Remembering A Little Nothing

Posted by Rocky on Jun 7, 2013 in Blog, Featured, Living, Personal History, Singing

Once upon a time there were two tenors auditioning for a Major Midwest Orchestra.  These tenors were not competitors because they did not have similar voices.  They were, and still are friendly, in fact able to share a rising star manager whose office had organized the audition in which these two guys were participating.

These tenors, being tenors, were certainly aware of one another. But more than there being another tenor on the scene had little probability of penetrating their concentration on the job at hand.  Selling!  They were there to sell themselves to the Major Midwest Orchestra.  These two were so different in character that the project of selling was like one tenor selling a Rolls Royce and the other tenor selling a Renegade.  They will both get the job done, but not the same way.

These tenors were well familiar with the ambiance in which they would make their pitch for a contract at that Major Midwest Orchestra.  They had arrived via the normal entrance, back door or stage door, to be nice, on West 65^th Street in NYC.  One tenor made his way directly to the active center of organization, off stage right, where the chronological audition list was in the hands of the person responsible for shoving all the singers onto the stage one at a time.  The other tenor made a quick appearance and quickly departed after he discovered his estimated wait time before his pitch could begin.  The tenor still on hand found a chair, almost the only chair available, and sat down in a strategic location.  He had an unobstructed view of the piano and of the singer who had been shoved onto the stage of Avery Fisher Hall to audition. Given the fact that the singer auditioning at the time was not a tenor, the seated tenor soon forgot who it was that was making a pitch for a contract…. You know, with that Major Midwest Orchestra.  He even forgot which Major Midwest Orchestra was the reason for the audition because he did not get a contract from this Major… sorry.  I expect the other tenor, who was diligently warming up his Rolls Royce (RR) voice, has forgotten the entire affair, but the Renegade salesman never forgot.

In the fullness of time the warmed up RR tenor reappeared and proceeded to pace the rather small L shaped hall way that served as waiting area.  Auditioning continued on the stage, the seated tenor continued to gather fodder for forgetfulness from the activities in the Hall and the warmed up RR tenor kept legging his way past the seated tenor as he measured the length of that L shaped hall way.

As time began to weigh heavily upon those still waiting, the pacing RR tenor seemed to speed up.  Suddenly he stopped in front of the seated tenor and exclaimed: “Rocky, will you stop sitting there like that!?  You’re making me nervous.” Yes, I was sitting there, but what I did at that moment I cannot remember.  Memory is so selective.

Anyway, time past, singers finished singing, other singers were shepherded onto the stage and finally the RR tenor got his turn.  I found myself watching the RR tenor put those very active legs to good use.  Out onto the stage he went and he sang gloriously.  Then I smiled and understood the challenge.

As often happens, the order of appearance of disparate acts/skits/performance artists can be a tremendous disadvantage to the act that follows.  There is sage advice that still floats around in the theatre.  Never follow a Kids Act or Animal Act.  As soon as the RR tenor approached the end of the aria he was so magnificently singing, I was told to get ready to stand and deliver.  When Neil Shicoff finished his aria, he set his sights on the door, stage right where I was waiting for my turn. I wish I could remember if/and/or what I might have said to him as he left the stage, but I do remember that his voice seemed to me to continue to ringing in the theatre as he passed me on his way to the stairway and 65^th Street.  Onto the stage I went to meet the challenge that Neil had left floating in the auditorium for me to face.

I don’t remember what I sang or how I sang, but I do remember the vision of the two individuals in the center of the auditorium. The one we were singing for and the other one, our agent, Matthew Epstein.

I guess I was heavily influenced by listening to Neil sing his heart out, because when Matthew got hold of me after the audition he asked me: “Why did you sing so loud?  You sang louder than Neil!!”  I will never forget that audition because of the features so far explained, but I have to say that I never quite believed what Matthew said about my singing that day.

The last and, at the time, most important feature to this story was that no contracts ever came to anyone as a result of these auditions.  It turned out that the person I remember seeing seated next to Matthew Epstein in the auditorium had no authority to offer contracts from that Major Midwest Orchestra.  We singers turned out to be a free afternoon entertainment.   As far as I know that guy who sat with Matthew may never have worked for that Major Midwest Orchestra.

Life is full of satisfactions that cannot be anticipated, and that audition is more valuable to me now for the pleasure it has given me in memory, than anything a contract could have delivered as a consequence of it.

How do we mess up? Let me count the ways.

Posted by Rocky on Jun 4, 2013 in Featured, Garcia, Singing, Teaching

When in Rome enjoy the rain…. Sorry to complain, but I had to get the weather report out of the way first. The weather has been really unusual in Italy, and with reports from home sounding similar to local conditions, I’m beginning to fear that the Earth may drown before Al Gore can realize his dream of watching the World burn up. When I discovered the alternate shelter choice, in the photograph, on the Tiber river, I was inspired to ask if I could rent space. But, then it started to rain. I began to believe that the river might just get higher than I would find comfortable.

I am on day 4 of my second Roman Master Class with more students than a tenor should be asked to count. I am having so much fun watching surprise spread across singers’ faces who improve their results by following Garcia’s advice and then find that the singing process gets easier on the throat. The messed up way most of these students go about singing is often so easy to unravel that it feels like child’s play. That’s good for a tenor like me who would love to have a life full of play. The old days of stage-play have now changed to teach-play and I cherish the moments when a student breaks out in a big smile because of the joy felt at overcoming difficulties.

So where is the count? “We” includes me, so I guess I’ll start with my mess making.

 I am still learning…… No, that is not included in the “mess up” list! I messed up when I came back to Italy…… HOLD ON!! That’s not a “mess up” either. It has to do with the way I organized my return to Italy. There is a very good adage that goes something like this: Every Army is prepared to fight the last war they fought. They almost never keep up with the times and anticipate the attack that will come tomorrow. History is full of proof of the value of this little saying. Let’s just say: I’m a tenor, and am no more intelligent than any army around. Coming back to Italy with the same basic program as last year plus added activity was not a big mistake, but I now recognize that I should have been much more involved in helping my friends in Montisi organize the Florence/Montisi portion of my work. I was happy to meet some really nice people and discover some promising talent, but the structural difficulties presented by the school in Florence proved more than I could anticipate. I’m happy to say my time was not wasted, but I know I should have been able to help more young people than was possible under the circumstances. Unlike an unprepared army that gets destroyed, a tenor usually gets, at least, a second chance to get it right. Next time, it will be different.

 OK! I should talk about at least one mess not made by the writer of this blog. My most frequent complaint this trip has been singer’s ignorance of and misuse of Vocal Function because I find it to be incredibly common in the singers who came to me for help.

 The use of breathy Falsetto as a stand in for, or reinforcement for Dark Timber is the strongest and #1 impediment to good singing I have seen this year. Indiscriminant, chaotic vacillation between the Falsetto and Chest Voice that the men showed me runs a close second place, with the suppression of the Head Voice in the upper register that all the ladies engage in contends strongly for that second place.

 It is wonderful to find that almost every Functional Error sufferer I encountered in Florence, Montisi and Rome was vulnerable to suggestion, and came to at least some understanding of the issue with which they were confused. Most of these were able to put these vocal functional attributes to better use. When I left Barcelona back in January, I was worried about these very issues. This trip restores my hope that the use of Chest Voice and Falsetto can still be brought back to Garcia standards, even in the face of the apparently universal taste for the Dark Side of Vocal Pedagogy.

About second chances: I will be coming back to Italy to try again. The first part of the story is that on 16 September I will be in Torino to collaborate in a Master Class with:

Accademia della Voce del Piemonte 

Via Piazzi n. 27

10129 TORINO

We will start on 16 September and work every day until 21 September. It marks my second opportunity to work with my friend Armando Caruso. It will be a pleasure to again be at the service of Armando and his collaborators. We all want to see the same thing. The best singing possible from every singer we meet.

 The rest of the story will come later. The world of singing offers us “interesting times” these days, and I am fascinated by the future, for which, the present may be a fitting introduction. I find myself being called Don Quixote, and I know that there are apt similarities even though I refuse to put on armor and ride a horse. I also have no interest in wind energy. I do have interest in helping young singers discover the best qualities in the giftwrapped talent they received at birth, and it can be an uphill battle in these “interesting times”. My experience in Florence and Montisi testified to this fact.

If you have the time, are awake and want to hear a retired American tenor mangle the Italian language on an Italian Radio Show listen at 13:00 Rome time. That would be, for the tenors in my readership, 7:00 am New York time, 6:00 am Chicago time, 5:00 am Denver time and 4:00 am Los Angeles time….. Wait, I guess I’m a tenor too. To what location am I inviting everyone? 

La Barcacia

 Click the program name, and you will be whisked directly to Rome where you will be able to laugh with us.

 Sorry that the tenors in London, Tokyo and Honolulu will have to fend for themselves to discover the correct time of transmission. I didn’t forget you all…… You know……. I’m a tenor too. I got tired of compiling the list.

Montisi Morning

Posted by Rocky on May 18, 2013 in Featured, Living, Teaching

It’s great to be back in Montisi. Rural life is my favorite, and a quick stop in this little hill top town is just what I need between big town visits.

I just finished a Master Class in Rome exclusive to all but Santa Cecilia students and am on my way to Florence for a similar encounter with young people engaged in educating themselves in the vocal arts. Today marks the first morning of diminished cold virus symptoms that attached me as soon as I hit terra firma this trip. It is such good planning to give oneself time to acclimate before having to go to work, but this cold gave me fits in Rome notwithstanding the three day recuperation period I built into my schedule. My first day in Europe I dedicated to my pillow. Yes I bring it with me. And it served me well. Sleeping would seem a great battle plan since I was able to meet my commitments in Rome even on the edge of losing my voice to laryngitis. My pillow was my destination when not engaged in my employment.

Anyway I had every intention of writing new blogs about singing and voice and Rome and and…. Well, let’s just say I wanted to dispel any mistaken impression that I had lost interest in this blog site after putting it on line over a year ago. And here I am enjoying small town Italy in the company of Opera loving friends getting things ready for the Montisi Master Class.

Yesterday Silvia and I had fun working in the little jewel box theatre where the Montisi Class will take place. The piano on loan from Silvia’s friend had to be placed appropriately for the space, and I was there to watch the expert from Siena direct three local strong men as they helped him maneuver the baby grand piano down a set of stairs and into the theatre. After it was well situated in the mini-orchestra space between the front row seats and the stage, the Montisi muscle men departed as did the expert from Siena, Silvia and I walked her dogs and back we came to do a little sprucing up before the main events of next week.

My symptoms had by yesterday reached a plateau. My voice was hanging by a thread but, at least, my constant enervation had lifted. A retired tenor has no business worrying about his voice, and I adhere to that policy with great joy. But, to have to push myself forward from lack of energy is something no tenor wants to do. We want to be inspired and full of motivation. Today is a day of inspiration. The sun is up, the weather is perfect and I went out to greet my favorite views from the Montisi mount.

As you can see, spring has sprung on this part of the world and this tenor is happy to enjoy every sight and smell…. Yes, I did pass this little local bakery and was drawn through the front door by the aroma of yeast and baking bread wafting through the street. I’m now happily consuming my purchase.

This afternoon I’m Florence bound. I hope to have something useful to publish in the next few days, but in the mean time I want to thank everyone for coming to read my blog.

May good health be your constant companion. Sneezing and coughing are no fun at all.

Climbing Stairs

Posted by Rocky on Apr 13, 2013 in Blog, Featured, Garcia, Opera, Singing, Teaching

I always thought there was something more to scaling the registers than just “The Blend”. Renata was not helpful to my understanding, even if she was very helpful to my voice. She made me do a lot of running up and down the scales and boy did I have fun even though Renata was rather generous with her negative comments. She was quick to set me back on track when I wandered into the vocal weeds. I did what Renata told me to do without caring a whit about why she wanted one thing or another. Let’s be honest here. I was a kid who knew nothing about singing or Opera. I was just having fun, and voice lessons were party times for me. When High School days were over however, I got curious really fast about the value of all that stuff that I found fun. I was surprised that the vocal world, with which I became acquainted during my short collegiate career, had no interest at all in scale work.

I thought: “Isn’t anyone interested in the scales and arpeggios that Renata made me do?” My complaint is a far cry from the locution: “Oh dear! mayn’t I sing down the scale even once?” that Garcia Jr. is credited with saying to his father. The vocal staff at the two universities I attended had no interest in these things. It was many years later that I had an honest explanation for this modern lack of interest. It was during one of my Master Class efforts to promote Garcia technique in a major music school setting that I was given a big lesson. I was told by an insider that vocal instructors would be hard pressed to include my suggestions in their studio work with the voice students at hand. My new friend on the vocal staff of this major musical mansion told me a lot about the conditions and limitations with which every instructor lived, all of which made the study of scales and arpeggios very unattractive. Number one on the list of limitations was time. There just didn’t seem to be enough of it for such niceties.

Why, I would keep asking myself, did singing scales really matter to Garcia and so many teachers all the way back to Caccini‘s days? Maybe the old ways are irrelevant to today’s tonal idealists, but Garcia lamented the trend in the later part of his life:

At the present day the acquirement of flexibility is not in great esteem, and were it not, perhaps, for the venerable Handel, declamatory music would reign alone. This is to be regretted, for not only must the art suffer, but also the young fresh voices, to which the brilliant florid style is the most congenial; the harder and more settled organs being best suited for declamation. It would not be difficult to trace the causes of the decline of the florid style. Let it suffice, however, to mention, as one of the most important, the disapperance of the race of great singers who, besides originating this art, carried it to its highest point of excellence. The impresario influenced by the exigencies of the modern prima donna, has been constrained to offer less gifted and accomplished virtuose to the composer, who in turn has been compelled to simplify the role of the voice and to rely more and more upon orchestral effects. Thus singing is becoming as much a lost art as the manufacture of Mandarin china or the varnish used by the old masters.

“Hints On Singing” by Manuel Garcia1894 – Google Books page IV

His indictment of the world of singing of his day is not quite as severe as my criticism of today, but the problem was just as big back then as now. I lament that Garcia did not “trace” the “decline of the florid style” for us, because the world of today seems under the impression that tastes just happened to change. That “declamation” was the inevitable evolution of singing toward a modern ideal.

That argument we will have to pick at in other articles, but for today I want to get down to why scales and leaps are so good for you, what they should sound like, and why I believe they were imposed on the singer in the first place.

Doing scales as Garcia suggests is the boot camp of vocal technique. I have every confidence that Renata knew what she wanted to hear while she drove her students through the simple and the complicated note constructs she demanded we sing for her on various vowels. I never did escape my tenor limitations long enough to ask her exactly what it was she wanted to hear, but I now have a good idea from what I can remember of her lessons, from reading Garcia and the experience of finding my way through the life of a singer.

Scales are so basic to a musician’s life that they were taken for granted by everyone. Instrumentalists still have to do scales. The problem they face is obvious to everyone but, perhaps for the tenors who might be reading, I will explain it. It is one of the first difficulties a player has to resolve. Each Key Signature requires a different use of the fingers on the control surfaces of whatever instrument is being played. So scales are impossible to avoid if proficiency in every Key is desired. Back in the dawn of Vocal History even tenors did scales but I don’t think they used their fingers and from the tenor stand point, what’s a Key got to do with singing anyway? Please don’t take me seriously. Keys are important to singing, but “tenor thinking” would prioritize lots of things as more significant.

I believe that, back in the day, scale work was imposed on singers without anyone asking a single “WHY?” My faith comes from hearing musicians use comparative suggestions, and then finding that similar suggestions were written down by some very important music people as old as Quantz. Quantz suggests that the flutist imitate good singing. He also reports that the singers of his day were possessed of the presumption that they were better able to interpret music than instrumentalists. Quantz suggests that the presumed vocal advantage would be true, except for the deficiency of musicianship demonstrated by the singers with whom Quantz was acquainted.

The trumpet player that says: “There are musicians, and then there are singers.” has been around forever. It is no joke because the third shoe to drop would be; and then there are tenors….. I make light of a human weakness that confirms my faith. All the way back to the dawn of Vocal Time we can be secure in our assumption that humans were involved and have always been vulnerable to jealousy. Back when everyone in music had to admit that the vocal soloist was more valuable than the chorus member, I believe a revolution took place and it had consequences. I also believe we can “trace” the consequences back to a good picture of what actually happened.

In those early days, the voice which was dragged out of the chorus to become a soloist had to be placed in some sort of training. Everyone in the band had done scales. Do you think the singer was going to get a pass? No, the singer was going to have to do scales. There are good reasons to do scales, but not to memorize fingerings. The singer was going to have to mimic the instrument to prove proficiency in vocal training. We all know about vocal difficulties like “breaks” and “registers”, which scale work really makes obvious when the singer moves his/her voice up and down the C major scale bumping over the register breaks in both directions. But this would not seem to be the basis for the jealousy implicit in “There are musicians, and then there are singers.” That jealousy rests on something Garcia tells us…. If an instrument can do something, so can the human voice within the limits of its range. The dedicated singer can do scales just as well as any clarinet, violin, oboe, trumpet or French horn. In some cases the human can do better. In some cases the ability of the voice is so good that the singer can do those scales as well as the musician after just a few lessons. After months of practice room time, the violinist might be a little miffed to hear a new soprano at his school imitating his C major scales in the adjacent practice room. This would be enough to upset his ego, but that poor musician may have his instructor tell him the advice Quantz has for the flutist. Listen to that new soprano and try to follow the shading of emotion she displays with her voice as she sings her songs. In as much as she can make her voice follow the C major scale making a credible impersonation of the violinist next door, she can also change the color of her voice in almost any way she wants. The violinist does have some color latitude with his instrumental sound, but comparing the coloring abilities of the violin to the human voice is like comparing a switch blade to the best Swiss army knife. When he admits he is overmatched, the musician is left to carp about the imprecision of the soprano’s intonation, lack of rhythm, missed entrances, overlong phrase conclusions all of which add up to that most general ancient/modern complaint; singers are just not musicians.

So what am I trying to say? In short…. I have been long winded today, haven’t I?… Sing scales like you know how they should be sung from listening to your friends from the orchestra play their scales. The violin sounds like the violin from the open G string to the highest note the player can make without leaving the finger board on the E string. The player needs to work hard to make a sound his parents will tolerate. You need to sound like you from the lowest note you can sing to the highest, letting everyone hear that you know just as much about singing scales as the best violin player, and always retain the individual, identifiable sound that God gave you.

The correct song for you is: “ Anything you can do I can do better”. Think of Betty Hutton as the singer and Howard Keel as the violinist.

The Blend

Posted by Rocky on Apr 8, 2013 in Featured, Garcia, Singing, Teaching

Finding clues to your vocal identity is only one reason to organize the Chest Register. Your Chest Register, full of comfortable Chest Voice, is the foundation upon which your voice should be built. Garcia tells us that teachers should blend the Chest Voice of the Chest Register with the Falsetto of the Middle Register when working with you girls, and offers specific exercises with which to get the job done. However, I believe his advice presents us with a secret to uncover. He does not tell us what the end product of the work involved should sound like.

This lack of descriptive text is common place to his writings. It is not Garcia’s weakness. It is the weakness of language itself. There is no way to describe vocal sounds and effects without resorting to comparisons. Garcia fought this difficulty in his original edition by naming names and assuming that the work of universally applauded singers would be sufficient sources for examples to support the points he wanted to make in his Treaties. In his later editions, a lot of these names disappear. What good would it be for Garcia to cite the way a particular singer sang a note or phrase if the singer is unknown to the reader?

One must infer the intent of Garcia when he writes of blending one register with another. I lived in a singing world that seemed to assume that one only needed to avoid the “hiccup”, “break”, “register event” etc. to achieve the blending that Garcia wrote about. Garcia tells us that the blending work he advises will cause the “register event” to disappear in an ascending scale. The voice will start in the Chest Register passing seamlessly into the Middle Register and finally arrive, without disturbance, at the Head Voice. This passage from the bottom to the top of the voice has no sonic description in any of the literature I have read. If anyone can help this tenor with text I have not seen, please send me the bibliographical reference. Unfortunately, Garcia doesn’t even try to tell us what the well-executed scale from basement to weather vane of the voice should sound like except for the idea of unity and lack of disturbance of the sound. It is an important bit of information, and I believe that specific sonic result was the goal that Garcia Sr. had when he tortured Garcia Jr. with scale work:

The monotony of the first portion of this training evidently became very wearisome in time, for Señor Garcia would afterwards recall how one day, after being made to sing an endless variety of ascending scales, his desire for a change became so great that he could not resist bursting out, “Oh dear! mayn’t I sing down the scale even once?” The training of those days was indeed a hard one, but it turned out artists who had a very wonderful command over their voices.

Mackinlay, M. (Malcolm) Sterling Garcia the Centenarian And His Times Being a Memoir of Manuel Garcia’s Life and Labours for the Advancement of Music and Science – Kindle Edition.

The problem is, and always is the meaning of “is”. Sorry for the political reference, but I just couldn’t help myself. What do the words unity and character mean? I start with what Garcia says he is NOT going to say which I quote in “Why Garcia”. Notice “outstanding differences which distinguish the voices of various individuals” in the first quote, and further on “we will not concern ourselves with the different timbres which characterize and differentiate the voices of individuals”. Character is that which makes the voice identifiable. You hear a voice and you know who the singer is, because the voice HAS outstandingly different character from all other voices. Unity is based on the same assumptions. No matter the pitch, you can still identify the singer who owns the voice producing the pitch.

OK! You have your identity (voice print) settled in the Chest Register using Chest Voice. You should get out of the vocal basement with that identity unsullied by Falsetto as you make your way through your Middle Register. That ID needs to be just as legible to the ear as you finesse your way into the Head Register/Voice. That stable, identifiable character of vocal sound throughout the extent of your voice is the unity that I believe Garcia Sr. wanted his son to learn to protect. All the great ancient singers were subjected to similar torture/training as was Garcia Jr., and I believe it was for the same objective. Do I have proof of this? No. Is it logical? To this tenor it is.

The literature I have read is only just a little helpful in support of my theory. I would be most happy to receive any references from the period of Garcia and any that predate his adult life. I am especially interested in evidence that I am wrong. I have to challenge my detractors, if I be worthy of any, with the words of my friend Randy Mickelson: “Show me the books!” I assume the world to be full of people better read than this tenor, and hope someone from among this better educated class of non-tenors would be helpful enough to invite me to say my favorite line of Gilda Radner.  That line would be the last two words in her clip.

Until then, I will stand on my Internet Soap Box, wave my Garcia Forever banner, and keep shouting over the noise: Blending the registers has nothing to do with blending with your friends in the chorus.

Gypsy for Garcia

Posted by Rocky on Mar 23, 2013 in Blog, Featured, Garcia, Opera, Singing, Teaching

When the going gets tough the tough get going.

I never liked that motto much, but it rings in my head these days. I guess I didn’t like it because I did a lot of going in my life, but had no illusions about being a tough guy. Besides, tough was not applicable to most of the goings on through which I lived, but….. We are in tough times now. I am older now, but no tougher by any measure I can apply to myself, but I will answer the call to get going.

I’m planning to return to Italy in just under two months. My friends are working hard on a vocal education initiative based on the teaching ability of this untough tenor. Please click on the poster to the right of this blog to get an idea of the new birth in the cultural life of La Toscana. I am so happy to know tough people in the Old World who are determined to keep singing, as we used to know it, alive and are willing to get going even when the going is tough indeed.

I am sure to be hearing a lot of voices new to me while I’m back in the birth place of Opera. I will get to hear students at Santa Cecilia in Rome and the Conservatorio Statale di Musica L. Cherubini in Florence before my friends in Montisi host the next Master Class featuring a tenor, Rockwell Blake, intent on teaching the stuff I keep writing about in these blogs. These goings on are part of my crusade to see things change. I know I am not tough or important enough to effectively push back the tide of darkness that I see and hear engulfing voices everywhere, but I stick my Garcia banner in the air anyway and in an untough manner wave it furiously in the hope that I may attract enlistments to my cause.

If the going turns less tough for Maestro Campanella, I may have the pleasure of working with him in Montisi, and the singers who come to Montisi may get some real wisdom from a real Bel Canto conductor. I caught him with a telephone call at his home recovering from a fall he took in Paris. Bruno used the arm that made my life on stage so much fun when he was conducting to save his head from a big bump on the boulevard. Now, with a dysfunctional head the arm isn’t much use to a conductor, but with a damaged “bachetta” wing it sure is hard to fly in his native environment. Even with this negative event still affecting his everyday life, Maestro Campanella showed his toughness and committed to participating in my crusade in Montisi, if his schedule and recuperating arm will allow. When I saw him last year he flattered me by telling me of his dream of founding a school of Bel Canto, and now I have to work really hard to reduce my Cheshire cat grin to avoid looking as crazy as I really am about working with Bruno….. Maestro Campanella. Sorry, it is so hard to maintain formality when speaking of such friends.

Please consider meeting me in Montisi. If you have already dedicated your life to singing and are crazy enough to believe a tenor could be helpful to you, then I’m your man. I’m not tough, but I am serious. I also happen to be honest. This often gets me into trouble, but I sleep really well because of it. The life of a singer can be wonderful. The life of a singer can be hell. I hope you will come to Montisi, either to let me help you travel down that wonderful avenue, or to allow me to divert you from traveling the toll road of frustration. You get the picture. Times are tough, the going is tough, my friends and I may not be tough, but we want to help. Come let us help you.

Garcia Secrets

Posted by Rocky on Mar 19, 2013 in Blog, Featured, Garcia, Opera, Singing, Teaching

Long before Manuel Garcia walked the Earth for more than a century, most of the things he wrote about and taught were already integral to the singer’s art. In the preface of his big book he wonders about the history of “the art of singing” and more specifically the teachers of earlier times and what they might have revealed had they written more about the practices they followed. I’m so glad he told us of his curiosity, because I share that thirst to know how singing technique was built. Dr. Stark’s book, “The History of Bel Canto”, guides us through some of the literature to which Garcia alludes, and I am happy to have this pool of knowledge. Garcia knew about the teachers who predated him from the musical literature available also to us, but, unlike us, he also heard of them by the aural tradition which is lost to us today. Along with this pedagogical aural tradition advantage, Garcia had opportunity to converse with individuals who heard the voices trained by those old time teachers. The talkative elders of the musical and vocal arts could have described and compared those ancient voices they had heard in their youth, with the voices with which Garcia was familiar. I envy the opportunities Garcia’s point in history offered him. We can be sure that Manuel and his father knew what made each voice they heard special, and what each of these singers was doing with his or her voice in service to the composer and the public. I feel blessed that Garcia, Jr. wrote about these things sufficiently to defend his father’s and his “school” and am fascinated by and drawn, like a moth to a flame, to his insinuation that, like prior great teachers, he did not reveal all the secrets he had uncovered. I sometimes wonder if he withheld these bits of wisdom just to inspire in others the curiosity from which he tells us he suffered.

You can find in “Factory Made” the advice Garcia gives us about discovering a voice. He doesn’t tell us where to listen or what exactly to listen for, but the question Garcia wants to answer is the one every person who dreams of making a life in the vocal arts should ask:

Is my voice worthy of the huge investment of time and money necessary to develop the voice and artistry of a “distinguished artist”? That is to say, can you hope to enjoy a career capable of returning, at least, the original investment, and, even better, return that investment in multiples sufficient to provide for the continuous support of your life well into retirement?

Garcia tells us that it is up to the teacher. His opinion might have changed if he had survived another century. These days we seem to suffer from a teaching community with intent to offer universal access to the singing art. The call seems to be: “Come one, come all, we will teach you how to sing.” This may be OK for a well-rounded liberal arts education or even an adult music appreciation program, but it is no good if you want to start training for “Brunhilda” or even “Despina”. Garcia was not interested in teaching everyone vocal technique. The students he wanted in his studio were the exceptionally gifted voice students wanting to sing Mozart or Wagner Opera, not the diletantte or musically minded medical, dental, legal, psych, math, physics, chemical or physical education students hoping to be good enough to sing in a chorus. He gave us a list of attributes he required in a singing student. All the assets on his list are useful things to carry with you into the vocal life, but the number one component a singer must have is a voice good enough to warrant the effort to learn how to sing. That asset would seem to be the hardest to recognize, and the least important to the pedagogical profession today.

How do you discover this valuable asset? Where do you look? Chest Register in Chest Voice! Even though Garcia is correct to tell us that the Chest Register/Voice is difficult for some females to developed, from my experience every singing voice that had Chest Register/Voice working revealed the “germ” that Garcia talks about. It is in the Chest Register, in Chest Voice that the full bloom of individual color, native to the instrument with which you were born, gets displayed. If you want to know your voice, look there first.

OK. Now how do you look for that blooming beauty in yourself? I suggest you record/video yourself and use your own taste to decide if you measure up. This is no joke. You are on your own in this matter. There are many more delusional divas and divos in the world than rich ones, and usually the members of the majority find listening to their own voices very uncomfortable. Don’t be one of them. Whatever a teacher tells you to do, you must evaluate the results with your own ears by listening to or viewing your lessons. Keep your teacher honest. Ultimately, most teachers are going to put the responsibility on you anyway if you fail to become a star. If you become a star, the teacher will claim credit, even if none is due the teacher. If you are not interested in becoming a star, I am no less happy to have you reading my blog and hope I can keep you interested with stories from the Warblers’ War Zone.

The singing business is a risky business. So start living with risk now and develop that Chest Register of yours even if your teacher suggests you are asking for the Earth to swallow you up. Sing things that bring you down into the lower part of your voice and expect to find more power and brightness than you might think possible. Very few stars reach the firmament with their Chest Registers disorganized. The Chest Voice in the Chest Register is the foundation of the singer’s voice, and from this foundation one can start to build a unified vocal identity that may serve the singer in you and the Opera World as well.

We will move on to the rest of the vocal structure after this foundation argument sits and rests a few days.

Deal of the Day

Posted by Rocky on Feb 13, 2013 in Mechanics, Opera, Singing, Teaching

Now we are talking about a good deal. One of the reasons I started to do this blog was because I believe that singers should be responsible to protect their voices. This is one of the more useful among the members of the newest tool catagories for that self-preservation project and this price for this tool seems really good to me.

Click on this text to see the deal.

Every voice student should have something like this, and this one at this price, the one you found when you clicked, is like 1000 lessons for the price of one. That is if you live in NYC.  Don’t you think you should be your own instructor, critic and best -friend. This little number is made to order for keeping your voice teacher honest.

If you can afford to take voice lessons, you can afford this or something like it.

If you find a better deal, please let me know.

So Why Should Anyone Belt?

Posted by Rocky on Feb 11, 2013 in Blog, Featured, Garcia, Opera, Singing, Teaching

I’m back from Barcelona and now that I’ve washed that trip right out of my system, I can get back to the subject that was tickling my interest before I heard about a diva falling victim to sickness in the singing ranks.  I hope that you enjoyed reading the articles I suggested to you in my last “Belt” blog before I flew the coop.  If you missed them, click them, they are:

“The opera-izing of the American musical”

“Zambello brings personal touch to retooled Glimmerglass Festival”

If you have enough time to dawdle, you might consider meandering about the internet by clicking on the links in those articles and get an even bigger picture of the cultural state of affairs in the United States.  You will also acquire an overview of the vocabulary and attitudes of some who are employed to dispense opinion on this small sliver of the “Arts and Entertainment” industry.

I know I may appear to be picking on Ms. Anne Midgette.  I guess it’s unavoidable since, once upon a time, she called me on my cellphone to talk about the cultural industry in the environs of Washington, DC.  I can be a real pain when asked to opine.  If I have anything to say at all, I’m likely to run on at the mouth wandering way beyond the original subject which I will have forgotten before running out of air.  This should be expected from a tenor who tends to forget librettists’ words.  In this particular instance, with Ms. Midgette, my memory served at least for the short term, but what about the long term?  Given what I remember now, she could have asked me how I made my morning coffee.  Anyway, I have taken a shine to reading what she writes now and again, and when I discovered her discussion of Old Broadway Show revivals I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to mix some of my thoughts with her reporting.

Ms. Midgette did not write about “Belting” specifically, but her articles are about the natural habitat of that style of singing.   Ms. Midgette seems to center her “Opera-izing” thoughts on the lynch pin word: “authenticity”.  She doesn’t seem to believe Glimmerglass was wise to seek “authenticity” in “Annie Get Your Gun”.  I don’t suggest she is wrong to complain, however, I do want to expand on her conclusions.  When I asked her, she told me that she was at least aware of “Belting“, but I’m not certain she would agree with what I am about to write.  I believe that the “authentic” component missing in “Annie Get Your Gun” at Glimmerglass in Cooperstown, NY and in “Oklahoma” at Arena Stage on Sixth Street in Washington, DC was “Belting”.

Now that “Highbrows” want to compromise and play with “Lowbrow” music, they have a big problem.  They can’t find those “Lowbrow” “Belters” who can deliver those “Lowbrow” melodies the way Irving Berlin and other “Lowbrow” composers expected their melodies to be “Belted” into the theatre.  The Opera Singer can’t be faulted for not having the authentic vocal style that a lot of “Lowbrow” music demands.  The Opera Singer has always been taught to avoid “Belting”.   I am not surprised that in her article Ms. Midgette wrote that two unamplified Opera Singers:

gave the impression of being less invested in, or less serious about, this musical than about opera, as if carelessness were a hallmark of the “lightness” of this particular style.

Excuse me, but, if you don’t “Belt” you “ain’t” serious about old “Lowbrow” music generally, and even less serious about those old Broadway Shows.  Let’s get serious and say:  All they really had to do is “Belt”.

Ms. Midgette asks a very valid question of Ms. Deborah Voigt after citing some of her impressive high notes:

“why does the rest of your singing seem so pale?”

The honest answer would be……… “I don’t Belt!”

Ms. Midgette suggests that “fetishizing authenticity is of questionable value” and I heartily agree.  It is REAL authenticity that gets my juices flowing and my hand reaching for my wallet to pay for tickets.  Whether the tickets are for the theater or for a museum, I want to have at least a fighting chance to hear or see authentic talent employed authentically.  That’s why my preference these days is for botanical gardens.  I haven’t found one of those places putting a single silk or plastic plant or flower on display, yet.

I was happy to read Ms. Midgette’s mention of Ethel Merman, but I really wish she hadn’t suggested that Ethel had formal vocal training.  It would seem to contradict Ethel’s biography.  There is no real barrier to Deborah Voigt undertaking the study of “Belting” so that she might sound more “Merman” like.  Why didn’t she?  Ms. Midgette seems to give us a good answer, albeit unintentionally, on page 2 of the other article she wrote about Glimmerglass and its new director Francesca Zambello:

Zambello also has great connections. “A lot of it is asking your friends,” she said. This summer, she’s lured singer friends into accepting Glimmerglass’s relatively modest fees……..

Asking an Opera Singer to make herself a viable reviver of Ethel Merman style is like asking a brain surgeon to go back to school to learn how to use his/her scalpel skills to prepare the raw material for “Steak au Poivre or Tartar”.  Well,….. it’s not really like that, but you get the idea.  When it comes to money the parallel does hold.  At Glimmerglass Ms. Voigt was certainly paid less than her normal surgeon like salary to put her vocal talents at the service of “Lowbrow” music.  If you put her in Brünnhilde’s costume, even I might actually come to listen, but Annie’s vocal demands just don’t fit the voice. If you ponder my assumption that the fee for Brünnhilde in NYC, Chicago, Dallas or San Francisco is likely to equal or exceed the cost to Glimmerglass for all singers on the stage in “Annie Get Your Gun”, you can get a glimpse into a singer’s material calculations and priority system.

A little further on Ms. Midgette tells us about her preferences. After the very short preamble: “It may be heretical”, she explains that the amplified performance of “Oklahoma” at the Arena Stage was a better artistic experience than the unamplified performance of “Annie Get Your Gun” at Glimmerglass.  It is an aggressive paraphrase, I admit, but Ms. Midgette can always defend herself, if I’ve misrepresented her meaning.  Neither cast at Glimmerglass nor Arena Stage can be expected to have any “Belting” instruction or experience in todays’ world.  And to emphasize one last time: If you don’t “Belt” you ain’t authentic Old Broadway or even authentically old “Lowbrow”. So what’s the difference between those productions besides differing dancing abilities?  Microphones!

The critics praise the youthful “Oklahoma” cast for good looks, high energy and great legs. I think this is a good, and likely complete, list of assets those up and coming stars of modern musical comedy bring to their production.  No one seems to say much about them vocally. Perhaps it’s because none of them “Belt” or sing “Au Natural”. (“without a mike”.)  Now that we have critics opining that building a “Field of Dreams” with lights and sophisticated amplification is a wonderful thing for “Lowbrow” Broadway revivals, could the Opera World be next to face some big changes?

Because many tools of the singing trade like Chest Voice, which is the foundation of Belting, are being ignored and even vilified, perhaps in the future we may find Ms. Midgette or her descendants writing similar articles about Opera.  Amplifying the singing of “Lowbrow” music seems to be STANDARD practice, and now critically preferred.   With practice on the “Lowbrow” stuff, the technical problems with amplification in the theatre will eventually get worked out.  The opera singer hopefuls I heard just last month at Viñas only reinforced my conviction that the big opera houses are in trouble.  All those young people are singing with a lot less volume than previous generations of opera singers.   It seems to be an inevitable compromise.   Opera Theatres will have to imitate the Arena Stage if this trend continues.

In the meantime, I will stand on my soap box and yell many things, one of which will be: Better to “Belt” and be rid of the mike.  If the amp blows a fuse, one might be reminded of the fate of Millie Vanilli.

As for the photo of Rocky’s Pizza Place at the top of this blog. I snapped that photo just a few days ago while I was in Burlington, VT running errands with my two favorite ladies, Debbie, my wife, and Dot, Debbie’s Mom.  Debbie spied the pizza emporium and asked me to take a photo while she and Dot did their thing.  At first I was happy for the opportunity to add a ha-ha photo to our collection, but as I was snapping away it dawned on me that my blog was almost finished and the title asks a question.   I realized I was taking a picture of the best answer ever.  Those Millie Vanilli guys might now be kicking themselves and wondering why they didn’t do pizza and pasta instead of lip syncing.  But as for anyone who quests for stardom and has Broadway as his/her target, even if you only want to know how to sing, take the risk and learn to “Belt”.

Barcelona and Friends

Posted by Rocky on Feb 2, 2013 in Blog, Featured, Garcia, Opera, Singing

A little over three weeks ago I received an email from my friend Miguel Lerin. He’s the fella in the photo caught in his natural habitat. He asked me to come to Barcelona to be part of the Judging panel for the big 50th anniversary “Concurs Francesc Viñas” in Barcelona, Spain. Mirella Freni, who should have been on that panel, came down with something serious enough to keep her from leaving home. Miguel asked me to come take the chair with her name on it, and I am confident that at least I did a great job of keeping it warm.

On my way back home, about 2 weeks ago, I started a blog that absorbed all of my meager writing abilities for the week that followed. One week ago, I decided to chuck it in the digital dust bin. The trip to Barcelona gave me artistic heart burn, and no amount of ranting was going to make it better.

Barcelona is a great city! The reports of dire economic conditions in Spain are not to be taken lightly, but to walk the streets of Barcelona is to see a city that shows no fear. In fact, I am not the only non-Spanish judge at the “Concurs Francesc Viñas” who was struck by the vibrancy of Barcelona. The cultural life in Barcelona that I saw was not wilting under economic sogginess either. The appreciation for Barcelona’s operatic heritage was on full display in the ceremonies and installations remembering Francesc Viñas and the great acts of love his descendants have dedicated to his name for the past 50 years.

The competition itself was most interesting. And therein lays the discontent that inspired me to beat my keyboard with a vengeance last week. I lost myself to my passionate opposition to modern trends in the opera business, and I slashed madly at those whom I see turning Opera into an art form for the eyes.

It was a dark week of ruminating rage after rubbing shoulders with Music Moguls made my vision color everything red. So what positive statements can I make about the experience? Number one: I got over it! Halleluiah!! Number two: I saw friends who helped get the red out of my eyes. Number three: I was able to help one of those friends. Number four: I heard lots of singers.

Now I’m HAPPY again, taking coffee with my wife in the morning, shoveling snow and teaching voice. Now that the red is gone, I can see the snow is white, and it’s about time to get serious and get on with the blog. Coffee with the wife has benefits for the hubby that may get overlooked by some tenors. In my case, Debbie hands me lots of information that she digs up from the internet. Just yesterday she shared a sad picture of Plattsburgh that she found painted in two articles posted by our local paper. When I read them I knew I had to use them. I also knew that Debbie deserves a salary adjustment.

First, I want to report the existence of great vocal instruments in the human population. I was introduced to a lot of them at Viñas. Second, I want to report that all the voices that passed through Viñas need to know Garcia. Third, I want to report the ignorance of the truth of Garcia in high places. The majority of my fellow judges contented themselves by eliminating the most interesting singing from the final. That interest was due to the least influence of “Factory” teaching on those singers. When those voices didn’t come back for the Semi Final, I had to do my best to rate the returning talent from least to most boring. Fourth, I want to announce that the world of Opera is in the same predicament as my local community.

In Barcelona I found a mix of individuals among whom there were more than a few who are as concerned as I am about the precarious position in which many Opera Houses can be found. Among the judges there was at least one who worried about the low ticket sales at the box office of the Metropolitan Opera. My Debbie found an article about that problem one morning and told me about it between sips of coffee. With confirmation that this newspaper article was telling the truth, I brought it up with the most important Opera person I met in Barcelona, Joan Francesc Marco. Since he was not one of my fellow judges, I consider myself fortunate to have been seated next to him at a luncheon. He had other concerns that took up the majority of our conversation, but the whole line of discussion started with my question: “Does the Liceu (his theatre) share the Met’s problem of ticket sales taking a downward turn.” Mr. Marco answered “Yes”.

I may be flattering myself to even have an opinion, tenor that I am, but it seems to me that an entertainment without a ticket purchasing audience is certainly going to go the way of cities and towns with populations who can no longer afford the administration of their municipalities.

Our local newspaper offered us two articles that are great examples of the difficulties that face the North Country. The first tells us about one among many problems that face anyone wanting to start a job creating business in the extreme north of New York State. The other article does a great job of praising the concerned elite of our community for their efforts to address the problems they recognize as creating demographic difficulties. That these articles showed up in the same edition was too rich to pass up. The local “wise people” of Plattsburgh think that if you build a theatre accessible by riding your bicycle along the Saranac River, education will improve, young families will flock north and the progeny of those folks will stick around to ride their bikes to the Strand Theatre. Really??!! I think they forget that these super fit, hypothetically well-educated, culturally sophisticated people need a community with an economy in which a career can be made.

The Musical Mogul would seem to have a similar dream. He seems to think that if the stage is outfitted with something truly innovative for sets and the staging of the cast is of the same innovative quality and the talent on the stage is nice to look at and clothed to maximize the visual effect, then the audience will be entertained and they will have copious income from the box office as confirmation that all is well with the World of Opera. Don’t look now. That is not happening. Innovation is everywhere to be seen. What these Moguls forget is that Opera is first an audible art form. The singing is the engine of audience interest. Bore them with the singing, and you will only have the visual portion of the entertainment to keep them interested. The singers who were favored by the majority of judges at Viñas bored me, and I have to credit those singers with the ability to do the same for any other normal entertainment consumer. I hate to be the bad guy messenger, but the average High Definition wide screen TV with standard cable service is better eye candy than most anything Opera Companies can afford to put on their stage. Opera without vocal entertainment is like Plattsburgh without a thriving economy. Ticket sales at the Opera box office could shrink as fast as the immigration of sophisticated families to Plattsburgh.

What bucks this shrinking trend and actually grows? TICKET PRICES AND TAXES. Now what are we to think of this? The art world sure looks like the smaller real world of Plattsburgh.