The "Open Throat"

The greatest of all tenors, Enrico Caruso, once advised a young Italian—American soprano named Rosa Ponselle (who became one of the greatest sopranos of the 20th century) to try to sing as though there were a “square” in the back of her throat. Caruso was not simply offering a metaphor or an abstract guiding principle to help her sing better: he was telling her that she must keep her throat open, physically open, when she sang.

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The Voice, The Vocalist, And The Singer

In thinking about what constitutes good singing, it’s illuminating to view singers in light of three interrelated but separate categories: the voice, the vocalist, and the singer.

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The Mystery Of Love

Talk about love seems to be on everyone's lips these days - the need for it; the glory of finding it; the responsibility for spreading it; the misery of losing it - yet love is one of the great mysteries of life

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The Passage (Passaggio)

In ascending a vocal scale from the lower register, a singer will reach a specific note on which the vocal musculature as a unit needs to make significant muscular adjustments in order for a singer’s voice to continue to sing comfortably and musically. This area of muscular adjustment is often called the passage or, in Italian, the passaggio.

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Ella Fitzgerald: “The First Lady Of Song”

Ella Fitzgerald is the greatest jazz singer who ever lived. Her artistry is the genius of jazz incarnate: creative, spontaneous, surprising, precise, and tasteful. She is a singer of such innate musical prowess that she can masterfully essay the most complex and rhythmically demanding phrases, seemingly without effort, as if she were having a normal conversation; she, in effect, handles words as though they were notes.

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