with
Robert L. Burgess
Fine Arts Building
Chicago
(312) 922.3263
Burgess@vocalmechanics.com
-- Presents --
Robert L. Burgess
Fine Arts Building
Chicago
(312) 922.3263
Burgess@vocalmechanics.com
-- Presents --
The Slow Ascending Scale
Note: The Introduction was prepared to prepare the general singing public, to include beginners and those who may never have heard of the slow ascending scale, much less, of its component parts--academic scale, perfect scale, perfect vowel, and the Sound Column. It also helps me. If I am unclear, don’t hesitate to tell me where.
Thank you, —RLB.
Thank you, —RLB.
About the doc:
The books I refer to are listed at the end of the article, and I do not mention the titles from which I quote unless the author has contributed more than one book, or unless it serves to do so. Undoubtedly there are singers just starting out who yet do not read music. No problem; no one comes in knowing how to read music, and it can’t stop one from doing the exercises. Also, there are undoubtedly singers who have never heard of the singers I quote who spoke in praise of the slow scale, and truly can’t appreciate their words. Nonetheless, they heard them here.
The books I refer to are listed at the end of the article, and I do not mention the titles from which I quote unless the author has contributed more than one book, or unless it serves to do so. Undoubtedly there are singers just starting out who yet do not read music. No problem; no one comes in knowing how to read music, and it can’t stop one from doing the exercises. Also, there are undoubtedly singers who have never heard of the singers I quote who spoke in praise of the slow scale, and truly can’t appreciate their words. Nonetheless, they heard them here.
The Slow Ascending Scale:
1. The Slow Ascending Scale, the great voice builder of the Old Italian School of Singing, covers a host of vocal technical principals and facilitates their mastery simply because the scale is slow, and we take each one separately and apply them all to the Slow Ascending Scale. But our main purpose is to develop the voice, and why we use it. The Slow Ascending Scale refers to a perfect scale; a perfect scale is called Academic.
(a) The Academic Scale is a perfect scale because every vowel on every note up and down the scale is perfect (pitch and harmonic structure).
(b) A vowel is perfect when every cubic-centimeter of space inherent within a given throat is engaged for its own resonation. (The definition is a concept. The reality is the sensation that develops as the voice/throat develops from working a perfect vowel over the Slow Ascending [Academic] Scale.)
2. There are markers in every scale that identify it as “academic.” The crux of this video is to identify the markers; not of every scale, but where they exist in the keys the voice is comfortable. When they have been identified by working them in a moderate quarter-note scale, we are ready to mount a whole-note, Slow Ascending Scale. Once we are familiar with the “markers” over the first octave and one-half, the knowledge is easily transferable to the top notes.
3. Nothing throws light on the meaning of “academic,” relative to a scale, as does the discovery: the moment the reality became consciousness and the term first spoken, and why I retell the history. The bulk of that History I collected from the five published works of Mr. Edgar F. Herbert-Caesari, and will return to it. It was also Mr. Herbert-Caesari who introduced me to the Slow Ascending Scale in The Voice of the Mind (1951), which we address now. On p. 215 we read:
4. “The slow ascending scale is the finest medium for building up the voice. . . . It is the slow climb that provides the finest muscular education for the vocal cords proper and the entire muscular system within the larynx: it builds up stamina and resistance to fatigue. It is tantamount to climbing a rope: not the first yard, but the last is difficult,because of fatigue.” (He then takes each category of voice through two octaves and identifies what is academic to each vowel on every note of every scale. To my knowledge no where else in the annals of vocal pedagogy can one find this information.)
5. What H-C said we understand. And if one thinks about it, the number one voice builder of the Old Italian School of Singing was also a no-brainer: hold each note of the ascending scale for four counts, and each note of the descending scale for four counts. Rest 30 seconds and mount the next scale a half-tone higher: tonic to tonic and back again and so on over two octaves or more. What else is there to do? This exercise defines the operative: Dynamic Tension. Its genius is in its simplicity. According to H-C in 1951: “today it is rarely used and is practically forgotten.”
6. But if H-C, or anyone, were to say it’s not possible for one to know one’s voice until one knows it within the confines of the Slow Ascending (Academic) Scale, what knowledge of voice is he talking about? What is he attempting to communicate through words? We do not know, but listen to Tetrazzini, p. 28:
7. “The [slow] scale is the greatest test of voice production. No opera singer, no concert singer, who cannot sing a perfect scale [academic] can be said to be a technician or to have achieved results in her art. . . . each note should be perfect of its kind [and get this], and the note of each register should partake sufficiently of the quality of the next register above or below it in order not to make the transition noticeable when the voice ascends or descends the scale.”
8. What can we gather from that? The point is not the blending of registers; the point is she knows exactly where to blend the registers, because she relates her voice, what it does, to notes on a staff. That’s not the knowledge of voice of which we speak, however; it’s just where it begins. For example, if Tetrazzini were to take the middle D (academic) scale, she takes the D and E in chest voice, and because the next pitch is F-sharp, a full-step up and one half-step into the next register (zone of resonation) (mouth/pharynx cavity), she “adjusts” her voice (vowel character, and resonance) to accommodate the register shift. This she does by engaging a little resonance of the pitch above, G-natural. Here the point is further emphasized. She not only knows her voice on the target pitch (F-sharp), but also on the “target pitch” above (G) and adds some of that resonance to the F-sharp; that is, she can think the thought because she knows her voice and the appropriate physiological (vocal cord) response is right here, right now. If she takes the middle C scale, the C, D, and E are in chest; the F, the first pitch (border pitch) within the next zone, is only one half-step up this time, and, therefore, not as easy a register shift (for some voices) as it is when the shift is over a whole step, as it is in the key of D—E to F-sharp. But the point is she knows her voice, because she has something to relate it to: notes on a staff. But she knew her voice because she worked the SAS.
9. If she knows the first three notes of the D scale, might she not know her voice on every pitch of that scale? The inference is staggering. Tetrazzini knows her voice on every pitch of every scale (2 full octaves and more) she sings and on every vowel. So what are we talking about? So far, the first three notes of the D scale on the [a] vowel. That said, I say: it’s not possible for one to know one’s voice, until one knows it framed within notes on the staff. Again, knowing one’s voice is not why we work the SAS, valuable by-product that it is. We work it because it’s the best voice builder/developer the world has to offer—plain and simple. This video is about how to learn it, the academic markers, and how to execute it.
10. (I find it common place that in the books on vocal technique one does not find the SAS, much less the academic scale [except for the books of H-C]. I find it only in the books written, or in the lectures given, by the great singers themselves, and they all happen to be women. Along with Tetrazzini, we have Francis Alda, Frieda Hempel, Lillian Nordica, Geraldine Farrar and Lilli Lehmann, all giving testimony to the beneficial effects of the SAS. At least we have them.)
11. In Men, Women, and Tenors (1937) an intelligent, sophisticated Francis Alda recants the glory-days of the Met. It was her history, and a great history she left us. Of her days with Matilda Marchesi (p. 299) she tells: “exercises were little more than scales, sung very slowly. Single, sustained tones, repeated time and time again, until her critical ear was entirely satisfied. Then came arpeggios and floritura work. But at the base of all were the simplest kind of exercise. By these methods Marchesi produced the great prima donnas—Melba, Calve, Eames, Sybil Sanderson—the California girl for whom Massenet wrote Thais. Marchesi taught me in the same way, and I know no other method of voice training.”
12. In My Golden Age of Singing, Frieda Hempel (p. 32), Chapter Two: Student Years in Berlin, we read: “Sustained tones and low scales were our daily work. For months we studied this way without ever singing a song. Most of the first year was devoted to voice placement. For hours I would practice: tone, tone, tone, spinning the breath from pianissimo to forte and back again. When one can do this properly, the battle is won. Everything else is easy after this is achieved.”
13. In her retirement years Geraldine Farrar developed had a motto she would invariably impart to young singers: “Keep it in the velvet.” The velvet is the crown of the Slow Ascending Scale.
14. But no one speaks to the significance of the SAS as does the Doyen of Grand Opera, Mme Lilli Lehmann. It gives me great pleasure to excerpt her words published in How to Sing (1902) on The Great Scale, p. 96:
15. “This is the most necessary exercise for the voice. As a pupil one must practice it twice a day, as a professional singer at least once. The great scale, properly elaborated in practice, equalizes the voice, makes all flexible and noble, gives strength to all weak places, operates to repair all faults and all breaks, and develops the voice to the very heart. Nothing escapes it. It brings ability as well as inability to light. In my opinion it is the ideal exercise, but the most difficult one I know. By devoting forty minutes to it every day, a consciousness of certainty and strength will be gained that ten hours a day of any other exercise cannot give. Thisshould be the chief test in all conservatories. If I were at the head of one, the pupils should be allowed for the first three years to sing at the examinations only difficult exercises, like the great scale before they should be allowed to think of singing a song or an aria, which I regard only as cloaks for incompetents.
16. “In earlier years I used to like to shirk the work of singing it. There was a time when I imagined that it strained me. . . . It cost me many, many years of the hardest and most careful study; and it finally brought me to realize the necessity of exercising the vocal organs continually, and in the proper way (italics are mine), if I wished always to be able to rely on them. Practice, and especially the practice of the great, slow scale, is the only cure for all injuries, and at the same time the most excellent means of fortification against all over-exertion. I sing it every day, often twice, even if I have to sing one of the greatest roles in the evening. I can rely absolutely on its assistance.
17. “If I had imparted nothing else to my pupils but the ability to sing this one great exercise well, they would possess a capital fund of knowledge which must infallibly bring them a rich return on their voices. I often take fifty minutes to go through it only once, for I let no tone pass that is lacking in any degree in pitch, power, and duration, or in a single vibration of the oscillating vocal cords.”
The Slow Ascending Scale:
As found in The Voice of the Mind, p. 215.
1. The Slow Ascending Scale, the great voice builder of the Old Italian School of Singing, covers a host of vocal technical principals and facilitates their mastery simply because the scale is slow, and we take each one separately and apply them all to the Slow Ascending Scale. But our main purpose is to develop the voice, and why we use it. The Slow Ascending Scale refers to a perfect scale; a perfect scale is called Academic.
(a) The Academic Scale is a perfect scale because every vowel on every note up and down the scale is perfect (pitch and harmonic structure).
(b) A vowel is perfect when every cubic-centimeter of space inherent within a given throat is engaged for its own resonation. (The definition is a concept. The reality is the sensation that develops as the voice/throat develops from working a perfect vowel over the Slow Ascending [Academic] Scale.)
2. There are markers in every scale that identify it as “academic.” The crux of this video is to identify the markers; not of every scale, but where they exist in the keys the voice is comfortable. When they have been identified by working them in a moderate quarter-note scale, we are ready to mount a whole-note, Slow Ascending Scale. Once we are familiar with the “markers” over the first octave and one-half, the knowledge is easily transferable to the top notes.
3. Nothing throws light on the meaning of “academic,” relative to a scale, as does the discovery: the moment the reality became consciousness and the term first spoken, and why I retell the history. The bulk of that History I collected from the five published works of Mr. Edgar F. Herbert-Caesari, and will return to it. It was also Mr. Herbert-Caesari who introduced me to the Slow Ascending Scale in The Voice of the Mind (1951), which we address now. On p. 215 we read:
4. “The slow ascending scale is the finest medium for building up the voice. . . . It is the slow climb that provides the finest muscular education for the vocal cords proper and the entire muscular system within the larynx: it builds up stamina and resistance to fatigue. It is tantamount to climbing a rope: not the first yard, but the last is difficult,because of fatigue.” (He then takes each category of voice through two octaves and identifies what is academic to each vowel on every note of every scale. To my knowledge no where else in the annals of vocal pedagogy can one find this information.)
5. What H-C said we understand. And if one thinks about it, the number one voice builder of the Old Italian School of Singing was also a no-brainer: hold each note of the ascending scale for four counts, and each note of the descending scale for four counts. Rest 30 seconds and mount the next scale a half-tone higher: tonic to tonic and back again and so on over two octaves or more. What else is there to do? This exercise defines the operative: Dynamic Tension. Its genius is in its simplicity. According to H-C in 1951: “today it is rarely used and is practically forgotten.”
6. But if H-C, or anyone, were to say it’s not possible for one to know one’s voice until one knows it within the confines of the Slow Ascending (Academic) Scale, what knowledge of voice is he talking about? What is he attempting to communicate through words? We do not know, but listen to Tetrazzini, p. 28:
7. “The [slow] scale is the greatest test of voice production. No opera singer, no concert singer, who cannot sing a perfect scale [academic] can be said to be a technician or to have achieved results in her art. . . . each note should be perfect of its kind [and get this], and the note of each register should partake sufficiently of the quality of the next register above or below it in order not to make the transition noticeable when the voice ascends or descends the scale.”
8. What can we gather from that? The point is not the blending of registers; the point is she knows exactly where to blend the registers, because she relates her voice, what it does, to notes on a staff. That’s not the knowledge of voice of which we speak, however; it’s just where it begins. For example, if Tetrazzini were to take the middle D (academic) scale, she takes the D and E in chest voice, and because the next pitch is F-sharp, a full-step up and one half-step into the next register (zone of resonation) (mouth/pharynx cavity), she “adjusts” her voice (vowel character, and resonance) to accommodate the register shift. This she does by engaging a little resonance of the pitch above, G-natural. Here the point is further emphasized. She not only knows her voice on the target pitch (F-sharp), but also on the “target pitch” above (G) and adds some of that resonance to the F-sharp; that is, she can think the thought because she knows her voice and the appropriate physiological (vocal cord) response is right here, right now. If she takes the middle C scale, the C, D, and E are in chest; the F, the first pitch (border pitch) within the next zone, is only one half-step up this time, and, therefore, not as easy a register shift (for some voices) as it is when the shift is over a whole step, as it is in the key of D—E to F-sharp. But the point is she knows her voice, because she has something to relate it to: notes on a staff. But she knew her voice because she worked the SAS.
9. If she knows the first three notes of the D scale, might she not know her voice on every pitch of that scale? The inference is staggering. Tetrazzini knows her voice on every pitch of every scale (2 full octaves and more) she sings and on every vowel. So what are we talking about? So far, the first three notes of the D scale on the [a] vowel. That said, I say: it’s not possible for one to know one’s voice, until one knows it framed within notes on the staff. Again, knowing one’s voice is not why we work the SAS, valuable by-product that it is. We work it because it’s the best voice builder/developer the world has to offer—plain and simple. This video is about how to learn it, the academic markers, and how to execute it.
10. (I find it common place that in the books on vocal technique one does not find the SAS, much less the academic scale [except for the books of H-C]. I find it only in the books written, or in the lectures given, by the great singers themselves, and they all happen to be women. Along with Tetrazzini, we have Francis Alda, Frieda Hempel, Lillian Nordica, Geraldine Farrar and Lilli Lehmann, all giving testimony to the beneficial effects of the SAS. At least we have them.)
11. In Men, Women, and Tenors (1937) an intelligent, sophisticated Francis Alda recants the glory-days of the Met. It was her history, and a great history she left us. Of her days with Matilda Marchesi (p. 299) she tells: “exercises were little more than scales, sung very slowly. Single, sustained tones, repeated time and time again, until her critical ear was entirely satisfied. Then came arpeggios and floritura work. But at the base of all were the simplest kind of exercise. By these methods Marchesi produced the great prima donnas—Melba, Calve, Eames, Sybil Sanderson—the California girl for whom Massenet wrote Thais. Marchesi taught me in the same way, and I know no other method of voice training.”
12. In My Golden Age of Singing, Frieda Hempel (p. 32), Chapter Two: Student Years in Berlin, we read: “Sustained tones and low scales were our daily work. For months we studied this way without ever singing a song. Most of the first year was devoted to voice placement. For hours I would practice: tone, tone, tone, spinning the breath from pianissimo to forte and back again. When one can do this properly, the battle is won. Everything else is easy after this is achieved.”
13. In her retirement years Geraldine Farrar developed had a motto she would invariably impart to young singers: “Keep it in the velvet.” The velvet is the crown of the Slow Ascending Scale.
14. But no one speaks to the significance of the SAS as does the Doyen of Grand Opera, Mme Lilli Lehmann. It gives me great pleasure to excerpt her words published in How to Sing (1902) on The Great Scale, p. 96:
15. “This is the most necessary exercise for the voice. As a pupil one must practice it twice a day, as a professional singer at least once. The great scale, properly elaborated in practice, equalizes the voice, makes all flexible and noble, gives strength to all weak places, operates to repair all faults and all breaks, and develops the voice to the very heart. Nothing escapes it. It brings ability as well as inability to light. In my opinion it is the ideal exercise, but the most difficult one I know. By devoting forty minutes to it every day, a consciousness of certainty and strength will be gained that ten hours a day of any other exercise cannot give. Thisshould be the chief test in all conservatories. If I were at the head of one, the pupils should be allowed for the first three years to sing at the examinations only difficult exercises, like the great scale before they should be allowed to think of singing a song or an aria, which I regard only as cloaks for incompetents.
16. “In earlier years I used to like to shirk the work of singing it. There was a time when I imagined that it strained me. . . . It cost me many, many years of the hardest and most careful study; and it finally brought me to realize the necessity of exercising the vocal organs continually, and in the proper way (italics are mine), if I wished always to be able to rely on them. Practice, and especially the practice of the great, slow scale, is the only cure for all injuries, and at the same time the most excellent means of fortification against all over-exertion. I sing it every day, often twice, even if I have to sing one of the greatest roles in the evening. I can rely absolutely on its assistance.
17. “If I had imparted nothing else to my pupils but the ability to sing this one great exercise well, they would possess a capital fund of knowledge which must infallibly bring them a rich return on their voices. I often take fifty minutes to go through it only once, for I let no tone pass that is lacking in any degree in pitch, power, and duration, or in a single vibration of the oscillating vocal cords.”
The Slow Ascending Scale:
As found in The Voice of the Mind, p. 215.
The modified version I use to acquaint the student, and as segue to Herbert-Caesari’s.
18. The above preamble was for one reason: to gather your attention for the preeminent vocalization, the number one voice builder of the Old Italian School of Singing: the Slow Ascending Scale. Ms Lehmann doesn’t explain her words, in the proper way, but we got the message. Whatever the proper way, it must have something to do with how one opens one’s mouth, the structure that houses a perfect [a] vowel. In deed, structure, how to open the mouth is where our work begins.
* * * * * * *
The Academic scale:
19. The first time I heard the word academic relating to voice was in reference to a scale. Mr. Herbert-Caesari was describing what happens between two pitches in an ascending scale that applied to all categories of voice, male and female. At the end of the description he commented: “it’s academic.”
20. “It’s academic?” What on earth is academic about a scale was my first thought. I was to find out. I was reading The Voice of the Mind. What follows is make-believe—inventive possibilities for the first conscious understanding of the scale that gave rise to the term academic—thoughts stimulated by the knowledge accrued from a perusal of the works of Edgar Herbert-Caesari.
21. The history books inform us members of the Florentine Camerata (c. 1600) are responsible for introducing us to monody (solo singing with instrumental accompaniment) and grand opera. Until this time all music composed for the voice was chorale and fostered by the church, and the power and significance of the word, what the Camerata wanted to resurrect from Greek antiquity,lost in the style of the day: polyphony.
22. What the history books left out are the instruments, the voices for which these composers were to create and to carry their new art form: the music drama. Consequently, the historians do not have a feel for the excitement that they, the singers themselves, brought to the foundation of the new art form. These singers were the greatest to ever walk the planet: the Castrati. Not only did they fuel the new art from, but also ruled the operatic roost for 200 years. (An excellent history of the castrati you will find in Henry Pleasants’, The Great Singers – from The Dawn of Opera to Our own Time (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1966.)
23. To compose for any instrument a composer knows enough about it to work it out. At this time there was no school of singing; little if anything was known about the workings of the human voice. But the castrati were thrilling singers, and the thought of composing for such voices, and maybe for the first time as a solo instrument . . . well, I think it’s safe to say these composers were excited over what lie ahead. They were all ready flushed with the necessary enthusiasm and energy to launch the new art form; but to add the thrill of composing for such voices? This is what the history books neglected to include.
24. Is it a stretch to imagine Jacopo Peri, Emilio de Cavalieri, or Giulio Caccini, the principle movers of the music drama, approach a singer to inquire as to the singer’s range? Without that knowledge a composer is severely shackled. If the singer didn’t know, maybe didn’t care, a meeting, a vocal investigation was imminent. This became the norm and, I think, as much for the fun of it. There was never any thought as to a school of singing, in my opinion. But in comparing notes, a seed was planted. These men noticed a vocal trend in these singers. They all sang the same scales, basically, the same way; that is, with the same subtle changes in vowel character and resonance (markers) as pitch ascends, and they began to monitor and “mark” these subtle differences or vowel modifications for every vowel of every scale. They knew the scales, the “markers” for each key, by heart and every singer seemed to be a law unto them. At a meeting one day, one fellow got it. He raised his head and talking to himself said out loud: it’s academic! and, maybe, over and over; it’s academic! (I was a mouse in the corner during these investigations.)
25. (The best way to explain “what he got” is to have a singer observe the academic “markers” within one’s own voice as pitch ascends, and why we ask the singer to video himself doing the exercises that we demonstrate (preferably when in a mirror), or to at least record them. The “markers” are there, as you shall hear. But it is also a point of reference, and you may want to document your growth.)
26. A school of singing for its own sake?—I doubt it. But a school of singing to underpin the success of their baby, the music drama (one may as well think grand opera: Trovatore, Aida, Butterfly and Boheme—it’s all relative)—yes. All they had to do was figure out what these singers were doing and there was the technique; the decision was made. Do you think they knew what they took on? According to H-C, it took fifty years—knowledge collected and passed on from generation to generation—before “the roof” was completed, and thirty years after that before the first school opened: The Neapolitan School, in 1681, by Alessandro Scarlatti.
27. These vocal investigations took on a life of their own. Some of these musician/composers were fine singers, and began to experiment on their own voices what they gleaned observing the castrati. (They soon added the male and female categories of voice to their vocal investigations, and all categories behave more or less as one voice.) As stated, there was no school of singing at this time, so to what academy, conforming to the traditions and rules of what school, does academic refer?
28. If students knew the history of the Old Italian Schoolof Singing, knew that it was developed through the observation, study, and analysis of the completely natural voice, a product of Italy, and the academic scale is a feasible concept. That Academy is the School of Nature. Humankind did not invent singing; singers were all ready here, naturally, and nature is an instinct rooted in survival. Naturals are singing animals. The natural knows how to survive completely, perfectly, on his instincts alone. One teaches a natural nothing. One learns from a natural. But H-C recants the words of the great Antonio Cotogni to his pupil, Gigli (a known natural), when Gigli first arrived in Rome in 1908 (paraphrase): “What you are doing, sir, is correct. Commit your sensations to memory for every vowel on every pitch you sing, particularly on the second octave.” Gigli went on to commit every telling note in every scale, song, aria, and role he sang to memory. Six years later, at the age of 24, he made his operatic debut and launched one of the brilliant careers in operatic history.
29. (It raises the question as to what is it about Italy that produces the completely natural voice?)
30. As stated, our first consideration in the academic scale are the “markers” that identify it as academic. These “markers” are, as is every pitch, vowel-perfect. A perfect vowel requires a few words.
A Perfect Vowel:
31. If one were to graph (spectrogram) a violinist or a soprano for true pitch on orchestra A, 440 cycles per second (cps), the graph will register 440 cps if pitch is true. Or maybe 439 cps, or maybe 441 cps, or who knows depending on the intonation. The point is, it can be graphed, identified, because pitch is a mathematical exactness, man discovered, not man invented. One can also graph the resonance, the harmonic structure, the arrangement of over-tones or upper-partials responsible for its acoustic properties (carrying power). The arrangement of over-tones that defines the resonance as perfect is also a mathematical exactness, man discovered, not man invented. But these graphs have nothing to do with the perfect vowel of which we speak: A vowel is perfect when every cubic-centimeter of space inherent within a given throat is engaged for its own resonation. (The author claims priority to the definition.)
32. We are interested in the throat responsible for the perfect graphs. We are interested in the sensation that accompanies the vowel shaping within the throat responsible for the perfect graphs. And to develop it, the vocalization of choice at the core of the Old Italian School of Singing was the SAS.
33. Man’s discovery of the properties of sound (physics of sound) has everything to do with the instruments he creates. But that science applies to all instruments, and to the degree a singer is out of alignment with the numbers, to that degree the numbers impact matter, flesh: vocal cord surgery, the removal of corns or nodes, for example. A soprano could intone 440—pitch dead-on with resonance perfect. Another soprano could intone 440—pitch dead-on, but with resonance so far off the graph it hurts the ear, not to mention the voice of the singer. (This “singing” [?] will lead to nodes if habitual.) It is impossible to sing middle A in chest voice without ravaging the voice, and to the degree the harmonic structure is out of alignment with nature’s acoustic—and that can be graphed. What accounts for the automatic, perfect resonance when a harpist or pianist hits the note is the vibrational setting (length and thickness of vibrator), which setting is just as mathematically exact as the pitch it produces. That setting for the singer is not automatic (unless she is a natural). That is, a female in chest voice on middle A, though pitch is perfect, translates as a section of vibrator larger than required to satisfy the requirements of nature’s acoustic set in motion to satisfy pitch, 440 cps. The result we call pushing and pushing is involved with, if not responsible for, every shaky—bobbing-up-and-down—vibrator out there. This heavier-than-necessary vibrator can not maintain 440 cps for long and pitch soon sags. If habitual, over time one does not have to be a vocal guru to denote the termination of this vocal abuse: the wobble. This applies to men also, but with the female voice the zones of resonation are easier to identify. (If the vocal cord setting, length of vibrator, is as mathematically exact for our soprano at 440, as it is for a piano, she is in the mouth/pharynx zone of resonation, and she is not pushing.)
* * * * * * * *
The Colonna Sonora (Sound Column) –
35. The greatest and most extraordinary discovery by the masters of The Old Italian School of Singing, the Sound Column, I can only touch on. One cannot really begin to seek it, its focal point, until the voice is practically developed. But for a complete explication of the profound properties of the stream of vibrations created to produce pitch, I refer you first to The Voice of the Mind, and second to Tradition and Gigli, both by E. Herbert-Caesari. But it does make an appearance in the SAS and this, I hope, will serve to introduce it.
36. The Sound Column is the stream of vibrations, sound waves, or vortices created by the vocal cords to produce pitch. When a soprano intone middle C, her entire length of vibrator, approximately ½ inch, comes together to open and closes in alternate sequence 261 times per second, creating 261 rotating cores of pressure air per second, which are formed and shot upward into the throat at the velocity of sound (1,100 feet per second). The column (cylinder) of sound-waves is analogous to a “slinky,” but note the diameter of the column is determined by the length of cord vibrating. Because the frequency is low, the column tops out and resides in the mouth.
37. If our soprano runs a two octave scale successfully to alight on top C, she has a minute section of vibrator, approximately 1/16th of an inch at the anterior end, opening and closing 1,044 times per second, producing a column of 1,044 pressure variation per second, the diameter of which is said 1/16th inch. This column-frequency tops out close to the crown of the head—way up and in back. It is here on the top notes the column makes its presence known, because where it impinges it leaves an impression; it’s called a focal point. When completely understood, the focal point is nothing more than a mirror image, reflecting in exact degree the laryngeal setting (length of vibrator) to create the pitch and focal point.
38. The focal point became the only “tool” for guiding the voice of a student. Today it is unknown, much less in use; nonetheless, knowing it exists and the direction it takes as pitch ascends helps guide the voice/column to those pitches. It’s a powerful tool; it’s a wonderful tool, and the successful singer learns, in time, that the manipulation of the voice (vocal cords), particularly on the top notes, comes through the successful manipulation of the focal point. As we said, we only touch on this amazing discovery. If not for E. Herbert-Caesari, I’m afraid the sound column would have been lost to us forever. To my knowledge, no where else is it mentioned, much less crystallized.
A Consideration:
39. Undoubtedly there will be new students unfamiliar with the vocal jargon to describe vowel modifications, and stymied by phrases such as “close the vowel” or “cover the tone” to express these changes, when the phrases themselves don’t make any sense. Why cover a tone, or close a vowel (at least vowel is mentioned), when singing is about the opposite—letting it out. I will address these terms.
Now, The Slow Ascending Scale –
* *** *** ** ****
Frederick Matthias Alexander, The Alexander Technique: The Essential Writings (Secaucus, N.J.: Carroll Publishing Group, 1990),selected and introduced by Edward Maizal.
Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini, Caruso and Tetrazzini on The Art of Singing (New York: Dover Publication, Inc, 1975). Unabridged and unaltered republication of the work originally published by The Metropolitan Company, Publishers, New York, in 1909.
Barbara M. Doscher, The Functional Unity of the Singing Voice, 2nd Edition (Lanham, Md., The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1994).
Frieda Hempel, My Golden Age of Singing (Portland, Oregon: Amedeus Press, 1998).
Edgar Herbert-Caesari, The Voice of the Mind (London: Robert Hale Limited, 1951).
E. Herbert-Caesari, The Science and Sensations of Vocal Tone (London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1938).
E. Herbert-Caesari, Tradition and Gigli (London: Robert Hale Limited, 1958).
E. Herbert-Caesari, The Alchemy of Voice (London: Robert Hale Limited, 1965).
E. Herbert-Caesari, The Vocal Truth (London: Robert Hale & Co., 1969).
Lilli Lehmann, How to Sing (Mineola, N. Y.: Dover Publications, Inc., 1993). (First published in German and in English in 1902.)
William D. Leyerle, Vocal Development Through Organic Imagery (New York: Leyerle Publications, 1986).
Richard Miller, The Structure of Singing (New York: Schirmer Books, 1986).
Lillian Nordica, Hints to Singers (Mineola, N. Y.: Dover Pulications, Inc., 1998). (First published in 1923.)
William Vennard, Singing, the Mechanism and the Technic (New York: Carl Fischer, Inc., 1967).
Henry Pleasants, The Great Singers – from The Dawn of Opera to Our on Time (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1966).
18. The above preamble was for one reason: to gather your attention for the preeminent vocalization, the number one voice builder of the Old Italian School of Singing: the Slow Ascending Scale. Ms Lehmann doesn’t explain her words, in the proper way, but we got the message. Whatever the proper way, it must have something to do with how one opens one’s mouth, the structure that houses a perfect [a] vowel. In deed, structure, how to open the mouth is where our work begins.
* * * * * * *
The Academic scale:
19. The first time I heard the word academic relating to voice was in reference to a scale. Mr. Herbert-Caesari was describing what happens between two pitches in an ascending scale that applied to all categories of voice, male and female. At the end of the description he commented: “it’s academic.”
20. “It’s academic?” What on earth is academic about a scale was my first thought. I was to find out. I was reading The Voice of the Mind. What follows is make-believe—inventive possibilities for the first conscious understanding of the scale that gave rise to the term academic—thoughts stimulated by the knowledge accrued from a perusal of the works of Edgar Herbert-Caesari.
21. The history books inform us members of the Florentine Camerata (c. 1600) are responsible for introducing us to monody (solo singing with instrumental accompaniment) and grand opera. Until this time all music composed for the voice was chorale and fostered by the church, and the power and significance of the word, what the Camerata wanted to resurrect from Greek antiquity,lost in the style of the day: polyphony.
22. What the history books left out are the instruments, the voices for which these composers were to create and to carry their new art form: the music drama. Consequently, the historians do not have a feel for the excitement that they, the singers themselves, brought to the foundation of the new art form. These singers were the greatest to ever walk the planet: the Castrati. Not only did they fuel the new art from, but also ruled the operatic roost for 200 years. (An excellent history of the castrati you will find in Henry Pleasants’, The Great Singers – from The Dawn of Opera to Our own Time (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1966.)
23. To compose for any instrument a composer knows enough about it to work it out. At this time there was no school of singing; little if anything was known about the workings of the human voice. But the castrati were thrilling singers, and the thought of composing for such voices, and maybe for the first time as a solo instrument . . . well, I think it’s safe to say these composers were excited over what lie ahead. They were all ready flushed with the necessary enthusiasm and energy to launch the new art form; but to add the thrill of composing for such voices? This is what the history books neglected to include.
24. Is it a stretch to imagine Jacopo Peri, Emilio de Cavalieri, or Giulio Caccini, the principle movers of the music drama, approach a singer to inquire as to the singer’s range? Without that knowledge a composer is severely shackled. If the singer didn’t know, maybe didn’t care, a meeting, a vocal investigation was imminent. This became the norm and, I think, as much for the fun of it. There was never any thought as to a school of singing, in my opinion. But in comparing notes, a seed was planted. These men noticed a vocal trend in these singers. They all sang the same scales, basically, the same way; that is, with the same subtle changes in vowel character and resonance (markers) as pitch ascends, and they began to monitor and “mark” these subtle differences or vowel modifications for every vowel of every scale. They knew the scales, the “markers” for each key, by heart and every singer seemed to be a law unto them. At a meeting one day, one fellow got it. He raised his head and talking to himself said out loud: it’s academic! and, maybe, over and over; it’s academic! (I was a mouse in the corner during these investigations.)
25. (The best way to explain “what he got” is to have a singer observe the academic “markers” within one’s own voice as pitch ascends, and why we ask the singer to video himself doing the exercises that we demonstrate (preferably when in a mirror), or to at least record them. The “markers” are there, as you shall hear. But it is also a point of reference, and you may want to document your growth.)
26. A school of singing for its own sake?—I doubt it. But a school of singing to underpin the success of their baby, the music drama (one may as well think grand opera: Trovatore, Aida, Butterfly and Boheme—it’s all relative)—yes. All they had to do was figure out what these singers were doing and there was the technique; the decision was made. Do you think they knew what they took on? According to H-C, it took fifty years—knowledge collected and passed on from generation to generation—before “the roof” was completed, and thirty years after that before the first school opened: The Neapolitan School, in 1681, by Alessandro Scarlatti.
27. These vocal investigations took on a life of their own. Some of these musician/composers were fine singers, and began to experiment on their own voices what they gleaned observing the castrati. (They soon added the male and female categories of voice to their vocal investigations, and all categories behave more or less as one voice.) As stated, there was no school of singing at this time, so to what academy, conforming to the traditions and rules of what school, does academic refer?
28. If students knew the history of the Old Italian Schoolof Singing, knew that it was developed through the observation, study, and analysis of the completely natural voice, a product of Italy, and the academic scale is a feasible concept. That Academy is the School of Nature. Humankind did not invent singing; singers were all ready here, naturally, and nature is an instinct rooted in survival. Naturals are singing animals. The natural knows how to survive completely, perfectly, on his instincts alone. One teaches a natural nothing. One learns from a natural. But H-C recants the words of the great Antonio Cotogni to his pupil, Gigli (a known natural), when Gigli first arrived in Rome in 1908 (paraphrase): “What you are doing, sir, is correct. Commit your sensations to memory for every vowel on every pitch you sing, particularly on the second octave.” Gigli went on to commit every telling note in every scale, song, aria, and role he sang to memory. Six years later, at the age of 24, he made his operatic debut and launched one of the brilliant careers in operatic history.
29. (It raises the question as to what is it about Italy that produces the completely natural voice?)
30. As stated, our first consideration in the academic scale are the “markers” that identify it as academic. These “markers” are, as is every pitch, vowel-perfect. A perfect vowel requires a few words.
A Perfect Vowel:
31. If one were to graph (spectrogram) a violinist or a soprano for true pitch on orchestra A, 440 cycles per second (cps), the graph will register 440 cps if pitch is true. Or maybe 439 cps, or maybe 441 cps, or who knows depending on the intonation. The point is, it can be graphed, identified, because pitch is a mathematical exactness, man discovered, not man invented. One can also graph the resonance, the harmonic structure, the arrangement of over-tones or upper-partials responsible for its acoustic properties (carrying power). The arrangement of over-tones that defines the resonance as perfect is also a mathematical exactness, man discovered, not man invented. But these graphs have nothing to do with the perfect vowel of which we speak: A vowel is perfect when every cubic-centimeter of space inherent within a given throat is engaged for its own resonation. (The author claims priority to the definition.)
32. We are interested in the throat responsible for the perfect graphs. We are interested in the sensation that accompanies the vowel shaping within the throat responsible for the perfect graphs. And to develop it, the vocalization of choice at the core of the Old Italian School of Singing was the SAS.
33. Man’s discovery of the properties of sound (physics of sound) has everything to do with the instruments he creates. But that science applies to all instruments, and to the degree a singer is out of alignment with the numbers, to that degree the numbers impact matter, flesh: vocal cord surgery, the removal of corns or nodes, for example. A soprano could intone 440—pitch dead-on with resonance perfect. Another soprano could intone 440—pitch dead-on, but with resonance so far off the graph it hurts the ear, not to mention the voice of the singer. (This “singing” [?] will lead to nodes if habitual.) It is impossible to sing middle A in chest voice without ravaging the voice, and to the degree the harmonic structure is out of alignment with nature’s acoustic—and that can be graphed. What accounts for the automatic, perfect resonance when a harpist or pianist hits the note is the vibrational setting (length and thickness of vibrator), which setting is just as mathematically exact as the pitch it produces. That setting for the singer is not automatic (unless she is a natural). That is, a female in chest voice on middle A, though pitch is perfect, translates as a section of vibrator larger than required to satisfy the requirements of nature’s acoustic set in motion to satisfy pitch, 440 cps. The result we call pushing and pushing is involved with, if not responsible for, every shaky—bobbing-up-and-down—vibrator out there. This heavier-than-necessary vibrator can not maintain 440 cps for long and pitch soon sags. If habitual, over time one does not have to be a vocal guru to denote the termination of this vocal abuse: the wobble. This applies to men also, but with the female voice the zones of resonation are easier to identify. (If the vocal cord setting, length of vibrator, is as mathematically exact for our soprano at 440, as it is for a piano, she is in the mouth/pharynx zone of resonation, and she is not pushing.)
* * * * * * * *
The Colonna Sonora (Sound Column) –
35. The greatest and most extraordinary discovery by the masters of The Old Italian School of Singing, the Sound Column, I can only touch on. One cannot really begin to seek it, its focal point, until the voice is practically developed. But for a complete explication of the profound properties of the stream of vibrations created to produce pitch, I refer you first to The Voice of the Mind, and second to Tradition and Gigli, both by E. Herbert-Caesari. But it does make an appearance in the SAS and this, I hope, will serve to introduce it.
36. The Sound Column is the stream of vibrations, sound waves, or vortices created by the vocal cords to produce pitch. When a soprano intone middle C, her entire length of vibrator, approximately ½ inch, comes together to open and closes in alternate sequence 261 times per second, creating 261 rotating cores of pressure air per second, which are formed and shot upward into the throat at the velocity of sound (1,100 feet per second). The column (cylinder) of sound-waves is analogous to a “slinky,” but note the diameter of the column is determined by the length of cord vibrating. Because the frequency is low, the column tops out and resides in the mouth.
37. If our soprano runs a two octave scale successfully to alight on top C, she has a minute section of vibrator, approximately 1/16th of an inch at the anterior end, opening and closing 1,044 times per second, producing a column of 1,044 pressure variation per second, the diameter of which is said 1/16th inch. This column-frequency tops out close to the crown of the head—way up and in back. It is here on the top notes the column makes its presence known, because where it impinges it leaves an impression; it’s called a focal point. When completely understood, the focal point is nothing more than a mirror image, reflecting in exact degree the laryngeal setting (length of vibrator) to create the pitch and focal point.
38. The focal point became the only “tool” for guiding the voice of a student. Today it is unknown, much less in use; nonetheless, knowing it exists and the direction it takes as pitch ascends helps guide the voice/column to those pitches. It’s a powerful tool; it’s a wonderful tool, and the successful singer learns, in time, that the manipulation of the voice (vocal cords), particularly on the top notes, comes through the successful manipulation of the focal point. As we said, we only touch on this amazing discovery. If not for E. Herbert-Caesari, I’m afraid the sound column would have been lost to us forever. To my knowledge, no where else is it mentioned, much less crystallized.
A Consideration:
39. Undoubtedly there will be new students unfamiliar with the vocal jargon to describe vowel modifications, and stymied by phrases such as “close the vowel” or “cover the tone” to express these changes, when the phrases themselves don’t make any sense. Why cover a tone, or close a vowel (at least vowel is mentioned), when singing is about the opposite—letting it out. I will address these terms.
Now, The Slow Ascending Scale –
* *** *** ** ****
Frederick Matthias Alexander, The Alexander Technique: The Essential Writings (Secaucus, N.J.: Carroll Publishing Group, 1990),selected and introduced by Edward Maizal.
Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini, Caruso and Tetrazzini on The Art of Singing (New York: Dover Publication, Inc, 1975). Unabridged and unaltered republication of the work originally published by The Metropolitan Company, Publishers, New York, in 1909.
Barbara M. Doscher, The Functional Unity of the Singing Voice, 2nd Edition (Lanham, Md., The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1994).
Frieda Hempel, My Golden Age of Singing (Portland, Oregon: Amedeus Press, 1998).
Edgar Herbert-Caesari, The Voice of the Mind (London: Robert Hale Limited, 1951).
E. Herbert-Caesari, The Science and Sensations of Vocal Tone (London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1938).
E. Herbert-Caesari, Tradition and Gigli (London: Robert Hale Limited, 1958).
E. Herbert-Caesari, The Alchemy of Voice (London: Robert Hale Limited, 1965).
E. Herbert-Caesari, The Vocal Truth (London: Robert Hale & Co., 1969).
Lilli Lehmann, How to Sing (Mineola, N. Y.: Dover Publications, Inc., 1993). (First published in German and in English in 1902.)
William D. Leyerle, Vocal Development Through Organic Imagery (New York: Leyerle Publications, 1986).
Richard Miller, The Structure of Singing (New York: Schirmer Books, 1986).
Lillian Nordica, Hints to Singers (Mineola, N. Y.: Dover Pulications, Inc., 1998). (First published in 1923.)
William Vennard, Singing, the Mechanism and the Technic (New York: Carl Fischer, Inc., 1967).
Henry Pleasants, The Great Singers – from The Dawn of Opera to Our on Time (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1966).