{"id":1068,"date":"2011-12-25T00:08:24","date_gmt":"2011-12-25T05:08:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rockwellblake.com\/blog\/?p=1068"},"modified":"2017-01-14T14:12:25","modified_gmt":"2017-01-14T18:12:25","slug":"why-garcia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rockwellblake.com\/blog\/2011\/12\/25\/why-garcia\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Garcia?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the preface of the first edition of Garcia’s<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00c9cole\u00a0de Garcia : trait\u00e9\u00a0complet\u00a0de l’art du chant en deux parties Garcia introduces himself.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The son of an artist generally appreciated as a singer, and who is recommended as a master by the merited reputations of several of his students. I have collected his instructions, fruits of a long experience and of a most cultivated musical taste.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is his 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.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

translation: Donald Paschke Da Capo Press<\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

He says a lot in very few words.\u00a0 I\u00a0remember thinking “How clumsy can old style language get?”\u00a0 Now, tenors really need to take special care about thinking anything.\u00a0 It took a while, but I realized that my problem was me.\u00a0\u00a0 There are gems hidden in these preparations for getting down to business.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The understatement of his father’s reputation is so nice to read in\u00a0this age of\u00a0hype.\u00a0 It leads me to my indebtedness to James Radomski for his hard work and good writing in\u00a0 Manuel Garc\u00eda (1775-1832) Chronicle of the Life of a bel canto Tenor at the Dawn of Romanticism<\/a>.\u00a0 I already knew that “Daddy Garcia” was really something else before I ever heard his name.\u00a0 When Renata Booth handed me Rossini’s “Barbeire”, I took it home and played a little of it on the\u00a0clarinet Peru Central School<\/a>\u00a0let\u00a0me use to play in the Band.\u00a0 I reported to Renata: “I can’t sing that, with all those notes the page might as well be all black.” I could not follow the vocal line and assumed that\u00a0the singer who could follow it\u00a0had to be a minor god.\u00a0\u00a0 This is how I was introduced to the\u00a0music written for Manuel\u00a0that still stands as an indelible witness to Garcia Senior’s formidable abilities.\u00a0 Dr. Radomski\u00a0has done me a great service and also for\u00a0the world of singing by giving us a picture of\u00a0 the person that was Manuel Garcia Sr.\u00a0 The man was not perfect, the singer not universal.\u00a0\u00a0His legacy, however, \u00a0is magnificent and\u00a0 Dr. Radomski’s work puts\u00a0“Daddy Garcia’s” historical significance into much better focus\u00a0.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Garcia wanted us to know that his method is not his own invention.\u00a0\u00a0Garcia Jr.\u00a0marked his dad as\u00a0the real starting point for his observations.\u00a0 Some could say that invoking the authority of another can be a great technique for\u00a0shielding\u00a0oneself\u00a0against criticism.\u00a0 Criticism of Garcia and his “Method”\u00a0was and still is easy to find, but I believe his attribution of responsibility to his father for the method he published is a humble admission that his dad was primary and the son was secondary.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Moving through life in the big shadow of his dad was, no doubt, difficult in many ways for Manuel Jr..\u00a0 He could be forgiven for riding youthful rebellion to denunciation of his father.\u00a0 Happily he was faithful to “family values” and carried his father’s efforts forward in such a manner that even today we are arguing about all the same things that surrounded the Garcia “Method” from its first publication.\u00a0 That argument is now much muted by PC concerns and University policy.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The effect of this “party line” consensus\u00a0does have results.\u00a0 I received a note from a\u00a0new friend on Face Book that\u00a0I quote in part:<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Modern singing has developed an idea of what technique is that results in monotone singers: where coloration is tacked-on or added rather than resulting from the freeness of the voice.” <\/em>Ronald Carter<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

I think\u00a0it’s about time\u00a0to push back on the tide of muted consensus that gives us such notable results.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a>Garcia’s text includes:<\/strong><\/p>\n

“The human voice submits to the influence of age, sex, constitution, and undergoes innumerable modifications. Independent of the outstanding differences which distinguish the voices of various individuals, there are also an unlimited number of nuances belonging to the <\/em>organ of a single individual. In fact, each voice can conform to the inflections of the most varied passions; it can imitate the cries of animals and nearly all the sounds which our ears can perceive.”<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

(translation: Donald Paschke – Da Capo Press<\/a>)<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a>And also:<\/strong><\/p>\n

“In our considerations, we will not concern ourselves with the different timbres which characterize and differentiate the voices of individuals, but only with the diverse timbres which the voice of the same individual presents.”<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

(translation: Donald Paschke – Da Capo Press<\/a>)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Let’s get the words worked out.\u00a0 TIMBRE is really the best word to use in the technical sense, but I really like common language better…. Well, you know where I come from<\/a>.\u00a0 Let’s just say that TIMBRE\u00a0equals color.\u00a0 Now I feel better.<\/strong><\/p>\n

What Garcia does\u00a0with these quotes is to divide\u00a0the generic category, VOCAL COLORS, into two subsets<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The first subset is the specific color\u00a0mix\u00a0belonging to the vocal\u00a0gift<\/a> I told everyone about in Merry Christmas 2011<\/a>.\u00a0 Each voice has its own color mix which\u00a0distinguishes it from all other voices.\u00a0\u00a0If the\u00a0color mix\u00a0is beautiful\u00a0it is a great treasure, indeed.\u00a0\u00a0This subset of colors I think of as being as unique\u00a0as a finger print.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The second subset\u00a0is the vocal colors artists\u00a0should use for interpretation.\u00a0 Each singer has at his or her\u00a0disposal, according to Garcia, an unlimited range of colors with which to interpret.\u00a0 Garcia chose to discuss these colors.\u00a0 This is also the stuff by which\u00a0artists like Mel Blanc<\/a> and Bobby McFerren <\/a>make a living.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I find it meaningful that\u00a0Garica won’t\u00a0discuss the identifying characteristics of individual voices.\u00a0 He didn’t need to make a case for what everyone understood.\u00a0 Different voices sound different.\u00a0\u00a0And they’re supposed to. Duh! <\/strong><\/p>\n

Which brings me back to Mr. Carter. His\u00a0lament is understandable.\u00a0 You only need to read just a little of the stuff that comes off the presses of University Publishers to find hints on why he is dissatisfied.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0One can find books that talk about a new\u00a0“Tonal Ideal<\/a>” celebrated as the new “International Standard<\/a>”\u00a0of singing.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Interesting though they may be, I consider these books\u00a0to be\u00a0a real threat to the voice student, because their goal is to\u00a0unify, homogenize, standardize and ultimately to monotonize voices.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mr. Carter’s comments\u00a0are\u00a0encouraging to me in that\u00a0he has\u00a0noticed the same vocal results that I’ve noticed over the span of my career.\u00a0 Today singers are arriving on the stage sounding more and more similar and less and less different.<\/strong><\/p>\n

That’s why: Garcia!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the preface of the first edition of Garcia’s \u00c9cole\u00a0de Garcia : trait\u00e9\u00a0complet\u00a0de l’art du chant en deux parties Garcia introduces himself. The son of an artist generally appreciated as a singer, and who is recommended as a master by the merited reputations of several of his students. I have collected his instructions, fruits of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1124,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,4,53,51],"tags":[309,63],"class_list":["post-1068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-featured","category-garcia","category-singing","tag-garcia","tag-voice"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/rockwellblake.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Garcia-11.jpg?fit=900%2C600&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2kj1l-he","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rockwellblake.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rockwellblake.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rockwellblake.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rockwellblake.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rockwellblake.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1068"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/rockwellblake.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4251,"href":"https:\/\/rockwellblake.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1068\/revisions\/4251"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rockwellblake.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rockwellblake.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rockwellblake.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rockwellblake.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}