Mike, my point was they are two different things. The old italian school had
a saying "don't let energy become effort".
>you say energy, i say effort. i think, when bjoerling sang loudly, he
>overstepped the bounds.
Are you claiming that every time Björling sang loudly he overstepped the
bounds of effort? That to me is absurd. Effort is a situation where the
throat is interfering in the free release of powerful tone. Björling was a
master at controlling his breath so his throat was always open. He learned
this as a child. He had better technique as a nine year old than most
singers achieve as adults. He sang from the time he was four years old until
he died at the age of 49. These years were as an active performer, and you
claim he could sing for 45 years with the power he did and not have an
incredible understanding of vocal function. It makes me think of a story
about his father who was a tenor that studied at the Metropolitan when
Caruso was there. Someone once said to him that he pushed his voice and sang
with too much effort, and David Björling said to him "What do you know of
it?" And the man later was quoted as saying "He was right, what did I know?"
>on richard miller's sonograms...(a fable--->) "well so and so, what did
>you
>think of the concert?" "let me get back to you in the morning on that,
>i'll
>need to check my data first."
I understand your feelings on this, but all these sonograms do is let us see
what trained ears hear. Regular vibration, balanced resonance. The things we
all strive for.
>on natural, sam snead once said "you have to hit thousands of golfballs
>before you look like a natural".
This is true. You need to become familiar with the activity so you can let
go of the conscious mind and let the natural instinct do it. So it becomes
automatic.
>one last point on effort- in comparing fritz wunderlich singing loudly to
>bjoerling, if relative sub-glottal pressure could be measured, i would bet
>bjoerling had much more than wunderlich (and i make fun of miller's
>sonograms...).
First, sub-glottal pressure is what makes a tone loud, so Björling did have
more because he had a more powerful tone. I have a lot of admiration for
Wunderlich, I use him as a model of Mozart and Lieder, but he didn't make it
to the same level of technical know-how as Björling had from a younger age.
The trick comes in when you increase sub-glottal pressure while still
staying in control of your instrument. This is what makes Björling so
phenomenal. He could control the relationship in such a way that he was not
in danger when he increased the sub-glottal pressure to the limit. The
pressure is not a problem if the registration relationship is balanced.
Pressure is what makes the voice go. It is the educated use of that pressure
that is imperative to vocal health. It is his success in doing the very
things you speak of that makes people say he had perfect technique. Complete
range of dynamics, complete range of pitch, various tonal colors, all
seamless between extremes. There are examples of him doing every aspect of
vocalism that we all strive for. And some very knowledgeable people hold
this opinion. As for singing in tune, he did have an occasional tendency to
excite a high note to the sharp side. But in general the conductors in
Sweden said you could tune the orchestra to his voice because of his purity
and trueness to pitch.
I know this has been a lot about one singer, but I think you need to listen
to him more until the light bulb goes off for you. It took several years
before I reached the level of understanding that I now claim to defend. I
originally liked Domingo, then moved on to Pavarotti for several years. At
the same time I considered Björling right up there with Pav., and Wunderlich
I thought was great. But in the last couple years, in relation to my
technical growth, I started to hear in Björling the perfection that I
referred to in my previous post. I did not hear it as consistently in
Pavarotti, who by the way used Björling as his main model when he was coming
up. Domingo was no where near. Wunderlich was on the same path and seemed to
be the natural successor to Björling, but he died before he matured
completely. I know that personal taste plays a part, but I maintain that
judging solely on vocal function Jussi Björling is in a class of his own. I
like other singers also, but none can I listen to for an unlimited time
before some aspect of their vocalism drives me nuts like I can with
Björling.
Forgive me for being so longwinded, but I needed to express these things and
give some background.
Thank you, Michael
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