What's going on?

I had an interesting conversation today with a friend of mine who is also a voice teacher about the current state of the art of teaching. We agreed that too many singers are coming out of music schools without an idea of how to sing.

I have had any number of singers come to me after years of study, either private or in music school, who when asked about breathing, shrug their shoulders and give me a pathetic look. My friend said that she has had the same experience.

To me, the knowledge of how to sing begins with the knowledge of how to breathe. Not just every day ho-hum breathing, but deep singing breathing. How anyone can complete a degree from a reputable music school and still not know this technique is beyond me.

I begin every first lesson with a full explanation and demonstration of what I consider a good singing breath. I advocate listening to the sound the air makes as it passes down your throat. One should hear 'ah' or 'aw', never 'ih'. The latter sound means that the singer is not allowing the larynx to relax with the inhalation. When one inhales with the 'ah' or 'aw' sound in the air passage, one gets a deep breath and allows the larynx to relax.

To me, Ça va sans dire. The deep relaxing breath solves a multitude of vocal problems. Rather than try to solve each problem separately, this kind of breath is a panacea, a way to breath and sing with flexibility and ease.

One student of mine, who had worked with me for only a year when I had to close my New York and New Jersey studios, told me that she was studying with a new voice teacher who 'taught just like you do!' When she sang for me, all the work we had done together was lost. She was right back where she started. I asked her what her new teacher had said about breathing, since hers had deteriorated radically since I last had heard her. She told me that after several lessons she asked him why he had never mentioned breathing to her. He answered, "I never will'. I ask you!

We discussed how teachers are hired by music schools. Often it is on the basis of having had a career in opera or concert singing. Does anyone ever ask to see the person actually teach a lesson? Many fine singers make rotten teachers, simply because while they know how they sing, present them with a student who has problems, and they are lost as to how to solve them.

I find that as soon as a student learns how to take a deep, open breath, and the larynx relaxes, ten other problems disappear at once. It's not magic, it's technique.

Someone once said: 'Art is the emotion expressed on the technique'. This is true if one is a painter, a dancer, or a singer. Without a good technical background, the most beautiful voice will have a short career. Wonderful singers who had to face this problem include Renata Tebaldi and Renata Scotto. They both started with extraordinary voices that simply didn't hold up. I heard each of them scream out a high note on the stage of the Met toward the end of their careers.

My friend and I agreed that a woman's voice has a harder time stabilizing after menopause than a man's voice at the same age. Régine Crespin for instance, after having had a long career as a dramatic soprano, and, on experiencing some difficulties in her vocal range, after some time off, retooled, came back and had a long career as a mezzo. Not everyone is this wise.

We agreed that as the voice matures, very often the singer, either male or female, may need to change their repertoire to fit the current state of their instrument.

One of my pet peeves is the amount of vibrato I hear in many soprano voices today. Listening to the Met last Saturday, I had to turn off the radio. The soprano's vibrato was making me dizzy. If you listen to singers back a generation or so, you never, or seldom heard this kind of vibrato in a trained voice. Maria Callas, in her later days of singing, developed a vibrato you could drive a truck through. She, and some others, were 'natural singers' who were wonderful until something happened in their life to upset their equilibrium. I doubt if they ever really knew how they sang.

It would be so fine if voice teachers learned how to transmit this kind of information to young singers. The singers would have longer careers and I would get fewer head-aches!