bliss and total inaction. We should all have so much to do that a lifetime seems too short to get it done. I have to admit to this attitude as I consider any time scale. An hour is never enough for a lesson, a day will allow me only enough time to weed 10% of the real garden surrounding our house and my life seems so small in the face of my mission to clear the air about singing. Going to LA is just a small 2800 mile, 1 week step toward promoting good, even great singing.
I’ll be back.
See you soon,
Rockwell Blake
Read More