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The Myth of Forward Placement
The period 1800 – 1840 saw the utmost development of the florid
style in vocal music, so much so that it was almost possible for an unthinking
contemporary to believe that good singing consisted only of the ability
to move the voice at high speed. Significantly, this was the epoch of
the ascendancy of the coloratura prima donna, and also the period referred
to as the age of bel canto – a term not used until 1860. The last
operatic castrato had disappeared by 1830, but the 18th century technical
legacy lived on, not just in the roulades of Rossini, but also in the
newer music that was appearing to replace them. The melodies of Bellini
and Donizetti were a development away from florid music per se towards
a more syllabic style, based on a firm legato and the magic of a long
cantilena. Above all, the heroes of their operas were no longer castrati
but tenors, and although at first they sang high, lightly and flexibly,
gradually their music acquired a robustness and masculinity which was
new.
Up until 1880 no instructional publications on singing contained any
references to resonance or how to enhance it; the bel canto teaching was
concentrated solely on laryngeal function or how to make the sound correctly.
During the 19th. century orchestras increased in size and individual instruments
in power. The innovation of the Tourte bow and increased string tension
had dramatically affected the power of stringed instruments, and the inventions
and improvements of Boehm and Sax had created similar changes in wind
and brass. When Wagner, Berlioz and others started to use orchestras with
massed numbers of all sections, vocal theorists began to feel somewhat
beleaguered and sought for methods to increase power. Vocal writing, in
parallel with these developments, had moved away from the fiorature of
the bel canto composers to the sparer lines of Verdi and the syllabic
style of Wagner. The accent had swung from agility to sostenuto singing.
The cumulative effect of all these changes on voice teachers and singers
was a headlong rush for new methods which seemed to promise greater resonance;
the old ways were discarded in favour of more up-to-date, “scientific”
theories. Chief among these was the idea that reflecting the tone off
the hard palate would result in more volume. This fell in neatly with
the Italian delight in bright tone, and was taken up with enthusiasm by
Lamperti and his compatriots. No one noticed that the tone being reflected
had already been resonated, and therefore its power could not be increased,
but because the tone was bright and immediate, the illusion was created
that it was louder……and that was enough.
The pervasiveness of this theory and its acceptance in Italy resulted
in a mushrooming of allied ideas, all taking as their starting point the
direction of tone away from the throat. The seeds of heresy against the
old empirical 18th. century methods were sown.
The concentration on leaning the tone forward and upward led to many
different aiming points including:-
a) In a forward direction toward the the upper teeth, the molars, the
peak of the hard palate, and even beyond the mouth altogether.
b) In an upward direction toward the nasal port, between the eyes, to
the dome of the skull and even to the rear of the cranium.
These inventive ideas eventually reached their nadir in Ernest White’s
“scientific” discovery that vocal tone did not generate from
the vocal chords but was the result of whirling currents of air in the
sinuses. By this time all connection with the old empirical methods had
been irrevocably lost, and the 20th. century dawned almost as if they
and their historical school, which had produced generations of great singers,
had never existed. From now on, practically all vocal theory was concentrated
not on the making of the sound but on placing it. The fact that vocal
tone proceeds in all directions at the speed of sound, like the ripples
of a stone thrown into a pool, was neither entertained nor understood.
The placing of vocal tone was to dominate much of the teaching of the
20th. century, with a small percentage holding to the old ways, and a
few brave souls prepared to put all ideas to real scientific examination.
The majority, however, were in the thrall of Jean de Reszke’s dictum
that it was “all a question of the nose”. The myth of the
masque and thus forward placement was born, and a teacher had to have
courage to contradict it.
The Italian preference for bright tone, which derives from the need for
clear differentiation of vowels and good diction, is in itself not a bad
aim, but of course, it is only half of the 18th. century’s demand
that a singer must be master of all timbres, and not just a devotee of
one. Linked to this propensity is the concept of “squillo”.
Squillo translates as the “brassy edge of a trumpet’s tone”,
and became a sine qua non for tenors, especially in their top notes. This
idea was inspired by the careers of tenors like Francesco Tamagno (Verdi’s
first Otello) who had a famously strong and brassy voice. The change of
public esteem during the 19th. century from the florid singing of Rossini’s
tenors to the heavy, masculine tenori di forza and Heldentenor heroes
by the end of the century is another story. With the advent of verismo,
Verdi and Wagner, heavy tenors, whether dramatic or spinto, were to dominate
the taste of the 20th. century, and “squillo” in the tone
became a desired characteristic. It was acquired by attempting to lean
the sound column forward and upward, whilst simultaneously trying to anchor
the tone on to the body.
The flaws in these developments are easy to see, but only when they are
highlighted. The illusion of aiming the tone away from the throat in fact
disturbs the larynx upwards, and if the stability of the larynx is undermined,
the delicate balance of muscles necessary to produce voice is upset, affecting
quality, resonance and often diction. The tone becomes permanently bright,
penetrating and at worst, shrill; dark sounds become impossible, so does
depth of tone; tightness in the throat above the larynx is common, leading
to strain and eventually to fatigue and a career’s early end as
muscles inevitably weaken. Instability of the larynx leads to unsteady
and uneven sounds, making messe di voce, the 18th. century’s criterion
of technical excellence, either impossible or unsuccessful. Other bel
canto requirements such as an even scale and agility throughout the voice
also become impaired.
Today alas, the forward placement mantra is still widely taught. However,
there is evidence to suggest that many teachers are at last returning
to traditional ‘bel canto’ methods, particularly in the USA
- now producing some of the finest singers and teachers in the world.
© 2003, Neil Howlett
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