Great Singing
The saying: “The best things in life are free!!” could apply to You Tube. I am happy that many find entertainment in that Data Base of video. Those millions watching YT instead of TV support a trove of rare treasures that I get to troll through hoping to snag a few tidbits of Great Singing. You Tube is not the answer for young singers wondering why their voices don’t actually follow what the Professor tells them to do, but it is a partial answer to my question “Why?!!” that my mind screamed when I came across:
I do not try to explain greatness in singing; there are too many imponderables to attempt such a task.
Stark, James (2011-07-07). Bel Canto: A History of Vocal Pedagogy (Kindle Locations 222-223). University of Toronto Press. Kindle Edition.
Stark kind of answers my question with:
This is the price that one pays for steering a middle course.
Stark, James (2011-07-07). Bel Canto: A History of Vocal Pedagogy (Kindle Location 224). University of Toronto Press. Kindle Edition.
Since this is still my favorite modern book dedicated to the vocal arts, one might take issue with me criticizing the author for his apparent timidity. I will grant the politically partisan pedant the point that one should never mention the weaknesses of the people on your side, but just steam ahead dropping references to only those features of your party members that strongly support your position. I believe the “Whole Truth” on a subject is more important than winning any campaign. I guess that “Whole Truth” objective could be my campaign slogan. Stark must have a lot he could say about this “Greatness” thing, but he worked in the Factory where the only partisan activity tolerated these days carries the label Political Correctness. He could have trundled out his opinions, which I’m sure he has, about what it takes to make a “Great” performance, but at least a few of the other Voice Workers on the Factory floor would have objected. The PC ethical imperative “to make nice” seems to have risen to a higher priority than the Professor’s responsibilities to the student.
Garcia directed his efforts as follows:
*In the investigation which we are going to outline of the qualities most necessary to the student, we have in view the singer who intends to take up opera. Not only should he have the intellectual advantages which will permit him to satisfy all the demands of a severe criticism, but also, his constitution should enable him to withstand the wear and tear which await him in the practice of his art.* The most favorable intellectual conditions are a true passion for music, the capacity to grasp clearly and to engrave into his memory the melodies and harmonic combinations, *an exuberant spirit, joined with a quick and observing mind.* With respect to the physical conditions, we place in the first rank the voice, which should be fresh, attractive [sympathique], extensive, and strong; in the second rank the vigor of the constitution, usually matched to the qualities of the organ which we have just indicated.
*Thus should every individual be organized who wishes to rise to the rank of distinguished artist,* but let one make no mistake about it, the combination of all these natural gifts, however rare they may be, would not suffice by themselves to constitute true talent. The most favorable aptitudes need to be cultivated and directed in their application by a sustained and orderly labor. The singer who ignores the sources of the effects and the secrets of the art is only an incomplete talent, a slave of routine.
A Complete Treatise on the Art of Singing: Part One – Pages 1 and 2
Those bits of Garcia’s text that have a “*” preceding and following them are in his first edition, but disappear from later editions.
Stark and Garcia seem to have very different intentions. In Garcia’s description of the student that he would accept to teach we read of his intent to help that student rise to the rank of “distinguished artist”. One could assume that the “distinguished artist” would at some point have to display, for at least a short period of time, some “Greatness in Singing”. How would anyone attain to “distinguished artist” without a brief display of uncommon competence in the singing art? Mr. Stark is in fact at a true disadvantage because of the philosophical environment in which he drops his soap box before even beginning to tell us what he knows.
The critical method is to seek a rapprochement between historical and scientific views of good singing – that is, to extrapolate backwards in time our current understanding of the physiology, aerodynamics, and acoustics of singing as a means of reinterpreting historical vocal practices. Musicologist Carl Dahlhaus defined history as ‘memory made scientific’ (1983, 3); fellow musicologist Leo Treitler said, ‘understanding takes place in the fusion of the horizons of present and past’ (1982, 71). My purpose has been to attempt such a fusion in the history of vocal pedagogy.
Stark, James (2011-07-07). Bel Canto: A History of Vocal Pedagogy (Kindle Locations 181-185). University of Toronto Press. Kindle Edition.
Garcia wants to tell us what we need to do to attain to “Distinguished Operatic Artist”, and Stark wants to tell us how to reinterpret Garcia in order to find agreement between today’s “discoveries” and yesterday’s assertions. Well, Stark does tell us more:
The field of singing is alive with inquiry and controversy. As George Bernard Shaw wrote in 1886, ‘Though there must by this time be in existence almost as many handbooks for singers and speakers as a fast reader could skip through in a lifetime or so, publishers still find them safe investments’ (Shaw 1969, 127). (I and my publisher hope he is correct!) Authors on singing have ranged from geniuses to fools, and have included voice teachers, singers, critics, voice buffs, and musicologists.
Stark, James (2011-07-07). Bel Canto: A History of Vocal Pedagogy (Kindle Locations 197-200). University of Toronto Press. Kindle Edition.
Profit motive aside, Stark does us a great service by presenting many pertinent bits of history. His target audience: “voice students and teachers who may need a scholarly road map” should applaud him for his work, and I slap my palms together while wishing for more. What a shame that Stark can say he recognizes fools and geniuses on the list of authors to which he adds his name, but lacks the ability/courage to even allow that “Greatness in Singing” can be recognized by him or anyone else. Maps are great, but if you won’t declare or define your destination, what practical use does a map have? I hope his publisher does sell lots of copies of his book. But I wish he could have jumped the fence of PC, so beloved of The Factory, for just a sentence or two. I for one would love to have his idea of who might offer our ears some “Greatness in Singing.” Garcia didn’t shy away from giving out names.
Back to the best things in life. You Tube will confirm Stark’s words: “The field of singing is alive with inquiry and controversy.” The comments posted to each video by the lovers of singing would definitely inspire fear in the heart of anyone who wants to hide behind Political Correctness. There is nothing PC about some of the more colorful denigrations posted as comments on YT videos, and in many cases they are just plain provocative without any rational basis for the opinions expressed. If you can resist the mudslinging, you can use You Tube to further your education.
Please consider Elena Obraztsova.
Here we have the first video I found that I can call a gem of Greatness. I didn’t find this video by chance. I found it because I had just met this impressive person in Barcelona. Mr. Miguel Lerin a descendent of the dramatic tenor Francisco Viñas, whom Garcia would have known from at least 1891, invited me to be part of the panel of “Experts” in his ancestor’s commemorative voice competition. As I looked across the conference table at Ms. Obraztsova, I became convinced that I was observing one of the great singers of the world. Because I was an ignorant tenor I had some work to do to know if this first impression was reliable. You Tube was just the thing. Because my hotel was charging me for the internet connection I used to access You Tube, I cannot say that my education concerning Elena Obraztsova was free. But I can say that discovering this video was among many good reasons to pay the several Euros a day that the information stream was costing me.
I later found another rendition of the Bizet ditty on You Tube that is also a gem of Greatness.
Maria Callas sings this aria with Greatness of a different sort.
Here we have Leonard Warren with a great example of “Clear Timbre” singing:
The following is a great example of how the same voice can produce a wonderful contrast.
Greatness in singing is something that can be discussed and can be a goal and destination. No map is going to help someone wandering around wondering what Greatness might be. It has to be heard and seen. Garcia designed the map and he tells us the destination. His first edition gave us some names of singers he held up as examples. Nicolas Levasseur, Luigi Lablache, Giovanni Battista Rubini, and his own father, Manuel García, are mentioned on page 30.
These singers were perishable. They died without recording anything. In their day they could preserve peaches, but not performances. Today You Tube can preserve even the stuff we wish everyone would forget. YT is a great tool, and I will use it to help me fill in the audiovisual blanks that Dr. Stark and every other modern book writer seems comfortable leaving empty. We really need to see and hear the destination. Then we can use the map: Garcia’s Map.
I do not suggest that one should imitate any singer, great or not. Leave that to the comedians. I will get around to explaining why these gems of greatness are great. In the meantime go visit You Tube and look up other singers doing these songs. The differences between Great and not so Great are sometimes really easy to spot. Some can make you laugh or cry depending on your PC conditioning.
Every aphorism must concede to reality and some of “the best things in life” are not public domain. One of the best wells into which to dip ones’ research pail is located at the New England Conservatory . In the Firestone Library one can find some really important “Greatness in Singing”. I asked NEC for a blessing on my inclusion of the two examples of singing that originate from their archives, and with their approval, I’m happy that I am able to include one Great Singer, Leonard Warren, singing two examples of “Greatness in Singing”. The photo attached to this blog is a scan of the front panel of the box from which I got these little gems. It contained a VHS tape published by VAI that I purchased at Tower Records in Manhattan many years ago.
Read More
Royal Registers
I started out to write a blog about the “passaggio”. You know that thing that boys get to play or fight with while doing classical music. While I was processing a pile of words about the “Magic Passage” my wife, Debbie, found the “Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Volume 7” in a Google search. Tenor that I am, I had no idea that these books (how many volumes are there anyway?) were even published. The fact that some of them lay waiting to be raided by anyone with a computer and internet is worth a party with fireworks…sorry….for now, I’ll have to do without the fireworks. I don’t have a license to play with those things here in NYS. Anyway, Google’s stash of old books is now very high on my list of the best free offers on the net. Garcia’s “Observations on the Human Voice” is on page 399.
If you’re interested in the TRUTH about singing, read this little bit of Garcia from 1855. He paints a word picture of a magnificently complex system. Certainly the abilities of the human voice he describes in the first pages of his magnum opus (check out “Why Garcia?”) find some explanation in this very intricate and yet tiny structure. His presentation seems to torpedo the other theories of phonation that were still floating around at the time this was published. I don’t think that his theory under the heading “Manner in which the sounds are formed” immediately silenced all other opinion, but it is the one that survived the test of time. It was Garcia’s first paragraph under the heading: “Conjectures on the Formation of the different Registers” on page 405 that made me toss most of my pile of words about “passaggio” out the back door of my blogging hut. For me, this text is the key to unlocking some “secret” things in Garcia’s writings. It also answered questions I had from reading some biographical material about him. I’m not saying that all my questions are answered. I’m saying that my education is still ongoing and what I learn clears my vision.
In the paragraph I referenced above the words “the cause of the different tones called registers, must be sought for in the muscles which set these ligaments in motion” are the key to everything that follows in this blog. Under the last heading in his “Observations”, “Of the Qualities of the Voice.” Garcia reiterates his assertion that the quality of glottal closure gives rise to either brilliant or veiled sounds. Wait….. I thought Garcia said something about finding the causal agent for the registers within the structures that form the glottis. I want more from Garcia. I want him to tell me what the registers really are. Does he?
In his “Hints” we find Garcia prevaricating while I want a straight answer. In his response to the question “What is a register?” does Garcia explain what a “mechanism” is? No he does not. Neither does he explain what “another mechanism” might be. It is at this point the instruction “use your brain” becomes extremely important. Garcia is credited with this instruction by his biographer. Check out the end of “Mind over Matter”. I get the implication here. Garcia really does know something, but he is not sharing it with us.
Before Debbie dropped the “Proceedings of the Royal Society” on my laptop, I cherished as my very favorite Garcia challenge something I found in his “Hints”. The Q and A discussion that leads to the text I am about to type out for you starts under the heading “4. SOUND (RESONANCE).” on page 6. The key text is on the next page. After discussing his theory of phonation Garcia poses the question “Has this observation any importance?” and decorates it with a margin note: “Secret of Tone-Colour”.
What Garcia says here is a much more inclusive statement than that margin note would imply: “indeed initiates him (the singer) into all the secrets of voice-production.” Hold on there. What is the list of theories the singer must explore to attain initiation into “ALL” “SECRETS” concerning “VOICE-PRODUCTION”?
- Glottal Closure
- Timbres
- Breath
Now that we know the list, what are the secrets? Garcia knew what he was talking about. Why didn’t he make a full disclosure of everything I want him to explain? I have my own ideas about that but I’m going to go Garcia on you and keep them in the realm of my “Secrets” for future blogs.
Now let’s get to some of the words I didn’t throw out the back door.
Garcia didn’t seem to bother about “passaggio” and happy I am he didn’t. I’ve been saying for years that it doesn’t exist. That word describes only a few notes on the musical scale. Although I never found Garcia using this term, he does give advice about those few notes in “Hints on Singing” at page 39. However, on page 14 of the same book we find Garcia warning that certain expertise must be developed before the advice on page 39 should be attempted. Garcia is even more cautionary in his Treatise and because the book is anything but free I quote it here:
“We will not concern ourselves at first with the messa di voce, which we believe needs to be treated only in one of the advanced chapters of this first part. To spin out the tones [messa di voce] is to refine [polir] them, to give them their final polish [vernis]. In order to succeed in it, it is necessary to master the action of the lungs and that of the pharynx. The study of the messa di voce, if one indulged in it at the beginning, would succeed only in fatiguing the student without teaching him anything. The ability to spin out tones should in a way be the result of all the other studies; to be able to spin out tones well is to be a singer.”
It is on page 133 of part one of Paschke’s translation of Garcia’s big book that we find the “advanced chapter” ii. Drawn out tones (messa di voce, spianata di voce) to which he alludes in the above quote. I’m going to wimp out for now and not type it into this blog. Forgive me for putting it off, but that chapter will be the basis for more than a few blogs to come.
The following appears on page 48:
There is a small variation in wording that Paschke includes in the Appendix that has large implication:
Does anyone detect the inconsistencies in these extracts? Am I complaining? Do I want to say that Garcia must be confused about register and timbre because I see overlapping labels for what would seem to be one and the same thing? Not at all. I am sure Garcia was well aware of the risk that someone like me could nit-pick his text to death over his tendency to use the words “chest register” and “clear timbre” interchangeably. That would be if someone like me wanted to claim he was really an ignorant dummy whose memory is deserving of extinction. This is not true of me, but I have read dismissive writings that reveal the existence of living individuals who seem to wish Garcia would just be forgotten. So far, the literary output that I have read from such resentful pedagogical practitioners has yet to focus on this risky inconstancy. I’m not hoping someone will take up the challenge and use my observations as a club with which to beat Garcia about the head. I’m just saying that the risk has always been there.
So what is my point? First, the “passaggio” doesn’t exist. The above quote from page 48 was enough for me to understand a long time ago that Garcia was telling us a lot about what a listener expected to hear from a tenor. In the first paragraph he explains that the listener did not want to hear the juvenile clear thin tones that we tenors are all capable of producing on and above the notes delineated by the label “passaggio”. He tells us that we should always sing these notes with an application of “Sombre Timbre”. In the second paragraph he instructs us to sing all the notes under discussion in the “falsetto” register. Is this confusion or a hint about “passaggio”? Neither. It is an invitation to take into account everything he wrote and understand the implications. At least, for this tenor, register and “timbre” began to crystallize as two words describing one function. When I got hold of the “Proceedings” I began to understand that it was more complicated, but at least not MAGIC. When you add the extract from the Paschke Appendix to this mix you are faced with Garcia placing men and women in the same harness. We are all under the restriction to avoid “clear timbre” on the same notes that are discussed on Page 48. The chronology is definitely important. He had not invented the laryngoscope yet and had not presented his “Observations” in the “Proceedings”. It is in this deleted text appearing in the Appendix of Garcia’s Magnum Opus that I get the full picture. I understand now that before 1854 Garcia was leading his reader to infer that “Clear Timbre” = “chest register” and that “Sombre Timbre” equals “falsetto register”. This is not confusion, but a clarification. These magic words: “Low Voice”, “Chest Voice”, “Chest Register”, “Falsetto Voice”, “Middle Voice”, “High Voice”, “Head Voice” and “Passaggio” are all just labels for note ranges in which different functional abilities of the human voice come into play. Garcia was quite careful to describe for us these functional abilities as precisely as he could. He completed this list of functional attributes of the vocal organs with the aid of his little mirror. His “Observations on the Human Voice.” tells me to forget all that “Sombre/Clear Timbre” stuff and to now look to the vocal chords, and the observed abilities of those little ligaments for the productive cause of the registers. My inference is now: Chest Voice = complete glottal closure = the brilliant sound that is foundational to “Clear Timbre” and Falsetto/Middle/Head Voice = incomplete glottal closure = veiled sounds that can be used to complement or reinforce “Sombre Timbre”.
Do the registers exist? Yes they do exist as words in our vocabulary that we can use to discuss note ranges. They do not exist as inviolate Holy Ground that must be entered through the narrow gates of Register Events. The dressing up of our voices, ladies and laddies, with the sonic character expected from our voices in any of the registers is only really dependent on taste. Garcia set his sights on answering the question: “What do we use to get it done?”
Go back up to the two text variations on what to do about the note range:
You will see that Garcia bases his arguments on taste. No one wants to hear a grown person sound like a “choir boy”…. Wait, that is no longer true. Let’s just say Garcia didn’t want to hear such a sound come out of the mouth of a mature individual. Before he laid eyes on the glottis, Garcia was happy to mix girls and boys together in his advice about “Clear Timbre”, but when he was able to see the better picture of the vocal function it became difficult to keep them together. He came to see that for boys “Sombre Timbre” was the only necessary component with which to dress up the male voice in order to avoid the sound of a choir boy. Complete Glottal Closure and Incomplete Glottal Closure is independently applicable to the sound according to the male artist’s choice. For the girls this is not perfectly the case. The pre 1854 advice mixing the sexes together had to be thrown out, because Garcia saw that, for the ladies, Incomplete Glottal Closure was the indispensable tool to use to avoid that unacceptable childlike sound. I’m sure he moved the discussion of the above note range out of timbre territory in his first edition into the register region of his later editions because he knew that this conclusion changed the argument from timbre use to register placement which really gives away this “Timbre equals Register” thing. I believe it is one of the truths he wanted to keep under his label “SECRETS”. We singers are challenged by Garcia to uncover “ALL” such “SECRETS” by mastering messa di voce.
Who wants to take the challenge?
Read MoreMind Over Matter
I am indebted to every singer who ever asked for my help and got some and every singer who participated in one of my master classes, because this thing called “teaching” is a two way street. With my retirement calendar blissfully free of singing commitments I can say yes to teaching and learning in ways that I could not do while in harness. Basking in the liberty of retirement, I could make this blog a happy party about freedom. However, for today, I want to talk about the antonym.
Singers seem to suffer the crazy idea that the process of singing is an exercise of conscious mind over matter. During my career I was aware of a few singers who seemed to treat their instruments as just a bunch of flesh they needed to manipulate, but they seemed a rarity. I now fear that there may have been quite a few wrongheaded singers out there and it was I who rarely recognized one.
Since I retired, I’ve seen and heard so many singers who mistreat their voices that I’ve had to admit that this mind over matter attitude about singing must be pervasive. For all I know this could have been well established when I started taking voice lessons back in 1967. It took me a long time, at least ten years into my career, to recognize my first mind over matter singer. I was surprised when this artist made me understand that she believed that her voice was her slave. This is the antonym to freedom.
I preach freedom. I learned freedom from Renata Booth without knowing she was teaching it. She never offered me any advice or instruction that might have given me the idea that I could consciously manipulate large portions of my vocal apparatus. Let me restate the previous sentence: Renata did not tell me that I could make my voice my slave. What she did teach me was a great respect for the gift I had in my throat and a solid confidence that the gift would develop as I played the exercise games she made me sing in my lessons. I had no idea how this was to take place, but I trusted her. I assumed she knew what she was up to and I just enjoyed the challenges and jumped through whatever vocal hoop she set before me. I had no idea that she was also teaching me the freedom I actually took for granted.
Like I said, my mind was bereft of any intent to control anything with the exception of the smile Renata told me was important to affect with my mouth. Beyond that small requirement I had no mandate to pay any attention to physiology. I maintained this approach through my debut in Washington, DC. During a pause in a rehearsal, I remember someone commenting on my singing and asking me “How do you do that?!” I answered with words that have great meaning for me now: “I just do it, and I know that it is right when I can’t feel a thing. My teacher put it in me and I just let it out.” Remember, I was very young. My unintended implication was that I had no intellectual part in the process of doing all those things that are supposed to be unthinkably difficult. That definition of freedom by which I sang was good enough as long as I had Renata doing the thinking for me.
My limited comprehension was fine until I got a compliment from a soprano. Although what she said about my voice was all positive for her tastes in singing it put me on notice that I was doing something wrong. My wife ,Debbie, was recording performances already, and miracle of miracles, I listened to one of the performances that the soprano was talking about. Oops. What a revelation. I knew then that I needed to figure some things out and begin doing my own thinking. I know, I know! It’s not a tenor thing to do.
Recording my performances took on a new importance. I needed to be my own teacher. I had to work hard to preserve what Renata had taught me and harder still to understand it intellectually. I found the process boring beyond my wildest dreams, but the results were good, so I kept it up. Debbie helped a lot by giving me little critiques that got me out of my boredom box to listen to, change and improve my singing. It was a lot of work, but it was an education that is still being completed through Garcia:
“It is his (Garcia Sr.) method which I have wanted to reproduce by trying to reduce it to a more theoretical form and by attaching the results to the causes.”
Complete Treatise on the Art of Singing
(translation: Donald Paschke – Da Capo Press)
Here we have the shortest short hand I can imagine. Garcia states the “method” as belonging to his father and then proceeds to tell us that he is going to reduce it to another form. By using the word “theoretical” Garcia places his work within the scientific community. He says that while making his reduction to “theoretical form” he will be “attaching the results to the causes.” Effect and cause? Wait.., wait….. Isn’t that “Cause and Effect”? Nice! If your mind followed me and anticipated this question, my battle is almost won. Garcia makes no mistake in word order. His project is perfectly stated. He is out to give explanation for the results/effects that the human voice produces. That is to say: When a voice makes a noise, Garcia has an explanation for the cause.
“Manuel, the son, did not like to hear it called a ‘method’-methods, he said, were patterns for shoemakers to follow! He preferred to think of his work as a scientific education in vocal art – which Is exactly what It Is.”
Anna E. Schoen-René (1862-1942) The Etude – 1941 November page 745
Ms. Schoen-René helps me construct a formula: “method” equals “pattern” equals “Factory Made“. Garcia understood that methods were tyrannical, mechanical and impersonal. We are today surrounded with the idea that Garcia and everyone who ever wrote about “method” were tussling with words to explain the use of causes (tools) for the project of getting the results (effects). The idea today is if singers can know the cause of a particular sound then they can wrangle their instruments into producing it. This idea mostly empowers the teacher. It tempts the singer into believing that he/she has the power to manipulate his/her voice according to the teacher’s dictates. This is a trap for the student. Loading the student up with instructions about how to manage the various parts of his/her instrument is a perfect formula for failure.
Teacher: “Now if you place your mouth in this position with your tongue just about this high and the larynx just about there, your high C will come out magnificently.”
Singer: “OK! Here I go: aAaoAaEaoeoe! How was that?”
Teacher: “Not so hot. You need to work on it. When you get all those things in the right place the sound will come out just right. If you cannot manage the simplest of instructions you might consider a career in Education or maybe waiting tables.”
Singer then thinks: “I know exactly what Maestro wants, and I wish my voice would only do it!!! Maybe he is partially correct. I can take his instructions just fine. There must be something wrong with my voice! Maybe I should be thinking of a career in Education.”
My idea is that the teacher needs to try shoemaking. My Favorite Voice Lesson is an even better rendition of the above.
Renata often said to me “SING WITH YOUR EARS!!” Did I understand what she ment back in 1967, 68, 69 or even 1976 when I made my debut in Washington, DC? No, I did not. I do understand it now. The complete vocal apparatus is VOICE and EARS. Garcia handed me the intellectual keys to unlock the meaning of what my ears were always hearing. The Sony Walkman made the completion of my education possible by giving me the chance to hear my voice in the way only a teacher or the audience can. My education is not finished at all, and my students are now a great resource. Renata was once my first source, but since she is gone I content myself with what history leaves for me to discover. Garcia’s books are now my first source. His biographer quotes Garcia:
“I only tell you how to sing, what tone is good, what faults are to be avoided, what is artistic, what inartistic. I try to awaken your intelligence, so that you may be able to criticize your own singing as severely as I do. I want you to listen to your voice, and use your brain. If you find a difficulty, do not shirk it. Make up your mind to master it. So many singers give up what they find hard. They think they are better off by leaving it, and turning their attention to other things which come more easily. Do not be like them.”
Mackinlay, M. (Malcolm) Sterling (2011-09-07). Garcia the Centenarian And His Times Being a Memoir of Manuel Garcia’s Life and Labours for the Advancement of Music and Science (Kindle Locations 2967-2971). Kindle Edition.
These words could have come right out of Renata‘s mouth all dressed up with her special Italian accent. I live according to Garcia’s advice and so should every singer. Freedom has a terrible price: Responsibility. Be responsible and listen to your voice. Give it the freedom it needs to sing for you. It will surprise you.
Read MoreFactory Made
The questions I left open in Why Garcia? need to be closed before I move on. I complained about the singing I hear today. I said that singers are sounding factory made. Well, I didn’t say that, but it is what I implied.
My friend Ron Carter had this to say about my last blog:
“What people will have a hard time following, in my opinion, is how the luminosity of voice such as yours or Frederica von Stade’s in the early part of her career were not like anyone else. You both had a vocal luminosity and transparency that immediately set you apart. This transparency and luminosity made anyone who sang with you sound veiled and odd in comparison. This is the natural quality I think Garcia mentions in his text.”
In some ways I wish Garcia had written about naturalness, but he actually walked away from defining the individual characteristics of the singer’s voice. I have no choice but to look elsewhere for help with which to explain what it was he refused to discuss and why. In Bel Canto: A History of Vocal Pedagogy, James Stark gathers together into his second chapter “Chiaroscuro: The Tractable Tract” more than enough stuff from vocal literature to justify Garcia leaving the subject for others to wrangle with. Mr. Stark even gives us a little Garcia to chew on, and, because Stark does such a great job, I have no intent to plow this field at all. For the reader who can/will not afford the cost/effort to read Stark’s book I offer my summary of his second chapter:
“The well trained voice of a gifted person pursuing an operatic career has “Chiaroscuro”; a dual quality that has characteristics that are really hard to describe. Many who have attempted to define this brilliance plus roundness of tone get so hard pressed that they just call it unmistakable to the “conditioned, cultivated or experienced” ear.”
Garcia makes a statement with a similar premise of discernment to anyone who wants to teach singing:
“Often one needs an experienced judgement (sic) to recognize in the voice of the student the germ of the true qualities which it possesses. Generally, these qualities are only in the rudimentary state, or well veiled by numerous faults from which it is necessary to free them. The essential point is to first establish the existence of them; one then manages to complete the development of them by patient and orderly studies.”
translation:Donald Paschke Da Capo Press
By using a portion of the above quote and one from Why Garcia? I’ve built a statement incorporating Garcia’s own words: “one needs an experienced judgement (sic) to recognize in the voice of the student the germ of the true qualities which it possesses” in order to bring them out from behind any vocal faults the student’s voice may present. By so liberating these qualities everyone will be able to appreciate the singers “true qualities” which are the personal “outstanding differences which distinguish the voices of various individuals”. These qualities the experienced teacher should be able to hear as a “germ” in the untrained voice.
Garcia was not writing about Chiaroscuro in some kind of code. It is really unfortunate for the voice student that “The Quest for Chiaroscuro” seems to be the new “Quest for the Holy Grail” in the pedagogical world. I’m not suggesting that there is no value in trying to lasso Chiaroscuro, hog tie it and brand it with some kind of meaningful label. I am suggesting that it has become one of the important confusions in the mind of the pedagogue.
What makes a wonderful voice wonderful is NOT Chiaroscuro. Chiaroscuro is only one quality that all wonderful operatic voices share. What makes a wonderful voice wonderful no one seems to be able to define. Garcia didn’t try. I am perfectly happy to admit that I can’t put it into words. I know a wonderful voice when I hear it. I know great singing when I hear it. Chiaroscuro is just along for the ride. Did I say this is a hearing thing, not a writing thing?
So let’s get back to my implication that many singers today sound factory made. Factories use tools to produce things. When the tools are correctly used the factory produces things of a quality and function that make everyone happy if the product is popular. Garcia gives us the list of tools he used and Chiaroscuro is notably missing. It’s missing because it is not a tool. The tools that Garcia displays on his work bench are few and very effective in their use. I will talk about them in Garcia’s Toolbox.
The books written by “factory workers” hold “Chiaroscuro” in high regard and get all technical about how this ideal may be achieved. No recorded examples are ever included. Notwithstanding all the written advice for the achievement of “Chiaroscuro”, the pedagogical results don’t seem great. What I’ve been hearing is a uniform pleasantness that neither offends nor impresses, like discount no label bulk vanilla ice-cream….. Maybe chocolate would be a better metaphor given what I’m about to assert. The confusion over how to describe “Chiaroscuro” withers into insignificance when one begins to believe that these workers don’t really know what Chiaroscuro sounds like. It seems that the consensus on the assembly line is that the inoffensive/pleasant voice is the correct example of “Chiaroscuro”. WRONG!!! That “inoffensive” voice is a great example of just one of the products that the misuse of a Garcinian tool will give you. That specific tool is Sombre Timbre. Please have a look at what I have to say about it. Tenors, don’t despair. For now, it’s the only tool described in Garcia’s Toolbox.
I have to admit that any tool that gets a quick result can be very useful. Sombre Timbre… Let’s make that a contraction: ST, OK? ST is without a doubt a really quick fix for many vocal inconveniences and its’ use is justifiable if you believe that Band-Aids are good enough for Battle Wounds. It does, however, have a progressively higher price attached to its use. The more ST one applies to the voice the more it covers over the “Chiaro” or brilliance of the voice. That brilliance is recognized in most of the old books as the key feature with which a solo voice can carry a composer’s melodies to the ears of the audience. It is the cutting edge of the Soloists’ voice and as more and more ST is applied to the voice that edge is ever more blunted and the singer has to push harder and harder to be heard in the theatre. That is if the singer wants to be heard in the theatre. When the student manages to apply ST to the max it can even cover the core personal color qualities with which the young singer started even if they were only in “germ” form. Using ST to establish a false “Chiaroscuro” in a young singer is bad factory work in my book! Garcia tells us to use ST but for completely different purposes. Did Garcia foresee this confusion and the logical result? I like to believe it to be so.
I have to thank Mr. Carter again for being so complimentary. His words, transparency and luminosity, really belong to the visual arts as does that pesky term Chiaroscuro. These qualities are achievable via good technique in whatever visual media an artist is manipulating. This is not true in singing. As metaphors, his words are valuable as helps in describing the vocal quality that “Chiaro” (clear) is meant to generally represent. None of these terms can give true understanding to someone who has not heard the voices Ron describes, but I just had to put Ron’s compliments in the blog, because Flicka is one of my very favorite people in the business, a great singer, and a big player in many good memories.
I’ve got to quit here or I might take another month to get it done. I will be visiting this issue again soon.
Read MoreMerry Christmas 2011
Merry Christmas to all. The day is here. We all cheer the snow that may not be here, especially those of us who view our computer screens in Miami or San Diego. Three cheers that the snow is up north somewhere! If we have it, I lend my voice to the cheering. I really love snow. It has become my vision of clean. In the North Country where space is ample and forest hides most everything, we Rock Eaters tend to pile up junk in our back yards among the non-functioning vehicles we are just not ready to send to the junk yard, the fishing shanties that need repair, the fishing boats that leak and the burning barrels that the State of New York used to let us use to keep the piles of junk a little shorter. When I was a little shaver those shanties, unmoving cars that should be pulling the leaky boats, burning barrels and junk piles just didn’t register on my thinker when I looked at them. It was the effect of the first Big Snow every year that made me take notice of all that stuff because the undulating blanket of snow just so beautifully took them out of sight. Now I can’t tell you when I began to think of our back yard as an unpleasant sight, but in a year I can’t name I did begin to suspect there might be a better way to decorate the dirt out back, but I never questioned my developing opinion that the yard, back and front, could never look better than when enough snow fell to redecorate everything. My word for that special beauty that only snow can give the eye is “clean”.
Clean is also a wonderful word to ponder at Christmas. It is exactly the goal each of us Christians wanted to attain, and it is one of the gifts that we are blessed to have from that Wonderful and Marvelous Savior whose birth is the reason this holiday is legally recognized by the State of New York….. You know, those guys and gals in Albany who stole our Rock Eater rights to pollute the air with our burning barrels whenever we want to, no matter who complains about it. At least they haven’t gotten around to Christmas….yet. Anyway, I always have clean in mind when I celebrate the birth of Jesus and even just a little bit of snow dresses up the day in a way no other decoration can achieve for this old man of song.
The word clean always bubbles to the top of my vocabulary as I try to coax voice students toward discovering the gift they have received. My studio is populated with students who suffer various vocal realities that seem, in my mind’s eye, to look a lot like my childhood back yard. Admittedly, the elements are completely different. What would a fishing shanty missing a sled blade have to do with a singers way of phonating? The fact is that the once useful items that populated that old back yard represent, for me, parallels with the ever useful vocal tools that each of my students employ in totally inappropriate ways. The more I am able to dissuade them from these practices the cleaner their voices become.
My Christmas message to all singers and those who wish they were singers is this. You already own a vocal instrument that was gifted to you at conception within your DNA. Except you be mute, you make a noise with it. If the noise your gift produces happens to be a beautiful sound then you have been given a rare gift. No voice teacher is going to give you that. A voice teacher can only guide you, and the best guidance is to do a metaphorical handshake with your gift. Everything your voice can do and will do for the rest of your life rests on the DNA coded structure that started forming when egg and sperm first met. Who do you think you have to thank for the exact configuration of that code donated 50/50 by your mom and dad? Not Professor Gotchaby Thethroat. Not me. Not mom and dad. Especially not yourself. Think of this Christmas as a great opportunity to celebrate the fact that the word “gifted“, if applicable to you, contains no reference to human agency. There is no room for even you to be proud.
I think you can work it out for yourself.
PS. If you’re a tenor, come back later and I will….. Better yet, use the “Please write” page.
Read MoreHow Garcia?
Who is the guy in the photo? This is Randy Mickelson who gave me my first singing job in New York City. He also introduced me to Garcia and his writings. When we talked about Garcia, Randy mentioned that he was working on his own translation of the Complete Treatise with which he hoped to surpass the only translation then available. His enthusiasm inspired me to read the books, and, being a tenor, I went the quick route and started looking for that available translation.
Tenors are slow, but at least I found and purchased that translation. Now it is a joy to open my copy of Donald Paschke’s collation and translation of Garcia’s work that was published in French so, so long ago. The price was certainly right when I bought the two volumes of A COMPLETE TREATISE ON THE ART OF SINGING at Patelson Music for just over thirty dollars each. Nice to see that even the open market has set a high value on Garcia’s words. Maybe if I had payed the Joseph Patelson Music House the price these two volumes would cost me today on Amazon, Imight still be able to find that store across the street from the Carnegie Hall stage door.
I say the value of Garcia’s books is beyond price. They are the effort of an expert voice teacher to pass on practical knowledge to a world full of expert self promoters. He did a wonderful job in his book and Paschke did me and everyone else a great service by collating two editions. Paschke tells us he intended to reveal the evolution of Garcia’s thinking concerning vocal pedagogy, and I thank him for that effort. But I have an even greater debt to Paschke for making the comparison between the two editions.
I have to admit that it took me many years to come to any understanding of the stuff Garcia seemed intent on revealing. The reality that he was describing seemed distant and confusing to me. When I began to question the operation of my vocal instrument i.e.. “How did I do that?” I was at a loss to explain my abilities to anyone. Tenor that I am I was not very interested in giving away any secrets, but the mechanic in me was very curious about what those secrets might be. At that point of self inspection Garcia began to make sense to me. What I began to discover was that he (Garcia) was describing everything I had learned from my voice teacher, Renata Carisio Booth.
She’s the red head in the photo. I just didn’t know she had taught me a lot of his stuff. Her style of teaching did not include explanation of any of the principles upon which the whole singing thing is based. To her I was a tenor in the rough. Lets say a voice with no accessories. She told me one day that her work was done, and I was on my own to figure out what I had learned. Many years later she reminisced about teaching me and essentially said that I did what she asked. She challenged me and I refused to give up until I met the challenge. I never asked “Why?”, and she never had to tell me a single “Because…..”.
As I dug into Paschke’s translation of Garcia an intellectual understanding began to form in my “Tenor Mind” and it soon dawned on me something that I would have surely missed but for the collation Paschke did of the two editions. Garcia’s 1872 edition was a lot shorter than the 1841 edition. The stuff cut from the later edition did not, at first, seem super important, but even so I thought it strange that Garcia would make these abridgments. Because, in part, a lot of the missing material became really helpful to me, I began to believe that the deletions were made under pressure motivated by Editorial parsimony to which Garcia reluctantly acceded.
I am super convinced that Garcia’s understanding and explanative capabilities increased over his life time. This would not be unique to him. I think it’s normal for anyone in the professions to increase in wisdom as experience accumulates, tenors being the normal exception. Garcia was a baritone by the way. I believe the word count should have increased with each new edition. That the opposite seems to be true is sufficient evidence for this tenor to understand that printing costs money. Tenors don’t want to give away secrets, and publishers can be forgiven for feeling the same about paper.
Now we get to the real “So what?”. So….. I am convinced that Garcia wrote his first edition under the same Editorial Parsimony that I believe resulted in the Condensed Version that followed his original publication. Again “So what?”. The best idea this tenor ever had “Is what!”….. Of course there are other ideas that are closer to #1 on the “Top Ten list of Best Ideas I Ever Had”. I just can’t resist an opportunity for hyperbole. A good example of an even better idea is me asking my wife to marry me. That statement is not hyperbole. Now back to Garcia. I thought I should read Garcia as if it were some sort of Short Hand. That started me really digging in, and now I think I can offer some thoughts on the message that Garcia was trying to compress into way too few pages.
Thank you Donald V. Paschke wherever you are.
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