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 \u201cteaching\u201d is a two way street.\u00a0\u00a0 With\u00a0my 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\u00a0of retirement, I could make this blog a happy party about freedom. However, for today, I want to talk about the antonym.<\/p>\n
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\u00a0I who rarely recognized one.<\/p>\n
Since I retired, I\u2019ve seen and heard so many singers who mistreat their voices that I\u2019ve 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\u00a0surprised when this artist made\u00a0me understand that she\u00a0believed that her voice was her slave. This is the antonym to freedom.<\/p>\n
I preach freedom. I learned freedom from Renata Booth<\/a> 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\u00a0my 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.<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 During\u00a0a pause in a rehearsal, I remember someone commenting on my singing and asking me \u201cHow do you do that?!\u201d I answered with words that have great meaning for me now: \u201cI just do it, and I know that it is right when I can\u2019t feel a thing. My teacher put it in me and I just let it out.\u201d\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n My limited comprehension was fine until I got a compliment from a soprano.\u00a0\u00a0Although what she\u00a0said about my voice was all positive for her tastes in singing it put me on notice that I was doing something wrong.\u00a0 My wife ,Debbie, was recording performances already, and miracle of miracles, I listened to one of the\u00a0performances 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.\u00a0 I know, I know!\u00a0 It’s not a tenor thing to do.<\/p>\n Recording my performances took on a new importance. I needed to be my own teacher.\u00a0 I\u00a0had to work hard to preserve\u00a0what Renata had taught me and harder still to\u00a0understand\u00a0it 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\u00a0through Garcia:<\/p>\n \u201cIt 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.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Complete Treatise on the Art of Singing<\/a> Here we have the shortest short hand I can imagine. Garcia states the \u201cmethod\u201d 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\u00a0within the\u00a0scientific community.\u00a0 He says that while\u00a0making his reduction to “theoretical form” he will be \u201cattaching the results to the causes.\u201d\u00a0 Effect and cause? \u00a0Wait.., wait\u2026.. Isn\u2019t that \u201cCause and Effect<\/a>\u201d?\u00a0\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n \u00a0“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.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Anna E. Schoen-Ren\u00e9 (1862-1942) The Etude \u2013 1941 November page 745<\/a><\/p>\n Ms. Schoen-Ren\u00e9\u00a0helps me\u00a0construct a formula: “method”\u00a0equals “pattern”\u00a0equals “Factory Made<\/a>“.\u00a0 Garcia understood that methods were tyrannical, mechanical and impersonal. \u00a0We are today surrounded with the idea that Garcia and everyone who ever wrote about \u201cmethod\u201d were tussling with words to explain the use of causes (tools<\/a>) for the project of getting the results (effects). The idea today is if singers can know the cause of a particular sound then\u00a0they can wrangle their instruments into producing it. \u00a0This idea mostly empowers the teacher. It tempts the singer\u00a0into believing\u00a0that he\/she has the power to manipulate his\/her voice according to the teacher\u2019s dictates. This is a\u00a0trap for the student.\u00a0 Loading the student up with instructions about how\u00a0to manage the various parts\u00a0of his\/her instrument is a perfect formula for failure.<\/p>\n Teacher: \u201cNow 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Singer: \u201cOK! Here I go: aAaoAaEaoeoe! How was that?\u201d<\/p>\n Teacher: \u201cNot 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Singer then thinks: \u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n My idea is that the teacher needs to try shoemaking<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/em>\u00a0 <\/span>My Favorite Voice Lesson<\/span><\/a>\u00a0is an even better rendition of the above.<\/p>\n Renata often said to me \u201cSING WITH YOUR EARS!!\u201d Did I understand\u00a0what\u00a0she ment\u00a0back 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.\u00a0 Garcia handed me the intellectual keys to unlock the meaning of what my ears were always hearing. The Sony Walkman<\/a> 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. <\/a>Garcia\u2019s books are now my first source. His biographer quotes Garcia:<\/p>\n \u201cI 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 <\/a>use your brain<\/span>. 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.\u201d<\/em><\/span> 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<\/span><\/a> <\/span><\/em>(Kindle Locations 2967-2971). Kindle Edition.<\/p>\n
\n(translation: Donald Paschke – Da Capo Press)<\/p>\n
\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n