Nuts 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 MoreTorino Next Year
Dear Friends,
Just a note to inform anyone who may have been planning to meet me in Torino on the dates:
I will be in Plattsburgh, New York, USA not doing a Master Class.
I’m going to miss the trip, the pleasure of working with those who signed up and seeing all my Torino friends. I would have traveled to teach the few singer types who enrolled to participate, but no one can afford to pay the costs of the Master Class with so few participants.
It seems to me that we are all feeling the financial pinch these days. I hope conditions will improve for everyone, and that the Master Class in April will be affordable and more attractive to anyone interested in the Operatic Arts.
If you were planning to come to Torino at the end of the month so I might help you, I’m sorry that there are not enough of you to make the Master Class viable. Please consider coming in April. I will be even more enthusiastic about the work we need to do together.
May your success be tenfold greater than you expect,
Rockwell Blake
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Come to Torino
I’m still alive, well and if you missed my blogs, I’m back.
I have more to do than time to do them all. This little blog is one of those time consuming commitments that I dropped last Spring in favor of many other projects. I’m back to the blog, and just in time to invite you to come, at the end of the month, to Torino.
I have no time to waste for getting the word out about Torino. The Master Class will start on Monday the 31 October and finish on 5 November. I hear there is room for more participants. The more of you who come the harder I will be able to work, and I do like to work hard at making singing more exciting. If you come, I will do my best to give you what you need to make what you do more exciting. Please come and ask me to teach you whatever you want to learn. I know that I will be able to give you more than you can think to ask. It is Art that we make, and the only limit on Art is our own imaginations. Come play with me and we will make Art.
One of my favorite time hungry projects is down to just a last bit of work on “A Complete Treatise on the Art of Singing: Part One”.
I will carry a few copies to Torino with me. It is with this book that I start a whole new venture to celebrate Garcia.
There is a lot of work to do, and the most important part is getting results. When we study and our singing improves, the Art of singing gets stronger. When we study and our singing does not improve, we are wasting our time. Come to Torino. You will not waste your time. It’s a promise.
Rockwell Blake
It is the Best of Times.
There are five weeks between me and Torino. That span of time is short, but ripe for work. As our calendars click off significant slices of time, every click hands us a question: What’s next? I keep struggling with that interrogative, and, to be perfectly honest, I never really know to which of a thousand and one (1001) possible projects I am going to commit my next chunk of time. The struggle doesn’t get easier with increased maturity. Even a tenor knows that time past is gone and future time is shorter. So the struggle actually gets harder, but I know the day to act is always today and that my time to work is now.
A certain pristine yesterday the USPS delivered me an easy answer to that “What’s next?” question. Donald V. Paschke sent it.
Dr. Donald V. Paschke
He sent back a stack of “A Complete Treatise on the Art of Singing: Part One” proofs to the Blake compound all marked up and ready for me to correct. You know – the typos and formatting errors that were in the printout that I sent Dr. Paschke a short time ago.
Now that the USPS did its work to carry Donald’s answer to my priority problem, I can see that it’s high time to dedicate myself to getting this book ready for the printers, but I just can’t forget that Torino project scheduled for March.
I know there are already a few singers signed up to participate in Torino, but I would like to have more. So here I am adding an invitation to this stream of tenor thoughts. Please come and let me do my best to help you with your singing. Getting you to sing well is now one of the most important parts of my life’s work. My Garcia project is also important, but only as a support for the after-Opera-life I always saw coming when I finally arrived at being an unemployed tenor. I sang in the business for quite long enough for me to learn what it was all about and to collect the demanding fans who insisted that I teach others how to take the stage when I finally quit singing.
Garcia made his life all about that “Get them ready to be great Opera Artists” thing, and I stand small before his legacy calling for anyone and everyone to follow his lead. With maturity (OLD AGE) and retirement I have had enough contemplating time to fully absorb Garcia and study in greater depth the many “problems” of singing which I suffered and the few that passed me by. I am diligently trying to lay a foundation for sharing Garcia and the content of my tiny tenor mind. The first floor of this edifice may one day have many rooms, but the venue that Armando Caruso gives me at Accademia della Voce del Piemonte I already number as 101. I’ll be there on March 14 and hope you will join me.
My dearest Debbie sometimes comes at me with statements like “You’ve got to write something about……….” Many times it’s about a local political or economic (TAX) thing, and we collaborate to shine some light on something resident power broker types would like to see pass unnoticed. But we kind of like people to know what’s going on. It is a sad fact that power brokers in every category of activity and every geographic expanse are able to hide from the apathetic, but Debbie and I care deeply about many things. Big deal!!! Two people, two votes, two opinionated citizens of the World who care about what’s going on???!!!! Well, if there were more of us, there would be a lot less political dirty doings going on. I’m fortunate that Debbie also cares about what is happening to singing almost as much as I do…. To return to perfect honesty; she may care even more than I do, but who am I to judge? Anyway, she came at me with “You’ve got to do a blog about that “Don’t listen to your voice!” thing you keep telling me about.” Not that I haven’t written something (click here), but students keep quoting that hissing serpent in our lessons. I just can’t keep myself from sssssshhhhhharing with Debbie the ssssssssssssstupidities I hear students repeat. They’re phrases they have heard in pre-Blake voice lessons, and they carry them around like “gems of wisdom”. I get really hot under the collar, do my best to keep from punishing my student with a rant, and often let my bubble of anger burst when Debbie asks after the progress of a student. So, now, even she has heard enough, and it will be a future project.
I’m off to,,,,uh,, oh yes, I forgot, the dentist first, and then the editing desk. Garcia’s “Part One” is almost back in print.
Read More