I have never met a singer who was not looking for “ping” or what is called brightness. Most voices are hopelessly dead, and therefore lack sweetness. The voices are filled with night – black hollow gloomy night or else they are as strident as the caterwauling of a Tom Cat. The happy mean between the extremes is the area in which the singer’s greatest results are attained.

Evan Williams, How I Regained a Lost Voice, Great Singers on the Art of Singing, James Cooke.

Whether we are singing Classical or Pop, our tone, to the Western ear at least, requires a balance between dark and light. In the modern world, filled with technology and all the shrillness it brings with it, singers face a tougher challenge than ever to maintain this balance – chiaroscuro – while they sing a programme of often contrasting styles.

In this respect, Bel Canto singing is as relevant to the modern singer as it was in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Daily exercises and self-assessment are essential for the maintenance of our singing voices. We must rely on our ear to continually maintain this balance.

From personal experience, as a professional cross over and avant garde singer, I struggled and continue to struggle daily with this task. However, Bel Canto training in the early days and now a refocussing on Bel Canto for the next three years is my refuge. Bel Canto is as relevant today as it was in the past.

To demonstrate this, rather than a classical demonstration, today I have a demonstration of Norah Jones’s song ‘Come Away with Me’. Here I have stripped a couple of things away (the feeling of ‘o’ and and beginning the note on pitch, for example) to come up with a version of this pop/jazz/folk song that, hopefully, is reasonably true to the style but yet is vocally ‘safe’ and can be sung to an audience of up to 100 or so without a microphone. I think this is important because the modern audience that I love to sing to (communities across Southern Africa and the Antipodes) does not want to hear classical music from beginning to end. What a drag.

In addition, I must know how to teach my students modern styles as well as classical. ( I must also be able to educate my students how to adapt to classical music post-Donizetti – a wretched task if one is to avoid shouting from beginning to end- but I will save that for posts in the future).

Learning and teaching to hear is the first task of both pupil and teacher. One is impossible without the other. It is the most difficult as well as the most grateful task, and it is the only way to reach perfection.

Lilli Lehmann, How to Sing.

A singer who is not understood, wearies his auditors, and destroys almost all the effect of the music, by obliging them to make continual effort to catch the sense of the words.

Garcia, Manuel. Treatise on The Art of Singing, page 42.

2021 marks the second year of my three year project that I have affectionately named “The Lilli Lehmann Project”. Lilli Lehmann writes in her book “How to Sing”:

No letter, no syllable ought to be pronounced badly.

Lehmann, Lilli. How to Sing, page 279.

Here is a playlist I have assembled on Spotify of pupils of Anna Schoen-Rene, a friend and colleague of Lilli Lehmann as well as “descendant”, vocally speaking, of Porpora. In this playlist you will hear example after example of fine pronunciation. I especially love the Bass, Paul Robeson.

Here is a rough sketch of Porpora’s “descendants”. Incredible singers with first class pronunciation. Many of these singers wrote singing books which teach us how to pronounce well.

These old singing books are still 100% relevant today. For example, Garcia reminds us on page 44 of “The Art of Singing” not to be negligent of the final consonant. Here is a simple folk song in which I am trying my hardest to remember to pronounce the final consonants. To use Garcia’s words, I am often guilty of neglecting final consonants!

The most important reason to study Garcia is to develop an easy way of singing. His method is common sense and natural. There is no forcing or using silly tricks.

Garcia’s singing exercises, if practised with determination, provide everything that is needed for singing. His singing books are available free on the internet.

Here is a video of me singing “Una Voce Poco Fa”. I am self-accompanying so it is not as easy for me as singing with a accompanist or orchestra but you will hopefully see it is easy and fun for me to sing. It is simple: I breath quietly and pronounce with a tongue that is mostly returning to or against the lower teeth. I feel no tension at all in my throat. I could sing for hours like this.

I really recommend that singers who are struggling to give Garcia’s singing books a go.

Here are three examples of my singing. The first two examples are sustainable. I can sing for hours on end and the next day I am ready to sing again. In fact, the first example is basically sight singing and was recorded at the end of hours of practice. The voice is as fresh as it was at the beginning of the day. The third example is unsustainable. It leaves me hoarse.

Why?

The difference is that the first two examples are an extension of my speaking voice. The third example is not. By the way, I wrote the Māori waiata (song), I hope you like it.

Over Lockdown, I tore my vocal technique apart. I questioned everything. Changed a lot. Kept a lot. Fortunately, I was taught well and, even though I didn’t grasp everything at the time, my past teachers’ words are in my ears. Now, I am putting the pieces together to form a whole.

How do I know I am putting the pieces together correctly?

One way to know is to ask myself “does my singing sound like my speech?” One should sing as one speaks. I am not talking about my Kiwi accent! I am talking about the tone quality. Do I sound like me? Or am I trying to be someone else?

Here are some examples I recorded from today’s practice:

The principle “sing as you speak” is also true for today’s popular song. Here are a couple of examples…