Important Chapter finished

"What Ever Happened to Great Singing" obviously is the title of my new book which I hope will be available by May. My first book "The Voice: A Spiritual Approach to Singing, Speaking and Communicating" - and the final The Revealed Version (three editions) tells much, but this one pulls out all the stops and brings to light the real technical secrets which made Enrico Caruso the phenomenon he was.

For those of you who do not know Caruso or who think of him only as an Opera Singer, I really suggest that you listen to him and familiarize yourself with some of his recordings. It is important to realize that here we are talking about an artist who did not have "digital potential" to make the voice sound like something...he had a megaphone, a horn if you will...what you hear is what you get...no editing in the sense that we are used to in toady's mode of recording. This is real singing. Truthfully, we cannot even comprehend the reality of his voice, because the recording techniques were only in infant stages, but can you imagine, if he sounds like that under those circumstances, how he must have really sounded ?

Well I have studied his voice for years, his and so many other great singers....They all have one thing is common: The vocal line is perfect and the throat is uninvolved in the production of sound. The instrument is seemingly floating on air and the possibilities are endless.

There is really a hierarchy of voices and for me it goes like this : Caruso, Bjoerling, Gigli...(tenors)and that is the top...everything after that is a slightly different conversation...for the women...Lili Pons, Renata Tebaldi, Joan Southerland(sopranos) ....then Ponsell, Lehman, Bidu Sayau...when you hear the quality of this kind of singing, what we have today blanches.

Yes to early Pavarotti and later Domingo, definitly Alfredo Kraus who never gave into the jet age pressures or mentality, he sang his repertoire and that's it...but a definite no to today's Renee Fleming, Bel Canto Diva extraordinaire - for me that just is not it...

Great publicity made careers, voices early on that showed immense promise, but what is left???

Lili Pons sang at the Metropolitan Opera for 30 years and she left a DIVA, where are the singers of today after some years in the "business"?

What is the point of a great potential of a voice at the onset which after a few years fades into a wobbly mezzo soprano or baritone and then dies away?? Here, listen to some real singing and then tell me please who sings like this today????

Listen to Joan Southerland's "Lakme" and totally understand how the low notes and high notes are in the same place, listen to the incredible height of Lili Pons, savor Tebaldi's Mimi coupled with Bjorlings Rodolfo...

Whether you appreciate Opera or not is of no consequence to me, but the Voice...you have to be able to tell the difference between one and the other, between what you hear popular today and that which was considered the "standard" in the golden age....you have to be able to hear a throat based instrument and one that is sitting in the stratosphere....you have to take responsibility for your instrument and I as a teacher have to make sure that you achieve it all!!

Well, that is what this book is all about...
Genre does not matter, whatever you want to sing has to have a tune, healthy, non-forced instrument - work it to it's highest potential - find the appropriate niche vocally and be the best you can be - that what this book and my life's work is all about.

I invite your questions and comments.