The Colors And Textures Of Your Voice

Both vocal color and texture modulate to varying degrees of intensity as the voice rises, falls, and vibrates in specific ways. The typical ways in which your voice behaves and expresses emotions during word production, along with your unique vocal colors and textures, gives your voice and speech a consistent and persistent identity. Vocal color and texture are the essence of vocal identity. Let's look at this more closely.

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The Rise and Triumph of Caruso

In the first two decades of the 20th century, the modern Bel Canto singing tradition had its most prominent incarnation in the most revered opera singer in modern history, Italian tenor Enrico Caruso (1873-1921). Before his star began to rise, singing technique and the meaning of the Bel Canto style itself had already begun to change to reflect new developments in opera and aesthetic taste. At the moment that Caruso stepped into the spotlight, the final phase of the new meaning of Bel Canto was finally enacted. Indeed, the last chapter of the modern installment of the Bel Canto style was provided by Caruso’s art as it matured over the course of his career.

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My Road To Vocal Discovery

In 1971, I was a senior at Ridley High School just outside of Philadelphia when I joined my high school chorus. I was startled when Lee Linn, the chorus director, told me after the first rehearsal that my voice “stuck out,” that I had a “terrific solo voice.” It had been my secret ambition to become a singer, but I had kept this to myself and for good reason: I burned with the desire to sing—not rock, or pop, but opera! Opera singing wasn’t what a normal, young, red-blooded male took an interest in—at least not in my hometown.

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Italy—The Birth Place Of The Art Of Singing Pt. 2: Sinatra And Bel Canto

Despite the influence that acting technique may or may not have had on his style of singing, we must not forget the influence that the classic Italian Bel Canto singing tradition most likely had on him. After all, he was a first-generation Italian-American. Opera still had to be in the blood of his parents, as it was for all Italians in the first years of 20th century. It’s likely that Sinatra, being the fervent music enthusiast that he was, either consciously or subliminally, imbibed aspects of that tradition.

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Italy—The Birth Place Of The Art Of Singing Pt. 1: Sinatra Evokes Singing Styles Of The Italian Masters

When I first began to register the qualities of Sinatra's voice and singing that I believed were exceptional, I realized that his art brings to American singing a much older tradition, a tradition that began in Italy several centuries ago. In his classic book, Early History Of Singing, W.J. Henderson describes how the art of singing evolved from its earliest roots in the choral music of the Middle Ages to its highest form of expression in the 17th and 18th (especially) centuries.

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