Christmas concert

Katarina and I give a Christmas concert each year. This is a tradition we started when we lived in Stockholm, and we continued it after we had moved to Örebro. Sunday Dec 14 was our third Christmas concert in Rinkaby Church.

I don't give many concerts - perhaps 2-3 each year - so it's always a special (and unfamiliar) occasion. I felt great the day before, but on the morning of the concert, I woke up with the snivels and a stiff and sore throat. The vocal cords were not affected, so I figured I'd be able to sing, but it took a good 2-3 hours of careful vocal warmups before the voice started feeling like it normally does when I get out of bed! This was obviously going to be a challenge.

Our musicians were coming in from Stockholm on an afternoon train, so we'd have rehearsals in the church, then go to our place for a quick bite, then back to the church. Rehearsals went ok, except I started feeling a bit dizzy while singing O Helga Natt (Cantique de Noël). I started thinking that I should perhaps let Katarina sing that one. But as I got up for that particular block in the concert, I realized it was to late to ask...

A blocked or runny nose isn't so much of a problem as long as you don't rely on nasal resonance, but it is a problem when it starts running down into your throat. Also, worrying about the voice distracts you from your main mission: to connect with the audience. Well, what can you do?

In the end, the concert went well. I decided to post two clips on youtube (since people keep asking, and they were, after all, fairly decent.)

Cantique de Noël is actually a bear of a song for a tenor. There are only two ways to do it: either with full voice and dramatic quality, or ... not at all. When I say "dramatic quality", I don't mean to imply sounding like a dramatic tenor. Both my voice and my demeanor are firmly in the lyrical tenor camp, and I couldn't be a dramatic tenor if my life depended on it. But within the bounds of their natural voice, each singer is (or should be) able to draw on different "modes" - for example, light, lyrical, and dramatic. It's not a matter of singing with "different voices", but rather of subtle shifts in timbre depending on the mood of the song.

In Cantique de Noël, the tessitura and range are pretty similar to Cielo e mar from La Gioconda. The ending high Bb should come as a release, but the long low phrases and the forte passage around the passaggio which precede it can often cause problems. You need a stable, low position but with head voice firmly engaged from the very beginning (as always, one might add). At the same time, you had better not make it too dramatic. After all, you're singing about the Second Coming of Jesus - not the end of the world. It's a dramatic occasion, alright, but one that calls for rejoicing.

An added challenge for a Swedish tenor is of course that Jussi Björling's version of this song is welded into everyone's mind, and it is of course not possible to even begin to compare with his unique rendition. All you can do is to try to be yourself, stay very cool, and hope that hearing it live with another voice is after all refreshing, even compared to playing Jussi for the thousandth time on your CD player at home.

The other song, Jul, Jul, Strålande Jul, is also one that everyone knows by heart, and has heard a countless number of times. I am reasonably pleased with the way the phrases move, the legato line, and the almost fragile quality of the mezza voce.



It's pretty obvious that I'm unaccustomed to the whole concert setting. Only more concerts can cure that.

A warm thank you to Robert Robertsson, who came from Stockholm to play the guitar, and to Eva Johnson who played the piano. Our Christmas concerts are a wonderful opportunity to get into the right Christmas spirit, and your warm presence and musicianship make it easy.

"Not a real tenor..."

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

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

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

I found a sound clip here.

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

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

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

The Great Equalizer

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

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

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

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

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

With amplification, most singers sound pretty much equal.

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

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

Good Dreams - Joseph Shore

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

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

Some parts can be seen as provocative:

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

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

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

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

Shore returns to this theme later on:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Function of the Singing Voice

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Into the depths...

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

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

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

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

Bengt's singing reminds me of Franco Corelli.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

charting emotional content

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

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

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

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

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

[...]

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

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

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

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

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

apologies to RSS subscribers

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

I've switched to the new Blogger version, and it
was playing tricks on me. The word wrap wasn't
working right, and while the preview looked okay,
the published version looked horrible.

... at least using the Opera web browser, but honestly,
when writing a blog on Bel canto, using another browser
is surely blasphemy?

neural response

I've been out fishing lately.

I started thinking when listening to a concert recently. It was
 an accomplished opera singer, who performed, by all accounts,
 very well. I was quite pleased that I could actually enjoy myself, 
and not just analyse her singing to death. (:

However, there was time for some analysis too. I couldn't help
noticing how she sang with basically the same timbre
throughout. This is not unusual. It is what most singers seem to 
do.

She used a fairly wide range of "indicators" to signal emotion, 
and we, attentive listeners, were eager to comply and respond
with the appropriate emotion.  I wouldn't have reacted to this 
a few years ago, but having realised how much a singer can 
actually vary his/her vocal colour, you can't help not longing
to hear that on stage. 

Actually, the thinking started long before this. A couple of years 
ago, I listened to a live rendition of "Nessun dorma", with a 
reasonably skilled tenor. His middle range was uninteresting,
though, which obviously becomes problematic in "Nessun
dorma". To exaggerate a bit, he stumbled through the aria and
made a nice recovery on the high notes. To my surprise, my
friends hadn't noticed his relative failure in the 90% of the
aria that doesn't consist of "money notes". I guess that's why
they call them "money notes" - if a tenor can only deliver the
high Cs, all is forgiven (in Nessun dorma, it's a H).

So here's the theory. Nessun dorma is all about anticipation,
but since everyone in the audience is so full of anticipation of
that last high H, the singer can probably get away with just
indicating the rest of the song. After all, none of it is real.
The artist builds an illusion, and we, the audience fill in the
blanks.

So why go through all that trouble to deliver real emotion,
when it's obviously possible to just indicate, and let the
audience do the work? Shouldn't there be a difference, after all?

I started googling for neurological papers to find out if we are
actually able to detect what goes on in the brain when e.g.
listening to singing.

I turns out that we can - almost.

Robert Zatorre in Montrëal seems to be on the forefront of
neurological studies related to music. One paper has the
impressive title

"Emotional responses to pleasant and unpleasant music correlate with activity in paralimbic brain regions".

Unfortunately for me, trying to prove my theory, we seem to
have some way to go before we fully understand how the brain
processes emotional content in music.

It turns out that listening to music triggers a lot more brain 
activity than does e.g. speech. Several different parts of the 
brain (even the "reptile brain") are engaged, and the result 
is collated into a unified experience.

This paper does claim to support the hypothesis that "there
may be a dissociation between perceptual and emotional
responses to music".

Furthermore, the paper states that "it is possible that music
that induces different types of emotions would recruit
different neural substrates. This may be especially likely
if emotion is elicited through memory or association,
rather than spontaneously."

That last bit seemed to relate to what I was digging for. I was
thinking that if an artist uses physical or vocal "gestures"
to indicate to the audience what they should feel, this may
have the effect that the audience relates to the music in a
slightly more intellectual way, having to draw on their
memory for the proper understanding of the gestures. 

Perhaps other components in the music speak directly to 
our more intuitive systems, triggering a direct emotional 
response which we will have great difficulty suppressing?

Of course, tons of complications arise if one would try to
measure this in a scientific study.

Of course, it could be that our willingness to be swept away by
the artist is the most important factor in enjoying a musical
performance. Perhaps our brains are clever enough to
provide us with the necessary emotions if we just don't get
in its way? Call me stubborn, but I don't think that's the
whole truth.

Something to look forward to

My beloved wife chastised me for writing that I didn't have much
to look forward to (here). I admit that that was only partly true.
I meant that I didn't have anything like a full-scale production in
front of me.

A few fun things have happened, though.

Katarina and I were engaged to sing on a Tallinn cruise. I was
really supposed to ride along, but since we enjoy singing, we
promptly decided that I should be part of the program. Such
"coups" are always a bit scary, since they can backfire if the
customer ends up thinking that I didn't contribute to the
enjoyment. Or maybe that's just me thinking that I'm still
not good enough for professional engagements... As it was,
I only participated in a duet ("Rosen in Tirol" by Zeller) and
one aria ("O Paradis", by Meyerbeer). It went quite well,
though, and I felt like a real pro... almost.

The next occasion was our traditional Christmas concert,
now in a new church (since we have moved). It was well
visited, and people seemed pleased. I sang some Christmas
hymns, and some arias from Händel's Messiah (Comfort ye
and Every Valley). We recorded it, and listening to the
tape, I was horrified! I was singing out of tune on several
occasions. My wife insisted that I wasn't, and she has a
good ear...

Enter Lucy Manén's Bel canto book. She observes (pg 50) that

The high harmonics of the imposto mechanism, not only
give to all the vocal registers the beauty and brilliance
of Bel Canto; they also ensure that the voice will sound
in tune to a distant listener (without adequate brilliance,
a distant voice will often sound flat even when, heard
from near by, the notes seem correctly pitched).

When I checked the parts of the tape where I recalled emphasizing
the higher harmonics, the voice didn't sound flat. I had focused too
much on creating a full voice, and forgetting about the brilliance.
Oh, well. Let's hope the one's in the back didn't have such good
ears...

(If you want to know what imposto is, read the book, or go see
your local Bel Canto teacher.)

Later, Katarina and I gave a recital in Oxelösund - Church coffee
for the senior members of the congregation. Katarina grew up in
Oxelösund, so she has a tendency to sell out when she visits. So
it was this time too. The church was full and we had a great
time. I sang Ah, fuyez... from Manon - a terribly difficult aria,
but I never did have the good sense to go for the easy wins.
The challenge with Ah, Fuyez is that you have to be able to
express several different and conflicting emotions. De Grieux
prays to be rid of the obsession with Manon, and curses the
world and his misfortune, but really, he doesn't want anything
other than to be with her - but he does sincerely long for the
peace of God too, and he keeps shifting in and out of these
emotions. To add some complexity, it's in French, which I
don't know, and the tessitura is terribly high.

Bel canto to the rescue. If you're able to produce the sound
with a lowered larynx, whatever you feel will be strangely
amplified (because the emotional colorings of the voice
emanate from there.) So if you take the time to really
understand what you're singing, you will be able to portray
the proper emotions (obviously there is more to a great
interpretation than that, but just the basics will get you
surprisingly far). The 'imposto' thingy helps anchor the high
voice especially, which saves you when De Grieux first
utters his "ah fuyez" in a piano G. Also, you can bring on
the crying in the ff exclamations - as long as you keep your
position and let the body provide (as Bengt keeps telling me).

The truly amazing feeling is that you can go all out, both with voice and emotion, as long as you keep directing the force the right way.

For fun, I later decided to try singing it unsupported (actually,
still much more supported than I ever sang before I went to
Bengt three years ago). I found that I could produce a cool-
sounding timbre, and sing loudly enough, but when trying to
convey emotions, the voice suddenly felt like a wall between
me and the (imaginary) audience. I started realising why many
singers are left with just varying the volume, phrasing and
attack. What else can you do?

I decided to quit experimenting and return to practising the
real thing. I don't master it well enough to goof around.

Then we did some Nemorino/Adina, "Caro Elisir". Fun stuff.
I need to find more opportunities to sing on stage.

Corelli

Re-reading my posts, I felt that I should give more credit to Franco Corelli. I will admit that I hadn't listened to him much, except for an old recording of "La Forza del destino", which is unfortunately of such poor technical quality that it is difficult to judge the man's voice (the wild cheers from the audience do give an indication that there was something there that got lost in the recording...)

Enter youtube.com. This sesspool of copyright violations is heaven for opera lovers who look for inspiration. I searched on Corelli and found gold. The man was unbelievable! Those rumours I had heard about him ruining his voice with the "lowered larynx technique"... Hah! Some clips from 1973, with a 52 year-old Corelli singing Andrea Chenier should certainly put those rumours to rest.

Here are some of the clips I found:

Come un bel di di maggio (Andrea Chenier - Correlli 52 years old)

Un dì all'azurro spazio (Andrea Chenier)

Non piangere Liu (Turandot)

Ch'ella mi creda (La fanciulla del West, Tokyo in 1971, I think)

Forza del destino, act 4, duet with Ettore Bastianini

Forza del destino, act 1, duet with Renata Tebaldi

Torna il Sorrento (looks like a 70s TV production)

O paese d' 'o sole (old TV show, it seems. A young Corelli)

Enjoy.

The 78s ping

Being a tenor and trying to learn proper (as in Bel Canto) singing, brings its own special challenges.

The tenor sound was pretty much defined by the giants of old: Caruso, Gigli, Corelli, Björling (for us Swedes), but do we really know now what they sounded like?

I've developed my own little theory called "the 78s ping". Many of the recordings of Caruso were made with him singing straight into a wodden funnel, the sound being engraved through mechanical coupling onto a wax-coated cylinder. It goes without saying that the frequency response was less than stellar. It's no accident that tenors were popular in those early years of recordings, because the "singer's formant" at ca 3 KHz, so pronounced in high operatic voices, came through nice and clear. It's tempting to think that that's all there was to the great tenor voice. Yet we know that Caruso could even sing basso repertoire (legend has it he even did it impromptu during a performance, when the basso lost his voice.) Clearly, the man must have had a huge voice. (update: listen to a 78s recording of Sollene in quest'ora from La Forza del Destino - it gives you a hint as to why baritones where not the great recording stars of this era.)

Jussi Björling was a lyrical tenor, but his recordings span a fairly wide range of technology. Compare e.g. "Säv, säv, susa" from 1940 with the same song from 1959. Jussi's voice was considered to have pretty much reached maturity around 1940, so the most dramatic difference between the two samples is the recording technology. "Sånger på svenska" from 1959 was one of the first Hi-fi stereo recordings in Sweden, and it gives the startling revelation that Jussi's voice was really much fuller than earlier recordings were able to portray.

Now we have a whole generation of singers trying to sound like the great tenors did on the 78s (ok, exaggerating a little...) The easy way to do this is to rely heavily on head voice, emphasizing the resonance of the nasal cavities. This also gives the best feedback. The sound can also be significantly amplified using various tricks. The problem with this is that the "singer's formant" is generated by the larynx, as the result of significant "sub-glottal" pressure - not in the nasal cavities. The way to get there is to push the diaphragm roughly as far as it will go, lower the larynx, raising the soft palate, etc. etc.

Sound hard? Well it is, and it isn't. Anyone can do this - it's pretty much exactly what we do when we throw up. It's doing it in a controlled way while singing that requires some practice. It's also difficult to do it on your own, because while practising, you will not necessarily feel that your voice is improving. You will feel more like a baritone than a tenor, or like an alto rather than a soprano.

Once you learn how to produce a tone with a fully lowered diaphragm (etc), you will be able to find your way to a powerful singer's formant. It will sound to you as a loud "ringing noice". You may not find this pleasant ("Forget all about taking pleasure in your own voice", Bengt Nordfors told me.) To others, it may sound like a silver lining on an otherwise full voice.

So why go through all the trouble if a tenor sound can be faked? Well, for one thing, it's a healthier way to sing, and your vocal cords will thank you for it. But also, you will be able to make use of "exclamatory vowels" - sounds that are also shaped in the larynx, and which convey emotions in a primitive and universally understood way. In short, your voice will become more interesting, more moving, and able to portray real emotions.

So can you tell who's faking it? In tenors, you usually can. Watch the larynx. It should be lowered while singing, and it should pretty much stay there. Now, "faking" may be a bit harsh. The vast majority of singers are certainly most cincere and try their best to express something. What I mean is that they have not learned to properly ground their voices. No surprise - it takes about 5 years to learn proper singing technique, and in our day and age, that's too long.

Also, a warning: if you start searching for true Bel Canto, chances are that you will be disappointed with many singers that you previously thought were great. You may be better off not caring about it and continue to enjoy the art of opera such as it is, today.

Several of the great tenors were initially barytones. Today, if we hear someone singing tenor repertoire with a decidedly baritonal quality, we will be confused. "He's not a tenor", we will exclaim (even if he's hitting the high Cs effortlessly.) We want that "78s ping", and we want to be able to label people.

Giuseppe Giacomini is a tenor with an amazingly baritonal voice. So much so that it becomes problematic. I've heard productions were he sounds more baritonal than the barytone he's playing against (update: here's one where it actually works out - Giacomini is the one lying down). It is simply difficult to find a whole cast of such singers. While I think Giacomini is great, he's not my own ideal (I'm more of a lyrical tenor.) I tend to listen to Fritz Wunderlich for inspiration (update: F.W. as Tamino).

The road to Bel Canto

This is my main hobby - passion, even. Some might call it an obsession.

My parents were latent musicians, but didn't do much do develop their talent, but they did sing, play the guitar and piano quite a lot when we were kids.

My grandfather was a shoemaker and a fiddler (playing the fiddle in that part of the country back then seems to have been what Nintendo is for today's youngsters.) He is "famous" for having written "Skomakar Wigers polska", which is on the standard folk music repertoire today.

My brother, Torbjörn, started playing the guitar, and became quite good at it. He eventually had to choose between playing professionally and going for an MSEE, and chose engineering. At the time, he played in the band Joy's Toys and had just landed a record contract. Among the other members of the band were drummer/singer Jan Johansen and keyboardist/singer Göran Eliasson, who both went on to rather successful careers.

I spent a very short time in the Stockholm Boy's Choir in 2nd grade, sang in the High School choir, and later joined Nicolai Chamber Choir, where I stayed some 13 years. I sang in the Royal Philharmonic Choir for a year, just before it was closed down. After that, I decided to focus on singing solo.

My first singing teacher was actually Siw Hellgren in High School. The most memorable advice she gave me was: "if you don't think it's beautiful, noone else will either." Siw is quite a character, and did a great job conveying the wonders of classical music and opera to her students.

My second teacher was Margareta Ljunggren. She was very down to earth and helped me realise that singing wasn't such a big deal. Unfortunately, I had also started realising that my real passion was opera, and that wasn't Margareta's thing. All in all, though, it was a very fruitful couple of years.

In 1998, I met Katarina Pilotti. We were engaged two weeks later, and married in 1999. We found that we much enjoyed singing together, and I suddenly had an opportunity to meet professional singers and musicians on a fairly regular basis. Bengt Nordfors, Peter Kajlinger, Bo Wannefors, Michael Engström, and others, became household names and taught me a great deal. We arranged musical evenings at our house, and invited friends and relatives.

When Katarina turned 40, she gave a concert together with friends and colleagues in our local church. The singers were Katarina, Kristina Hammarström, Ann Charlotte Merhammar, Thomas Lander, Bengt Gustafsson... and I. Katarina and I did the whole scene from La Boheme where Rodolpho meets Mimi. I thought Bo Wannefors and I were in agreement to lower the aria "Che gelida manina" a seminote in order to avoid the high C, but for one reason or other, it didn't happen. As I approached the H (or so I thought), I thought to myself "it's a good thing we lowered it". All went well. "The only thing you have to fear is fear itself", as I later came to learn. I also got to sing a duet with Thomas Lander - I have a tendency to agree to things and only later consider what I'm getting myself into. But Thomas is a very relaxed and generous person, and it all went well. I felt that I had stepped up to a higher level.

Bengt Nordfors sat in the audience and afterwards murmured that I should come to his place at Ingarö and learn a thing or two. It took a few years before I took him up on the offer. I guess I wasn't ready...

Bengt Nordfors is an outstanding teacher. He opened my eyes to Bel Canto, and after three years of hard work (Bengt would say "goofing around"), I think I'm beginning to grasp the basics of voice production. Bengt studied with Berle Rosenberg, who studied with Carlo Bergonzi. Such is the genealogy.

The first project with Bengt was in 2003-4, preparing for The Barber of Seville, with OperaVox (where I had previously had small parts in Die Fledermaus and Carmen.) In fact, I went to Bengt two weeks before the auditions, when I realized I didn't have the technique necessary to sing the part of Count Almaviva. After a two-week crash course, I was able to fight my way through "Ecco ridente", and actually got the part. The following year was spent in intense preparations, trying to develop the technique and stamina required to get through the whole opera (actually, all five performances). Again, it went well. I visited Bengt hours before each performance to get hold of my voice. Each visit turned into a singing lesson, the result of which was to reveal itself on stage. A bit scary, but extremely productive. As Count Almaviva is on stage singing and acting for the better part of the opera, I also had to learn a lot about how to conduct myself on stage.

That was the starting point. I had begun to suspect what "connection" was really about. In the years since then, I feel that I have begun to develop a healthy "basic sound", to the point where I can at least begin to work on nuances without losing my technique. This may not seem as much, but I'll give my interpretation of what's involved in later posts.

Currently, I have no production or concert to look forward to. I will just keep singing to myself, and visit Bengt every now and then.