I am indeed
fortunate to have the Classic Arts
Channel-eternally thankful to Lloyd Rigler
and my friend Larry Deutsch-on my Dish
antenna. (Lloyd and Larry were the first to
sponsor the eleven year trips of the N Y
City Opera, to the Dorothy Chandler
Pavilion.) I watch it faithfully every night
before I turn out the light. Occasionally I
am privy to a singer of yesteryear-with
stellar career experience-who has been
spending her/his post-career time, sharing
with a multitude of eager and anxious
students, his/her ideas/secrets on how she
negotiated the most difficult problems a
singer encounters in a given repertoire. She
was sharing her vocal “technique” with which
she ostensibly builds the singing voice.
Given her age I suspect, she chose in this
instance to recite the aria to the
accompaniment of her pianist ... and then
sing the last eight bars or so, which of
course contained the obligatory, ending high
note.
In preparation,
she had give a number of wonderfully
expressive and colorful explanations as to
what she would need to do to meet the vocal
challenges of the piece. They were quite
eloquent ... and in fact were reminiscent of
those I received from Florence Lamont Hinman,
at the University of Denver. Those usually
took up twenty-five minutes of my half-hour
lesson before I sang the last five ... But,
I learned a lot about phrasing and the
language in which I was singing. The major
element missing from these two teachers was,
that while they always would say, “Support,
support!” ... they had no idea how to
actually make that happen. It was just a
word! Have you heard that word, lately?
“Where’s the
beef?” Most of you are too young to remember
that question but you may properly infer
that it means ... “Yeah, nice words ... but
what is it that I mechanically must do with
my breathing, support, tongue, shape of
mouth, soft-palate, where should the tone
ring, in my throat, or in my nasal-pharynx,
etc?” ... and you would be right.
While this
lovely lady was speaking, in most instances
I actually understood what she was trying to
convey … but I was almost subconsciously
filling in my own technical vernacular to
supply the mechanics, to make what she was
asking ... a reality!
The truth is,
most singers who make it to her/his level
have been “natural singers” since the first
time they tried to sing-along with the
radio/TV. It was never hard. Every
one of my colleagues, every one of my
stellar singer/students, whose voices I have
retrieved-from Pat Boone, Howard Keel,
Renata Scotto, Giorgio Tozzi, etc. to the
wonderful Andy William, who passed last
year-were all natural singers!!! They never
knew it was hard! They each had come to me
when they had lost the concept of support
... and their voices had ... well, decayed.
THE VOICE IS
A WIND INSTRUMENT ... and over
time, these major artists began to have to
work harder to achieve what used to be
easier; perhaps they’d been having to sing
too many times on a bad throat while their
support insidiously became less efficient,
until the voice began to fail. What were
their options?
Let’s for
moment, say it is you whose voice isn’t
quite what you had … ohhh, six months, a
year ago! Since your voice has always been
there on demand and you really never knew
what support was when you were doing it at
your best-Andy for decades-now that you’ve
lost “it,” you haven’t a clue where to look
to fix the problem. Howard couldn’t sing
above a shaky middle C for over seven years.
When he came to me, he was on tour with Man
of La Mancha ... singing the score down “a
fourth!”
Our first
lesson was in the small rehearsal room at
the N Y City Opera, State Theater and I had
him singing solid, operatic high G’s in a
half hour. We worked nine days and then his
show left New Jersey to go back on the road.
Two weeks later he called to say, “Hey Boy
... I’m sangin’ everthang in key now!” Soooo
... Impossible Dream was ending nightly with
a high F ... instead of a shaky middle C.
I would suggest
to those of you who are no longer singing at
your previous level, that the first thing
you should consider is that maybe you aren’t
supporting in quite the same way you used to
(and age has nothing to do with it ... I’m
still singing like I did at forty) ... that
you are no longer supporting with as much
energy and power as you once did ... and you
have no idea how to fix that!
I will show you how to fix your support
problem in your first lesson, easily double
the fullness of your voice ... and add some
high notes as well! It ain’t rocket science
,,, or even magic (although sometimes it
seems like it is) ... and I guarantee
you’ll be singing dramatically better in a
half-hour/forty-five minutes top, than you
were when you came in the door! ... ;-)
