MusBook Revisited

What a disaster MusBook is turning out to be. Six months after the music networking site was announced, instead of taking off it seems to be digging itself into a grave. What's it doing? Why does it keep changing its URL? Where is the DepList group that I had set up on it? Why have users been made to set up profiles in one place only to be asked to re-register in another place with a different URL? Why have we been given no clear instructions as to how to transfer all our luggage (pictures, sound files, videos, etc.)? Why couldn't the owners of MusBook have done this transfer themselves? I tried to re-upload my profile photo to the new site (why couldn't this be transferred at MusBook's end), but kept getting error messages. This beta testing should, in my opinion, have been called an alpha testing. It bears all the hallmarks of something that wasn't ready to be shipped—even in beta. We were sent a series of e-mails with confusing information and incomprehensible instructions. If on two readings I still can't make head or tail of what I'm supposed to do, and if after half an hour of experimentation I've made no headway, I simply give up. I'm sure I'm not alone, as I consider myself to be reasonably Internet savvy—after all, I maintain four websites, including a subscription-based site for classical musicians. Unless those at the helm sort out the chaos PDQ, musicians will stick to Facebook and MusBook will quietly disappear.

End of an Era

Yesterday, domestic circumstances forced me to initiate my move to Kent and to tender my resignation from my Sunday church singing job in London. I've been in this particular post for 15 years. Before that I sang at All Saints Margaret Street for eight years, and before that at a Roman Catholic church in St John's Wood for 12 years. I have sung about 35 Christmas services and the same number of Easter Day services. The comforting and familiar routine has come to a sudden stop. From now on, away from London, singing opportunities will be few and far between. The most intense years were at Margaret Street, for there are two services every Sunday as well as numerous extra weekday services. One Sunday I came to a 10 a.m. rehearsal straight from Heathrow, with five minutes to spare. I had left Denmark at dawn, having sung there the previous night. I thought nothing of it, other than a vague sense of excitement, but I can no more imagine doing that now than singing the Queen of the Night!

Histoires Naturelles

It may be fun to discuss the finer points of a review (see previous post), but sometimes life's little histoires cause us to abandon (temporarily I hope) such pleasant diversions. The performance and criticism of the French mélodie is best left to the towns—preferably Paris—where life is less distracting. In the country, more pressing problems tend to take over.

On Friday, the last day of a major house rewiring project, we lost our water supply. Trees grow, and roots reach down and break pipes. Letting a water pipe run through woodland is not a good idea, but decades ago, when the pipe was laid along the shortest route from the road to the house, the trees were mere saplings.

The water board managed to reconnect some parts of the house by means of a temporary pipe, but left our staff flat unprovided for. The following day my mother decided to go down to the roadside to see what the watermen had done. She slipped on the gravel driveway and fell. We got her back to the house and to her bed, where she stayed as she thought she had sprained her ankle. On Monday I was seeing off the electricians after their month-long programme of work and welcoming the water board back again, all the while waiting for the doctor to arrive and, once he'd examined my mother, the ambulance. The "sprained" ankle is in fact a broken one—in two places.

Yesterday, I took a chair to a workshop be re-upholstered. The workshop's doors were wide open and music was blaring from a radio in a corner. No sign of the occupant, save for a large red-setter dog lying asleep, presumably guarding the premises. I sat by the door in my broken chair and waited in the sun. It was a blazingly gorgeous day, as it often is in the days following the summer solstice. After ten minutes the red-setter got onto its feet and ambled over to check me out. We talked for a while. After another ten minutes the owner of the workshop drew up. He'd only nipped back home to feed his pigs, he said. But his mother-in-law had decided to do some gardening and dug through the mains water pipe.

Ah, les faux beaux jours!

Reviewing the Review

It was most kind of Ian Bailey to review the Vierne album on the MusicWeb International site, and I thank him very much for his balanced and fair assessment. I hope he won't mind if I use the best bits of its bottom line for promotional purposes. That, after all, is partly what reviews (not to mention bottom lines) are for! But for those who might be curious enough to read the whole of it, I must quickly point out that a quotation he attributes to Vierne's biographer, Bernard Gavoty, a celebrated music critic in his day, was actually penned by me! Mr Bailey writes:

In their liner-notes the duo quote a passage from Bernard Gavoty’s biography of the composer (comparing him with Fauré) which states, “Vierne was more elemental, more overtly passionate and, by some gothically tragic streak in his nature, naturally drawn to poems that featured lightning storms, and maelstroms, turmoil and tormented souls.”

And then, later,

The final song "Marine" again rouses strong passions, reflecting not only Gavoty’s Gothic seascapes...

What my liner notes actually say is:

In his biography of Louis Vierne, Bernard Gavoty said that “he stood halfway between Franck and Fauré, was less ecstatic than the former but less pure than the latter, was more profoundly lyrical than both, and generally allied himself to a more absolute romanticism.” One might add that whereas Fauré was always elegant and refined in his composition, and generally chose poems that would enable him to reflect those qualities in his music, Vierne was more elemental, more overtly passionate and, by some gothically tragic streak in his nature, was naturally drawn to poems that featured lightning storms and maelstroms, turmoil and tormented souls.

I suppose I could have made the distinction clearer, but the "One might add" was supposed to indicate a switch from Gavoty's views to my own. Futhermore, that sentence lacks quotation marks. But it's interesting that the word "gothic" captured my reviewer's attention. That was my term, picked after a long search in my mental vocabulary, as well as dear old Roget's, for something that might fit. It's probably not a word that Gavoty would have used, because in French the adjective "gothique" is confined to styles of architecture. Fortunately Monsieur Gavoty, now in his grave, is not in a position to object. A shame in some ways; he'd probably have a blog today, and I would enjoy discussing Vierne's gothicism with him.

The Long and the Short of It

One of the resident blackbirds in the garden has chosen a singular theme tune for the season. It consists of a rising three-note motif, B, C, D, repeated once. The rhythmic pattern is three quavers followed by a quaver rest, then the same again. And that's it—short and to the point. The bird has been singing this at intervals throughout the day for the past month or so, always maintaining perfect pitch, beginning on a note that's somewhere between a B flat and a B natural. The three notes are intoned squarely and deliberately, like bells, and the song is distinct from anything else going on in the garden and can be heard from quite far away—an unusual strategy for a species renowned for its somewhat complex melodic statements.

Meanwhile, in the woods behind the garden, we have a virtuoso willow warbler whose breath control would be the envy of many a singer. For the bird's recording session last week, R and I were lucky to pick an evening when airplanes were few and the tiny songster had the stage to himself. These are a few of the arias he performed for us from his theatre in the birch trees. Sadly, our favourite nightingale hasn't come back this year.

Engine Tuning

Singers' voices need maintaining, and occasionally repairing, just like any other musician's instrument. When the voice is not co-operating and seems not to be working properly for no obvious reason, it is not always easy to discover the cause of the malfunction because the instrument is invisible. One's instinct is to try to change one's way of producing it on the assumption that one's technique has developed faults. But if there is some other physiological reason for the malfunction, which cannot be attributed to vocal abuse, tension or muscle strain, such an approach is futile and can result in compensatory actions that will do more harm than good. The difficulty is to discover whether it's the technique (driving in the wrong gear) or the physiology (the mechanical parts of the engine) that's impaired and to take appropriate remedial measures.

As we get older, various changes in our muscles, ligaments and tissues occur. Body parts lose some of their flexibility and elasticity. It would be a miracle indeed if the voice remained unaffected. What I particularly notice at this stage of my life is muscular stiffness, particularly in the morning, however careful I am to warm up before exercising and to stretch and cool down afterwards. Stiffness in the vocal muscles is bad news for a singer! In addition, acid reflux overnight causes swelling in the larynx, which causes further limitations. Warming up the voice takes longer than it used to, and everything is just that bit more difficult to get going. Some days it never does, and I have to keep to the low gears. On such days, instead of purring, the engine judders. There is a feeling of resistance, of separate components being jerked into place by hook or crook, and of an extremely dry vocal tract. Some days, however, the components act smoothly in concert, registers ease gently up into higher gears, the larynx and tract feel moist and flexible, and I can do several reps of scales in one breath. If I can't do two full reps of one particular scale in a single breath, I know immediately that my vocal apparatus is in poor condition and that I need to treat it with extra care. Achieving adequate hydration and lubrication of the vocal tract is the most difficult thing to achieve. Driving technique is irrelevant when it's the engine that needs servicing.

Paying attention to the engine under the hood becomes increasingly important as age and miles accumulate. One's art of singing must adapt to the changed circumstances of one's reconfigured instrument. To keep the engine in prime condition it must be kept well oiled (drink plenty of water), driven at considerate speeds (avoid extremes of dynamic and range), and not be taken into mountainous terrain (stick to repertoire that doesn't tax your resources). The soprano I heard on the radio yesterday should have heeded the warning lights on her dashboard. The effect of her gloriously rich soprano voice was ruined by an upper passaggio that sagged below pitch and high notes that fell even further short of their target—the kind of faults that I associate with singers d'un certain âge. Whether this was due to poor technique or a worn out vocal apparatus I know not, but she would have done better to show off what she could do well than to show up what she could no longer do.

Scoop or Portamento?

I have always abhorred the habit of scooping up to notes that even some well-respected singers indulge in. By this I mean sliding up from one note until the desired pitch of a higher note is reached. Often this arises from a fear of inadvertently "changing gear" during phonation, or a lack of confidence in attacking a note at its true pitch, or an attempt to ensure that the larynx stays anchored before a high note is sounded. But equally often, however, it seems to me to be an affectation—a signal to the listener to pay attention because a high, and therefore difficult, note is about to be scaled, and the singer is achieving great prowess in doing something highly athletic. This approach is never tolerated in choral music, and it is counterproductive in solo singing because it usually results in a note that sounds effortful, whereas surely the aim must be to make a high note sound effortless. One of the most stunning high notes I have heard was produced by June Anderson hitting a high E squarely on its head as though it lay in the middle of her range. It was far more impressive than singing that has you sitting on the edge of your seat because the singer leaves you wondering whether the high notes will actually be reached. I recently heard on the radio a recording of a soprano (I forget who) who sang Glière's Vocalise in such as way that during her journeys from one note to the next she would visit at least half a dozen intermediate pitches along the way.

Certain styles of singing (e.g. blues) and certain instruments (e.g. violin) use the scooping device legitimately, making a virtue out of a phenomenon that must have had its origins in a vocal technical deficiency. But that is no justification for adopting it as the default technique for passing from one pitch to a higher one. One of the miracles of singing is that the brain knows what to tell the larynx to do before it has even begun to sound a pitch. It should therefore be possible to initiate each note at its intended pitch. Obviously, the higher the pitch the more difficult this is, but some singers are given to scooping even when the pitch is not particularly high. Perhaps choral singers avoid the tendency to scoop because they are taught to listen right from the start of their vocal careers, whereas solo singers are taught to vocalise first and foremost.

Portamento should be a device that is used sparingly and for a specific purpose. It should not be allowed to occur every time there is an upward interval to be sung.

A Central Point

The Triduum has come round again. Yesterday's Maundy Thursday service was long. I didn't get home until almost 11 p.m. and then had to cook supper as I was starving. There were, as always, two services on Good Friday, so the whole afternoon and evening were taken up with rehearsal and performance, with about an hour's break between the two.

In past years I have been usually been vocally and physically exhausted by the end of Good Friday. Not this year, which is the second year I have sung the alto part. (I have switched to the lower part for choral music because my voice has become heavier and lower-pitched with age; to sustain the long, floating, high-lying soprano lines characteristic of much Renaissance polyphony now produces too much tension in my vocal muscles for comfort.) Last year I was learning how to adapt to the very low tessitura. This year I feel I've just about got the hang of it, as my vocal and breathing muscles have adjusted to the different requirements. There is lots of sustained singing in the area from Middle C to G or A above. As a soprano, I've not had to use this part of the voice very much, especially at the lower end, and especially not for long sostenuto lines. I must be doing something right, though, because my voice felt as fresh by the end as at the beginning, I did not feel unduly tired, and I felt no tension in the vocal muscles. The only really tricky piece to negotiate and in which to produce a reasonable amount of volume was Tallis's Salvator Mundi, with its split alto line (therefore one singer per part) that sits around middle C and goes down an E below the stave on two occasions. This is not music that was written for women to sing! Those low Es constitute the bass of the chord on both occasions, below the notes that the basses themselves are singing! Fortunately, the E lasts only for a moment, but there's no way it could have been audible against four hefty basses and tenors. The piece ends an with an important cadence for my line, right across the lower passaggio (Middle C sharp – B natural – C sharp) at the end of a long sustained phrase, approached from the D. Even Clara Butt would have had trouble with this, I suspect! I haven't worked out how to achieve a good mix on this cadence without resorting to raw chest at the end of this very long phrase. I do not like to use full chest on anything higher than B or Middle C. Maybe by next year I'll be able to do it better.

On my way home, I realised that today's alto range had covered two octaves, from E to E, with every note in between. Whoever said that choral alto lines were static and that singing alto was the easy option? Not even the sopranos—bottoming out at Middle C and with a lone High B flat for the first soprano line alone—were required to sing two full octaves today.

Whistle Register Update

Ever since my February posting on the whistle register I have had a large number of visits to my blog from people wanting information on how to access the whistle register. At that time, I was in no position to give any advice as I was only just beginning to discover this region of the voice for myself. My explorations arose out of curiosity, after hearing ordinary people—young and old alike and not necessarily trained in singing—using it unwittingly. Babies in prams, children in the park, groups of women in uproarious laughter, my fitness teacher in her exercise classes—none of them singers—could all use this high register yet I couldn't. How galling! I simply had to find out how it worked. I began to suspect that whistle register involved a manoeuvre of the laryngeal muscles not normally used in speech—a trick that you either had or (as in my case) not, and that it could probably be acquired if it wasn't inbuilt. I remembered the tongue-tip rolled R, which I was absolutely incapable of doing until I had to learn to use it when I started Russian lessons at school at age thirteen. I practised it for hours, days and weeks, and eventually it came, little by little, until I could do it automatically and with ease. Now I wonder why I ever found it difficult. If these things are not learned in infancy through imitation (we don't used trilled Rs in English or French), or if for some reason they are suppressed (well-behaved 1950s children were not encouraged to make high, piercing sounds in whistle register), they are much more difficult to acquire later on!

Hence my experimentation with the whistle register, which resulted, a few months later, in my February post. Now, two months further down the line, here's a summary of progress so far, together with an attempt to describe in words something that is in fact almost impossible to describe in words—unless you are very knowledgeable about how the vocal mechanism works, which I am not!

My whistle register is not yet fully functioning (i.e. I can't just call upon it at any time and produce perfect high Fs on demand!), but it gets easier to access every day. There were many more misses than hits to begin with, and now the ratio is about equally balanced. That, to me, is progress. It is important to realize what a tiny manoeuvre is used to produce sound in this register, and what a tiny sound it is. To find the placement, one must—for once!—ignore any muscles below the neck, as everything happens in the throat and above, and any temptation to use the large muscles of the body must be held at bay. It helps to work on this register while sitting (rather than standing) to promote relaxation of the lower body and focus entirely on the positioning of the larynx, tongue and throat. The larynx should be kept low, the tongue low and relaxed, the back of the nose shut (as if you wanted to avoid a nasty smell) and the thoat open. At first, the sound is either not there or barely there, and it will keep cutting out. The temptation is to squeeze or force. Resist this temptation like mad, and do not work on it for more than a couple of minutes a time. This way of phonating is maddeningly elusive—just like the trilled R was for me at first—but I'm finding that the muscles are gradually learning to stabilise their position. Split-second sounds that are prone to slip out of gear eventually turn into whole second notes, but it's a slow process requiring patience (for me, at any rate). Pitch control is an added skill that comes later. The sensation has been described by some as a back-flip, but for me it feels more like a folding in half, with the back half bending upward and forward over the front half. I recently achieved a seamless "siren" transition from the lowest vocal fry to the top of the whistle register, going through all passaggios smoothly. Six months ago I would not have thought it possible.

The reason for exercising this area of the voice is not (for most singers who are not coloratura sopranos) to use it in performance but for the added flexibility it gives to the whole laryngeal mechanism. I have noticed that high notes in ordinary head register feel easier afterwards.

The best advice I can give, though, is to watch Brett Manning demonstrating the whistle register on YouTube. Watching in this case is almost as important as listening. See in particular the relaxation involved, and follow his instructions on how to find the placement. His laid back attitude has a purpose: it is contra to everything one has been told about maintaining a noble position for normal singing, but in this instance, it is more important to relax the foundations than to brace them. I find the best place to practise this register is lying back in a warm bath. And as with everything in learning, keep going back over that video. In two weeks' time you will see and hear things in it that you didn't see and hear before. This is why (and I keep harping on about this) YouTube is such a fantastic educational tool.

For a demonstration of whistle register at its most virtuosic, look no further than Yma Sumac. I doubt she will ever be surpassed.

The Incredible Jumping Owl

Owls, not perhaps the best songbirds in the world, but some of the most distinctive and evocative none the less, will hoot with laughter when they read this story, concerning a piece of photographic fakery intended to bring fame and fortune that its fabricator will surely live to regret. If Hatto's forgeries were found out in the end, so undoubtedly will this wildlife photographer's fairy tales be.