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The Diaphragm: Why do the Italians seem to have it naturally?
The
Italian vocal coaches demonstrate support by simply pressing
their hand on the
frontal part of the diaphragm as the singer presses the
diaphragm out. Only much later did I
understand how to use the diaphragm as a generator for the
air-how to use flexible expansion not only on the
frontal diaphragm, but also on the sides and finally also in the
back for the high register. Nobody, including the Italians,
showed me how to do this until much later. For the Italian, due
to the forward placement of the language coupled with their
lively body language, a coordination with the breath flow
connects the entire instrument much more naturally than for
other nationalities. In any case, the remnants of
the bel canto school did help me to gain more vocal
ease.
Why do some of the great singers have short careers and lose the
voices?
The
great singers, for example, Callas and De Stefano both had
extremely short careers. Why? Because once they began to force
and strain, they soon lost their easy natural vocal production
and didn’t know how to get back on track. Their voices became
old sounding; Callas developed a wobble, loss of the high
register and a rough break in the lower voice and De Stefano too
lost the beautiful color and vocal ease he was so known for as
well as the top of his range. One could argue weight loss and
life style in the case of Callas, but the bottom line is that
she didn’t know how to fix her broken instrument herself. In
spite of fame and fortune she couldn’t find someone who could
help her. Of course, there were also great singers like Caruso
and Gigli, who also got into vocal trouble. Both had vocal
nodules but were able to find the way back to healthy singing by
themselves. Singers, like Callas and De Stefano, who were
unable to find a truly great teacher were forced into very early
retirement.
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Can you describe your own revolutionary technique?
My revolutionary technique combines Heater’s diaphragmatic
techniques with the best of the Italian Bel Canto school as well
as the speech therapy techniques described above. The results
are extraordinary and sometimes great improvement in sound
quality and ability to reach the high and low registers can
occur in only a few lessons (depending on the specific singer’s
muscle coordination) The amount of time it will take to develop
the necessary muscle coordination (for those who do not have it)
is a matter of months.
Another example, Julie Andrews, excellent star
of musical theater had to retire early after suffering the
loss of her singing voice following vocal cord surgery in
1997. She has tried to bring attention to the problem of
vocal cord disorders but
has been herself, unsuccessful in attempts to
retrain her voice. She blames scar tissue resulting from the
operation as the reason for retiring from singing rather than
wrong use. My own singing had also become defective due to my
studies with some of the well known but poor voice teachers at
the best schools in the US and Europe that it was now going to
be very difficult to find someone to help me. If the stars
couldn’t find a great teacher with all their monetary
resources and renown how was I going to?
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