Articles
What is Technique?
There often seems to be considerable confusion when the question of technique is raised; and when it is answered in several different ways, as so often happens, the confusion is…
Vocal style in Wagner from the Golden Age to the Present – Lower Male Voices
Lower Male Voices Any discussion of the singing of Wagner’s music in any period ought to start with the singing that Wagner himself imagined and the singers he heard. Another…
Messa di Voce
A surprising result of research into the writing of vocal experts of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is that not one of them before 1850 ever mentions the placing of…
The Great Scale
The first and most basic vocal instruction in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries began with long notes; the purpose was to firm and strengthen the vocal apparatus before embarking on…
Voce Finta
This is translated usually as ‘feigned voice’, and it describes a method of singing with the larynx held high. One encounters its use particularly amongst Lieder singers, lyric tenors and…
The Trill
During the seventeeth and eighteenth centuries the trill was easily the most important vocal ornament, paramount both for concluding cadenzas and decoration within melodies. No singer who wished to succeed could be…
On Singing Recitative
Apart from having a good voice and singing well, the singing of recitative probably most easily divides the good from the ordinary; the artist from the journeyman. Every singer is…
Good Posture – Why?
The nineteenth century treatises all set great store on a good posture for singers: Nava ‘The noble attitude.’ Lamperti ‘The position of a soldier.’ Lablache ‘Inflating and swelling the chest to…
The Myth of Forward Placement
The period 1800-1840 saw the utmost development of the florid style in vocal music, so much so that it was almost possible for an unthinking contemporary to believe that good singing consisted…
The Stable Larynx
A multitude of things depend upon the position of the larynx during singing: the steadiness of the tone, whether or not the voice is free of tension, the ease and…
On Planning a Practice Regime
As for any other athlete, a clear differentiation must be made between exercises for warming up the voice and exercises that are designed to improve performance. Nowadays, most of us…
The Passaggio
This Italian word translates as: passage, transition, crossing; three words which precisely describe its position and function in the human voice. Although a prominent feature in modern vocal terminology, it…
On Choosing a Singing Teacher
The first question a prospective student must ask is: What kind of a teacher do I want? Teachers come in all shapes, sizes and abilities, and picking one can sometimes…
What is a Heldentenor?
One of the problems that we in Britain have with classifying voices is that we do not have regularised terminologies in our own language, and are therefore forced to use…
Coup de la Glotte
Intending to encapsulate and codify the technique and style of the singers of the first forty years of the nineteenth century, Manuel Garcia based much of his ‘Treatise on the…
Unravalling ‘Technique’
‘Technique’ – a word much bandied about by singers, teachers, critics and even composers and amateurs of singing. But do they all mean the same thing? I would suggest that…
Floaters and Floating
Among the more interesting natural voice characteristics which occur in young singers is the phenomenon known as ‘floating’. It is found in lyric and leggiero sopranos, occasionally mezzos, and consists…
Female Chest Voice 3 – Solutions
On facing a new female student for the first time, every teacher must make a just assessment of the extent of the technique that the student arrives with: what is…