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From:  Isabelle Bracamonte <ibracamonte@y...>
Date:  Fri Sep 1, 2000  9:28 pm
Subject:  Re: [vocalist-temporary] Re: off-topic: Richard Miller Video Tapes



I am a bit wary of a teacher who doesn't produce "any"
sound (i.e., Mr. X gives his students a healthy
technique which allows their own voices to shine
through, thus there is no common thread among his
students) -- it is related to my wariness of SLS
teaching, which seems (in my opinion, as stated before
in the messages debating this point) to produce a
well-trained but bland sound (operatically speaking),
reproachlessly correct but also unremarkable.

Ivogun was known for bright, agile voices
(Schwarzkopf, Berger, Streich). Marchesi produced
voices known for an even scale and the ability to
color the voice in lots of different ways (Melba,
Eames, Calvé). Lilli Lehman taught her students
(Farrar, Fremstad) to lean on the forward vowels [i],
[e] (and hated the ah vowel). Garcia... I don't know.
Was there a common sound to his student's voice, from
the written sources left behind? He's tough because
there aren't any recordings left. Most of the other,
though, are recognized as great teachers because they
produced mor than one illustrious singer -- and I hear
commonalities in the groups of students. Of course,
they are all long since dead.

But these days, you have Johnson, known for
"brightening" voices up and giving them pierce,
Hoffmann for warmth and "float," Falcon for a
powerful, body-driven sound, Puffer for an
open-throated large-fat-notes sound, Boyajian for
resonance in the low notes, Martin for young-sounding
"simple" voices, etc.

Of course, I don't mean that these teachers will force
an unhealthy technique onto a singer, or that each
teacher has only one technique that applies to each
student without modification or adjustment -- but,
just as a teacher of musical theater legit will
produce a different sound than will a teacher of opera
(or they should -- and it's not just a matter of
style), I think the subdivisions are carried further.
Because there is no One True Way of teaching operatic
singing, each teacher's approach to correct technique
will produce a slightly different type of sound.

I do believe this. If you took a young singer and
sent him to study for 6 years with Garcia, I think he
would sound different than if you had sent him to
study 6 years with Marchesi, or 6 years with Miller --
even though all of these "parallel universe" singers
might end up singing with equally correct, healthy
techniques. He might have different faults -- one
teacher might give him an exciting sword-like thrust
to the top at the expense of some warmth in the middle
voice; another might give him heart-meltingly warm,
lovely vowels at the expense of some squillo. Yes,
there is such a thing as the individual sound (no
one's making sweeping generalizations about De
Hildago's technique, for instance), but there's no
"perfect" technique -- all technical approaches will
give a student X at the expense of Y, or B at the
expense of C, or will take the bland approach --
giving a student neither X nor B, but only his own
healthy instrument. [Side note: This student wouldn't
be lacking totally in X and B, but would have it in
the normal, unremarkable amounts.]

Why do I think that his own healthy instrument, with
neither a fantastic X nor an extraordinary B, would be
bland? Things like squillo and formant and thrust or
warmth or cut or float can be *taught*, and there's no
way to get everything. You can't have a soprano with
a warm, full middle, a clear and sparkling top, a
dark, powerful low head voice, breakneck agility,
spinto heft, a pianissimo to drop a pin into,
unrivaled diction, and a zillion vocal colors. You
just can't. Some of it has to do with what the
student's voice is naturally capable of, but some of
it has to do with how you're taught -- whether your
training focuses on cut and cleft, or grace and
diction, or warmth and loveliness, for example. There
are lots of slightly different vocal approaches, and
many of them work and are healthy, but they work
differently, emphasizing one direction or the other.
If there's a student who is given no direction, but
merely steered into the correctness of the middle of
all of these techniques and skills, I think it will be
bland.

I think, of course. Take all this with a hefty dose
of my own observing opinion.

I'm not saying Miller is bland -- that's why I asked.
Does he have a direction, an area of technique he
excells in? It makes me wary that he has been
teaching for so long and hasn't produced any
fabulously great singers -- I'm not saying that you
need a superstar to be a good teacher, but I'm wary of
SLS for the same reason (not having produced any
notable operatic voices, although its credits in other
genres are most impressive). I don't doubt that both
of these approaches produce good, serviceable,
reliable, fine-sounding voices who are out there and
working in the B-level houses; but at some point,
there has to be some technical direction to be chosen
for the voice to be remarkable. I think.

That was certainly more than I intended to write.

Whew.

I look forward to other's opinions. For the record, I
greatly enjoyed Miller's book "On the Art of Singing,"
but disagreed with some of his technical concepts in
"Structure of Singing." His ideas about the opera
business, interpretive approaches, student attitudes,
musicality, etc., I find to be fabulous.

Isabelle B.

=====
Isabelle Bracamonte
San Francisco, CA
ibracamonte@y...




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  Replies Name/Email Yahoo! ID Date Size
3977 Re: off-topic: Richard Miller Video Tapes Lloyd W. Hanson   Tue  9/5/2000   2 KB

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