The Vocal Pedagogy

Workshop
Stephen F. Austin, M.M., Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Voice
College of Music
University of North Texas

The Vocal Pedagogy Workshop - 2007 1

The Vocal Pedagogy Workshop - 2007 2
 Session II
Voice Building: The Voce
Chiusa
Stephen F. Austin, M.M., Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Voice
University of North Texas

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The Voce Chiusa – Out of the
Darkness, Into the Bright

Historical and scientific

support for the ‘open throat’

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 The ‘open throat’

• Historically important concept

• Practiced throughout the 19th C and in

many contemporary sources

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 The ‘open throat’
• Often ignored in the 20th C in favor of
various ‘placement’ and ‘support’
techniques
– Fueled by the ‘no – effort’ school promoted by
many teachers in reaction to the ‘local effort’
school of Garcia at end of 19th C
• Recent reports describe the rational for
teaching the ‘open throat’

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 Carlo Bassini (1812-1870)
Bassini’s Art of Singing, 1856

“…for, if a singer should present himself at

the opera in Paris and fail to give the
renowned chest C in the “Huguenots” or
“William Tell,” though singing never so
well otherwise he would gain but few
admirers and be quite certain of producing
but little effect.”

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 Genesis: The Closed Timbre

• In 1837 Duprez ‘shattered the peace with

a cannon shot across the stage.’ The
singing world has never been the same.

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Henry Chorley, Music and Manners in France and
Germany, 1844.

• The French vocal style was nasal:

“That they sang through their noses, is as
certain as that the Parisian opera
songstresses terrified Dr. Burney and Horace
Walpole, by their energetic screaming.”

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Henry Chorley, Music and Manners in France and
Germany, 1844.

• The French vocal style was characterized

by liberal use of falsetto in the high voice:
“Many of them, too, were afflicted with that
diseased tendency towards a falsetto, which, in our
own country, has run the inordinate length of
pushing innocent, portly, middle-aged gentlemen
into warbling (more oddly to the eye than
agreeably to the ear) the sublimest songs of
Handel’s “Messiah”.

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 French Traditions
• Adolphe Nourrit
(1802-39)
– Many premiers by
Rossini and
Meyerbeer
– Rossini’s favorite – the
original Arnold in
William Tell
– Student of the elder
Garcia

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 French traditions
• Adolphe Nourrit
(1802-39)
– Vocalism represented
and earlier taste
– Fine actor, refined
taste
– Falsetto dominated
high voice
– A member of the elite
social circles

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 Changing Traditions
• Gilbert-Louis Duprez
(1806-96)
– 1837 – Paris
– Replaced Nourrit as
Arnold in Rossini’s
Guilliame Tell
– Do di petto
– Learned the technique
in Italy

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Guglielmo Tell: “O muto asil del pianto”. Act IV

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 New expectations
• Adolphe Nourrit
(1802-39)
– Threatened by
Duprez’s success
– Left Paris for Italy
– Studied the new
technique in Italy with
some success

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Henry Chorley, Music and Manners in France and
Germany, 1844.

“Possibly in his less gloomy moments,

he (Nourrit) believed that his day was not yet
over; that he had still energy to recompose
himself anew; that he would, in short, have a
chest voice in place of his own nasal and
brilliant falsetto di testa and learn that
honeyed and long-drawn cantabile which his
countrymen were beginning to praise as an
indispensable treasure.”

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 New expectations
• Adolphe Nourrit
(1802-39)
Nourrit committed
suicide in 1839 by
throwing himself off of
his balcony in Naples.

Suicide could have

been related to long-
term illness: hepatitis
or alcoholism.

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 James Stark: Bel Canto: A History of Vocal
Pedagogy, 1998.

“After Duprez, the ut de poitrine

became a requirement for the Romantic
tenor high C, then or now, for the success
or failure of tenors.”

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Manuel Garcia II (1805-1906)
– 1832 appointed to
Paris Conservatory,
1858 to The Royal
Academy of Music in
London
– Central figure in 19th C
pedagogy
– Famous pupils:
• Battaille
• Stockhausen
• Malibran
• Marchesi
• Lind

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 Manuel Garcia II (1805-1906)
• …the human voice is, in the largest sense,
composed of the different registers:
Chest
Falsetto-head
And two timbres:
Clear timbre
Sombre timbre

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 Manuel Garcia II (1805-1906)
• “When the larynx produces a tone, the
pharynx takes possession of it as soon as
it is emitted and modifies it. Mémoire sur la voix
humaine, 1840

– Sombre timbre
• Gives the voice roundness
• Penetration
• Modifies the falsetto into the ‘head’ register
• The ‘operatic quality’ some earlier theater styles
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 Manuel Garcia II (1805-1906)
Sombre timbre unifies the registers into a
whole
– AKA: voce chiusa, voix sombrée ou couverte,
‘closed timbre’
• Timbres result of the shape of the pharynx
– If the larynx rises – clear timbre
– If the larynx remains low – sombre timbre

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Manuel Garcia II (1805-1906)
– Definition of registers
– Use of laryngeal mirror in
singing
– Separated for the first time
the concept of register
quality vs. timbre quality
• ‘closed’ or somber
• ‘open’ or clear

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 Voix Sombrée!
• June, 1840 – Diday and Pétrequin
reported to the Académie des Sciences on
the subject of timbre and laryngeal
position as related to Duprez’s do di petto.
– Voix sombrée ou couverte (dark and covered)
• November, 1840 – Garcia presented his
theories to the academy
– Garcia claimed to have been teaching the
lowered laryngeal posture and ‘covered tone’
since 1832.
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 Voix Sombrée!
• Significant agreement upon ‘quality’, not
terminology or method
– Falsetto no longer acceptable
– ‘white’ or ‘open’ (voix blanche or voce aperta)
quality no longer acceptable
• A review of the pedagogical literature of
the 19th C suggests that the lowered
laryngeal posture was a common
pedagogical goal.

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 Julius Stockhausen (1826-1906).
Gesangsmethode, 1884.

• German baritone, conductor and teacher

• Known as interpreter of the songs of
Schubert and Schumann
• Brahms wrote his Magalone Lieder, and
the baritone part in his Requiem for him
• Also known as a fine operatic baritone

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 Julius Stockhausen (1826-1906).
Gesangsmethode, 1884.

“The dangerous tendency of the larynx to

rise to the position it takes in speaking
must be carefully avoided.”

“…it is only with a fixed position of the

larynx, and with the right use of the two
chief qualities of sound, that a beautiful,
well-molded whole can be produced.”

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Enrico Delle Sedie (1822-1907). Esthetics of the
Art of Singing, 1885.

• Italian born baritone

• Sang Germont, Renato, Figaro at Covent
Garden, La Scala
• Taught at Paris Conservatory 1867-71
“The soft palate rises in a direction opposite to
that of the larynx, following the same regular
order of gradations; viz: it rises with the height
of sound, whilst the larynx, for giving to the
voice a homogenous and easy tone should
descend in the same order.”
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Enrico Delle Sedie (1822-1907). Esthetics of the
Art of Singing, 1885.

“Having noticed the defects which result from

the ascending of the larynx with respect to the
high sounds, it is useless to insist any longer
on this subject.”

“Therefore, the ascension of the larynx in

high notes cannot be favorable for this
emission of the vocal sound. I will not extend
myself too much on a subject so often
disputed, but will limit myself to expose the
practical use of my theory.”
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Enrico Delle Sedie (1822-1907). Esthetics of the
Art of Singing, 1885.

“When the larynx is so raised we may emit high

sounds, but thin and shrill. It is true, that we
are disposed to raise the larynx when we want
to emit high sounds, but if we would closely
observe the timbre, we would recognize that
they are thin, contracted and shrill.”

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 Charles Amable Bataille (1822-1872). Nouvelles
recherches sur la phonation, 1861.

• French basso profundo

• Student of Garcia II
• Taught at the Paris Conservatory
• Conducted extensive research on phonation
using the laryngeal mirror
“Moderate lowering of the larynx has the
certain result of giving the voice suppleness and
power, thereby encouraging the enlargement of
its natural limits.”

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Charles Amable Bataille (1822-1872). Nouvelles
recherches sur la phonation, 1861.

“This procedure, familiar to the great

Italian school, has been given the term
somber voice, and it has been associated
with vocal emission. Duprez ‘naturalized’
this term in France during his operatic
debuts, but the expression had already
been in use in Italy for some time.”

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Edmund Myers (1846-1934). The Renaissance of
Vocal Art, 1902.

• Teacher, author of several books on

singing
“For artistic tone, the soft palate must
be high, the larynx must be low, and the
throat and mouth allowed to form, not
made or compelled. . . The larynx must be
low in adjustment for the production of
beautiful tone, but it must never be locally
adjusted.”

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D. A. Clippinger “The Head Voice and Other
Problems”, 1922.

• Decried the ‘lowered larynx’ as an

abomination!
• First exercises were ascending scales
on [o] and [u]

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 G. B. Lamperti (1830-1910)

Opposed to many Garcia techniques

– As recorded by William Earl Brown in Vocal
Wisdom:
‘Covered tone’ is a misleading term. ‘Closed tone’
should take its place.’
‘In their inception all tones are dark to be opened or
closed at will.’
‘All tones are closed until opened.’

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 G. B. Lamperti (1830-1910)

‘Although you may acquire a wide range of voice,

you cannot modulate the sounds until the
resonance of your tones becomes round and rich,
chiaroscuro.’

‘When a tone ‘opens’ the ‘focus’ of vibration does not

change.’

‘Return to ‘closed’ quality is impossible if the tone

becomes too ‘white’.’

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 Oren Brown (1909-2004). Discover Your Voice,
1996.

• Well-known teacher, author and pioneer in

voice therapy
• Julliard School 1972-1991
“It is impossible to develop the operatic
or classical tone if the larynx is raised. A
low larynx position can be induced by the
feeling of a beginning yawn – no pulling
down! The position can also be gained
with the sensation of a raised soft palate.”

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 William Vennard (1909-1971). Singing: The
Mechanism and the Technique, 1967.

• Well-known voice teacher, researcher

• Famous collaborators include Janwillen van den
Berg – Voice production: the Vibrating larynx
“When the larynx is moderately low, the
intrinsic musculature is free from extrinsic
tensions. The ‘yawn-sigh’ tends to lower the
voice box; indeed the yawn is the most usable of
the reflex methods of lowering it.”

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 Ida Franca, Manual of Bel Canto, 1956.

• Soprano and teacher in New York

“To lead the vocal student toward the
maximum development of his or her talent,
one should start with the study of the voce
chiusa (shut voice) as soon as possible,
and take the utmost care that the beginner
does not shut the mouth and hum.”

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Richard Miller, The Structure of Singing, 1986
Chiaroscuro!

There can be little doubt that in desirable

“closed voice” (voce chiusa), a timbre that
should prevail throughout the singing voice
regardless of range, as opposed to “open voice”
(voce aperta), there is a stabilized laryngeal
position – relatively low – and a somewhat
widened pharynx. These conditions together
with proper vowel modification (aggiustamento)
produce the so-called “covered sound” of the
upper range.

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 The ‘comfortably low larynx’
• Insert Ingo’s presentation here:
– Increases the inertive reactance of the vocal tract :
– Increases MFDR
– Increased energy in upper partials
• Importance is more than timbre:
– Keeps the intrinsics ‘free’
– Julius Stockhausen to Oren Brown agree that the
open throat is the only environment where the
registers will coordinate.

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 If you ignore it:
• Can lead to misclassification: a true
baritone with a ‘tenory’ timbre due to the
shortened vocal tract.
• Can limit a career to compramario roles
when there is potential for a broader range
of repertory.
• It can prevent the voice from ever
developing its professional potential.

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 Methods
• Keeping the ‘open throat’ in the high range
goes against nature! The larynx will rise
along with pitch unless trained to do
otherwise.
• Indirect control
– Yawning, deep inhalation, ‘feeling hollow’
– Vowel choice [ o ], [ u ]
– Vowel modification (migration)
– Careful monitoring of timbre

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 Methods
• Direct Control
– Observation: mirror, palpation
– Physical manipulation

Whatever it takes!

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