There’s no place like home.
Landing on up country ground again and having a week with my wife, furry kids, flowers and lawn has given my memories from Rome, Romania and Paris a very special patina.
My little Suzy
Teddy
The week of rest was absolutely necessary. Old people know what I’m talking about. Old tenors are no exception. I’m beginning to feel my batteries holding a charge, and I’m up to bringing my mind back to the word processor to get it to spit out some thoughts. They may be a little Jet Lag limp today, but I expect things to get better soon.
I am so encouraged about the state of the human voice. I wish I could say the same about the human mind. Rome and Sibiu were revelations in my exploration of those human attributes. I know my job is the voice, and will stick to that part of the anatomy as much as possible. Every voice I found on my latest quest was worth developing. Each hopeful singer had every material gift necessary to the craft of singing. However, they all sang with the standard technical deficiencies. Many of the singers are seeking work, but the world is not handing them stacks of contracts every time they audition. Is that something new in the world? Shouldn’t everyone expect rejection? I don’t think so. Rejection should be a puzzle to young people. It was to me. (I’m a tenor, right?) No, the committed singer needs to be puzzled by unsuccessful auditions. First, in the realm called the mind, which is “not my job” today, the singer has to get over the disappointment of a fruitless audition on Monday in order to have a positive attitude when planning for what’s next on his calendar, another AUDITION with time and place attached. Getting through these trials is a mind thing that must be addressed, but not by me at least not today. What I want to address is why the singers I met on this trip get the cold shoulder in auditions. They have been sold a bunch of lies.
I’m happy to say that the above accusation: “Liar!!! Liar! Pants on fire!!” is only mostly true. These students, at least, got some truth. They were all told at some point: “You have a voice! You should take voice lessons and make singing the focus of your life!” The lie came when they heard: “Come take lessons with me and I will make you a star.” Or, on the other hand, they may have heard the derivative: “You need to enroll in my University to get ready for a life in music.” The first lie is easy to dispel. No one can make that claim! The full measure of what it takes to attract enough public attention to be able to claim star status is beyond any teacher’s ability to control. Anyone who would claim star maker abilities needs to be avoided, but what are young people to do when they can’t know these things because of their youth? The University track is the same problem wrapped in a prettier package that I already covered in “Factory Made”. If you think I need to say more on that or any other issue, “Please Write”.
The Rome participants cracked my shell of low expectations and hit me with a set of challenges that might be considered individual nightmares by some teachers. They were dream world stuff all right, but they didn’t give me cold sweats. They filled me with energy, caused my days to start with a burst of ideas rushing to my mind directly from Garcia’s writings and made the close of the day an unexpected arrival. It was my first Master Class in which I could honestly raise my glass of mineral water in a toast to the improvements most of these young people made.
Two of these success stories will continue to be written when they come to Plattsburgh next month. These two from Rome who want more truth about how to sing were among the closest to being “Ready for Prime Time”. That’s why Garcia’s success with them was so obvious. The excitement these young people experienced and expressed was fully matched by my own.
My first days in Sibiu set me up for almost the same experience I had in Rome. Great instruments with as many signs of unfortunate instruction as were presented in Rome. Garcia’s teachings worked again and I had a wonderful time watching as these singers absorbed his advice. One of them even took notes… Surprise! It was a tenor. There were some differences between the Rome experience and my Sibiu work. Whereas in Rome those closest to “Prime Time” moved farthest, in Sibiu those farthest from “Prime Time” made the biggest moves. In Sibiu I had no arguments from any of the singers. In Rome there were a few who just couldn’t believe me, and, one by one ceased to attend the classes. Sibiu and Rome were the best master classes I’ve ever had the pleasure to do, and my satisfaction at being able to confirm Garcia’s teachings with the help of these singers is beyond my ability to quantify. I credit the singers who came trusting me to present Garcia’s wisdom to them.
My excitement with these master class experiences has renewed my faith that God is still making wonderful vocal instruments. I joyfully listened to and worked with many more than I expected to find. They are out there. If these young singers want to learn the best way to use their voices, they need the teachings of Garcia. I come home with a renewed commitment to waving his banner.
I left Europe with an invitation to help create a special kind of Master Class in Montisi.
Morning in Montisi
That project is still in the idea phase, but I have high hopes that my friends there will be successful. My week of home rest had not completed before I received an invitation to return to teach another Master Class in Rome. I hope I can go back this coming February/March.
Accademia Musicale Praeneste, Roma
Going out to glorious vocal discoveries in Europe and coming back to our secret corner of beauty gives me an unreal feeling that all I did was switch dreams. 
I feel like Dorothy took my hand and clicked her ruby slipper heels together, and there I was confronting gorgeous voices dressed in unfortunate costumes. I reached into my bag of Garcia magic, handed out some new clothes and great things happened. Then Dorothy came back and grabbed my hand, did her clicks and here I am again surrounded by Technicolor Treasures. I know the two realities are not dreams, because I had the “Hurricane” of travel that separated Home from Garcia Wonderland. It is also truly real to me because a few of the people in possession of those voices in Europe still talk to me, and here I am, home again, using Garcia’s teachings to help my students who had to wait for Dorothy to bring me back to the wonders of Technicolor.
Do you have a voice and feel like joining me next year in Italy to explore the teachings of Garcia? “Please Write”
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Vacation Over!
Vacation over, I’m cooling my heals at Rome airport. Looking back at Montisi, that little hill town in the photo, reminds me how much I needed to clear my head and charge my batteries. Now I’m ready to do more in Sibiu.
Nice to have my computer so I can seek confirmation from Garcia’s text. His text and my proximity to my latest teaching activity get the old brain cells working.
Garcia keeps cheering me on as I read and remember the Rome Master class sessions. I spent gobs of time pushing singers to express the emotions and character traits of the person the singer was to impersonate. I was fortunate to have students with the technical preparation sufficient to the task and ready to accept the advice. The results were striking. For bright shining moments there were artists in front of me, not just technically proficient vocalists delivering the notes written by the composer and distinctly pronouncing the words of the librettist so that we could understand them. I saw and heard those distinctly proficient artists rip the dead words and music out of the printed score and put their own lives into them. According to my perception, the singers disappeared and the Opera Characters emerged.
In Part 2 on pages 138 -175, Garcia reminded me of how much more he wants me to teach these young people. The tenor is willing but time is short. Those 38 pages are so full I can’t begin to write about them in this blog, but I can stuff everything into Garcia’s Toolbox.
The new drawer is labeled: Expression.
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Montisi
Half my work may now be done. Rome is to my south and Florence to my north. I am happily sautéing in Montisi. Rome was a good place to roast and Montisi seems a great place to simmer in or out of the sun. The best part of the place is the family Mannucci. That they will allow a deactivated tenor to claim sanctuary from the rest of the world in the warm embrace of their home here in the Tuscan Hills is a testament to how wonderful the best that Italy has to offer really is.
It is a great plus that Silvia, the Opera Nut of the family, actually liked my singing when I still did that sort of thing. Now we talk about the content of “Factory Made” in the special manner that Silvia has with the Italian language. The great hope, for Silvia and me, is that at some point the art and craft of singing will be picked up in a way that will bring back my desire to attend performances and her excitement at hearing interpretations that lift her spirits.
The work at Rome lifted my spirits and gave me a little more faith that hope is warranted. I was happy to find material. I smiled as if I were a sculptor with a blank check in Carrara. A very young tenor with a lovely sound, one coloratura soprano with rubies for high notes, one lyric soprano with an instrument of great strength, one living, breathing definition of visual beauty carrying a voice that seeks freedom from a tyranny of “Factory” teaching and a mezzo soprano just so close to prime time. All of these singers, every one seeking a path to success in the world of opera, need more than encouragement. I felt like a kid in a candy store at the end of our work, when these singers took to the little stage that had been the lesson venue to put on a little concert. They put my every doubt in the trash can, broke open the candy cases and handed me everything I wanted them to do with the tools I tried to stuff in their pockets.
I am still up in the air about what the next days will bring, but for sure I am happy with the “so far”.
I will have a lot more to say when I have my own line of access to the internet. For now, I am in great company and loath to dedicate much time to much more than having fun with the Mannuccis.
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The Easier “Messa di Voce”
I guess I should get back to the challenge with which I ended Royal Registers. I call the “Messa Di Voce” (M.D.V) the Final Frontier of color management in classical singing. Renata made me explore it. I would love to have recordings of my lessons in which I was told to start the crescendo portion of the exercise by walking away from her piano and at the moment I knew I was at the halfway point to turn around and walk back to her piano in order to put my hands on the cover of her much loved little grand at the softest part of the decrescendo. Having such a recording would make me happy for many reasons, one of which is that I haven’t found a good “You Tube” of M.D.V that I can stick into this blog.
Renata had many ways to get what she wanted from me, and I wish I had a recording of them all because I sure could use them today. What I remember of the inventive challenges that got me motivated, I use today on my students. “Messa Di Voce” is among my Renata memories. Her M.D.V. excercise taught me a lot, and I didn’t appreciate the greater portion until years after Red (Renata) died. I thought it was all about the length of time I could stretch out that infernally slow crescendo followed by the equally torturous diminuendo. I took the challenge and believed the game was, if she would have let me, to paint a marker on her living room floor at the point of my U-turn that first day of doing this crazy thing. Every lesson following, I would have placed a new marker at the more distant point from her piano that I was supposed to achieve with the result of practice. I was encouraged with almost every attempt, and proud to say that my lines of demarcation first reached the limits of her living room, then the dining room and finally penetrated deep into kitchen territory. I was disappointed that I never got to open the door of her kitchen and walk out onto her driveway or enter her garage or just walk off her premises to visit the Corner Store to purchase a Mars Bar while blaring at the cashier at full vocal throttle. It was a nice dream but we all have limits.
I used to think that Renata’s walking “Messa di Voce” thing had given me the best breath control I could have possibly developed, period. But with this exercise, Renata had, in fact, packed my pockets FULL of tools. Many years later I stuck labels on them. I got the stickers from Garcia.
“The need to master all the colors of the voice has caused us to improvise the following exercise; we consider it one of the most useful which our experience has suggested to us. On a single note and with a single breath, pass gradually through all the timbres from the most clear to the most sombre, and then with another breath pass from the sombre timbre to the clear timbre.”
I plant my flag deeply in the process of this Garcia invention. I call this the halfway point on the way to discovering the secrets of vowel adjustment and the use of colors. Is it an easy process that we can just as easily forget about? After all it isn’t “Messa Di Voce”. It does sound like a different game all together doesn’t it? Let me tell you a story.
Quite a few years ago I found myself in a city where a famous singer was giving a Master Class. I will not give you a name or any other definitive information because that famous singer is still walking the face of the Earth. Anyway, one day I passed by the room in which these master classes were being held and found a class in session. I quietly entered and sat in an empty seat in the last row. No one but the famous singer knew I had come in. After a while, that famous singer decided to ask the members of the class if there were any questions that those present might want to ask of the other “mature” singer that seemed to be hiding at the back of the classroom. I was invited to come to the front and stand before the class to field any questions that the class might have. Almost at once, Garcia became the subject of discussion. I wish I had a tape of those proceedings, but I did not have my recorder with me. Tenors are as tenors do. Things got really interesting when clear and dark timber became the subject of discussion, and I spoke of the exercise Garcia documented in the above quote. The result was inevitable. I had to demonstrate that exercise. This is the point at which the question/answer session screeched to a halt. My colleague said to me: “I’ve had a career of “##” years and never knew anything about the things you are discussing.” My impolitic response was: “Having a career does not require this knowledge.” I think the class was dismissed at this point. At any rate, I learned to avoid similar circumstances, but from this experience I have the answer to the question I asked in the previous paragraph: No, the above exercise is not easy, and yes, it can be dispensed with, but at the cost of knowledge undiscovered.
The student should need no more encouragement to try Garcia’s exercise than Garcia’s own words. It is in Royal Registers that I quote him challenging us to master “Messa Di Voce” and we will get halfway there by learning to do his exercise invention I quote in the earlier portion of this blog.
Is setting out to “master all the colors of the voice” and study “Messa Di Voce” an idle project? If you say yes, but you are vulnerable to persuasion, keep reading. I can’t guarantee that you will change your mind, but even tenors have been known to do it, and yes, some tenors do have minds.
As compared to “Messa Di Voce” there are some missing components to the above exercise which make it easier to do than M.D.V. The easiest to point out is volume. “Messa di Voce” requires a meticulously controlled crescendo and diminuendo. The above Garcia invention makes no reference to a change of volume. What he doesn’t tell us to change, we don’t have to change and we actually must not change. One vowel, one note/pitch, one volume, one breath and one other unchanging vocal attribute. What is it?
Hint:
It is the one that Garcia came to better understand with his little mirrors.
It is “Glottal Closure”. Garcia, with his un-“Messa Di Voce” color exercise trains our ears to hear all the possible and even the impossibly ridiculous color differences we can make with our instruments. Some might say that it is a precursor to “Extended Vocal Technique”. I know I’ll have to write about this three word modernity at some point, and here I offer an introduction. Garcia and I would say his little exercise is intended to extend the color range of each vowel beyond the limits of the taste and the traditions as well as the requirements of the written music of the period of Garcia’s life. Today we have new stuff written by composers who chafe at any restriction handed down by tradition on their creative talent, but Garcia even covers the requirements of these upstarts. A singer just has to follow Garcia’s teachings and the “Modern Composer” will get whatever he wants. Wagner wanted Garcia to teach the singers that were debuting his music. Why should we think that Garcia would be insufficient for training the singers who will put themselves at the service of composers living with us today?
He titled his book “A Complete Treatise on the Art of Singing”. He edited his book to include his discoveries that postdate his original edition. That made his title retain its’ validity. It is a “Complete Treatise” of what we need to know. Garcia put it all together in 1855 and lived for another half Century dispensing the wisdom of his first half Century of life on Earth. I don’t plan to have that long to promote this wisdom, but will do so for as long as I can. I have yet to discover anything that modern research has to add to Garcia’s wisdom that improves or extends our understanding or the function of the human voice.
Even though I still don’t have any examples of M.D.V I am comfortable with, I do have an interesting link on You Tube “Messa di voce: Horne, Pavarotti, Sutherland, Bonynge” that a friend, Jon Chatlos, forwarded to me. What a quartet!!! Richard Bonynge interviewing a trio of the best of the best, and what happens? Richard says:
“Give us a beautiful messa di voce. In other words, a messa di voce starts piano an’ a big crescendo and a big decrescendo.” “And so many singers can do the first half but they can’t do the second half”
Fun isn’t it? No one actually does a full M.D.V but they do a Half M.D.V. My wife tells me that I should embed one of the You Tube videos of me. That’s because she loves me. There are some videos of my work on You Tube that I really like, but I don’t want to make this blog about me. However I am always willing to make my Debbie happy. For you tenors out there, that’s because I love her.
I did propose a Reverse “Messa Di Voce” to decorate the end of my aria in “L’Occasione Fa Il Ladro” when first I sang it in Lausanne, Switzerland. I was blessed to have my favorite conductor ever, Bruno Campanella, there to guide us through the Opera. At our first rehearsal I asked him if I could insert the M.D.V. “embellishment” at the end of the aria. He said: “Let me see it in context of the staging.” So I demonstrated how it would work in Ponnelle’s staging and I was happy to receive a blessing from Bruno after he recovered from his bout of laughter.
I loved working with that man smiling at you in the photo!! The rest is history. Some of that history has been posted to You Tube.
The following video is for Debbie, and serves as an example of the sort of thing Garcia is talking about with “Messa Di Voce”.
Just in case you missed it, the following bit is a full reverse “Messa Di Voce” with a unidirectional Renata walk which I added to the aria at the very end of all the vocal runs and jumps.
I promise I will not put myself up as example again for a long time. Thanks for being patient with me for this bit of self reference.
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The opposite of night is day. The opposite of dark is light. The opposite of Dark Timbre is Clear Timbre.
Clear Timbre is on display in all four videos I put in “Great Singing”. Clear Timbre is a tool that adjusts whatever “original timbre” the larynx produces. It is a simple label for a very complicated process, and the most important part of the discussion is really about what you hear. Dark and Clear are really good modifiers for the word timbre. They are opposites, binary if you will accept my way of thinking. However, in the case of timbres, hearing is a lot more important than thinking. As a first offering I suggest you listen to Ms. Callas sing in the clip that you can also find in “Great Singing”:
Now I want to point out the timbre application in this extract:
At the words: “refuser. Rien n’y fait, menace ou prière,” Maria makes a quick move from Dark Timber to Super Clear Timber during the transition between the words “refuser” and “Rien” with a grand portamento that includes not only the color change, but also pitch change of an octave and a striking diminuendo. She proceeds to moderate the extreme Clear Timbre of “Rien” as she moves down the scale. This is a great display of virtuosity.
When I chose to offer the Firestone Library clips of Leonard Warren as examples of “Great Singing”, my intent was not to bring them up in this Clear Timbre blog, but that NEC blessing on my inclusion now has a double benefit. It occurred to me that one might be tempted to call these clips great examples for demonstrating the sonic difference between Clear and Dark Timbre. That would be wrong, even though I was the first to be tempted to do so. They demonstrate the difference between Complete and Incomplete Glottal Closure. Mr. Warren sang both songs with a majority of clear timbre application. “A little bit of Heaven” represents Complete Glottal Closure and “None but the lonely heart” is sung with Incomplete Glottal Closure. Have a look in the drawer labeled “Glottal Closure” in “Garcia’s Tool Box”. There is also more on the subject in “Royal Registers”.
Another one of my favorite examples of Clear Timbre use happens to be what Kristin Chenoweth does to her “original timbre” to make her voice sound about 5 years old.
Now this is Great Clear timbre work. Hers is no doubt a coloratura voice which is light in character in the first place, but the effects this little woman achieves with her voice are great. I can recommend that you listen to her for the fun of it, and then ask yourself: What is she actually doing with her voice?
Some other fun examples of extreme clear timbre use that I can recommend for fun listening is on Manhattan Transfer recordings. The first one would be “Swing”. Have a listen to the solo riff sung by Cheryl Bentyne on cut #1 “Stomp of King Porter”. Cheryl B. has another go at the clear high stuff in “The Manhattan Transfer Live” on cut #3 “Meet Benny Bailey”. By the way, that was one great group of singers. I didn’t say “group of voices”. The gifts in the throat were limited but they knew how to sing. Limitations are always present for all singers. They made up for their organic limitations by force of intelligence and musicianship. You could say I hold these singers up as examples of “Greatness”. Style of music has nothing to do with “Greatness”, and Opera is not the exclusive home of “Great Singing”.
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On The Road Again
On The Road Again, I just can’t avoid getting back on the road again.
Yes, I can’t stay home. Travel is to work as onions are to cooking. A few miles are OK, like from home to downtown Plattsburgh… 4.5 miles to be exact and I could even say that an hour or two behind the wheel of my little red truck would not set my eyes to tearing, but putting my life in the hands of the travel industry in these days of hyper-drive security showmanship is like being the guy with the knife in charge of all the onions in a kitchen that serves hundreds of hungry Hungarians. Tears anyone? Check out how many recipes have no onions.
I love to eat, and Goulash is on my love list, but my technique for onion avoidance is to be Barry Barbeque shouldering the “burn the meat” responsibility while leaving all the kitchen affairs to my wife Debbie. Of course technique is never a perfect answer to any policy desire and my resistance to the onion effect on my eyes dissolves when Debbie smiles and asks me to chop, slice, dice, peal, crush or otherwise wield the cutlery I keep sharp in our kitchen. Who can say no to a beautiful woman??? Not to put it too strongly, but she is the most beautiful girl I ever met.
Anyway, summer is just beyond the near freezing temperatures we get at night, and the Barbeque has been warmed twice already. The rhododendrons and tulips are singing at us from our garden. Just about the time everything else in our garden will be tuned up for the wonderful Summer Symphony out back of our house,
Our Secret Garden
I’m faced with having to go north to hand in my ticket, my luggage and my life to those performers pretending to protect us from ourselves. I know I would turn and run back to the car, kiss my wife and beg her to drive me home again but for the fact that I cannot say no to that which I see as my calling. It isn’t a beautiful woman. It isn’t even Beautiful Singing….. No, I am called to promote Great Singing. Garcia is my guide, and I have no way to say no to a request to be the guide I feel called to be. I can try, but over time my resistance always drains away.
Like Willie Nelson I love making “music with my friends” but I will not be singing while spinning wheels on the road to the Airport. First I’m going to Roma:
For a few days I’ll teach with the help of a young pianist, Rita Lo Giudice. She is responsible for inviting me to Italy to do Master Classes in Great Singing which Garcia is all about. After those five days of furious promotion of the best vocal practices, I will move on with Rita to other collaborations she is organizing in Altidona and Firenze.
When I have the details to publish I will post them. I have a place I must visit if I go to Firenze. Debbie would disavow my duty to bring back a remembrance for my beautiful bride. She is so thrifty these days, but if I get close, I must do that Old Bridge.
July will take me to Romania. Now there is a surprise inside a friendship. I have never been to Romania. I never thought I would get the chance to actually travel there. Because of the suggestion of one of my newest friends, pianist Liora Maurer, I was invited to Romania to do a Master Class. Now I have several reasons for my desire to know more about Romania.
Back in 2003, before Miguel Lerin introduced me to Elena Obraztsova, he gave me a chance to sing a duet concert with my only Romanian friend, Nelly Miricioiu. I first met Nelly in London when we made a recording for Opera Rara. I had so much fun making that recording that when Miguel asked me to sing with her in the opening concert of the Concurs Francesc Viñas I jumped at the chance. We had a wonderful time. We rehearsed in the home of pianist, Marco Evangelisti and met Jaime Aragall who had just finished rehearsing with Mr. Evangelisti. The World is really small, and the World of Music could be depicted as a small drop of water, but it is a rare occasion for two tenors to meet without being contracted to do so. I get off subject here, and I admit I am vulnerable to distraction. Anyway, Nelly told us stories of Romania……………
I also came to know a mechanic living within artillery range of Plattsburgh who comes from Romania. We had some long talks while he did some work on that car you can see me working on in “How I Started”. Romania was for him and his family a place from which to escape. Now, in 2012, off I go to invade the place. I bet things have radically changed in Romania since my fellow grease monkey fled Romania for the USA. I hope to turn at least one blog page to a report of what I get to see in the new Romania. My biggest hope is to find open minded singers with really good instruments.
Please come and enjoy some of the new Romania and/or the old reliable Italy. While travel is still fun for you young people, I can recommend it as educational. I also hope you will think of these Master Classes as an opportunity to put me to the test. Do I know what I’m talking about? Come and find out.
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