Frank Sinatra: The Master of Rubato

In analyzing Sinatra’s singing at its best, lovers of the art of singing have pointed to its many virtues—e.g., his fine musicianship, his ability to sing with intimate feeling, his flawless legato (connected singing), his careful employment of vibrato, and his cello-like vocal tone. Still others have believed that the creative way he moved his golden voice through his songs was the crowning achievement of his singing. Let’s consider for a moment this last virtue. What was is about the way Sinatra moved his voice that contributed so much to his remarkable singing?

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Italian Sources Of Singing Pt. 3

Read Part 1 here.

Read Part 2 here.

In reviewing the pertinent literature on 18th-century singing—the best source for information about the old-school, Italian singing art—one great Italian maestro stands out—among a number of notable ones—as perhaps the most articulate with respect to what he understood as proper voice training and artful singing.

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Italian Sources Of Singing Pt. 2

Read Part 1 Here

Manuel Garcia also recommended that a singer lower his larynx (which automatically raises the soft palate) and expand his pharynx when he wants to produce a darker, richer vocal quality, create a more penetrating vibrant tone, or sing high notes at high volume in his chest voice. He called this darker, deeper voice the timbre sombree. He termed the brighter voice—with the larynx in its typically un-lowered position, when the pharynx is not fully expanded, and the soft palate relatively relaxed—the timbre clair: the clear voice. He also spoke about the importance of the pharynx to resonant singing: “When the larynx produces a tone, the pharynx takes possession of it as soon as it is emitted and modifies it.” (Memoire Sur La Voix Humaine, 1840).

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Italian Sources Of Singing Pt. 1

Many concepts and singing practices have come down to us from the Italian singing masters of the 17th and 18th centuries through Maneul Garcia Jr.’s (1805-1906) interpretations and those of his students. Examples include: chest voice (lower register vocalizing), falsetto voice (high male register, right above the chest register), head voice (upper register, right above falsetto register), legato (connected singing), intonation (singing in tune), coloratura (ornamented use of the voice), portamento (gliding violin—like between notes some distance apart), appoggiatura (an embellishing, supporting note close to its neighboring note), and trilling (exaggerated, but controlled fluttering of the voice along a melody line).

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Ignorance Is Not Bliss

The singing voice—because of its muscular nature—is able to be trained to behave in a rich variety of ways. This fact of human bio-mechanics is both a blessing and a curse

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