Be EXTREMELY careful and aware that there are TONS of scammers that say they 'teach old school technique'. Always ask for A) Credentials B) to hear them sing! If they start using excuses like 'laryngeal laxity' 'overworking' 'paralysis' 'oh I can't do that right now', you're in the wrong place! Your vocal coach needs to also be understanding and not throw some pseudoscience terminology around. Real old school teachers are EXTREMELY rare. Most who claim to teach 'old school' sound strained, pushed, 'ingolata' and borderline scream at times (won't name names, plenty of those frauds trying to imitate Volpi on youtube).

 

haha thanks! I completely agree and although I I am no teacher myself I've become REALLY good at hearing great technique compared to the ****** sounds of today's modern singers. I'm super confident I can spot someone's ******** from a mile away. muahuahua!

 

Salvatore Fisichella

 

I'll have to look into him.

 

I was going to ask the exact same question but you beat me to it!
I haven't heard a lot about Jack LiVigni other than that he learned under Salvatore Fisichella so there's that.
I have heard a lot about Giancarlo Monsalve, who certainly represents a lot of what chat_brun was talking about, but he has learned directly from a lot of the important schools like the Melocchi method under Leodino Ferri and apparently a little bit off of the advice of Giancarlo del Monaco. He has learned the Garcia School from Nora Lopez von Briessen and has also done masterclasses with artists such as Mirella Freni, Montserrat Caballe, and Nicola Martinucci. As you can see, I have done A LOT of research on this guy, and I have been seriously considering learning under him for some time now (I will start a thread on that later), but I would still take him with a very fine grain of salt because, as I said, he represents a lot of the qualities chat-brun was pointing out earlier.

 

About LiVigni, I haven't worked with him but I know a few singers that have. He studied with Fisichella but he doesn't strictly adhere to old school technique like Fisichella does.

 

Accidentally sent the same message twice! Sorry!

 

I'm not a voice teacher but this is the principle that i live by

 

And what book is this might I ask?

 

Here's a recording of him singing E Lucevan Le Stelle:

And here's a recording of him singing No Pagliaccio Non Son:

They show me what I think are his best and his... not the best...

 

So would it be a good idea or a bad idea for me to choose him as my first teacher?

 

I'll be entirely honest, I avoid this man at all costs (He's exactly the 'old school' Youtube teacher..). He sounds maniacally constricted and wobbly, he's so young to sound the way he does. Please be very careful!

 

Thank you all so much for your inputs! I guess I'll have to look into Fisichella and whether or not I'm going to need to move to Sicily (which is not one of my options). I guess I could also try to find out who are the saints that taught Arturo Chacon-Cruz and Matthew White (modern tenors you should definitely check out!)

 

Go to Sicily for a week or two and work with him daily. Record your lessons and refer back to them. Those 5-10 lessons will be worth more than studying with most teachers for years. I say that not knowing how much he's teaching currently, but if you can swing it it will be worth it.

 

This man had the same teacher as Jerry Hadley. I find his technique a little "bark-y" at times and overly verismo, but from what I've seen, he'll probably develop your voice reasonably well without too much strain. With that said, a good 80% of this matches my experience as a singer (especially about dynamics and voice types)

 

Yea I've been in contact with him recently. He's a little secretive about his prices for whatever reason but I do agree with his techniques. I'm currently waiting for him to reply about his January availability.

 

I think we need to go back to basic. Legato, purity of intonation (with a shimmering non intrusive vibrato in the background), clean diction and a rich (non-white) vocal sound/vibration.

 

Basics? Well first comes appoggio breath support. That is primary otherwise the structure won't hold. Research and practice proper breathing. Then a clean attack, an impeccable initiation of sound. Then comes messa di voce, soft to full to soft. Then comes developing chest voice, then head voice. Understand functionally what is nasal and not nasal type of sound production. Understand functionally what is ingolata and what is not ingolata type of sound production. Work on integrating chest and head. Work on exercises of connecting properly half tone, then whole tone on two notes. Then 3 notes, then 4 notes and so forth until you can properly sing scales.

Legato is the end product of the above. Clean diction is end product of above. Natural healthy individual narrow vibrato with even oscillation at all dynamic levels and range is end product of successful practice of above. Never practice any particular vibrato as an applied overlay. White tone is just glottal tension with inappropriate breath support.

Just my two cents.

 

Also I'd adore to hear you sing!!!

 

Send me a message and we'll make it happen

 

Maybe a speech therapist is really needed for those people.

 

A lot of people need speech therapy actually

 

I forgot about this guy:

Valentin Peytchinov

Here's a student of his singing nonclassically.

Here's a video of a lesson with a female.

and here's him:

Another female student of his:

 

Can a former singer with a flawed technique become a good voice teacher? Instinct tells me that makes no sense.
Until recently, I had never heard the name of Chilean tenor Mario Antonio Diaz Varas, but it turns out he's a teacher at Mozarteum University, and quite a prestigious one at that, it seems. At least quite sought after.
If one looks up his name on youtube, only a few videos come up, some rather horrible samples of his art at singing (uploaded by himself), and a three-hour and a half masterclass.

Extremely ingolata and pushing, puffing his throat like a toad. The whole pack, artificial darkening, guttural, all vowels turned to "O", wobble... Not surprisingly, he made a career on verismo and Puccini mainly:

Mario Diaz - Adriana Lecouvreur

This one is painful to listen to, effortful and flat:

Di rigori armato - Mario Diaz

And here is the masterclass, in which he talks about tension at the beginning... Am I missing something here??

Master Class by Mario Diaz, Professor of the Austrian Conservatory "Mozarteum". V1 Battle 07.11.2019

Notice that his speaking voice is lighter, and definitely more beautiful than the way he used it in singing.

 

Can a former singer with a flawed technique become a good voice teacher? Instinct tells me that makes no sense.
Until recently, I had never heard the name of Chilean tenor Mario Antonio Diaz Varas, but it turns out he's a teacher at Mozarteum University, and quite a prestigious one at that, it seems. At least quite sought after.
If one looks up his name on youtube, only a few videos come up, some rather horrible samples of his art at singing (uploaded by himself), and a three-hour and a half masterclass.

Extremely ingolata and pushing, puffing his throat like a toad. The whole pack, artificial darkening, guttural, all vowels turned to "O", wobble... Not surprisingly, he made a career on verismo and Puccini mainly:

Mario Diaz - Adriana Lecouvreur

This one is painful to listen to, effortful and flat:

Di rigori armato - Mario Diaz

And here is the masterclass, in which he talks about tension at the beginning... Am I missing something here??

Master Class by Mario Diaz, Professor of the Austrian Conservatory "Mozarteum". V1 Battle 07.11.2019

Notice that his speaking voice is lighter, and definitely more beautiful than the way he used it in singing.

Yes he sings very ingolata, constricted, artificially darkened, out of tune, etc., awful. What a lovely speaking voice though. With the two women in the duet........He is talking about a lot of bizarre things I have never heard of, like triangles from the head and shoulders and tension flowing between them and the neck and all these things dominating...🧐🤨😕.... I can make no sense about what he is talking about...... neck tension going to the solar plexus and a big personality. I don't think he knows either. This is a lot of bizarre nonsense. Then he goes on about social classes having psychological complexes.........😕🙁🙄 He is teaching them to sing ingolata when he says, "stretch." omg this is hideous....insane. Then he is babbling something about accenting differences between Bach and Mozart. He is interrupting them so often how can he even hear what they are actually doing? Then he goes on to coach them through what he considers idiomatic Mozart phrasing, nothing about technique. This is very poor quality, low level coaching. Nothing about shading the words, fine tuning the pronunciation, delicately handling the attack and connecting notes, shaping the arc of the phrase, keeping the phrase going through the breaths being taken, and using dynamics elegantly. I had better basic coaching at the conservatory. I am appalled.

No you are not missing anything Macbeth. Those poor students have missed out on.......everything. What a scam.

 

Then he talks about chest resonation! 🤔He's showing the young man how to sing ingolata. He talks about beautiful appoggio and remaining open, yet the demonstration he gives is completely constricted and guttural. He tries to say what he wants, but he cannot demonstrate it with his own voice.

 

I don't understand how this person can be working at the Mozarteum giving advice on how to sing! 😤

 

I'm glad I'm retired. 🤯 I don't recall ever having such an inept coaching anywhere in my travels over the decades of my career.

 

This is an excellent book for vocal exercises. Perhaps the best.

Amazon.com

Also this:

Amazon.com

Are you a tenor or soprano? Just get the right key for you.

Caruso and Tetrazzini wrote books on singing. So did Lilli Lehmann.

 

This is an excellent book for vocal exercises. Perhaps the best.

Amazon.com

Also this:

Amazon.com

Are you a tenor or soprano? Just get the right key for you.

Caruso and Tetrazzini wrote books on singing. So did Lilli Lehmann.

I have not read these but wonder how helpful they are to modern day singers. Back then the sort of sounds we hear on stages today would not even have been imaginable as passing for professional singing in any genre. I would naturally assume that at points these old books don’t even consider giving vitally important advice that is needed today because they would have assumed it common sense/knowledge. I don’t think anyone back them could have anticipated the Kaufmanns, Netrebkos, Diego Florezs etc. of the current day.

 

As it turns out, Arturo Chacon-Cruz gives lessons on vocal technique! I checked out his website. Another good possible voice teacher would be Andrew Owens, who studied under Salvatore Fisichella. I went and found myself some other options in case Mr. Silver treats me poorly as he did you, @TheHolyMan .

 

Jeremy Silver's singing (the second link)

https://www.historicaltenors.net/english/silver.html

https://www.historicaltenors.net/english/sound/silvernebie.mp3

And the "This is Opera Scandal"

WHAT LIES BENEATH THIS IS OPERA!

The opera industry is a lot like the Matrix. There is a cyber world and a real world. Often people who have a high standing in one do not ev...

luomodelloggione.blogspot.com

 

Philippe Castagner is one of my all time favorites, wish he was a little less sarcastic at times but he's definitely well educated and truly has a passion for improving singing in a sustainable (easy to convey) and non-diminishing way. A LOT of people behind This Is Opera themselves have 'mosquito' voices they so angrily criticized and make the same mistakes during singing they frown upon so angrily, which is why it always made me confused as to why TIO never used their own examples. I believe in trying to be kind and respectful towards any vocalist who's put years into their craft - whether we as listeners, musicians (or neither) like it or not.

 

What do you guys think about the voice teacher Jack LiVigni? Here are some clips of his own singing.

 

Does anyone know something of Gianluca Terranova? He talks about 3 point technique.

 

I mean I watched a video or two of his performances.. and... what 3 point technique are we talking about.. he is pushed and swallowed, has this really odd wobbly slow vibrato uptop, even when he was very young which is so weird.. just a general no from me.

 

Are you in the Boston area?

 

No im actually in Alaska