In an interview with GBOPERA (Italian magazine) in 1975, Anita Cerquetti was asked: "What advice would you give to a young person who wanted to start a career? Who would you send him/her to study with, a singer or a music teacher?" Her reply says a lot about singers as teachers, at least in her opinion: «Never to a singer, nor a singing teacher, but to a music master: an old conductor with great experience." She also went on saying: "A young person who has a good voice must do the usual things: study, have a lot of patience and the luck of meeting a teacher who understands them. You know, it's difficult to give advice, because everyone has a different voice from the other; this is why I don't trust the singing teacher, because they set your voice in the same way for everyone. As what should be sung, in addition to the exercises, I can only talk about myself. I sang some songs by Tosti and Mozart, lots of Mozart! However, it's all subjective, you can't generalize; If this note suits me in one position, it could be that the same note suits another lady in another position. The voice, the sound depend on many components: the cavity of the palate, the opening of the mouth, the nasal cavity. It is not possible to use a single teaching method that applies to everyone."
When did cultivating a WIDE Vibrato become a Thing? This is what Horne was ignoring in the first clip - and DiDonato actively cultivating in the young Soprano in the second clip. This is pervasive now. Can NO contemporary Singers produce a steady, supported Tone?
As noted below, the experienced singers seem to be focusing on what they feel when singing (i.e., sympathetic 'buzzing' vibrations in the maxillary sinuses due to transmission of vocal tract frequencies through the hard palate and, to some extent, the nasopharynx). They then tell the students that this maxillary vibration is the source of good vocal production, as opposed simply to a subjective effect of the true source (i.e., correct soft palate and tongue placement, plus an open throat/pharynx and low larynx).
I honestly don’t mind placement so much. But the issue is when it is taught as the action, and not the product of a stable pharynx/well formed vowel. I feel like people try to correct a sound they perceive of as being “too dark” by giving these directions. Then the student lifts the larynx and thins the pharynx to get the sound bright and metallic. But the issue was that the pharynx was too closed to begin with. When the voice is sufficiently dark, the bright parts speak clearly - we need a clear chiaroscuro timbre, not a chiarochiaro timbre! The rings comes from the vocal folds, not the resonators! We need to teach people how to sing “obscuro” correctly and not call singing ingolata “dark”.
All this mechanical talk has nothing to do with production. The voice is a Natural Instrument. The key is to not get in its way, to undo, to give it a Clear Channel through which it rides the wild wind!
Oh....General. This video only reinforces what I have been working (teaching) against for the last 15 years. What's worse, is that FAMOUS (infamous?) singers are destroying our beloved art form. Keep fighting the good fight sir. I haven't thrown in the towel yet.
Thank you my friend. You have always been very supportive. I appreciate your rationality. The hard bit is trying to explain detailed things in videos. I wanted to move on from the mask topic. But it really needs more attention. We are supposed to be more developed and educated, but it seems early teachers were far more intelligent. The sound we make is the result of function. The efficiency and development of that function determines how well we sing. Not the after effects. Understanding things allows us to approach singing in a different way.
You can't 'put' your voice in the mask. If it is produced correctly, you will get the sensation that it is resonating there, but attempting to 'put' it there will screw your technique and ruin your voice.
That is the point of the videos. Peoples attempt to replicate good vocal production fail when they try to make this masky, covered sound, that muffles the true clarity of good voice production. Sensations are a subjective illusion that can help or really inhibit a singers development. Sometimes there is a thin line between right and not so right. I personally detest this type of sound. But it can be done in a way that doesn't harm the voice. But just detracts from the true sound. Rosa Ponselle is a good example of this. Though, I think she would have sounded better if the sound was not masky. We could, then, come to the conclusion that her singing was great in spite of some of the things she did, and not because of it. Most people come to the opposite conclusion when trying to emulate the greats.
@@iloveyoufromthedepthofmyheart Just look at my Channel videos. Just go to my playlist section.I have organised it for easy viewing. I post singers of every voice type. I really do not like listening to Trimble. He makes up his own terms and waffles on. I find him extremely irritating to listen to. He basically is a singer who decided to teach and examines his own singing and tries to explain it in his own words. But takes a lot of time to do it. Teaching singing is generally based on going for the right sounds and actions. Producing a better sound is based on freedom and efficiency of the laryngeal function. But also the strengthening and balancing of the registers. Support is obviously important. It is quite simple when you take away the subjective junk people make up and do the right things. Watch my playlist on the mask. And you will see the mask does not exist. Just in peoples minds. Instead of quoting great singers without providing evidence of the quote. I provide quotes from great teachers and scientists, far more objective evidence. I do not say, "Caruso said this", and not provide the proof of the quote. Many times Trimble quotes great singers and I have NEVER heard it before. I have read most things on the voice i have never found the information he quotes from Great singers. Ask him for the reference. There is a lot of Confirmation Bias in his opinion. For example his concepts of mouth opening. He wants a horizontal spread approach. He quotes Caruso and other singers on this, and uses Marafioti's book on Caruso as evidence of this horizontal vowel creation. But there are pictures and videos of Caruso singing and his mouth is in the vertical and not the horizontal position that Trimble advocates. And when you look at a lot of great singers the vertical position is the standard.
This is the point. You can't place your voice anywhere. The key word missing here throughout is resonance. Opening the spaces to e 13:07 nable the use of the correct resonators and in modern music, mixing the use of the resonators. I'm a (was a) trained lyric mezzo now singing English rock and pop in theatre shows around the UK. The new teachings aren't new they're just miscommunicated misunderstood and therefore mistaught.
@@RadamesAida2Operalovers Phht! I watched Phyllis Curtin take a student whose voice sounded adequate and unclear, lacking color, and have her lift her cheekbones and direct her voice out of her throat and through her mask, and it was suddenly full of color, and projection. The throat is not where the voice belongs. It passes THROUGH THE THROAT AND ABOVE and has to fly out the mouth with the tongue out of the way, and making the upper lip and teeth vibrate. Stop posting videos before you actually learn how to teach singing. You are dangerous.
Cierto. Pero hoy en los teatros escuchamos sonidos horribles, forzados, constreñidos, solo vana musicalidad. La mayoría de polos cantantes parecen ‘imitar’ el canto, más no la partitura. Falta técnica, profundización y honestidad, por parte de los teatros y de los pseudocriticos que comparan cualquier cosa, con las voces de los grandes. Lamentable todo. Saludos cordiales
Yeah but many operatic phrasing especially in mezzo bass baritone and heavier tenor and sopranos voices really need it or it just sounds like moaning and woofiness.
I love watching people try to place their voices. It's on par with 'guitar face'. 'Placement' is like showing someone a picture of a cake while handing them a bag of flour.
I had an opera singer who practiced bel canto teach me from scratch basically. And she always had me try And be more nasal or sing in the mask. When I got to my higher notes I knew I could hit them and I’d try the way I did on my own , and she would instantly stop me and say more forward. Super forward and super tall and narrow, it always made me crack and I couldn’t hit higher notes as easily or at all like that. I never understood why my range was more without her and then with her I was apparently always so wrong according to her. I now see It was her preference but she flat out told me I was doing things wrong and didn’t state it was a choice for tone. I thought it was to prior text my voice or something to that effect. I ended up with a shouty whiny voice. She also made me belt my way into everything. I only knew how to sing in a belt fashion. Mind you I wrote my own music and it’s contemporary I only went to her to learn to “properly” sing, not because I needed to learn to sing in an orchestra, she knew this too as I would sing modern rock songs at the end of our hour sessions though my voice was so tired I couldn’t hit the notes well at that point. I developed tinnitus and hypersensitivity to sound because of this ultra belty nasal brash tone. I’d prefer rice in my car for hours throughout the week, windows up and had never thought it would damage my ears. I lost about a decade of my life after that since I couldn’t really live life normally due to the concerns of most sounds, everything was too loud for my ears for a while. I don’t get it, she’s a good singer too, how in the hell did she did teach me so wrong ? My tone was bad and I couldn’t really sing on pitch on my own, I always sang over the song and vocalist . She said I could do a shoe on my own . Not true. I don’t get it. One thing tho I did grow my voice I was able to sing past c5 within 7 months. But my nasal quality was like imprinted into my tone, and anyone ever try writing a song from scratch when all you can do to hit notes is yell your way through them? I even had practiced SLS techniques (without realizing it) on my own and that’s also how I grew my range , then she’d say “you’ve been practicing!” Yes true I practiced but not her way . It was really frustrating. Teachers should teach how to sing daddy and then explain what’s just a tonal preference. It’s my choice of how I sound as a songwriter. All I want to do is be a good singer who can sing on pitch , have a good range and be safe , while be expressive, but if I get pigeon held to one approach and develop my muscles in that fashion then I’m stuck. It baffles me. Also I wish singing teachers would teach not in tiny closet sized rooms where the sound has nowhere to go and also there isn’t much reverb coming back so it’s hard to hear yourself aswell. Why can’t they teach in a living room or larger area? It seems many find the smallest room possible to rent or in their house and then blow Your eardrums our with their full opera voice and teach you to do the same as if ears aren’t gonna wear . Even guitarists as bad as they are know to lower the volume on their amplifiers. Yet I was taught to be on 11 at all times. Just be shouty and nasal I guess
Placing in the mask is 'doing the end result' to ty to get to the end result. It is why most modern day singers lack vocal projection and often have no middle or low register.
OMG, Horne sounds like a witch from the wizard of Oz O_o or a cat? "Don't be afraid to make it ugly" lol, whatever happened to bel canto! Not even her sang as bad as she demonstrated and asked the student to do. Ridiculous!
Yes. She didn't sing as bad as the sounds she wants the student to make. And she even tells her it wont hurt her. Like it is some magical area that will keep her safe.
How can Horne teach a singer such an incorrect way of singing?! She’s teaching the woman to sing nasal. Never a good quality to have in one’s singing, especially not in classical singing. International singers often times don’t make for good teachers. It’s so frustrating to see young singers led astray by bad advice.
Nilsson and Kraus don’t belong in this list. True, they weren’t actually teachers; they were singers first and foremost. But both of them are definitions of healthy singing. They had very long careers and had a technique that permitted them to sing through colds and physical exhaustion. Maybe they were mistaken in how they taught their techniques, but they have their careers as proof that they sang with a proper technique.
I'm glad that we have people like GeneralRadames. The teaching of bel canto is so distorted. Nothing compared to the golden age of opera. Last night I was at the Met's live translation of Aida. It was so horrible that I left after the first act. The only one who had a good technique was the mezzo soprano Anita Rachvelishvili.
So it was boring. I'm just starting watching regularly opera thanks to the MET Live transmission. And thks to my choir, I start to have a first insight into vocal techniques (even if singing in a choir is not using the same techniques as singing as a lyric artist). But I'm just starting getting acquainted with all the technical terms To go back to Aida, I thought at first that it was the composition itself that was poor... I mean, Aida was described to me as one of the best opera. So I was expecting something great. And still that evening, I was waiting the point where it will be stellar. Well didn't really happen. I went out and said: was fine but not scoring. Now, when rethinking about it, I would almost said "Meh!" But without real explanation. So thank you for your comment. It's always enjoyable to read some comment of people that has more knowledge ^^" I found Anita good as well. Some said she was bad. At least I found her acting more interesting than the one of Anna Netrebko. Maybe that's why I had more interest into her interpretation. This same feeling of "It was nice but, don't know, not stellar", I got it too with Luisa Miller the season before with Sonya Yoncheva. I don't know if it was because of the singing or the story itself. Strangely, she gave me thrill and goosebumps when she played Tosca and Mimi. In la Bohème, it was just "woh", love it. Even cried at the end ^^" But the couple Mimi/Rodolfo worked too that night (can't recall the name of the tenor)
@@Coolfranz0 Why choir singing should be different ? I think, poor choir singers nowday...they have to "minimise" their voices to mouse sound....witch is total constricted and dangerous.I would LOVE to hear a choir with free, oper voices.That doesn't mean loud, if properly trained.
@@BernardaBobro In my choir, not. We are no professionals but our directors are quite happy with the level. And our concerts are welcomed. I am only in one choir for the moment, so I don't know how it is in others. In my case, I've never had as direction to minimise my voice. And it's not in the directors' benefit to make us sing until it hurts. That would be dumb. No I'm quite happy with my choir ^^
I am not sure what is worse: Ignorant Professionals or Freshly-baked doctoral students teaching aspiring singers. BOTH are hazardous to one's vocal health.
I remember Marilyn Horne back in the early 60's when she was a presentable lyric soprano but, for me she became unlistenable as a mezzo/contralto. Her brother was my 5th grade teacher.
I will be honest I began to follow along as I have had a teacher who taught mask singing to me as a way to not muscle and power my way through a song. I am of the opinion it has a place in pedagogy just don’t stay there. Once the mask is developed begin to move it horizontally to the rear of the head (pharynx, soft palate raised) I am a newbie still but some of these clips helped me a bit.
It is important to explore forward and back. To help find a balance. But it is also important to open up. It is really hard for many to open up the voice. Mask can be used and interpreted in so many ways. If someone sings open the mask action will be different from someone who is closed or constricted or both. There is also a difference in certain sounds and trying to shove the voice into the small closed space. Unfortunately, it is a subjective term and is used very loosely.
@@RadamesAida2Operalovers the mask is one of the concept used to induce resonance. But the word mask has connotations that tempt people to create a false voice rather than generation more resonance.
@@meyerbeer13 The problem with going for resonance especially "mask resonance", is that we tend to focus on the sensations we get feedback from. Those higher overtones. And we can try to intensify these to our detriment by putting our bodies out of balance. But there are other sounds that make up a full-throated production. These generally are omitted when people focus on just what they hear or feel as feedback. A singer no matter what he or she feels should conceive of a sound that is full and rich in the context of a vowel. A vowel being shaped tone. The vowel and word also not being sacrificed when this is done. I hope that makes sense? Thank you for your comment.
Masterclasses should be prohibited. I do not like the term. What can you do with a student in half an hour? You can only confuse them. Learning to sign is an outgoing thing. You ought to be at students all the time.
Masterclasses seem more like a platform to show off student and show off the so called "master". Some good can be done. But I don't know if the student would ever retain that information. Especially when the teacher has a controlling say.
@@RadamesAida2Operalovers They're not meant to teach technique. I think originally it's a good idea, like in the Callas masterclass: she's polishing them and giving them ideas. At that stage, if their training is completed, singers should only need a masterclass for polishing and that could be with a singer but also with a maestro, or a coach, it would literally do the same thing. Mayb it'd even be better. I personally as a singer would take a masterclass with Muti anytime over one with a pro singer.
I’ve seen that DiDonato clip before. It’s a travesty. The Horne masterclass is almost like an SNL sketch, or an episode of candid camera where the singer is being pranked.
I love Fleming but I wouldn't dare take any advice vocally from her when she said she lost her voice singing one role and couldn't speak nor sing for an entire week or so because of it.
@@abbybambi578 And why are you saying this to me? I know how important it is to have chest voice and to have the chest function working in a proper and in an efficient manner.
@@xxsaruman82xx87 I like her non-operatic material more than her operatic material, unfortunately. She's a lazy soprano who obviously has chest voice even if it doesn't come out in her opera singing.
Because singing is more than one place. It is three dimensional. The voice needs focus or vibration but space and freedom. It needs full rich vowels with emotional intention.
If you watch videos of the great old singers and look at old pictures their heads come up and back. All these professionals and the students they are teaching seem to have falling heads. Does anyone know if this might have anything to do with masque singing?
Not an opera singer, but the great Whitney Houston used to tilt her head up and back all the time. I always assumed that was a natural reflex her body did to support the air and open up the neck to facilitate those big sounds she was renowned for. Maybe it was intentional?
I don’t understand the lady in the black polka dot dress who keeps saying “open”… is she wanting the girl to sing in the nose? That’s very confusing. I don’t understand what she wanted.
What she called being in the mask was actually constricted and pushed from the neck and sounded horrible. If the position is bad, the sound will automatically be ugly.
Imagine paying a world star singer for a lesson and the advice you get is just about the same that any novice singer with a TH-cam channel would give. It’s depressing, man… a whole world dependant on quick results, even though these results might even make things worse.
I always thought Merilyn horne was an inept singer, and yet she had a long courier, while singers like shirley verrett never had half the elustrious courier she had
Digusting. "Make an ugly sound", "the voice should be small", "the voice should be placed forward"(in da mask!!!111!!!!!) and other such great advices show that these people don't know what the hell they're talking about. I don't care if they're famous, they ruin voices with this "forward placement technique" that should be gone forever by now.
@@RadamesAida2Operalovers Yes, but she goes incredibly far! I had a teacher that used to say that the mask made the sound beautiful; Horne says it sounds ugly, and she still recommends it!
@@DiomedesDioscuro She means it sounds ugly to the singer, but beautiful to audience because we hear our own voice differently. That’s her point there. She explained it on an another video.
I completely agree on the fact that "forward mask singing" can be detrimental, but that goes for everything if not taken in moderation. The question is always to find balance and not be obsessed with something. Even the advice to only sing with open throat and engage chest voice can be absolutely devastating to a voice. No teacher should only focus on some aspects of singing, everything must always be taken into consideration: breathing, phonation, proprioception, resonance, articulation, fraseggio, and so on.
Can you explain how an Open throat can be "devastating"? How engaged chest voice can be "devastating"? I am interested in what you mean? What you say might be true if you have the correct understanding of the correct actions. However, we have many sayings and subjective thoughts that cloud the functional truth of singing for singing students. And we had a lot of moronic ex singers giving their subjective views as fact and clouding this area further. Like Kraus. He has done far more damage than good. If you believe you need a placement to create sound. Then it is already wrong. Sound is made at the larynx. The vowels are made at the larynx. It is first resonated at the larynx. There is no up or down. The sound comes from one stream, one place and the pitch changes are an adjustment of function. Mask singing is just adding noise to a pure function. We as singers should be focused on the creation of sound. Not the sensations and after effects of that creation. The are no resonances in the mask. Only useless sympathetic vibrations. The voice and sound production are independent of holding on to physicality. The singer should work on a free functioning laryngeal action. With no impositions. With the understanding that the vocal mechanism can make any sound and pitch without imposing on the function or forcing the voice. No mask or sensation placement There is nothing of importance needed up above the hard and soft palate. Sing and put your hand over your mouth. the sound stops. Now explain how the sound goes into anything above the hard and soft palate and vibrates and amplifies to the audience? The Larynx and Pharynx are the *only* resonators. Not even the mouth. The rest are illusions. If you follow the illusions and not the correct process, then you are half a singer. Thanks for your comment. Look forward to your explanation.
@@RadamesAida2Operalovers I see what you mean and I almost completely agree. What I really don't agree with is the discard of the sensations: singing, as any motor activity, as a proprioceptive side to it. I dare say proprioception plays a key role in singing as we're not able to actually see most of the movements required. Don't get me wrong, I'm against any sort of "believe me, I feel this buzzing here so you should try to create the same buzzing" approach. I think a student has to find their own sensations while a teacher is helping them building the proper technique. But only talking about opening the throat and engaging chest voice without helping a student to find his/her own sensations might be destructive, as it puts too much attention on the mechanical aspect of singing, over whose single components we have so little control. For example, a student might misunderstand the "open throat" instruction and start to widen the vowels. If the teacher never even suggest searching for some sensations over others the student is deprived of some tools which may be illusory but may also be fundamental for learning.
@@lorenzobonomi9487 Hello. Thank you for your perspective. I always think it is good for people to share their views. I was a little confused on why you spoke about open throat and chest, In relation to this video? I did not discard sensations. Proprioceptive and Kinesthetic awareness is very important for a singer. What we hear and sense and what we focus on makes a lot of difference. To understand this, you have to understand what is the nature and of vocal function. There are a percentage of people that have difficulty in this area. And they can approach singing in a different way. I think we can all learn to do things if we want to achieve it through work and Perserverance. I find it frustrating when I ask a student how something feels, and they shrug their shoulders. I try to talk about things and ask question, so they develop their own awareness. Some do not seem to even try. I suppose that aspect of talent is missing. I do get the student to try to remember what they do by thinking in a different way. As with speaking we go for the sounds of the words we have the intention to say. If you go for a particular action and it is correct or better. Then you can have the same thought process to recreate it. So, even if they are unaware of "placement" or physicality or even constriction. There are elements they can control. Vowel enunciation, consistency, knowing the right process that creates a result. Unfortunately, many singers follow the sensations, and it becomes difficult to get the correct actions. A sensation as a guide causes a stereotypical fixation and the singer loses the spontaneity that is associate with express speech and great singing. It is the word and its expression that dictates everything. Not the sensation. Both may achieve similar results. But they are quite different in sound and production. The true vocal placement is a result of refined enunciation. When you understand how the vowels are created. The enunciation of them dictates the true vocal production and the resultant physicalness and sounds produced. Placement is a controlled choice of a singer. A singer who does not know the true placement. They guess, they assume, and they are told it is in an area. However, we cannot really know. So, the resultant singing action will be constrictive in nature and contrived. Therefore artificial. The physicality wants to work a certain way, but the singer holds a desired action creating a conflict in functional actions. Causing the vocal mechanism to not function optimally. There are dozens and dozens of muscles involved in the process of singing. As we do not control the actions of speech, we do not control the actions and sensations of function. We decide what we are going to say, and our body responds to the most accurate degree to create the person's desire. And we say it. OUR FOCUS IS ON CREATING. If you focus on sensations of the after effect of function, then you are not creating. Our mind sends electrical signals to the physicality to create the desired sounds. Whatever we think will come out in the sound and the sound will lose purity. That is why the intention of the vowel sound is what the singer should only think about. Vowel sound is only shaped tone. The tones made are vibrations. All are created through the intention of the vowel sound. The physicality (like an open throat) occurs through enunciation not manipulation. The freeing mechanism through correct diaphragmatic support frees the larynx to form and create the vowel sound independent of physicality or leaning or feeling a sensation. A vowel is made in the vocal tract. I am happy to make the claim that the vocal cords themselves make the vowel sound. The vocal cords themselves are the beginning of the vocal tract and our thought process. And all the physical actions that take place are the result of that and not the cause of the vocal function. So, the opening of the throat and the movement of the tongue and soft palate and the lips and mouth are the result of the actions of the laryngeal function. Everything follows on. Most people address singing by manipulating the physicality and focusing on the resultant sound and not the vowel sound creation. If the vowels are shaped tone and vowels and sound are made in the larynx or pharynx or vocal tract. Why do people focus on the areas above their mouth? That is why no one has clear diction. Listen to Pavarotti. HIs voice is clear and well enunciated. So are many other great singers. There is an inherent connection between good function and good enunciation. The better the enunciation the better the function. The better the sound and the more expressive and meaningful singing is. Many great singers did not know what they did. But they could do it instinctively. The word and the expression were their guide. An open throat is essential for good singing. If the throat is not open. It means the larynx is constricted. It is either depressed, squeezed, pushed or raised. What open throat is varies from person to person. But for me it is a laryngeal function that is free from constriction or inhibition. The feeling is one of openness from the larynx through the throat. The throat feels super stretched and open. Not through artificial means. It is the result of good actions of creation which causes this condition. sensations are deceptive. And it is impossible to repeat. The vowel sound or word can be repeated almost precisely the same. Because the thought process will be the same.
@@lorenzobonomi9487 I wrote too much. Lol. Just finally. I listen to my students thought process before they make the sound. I already know before they make the sound what will happen. Because i see how they try to start. The wrong though process results in the wrong physical actions. and vice versa. For me the creating actions have to follow a certain process. Many singers start with sound placement. I stop them straight away. And they keep doing it. The correct enunciation and i'll say articulation of the vowels changes how the vocal mechanism functions and the resultant sound. The difference is far better. I tell the student the enunciation of the vowel sound is ALWAYS first. Then the placement changes. for the better and for the efficiency of function. And the purity and clarity of sound. So much to say. I have to stop myself. Singing is not guess work. Once you understand the workings of things you can reduce it to very simple actions and get rid of the subjective rubbish that people add on that make it all so complicated. Singing is functional. All functions have a clear actional purpose. Focus on making and not on the result.
Enrico Caruso: Never sing into nasal cavity. Franco Coreli got crazy when he listened to a guy using this nasal singing in his masterclass. Any one of the great singers like Mario del Monaco, Enrico Caruso, Pavarotti, Franco Coreli, Did use this foward singing. If you do this, your voice will proyect just because of the law of Acustics: Less Brightness, harder to listen it over other instruments. But this foward singing is what is being teached in every conservatory. Every Time i mix someones voice i use EQ to remove nasality. This is fucking crazy. Foward Singing: The Art Of Ruining Beautifull Voices.
Students should begin requiring their teachers have degrees in Learning Development, Human Performance, and Instructional Design. The music degrees they have don’t seem to be helping their teaching abilities.
I honestly can't tell what DiDonato is trying to accomplish but I find it very obnoxious how she's talking through the entire long stretch of the student singing
These new singing teachers that come from the walls and the woods and the chairs and from anywhere else where there isn’t any sound drive me insane!!! they don’t understand what mask singing is all about or “nasal” or whatever they just open their mouth say something and people listen and that’s why we have so many bad voices
This makes me so sad! (Or maybe angry!?) Would also love to see a similar type video of other teachers who teach proper singing (I.e. no mask). It would be an interesting comparison.
The ones that do not do it generally do not talk about placement. The focus on other things. Interpretation, approach, phrasing etc. I feel sometimes they might hear things but they are too considerate not to interfere.
@@RadamesAida2Operalovers Makes sense. My first teacher was the same way. She did not really even refer to "placement", or "mask". In fact she never even really spoke of "tightening the diaphragm". When I had asked her about that, she would just return to explain the importance of the breath and how it works naturally, by not allowing any constrictions, which "tightening the diaphragm" could easily do. She would use the music itself, and how it was written , to teach me proper singing. Mostly all those "boring" Italian Art Songs. (Or so I thought at the time!)
So like the 24 Italian Art songs such as "Danza, danza fanciulla", and "Sento nel core"? I've only performed maybe 4 of those songs and they worked the voice out like no one could honestly. The early vocal masters knew what to do with the voice and while composing some of the most boring songs (I have to agree) the songs when broken down and used as the building blocks for the voice really does a good job at helping to build the voice. Caro mio Bene taught me proper breath coordination and support, Danza, Danza fanciulla taught me how to properly sing mellismatic passages also taught me how to center the voice in the middle and lower parts of the voice (G minor goes to a G2 and several daring F#2s for beginning voice).
@@deadwalke9588 . Yes. Those are the exact ones I'm referring to. They really were written in an amazing way, specifically to train the correct art of singing.
There seems to be an abundance of highly opinionated people that want to instill hard and fast rules into a place where they don't belong. The mask isn't a literal placement, it's a sensation of your resonance manifesting and this difference should be made clear to pupils to avoid unnecessary manipulation. Pharyngeal singing as it's described is a consequence of an open throat and a clear connection to your oppoegeastric muscles though I feel that noting it like that is a bit of a fallacy. The name "Pharyngeal singing" implies a focus that doesn't treat the whole apparatus with fair attention, the pharynx is just a part of your instrument that needs to be open but you can still sing in the pharynx and not produce a desirable sound. The "mask" as it's known is a consequence of a relaxed, forward tongue and a raised, flexed soft palate. They are not mutually exclusive and a focus on either will either make your sound too woofy or too bright. Using both these parts of your vocal anatomy is what gives you Chiaro/Schuro singing, light and dark with both carry and roundness qualities that can achieve the most pleasant sound possible.
And that is the problem with 'placement'. People try to make a position to find the balance. Instead of focusing on the function and the desired vowel sound. A sensation is the result of function and is not the cause of it. Any artificial manipulations come through in the sound of the voice. Lifting the soft palate, focusing the voice, holding parts. Placing high etc. At one point the singer does not make beautiful spontaneous emotive singing based on the natural reflective actions of speech. But artificial and contrived noise. There is a fallacy in the Pharyngeal term. As all sound are resonated there. As my other video on this playlist series on the mask demonstrates. A forward "relaxed" tongue is an oxymoron. The tongue is never relaxed. Like all muscles it tenses to act. How can you form any vowel without the active participation of the tongue? Do not conflate relaxed with free from constriction. The tongue should not be flat or relaxed. I just made a video on that and will post it in the coming days or weeks. I would pose chiaro scuro is based on good efficient function and balanced muscular development. It is quite clear ring comes from chest function. And the scuro comes from the open throat space. Watch my videos on chest and head voice. Thank you for your comment.
I don't know if you had seen another youtube channel called "this is opera" that it was focused on the differences of good and bad singing, tecniques, etc. Well that channel was closed idk why but it shocked me.
I think they all want to be ringy, metallic, but then the voice is lacking fullness, roundness. Correct me if I'm wrong, but vocal exercises for classical singers should never be on 'M' or 'N', to avoid this mosquito tone Also, ascending exercises are quite bad To train what Brigit Nilsson was showing: the singer should practice descending exercises on 'GOH', 'VOH', 'VAH'. Whatever vowel you'd like, but avoid consonants like 'M' or 'N'
As a performing tenor and voice teacher this film totally makes the case FOR resonant head technique. The idea of just throwing the voice forward is an oversimplification. These teachers are all aware that there are resonators in the front of the face that are key to vocal production. DiDonato and Fleming both explained it absolutely correctly in very helpful specific ways. This is NOT nasal sound. Singing into the nose is not what they are asking for. Another point is that opera technique is designed to make the voice sound resonant and present in a theater. One needs these head resonators really working well if you want to be hear in the theater.
The film does make the case? The comments below demonstrate this. It is quite obvious you did not read the instructions before watching the video. I said to click on the playlist and watch the other videos first. I said this is part of a series of videos. You cannot watch this out of context. There are absolutely NO "resonators in the front of the face". With resonance we are talking about amplification of sound. Not sympathetic vibration. As explained in my other videos. The only resonances occurs in the vocal tract. Pharynx area. th-cam.com/video/2N5q85G3ydk/w-d-xo.html&lc=Ugwsp8TbhOxVRTVlsR94AaABAg As a voice teacher and singer it is your responsibility to know this basic scientific fact. A fact demonstrated before you were born. Where do you think the nose is? If I go by your concept of singing. Why would the sound go to the other places around the nose and not into the nose area? The Nasal passage and nose is the clearest and most straight forward point that sound would go to. The sinuses are all part of this. The maxillary sinuses are the largest sinuses and they are at your cheeks. They like all sinuses leak out snot and gunk into the nose. They are connected. Sometimes they are open, sometimes their Ostia are covered by fleshy skin. Blocking their entrance. These places are useless as resonators. They have gunk in them. They are not moveable, they cannot be shaped to create vowels and resonate these vowels. And most important when we sing the soft palate is lifted blocking any chance for sound to enter any of these areas. Read what is said in the above video and the playlist link I provided that you obviously did not watch.
GeneralRadames I’m aware of the Stanley method. I learned from a Stanley teacher. I agree with the open throat and lowered larynx. Stanley did not understand the development of head resonance . A space does not have to be moveable to generate very important sympathetic vibrations and overtones. I’ve never heard a successful pharynx singer that could sustain that technique . It’s impossible to sing without highly developed head resonance. Douglas Stanley could not sing and did not know the first thing about head resonance. Those sinus passages that you say are filled with gunk are what give life to the pharyngeal sound. I do agree with you that there are singers who do not balance the chest and head well and the effect sounds nasal. However, there are places in the boney structure of the face and head that do vibrate and are essential to the chiaro in the voice. The one uses them the more they vibrate. I would love to know which singers you like so I can better understand what you are looking for in a voice.
I find you reply quite bizarre. I am not sure what this has to do with Stanley? He is one a number people I quoted. Refute the information I provided. With other evidence. I am not interested in your opinion. "Those sinus passages that you say are filled with gunk are what give life to the pharyngeal sound." Prove it? The Vennard quote below proves you completely wrong. "However, there are places in the boney structure of the face and head that do vibrate and are essential to the chiaro in the voice. " Really? Prove it? Chiaro, brightness comes from a muscular function. Chest function. All sound comes from a function. Resonance is the continued vibration and amplification of the function. Any type of placement and positioning, Is not going to *** create sound***.My channel displays the singers I like. I do not understand your logic? Is there an issue with you watching, understanding and searching my channel? If you watched my playlist on the mask, I really do not understand how you cannot comprehend what I am saying? You do not have to agree. You have to demonstrate why I am wrong with EVIDENCE, not opinion. The vocal tract video clearly demonstrates what a resonator is and it is supported by evidence. I do not care to delve into what you think about someone you never met . And what you think he knows or doesn't. Did you not read what Sundberg said in the beginning of the video? It completely destroys everything you said. There is a clear distinction between sympathetic vibrations 'Sensations' one feels, and amplification of sound, 'formants'.To quote him again; "In other words such vibrations do not contribute acoustically to the formation of vowel sounds." You might have missed this quote in the comment section of my other videos.William Vennard, 'The mechanism and the technic' 1967. "In 1954, Wooldridge attempted to Isolate the contribution of the nasal passages to the singing voice by comparing the vowels produced by six professional singers under two conditions: - normal, and with the nasal passages filled with cotton gauze. He was unable to find significant differences between the spectra of the vowels produced under the two conditions, and a jury of expert listeners was unable to distinguish the two conditions by hearing tape recordings. Wooldridge concluded, "The term 'nasal resonance' is without validity in describing voice quality in the singing voice," (p. 39). A repetition of this experiment by five male singers, including myself, confirmed the original findings, (Vennard). "In the experiment on nasality to which I have referred (Par. 343) we not only filled our nasal passages with gauze but also had our maxillary sinuses more than half filled with water, (Fig.41). These are the largest of the sinuses, and putting water in them would change their resonant properties noticeably if they were of any importance. Our singing under these conditions was compared with our normal singing by 86 vocal authorities from the United States and 25 from Holland. The Dutch judges were included because Europeans frequently judge American speech to be nasal but they were no more able to detect the difference between the normal and the abnormal singing than were the American listeners. Our conclusion was that neither "nasal resonance" nor "sinus resonance" has validity. To dispose finally of the idea that these tiny air spaces, with their minute openings into the other resonators, could be of any value other than as indicators to the singer himself, let me quote a typical scientific authority, Schaeffer. It is very unlikely that the paranasal sinuses exert any influence upon vocalization. The ostia of the sinuses are so small and not infrequently encroached upon by neighboring parts that one naturally wonders how the chambers can have any modifying influence on the sound waves. Moreover, the great variations in the size and arrangement of the sinuses would preclude any constancy of influence. The theory that the paranasal sinuses impart resonance to the voice must doubtless be abandoned." Everything happens in the pharynx. You might think you are doing something different. But everything other than nasality occurs in the pharynx only. You have hooked onto illusions of sensation and false concepts of placement. But these are just subjective false perceptions based on no facts no science. Something you are failing to understand because it doesn't fit into your "belief" system. And you are teaching people this...
GeneralRadames I think these people confuse the covered sound with a perceived change in where the voice is “placed”. Of course those who know better know we can’t place the voice, and the change in perception of placement is due to the acoustic shift from the action of covering; the voice is never placed. The rise in pitch and acoustic switch may alter the relative area of sympathetic resonance and the listener might perceive that switch in sympathetic resonance; though I agree with what you say that when the voice is still well produced, the actual sympathetic resonance itself is not dramatically felt, and almost disembodied and not so much felt unless the singer is actually attempting to become more aware of the sensation in that moment; and to me the sympathetic resonance should always feel “centered” within the body, as in it doesn’t feel excessively forward or back or directed
Resonance has nothing to do with vibration. Resonance is amplification of basic frequency that is produce by vibrator(larynx), resonance is multiplication of basic frequency. So if you are singing an A4 for example, thes resonance reffers to all the overtones that are produced by multiplication of A4(440Hz). When singing only vibrator is the larynx, simpathetic vibration occurs when soft or hard tissue (usually soft) starts vibrating because of strongand compresed flow of the air, but those simpatetic vibrations bring nothing to the actual colord of one's voice.
2:00 LOL ofcourse 'm' vibrates your nose haha, it's nasal consonant. In phonetics they call this the right term: point of articulation and it has nothing to do with resonance.
Horne kinda helped the girl singing the vowel. The Japanese soprano had a nice vibrato. Nilsson was lovely, diva and funny literally in any occasion. "troppo la gola! Troppa gola!" XD love her! Kraus had good points but also very bad advices. Di Donato... Incommentabile
Horne wanted the girl to have more power in the middle voice. This comes from chest voice function not forward placement. Which the girl lacked. The vowel might have been better enunciated. But the direction she was taking the girl will not lead to anything good. Vowels are shaped tone. Tone is resonated in the pharynx. Vowels are mostly created by the tongue. The mask kills vowel. People who sing in the mask generally have a more neutral sound with little articulation. The Japanese or Korean girl sings with no chest function. The voice is so light and undeveloped. That forward movement will effect her vibrato action. As constriction sets in. Nilsson, lol. Just didn't know how to address the singers sound. He is singing nasal forward which has a reverse action of depressing the larynx. So singing more forward is going to do more of the same. It is all about nomenclature and understanding. I don't know Spanish. So I do not know what Kraus said. But the sound he and the student made says it all.
@@RadamesAida2Operalovers Dear General, first of all thank you for your content, I've confirmed some of my opinions by watching your rationally-based and argumentative videos. I'm Spanish, and what Kraus says here is, in my opinion, something absolutely irrational. The student wisely asks "why does my voice break?" and Kraus says "It's so simple: is because you open your mouth too much, and 'it' (I guess he means vocal chords) touches here (and he points his throat). If you place it (the voice) here (the so-called mask) it will never happen again". P. S.: sometimes by watching your videos I get really upset because of the situation of the Opera nowadays. I remember once I read a comment you wrote, where you stated that there were not even one good opera singer nowadays. It made me so sad... I'm not sure if I want to know your thoughts about her, but lately I've been listening a lot to American-Cuban soprano Lisette Oropesa and I just fell in love with her. I would like you to listen to her and know your opinion, even though I'm afraid you maybe wont like her singing and make me listen to her in another (worse) way. Thank you again and all the best from Spain.
Thank you for your compliments. Don't be sad. Just fight for the truth. Enjoy any singer you like. Understand and learn more. The more we understand the more we appreciate good singing and the more we can work to create better singers. Singing isn't too complicated once we get the crap out of the way and understand the basics. If we do not know what is right or wrong how can we address them?
isnt that hte woman who one said that "im not vocal expert"? yes she is giving voice lessons to students? such people ruined opoera and made singers unbearable to liste. Disgrace
So as a rule of thumb, if I’m singing and I can feel the buzz around my sinus cavity (like dude in the black shirt said-holy hell), that’s mask singing right? Would the same apply if I can feel vibrations on the sinus cavity with my fingers? Sorry if this sounds incredibly stupid, I’m a beginner whose trying to avoid/correct this.
Ok you will probably never see this but I think if you listen to a good singer that projects without strain, you see you have to have the appogio/ support- it is a leaning of air against the sternum. The throat. The sound comes from there. Teachers try to say it shouldn't be in the throat but in the mask. It actually has to be in the throat. Vocal cord closure must stop the air and there has to be some pressure there or there is a weak and unsupported sound. If a singer has good vocal cord closure and air control, the sound will be there. You can also feel it resonating in the mask area but it shouldn't only be felt in the mask area. It will be resonating in the whole head and down even through the throat and chest. Hope this made sense.
Tenor - Example: Vocal scale of AH - my voice comes out the throat and goes through the mouth while the soft palate rises till an F# - on G the palate relaxes/falls as the pitches rise and more air fills the resonator chambers in the middle of my head, (A and O are back vowels, I , E, U are fronted and I feel these more forward in resonance) - so as of G I am singing on a thinner VC edge with a relaxed open throat - and the mouth opens more till I pitch out at E or F as a limit. I don't open valves or push the resonance anywhere it doesn't naturally go, and I don't push, pull, squeeze, or pressurize the tone. I feel what I feel - but I never try to place or direct the air or sound other than the path of the yawn. The voice is round with real resonance, and is protected on top by leaving the soft palate alone. Unfortunately - It is easy for many teachers and students to stick the voice either against the back of the nose or in the sinus, push on the breath and sing with that sound up and over the passage and call it Operatic Tenor. Thanks for the Video...
Pronounce the vowel fully and clearly, as clear as possible, but on an open throat, such as the pre-yawn-like full breath. And let as much air flow out as the vowel and pitch need. This clarity is focus, not a ying-yang-meow-vocal-fry type of constriction. It just makes the sound metallic, small and constricted (like modern pop singers). Ideally you should take a lesson with someone who knows the sound to show you / make you do it properly. Because when you do, what you will hear inside your head is very different from what is coming out of you at times. You won't really hear yourself as much when done properly, especially in high range, and might think not too much is coming out, but it is. It's like a fat dark mellow thing with a piercing vowel in the middle of it and a lot of breath flowing through (it's how it feels for me) People think if they feel this meowy strained metallic masky sound in their head in one point in the nose, they are projecting and focusing and closing the folds and creating resonance. It's wrong, it's constriction. And it's small. And ugly.
@@darklord220 I'm taking classes with a teacher. So i'm not trying to learn on the internet. But that doesn't mean it's not possible to do so. Why do we even have this video? To learn something.
Really? Have you tried it? I teach over the internet. It works. I have had lessons myself over Skype. It works perfectly well.If someone knows what to do then why should there be a problem? Don't bash it until you try it. Ignasi Marti palet. I give lessons. When you feel like you want to move on from your teacher. contact me. Just enjoy the process in the mean time. Learn what you can.
@@RadamesAida2Operalovers i have a good teacher now, my main problem is with breath support because I have back problems cause by bad posture and a lot of tension when breathing in. But we are working on it! Thanks for the offer though.
The thing I can't understand is: How do these singers not think there is a problem that they have to be miked? Great singers of the past... Like CARUSO! Caruso never had mikes because they did not exist. That's why he never sang into they nose... he wanted to be heard, and understood!!!
It is a great responsibility to teach. Sometimes people say things and do not realise the consequence of the things they say. They say 'I do it, so it must be correct'. I think we should be able to objectively explain why we do everything. Based on some evidence.
Question, for everyone. If this is so bad, what is the proper way to sing? What is the preferred method of resonanting. I'm reading criticism and anger but where is the video completion of what you all perceive is the correct way? Please? Enlighten us.
I am told you have a problem with me? You said I was rude to you? Where have I been rude? I have been told you have put me down in a forum and attacked my page due to the way you thought I treated you. Please explain why you feel the need to do this? You question my video without follow the instructions of the video. The video clearly states to watch the other videos on my playlist before watching this one. You seem to fail with understanding and following instructions. If you followed my instructions you would not need to have asked your question or make both silly statements. I have the right to do the videos the way I like it. Not the way you think I should do them. I do the videos this way because people need to learn to hear the differences. There are a lot of varied ways of doing the same thing. So I first need to reinforce the concept to develop the understanding of this insidious sound. If you watched my other videos in the playlist you will find out that the mask is not a resonator. It is based on scientific fact. Facts that many like yourself are oblivious to. You read "criticism and anger". But that is your perception. I have not demonstrated this. I think you should spend time understanding and comprehending and not judging. Singers present themselves to be criticised. Criticism is healthy. Nothing wrong with it. Attack is not. I do not hate or want to attack these people. I want to demonstrate issues and educate people on them . To provide a guide for people to use or dismiss or consider. Singers are the most uneducated and clueless people out there when it comes to their field. It is wrong. Singers need to understand everything of their art and make calls based on objective facts or from a solid foundation of facts. Which is what I have been developing in my videos.
it's so bizarre. I heard Marilyn Horne sing several times (once from 15 feet away) and never really got the sense of mask singing. Although occasionally she let nasality dominate certain pitches or vowels.
I totally agree with the quote - Where are all the Great Singers? Today because of this mask singing there is none of them! Mask singing closes your throat and makes the sound nasal and muffled. You can see that right now there are microphones in the opera houses because the majority of opera singers can't cover the theater with their sound. It is the degradation of opera art!
It's no wonder there are no great singers any longer. Even the great Nilsson does not understand her own singing. Even Caruso did not understand the physiology of great singing. Only Douglas Stanley, in more recent times really understood the science of great vocal production. These so-called "teachers" are all charlatans injuring their students voices for life with bad technique. Not a one of them gets the fact that the facial bones and sinus "cavities" are not simply hollow resonators, but rather are filled with folds of mucus membranes that absorb sound, not resonate. Pure physiology.
An ugly video but a very educating one. :) This shows were opera has gone since year 1500. When opera was first established the idea was in strong and clear voice - something mixed with singing and speaking - and to be heard on large "auditoriums". The first peoples to study the vocal techniques looked after the "lower" class workers (shepherds, sales mans of the market places etc.) using their FULL voice the whole day without destroying it. So the whole idea was to shout LOUDLY but FIRMLY. Nowadays we hear opera that is like if you would compare pop music to classic metal. Nowadays opera is a pop opera. And the best opera... is actually found many times in metal... sorry, but so true. Chiaroscuro.
That's crazy I found placement and these are professional opera singers. I just did singing for fun for 2 years straight and hired a coach. It took me many long hours and many nights figuring it out. My coach was LIKE YOU GOT IT! He seen my face like relax and said you can even free up more space. You can be light with the sound to which is what they do in Pop music. Phoo, and muh, will help a lot for those who are having trouble with it.
I managed to find a copy of an English translation of Mancini's singing manual, "Practical reflections on the figurative art of singing" online. I was wondering if you could mention titles of singing manuals by the other teachers you mentioned so I could attempt to find copies or translations of those as well?
I can compile a list for you. I do not think it will help you or anyone. You got to know what to do to understand what they really mean. If you understand you then have to sift through which parts are correct or not. I have read most of the literature as I was eager. Only when I was taught to do it, did I understand it. Even then it was a process. It still is. Generally the purpose for teachers to write a book is to attain students. I didn't mind those early books on teaching. Even though they were limited. There wasn't much detail. Doesn't mean what these people write is correct as well. No matter how famous they are. From memory some of the authors were Pier Tosi, Mancini, Tenducci, Anselm Bayley, Duprez, Shakespeare, Issac Nathan, Francesco Lamperti father and son Giovanni Battista Lamperti ,Manuel Garcia, Mathilde Marchese, Salvatore Marchesi, Blanche Marchesi, Melba Method, Berton Coffin, Douglas Stanley, Cornelius Reid, Herbert Caesari, William Vennard, Johan Sundberg is alive today. Anthony Frisell I think is alive as well, Richard Miller. Etc.
Anyone willing to have a real discussion about this? Because sound has to come forward with a narrow tongue whipping forward to the back of the teeth. Without that there is no resonance and a flat fat tongue equals flat notes
There's a reason why I never really paid attention to these masterclasses from Horne, Hampson, Fleming, and DiDonato. I would listen to them but I knew that they were so filled with BS that it wasn't even funny.
In essence you do not see any difference in results. I know there is a limit to a Masterclass, but there should be a difference other than improvement because you get to sing it again. I prefer the Callas Masterclasses. Look them up. At the Julliard. One guy posted the whole event. But knowing TH-cam they probably deleted his Channel.
When they were up on TH-cam I used to watch the Callas Masterclasses religiously especially the Baritones. I am so upset that I never had a chance to actually download those videos to preserve them for my own collection and to re-upload them on TH-cam. They aren't even on google drive either anymore, =/.
i just checked one maria callas masterclass you mentioned and the student asks her how can she keep the A vowel from changing.. and callas says: ''You got to place it in the mask.'' th-cam.com/video/ap7xbDrQINU/w-d-xo.html at around 7:00
@buhnedej Janine Reiss, Callas' coach when she lived in Paris, explained that to the old school singers, the mask meant the face, or the head, if you will. She says in an interview with Bruce Duffie that unfortunately now it's become synonymous with placing the sound nasally, and she deplores the use of the term, because she says it's too confusing. Amazing interview with someone whom Callas trusted to coach and train her, and who remained her friend until her death: www.bruceduffie.com/reiss.html
@camille Well yeah, confusion is more than obvious, especially with personal feelings. Im learning to sing aswell and when i ascend in and over passaggio, i feel buzzing in my head too but i think that my voice is in my mouth, the higher i go, the more it feels its in the back and up, just below soft palate. I dont know, i wish i would have some one to talk too who knows this stuff. :D Gonna read this interview you linked.
This video has two main elements. There’s a bit of technical wisdom from several of the teachers (Fleming, Nilsson and and another I couldn’t identify) and also concerned queries and strong opinions expressed by whomever posted it.
I guess Caruso should never have written a book about staying out of the nose at all times. These people obviously did not read it and did not think that he was one of, if not the best, singer of all time. Calling the mask the nose... What a joke! Pavarotti talked about singing out of the forehead... That's your mask, and if memory serves, he was a damn good singer without any of these problems people have today.
Hi, do you know any good singing teacher in Mexico? I am studying at the Conservatory but the classes are poor ... I don't know what to do, I'm lost. 😭 😪 Any contact will help. Thank you
Can someone help me? Should or should not sing in the mask? A music professor told me that my voice is in the mask and that it was good, but the truth is I'm confused.
Because she keeps the vowel (shaped tone) and pharynx position. She sings from the back forward. She maintains that more "open" position. Others close off the pharynx and concentrate the sound in the mask. They sacrifice vowel and go for a thin bright sound. Whereas Nilsson keeps a full rich vowel and allows it to follow through. It is how people perceive the correct sound. I am not saying Nilsson is right. But it shows how people can subjectively interpret things. Every wrong thing probably came from a wrong interpretation of a correct or better way.
I would add that just because a singer is proficient, or even great, doesn't automatically correlate to good teaching. For example, my teacher was a mediocre singer, who never had a career, but he UNDERSTOOD the principles, which leads to great singing. BEWARE of Professionals teaching amateurs. Too egocentric. Franco Corelli was a great example. He had NO clue how to teach what he did. I know this because my dear, deceased heldentenor friend paid him $200 (a long time ago) and ALL that Corelli could do was make a nasal/forward-placed utterance and repeat: "Come si dice?" noise, noise, noise, VERY similar to Horne. Scary.
@@RadamesAida2Operalovers I was looking for this explanation. So she managed to maintain the depth of the vowel or pharyngeal space so that it could balance the extreme forward placement. Did the fact that she had a very well developed chest also help?
Why not? I put a lot of stress on my voice pulling it back I've been practicing forward singing while keeping open throat and breath support and I have had more improvement in ability in 1 year than in 8 years of singing
Avec tout ça il est presque impossible de trouver quelqun pour progresser quand on n'est pas naturellement doué, c'est peut-être pour ça que la sélection d'élèves étaient très restreintes autrefois. Tant pis. Trimble et d'autres font parfois des contresens ou peuvent induire de la confusion mais au moins ils essaient de communiquer et ne se contentent pas de dire fais confiante à l'air ou chantes en avant dans le masque. 😑
Ballad singers don't need to use mask face singing the old lady teacher was sick try to teach rock n roll though so you can use that mask face technique all the time
A great singer may not be a good teacher,I agree.I just don't think that there is a definitly right or wrong(good or bad) way to sing any kind of songs including opera.We always can find several evidence to support the opinion by ourself based on which is our favorite.
Knowledge gives us more insight into things. The more knowledge people have the more they will realise there are less options. There is a surety on what is right and wrong.
All of this is utter and complete nonsense. Vocal physiology regarding how laryngeal muscles function with a properly tuned resonator has absolutely nothing to do with the erroneous concept of singing in the mask. Teaching this is incompetence at its worst and in fact is criminally destructive to voices. Anyone who promotes this should be barred from teaching. And just listen to the voices of those who teach this. Horrible sounds. In fact they deliberately teach you to make horrible sounds. Avoid these teachers like the plague.
Whether I see someone talking about singing and I notice the head bobbing in every direction and mouth constantly stretching and grimacing, I stop. Someone who knows how to sing won't waste so much effort while speaking --- regardless of the technique
It is absolutely baffling that these people encourage such a distasteful technique. I mean what's the use of having a hideous nasal timbre when singing? Do higher notes become easier to sing? Obviously one would argue that beauty of the voice/tone/timbre can be a subjective matter, but who'd want to sound like a cat with a flu half-strangled by a rabid dog? I really want to know why! Almost every time I go to the opera I am disappointed by disgusting productions (but that's a whole different debate), and the singing is almost always always nasal. It makes me want to cry.
For some reason it has become "the sound". I would think while training, people would go for the most beautiful sounds they could get. But they do not. They sacrifice vowel and go for placement. Great post.
But is there a "hidden" benefit from singing like that? Easier high notes maybe? Something else? I just can't see why this is becoming the standard model for singing? Thanks for your reply General! I always look forward to seeing updates and videos from you. Please continue opening eyes, ears and spirits!
Thanks for your comments. I think it is a variation of some truth or something people thought was happening. It has been misinterpreted in a myriad of ways. There seems to be a few variations on this approach. I think people came to the realisation if they included these areas of sensations in singing that the sound would sound better. I suppose it would be a logical conclusion at times when people didn't understand what was really happening physically and acoustically. They would say I feel this and pass that onto the student as part of the technique of teaching one to sing. Something that the tenor John De Reske did when he was first asked to teach after retiring. In his book he says it clearly. From memory, he was sitting at the dinner table and he was working it out. Then he came up with "Dans le masque". It also came from the concept that one gets squillo from a forward production. That ring is associated with a placement instead of a function. I can understand this concept because if you go for a ringing sound it MAY feel out there or more forward. It depends on the persons subjective sensation, and objective reasoning. As demonstrated in the William Vennard experiment I quoted in my other videos. It is not the case. Sensations do not necessarily contribute to amplification of sound. It is just a matter of vibrations or overtone experiences. I suppose then you would have to ascertain that even though these sensations do not contribute aurally to a better sound, do they make the function better. I would say most probably not. I would say this because sensations are an after affect. Sensations are the RESULT of function. How does a position of the mask influence function? I do not know. Essentially there is no mask. Everything happens in the throat. Function and resonance. If we make certain sounds it is because we are manipulating the mechanism. I suppose with nasality the soft palate is lowered and the sound actually goes through the nose. But with mask singing the approach is different. Even though these actions can occur at the same time. I have a video I will make soon. Maybe I will finish it today. That seems to indicate what mask sounds are, what is happening in the laryngeal pharynx area. It seems to be a muffling of the sound just above the larynx. Sorry for the long post. In the end it is about the function of the larynx. Its muscular development and its efficiency and freedom. And how it is tuned into the pharynx area. Sensations can be very misleading and should be used sparingly.
Can we hear you sing? I mean if u know all this shouldn't you be 1 of the best singers in your voice fach? Salvatore Fischela advocates high and forward placement and he is 70 and can sing pretty damn well. And show us what is right , showing what is wrong doesn't really help.
Watch all the videos on my playlist. The point is there is no mask placement, no high placement. Everything is in the vocal tract. The resultant sounds we make are manipulations of the vocal tract. Or physical contortions we make to achieve some physical sensations that do not contribute acoustically to sound.The 'lighter', 'lifted' sound they are going for are disconnected and shadows of what the real sound should be. I have nothing good to say about Fisichellas singing. Believe what you like. I do not need to show you when we have great recordings of great singers. The problem with so called singers like Fisichella and the ones on the videos is that they speak from a subjective and personal experience. They obviously have a really hard time understanding the students faults and how to correct them. Because they lack actual understanding of function and real objective knowledge of the voice. They get the students to do what they think they do. And they usually then pass on the information that is wrong or misinterpreted.
So glad he had the stones to take down that Salvatore Fischella guy! I mean, this guy- who sings even better than his young students, is in his 70's!, and has actually had a career- he doesn't know what the FUCK he's talking about, amiright???? please General Radames- throw up a video of yourself singing. even a nursery rhyme. I'm sure you're good, but: So many voice teachers seem to do what you're doing here- attracting a following by criticizing folks, and making yourself seem like you (and only you) hold the key. there's no nuance, no sense of generosity. There's never any sense of "see, i think this teacher is correct here, but in this other area i disagree with him". That nuance and fairplay seems a foreign language. I just find all that not cool, and oh-so-transparent. I know you can probably sing amazingly, but i wanted you to know how this tactic can come across to people. It's easy to deconstruct- hard to do the opposite. And hard to be vulnerable to deconstruction yourself. Hence, the lack of videos.
I suppose it has to do with their perception of singing. These singers were taught to sing, then they perceived that they had to do it a certain way. Those actions weakened and degraded the voice. I assume it is something along those lines. I try to make it inbuilt in my lessons to educate the singer as much as possible. Then they know how to approach singing, how to address issues when problems arise. And guard themselves from everyone who is a voice expert. Conductors, coaches, other singers etc. Who could lead them down the wrong path.
Seguramente tuvo un buen comienzo, pero es difícil de olvidar cómo destrozó Lucrezia Borgia…aquello ha sido uno de los peores momentos del bel canto…y lo que hacía con Casta Diva es deplorable. Le iba bien en óperas de repertorio no italiano, sobre todo en lenguas como el ruso…lo demás lamentable. Saludos.
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In an interview with GBOPERA (Italian magazine) in 1975, Anita Cerquetti was asked: "What advice would you give to a young person who wanted to start a career? Who would you send him/her to study with, a singer or a music teacher?"
Her reply says a lot about singers as teachers, at least in her opinion: «Never to a singer, nor a singing teacher, but to a music master: an old conductor with great experience."
She also went on saying: "A young person who has a good voice must do the usual things: study, have a lot of patience and the luck of meeting a teacher who understands them. You know, it's difficult to give advice, because everyone has a different voice from the other; this is why I don't trust the singing teacher, because they set your voice in the same way for everyone. As what should be sung, in addition to the exercises, I can only talk about myself. I sang some songs by Tosti and Mozart, lots of Mozart! However, it's all subjective, you can't generalize; If this note suits me in one position, it could be that the same note suits another lady in another position. The voice, the sound depend on many components: the cavity of the palate, the opening of the mouth, the nasal cavity. It is not possible to use a single teaching method that applies to everyone."
When did cultivating a WIDE Vibrato become a Thing? This is what Horne was ignoring in the first clip - and DiDonato actively cultivating in the young Soprano in the second clip. This is pervasive now. Can NO contemporary Singers produce a steady, supported Tone?
As noted below, the experienced singers seem to be focusing on what they feel when singing (i.e., sympathetic 'buzzing' vibrations in the maxillary sinuses due to transmission of vocal tract frequencies through the hard palate and, to some extent, the nasopharynx). They then tell the students that this maxillary vibration is the source of good vocal production, as opposed simply to a subjective effect of the true source (i.e., correct soft palate and tongue placement, plus an open throat/pharynx and low larynx).
I honestly don’t mind placement so much. But the issue is when it is taught as the action, and not the product of a stable pharynx/well formed vowel.
I feel like people try to correct a sound they perceive of as being “too dark” by giving these directions. Then the student lifts the larynx and thins the pharynx to get the sound bright and metallic. But the issue was that the pharynx was too closed to begin with. When the voice is sufficiently dark, the bright parts speak clearly - we need a clear chiaroscuro timbre, not a chiarochiaro timbre! The rings comes from the vocal folds, not the resonators! We need to teach people how to sing “obscuro” correctly and not call singing ingolata “dark”.
YEAHS, [a] and [the] Word!
@Thomas well said.
Speaking FACTS, man !
You said it all.
All this mechanical talk has nothing to do with production. The voice is a Natural Instrument. The key is to not get in its way, to undo, to give it a Clear Channel through which it rides the wild wind!
Oh....General. This video only reinforces what I have been working (teaching) against for the last 15 years. What's worse, is that FAMOUS (infamous?) singers are destroying our beloved art form. Keep fighting the good fight sir. I haven't thrown in the towel yet.
Thank you my friend. You have always been very supportive. I appreciate your rationality. The hard bit is trying to explain detailed things in videos. I wanted to move on from the mask topic. But it really needs more attention.
We are supposed to be more developed and educated, but it seems early teachers were far more intelligent. The sound we make is the result of function. The efficiency and development of that function determines how well we sing. Not the after effects.
Understanding things allows us to approach singing in a different way.
You both should collaborate on a definitive book for all our sakes
How many great stars have you produced in the last 15 years?
@tenore 8 ánimo
You can't 'put' your voice in the mask. If it is produced correctly, you will get the sensation that it is resonating there, but attempting to 'put' it there will screw your technique and ruin your voice.
That is the point of the videos.
Peoples attempt to replicate good vocal production fail when they try to make this masky, covered sound, that muffles the true clarity of good voice production.
Sensations are a subjective illusion that can help or really inhibit a singers development.
Sometimes there is a thin line between right and not so right. I personally detest this type of sound. But it can be done in a way that doesn't harm the voice. But just detracts from the true sound.
Rosa Ponselle is a good example of this. Though, I think she would have sounded better if the sound was not masky.
We could, then, come to the conclusion that her singing was great in spite of some of the things she did, and not because of it. Most people come to the opposite conclusion when trying to emulate the greats.
@@iloveyoufromthedepthofmyheart Just look at my Channel videos. Just go to my playlist section.I have organised it for easy viewing. I post singers of every voice type.
I really do not like listening to Trimble. He makes up his own terms and waffles on. I find him extremely irritating to listen to.
He basically is a singer who decided to teach and examines his own singing and tries to explain it in his own words. But takes a lot of time to do it.
Teaching singing is generally based on going for the right sounds and actions. Producing a better sound is based on freedom and efficiency of the laryngeal function. But also the strengthening and balancing of the registers. Support is obviously important.
It is quite simple when you take away the subjective junk people make up and do the right things. Watch my playlist on the mask. And you will see the mask does not exist. Just in peoples minds.
Instead of quoting great singers without providing evidence of the quote. I provide quotes from great teachers and scientists, far more objective evidence.
I do not say, "Caruso said this", and not provide the proof of the quote. Many times Trimble quotes great singers and I have NEVER heard it before. I have read most things on the voice i have never found the information he quotes from Great singers. Ask him for the reference.
There is a lot of Confirmation Bias in his opinion. For example his concepts of mouth opening. He wants a horizontal spread approach. He quotes Caruso and other singers on this, and uses Marafioti's book on Caruso as evidence of this horizontal vowel creation.
But there are pictures and videos of Caruso singing and his mouth is in the vertical and not the horizontal position that Trimble advocates. And when you look at a lot of great singers the vertical position is the standard.
@@iloveyoufromthedepthofmyheart Fascinating
This is the point. You can't place your voice anywhere. The key word missing here throughout is resonance. Opening the spaces to e 13:07 nable the use of the correct resonators and in modern music, mixing the use of the resonators. I'm a (was a) trained lyric mezzo now singing English rock and pop in theatre shows around the UK. The new teachings aren't new they're just miscommunicated misunderstood and therefore mistaught.
@@RadamesAida2Operalovers Phht! I watched Phyllis Curtin take a student whose voice sounded adequate and unclear, lacking color, and have her lift her cheekbones and direct her voice out of her throat and through her mask, and it was suddenly full of color, and projection. The throat is not where the voice belongs. It passes THROUGH THE THROAT AND ABOVE and has to fly out the mouth with the tongue out of the way, and making the upper lip and teeth vibrate. Stop posting videos before you actually learn how to teach singing. You are dangerous.
The sound should never be ugly! I can’t believe no one called out Horne for being nasal here. Nasality is nasality.
tEcHnIqUe
Cierto. Pero hoy en los teatros escuchamos sonidos horribles, forzados, constreñidos, solo vana musicalidad. La mayoría de polos cantantes parecen ‘imitar’ el canto, más no la partitura. Falta técnica, profundización y honestidad, por parte de los teatros y de los pseudocriticos que comparan cualquier cosa, con las voces de los grandes. Lamentable todo. Saludos cordiales
Yeah but many operatic phrasing especially in mezzo bass baritone and heavier tenor and sopranos voices really need it or it just sounds like moaning and woofiness.
Zinka Milanov called her out for this by pointedly not applauding her at the Met centennial gala.
Your criticizing Marlyn Horne. No,no,no
Teaching students to give a concert to their own skulls instead of sending the sound out into the audience 😢
"to give a concert to their own skulls"
That's priceless. I'm gonna steal it. 😂
I love watching people try to place their voices. It's on par with 'guitar face'. 'Placement' is like showing someone a picture of a cake while handing them a bag of flour.
I'm glad you are still around so we can re-learn stuff
I will start doing more things soon. I have been really busy. Thank you.
I had an opera singer who practiced bel canto teach me from scratch basically. And she always had me try
And be more nasal or sing in the mask. When I got to my higher notes I knew I could hit them and I’d try the way I did on my own , and she would instantly stop me and say more forward.
Super forward and super tall and narrow, it always made me crack and I couldn’t hit higher notes as easily or at all like that. I never understood why my range was more without her and then with her I was apparently always so wrong according to her. I now see
It was her preference but she flat out told me I was doing things wrong and didn’t state it was a choice for tone. I thought it was to prior text my voice or something to that effect.
I ended up with a shouty whiny voice. She also made me belt my way into everything. I only knew how to sing in a belt fashion. Mind you I wrote my own music and it’s contemporary I only went to her to learn to “properly” sing, not because I needed to learn to sing in an orchestra, she knew this too as I would sing modern rock songs at the end of our hour sessions though my voice was so tired I couldn’t hit the notes well at that point.
I developed tinnitus and hypersensitivity to sound because of this ultra belty nasal brash tone. I’d prefer rice in my car for hours throughout the week, windows up and had never thought it would damage my ears.
I lost about a decade of my life after that since I couldn’t really live life normally due to the concerns of most sounds, everything was too loud for my ears for a while.
I don’t get it, she’s a good singer too, how in the hell did she did teach me so wrong ? My tone was bad and I couldn’t really sing on pitch on my own, I always sang over the song and vocalist . She said I could do a shoe on my own . Not true. I don’t get it. One thing tho I did grow my voice I was able to sing past c5 within 7 months. But my nasal quality was like imprinted into my tone, and anyone ever try writing a song from scratch when all you can do to hit notes is yell your way through them? I even had practiced SLS techniques (without realizing it) on my own and that’s also how I grew my range , then she’d say “you’ve been practicing!” Yes true I practiced but not her way .
It was really frustrating. Teachers should teach how to sing daddy and then explain what’s just a tonal preference. It’s my choice of how I sound as a songwriter. All I want to do is be a good singer who can sing on pitch , have a good range and be safe , while be expressive, but if I get pigeon held to one approach and develop my muscles in that fashion then I’m stuck.
It baffles me. Also I wish singing teachers would teach not in tiny closet sized rooms where the sound has nowhere to go and also there isn’t much reverb coming back so it’s hard to hear yourself aswell. Why can’t they teach in a living room or larger area? It seems many find the smallest room possible to rent or in their house and then blow Your eardrums our with their full opera voice and teach you to do the same as if ears aren’t gonna wear . Even guitarists as bad as they are know to lower the volume on their amplifiers. Yet I was taught to be on 11 at all times. Just be shouty and nasal I guess
Placing in the mask is 'doing the end result' to ty to get to the end result. It is why most modern day singers lack vocal projection and often have no middle or low register.
OMG, Horne sounds like a witch from the wizard of Oz O_o or a cat? "Don't be afraid to make it ugly" lol, whatever happened to bel canto! Not even her sang as bad as she demonstrated and asked the student to do. Ridiculous!
Yes. She didn't sing as bad as the sounds she wants the student to make. And she even tells her it wont hurt her. Like it is some magical area that will keep her safe.
How can Horne teach a singer such an incorrect way of singing?! She’s teaching the woman to sing nasal. Never a good quality to have in one’s singing, especially not in classical singing. International singers often times don’t make for good teachers. It’s so frustrating to see young singers led astray by bad advice.
:))
Nilsson and Kraus don’t belong in this list. True, they weren’t actually teachers; they were singers first and foremost. But both of them are definitions of healthy singing. They had very long careers and had a technique that permitted them to sing through colds and physical exhaustion. Maybe they were mistaken in how they taught their techniques, but they have their careers as proof that they sang with a proper technique.
Kraus got more and more nasal during his career which Nilsson never was.
Kraus was nasal at times. It’s more evident in higher passages. Nilsson is more or less a gold standard when talking about ideal vocal tone/technique
One thing no one can deny, Horne was an expert at "making it ugly"
I could never stand that old lady sound of hers, what kind of screwed up Samson would want to sleep with grandma Dalila?
@@Daniela-pr7rz 🔥🔥🔥
@@Daniela-pr7rz :: You try singing Rossini's _Arsace_ from _Semiramide._
Cierto. Saludos cordiales
Say it to her face. One of the greatest bel canto mezzos.
I'm glad that we have people like GeneralRadames. The teaching of bel canto is so distorted. Nothing compared to the golden age of opera. Last night I was at the Met's live translation of Aida. It was so horrible that I left after the first act. The only one who had a good technique was the mezzo soprano Anita Rachvelishvili.
Sad. Thank you for the feed back about the performance.
Anita sounds like crap...
So it was boring.
I'm just starting watching regularly opera thanks to the MET Live transmission. And thks to my choir, I start to have a first insight into vocal techniques (even if singing in a choir is not using the same techniques as singing as a lyric artist). But I'm just starting getting acquainted with all the technical terms
To go back to Aida, I thought at first that it was the composition itself that was poor... I mean, Aida was described to me as one of the best opera. So I was expecting something great. And still that evening, I was waiting the point where it will be stellar. Well didn't really happen. I went out and said: was fine but not scoring. Now, when rethinking about it, I would almost said "Meh!" But without real explanation. So thank you for your comment. It's always enjoyable to read some comment of people that has more knowledge ^^"
I found Anita good as well. Some said she was bad. At least I found her acting more interesting than the one of Anna Netrebko. Maybe that's why I had more interest into her interpretation.
This same feeling of "It was nice but, don't know, not stellar", I got it too with Luisa Miller the season before with Sonya Yoncheva.
I don't know if it was because of the singing or the story itself. Strangely, she gave me thrill and goosebumps when she played Tosca and Mimi. In la Bohème, it was just "woh", love it. Even cried at the end ^^"
But the couple Mimi/Rodolfo worked too that night (can't recall the name of the tenor)
@@Coolfranz0 Why choir singing should be different ? I think, poor choir singers nowday...they have to "minimise" their voices to mouse sound....witch is total constricted and dangerous.I would LOVE to hear a choir with free, oper voices.That doesn't mean loud, if properly trained.
@@BernardaBobro In my choir, not. We are no professionals but our directors are quite happy with the level. And our concerts are welcomed. I am only in one choir for the moment, so I don't know how it is in others. In my case, I've never had as direction to minimise my voice. And it's not in the directors' benefit to make us sing until it hurts. That would be dumb. No I'm quite happy with my choir ^^
I am not sure what is worse: Ignorant Professionals or Freshly-baked doctoral students teaching aspiring singers. BOTH are hazardous to one's vocal health.
tenore8 I think mask singing should be banned in Opera because it butchers the tones.
Or everyone is different and there is not one absolute technique? Or every human do not agree on everything? Get over it!
I watched so of your videos. Your not one to speak. Is that why you turn your comments off?
I remember Marilyn Horne back in the early 60's when she was a presentable lyric soprano
but, for me she became unlistenable as a mezzo/contralto. Her brother was my 5th grade teacher.
Do they not hear themselves? They sound so nasal and muffled. I dont know what they were thinking implementing that masking technique.
I will be honest I began to follow along as I have had a teacher who taught mask singing to me as a way to not muscle and power my way through a song. I am of the opinion it has a place in pedagogy just don’t stay there. Once the mask is developed begin to move it horizontally to the rear of the head (pharynx, soft palate raised)
I am a newbie still but some of these clips helped me a bit.
It is important to explore forward and back. To help find a balance. But it is also important to open up. It is really hard for many to open up the voice.
Mask can be used and interpreted in so many ways. If someone sings open the mask action will be different from someone who is closed or constricted or both.
There is also a difference in certain sounds and trying to shove the voice into the small closed space. Unfortunately, it is a subjective term and is used very loosely.
@@RadamesAida2Operalovers the mask is one of the concept used to induce resonance. But the word mask has connotations that tempt people to create a false voice rather than generation more resonance.
@@meyerbeer13 The problem with going for resonance especially "mask resonance", is that we tend to focus on the sensations we get feedback from. Those higher overtones. And we can try to intensify these to our detriment by putting our bodies out of balance.
But there are other sounds that make up a full-throated production. These generally are omitted when people focus on just what they hear or feel as feedback.
A singer no matter what he or she feels should conceive of a sound that is full and rich in the context of a vowel. A vowel being shaped tone. The vowel and word also not being sacrificed when this is done.
I hope that makes sense? Thank you for your comment.
@@RadamesAida2Operalovers so if you're a voice teacher, where's the center of focus of resonance? If you don't know that, you know nothing!
Imagine the day that Netrebko will start giving masterclasses adding to this plethora of messed up ladies above.
Masterclasses should be prohibited. I do not like the term. What can you do with a student in half an hour? You can only confuse them. Learning to sign is an outgoing thing. You ought to be at students all the time.
Hehehe Dame Joan knew better
Tomba 2 She actually did👍🏻
Masterclasses seem more like a platform to show off student and show off the so called "master". Some good can be done. But I don't know if the student would ever retain that information. Especially when the teacher has a controlling say.
@@RadamesAida2Operalovers They're not meant to teach technique. I think originally it's a good idea, like in the Callas masterclass: she's polishing them and giving them ideas. At that stage, if their training is completed, singers should only need a masterclass for polishing and that could be with a singer but also with a maestro, or a coach, it would literally do the same thing. Mayb it'd even be better. I personally as a singer would take a masterclass with Muti anytime over one with a pro singer.
@@RadamesAida2Operalovers I can't agree more
I’ve seen that DiDonato clip before. It’s a travesty. The Horne masterclass is almost like an SNL sketch, or an episode of candid camera where the singer is being pranked.
Cierto. Saludos cordiales ❤❤❤
I love Fleming but I wouldn't dare take any advice vocally from her when she said she lost her voice singing one role and couldn't speak nor sing for an entire week or so because of it.
Okay no..... Mask singing is terrible for operatic singing as its all about the CHEST VOICE! CHEST CHEST AND CHEST!
@@abbybambi578 And why are you saying this to me? I know how important it is to have chest voice and to have the chest function working in a proper and in an efficient manner.
@@deadwalke9588 I know what you mean but I wasn't saying this to you, I meant this for Fleming lol
@@deadwalke9588 What do you think of Fleming now?
@@xxsaruman82xx87 I like her non-operatic material more than her operatic material, unfortunately. She's a lazy soprano who obviously has chest voice even if it doesn't come out in her opera singing.
I've had teachers telling me to sing in the mask but it never felt right to me.
Because singing is more than one place. It is three dimensional. The voice needs focus or vibration but space and freedom. It needs full rich vowels with emotional intention.
If you watch videos of the great old singers and look at old pictures their heads come up and back. All these professionals and the students they are teaching seem to have falling heads. Does anyone know if this might have anything to do with masque singing?
Yes! It's an artifact of wrong placement. You can't project your voice if you're looking at the floor!
Not an opera singer, but the great Whitney Houston used to tilt her head up and back all the time. I always assumed that was a natural reflex her body did to support the air and open up the neck to facilitate those big sounds she was renowned for. Maybe it was intentional?
I don’t understand the lady in the black polka dot dress who keeps saying “open”… is she wanting the girl to sing in the nose? That’s very confusing. I don’t understand what she wanted.
Now I'm extremely confused as a beginner...
My teacher also works on this nasal resonance and forward singing and he says it's healthier to your voice
Did it come from pop music? This tendency to use this forward mask?
What she called being in the mask was actually constricted and pushed from the neck and sounded horrible. If the position is bad, the sound will automatically be ugly.
Imagine paying a world star singer for a lesson and the advice you get is just about the same that any novice singer with a TH-cam channel would give. It’s depressing, man… a whole world dependant on quick results, even though these results might even make things worse.
I always thought Merilyn horne was an inept singer, and yet she had a long courier, while singers like shirley verrett never had half the elustrious courier she had
"Make it ugly"
Wow!
Digusting. "Make an ugly sound", "the voice should be small", "the voice should be placed forward"(in da mask!!!111!!!!!) and other such great advices show that these people don't know what the hell they're talking about. I don't care if they're famous, they ruin voices with this "forward placement technique" that should be gone forever by now.
When I watch this sort of thing I am secretly hoping that one of these students would say "...no, i'm not doing that crap you're trying to teach me"
How can Horne get to the point of saying "Don't be afraid to make it ugly" without understanding that something is not right there?
I guess she associates good singing with a placement or a sound. It is her perception of things.
@@RadamesAida2Operalovers Yes, but she goes incredibly far! I had a teacher that used to say that the mask made the sound beautiful; Horne says it sounds ugly, and she still recommends it!
@@DiomedesDioscuro She means it sounds ugly to the singer, but beautiful to audience because we hear our own voice differently. That’s her point there. She explained it on an another video.
@@flav2689 The problem is that she actually sounded ugly. 😬
@@DiomedesDioscuro The student or Horne?
I completely agree on the fact that "forward mask singing" can be detrimental, but that goes for everything if not taken in moderation. The question is always to find balance and not be obsessed with something. Even the advice to only sing with open throat and engage chest voice can be absolutely devastating to a voice. No teacher should only focus on some aspects of singing, everything must always be taken into consideration: breathing, phonation, proprioception, resonance, articulation, fraseggio, and so on.
Can you explain how an Open throat can be "devastating"? How engaged chest voice can be "devastating"? I am interested in what you mean?
What you say might be true if you have the correct understanding of the correct actions.
However, we have many sayings and subjective thoughts that cloud the functional truth of singing for singing students. And we had a lot of moronic ex singers giving their subjective views as fact and clouding this area further. Like Kraus. He has done far more damage than good.
If you believe you need a placement to create sound. Then it is already wrong. Sound is made at the larynx. The vowels are made at the larynx. It is first resonated at the larynx.
There is no up or down. The sound comes from one stream, one place and the pitch changes are an adjustment of function. Mask singing is just adding noise to a pure function.
We as singers should be focused on the creation of sound. Not the sensations and after effects of that creation.
The are no resonances in the mask. Only useless sympathetic vibrations. The voice and sound production are independent of holding on to physicality.
The singer should work on a free functioning laryngeal action. With no impositions. With the understanding that the vocal mechanism can make any sound and pitch without imposing on the function or forcing the voice. No mask or sensation placement There is nothing of importance needed up above the hard and soft palate.
Sing and put your hand over your mouth. the sound stops. Now explain how the sound goes into anything above the hard and soft palate and vibrates and amplifies to the audience?
The Larynx and Pharynx are the *only* resonators. Not even the mouth. The rest are illusions. If you follow the illusions and not the correct process, then you are half a singer.
Thanks for your comment. Look forward to your explanation.
@@RadamesAida2Operalovers I see what you mean and I almost completely agree. What I really don't agree with is the discard of the sensations: singing, as any motor activity, as a proprioceptive side to it. I dare say proprioception plays a key role in singing as we're not able to actually see most of the movements required. Don't get me wrong, I'm against any sort of "believe me, I feel this buzzing here so you should try to create the same buzzing" approach. I think a student has to find their own sensations while a teacher is helping them building the proper technique. But only talking about opening the throat and engaging chest voice without helping a student to find his/her own sensations might be destructive, as it puts too much attention on the mechanical aspect of singing, over whose single components we have so little control. For example, a student might misunderstand the "open throat" instruction and start to widen the vowels. If the teacher never even suggest searching for some sensations over others the student is deprived of some tools which may be illusory but may also be fundamental for learning.
@@lorenzobonomi9487 Hello. Thank you for your perspective. I always think it is good for people to share their views. I was a little confused on why you spoke about open throat and chest, In relation to this video?
I did not discard sensations. Proprioceptive and Kinesthetic awareness is very important for a singer. What we hear and sense and what we focus on makes a lot of difference. To understand this, you have to understand what is the nature and of vocal function.
There are a percentage of people that have difficulty in this area. And they can approach singing in a different way. I think we can all learn to do things if we want to achieve it through work and Perserverance. I find it frustrating when I ask a student how something feels, and they shrug their shoulders. I try to talk about things and ask question, so they develop their own awareness. Some do not seem to even try. I suppose that aspect of talent is missing.
I do get the student to try to remember what they do by thinking in a different way. As with speaking we go for the sounds of the words we have the intention to say. If you go for a particular action and it is correct or better. Then you can have the same thought process to recreate it.
So, even if they are unaware of "placement" or physicality or even constriction. There are elements they can control. Vowel enunciation, consistency, knowing the right process that creates a result.
Unfortunately, many singers follow the sensations, and it becomes difficult to get the correct actions. A sensation as a guide causes a stereotypical fixation and the singer loses the spontaneity that is associate with express speech and great singing.
It is the word and its expression that dictates everything. Not the sensation. Both may achieve similar results. But they are quite different in sound and production. The true vocal placement is a result of refined enunciation. When you understand how the vowels are created. The enunciation of them dictates the true vocal production and the resultant physicalness and sounds produced.
Placement is a controlled choice of a singer. A singer who does not know the true placement. They guess, they assume, and they are told it is in an area. However, we cannot really know. So, the resultant singing action will be constrictive in nature and contrived. Therefore artificial. The physicality wants to work a certain way, but the singer holds a desired action creating a conflict in functional actions. Causing the vocal mechanism to not function optimally.
There are dozens and dozens of muscles involved in the process of singing. As we do not control the actions of speech, we do not control the actions and sensations of function. We decide what we are going to say, and our body responds to the most accurate degree to create the person's desire. And we say it. OUR FOCUS IS ON CREATING. If you focus on sensations of the after effect of function, then you are not creating. Our mind sends electrical signals to the physicality to create the desired sounds. Whatever we think will come out in the sound and the sound will lose purity. That is why the intention of the vowel sound is what the singer should only think about.
Vowel sound is only shaped tone. The tones made are vibrations. All are created through the intention of the vowel sound. The physicality (like an open throat) occurs through enunciation not manipulation. The freeing mechanism through correct diaphragmatic support frees the larynx to form and create the vowel sound independent of physicality or leaning or feeling a sensation.
A vowel is made in the vocal tract. I am happy to make the claim that the vocal cords themselves make the vowel sound. The vocal cords themselves are the beginning of the vocal tract and our thought process. And all the physical actions that take place are the result of that and not the cause of the vocal function.
So, the opening of the throat and the movement of the tongue and soft palate and the lips and mouth are the result of the actions of the laryngeal function. Everything follows on.
Most people address singing by manipulating the physicality and focusing on the resultant sound and not the vowel sound creation. If the vowels are shaped tone and vowels and sound are made in the larynx or pharynx or vocal tract. Why do people focus on the areas above their mouth? That is why no one has clear diction. Listen to Pavarotti. HIs voice is clear and well enunciated. So are many other great singers. There is an inherent connection between good function and good enunciation. The better the enunciation the better the function. The better the sound and the more expressive and meaningful singing is.
Many great singers did not know what they did. But they could do it instinctively. The word and the expression were their guide.
An open throat is essential for good singing. If the throat is not open. It means the larynx is constricted. It is either depressed, squeezed, pushed or raised. What open throat is varies from person to person. But for me it is a laryngeal function that is free from constriction or inhibition. The feeling is one of openness from the larynx through the throat. The throat feels super stretched and open. Not through artificial means. It is the result of good actions of creation which causes this condition.
sensations are deceptive. And it is impossible to repeat. The vowel sound or word can be repeated almost precisely the same. Because the thought process will be the same.
@@lorenzobonomi9487 I wrote too much. Lol.
Just finally. I listen to my students thought process before they make the sound. I already know before they make the sound what will happen. Because i see how they try to start. The wrong though process results in the wrong physical actions. and vice versa.
For me the creating actions have to follow a certain process. Many singers start with sound placement. I stop them straight away. And they keep doing it. The correct enunciation and i'll say articulation of the vowels changes how the vocal mechanism functions and the resultant sound. The difference is far better. I tell the student the enunciation of the vowel sound is ALWAYS first. Then the placement changes. for the better and for the efficiency of function. And the purity and clarity of sound.
So much to say. I have to stop myself. Singing is not guess work. Once you understand the workings of things you can reduce it to very simple actions and get rid of the subjective rubbish that people add on that make it all so complicated. Singing is functional. All functions have a clear actional purpose. Focus on making and not on the result.
Can you please explain how to open your throat when singing?@@RadamesAida2Operalovers
Yes it's right. Some singers teach they students like that. In Russian this calls "chemistry".
Enrico Caruso: Never sing into nasal cavity. Franco Coreli got crazy when he listened to a guy using this nasal singing in his masterclass. Any one of the great singers like Mario del Monaco, Enrico Caruso, Pavarotti, Franco Coreli, Did use this foward singing. If you do this, your voice will proyect just because of the law of Acustics: Less Brightness, harder to listen it over other instruments. But this foward singing is what is being teached in every conservatory. Every Time i mix someones voice i use EQ to remove nasality. This is fucking crazy.
Foward Singing: The Art Of Ruining Beautifull Voices.
Students should begin requiring their teachers have degrees in Learning Development, Human Performance, and Instructional Design.
The music degrees they have don’t seem to be helping their teaching abilities.
I honestly can't tell what DiDonato is trying to accomplish but I find it very obnoxious how she's talking through the entire long stretch of the student singing
John A. I find DiDonato and Fleming to be so pretentious. The irony of them teaching voice is as laughable as it is insane.
DiDonato is method acting for her role as Florence Foster Jenkins
MH doesn't know what she's taking about.
Her career would say otherwise.
These new singing teachers that come from the walls and the woods and the chairs and from anywhere else where there isn’t any sound drive me insane!!! they don’t understand what mask singing is all about or “nasal” or whatever they just open their mouth say something and people listen and that’s why we have so many bad voices
Not all musicians translate to good or even mediocre teachers.
This makes me so sad! (Or maybe angry!?) Would also love to see a similar type video of other teachers who teach proper singing (I.e. no mask). It would be an interesting comparison.
The ones that do not do it generally do not talk about placement. The focus on other things. Interpretation, approach, phrasing etc. I feel sometimes they might hear things but they are too considerate not to interfere.
@@RadamesAida2Operalovers Makes sense. My first teacher was the same way. She did not really even refer to "placement", or "mask". In fact she never even really spoke of "tightening the diaphragm". When I had asked her about that, she would just return to explain the importance of the breath and how it works naturally, by not allowing any constrictions, which "tightening the diaphragm" could easily do. She would use the music itself, and how it was written , to teach me proper singing. Mostly all those "boring" Italian Art Songs. (Or so I thought at the time!)
So like the 24 Italian Art songs such as "Danza, danza fanciulla", and "Sento nel core"? I've only performed maybe 4 of those songs and they worked the voice out like no one could honestly. The early vocal masters knew what to do with the voice and while composing some of the most boring songs (I have to agree) the songs when broken down and used as the building blocks for the voice really does a good job at helping to build the voice. Caro mio Bene taught me proper breath coordination and support, Danza, Danza fanciulla taught me how to properly sing mellismatic passages also taught me how to center the voice in the middle and lower parts of the voice (G minor goes to a G2 and several daring F#2s for beginning voice).
@@deadwalke9588 . Yes. Those are the exact ones I'm referring to. They really were written in an amazing way, specifically to train the correct art of singing.
Horne says, “ugly”. Bartoli says, “violent”.
That’s the Italian version!
What they should say. Is better enunciation with an emotional intention. As if talking passionately.
There seems to be an abundance of highly opinionated people that want to instill hard and fast rules into a place where they don't belong. The mask isn't a literal placement, it's a sensation of your resonance manifesting and this difference should be made clear to pupils to avoid unnecessary manipulation. Pharyngeal singing as it's described is a consequence of an open throat and a clear connection to your oppoegeastric muscles though I feel that noting it like that is a bit of a fallacy. The name "Pharyngeal singing" implies a focus that doesn't treat the whole apparatus with fair attention, the pharynx is just a part of your instrument that needs to be open but you can still sing in the pharynx and not produce a desirable sound. The "mask" as it's known is a consequence of a relaxed, forward tongue and a raised, flexed soft palate. They are not mutually exclusive and a focus on either will either make your sound too woofy or too bright. Using both these parts of your vocal anatomy is what gives you Chiaro/Schuro singing, light and dark with both carry and roundness qualities that can achieve the most pleasant sound possible.
And that is the problem with 'placement'. People try to make a position to find the balance. Instead of focusing on the function and the desired vowel sound. A sensation is the result of function and is not the cause of it.
Any artificial manipulations come through in the sound of the voice. Lifting the soft palate, focusing the voice, holding parts. Placing high etc.
At one point the singer does not make beautiful spontaneous emotive singing based on the natural reflective actions of speech. But artificial and contrived noise.
There is a fallacy in the Pharyngeal term. As all sound are resonated there. As my other video on this playlist series on the mask demonstrates.
A forward "relaxed" tongue is an oxymoron. The tongue is never relaxed. Like all muscles it tenses to act. How can you form any vowel without the active participation of the tongue? Do not conflate relaxed with free from constriction.
The tongue should not be flat or relaxed. I just made a video on that and will post it in the coming days or weeks.
I would pose chiaro scuro is based on good efficient function and balanced muscular development. It is quite clear ring comes from chest function. And the scuro comes from the open throat space. Watch my videos on chest and head voice.
Thank you for your comment.
This whole thing makes me cringe. Unbelievable what these 'experts' are teaching.
I don't know if you had seen another youtube channel called "this is opera" that it was focused on the differences of good and bad singing, tecniques, etc. Well that channel was closed idk why but it shocked me.
If you search the blog of phillipe castagner you will the find the reason why the channel has shut down.
@@dragicaklomp9810 why they closed it? I think its open now
@@little-963 they closed it four years ago for some really serious reasons, not wise to go in detail. But if they are open again the fine
@@dragicaklomp9810 wasnt this chanell about opera ? Why is that dangerous to talk about 😆
@@little-963 it was not closed because of the content, but because of another reason. I said enough about and that is it.
I think they all want to be ringy, metallic, but then the voice is lacking fullness, roundness.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but vocal exercises for classical singers should never be on 'M' or 'N', to avoid this mosquito tone
Also, ascending exercises are quite bad
To train what Brigit Nilsson was showing: the singer should practice descending exercises on 'GOH', 'VOH', 'VAH'. Whatever vowel you'd like, but avoid consonants like 'M' or 'N'
General Radames…buen video! Hay que seguir luchando, para que la ópera no siga siendo un musical, con el respeto del musical, gracias ❤❤❤❤
di Donato sounds not just horrible she teaches even worse. And for this shit they are paid a fortune!
As a performing tenor and voice teacher this film totally makes the case FOR resonant head technique. The idea of just throwing the voice forward is an oversimplification. These teachers are all aware that there are resonators in the front of the face that are key to vocal production. DiDonato and Fleming both explained it absolutely correctly in very helpful specific ways. This is NOT nasal sound. Singing into the nose is not what they are asking for. Another point is that opera technique is designed to make the voice sound resonant and present in a theater. One needs these head resonators really working well if you want to be hear in the theater.
The film does make the case? The comments below demonstrate this.
It is quite obvious you did not read the instructions before watching the video. I said to click on the playlist and watch the other videos first. I said this is part of a series of videos. You cannot watch this out of context.
There are absolutely NO "resonators in the front of the face". With resonance we are talking about amplification of sound. Not sympathetic vibration. As explained in my other videos. The only resonances occurs in the vocal tract. Pharynx area. th-cam.com/video/2N5q85G3ydk/w-d-xo.html&lc=Ugwsp8TbhOxVRTVlsR94AaABAg
As a voice teacher and singer it is your responsibility to know this basic scientific fact. A fact demonstrated before you were born.
Where do you think the nose is? If I go by your concept of singing. Why would the sound go to the other places around the nose and not into the nose area? The Nasal passage and nose is the clearest and most straight forward point that sound would go to. The sinuses are all part of this. The maxillary sinuses are the largest sinuses and they are at your cheeks. They like all sinuses leak out snot and gunk into the nose. They are connected. Sometimes they are open, sometimes their Ostia are covered by fleshy skin. Blocking their entrance.
These places are useless as resonators. They have gunk in them. They are not moveable, they cannot be shaped to create vowels and resonate these vowels. And most important when we sing the soft palate is lifted blocking any chance for sound to enter any of these areas. Read what is said in the above video and the playlist link I provided that you obviously did not watch.
GeneralRadames I’m aware of the Stanley method. I learned from a Stanley teacher. I agree with the open throat and lowered larynx. Stanley did not understand the development of head resonance . A space does not have to be moveable to generate very important sympathetic vibrations and overtones. I’ve never heard a successful pharynx singer that could sustain that technique . It’s impossible to sing without highly developed head resonance. Douglas Stanley could not sing and did not know the first thing about head resonance. Those sinus passages that you say are filled with gunk are what give life to the pharyngeal sound. I do agree with you that there are singers who do not balance the chest and head well and the effect sounds nasal. However, there are places in the boney structure of the face and head that do vibrate and are essential to the chiaro in the voice. The one uses them the more they vibrate. I would love to know which singers you like so I can better understand what you are looking for in a voice.
I find you reply quite bizarre. I am not sure what this has to do with Stanley? He is one a number people I quoted. Refute the information I provided. With other evidence. I am not interested in your opinion.
"Those sinus passages that you say are filled with gunk are what give life to the pharyngeal sound." Prove it? The Vennard quote below proves you completely wrong.
"However, there are places in the boney structure of the face and head that do vibrate and are essential to the chiaro in the voice. " Really? Prove it? Chiaro, brightness comes from a muscular function. Chest function. All sound comes from a function. Resonance is the continued vibration and amplification of the function. Any type of placement and positioning, Is not going to *** create sound***.My channel displays the singers I like. I do not understand your logic? Is there an issue with you watching, understanding and searching my channel?
If you watched my playlist on the mask, I really do not understand how you cannot comprehend what I am saying? You do not have to agree. You have to demonstrate why I am wrong with EVIDENCE, not opinion.
The vocal tract video clearly demonstrates what a resonator is and it is supported by evidence. I do not care to delve into what you think about someone you never met . And what you think he knows or doesn't.
Did you not read what Sundberg said in the beginning of the video? It completely destroys everything you said. There is a clear distinction between sympathetic vibrations 'Sensations' one feels, and amplification of sound, 'formants'.To quote him again;
"In other words such vibrations do not contribute acoustically to the formation of vowel sounds."
You might have missed this quote in the comment section of my other videos.William Vennard, 'The mechanism and the technic' 1967.
"In 1954, Wooldridge attempted to Isolate the contribution of the nasal passages to the singing voice by comparing the vowels produced by six professional singers under two conditions: - normal, and with the nasal passages filled with cotton gauze. He was unable to find significant differences between the spectra of the vowels produced under the two conditions, and a jury of expert listeners was unable to distinguish the two conditions by hearing tape recordings. Wooldridge concluded, "The term 'nasal resonance' is without validity in describing voice quality in the singing voice," (p. 39). A repetition of this experiment by five male singers, including myself, confirmed the original findings, (Vennard).
"In the experiment on nasality to which I have referred (Par. 343) we not only filled our nasal passages with gauze but also had our maxillary sinuses more than half filled with water, (Fig.41). These are the largest of the sinuses, and putting water in them would change their resonant properties noticeably if they were of any importance. Our singing under these conditions was compared with our normal singing by 86 vocal authorities from the United States and 25 from Holland. The Dutch judges were included because Europeans frequently judge American speech to be nasal but they were no more able to detect the difference between the normal and the abnormal singing than were the American listeners. Our conclusion was that neither "nasal resonance" nor "sinus resonance" has validity. To dispose finally of the idea that these tiny air spaces, with their minute openings into the other resonators, could be of any value other than as indicators to the singer himself, let me quote a typical scientific authority, Schaeffer.
It is very unlikely that the paranasal sinuses exert any influence upon vocalization. The ostia of the sinuses are so small and not infrequently encroached upon by neighboring parts that one naturally wonders how the chambers can have any modifying influence on the sound waves. Moreover, the great variations in the size and arrangement of the sinuses would preclude any constancy of influence. The theory that the paranasal sinuses impart resonance to the voice must doubtless be abandoned."
Everything happens in the pharynx. You might think you are doing something different. But everything other than nasality occurs in the pharynx only. You have hooked onto illusions of sensation and false concepts of placement. But these are just subjective false perceptions based on no facts no science. Something you are failing to understand because it doesn't fit into your "belief" system.
And you are teaching people this...
GeneralRadames I think these people confuse the covered sound with a perceived change in where the voice is “placed”. Of course those who know better know we can’t place the voice, and the change in perception of placement is due to the acoustic shift from the action of covering; the voice is never placed. The rise in pitch and acoustic switch may alter the relative area of sympathetic resonance and the listener might perceive that switch in sympathetic resonance; though I agree with what you say that when the voice is still well produced, the actual sympathetic resonance itself is not dramatically felt, and almost disembodied and not so much felt unless the singer is actually attempting to become more aware of the sensation in that moment; and to me the sympathetic resonance should always feel “centered” within the body, as in it doesn’t feel excessively forward or back or directed
Resonance has nothing to do with vibration. Resonance is amplification of basic frequency that is produce by vibrator(larynx), resonance is multiplication of basic frequency. So if you are singing an A4 for example, thes resonance reffers to all the overtones that are produced by multiplication of A4(440Hz). When singing only vibrator is the larynx, simpathetic vibration occurs when soft or hard tissue (usually soft) starts vibrating because of strongand compresed flow of the air, but those simpatetic vibrations bring nothing to the actual colord of one's voice.
2:00 LOL ofcourse 'm' vibrates your nose haha, it's nasal consonant. In phonetics they call this the right term: point of articulation and it has nothing to do with resonance.
Oh my good, poor girl!!!!!!!!
Horne kinda helped the girl singing the vowel.
The Japanese soprano had a nice vibrato.
Nilsson was lovely, diva and funny literally in any occasion. "troppo la gola! Troppa gola!" XD love her!
Kraus had good points but also very bad advices.
Di Donato... Incommentabile
Tomba 2 Kraus had bad advices? Such us?
Horne wanted the girl to have more power in the middle voice. This comes from chest voice function not forward placement. Which the girl lacked.
The vowel might have been better enunciated. But the direction she was taking the girl will not lead to anything good.
Vowels are shaped tone. Tone is resonated in the pharynx. Vowels are mostly created by the tongue. The mask kills vowel. People who sing in the mask generally have a more neutral sound with little articulation.
The Japanese or Korean girl sings with no chest function. The voice is so light and undeveloped. That forward movement will effect her vibrato action. As constriction sets in.
Nilsson, lol. Just didn't know how to address the singers sound. He is singing nasal forward which has a reverse action of depressing the larynx. So singing more forward is going to do more of the same. It is all about nomenclature and understanding.
I don't know Spanish. So I do not know what Kraus said. But the sound he and the student made says it all.
@@RadamesAida2Operalovers Dear General, first of all thank you for your content, I've confirmed some of my opinions by watching your rationally-based and argumentative videos. I'm Spanish, and what Kraus says here is, in my opinion, something absolutely irrational. The student wisely asks "why does my voice break?" and Kraus says "It's so simple: is because you open your mouth too much, and 'it' (I guess he means vocal chords) touches here (and he points his throat). If you place it (the voice) here (the so-called mask) it will never happen again".
P. S.: sometimes by watching your videos I get really upset because of the situation of the Opera nowadays. I remember once I read a comment you wrote, where you stated that there were not even one good opera singer nowadays. It made me so sad... I'm not sure if I want to know your thoughts about her, but lately I've been listening a lot to American-Cuban soprano Lisette Oropesa and I just fell in love with her. I would like you to listen to her and know your opinion, even though I'm afraid you maybe wont like her singing and make me listen to her in another (worse) way.
Thank you again and all the best from Spain.
not japanese she is korean ~
Thank you for your compliments. Don't be sad. Just fight for the truth.
Enjoy any singer you like.
Understand and learn more. The more we understand the more we appreciate good singing and the more we can work to create better singers. Singing isn't too complicated once we get the crap out of the way and understand the basics.
If we do not know what is right or wrong how can we address them?
isnt that hte woman who one said that "im not vocal expert"? yes she is giving voice lessons to students? such people ruined opoera and made singers unbearable to liste. Disgrace
So as a rule of thumb, if I’m singing and I can feel the buzz around my sinus cavity (like dude in the black shirt said-holy hell), that’s mask singing right? Would the same apply if I can feel vibrations on the sinus cavity with my fingers?
Sorry if this sounds incredibly stupid, I’m a beginner whose trying to avoid/correct this.
Ok you will probably never see this but I think if you listen to a good singer that projects without strain, you see you have to have the appogio/ support- it is a leaning of air against the sternum. The throat. The sound comes from there. Teachers try to say it shouldn't be in the throat but in the mask. It actually has to be in the throat. Vocal cord closure must stop the air and there has to be some pressure there or there is a weak and unsupported sound. If a singer has good vocal cord closure and air control, the sound will be there. You can also feel it resonating in the mask area but it shouldn't only be felt in the mask area. It will be resonating in the whole head and down even through the throat and chest. Hope this made sense.
Tenor - Example: Vocal scale of AH - my voice comes out the throat and goes through the mouth while the soft palate rises till an F# - on G the palate relaxes/falls as the pitches rise and more air fills the resonator chambers in the middle of my head, (A and O are back vowels, I , E, U are fronted and I feel these more forward in resonance) - so as of G I am singing on a thinner VC edge with a relaxed open throat - and the mouth opens more till I pitch out at E or F as a limit. I don't open valves or push the resonance anywhere it doesn't naturally go, and I don't push, pull, squeeze, or pressurize the tone. I feel what I feel - but I never try to place or direct the air or sound other than the path of the yawn. The voice is round with real resonance, and is protected on top by leaving the soft palate alone. Unfortunately - It is easy for many teachers and students to stick the voice either against the back of the nose or in the sinus, push on the breath and sing with that sound up and over the passage and call it Operatic Tenor. Thanks for the Video...
Love your comments. They make sense to me. If a singer starts to push their voice in a particular firection that's an alarm bell for me.
They could just pronounce the vowels fucking correctly.
That nasal sound is so ugly she just change the girl beautiful natural sound haha
If mask is not the thing to do. Which is the thing to do? I'm asking because i really want to learn to sing. How are we supposed to find resonance?
Pronounce the vowel fully and clearly, as clear as possible, but on an open throat, such as the pre-yawn-like full breath. And let as much air flow out as the vowel and pitch need. This clarity is focus, not a ying-yang-meow-vocal-fry type of constriction. It just makes the sound metallic, small and constricted (like modern pop singers). Ideally you should take a lesson with someone who knows the sound to show you / make you do it properly. Because when you do, what you will hear inside your head is very different from what is coming out of you at times. You won't really hear yourself as much when done properly, especially in high range, and might think not too much is coming out, but it is. It's like a fat dark mellow thing with a piercing vowel in the middle of it and a lot of breath flowing through (it's how it feels for me) People think if they feel this meowy strained metallic masky sound in their head in one point in the nose, they are projecting and focusing and closing the folds and creating resonance. It's wrong, it's constriction. And it's small. And ugly.
Trial and error.
No one is really going to teach you over the internet.
@@darklord220 I'm taking classes with a teacher. So i'm not trying to learn on the internet. But that doesn't mean it's not possible to do so. Why do we even have this video? To learn something.
Really? Have you tried it? I teach over the internet. It works. I have had lessons myself over Skype. It works perfectly well.If someone knows what to do then why should there be a problem? Don't bash it until you try it.
Ignasi Marti palet. I give lessons. When you feel like you want to move on from your teacher. contact me. Just enjoy the process in the mean time. Learn what you can.
@@RadamesAida2Operalovers i have a good teacher now, my main problem is with breath support because I have back problems cause by bad posture and a lot of tension when breathing in. But we are working on it! Thanks for the offer though.
The thing I can't understand is: How do these singers not think there is a problem that they have to be miked? Great singers of the past... Like CARUSO! Caruso never had mikes because they did not exist. That's why he never sang into they nose... he wanted to be heard, and understood!!!
I never understood why they meed mics to speak. I guess my speaking voice is louder than their's.
A good example that formerly good singers are often the worst teachers. They keep confusing cause with effect.
Not only is Joyce a bad teacher, she has criminal fashion sense.
It is a great responsibility to teach. Sometimes people say things and do not realise the consequence of the things they say. They say 'I do it, so it must be correct'. I think we should be able to objectively explain why we do everything. Based on some evidence.
Question, for everyone. If this is so bad, what is the proper way to sing? What is the preferred method of resonanting. I'm reading criticism and anger but where is the video completion of what you all perceive is the correct way? Please? Enlighten us.
When you start the video what is the first thing it says?
Then make that video. Don't reinforce the bad idea. Reinforce the correct way. Please.
I am told you have a problem with me? You said I was rude to you? Where have I been rude? I have been told you have put me down in a forum and attacked my page due to the way you thought I treated you. Please explain why you feel the need to do this?
You question my video without follow the instructions of the video. The video clearly states to watch the other videos on my playlist before watching this one. You seem to fail with understanding and following instructions. If you followed my instructions you would not need to have asked your question or make both silly statements.
I have the right to do the videos the way I like it. Not the way you think I should do them.
I do the videos this way because people need to learn to hear the differences. There are a lot of varied ways of doing the same thing. So I first need to reinforce the concept to develop the understanding of this insidious sound.
If you watched my other videos in the playlist you will find out that the mask is not a resonator. It is based on scientific fact. Facts that many like yourself are oblivious to.
You read "criticism and anger". But that is your perception. I have not demonstrated this. I think you should spend time understanding and comprehending and not judging. Singers present themselves to be criticised. Criticism is healthy. Nothing wrong with it. Attack is not.
I do not hate or want to attack these people. I want to demonstrate issues and educate people on them . To provide a guide for people to use or dismiss or consider. Singers are the most uneducated and clueless people out there when it comes to their field. It is wrong. Singers need to understand everything of their art and make calls based on objective facts or from a solid foundation of facts. Which is what I have been developing in my videos.
Dabney Ross Jones, Soprano read Mancini, Lamperti (both of them), and LaBlache.
@@ClergetMusic Wasn't it Lamperti who said "that the forward positioning of the voice would RUIN the next generation of singers?"
it's so bizarre. I heard Marilyn Horne sing several times (once from 15 feet away) and never really got the sense of mask singing. Although occasionally she let nasality dominate certain pitches or vowels.
I totally agree with the quote - Where are all the Great Singers? Today because of this mask singing there is none of them! Mask singing closes your throat and makes the sound nasal and muffled. You can see that right now there are microphones in the opera houses because the majority of opera singers can't cover the theater with their sound. It is the degradation of opera art!
It's no wonder there are no great singers any longer. Even the great Nilsson does not understand her own singing. Even Caruso did not understand the physiology of great singing. Only Douglas Stanley, in more recent times really understood the science of great vocal production. These so-called "teachers" are all charlatans injuring their students voices for life with bad technique. Not a one of them gets the fact that the facial bones and sinus "cavities" are not simply hollow resonators, but rather are filled with folds of mucus membranes that absorb sound, not resonate. Pure physiology.
An ugly video but a very educating one. :) This shows were opera has gone since year 1500. When opera was first established the idea was in strong and clear voice - something mixed
with singing and speaking - and to be heard on large "auditoriums". The first peoples to study the vocal techniques looked after the "lower" class workers (shepherds, sales mans of the market places etc.) using their FULL voice the whole day without destroying it. So the whole idea was to shout LOUDLY but FIRMLY. Nowadays we hear opera that is like if you would compare pop music to classic metal. Nowadays opera is a pop opera. And the best opera... is actually found many times in metal... sorry, but so true. Chiaroscuro.
That's crazy I found placement and these are professional opera singers. I just did singing for fun for 2 years straight and hired a coach. It took me many long hours and many nights figuring it out. My coach was LIKE YOU GOT IT! He seen my face like relax and said you can even free up more space. You can be light with the sound to which is what they do in Pop music. Phoo, and muh, will help a lot for those who are having trouble with it.
I managed to find a copy of an English translation of Mancini's singing manual, "Practical reflections on the figurative art of singing" online. I was wondering if you could mention titles of singing manuals by the other teachers you mentioned so I could attempt to find copies or translations of those as well?
I can compile a list for you. I do not think it will help you or anyone. You got to know what to do to understand what they really mean. If you understand you then have to sift through which parts are correct or not.
I have read most of the literature as I was eager. Only when I was taught to do it, did I understand it. Even then it was a process. It still is. Generally the purpose for teachers to write a book is to attain students.
I didn't mind those early books on teaching. Even though they were limited. There wasn't much detail. Doesn't mean what these people write is correct as well. No matter how famous they are.
From memory some of the authors were Pier Tosi, Mancini, Tenducci, Anselm Bayley, Duprez, Shakespeare, Issac Nathan, Francesco Lamperti father and son Giovanni Battista Lamperti ,Manuel Garcia, Mathilde Marchese, Salvatore Marchesi, Blanche Marchesi, Melba Method, Berton Coffin, Douglas Stanley, Cornelius Reid, Herbert Caesari, William Vennard, Johan Sundberg is alive today. Anthony Frisell I think is alive as well, Richard Miller. Etc.
Anyone willing to have a real discussion about this? Because sound has to come forward with a narrow tongue whipping forward to the back of the teeth. Without that there is no resonance and a flat fat tongue equals flat notes
once more...great video sir
"Where is the center of focus of resonance?" Pete Peterson
What about " inhalare la voce"?
What about it?
There's a reason why I never really paid attention to these masterclasses from Horne, Hampson, Fleming, and DiDonato. I would listen to them but I knew that they were so filled with BS that it wasn't even funny.
In essence you do not see any difference in results. I know there is a limit to a Masterclass, but there should be a difference other than improvement because you get to sing it again.
I prefer the Callas Masterclasses. Look them up. At the Julliard. One guy posted the whole event. But knowing TH-cam they probably deleted his Channel.
When they were up on TH-cam I used to watch the Callas Masterclasses religiously especially the Baritones. I am so upset that I never had a chance to actually download those videos to preserve them for my own collection and to re-upload them on TH-cam. They aren't even on google drive either anymore, =/.
i just checked one maria callas masterclass you mentioned and the student asks her how can she keep the A vowel from changing.. and callas says: ''You got to place it in the mask.''
th-cam.com/video/ap7xbDrQINU/w-d-xo.html at around 7:00
@buhnedej Janine Reiss, Callas' coach when she lived in Paris, explained that to the old school singers, the mask meant the face, or the head, if you will. She says in an interview with Bruce Duffie that unfortunately now it's become synonymous with placing the sound nasally, and she deplores the use of the term, because she says it's too confusing. Amazing interview with someone whom Callas trusted to coach and train her, and who remained her friend until her death: www.bruceduffie.com/reiss.html
@camille Well yeah, confusion is more than obvious, especially with personal feelings. Im learning to sing aswell and when i ascend in and over passaggio, i feel buzzing in my head too but i think that my voice is in my mouth, the higher i go, the more it feels its in the back and up, just below soft palate. I dont know, i wish i would have some one to talk too who knows this stuff. :D
Gonna read this interview you linked.
This video has two main elements. There’s a bit of technical wisdom from several of the teachers (Fleming, Nilsson and and another I couldn’t identify) and also concerned queries and strong opinions expressed by whomever posted it.
I guess Caruso should never have written a book about staying out of the nose at all times. These people obviously did not read it and did not think that he was one of, if not the best, singer of all time. Calling the mask the nose... What a joke! Pavarotti talked about singing out of the forehead... That's your mask, and if memory serves, he was a damn good singer without any of these problems people have today.
Calum Torn what was the title of this book?
@@alexladyy Just go to Amazon and search out his name. He has a few books, I believe. I'm reading the Caruso/Tetrazzini book.
He literally said it was against the rules of song and the worst fault! LOL
Hi, do you know any good singing teacher in Mexico? I am studying at the Conservatory but the classes are poor ... I don't know what to do, I'm lost. 😭 😪 Any contact will help. Thank you
I teach on Skype. Contact me radamesaida2@gmail.com. I will look after you.
Why are these voice "coaches" dealing with technique? It's not their job
Can someone help me?
Should or should not sing in the mask?
A music professor told me that my voice is in the mask and that it was good, but the truth is I'm confused.
Can I ask, how did such an ardent proponent of mask singing as Nilsson not end up becoming nasal?
Because she keeps the vowel (shaped tone) and pharynx position. She sings from the back forward. She maintains that more "open" position. Others close off the pharynx and concentrate the sound in the mask. They sacrifice vowel and go for a thin bright sound. Whereas Nilsson keeps a full rich vowel and allows it to follow through. It is how people perceive the correct sound.
I am not saying Nilsson is right. But it shows how people can subjectively interpret things.
Every wrong thing probably came from a wrong interpretation of a correct or better way.
@@RadamesAida2Operalovers Thanks. Cheers for another great video
I would add that just because a singer is proficient, or even great, doesn't automatically correlate to good teaching. For example, my teacher was a mediocre singer, who never had a career, but he UNDERSTOOD the principles, which leads to great singing. BEWARE of Professionals teaching amateurs. Too egocentric. Franco Corelli was a great example. He had NO clue how to teach what he did. I know this because my dear, deceased heldentenor friend paid him $200 (a long time ago) and ALL that Corelli could do was make a nasal/forward-placed utterance and repeat: "Come si dice?" noise, noise, noise, VERY similar to Horne. Scary.
She does sing nasal sometimes. You can hear in hear softer singing she tends to go more nasal
@@RadamesAida2Operalovers I was looking for this explanation. So she managed to maintain the depth of the vowel or pharyngeal space so that it could balance the extreme forward placement. Did the fact that she had a very well developed chest also help?
what piece is she singing here in 5:42?
Si mi chiamano Mimi from La Boheme.
@@RadamesAida2OperaloversThank you so much!
@@noobieappearance5822 Actually it’s Donde lieta.
@@ER1CwC Tysm!
Has anyone noticed that in Semiramide second duet with Joan Sutherland, Marilyn Horne says "a Niño" instead of "a Nino"? Now I understand why.
I like this
This clip is horrible 'make it ugly.' she's ruining that voice.
Ok... They're all ruining those voices.
5:50 pseudo teacher
Does anybody know the name of the singer in minute 7:04?
Lucas Meachem. He is a Baritone.
@@RadamesAida2Operalovers thank you so much!
I really hope I can find a teacher teach me not to sing forward..
radamesaida2@gmail.com. I do Skype lessons.
@@RadamesAida2Operalovers are you still taking lessons?
Yes.
Why not? I put a lot of stress on my voice pulling it back
I've been practicing forward singing while keeping open throat and breath support and I have had more improvement in ability in 1 year than in 8 years of singing
people like that should be sued for money, because they did physical damage to these talents.
Avec tout ça il est presque impossible de trouver quelqun pour progresser quand on n'est pas naturellement doué, c'est peut-être pour ça que la sélection d'élèves étaient très restreintes autrefois. Tant pis. Trimble et d'autres font parfois des contresens ou peuvent induire de la confusion mais au moins ils essaient de communiquer et ne se contentent pas de dire fais confiante à l'air ou chantes en avant dans le masque. 😑
Ballad singers don't need to use mask face singing the old lady teacher was sick try to teach rock n roll though so you can use that mask face technique all the time
A great singer may not be a good teacher,I agree.I just don't think that there is a definitly right or wrong(good or bad) way to sing any kind of songs including opera.We always can find several evidence to support the opinion by ourself based on which is our favorite.
Knowledge gives us more insight into things. The more knowledge people have the more they will realise there are less options. There is a surety on what is right and wrong.
All of this is utter and complete nonsense. Vocal physiology regarding how laryngeal muscles function with a properly tuned resonator has absolutely nothing to do with the erroneous concept of singing in the mask. Teaching this is incompetence at its worst and in fact is criminally destructive to voices. Anyone who promotes this should be barred from teaching. And just listen to the voices of those who teach this. Horrible sounds. In fact they deliberately teach you to make horrible sounds. Avoid these teachers like the plague.
Whether I see someone talking about singing and I notice the head bobbing in every direction and mouth constantly stretching and grimacing, I stop. Someone who knows how to sing won't waste so much effort while speaking --- regardless of the technique
Печально
It is absolutely baffling that these people encourage such a distasteful technique. I mean what's the use of having a hideous nasal timbre when singing? Do higher notes become easier to sing? Obviously one would argue that beauty of the voice/tone/timbre can be a subjective matter, but who'd want to sound like a cat with a flu half-strangled by a rabid dog? I really want to know why! Almost every time I go to the opera I am disappointed by disgusting productions (but that's a whole different debate), and the singing is almost always always nasal. It makes me want to cry.
For some reason it has become "the sound". I would think while training, people would go for the most beautiful sounds they could get. But they do not. They sacrifice vowel and go for placement. Great post.
But is there a "hidden" benefit from singing like that? Easier high notes maybe? Something else? I just can't see why this is becoming the standard model for singing? Thanks for your reply General! I always look forward to seeing updates and videos from you. Please continue opening eyes, ears and spirits!
Thanks for your comments.
I think it is a variation of some truth or something people thought was happening. It has been misinterpreted in a myriad of ways. There seems to be a few variations on this approach.
I think people came to the realisation if they included these areas of sensations in singing that the sound would sound better. I suppose it would be a logical conclusion at times when people didn't understand what was really happening physically and acoustically. They would say I feel this and pass that onto the student as part of the technique of teaching one to sing.
Something that the tenor John De Reske did when he was first asked to teach after retiring. In his book he says it clearly. From memory, he was sitting at the dinner table and he was working it out. Then he came up with "Dans le masque".
It also came from the concept that one gets squillo from a forward production. That ring is associated with a placement instead of a function. I can understand this concept because if you go for a ringing sound it MAY feel out there or more forward. It depends on the persons subjective sensation, and objective reasoning.
As demonstrated in the William Vennard experiment I quoted in my other videos. It is not the case. Sensations do not necessarily contribute to amplification of sound. It is just a matter of vibrations or overtone experiences.
I suppose then you would have to ascertain that even though these sensations do not contribute aurally to a better sound, do they make the function better. I would say most probably not.
I would say this because sensations are an after affect. Sensations are the RESULT of function. How does a position of the mask influence function? I do not know. Essentially there is no mask. Everything happens in the throat. Function and resonance.
If we make certain sounds it is because we are manipulating the mechanism. I suppose with nasality the soft palate is lowered and the sound actually goes through the nose. But with mask singing the approach is different. Even though these actions can occur at the same time.
I have a video I will make soon. Maybe I will finish it today. That seems to indicate what mask sounds are, what is happening in the laryngeal pharynx area. It seems to be a muffling of the sound just above the larynx.
Sorry for the long post. In the end it is about the function of the larynx. Its muscular development and its efficiency and freedom. And how it is tuned into the pharynx area. Sensations can be very misleading and should be used sparingly.
Thank you!
Jay Bee nasality and constriction will make it easier to hit the high notes. But is not opera
Vergogna
Can we hear you sing? I mean if u know all this shouldn't you be 1 of the best singers in your voice fach? Salvatore Fischela advocates high and forward placement and he is 70 and can sing pretty damn well. And show us what is right , showing what is wrong doesn't really help.
Watch all the videos on my playlist. The point is there is no mask placement, no high placement. Everything is in the vocal tract. The resultant sounds we make are manipulations of the vocal tract. Or physical contortions we make to achieve some physical sensations that do not contribute acoustically to sound.The 'lighter', 'lifted' sound they are going for are disconnected and shadows of what the real sound should be.
I have nothing good to say about Fisichellas singing. Believe what you like. I do not need to show you when we have great recordings of great singers.
The problem with so called singers like Fisichella and the ones on the videos is that they speak from a subjective and personal experience. They obviously have a really hard time understanding the students faults and how to correct them. Because they lack actual understanding of function and real objective knowledge of the voice.
They get the students to do what they think they do. And they usually then pass on the information that is wrong or misinterpreted.
So glad he had the stones to take down that Salvatore Fischella guy! I mean, this guy- who sings even better than his young students, is in his 70's!, and has actually had a career- he doesn't know what the FUCK he's talking about, amiright????
please General Radames- throw up a video of yourself singing. even a nursery rhyme.
I'm sure you're good, but: So many voice teachers seem to do what you're doing here- attracting a following by criticizing folks, and making yourself seem like you (and only you) hold the key. there's no nuance, no sense of generosity. There's never any sense of "see, i think this teacher is correct here, but in this other area i disagree with him". That nuance and fairplay seems a foreign language.
I just find all that not cool, and oh-so-transparent. I know you can probably sing amazingly, but i wanted you to know how this tactic can come across to people. It's easy to deconstruct- hard to do the opposite. And hard to be vulnerable to deconstruction yourself. Hence, the lack of videos.
Fleming was awesome in her early days
th-cam.com/video/Azit5LuyK90/w-d-xo.html
I don't know why she became like this....
I suppose it has to do with their perception of singing. These singers were taught to sing, then they perceived that they had to do it a certain way. Those actions weakened and degraded the voice. I assume it is something along those lines.
I try to make it inbuilt in my lessons to educate the singer as much as possible. Then they know how to approach singing, how to address issues when problems arise. And guard themselves from everyone who is a voice expert. Conductors, coaches, other singers etc. Who could lead them down the wrong path.
Thanks for the reply maestro . We really need more wise and educated people like you.
Seguramente tuvo un buen comienzo, pero es difícil de olvidar cómo destrozó Lucrezia Borgia…aquello ha sido uno de los peores momentos del bel canto…y lo que hacía con Casta Diva es deplorable. Le iba bien en óperas de repertorio no italiano, sobre todo en lenguas como el ruso…lo demás lamentable. Saludos.