A Practical Guide to Develop Your Authentic Singing Voice Written by musicologist Dr. Karin Wettig, Bel Canto in Theory and Practice is for singers who want to dive deeper into the secrets of true bel canto (an Italian word meaning "beautiful singing"). Its practical advice and discoveries about vocal functions can be used by a hobby singer, choir member or soloist on his way to a professional career in pop, musical, theatre or opera. All the exercises are simple and well described with photos. If you are ready to breakthrough with your voice on stage, dive into these lessons and learn from the life story and personal discoveries of the author who says "After 20 years of voice practice, I have learned that awareness is the key and is my best teacher because awareness changes in 10 minutes what 5 years of voice exercises cannot do." Even non-singers who would like to develop more vocal expression power for their everyday life or business purposes will find lots of good tips. As you practice the exercises you will dive deeper into your personal natural vocal power and develop your true authentic voice over time. The whole body yoga approach and breathing exercises will strengthen your body (especially the rib cage and pelvis), develop a correct posture for standing, sitting and moving on stage and enable you to sing longer phrases easily and effortlessly. Your vocal cords and stiff tongue will relax. The low and high range of your voice will be bound together without the usual passage break and singing will become more powerful and effortless as the natural beauty of your voice shines through. Bel Canto in Theory and Practice also offers professional singers, who are curious to discover more about the secret behind the voices of opera singers like Maria Callas and Enrico Caruso, technical details about the structure of the voice box and an analytical approach to the function of the human voice and her relationship with emotion. The musicological approach of the history of singing and voice development in opera will give the reader a deeper understanding about the ideal of vocal beauty working throughout four centuries of opera creation and its deep connection to the renaissance of ancient Greece and Rome. After losing her voice following a traumatic divorce, the author searched for a way to get her voice back. When voice therapy didn't heal her, she looked for a cure through singing. She left her life behind to pursue her dream to be a bel canto singer and her journey to becoming a coloratura soprano began. Studying bel canto videos, spending nights and weekends in churches alone with CDs of Callas and others, and pursuing classes for opera singing and workshops in Europe, she dove deeply into the physical aspects of opera singing, while her musicological curiosity made her travel to the origins and sources of bel canto in the Renaissance. Observing minuscule body and throat movements brought her a breakthrough. After two decades miracles started happening: her teeth aligned, her chin and jaw movement became smoother, her stiff tongue melted. In the end, she enjoyed an upright posture, better proportions, 1.5 cm more in height, emotional balance, cured sinusitis and healthy self-esteem. Her efforts were rewarded with a brilliant coloratura soprano voice. "Behind every weakness hides a talent!" is her motto now. Asked for a transcript of her voice classes, she wrote her personal method down. That was the moment Bel Canto in Theory and Practice was born. Her students' voices radically changed during her classes within ten minutes of training. The result is this book: an intuitive, heartfelt, yet practical approach to achieving excellence in bel canto through effortless singing. Order your copy today.

Bel canto, or 'beautiful singing, ' remains one of the most elusive performance styles vocalists strive to master. During the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, composers routinely left the final shaping of recitatives, arias, and songs to performers, and singers treated scores freely so that inexpressively notated music could be turned into passionate declamation. In other words, vocalists saw their role more as one of re-creation than of simple interpretation. Familiarity with the range of strategies prominent singers of the past employed to unlock the eloquent expression hidden in scores enables modern performers to take a similar re-creative approach to enhancing the texts before them. In this first ever guide to bel canto, author Robert Toft provides singers with the tools they need not only to complete the creative process the composer began but also to bring scores to life in an historically-informed manner. Replete with illustrations based on excerpts from Italianate recitatives and arias by composers ranging from Handel to Rossini, the book offers discussions of the fundamental principles of expressive singing, each section including a practical application of the techniques involved. Drawing on a wealth of documents from the era, including treatises, scores, newspaper reviews, and letters, this book captures the breadth of practices singers used in the bel canto period. Complete with six scores (recitatives and/or arias) for performers to personalize through the old methods, and a companion website offering demonstrations of the principles involved, Bel Canto is an essential resource for any singer or vocal instructor wishing to explore and master historical techniques of interpretation and re-creation from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

"Behind every weakness hides a talent!" is Dr. Karin Wettig's personal revelation. With her divorce came an almost total loss of her speaking voice. When voice therapy didn't heal her, she decided to look for a cure in singing. Mozart Arias & her passion for Belcanto, Maria Callas, Adelina Patti and the divas of Caruso's time found a home in her heart, never to depart. She left her home, her career, her husband, her friends and her business in northern Germany to pursue her dream to be a Belcanto singer. Once settled in Munich, her adventurous journey from a lost speaking voice to becoming a coloratura soprano began. Personal voice trainers, Belcanto teachers & Opera Schools from all over Europe were as disillusioning as her experience in a famous local choir. An inspiring master class with Ann Reynolds gave her the impulse to write her first Belcanto Guide for singing. Still not satisfied with her voice, she started modeling Maria Callas and exploring body therapies such as Alexander Technique, Rolfing, Cantieni and Yoga. The way to her authentic voice was a path paved with lonely nights in dark churches, practicing Belcanto repertoire from Farinelli to Mozart, Bellini, Rossini and Verdi. Studying Belcanto videos, she dove deeply into the physical aspects of opera singing, while her musicological curiosity made her travel to the origins and sources of Belcanto in the Renaissance. Suddenly miracles started happening: Her teeth aligned, her chin and jaw movement became smoother, her stiff tongue melted. In the end, she enjoyed an upright posture, better proportions, 1.5 cm more in height, emotional balance, cured sinusitis and healthy self-esteem. Her efforts were rewarded with a brilliant coloratura soprano voice. Asked for a transcript of her voice classes, she wrote her personal method down. The result is this book: An intuitive, heartfelt, yet practical approach to achieving excellence in Belcanto through effortless singing. "Body & voice awareness is the ke

In this well documented and highly readable book, James Stark provides a history of vocal pedagogy from the beginning of the bel canto tradition of solo singing in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries to the present. Using a nineteenth-century treatise by Manuel Garcia as his point of reference, Stark analyses the many sources that discuss singing techniques and selects a number of primary vocal 'problems' for detailed investigation. He also presents data from a series of laboratory experiments carried out to demonstrate the techniques of bel canto. The discussion deals extensively with such topics as the emergence of virtuoso singing, the castrato phenomenon, national differences in singing styles, controversies regarding the perennial decline in the art of singing, and the so-called secrets of bel canto. Stark offers a new definition of bel canto which reconciles historical and scientific descriptions of good singing. His is a refreshing and profound discussion of issues important to all singers and voice teachers.

"Whether they were male or female, these singers wre amazing vertuosi, perhaps the greatest singers there have ever been - "angels." Unfortunately, some of them (and often the most famous) were also capable of behaving extremely badly, both on and off stage - "monsters." This book tells their colorful stories."--Jacket.

"Die Technik des Bel Canto" (1905) -- Extended Edition.As the last of the great master-teachers of the "old Italian school" of singing, Giovanni Battista Lamperti taught his students virtuosic vocal techniques handed down from the great castrati of the 17th century: exquisitely rich chiaroscuro tone, seamless flowing legato phrasing, undetectable passaggi register transitions and the delicately poised appoggio breath technique that allowed the astonishingly rapid coloratura typical of baroque music. In the only treatise he ever wrote, Lamperti the younger shares with all students, teachers and enthusiasts of singing, the techniques and skills that made his students that greatest singers of their time: the arcane secrets of bel canto.

“A major contribution . . . not only to Puccini studies but also to the study of nineteenth-century Italian opera in general.” —Nineteenth-Century Music Review In this groundbreaking survey of the fundamentals, methods, and formulas that were taught at Italian music conservatories during the 19th Century, Nicholas Baragwanath explores the compositional significance of tradition in Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, Boito, and, most importantly, Puccini. Taking account of some 400 primary sources, Baragwanath explains the varying theories and practices of the period in light of current theoretical and analytical conceptions of this music. The Italian Traditions and Puccini offers a guide to an informed interpretation and appreciation of Italian opera by underscoring the proximity of archaic traditions to the music of Puccini. “Dense and challenging in its detail and analysis, this work is an important addition to the growing corpus of Puccini studies. . . . Highly recommended.” —Choice

How did castrati manage to amaze their eighteenth-century audiences by singing the same aria several times in completely different ways? And how could composers of the time write operas in a matter of days? The secret lies in the solfeggio tradition, a music education method that was fundamental to the training of European musicians between 1680 and 1830 a time during which professional musicians belonged to the working class. As disadvantaged children in orphanages learned the musical craft through solfeggio lessons, many were lifted from poverty, and the most successful were propelled to extraordinary heights of fame and fortune. In this first book on the solfeggio tradition, author Nicholas Baragwanath draws on over a thousand manuscript sources to reconstruct how professionals became skilled performers and composers who could invent and modify melodies at will. By introducing some of the simplest exercises in scales, leaps, and cadences that apprentices would have encountered, this book allows readers to retrace the steps of solfeggio training and learn to generate melody by 'speaking' it like an eighteenth-century musician. As it takes readers on a fascinating journey through the fundamentals of music education in the eighteenth century, this book uncovers a forgotten art of melody that revolutionizes our understanding of the history of music pedagogy.

Since it was first published in 1993, the Sourcebook for Research in Music has become an invaluable resource in musical scholarship. The balance between depth of content and brevity of format makes it ideal for use as a textbook for students, a reference work for faculty and professional musicians, and as an aid for librarians. The introductory chapter includes a comprehensive list of bibliographical terms with definitions; bibliographic terms in German, French, and Italian; and the plan of the Library of Congress and the Dewey Decimal music classification systems. Integrating helpful commentary to instruct the reader on the scope and usefulness of specific items, this updated and expanded edition accounts for the rapid growth in new editions of standard works, in fields such as ethnomusicology, performance practice, women in music, popular music, education, business, and music technology. These enhancements to its already extensive bibliographies ensures that the Sourcebook will continue to be an indispensable reference for years to come.

Why teach music? Who deserves a music education? Can making and learning about music serve the common good? A collection of essays considers the answers. In Humane Music Education for the Common Good, scholars and educators from around the world offer unique responses to the recent UNESCO report titled Rethinking Education: Toward the Common Good. This report suggests how, through purpose, policy, and pedagogy, education can and must respond to the challenges of our day in ways that respect and nurture all members of the human family. The contributors use this report as a framework to explore the implications and complexities that it raises. The book begins with analytical reflections on the report and then explores pedagogical case studies and practical models of music education that address social justice, inclusion, individual nurturance, and active involvement in the greater public welfare. The collection concludes by looking to the future, asking what more should be considered, and exploring how these ideals can be even more fully realized. This volume boldly expands the boundaries of the UNESCO report to reveal new ways to think about, be invested in, and use music education as a center for social change both today and going forward.