"Not a real tenor..."

I'm browsing through Juvas Marianne Liljas' doctoral thesis, "Vad månde det blifva av dessa barnen?" ("What is to become of these children?"), about David Björling's vocal pedagogy. David was Jussi's father, and the dissertation is quite interesting. Actually, it's my wife, Katarina, who's borrowed it for her own research.

One passage that caught my eye was about how David Björling, who frequently used recordings by Caruso in his teaching, also used Karl Martin Öhman as a role model.

"Öhman, who studied in Milano among other places, was considered a consummate bel canto singer. Martin Öhman mastered a wide range of opera repertoire and his career was most successful abroad. It's evident from historical sources that Öhman initially had problems establishing himself on our Swedish national stage. At the Royal Opera in Stockholm, it was considered that Öhman was 'not a real tenor', since his timbre was too dark."

I found a sound clip here.

Interesting to find that the Swedish suspicion towards dramatic tenors goes so far back. Later (pg 320), Liljas describes Jussi's conflict (in terms of vocal technique) with John Forsell (artistic director of the Royal Opera) as representative of the struggle between the old influence of the French school and the national, or naturalistic, tradition. In this case, Jussi (and Öhman) rather represented the Italian school, or a cross between the Italian school and the naturalistic Nordic tradition.

Öhman later went on to teach Nicolai Gedda and Martti Talvela - marvellous singers both.

The thesis is quite interesting. Hopefully, I'll have time to read it thoroughly.

The Great Equalizer

The last couple of years, I've given much thought to the effect of microphones on singing, and our ability to judge good singing.

Katarina and I went to see Tosca at Opera På Skäret. An experience in itself, this performance also offered the rare treat of hearing a real Big Voice live. It was Stuart Neill singing Cavaradossi, and suddenly, the difference between "loud" and "big" became very clear.

We had discount seats in the back of the auditorium, but Neill's voice could not only be heard easily - we could feel his voice. This is an experience that a recording can never give you. You can learn to recognize a big voice and imagine what it would be like to hear it live, but such occasions are unfortunately rare.

Listen for example to this clip. You can hear that Neill has a lush beautiful voice, but the recording is unable to convey the feeling of being immersed in his sound. One of the reasons is that you want to place the mikes so that you capture the direct sound from the singers, and not let the ambient sound dominate too much. But the Big Voice becomes part of the ambient acoustics, and fills the auditorium. The recording becomes to the live performance as a photograph of a majestic scenery is to the experience of being there in person.

I can recall many conversations where I've come to understand that most people don't know this difference when it comes to singing. Apparently, quite a few people think that opera singers wear microphones, just like in the musical theater. And I've had friends who've told of their great disappointment when some famous pop singer was unable to make herself heard without a microphone when singing solo with a choir - she who sounds like she has so much "bite" in her voice.

With amplification, most singers sound pretty much equal.

This is bad news for singers who have worked hard to acquire this Big Voice quality (yes, it's an acquired skill- it's just that few know how, or have the patience to acquire it). They should be wary of concerts where microphones are called for. The microphone will erase much of the advantage of the Big Voice, to the great benefit of the singer who lives by the mike.

Katarina recently gave a concert with pianist Hans-Ove Olsson. They did both opera and jazz in the same concert. Jazz can be sung with a Big Voice - that's how it used to be - but at least here in Sweden, there are very few such singers left. I had the pleasure of hearing Katarina and Hans-Ove rehearse in the auditorium at Klockargården, Huddinge, he at the grand piano and she beside him, making the whole room vibrate with the sound of their music. The actual concert was on an outdoor scene, however. It was windy, and Hans-Ove had to make do with a quirky electrical piano. It was about as good as could be expected, but much of the magic from the rehearsal got lost somewhere between the amplification and the wind. Actually, at least when I was turning sheets on the stage (a small gazebo), I experienced the magic. That little gazebo reverberated with the sound of her voice and his playing. If only the 100 people in the audience could all have crammed inside that gazebo... Then they would have been in for a real treat.

Good Dreams - Joseph Shore

I spent some time researching details about vibrato (which is perhaps an interesting story in itself), and stumbled upon Joseph Shore's website. Specifically, it was the text "Where have all the great singers gone?" which first caught my eye.

It is a very interesting article. In other fields, it would be called a "position paper", I guess.

Some parts can be seen as provocative:

Singers with a thousand different voices-- a different color for every note-- are not "interpreting" music. They are singing badly. They have no inner reason for singing; no inner perspective giving their singing impetus. They have no point of view. Having no inner guidance they "pop" it and try to "sell it." They may even use the pop singer's techniques of straight-tone onsets, uneven vibrato, and hand gestures. Usually they feel it is unnecessary for them to study the great singers in opera's history. They may even think it would be harmful for them!

Personally, I've come to think that "they have no inner reason for singing" might not quite hit the spot. They may well have (I know I did), but their vocal technique gets in the way, and cannot convey this inner perspective. This, of course, leaves both singer and audience frustrated. And of course, when you try to pop it and sell it, whether there was an inner perspective to begin with becomes a moot point.

I'd like to tell an anecdote: A few days before reading Shore's article, we had had one of our gatherings here at our place, with Bengt visiting from Stockholm and spending two days teaching us and friends. It's become quite an event, and many of the "students" testify that they've been searching for years for this kind of sensation when singing. This time we had been talking about how proper singing is a flow experience, in that it demands so much of your attention.

Shortly after that, I was driving and listening to the radio. They were talking about a production of a Haydn opera at Drottningholm. They announced a sound clip from the performance, and felt that it was important to inform the listener that the soprano was playing badminton while singing her coloratura aria - and the applause from the audience came because she actually managed to hit the ball... Needless to say, hearing the aria without the benefit of also seeing the badminton match left the listener somewhat unsatisfied; it sounded a bit like she was preoccupied while singing. I couldn't help thinking that this was the exact opposite of what our own singing sessions were aiming for.

Shore returns to this theme later on:

There is a term many genuine singers have for this kind of "diminutive," "stylistic, mannered" singing. It is called 'dishonest' singing! As Osborne says, "We cannot care about or believe in a note they sing or a word they say." Think about a truly great artist like Caballe, Sutherland, Horne, Corelli, Bastianini, Siepi, or Hines. There is a quality of depth or "honesty" about everything they sing. There are no tricks. No deceptions. They utilize the beautiful legato line, with the big tone, as their principle means of interpretation. They do not take the pop singers approach which removes consistent resonantal quality out of tones for the sake of individual word coloring. Word coloring is done subtly within the broader usage of legato and tonal beauty.
Surely this is something for singers to shoot for in their singing. Surely this is worthwhile. Surely this is "honest" singing. Singers will grow as individuals from this kind of singing. Singing will become their "yoga" in life and give them MORE to express. People WILL then care about the words they say and the notes they sing, and they will not need a microphone to keep people's attention.

If I may offer a word here to the confused modern singer, regardless of the level of talent you as a singer may possess, you must go for the best in yourself. How can you go for less? Even if you do not have the talent to be a supremely great singer, you can learn from the art of the great singers and thereby find the best in yourself. The "art" of singing has much to offer the human spirit.

Some singers may think that the information in this article is all very depressing. You may think you would be better off not knowing. That might be possible, but I tend to believe that is reality denial which will leave you confused and guessing. The truth is always all there is. Usually it is better to know it.

So who is this Joseph Shore anyway? Well, he was a fairly accomplished American opera singer. Why he didn't enjoy an international career is a very interesting story, told in the book Good Dreams, which you can download from his web site. Shore stumbled onto the opera stage mainly by accident, learning some arias by listening to records in 1973, and then winning the Met Auditions two years later, with a voice that was simply stunning for a 26 year-old (not to mention one who had not been schooled). A clip from the radio broadcast can be found on youtube.

The book is entertaining, and tells the story of his successes and big disappointments, when he was "blackballed", and branded as difficult. Shore tells of his own self-destructive moves and bad timing, but also of how he often won the audience and critics, and found supporters among some of the great singers of the last century.

Perhaps Mr Shore's path was intended to prepare him for teaching? I kept wondering while reading the book how he would eventually become a good teacher. People who win their laurels too easily seldom become good teachers. Would Shore really be able to help others build a big voice, since he didn't have to build his own? The answer is given in the book:

When I faced my students I was considerably less secure. I had never been trained as a teacher of voice, nor had I patiently developed my own voice through long rigorous study. I had a few empirical images from my own teachers, but that was it. My first semester showed how new I was. The young, minimally talented students, just learning Caro mio Ben really benefited very little from my Bardelli sayings. I was way over their head. I was determined not to fail as a voice teacher so I went to the music library and literally read all of the books on vocal pedagogy. Luckily for me, my first semester we had many master teachers come in for 231 classes. I learned from all of them. As I read books on voice science and physiology I began to develop a way of teaching which I thought would communicate and show results. I gave the student just enough information about his physiology that would help and experimented with exercises designed to work on the involuntary muscle systems that we use in singing. I seemed to have something of a knack for it. The result was that my second semester students shot way up in Juries and my colleagues gave it kind notice.

I saw now a different side to the world of singing. I had literally started out at the top, bypassing all of this level of education. All of the singers I had known had been great professional opera singers. What did I have to say to these kids? It happened slowly, but as I tried to teach them as my teachers had taught me, I found myself loving them. And then I realized that singing is far more than a contest to the top of the world. Singing is a human experience which everyone has a right to do. Most of my students did not have much talent if you looked at them the way I had been looking at singers in New York. They would graduate and then go out and teach public school music. A few would go on to graduate school and teach in College. I had none that could possibly reach entrance level professional. Was that a waste of time? No. I changed in Greensboro. Love for my students changed me and I continued my reading and my research to try to develop my personal way of teaching voice.

It is so easy for us to get hooked on the idea of becoming famous; if we don't get that world career, we are failures, and we couldn't have been much good to begin with. This is something I've had to struggle with personally from time to time: I was expected to have a fine athletic career, and believe that I had enough talent to aim for an Olympic final. But talent is not everything - not even talent and ambition. You also need to stay clear of injuries, have good advisors, and perhaps also a fair bit of luck. I may have had enough talent; I probably didn't want it badly enough, and I didn't stay clear of injuries. It took me several years to get over the feeling that I had wasted a great opportunity. I was/am also very good with computers. I've enjoyed quite a good career in programming, and have received some international recognition, but I can't help feeling that I'm only putting half a heart into it - if you want to become really great at something, that won't do. I've also thought for many years that I could have been a successful singer (not only because there aren't that many tall tenors around), but I've always had this thing about being judged on subjective grounds. This kept me from singing in public for many years. With age, I've come to realize that my own particular gift is to see the connecting patterns, and it is this mindset that, more than anything, keeps me from single-mindedly pursuing any specialized field. Successes and failures are in themselves neither good nor bad. It's how they shape us that matters.

Perhaps it is really a shame that Joseph Shore didn't receive international recognition as an opera singer. On the other hand, it seems as if the mistakes and injustices, as well as his initial career as a scholar and the successes he did enjoy after all, all served to make him a fine teacher.

Joseph Shore has a great story to tell. I'm sure he also has a lot to teach.

(Joseph Shore & Gilda Sullivan in Rigoletto)
(Shore & Sullivan, Ending of Rigoletto)
(Shore sings at the Asti in New York)

Function of the Singing Voice

Last Fall, I attended a course, "Function of the Singing Voice", graciously hosted by Prof. Johan Sundberg and his wife, Dr Ulla Sundberg (phonetics & linguistics) at their lovely Summer home south of Stockholm.

It was a very interesting week, full of lectures and experiments. We could easily have spent another week doing more experiments, but I guess I'll have to sign up for the research program for that...

Since I'm an engineer by training and profession, this approach to singing feels absolutely natural, and I am convinced that a more systematic understanding of the science behind singing only helps me become a better singer.

Here are a few of my own observations from the course:

First of all, I felt that maestro Bengt has taught me well. :-)

In general, it was great fun to get an introduction to what we can describe scientifically about the voice. There are many things which we cannot easily measure, and there are obvious problems with just about all experimental setups. Still, there is a wealth of extremely useful knowledge, which I think every singer could benefit from. How to shape vowels (and the inherent problem for sopranos - see below), is a very obvious example.

(I found some slides here that seem to be based on Sundberg's material, for reference.)

The singer's formant is of great importance for male classical singers. The main reason is that it helps the singer to be heard above an orchestra. For rock and musical singers, it offers no such benefits, as the music usually has a different frequency spectrum, and the singers rely on amplification to make themselves heard. Sopranos cannot produce much of a singer's formant, but don't strictly need to, as they make themselves heard anyway.

A number of different techniques exist for creating a singer's formant, e.g. raising your tongue towards the palate will help modify the third formant (but of course also affect articulation), but the "natural" way of producing it is by lowering the larynx and enlarging the ventricle (epilarynx resonator) above the larynx. This is also described pretty well here.

The obvious main challenge for sopranos is making sure that the fundamental frequency, f0, doesn't rise above the first formant, f1. This is called "resonance tuning"), and one of the main techniques is raising f1 by increasing the jaw opening. Essentially, sopranos have little chance of getting the vowels right in their upper range, mainly because the fundamental frequency is well above the frequencies that shape the vowel sounds, and the formants which normally shape the vowels must be kept above the fundamental frequency for a pleasant sound.

The course helped clarify my understanding of how vowels are shaped, which has helped me in my practice (making me use the tongue more deliberately for articulation), and the notion of "tracheal pull" has helped me control air pressure and timbre - for example by noting that I can help the tracheal pull not only by lowering the diaphragm, but also by expanding or raising the chest, thereby either allowing the lungs to expand outward, or simply increasing the vertical room by "raising the ceiling", rather than "lowering the floor".

I did note with some disappointment, however, that there exist no good techniques for understanding the higher formants (it was only stated that they are generated in the larynx, and affect the "personality" of the voice). I noted with interest slides 29-32 from these seminar slides, where the spectral analysis charts for Corelli and Pavarotti show some similarity, as do the charts of Bjoerling and Domingo. I will draw no further conclusions.

Overall, it was a wonderful week, with great lectures, wonderful food, interesting labs and very good company.

Into the depths...

I turned 40 recently, and true to our tradition,
we invited friends and gave a concert.

I gave myself the opportunity to sing a passage out
of L'Elisir D'amore: the Nemorino/Dulcamara duet
(Voglio dire...), followed by the Nemorino/Adina duet
(Caro elisir...), followed by the Belcore/Nemorino/Adina
trio (Tran tran tran...)

My wonderful wife, Katarina sang the part of Adina, of course.
Peter Kajlinger did both Dulcamara and Belcore.
It was my
first time singing with Peter, and it was truly a joy. He has an
air of confidence and generosity about him, and he's a gifted
comedian as well as a consummate professional.

Coach Bengt made a valiant effort to make it despite first
attending an audition in Stockholm.
He arrived just in time
to fire off his contributions in rapid succession:
the Edgardo/Lucia duet (Verranno a te...), Cielo e mar,
and the Cavaradossi/Tosca duet (Mario, mario...), before
he was allowed to sit down and have a glass of wine.
He also helped spice up the party with his ukelele...

Bengt's singing reminds me of Franco Corelli.

Our Tosca was Maria Sloth, who has traveled a rocky road ever since
she was hailed as "the next Birgit Nilsson" at school.
She resolved the pressure by simply not singing at all for the longest
time, but a few years ago, she made a tentative comeback (in our
living room, if I recall...) She has now found her way back to her
first teacher (Jacqueline Delman), and has found her voice
again, after more than 20 years.

Maria is a true dramatic soprano. Managing a dramatic voice is
no picnic (not that I would know...), but when it works, it's truly
something to experience. Thanks, Maria, for a wonderful
performance.

Katarina pulled off being a great hostess, singing Adina, Lucia
and the Bell Song from Lakmé. A perfect Birthday gift, and a
wonderful evening.

As for my own performance, I was actually quite pleased.
The acting was mostly acceptable, and I did attempt to go
all out (something that I've had trouble with, as most
amateurs do). The voice sounded stable and well grounded,
although the singer's formant can be improved. The legato
line was good.

A few weeks later I had a very interesting conversation
with Prof Johan Sundberg at the Dept of Speech, Music
and Hearing at KTH. Prof Sundberg's theoretical depth
is truly impressive, and just chatting with him for a couple
of hours taught me a great deal. Not that I can easily
account for what, exactly, but the combination of his
comments, the stuff that Bengt has been telling me for
years, and bits and pieces I've picked up elsewhere,
inspired me to go home and try a few things...

One item of discussion was a picture from Manén's
"Bel canto" book, showing a closed larynx. The picture
looked like the larynx was in a high position (not very
interesting from a singing perspective), but the text
indicated that it was in a low position. Closing the false
vocal cords, as indicated by the picture, in a low position
is not easy, apparently. Without an X-ray machine at
home, it's difficult to conduct your own experiments,
obviously...

But Manén mentions a "click" sound, "caused by ... a clash
of air rushing in from above and below the larynx"
(according to Manén - I can't judge whether this is a
correct description). I set out to attempt to reproduce
this effect. It took two days of hard work, and significantly
more downward pull of the larynx than I'm used to,
combined with a kind of squeezing (I imagined the larynx
as a "V", which needs to be squeezed together into an "I",
partly inspired by a drawing that Prof Sundberg made
during our conversation). After a while, I could do the
exercise suggested by Manén: a slow staccato scale
(apparently, from "Studio di canto", by A. Busti),
producing that faint "click" between each note, as the
larynx closes and re-opens. I don't know whether this
proves anything, but the tangible effect was a marked
improvement in my singer's formant (more "ringing",
and more power - basically, everything improved, as
far as I can tell; Katarina seems to agree).

This seems to be in line with Sundberg's observation
that the singers formant is formed in the larynx, and with
Bengt's insisting that the overtones are not produced
the way you'd expect. Not that I doubted this, but it's
always good to be able to internalise this knowledge,
so that your body agrees as well.

The added difficulty is exerting a significant downward
pull on the larynx while "freeing" the muscles shaping
the upper air passages. I would not have been able to
do this a year ago (much less four years ago, before I
started taking lessons for Bengt), even if I had
understood that it were needed for the kind of
singing that I aspired to.

I've been resting a few days now, to avoid over-excerting
myself. It's difficult, since I want to keep exploring this
newfound sensation. I'm looking forward to many more
years of continued discovery. This is obviously only the
beginning.

charting emotional content

It seems as if my thoughts on emotional indicators have been
answered scientifically long before I started thinking them.
Not surprising - the trick for a layman is of course to find all
the research. Much of it is not available via the web, unless
you belong to a participating research institution. If I were
to park myself in a library, I might have better luck...

However, I did find this:
Emotional Expression Code in Opera and Lied Singing

(Presented by Dr. Eliezer Rapoport at the 1996 Israel
Musicological Society Annual Meeting)

The author has run computer analyses of recordings
of great artists: Callas, Caballe, Margaret Price, Pavarotti,
Kraus, et al, and has performed a systematic breakdown
of how these singers vary their voice and musical expression
in order to express appropriate emotions. The article lists
some 50 different indicators. I have yet to read it thoroughly,
but here is an extract:

A higher degree in excitement than in the C or R modes is achieved by introducing a third element: pitch transition; a gradual increase in pitch in one or two stages from the onset to the sustained stage, mostly practiced by tenors. This is not singing off-tune but is a deliberate way of shaping the tone, endowing it with some extra qualities: openness, brightness, life, timbre embellishment, and expressive­ness. These are the qualities that bel canto tenors use in expressing love, exhilara­tion and happiness. (The tenor is the hero and the lover in Italian operas). T modes are perceived as a timbre effect. After becoming aware of it the trained listener can discern this gradual transition as a pitch effect. Figure 5 displays an example of the T1 mode taken from the aria "La rivedra nell'estasi..." from Un Ballo in Maschera by Verdi, sung by Luciano Pavarotti, expressing love (marked in Performance

[...]

Score No. 3). The aria "De miei bollenti spiriti" from La Traviata by Verdi, and the preceding recitative, express great happiness. Pavarotti and Alfredo Kraus use the T1 and T2 modes extensively in this aria. Further on in the aria at the climax of happiness, the phrase "io vivo quasi in ciel" is repeated five times, each time leading to a climax - sung by Kraus in the T1 mode.

This sort of thing appeals to my engineering brain. (-:

A technocratic, optimistic spin on this might be that, given
such wonderful analysis tools, and the ability to describe
exactly what is going on in these wonderful performances,
we should be able to resurrect, and perhaps even improve
the old magic.

The only remaining problem is of course to attract singers
that are talented enough, and devoted enough, to subject
themselves to the years of training that will still be required.

(Actually, I think that isn't a problem, because lots of talented
and devoted singers do this today. As with many other fields,
the trick is to integrate research into the teaching and wide
practice of the art. Most singers I know will probably be
slightly put off by discussions on Fast Fourier Transforms,
vowel formants, vibrato periods and unit pulses...)

apologies to RSS subscribers

I've been republishing the last posts several times.
If anyone is subscribing to this blog, I apologize.

I've switched to the new Blogger version, and it
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... at least using the Opera web browser, but honestly,
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