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.
Read More
Trick 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 MoreWhy is there air?
A great actor and standup comic once said that air is for blowing up basket balls. An airline pilot might say that it is for lifting his wings. A disappointed Olympic archer might say it’s there to frustrate him because it pushes his arrows off target. Bakers may say that it is a heat transfer agent for cooking grain based foods. A few vendors in Alba, Italy might say it is for attracting customers to their shop by carrying the aroma of fresh truffles into the street. An environmentalist may say it is a sacred fluid meant to be worshiped. Tenor that I am, I say it is for singing, even for singing sacred music.
I know, everyone on my hypothetical panel of “opinionators” (my tenor version of “opiners”) mentioned above can say what they like, but we all miss the fact that air existed before anyone of us or any of our ancestors were around to use it for anything. If we want to know why it exists, we will certainly need to stop talking to each other about it and search for the answer from somewhere other than within our own opinions. Job 38:4 is a good place to start when cogitating on such things as “Existential Air”.
Most tenors understand that they need air to sing high notes. The rest of the vocal categories know they use it for the same purpose, but also tend to credit air as supporting thought, exercise, writing letters, talking about non singer subjects and supporting the voice in a manner that produces beautiful phrases as well as just keeping themselves alive. Tenors are not barred from any of these complicated activities, but rarely associate air with these undertakings, so I don’t want to strike up an argument with a fellow tenor about the many whys there are to support the proposition that it is good to have air hanging around.
It seems to me to be a valuable opening to this blog to clear the air of the differences of opinion about air that I have overheard expressed during my life of observation. We live in a Post Modern, Post Rational, Hyper Utilitarian universe that would propose that all my air panelists are “absolutely” correct, because the only truth is point of view. The “for me” qualifier is supreme, and for the rest of humanity there is only the power of the opinion holder to consider. OK!!! I’ve got to get off this track, or my tenor club card might be taken from me.
AIR!!!! What do we do about air? We breathe it. Singers struggle to use it to create “ART”. Garcia made short work of describing the method he imposed on the students in his studio:
One could not become a capable singer without possessing the art of the control of the breath.
The phenomenon of breathing is composed of a double action; the first is inspiration, the action by which the lungs draw in the exterior air; the second is expiration, which makes them return the air received.
In order to inhale freely, hold the chest erect, the shoulders back without stiffness, and the chest free. Lower the diaphragm without jerking, raise the chest by a slow and regular movement, and set the hollow of the stomach. From the moment when you begin these two movements the lungs will dilate until they are filled with air.
This double procedure, on which I insist, enlarges the envelope of the lungs, first at the base, then by the circumference, and allows the lungs to complete all their expansion and to receive all the air which they can contain. To advise the abdominal breathing exclusively would be to voluntarily reduce by one half the element of strength most indispensable to the singer, the breath.
When the lungs are filled gradually and without jerking, they can retain the air for a long time without fatiguing. This slow and complete inhalation is what the Italians call a respiro [breath], as opposed to a light hurried inhalation, which gives the lungs only a little supplement of air for the need of the moment. That half-breath they call mezzo-respiro.
In neither case should the passage of the air through the throat be accompanied by any noise, under pain of spoiling the effect of the song and making the throat dry and stiff.
The mechanism of expiration is the opposite of that of inspiration. It consists of exerting a slow and gradual pressure on the lungs filled with air. Jerks, sudden movements of the chest [coups de poitrine], the precipitous fall of the ribs, and the abrupt relaxation of the diaphragm would let the air escape instantly.
In fact, the lungs, spongy and inert masses, are enveloped in a kind of cone (the thorax) , the base of which (the diaphragm) is a wide and convex muscle arising from the edges of the chest and separating the chest from the abdomen. A single fissure a few millimeters [lignes] in length (the glottis), placed at the summit of the cone, serves as a passage for the air.
In order that the air may enter the lungs, it is necessary that the sides [of the chest] separate and that the diaphragm lower; air then fills the lungs. If, in this situation, one allows the ribs to fall and the diaphragm to rise, the lungs, pressed from all sides like a sponge in the hand, immediately give up the air which they had inhaled.
It is necessary, then, to let the ribs fall and to relax the diaphragm only so much as it is necessary to nourish [alimenter] the tones.
Garcia basically tells us to breathe in as deeply as possible, and to expel air at a rate and under a pressure matched to the needs of the sound we wish to produce. This seems a simple statement, but in fact it is terribly complicated. Garcia seems to believe most average teachers would be able to guide a student to understand the functions he describes, and offers exercises that I believe should also have some hands on guidance attached:
One can, by subjecting the lungs to a special exercise, develop their elasticity and power to a very high degree. This exercise is composed of four different operations successively practiced:
1. First, one inhales slowly and during the space of several seconds as much breath as the chest can contain;
2. One exhales that air with the same slowness as with which it was inhaled;
3. One fills the lungs and keeps them filled for the longest possible time;
4. One exhales completely and leaves the chest empty as long as the physical powers will conveniently allow.
These four exercises, very fatiguing at first, should be practiced separately and at rather long intervals. The first two, namely the slow inhalations and exhalations, can be practiced more regularly if one will nearly close the mouth in such a manner that only a slight aperture is left for the passage of the air.
This is the physical means of obtaining the steadiness of the voice, about which more will be said later.
Garcia 1 page 34 and 35
Because I used swimming as a large set of training exercises for gaining control over my breath when I was younger than I am now, I hit upon the idea that swimming coaches might have something to say that tenors could use to help them with high notes and the like. So I went trolling around the internet and this is what I found:
What goes into taking a breath:
http://www.swimmingscience.net/2011/10/all-you-need-to-know-about-inspiratory.html
What we use to exhale:
http://www.swimmingscience.net/2011/10/all-you-need-to-know-about-inspiratory_26.html
Exercises for breathing:
http://www.swimmingscience.net/2011/11/all-you-need-to-know-about-inspiratory.html
Posture:
http://www.swimmingscience.net/2013/05/breathing-and-swimmers-posture.html
These articles may not be for everyone, but they will give the truly curious a greater understanding of the mechanisms we singers share with the water babies who want to win races. All we want to do is to get to the end of the longest musical phrase we encounter without breaking it into shorter pieces because the composer does not anticipate our need to breathe.
Now that I have surfaced from my deep immersion in face to face communication with people, puppies, plants and pitched phonation pupils, I hope to bother you more regularly with my thoughts on future pages.
Read MoreSoup and Sandwich
I just put two new pages in the “Tool Box”. You can find them by clicking on the titles
Please take time to read those pages. They are short, for now.
Look closely at Garcia’s text in “Analysis” for the content behind the immediate message of the words. There is almost always more to discover than meets the mind at first reading. Garcia lists things he has not defined anywhere in his books: dampened and shrill timbres, trembling tone, noisy and misplaced breath, and then absolves himself for leaving them off his pages by admitting that they would seem to be so far outside the boundaries of the singer’s art as to be considered “grave errors”. They are surely errors in the preliminary study of singing. They are errors because this early study should be dedicated to training the voice to work like an instrument. Well, I always knew that one man’s pleasure would find somebody calling it poison, but here we have a poison that should ultimately become everyone’s’ pleasure.
“we considered the voice as an instrument whose range, purity and flexibility, elements necessary for correctness of style, had to be developed. “
This text is more evidence that supports some of my assertions in “Climbing Stairs”, and the pages that follow in Garcia’s book are the antidote to my displeasure with the status quo I put into “Barcelona and Friends”, but what does this Analysis stuff have to do with Soup and Sandwiches?
Remember “So Why Should Anyone Belt?”? Food is one of my favorite things. It does reside a few levels below singing, but it is in my top ten. That’s one good reason why I put a picture of a pizza place with my name on it on top of that Belting blog, and why I want to make a parallel between Garcia’s books and the title of this blog.
Garcia’s part one is all about how he “considered the voice as an instrument” and it is complicated like a sandwich. You put a sandwich together, and the component parts produce an effect in the mouth that is distinct with every combination possible, given your pantry. After you take that first bite, you can always take the sandwich apart and list the components. You could have done that yourself as you made the sandwich if you were the one engaged in the art of sandwich making, but the disparate parts are recognizable to anyone who wants to disassemble that sandwich. Vocal technique is just like that. Garcia built a book, A Complete Treatise on the Art of Singing, part 1 that is a pantry full of components that come together and then come apart like parts of a sandwich, even a Dagwood.
Garcia’s part two is all about “arriving at the most intimate resources of the skill” which is complicated like soup. Try as you might, you will not be able to take that soup apart in the same manner available to anyone contemplating a sandwich. You will be off to the lab to play with test tubes and spectrographic equipment to discover the flavor components squeezed in between the H2O molecules that host them in the bowl. If you want to know about soup from my perspective, take in the movie “Tampopo”. Garcia wades into the soup to tell us of things that, especially today, have fallen off the table of pedagogical discussion. Ms. Karen Sell puts us on notice that these things are no longer “intimate resources”. She might as well declare there is no such thing as Soup. On page 2 of her book she sets the tone with:
(a) A title which may give a preliminary clue to interpretation. Hoole suggests that interpretation as a subject cannot be taught.
but it can be cultivated in all but a small minority. Anyone whose personal desire is to learn a musical instrument must, by the fact that they are interested, suggest at least some basic interpretational senses on which to build (1995. p. 12).
Hoole, Ivor (1995) ‘Once more with feeling’, Music Teacher, September, 12-15.
I’m sorry to admit that I was not able to source this magazine.
Ms. Sell further rounds out her opinion on page 153 with a quote:
In the final analysis interpretation cannot be taught. If the student does not have enough creative imagination to react aesthetically to the text and the music, and enough freedom of personality to express what he feels, no amount of instruction can redeem the situation (1994, p. 29).
McKinney, James C. (1994), The Diagnosis and Correction of Vocal Faults,
Nashville: Genevox Music Group.
I do want to cut a break for Ms. Sell in this area of the vocal arts. There was a “Ha Ha” saying I picked up in the years 1969 – 71 during which I had my introduction to the University system for which she wrote her book, and it went something like this: “He, who can, does. He, who cannot, teaches. He, who cannot teach, teaches teaching methods.” I would guess one must take seriously the second paragraph of the Preface of her book:
This book is a revised version of my Middlesex University doctoral dissertation. Unlike many such works, however mine is not of the kind which could have been produced at or near the beginning of a career. On the contrary, it arises from many years of performing as a soprano, of teaching in educational institutions from primary to tertiary, of working in private practice at home and abroad, of lecturing to professional bodies and conducting workshops and master classes, and of serving as a voice consultant to members of the health professions.
Sell, Karen: The Disciplines Of Vocal Pedagogy: Towards An Holistic Approach, June 30, 2005 unnumbered Page: Preface
I do take seriously this self-introduction, and suggest that you Google her name in search of any audio visual record of her performing career as a soprano…. So what did you find?…… Yes I know. I found the same nothing. May we assume she might have a certain deficit in the area of interpretation, if none of her efforts to interpret have survived? It would explain her affinity for quoting people who say interpretation is un-teachable. If her deficits were vocal and organic in nature I would stand corrected, but for the fact that I have no reference point from which to judge or even make conclusions.
Today, since the modern pedagogical literature design’s them as un-teachable, teaching these “intimate” interpretive things would seem to be in the same category as cooking. For voice teachers who always eat out, it would be logical to say “Not my job!” Garcia had the holistic approach that Ms. Sell pretends to publish in her defense of the pedagogical present.
Garcia tells us how to interpret. Although his voice was not good enough to make a career as a singer, his life with his father was more than enough preparation to begin his career teaching singing, and enough to begin his meticulous research that resulted in some great singers being prepared for the stage, and the writings that we still have today that are like a great big key to the House of Singing. If you open the door and walk into the kitchen you will find that virtual vocal Sandwich and bowl of Soup. Garcia’s recipes are on the counter beside each one of these complementary dishes. Beside the Sandwich sits Garcia’s recipe: his big book part 1, and beside the Soup you will discover his big book part 2.
Traditional Expectations
There are those among the family of man who set perfection as their goal with no pretentions about being capable of attaining it. I am one of them. This does not confer on me any elite status. I fully admit that I continue to fail to attain to those standards by which I measure my life and my singing, at least while I was still singing. When I recently reread Quantz seeking to cover my “proverbial back side” concerning some of my assertions in earlier blogs, I ran across the following text. I read it as if I had not read it before, because my memory is selective. I seem to have conveniently forgotten what I once read years ago. Anyone measuring himself or herself against this description of “good singer” may feel a little stress.
The chief requirements of a good singer are that he have a good, clear, and pure voice, of uniform quality from top to bottom, a voice which has none of those major defects originating in the nose and throat, and which is neither hoarse nor muffled. Only the voice itself and the use of words give singers preference over instrumentalists. In addition, the singer must know how to join the falsetto to the chest voice in such a way that one does not perceive where the latter ends and the former begins; he must have a good ear and true intonation, so that he can produce all the notes in their correct proportions; he must know how to produce the portamento (il portamento di voce) and the holds upon a long note (le messe di voce) in an agreeable manner; hence he must have firmness and sureness of voice, so that he does not begin to tremble in a moderately long hold, or transform the agreeable sound of the human voice into the disagreeable shriek of a reed pipe when he wishes to strengthen his tone, as not infrequently happens, particularly among certain singers who are disposed to hastiness. The singer must be able to execute a good shake that does not bleat and is neither too slow nor too quick; and he must observe well the proper compass of the shake, and distinguish whether it should consist of whole tones or semitones. A good singer must also have good pronunciation. He must enunciate the words distinctly, and must not pronounce the vowels a, e, and o all in the same way in passage-work, so that they become incomprehensible. If he makes a grace on a vowel, this vowel and none other must be heard to the very end. In pronouncing the words he must also avoid changing one vowel into another, perhaps substituting e for a and o for u; for example, in Italian pronouncing genitura instead of genitore, and as a result evoking laughter among those who understand the language. The voice must not become weaker when i and u appear; during these vowels no extended embellishments should be made in the low register, and certainly no little graces in the high register. A good singer must have facility in reading and producing his notes accurately, and must understand the rules of thorough-bass. He must not express the high notes with a harsh attack or with a vehement exhalation of air from his chest; still less should he scream them out, coarsening the amenity of the voice. Where the words require certain passions he must know how to raise and moderate his voice at the right time and without any affectation. In a melancholy piece he must not introduce as many shakes and running embellishments as in a happy and cantabile work, since they often obscure and spoil the beauty of the melody. He should sing the Adagio in a moving, expressive, flattering, charming, coherent, and sustained manner, introducing light and shadow both through the Piano and Forte and through the reasonable addition of graces suited to the words and the melody. He must perform the Allegro in a lively, brilliant, and easy manner. He must produce the passage-work roundly, neither attacking it too harshly nor slurring it in a lame and lazy manner. He must know how to moderate the tone quality of his voice from the low register into the high and, in so doing, how to distinguish between the theatre and the chamber, and between a strong and a weak accompaniment, so that his singing of the high notes does not degenerate into screaming. He must be sure in tempo, not rushing at one moment and dragging the next, particularly in the passage-work. He must take breath quickly and at the proper time. And if this becomes rather trying, he must try to conceal the fact as much as possible, yet not allow it to throw him off the time. Finally, he must seek to rely upon himself for whatever he adds in the way of embellishments, instead of listening to others like a parrot who knows only the words his master has taught him, as most do. A soprano and a tenor may allow themselves more in the way of embellishments than an alto and a bass. A noble simplicity, a good portamento, and the use of the chest voice are more suitable for the alto and bass than use of the very high register and the abundant addition of graces. This is a precept which true singers have respected and practiced at all times.
On Playing The Flute – Johann Joachim Quantz – translation: Edward R. Reilly pages 300, 301
If you try to find all the above text on Google Books, you will be disappointed. Someone, perhaps the marketing people, at Google Books decided to make some major cuts that make my above inclusion necessary. This text is a wonderful, intense white light with which any singer may engage in self-examination. Humble is hardly a word one can expect a tenor to entertain in his mind much past gathering a good definition, but it must have stuck on me when I first read that “good singer” definition. Selective is as Selective does.
Let’s get one thing straight, if I failed to be clear on this point before. Singing, acting, public speaking, dancing or any other form of performance art is personal. We each must examine, as meticulously as possible, who we are before we can really expect to be able to communicate with our audience. One singer who would seem to have been able to be comfortable with and even agree with the above Quantz text would be Manuel Garcia Sr.
Quantz sets the standard for how to prepare to live the life of a “good singer”. Garcia Jr. did not invent the label “good singer”, but he watched his father live it and Manuel Jr. was the first one to capture the essence and practical principles that his father lived by. His first edition of “A Complete Treatise on The Are of Singing” appeared eighty eight years after Quantz published his book. I believe the “art” of singing actually improved from the days of Farinelli, a singer of the same era and known to Quantz, all the way to Garcia’s days when composers began to change the demands they made on singers. But from those days forward the move has been toward diminishing the use of Garcia’s tools for singing. Sorry, I don’t wish to imply that Manuel Jr. invented the tools you can find in his “Tool Box”. He just knew them and organized them well. Quantz knew the results he wanted to see in a “good singer”. He just didn’t know the tools. After all, he was carving flutes not voices.
I bring his text to your attention because it tells us a great deal about the traditions that Garcia Sr. was born into and to point out that Garcia Jr. could have made reference to Quantz for much of the content of his own book about “good singing”, and still retained a lot to say about the practical issues. However, Garcia did not need to rely on Quantz. He had a living, breathing, singing best example to watch throughout his father’s life. Everything Quantz wrote was, in the days of the Garcia family, well known. That is what tradition is. What everyone understands as basic to the métier.
I do have some advice for the young of voice who wither under the first flash of the Quantz “good singer” specifications. It really is harder than a modern thinker might believe. Taking the path of a singer should be carefully considered. If you are willing to shoulder the responsibility of completing the quest, you should read the rest of that long ago flute player’s book. It is an amazing guide to the attitudes to which Garcia gives little space in his writings. But I have every confidence that Manuel and his father lived by them and assumed everyone else was in line with their thinking.
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How do we mess up? Let me count the ways.
When in Rome enjoy the rain…. Sorry to complain, but I had to get the weather report out of the way first. The weather has been really unusual in Italy, and with reports from home sounding similar to local conditions, I’m beginning to fear that the Earth may drown before Al Gore can realize his dream of watching the World burn up. When I discovered the alternate shelter choice, in the photograph, on the Tiber river, I was inspired to ask if I could rent space. But, then it started to rain. I began to believe that the river might just get higher than I would find comfortable.
I am on day 4 of my second Roman Master Class with more students than a tenor should be asked to count. I am having so much fun watching surprise spread across singers’ faces who improve their results by following Garcia’s advice and then find that the singing process gets easier on the throat. The messed up way most of these students go about singing is often so easy to unravel that it feels like child’s play. That’s good for a tenor like me who would love to have a life full of play. The old days of stage-play have now changed to teach-play and I cherish the moments when a student breaks out in a big smile because of the joy felt at overcoming difficulties.
So where is the count? “We” includes me, so I guess I’ll start with my mess making.
I am still learning…… No, that is not included in the “mess up” list! I messed up when I came back to Italy…… HOLD ON!! That’s not a “mess up” either. It has to do with the way I organized my return to Italy. There is a very good adage that goes something like this: Every Army is prepared to fight the last war they fought. They almost never keep up with the times and anticipate the attack that will come tomorrow. History is full of proof of the value of this little saying. Let’s just say: I’m a tenor, and am no more intelligent than any army around. Coming back to Italy with the same basic program as last year plus added activity was not a big mistake, but I now recognize that I should have been much more involved in helping my friends in Montisi organize the Florence/Montisi portion of my work. I was happy to meet some really nice people and discover some promising talent, but the structural difficulties presented by the school in Florence proved more than I could anticipate. I’m happy to say my time was not wasted, but I know I should have been able to help more young people than was possible under the circumstances. Unlike an unprepared army that gets destroyed, a tenor usually gets, at least, a second chance to get it right. Next time, it will be different.
OK! I should talk about at least one mess not made by the writer of this blog. My most frequent complaint this trip has been singer’s ignorance of and misuse of Vocal Function because I find it to be incredibly common in the singers who came to me for help.
The use of breathy Falsetto as a stand in for, or reinforcement for Dark Timber is the strongest and #1 impediment to good singing I have seen this year. Indiscriminant, chaotic vacillation between the Falsetto and Chest Voice that the men showed me runs a close second place, with the suppression of the Head Voice in the upper register that all the ladies engage in contends strongly for that second place.
It is wonderful to find that almost every Functional Error sufferer I encountered in Florence, Montisi and Rome was vulnerable to suggestion, and came to at least some understanding of the issue with which they were confused. Most of these were able to put these vocal functional attributes to better use. When I left Barcelona back in January, I was worried about these very issues. This trip restores my hope that the use of Chest Voice and Falsetto can still be brought back to Garcia standards, even in the face of the apparently universal taste for the Dark Side of Vocal Pedagogy.
About second chances: I will be coming back to Italy to try again. The first part of the story is that on 16 September I will be in Torino to collaborate in a Master Class with:
Accademia della Voce del Piemonte
Via Piazzi n. 27
10129 TORINO
We will start on 16 September and work every day until 21 September. It marks my second opportunity to work with my friend Armando Caruso. It will be a pleasure to again be at the service of Armando and his collaborators. We all want to see the same thing. The best singing possible from every singer we meet.
The rest of the story will come later. The world of singing offers us “interesting times” these days, and I am fascinated by the future, for which, the present may be a fitting introduction. I find myself being called Don Quixote, and I know that there are apt similarities even though I refuse to put on armor and ride a horse. I also have no interest in wind energy. I do have interest in helping young singers discover the best qualities in the giftwrapped talent they received at birth, and it can be an uphill battle in these “interesting times”. My experience in Florence and Montisi testified to this fact.
If you have the time, are awake and want to hear a retired American tenor mangle the Italian language on an Italian Radio Show listen at 13:00 Rome time. That would be, for the tenors in my readership, 7:00 am New York time, 6:00 am Chicago time, 5:00 am Denver time and 4:00 am Los Angeles time….. Wait, I guess I’m a tenor too. To what location am I inviting everyone?
La Barcacia
Click the program name, and you will be whisked directly to Rome where you will be able to laugh with us.
Sorry that the tenors in London, Tokyo and Honolulu will have to fend for themselves to discover the correct time of transmission. I didn’t forget you all…… You know……. I’m a tenor too. I got tired of compiling the list.
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