Isabella and fellow Vocalisters:
I am forwarding the following information because much of it relates
to the discussion regarding vocal training. It is a quasi review (by
Bob Kosovsky, New York Public Library) of a new biography about the
elder M. Garcia, father of the Garcia who invented the laryngescope
and much quoted pedagog. It has some very interesting ideas within
it which may be a major surprise to many on our Vocalist group. This
original post was on the Opera-L discussion list.
Lloyd
>Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 08:36:19 -0400
>Reply-To: kos@O...
>Sender: Discussion of opera and related issues <OPERA-L@L...>
>From: Bob Kosovsky <kos@O...>
>Subject: new Manuel Garcia bio
>To: OPERA-L@L...
>
>We just received a new biography of Manuel del Populo Vicente Garcia, i.e.
>Manuel Garcia (1775-1832, not to be confused with his son Manuel Patricio
>Garcia, a well-known pedagogue who lived through most of the 19th century).
>It's published by Oxford University Press (ISBN 019-816373-8) and is priced
>at a rather steep $80 US.
>
>The author is James Radomski, a professor of music history and ethnomusicology
>at California State University at San Bernadino. He's even got a homepage:
>http://cal.csusb.edu/Depts/Music/MUSICcsusb_8R.html
>
>I've not really read the book - just skimmed it, but it looks interesting.
>Apparently it's a revision of the author's PhD thesis (1992, UCLA). He
>appears to have collated numerous sources, many of them conflicting, and
>been able to produce a chronological survey of Garcia's life. He has ample
>quotations from critics, biographies and many interesting sources. An
>appendix lists known works together with publication information or location
>of manuscripts -- Garcia was an extensive composer. Radomski even reprints
>two songs.
>
>There are some intriguing excerpts from chapter 12 "Garcia as Teacher."
>
>p. 262
>"His own son, Manuel, continued the Garcia school and has become, for the
>modern world, even more famous as a singing teacher than his father. It was
>the younger Garcia who established the standard of the modern teacher,
>basing method upon scientific research of the larynx.
> But the teaching of father and son should not be considered as a simple
>continuum. In many respects, they were different in temperament and method.
>Indeed, the younger Garcia blamed the elder for ruining his voice."
>
>p.266
>"[Garcia] was helping his students to be creative at the same time as they
>were developing their voices. He expected students not only to be masters of
>their voice, but masters of the music they were singing. . . Garcia was the
>product of a centuries-old tradition of teaching that died in the nineteenth
>century. Learning technique was not separated from learning to improvise,
>to compose. Improvisation was expected of the performer. Yet, with the
>deification of the nineteenth-century composer, and corresponding
>dogmaticization of their compositions and performance thereof, Garcia's
>improvisatory approach to music eventually lost favour, and indeed came to
>be considered sacrilegious (witness the severity with which the English
>critics ridiculed his style). He taught singing, essentially, by teaching
>the student to improvise."
>
>I'm sure many subscribers will like this passage, from p. 267:
>
>"In Garcia's day, it was the singer, not the conductor, not the composers,
>who was in control of the moment's performance; and it was thus that Garcia
>himself managed to sing with confidence even when his voice had declined.
>Such a 'method' is totally foreign to the modern conservatory
>'voice-building' approach to singing, which emphasizes the production of a
>big sound and thereafter forcing that sound into the rigid mould of the
>composer's 'ideal'. While this can be impressive, it has nothing to do with
>the performance style with which Garcia electrified Parisian audiences.
>Critics repeatedly mentioned Garcia's fire, his ease of movement on the
>stage, his 'gift of invention', his rhythmic sense, his speech-like delivery
>of recitative, the applause of the audience after his cadenzas. Being a
>true singing actor, Garcia knew how to hold the audience in the palm of his
>hand."
>
>p. 278-79
>"In summary, the steps of a Garcia vocal education may be seen as follows:
>1. A constant exposure to all kinds of music from an early age (at home,
>on stage, attending concerts). Exposure to professional musicians at home
>in an informal environment, opportunity to hear professionals practise.
>
>2. Early education (from age 5 or thereabouts) in piano, harmony, and
>counterpoint with the best teachers available.
>
>3. Extensive early study of languages.
>
>4. Later, careful study of voice culture through solfege, scales.
> a) Breathing is slow, relaxed, a natural expression of the face is
> maintained
> b) Shoulders are held back, as when the arms are crossed behind the back
> c) A tone is attacked piano, swelled to forte, then diminished; there
> is no aspiration (ha, he, hi, ho, hu) before the tone.
> d) A smooth connection between tones is maintained; one moves directly
> from tone to tone, without scooping (the latter being considered a
> French characteristic)
> e) High notes, being delicate, are not overworked.
> f) Emphasis, while practising, is on the middle and lower registers.
> g) Chest tones are carefully, but strongly developed in all female
> voices
> h) Falsetto is developed in male voices.
>
>5. Songs are first practised without words.
>
>6. Thereafter, all possible expression is drawn from each word.
>
>7. Students, from the beginning, learn to improvise ten to twenty
>variations of a given line (examples are given in his method and that of his
>son)
>
>8. Musicianship is fostered through a cappella ensemble singing
>
>9. Confidence is given through studio recitals, including chamber operas.
>
>10. Hard work is demanded severely by the teacher.
>
>11. At the same time, knowing how to practise (quality) is more important
>than practice itself (quantity).
>
>12. Timidity (the attitude of "I can't") is severely reproved by the
>teacher. Even fear tactics are used to instil a readiness to obey the
>teacher's commands.
>
>13. Musical spirit, energy, and taste are acquired by coming into contact
>with that of the teacher."
>
>
>Again, this is not a review, nor is it a recommendation to buy this book
>(which at $80 is really too exorbitant). I just thought many subscribers
>would want to know about its existence.
>
>Bob Kosovsky
>Student, PhD Program in Music Librarian
>Graduate Center Music Division
>City University of New York The New York Public Library
kos@o...
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