Triune:  The three R’s are in a constant interplay. In the course of development, one at a time will emerge as the most urgent to address, and often one or another will require sustained attention, depending on a voice’s previously established habits. But in the long run all three must act as a balanced unit, responding to expressive demands in a reflexive manner, except when a warning signal pops up to tell us something’s off the track and requires a field-expedient adjustment. The larynx itself is the balancing point of the finished structure, where energy must be directed. Can one “direct” energy toward movements that are largely involuntary? Certainly, by acting upon them through stimulus of related movements, and through imagery—or, to put “imagery” in technical language, by the principle of ideokinesis. The quite shocking fall-off in vibrato rates over the past century and a quarter, so well documented by Will Crutchfield, tells us that laryngeal energization has declined in both sexes and all voice types, though the most obvious symptom is the weakness of lower-family response in female voices. That is something pedagogy must address more effectively than it has. Because the tonal families must be integrated from the top down; because breath compression must be governed from the upper end of the respiratory chain; and finally because the creation and mutation of vowel shapes, which gives the singer his or her most tangible, ongoing feel of being in control of something, occurs at the top of the entire vocal system, the technically advanced singer’s subjective experience is one of a viscerally grounded activity plugged into and gyroscopically curated from above. He or she is never “below the note,” until the full elastic stretch of the system’s range of motion—its true ceiling above, its true basement floor below—has been encompassed.

The final goal? Two octaves (or more!—depending on the muscularity’s strong elasticity) of easily audible, aesthetically pleasing, dramatically potent tone that can maintain a sustained legato line at any level of loudness, execute florid actions, accents, disjunctive actions, and embellishments when required, and keep control over vibrato (consistent most of the time, intensified or drawn back when desired). I don’t know of any classical vocal method that doesn’t aim for these capabilities, or any  singer we’d call “great” that does not exemplify them, though of course in somewhat different proportion depending on temperament, repertory, and so on. But as the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier reminds us, it’s in “the how” that all the difference lies.

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When I finished my years of vocal study, with four major teachers along the way,^(I) I felt that I’d reached a good basic understanding of two of the R’s, “registration” and “resonance,” and had fair confidence that I could build on that understanding in my own work as a teacher. I did not, however, feel the same confidence with respect to “respiration.” The best advice I’d been given, I thought, was to “breathe naturally.” What, however, is a “natural breath,” and what are the differences between that and its vitalization for the—should we call it “supernatural?”—adventures of classical singing? I felt a lack, and the many volumes, ancient and modern, on technique that I had consulted were not very helpful. Their prescriptions were either so vague or so complicated as to be impossible to put into practice, or in violation of what I took to be common sense. Perhaps I’ll write another time about the quest I undertook outside the voice-teaching community, largely in the areas of body alignment, movement, psychology, and breathing co-ordination, in search of greater clarity on this subject. It took some sorting out, but was eventually productive, and gave me more effective working principles I could apply to my own voice—and convey with reasonable success to students—than I’d acquired from any of the teachers who’d been helpful in other areas.