This is an excellent discussion, very worthwhile and interesting.
Just one point, ref: athletes vs singers. Would that it were so that
we could just command our vocal muscles as athletes do their
necessary muscles in workout. Unfortunately, the 40-odd muscles of
the voice are, as we know, largely involuntary. Reid makes a valid
point in "Essays on the Nature of Singing" that if ONLY ONE of the
vocal muscles were involuntary, the whole system would have to be so
considered. But for the most part, all of them fit this category. In
addition, it is not possible to separate the pitch making muscles
from the vowel making muscles from the resonating (throat wall
shaping, etc.) muscles. They are all interconnected and function
together.The act of phonation is one incredibly complex activity that
is truly not in our control, EXCEPT through our concept of beautiful
sound. So our task as singers or teachers is to refine that concept,
which is made doubly hard by all the various terms for sound quality.
As teachers, we emphasize pure vowels and perfect pitch as the very
definition of bel canto. "You can't have one without the other." I
would like to hear how others approach the issue of improving voices
when neither intonation, nor vowel quality, nor ideal resonance is
present, the "walking wounded", vocally speaking. This is hard to
address in writing but if anyone wants to give it a shot, I'd be
interested. Talking about the disaster voice might be a good way to
get at how to work with the so-called "talented."
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