Read Online Stand Up Straight and Sing! by Jessye Norman - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Jessye Norman
Tags: nonfiction, Personal Memoirs, Biography & Autobiography, Retail, music, Opera, singer, Composers & Musicians
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not any tricks to the understanding of the science of one’s own physiology as it relates to breath control, posture, and the functioning of the whole body in support of the respiratory system. For her, it was essential for singers to have this understanding and knowledge, and to draw from it over the course of their careers.
I remember her saying to me after my first lesson: “Hmmm, underneath all that breath is a rather good instrument, and I am going to help you find it.” Those were her exact words.
Professor Grant’s understanding of vocal production remains with me to this day. It was she who taught me that the only “mystery” to singing has to do with the fact that each and every singer has a different sound, one that’s personal and unique. I was absolutely amazed when she explained to me that the timbre—the “color” of the voice—is fixed practically at birth. This has to do with our own physiological makeup—the shape of the nasal cavity, the lung capacity, the singer’s strength and stamina, the height of the inside of one’s mouth, the natural position of the roof of the mouth, the height of the uvula, the width of the nose, the distance between the end of the chin and the beginning of the nose, the distance between the end of the chin and the beginning of the collarbone, and the height of the cheekbones and their position near the eyes. All of these things with which you are born determine the timbre of your voice. Each of these things, when paired with one’s intelligence and musical understanding, is what sets us apart as singers, one from the other. It was this that Professor Grant insisted that I understand—that I learn to trust. And I was an eager student. I was especially taken with the anatomy component. I consoled myself with the fact that I was learning a little science even though medical school was not in my future. But it was equally important that I was not trying to collect a string of opera arias and operatic roles, goals that seemed to occupy the thoughts of my fellow students to no end. Instead, I wanted to know what Professor Grant knew.
And so we spent a lot of time learning how to take in a breath and allow it to come out slowly and evenly, in the same way practiced by singers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, particularly in Italy. One such exercise involved standing with a lighted candle about fifteen inches from the mouth. If you could exhale without blowing out the candle, you were thought to be breathing with control and evenly. As you can imagine, this is not an easy thing to do, but I did it for months with Professor Grant. I still work on breath control all these many years later, I assure you. My colleagues often laugh at me when they recognize the vocal exercises I use to warm up prior to a performance—exercises developed by nineteenth-century master teachers they know from their own studies, such as Panofka and Francesco Lamperti. These vocal gymnastics work for me in preparing for a performance. So does the practice of hatha yoga. These are things I have done all of my performing life, and I still practice them on a daily basis. They are the core of my vocal strength. I have Professor Grant to thank for this.
She was a real Francophile, so my repertoire was full of the music of French composers. There was still more to learn after my four wonderful years at Howard, however, and it was Professor Grant who encouraged me to study with someone new. She promised that I would always be her student and she would always be my teacher, but she wished me to broaden my musical training beyond her studio. This was a generous and thoughtful consideration on her part, and during the summer semester that followed my graduation from Howard, I was very fortunate to find myself under the tutelage of Madame Alice Duschak at the Peabody Conservatory. It was she who helped develop my interest in the great German and Austrian romantics, music that would become an
I remember her saying to me after my first lesson: “Hmmm, underneath all that breath is a rather good instrument, and I am going to help you find it.” Those were her exact words.
Professor Grant’s understanding of vocal production remains with me to this day. It was she who taught me that the only “mystery” to singing has to do with the fact that each and every singer has a different sound, one that’s personal and unique. I was absolutely amazed when she explained to me that the timbre—the “color” of the voice—is fixed practically at birth. This has to do with our own physiological makeup—the shape of the nasal cavity, the lung capacity, the singer’s strength and stamina, the height of the inside of one’s mouth, the natural position of the roof of the mouth, the height of the uvula, the width of the nose, the distance between the end of the chin and the beginning of the nose, the distance between the end of the chin and the beginning of the collarbone, and the height of the cheekbones and their position near the eyes. All of these things with which you are born determine the timbre of your voice. Each of these things, when paired with one’s intelligence and musical understanding, is what sets us apart as singers, one from the other. It was this that Professor Grant insisted that I understand—that I learn to trust. And I was an eager student. I was especially taken with the anatomy component. I consoled myself with the fact that I was learning a little science even though medical school was not in my future. But it was equally important that I was not trying to collect a string of opera arias and operatic roles, goals that seemed to occupy the thoughts of my fellow students to no end. Instead, I wanted to know what Professor Grant knew.
And so we spent a lot of time learning how to take in a breath and allow it to come out slowly and evenly, in the same way practiced by singers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, particularly in Italy. One such exercise involved standing with a lighted candle about fifteen inches from the mouth. If you could exhale without blowing out the candle, you were thought to be breathing with control and evenly. As you can imagine, this is not an easy thing to do, but I did it for months with Professor Grant. I still work on breath control all these many years later, I assure you. My colleagues often laugh at me when they recognize the vocal exercises I use to warm up prior to a performance—exercises developed by nineteenth-century master teachers they know from their own studies, such as Panofka and Francesco Lamperti. These vocal gymnastics work for me in preparing for a performance. So does the practice of hatha yoga. These are things I have done all of my performing life, and I still practice them on a daily basis. They are the core of my vocal strength. I have Professor Grant to thank for this.
She was a real Francophile, so my repertoire was full of the music of French composers. There was still more to learn after my four wonderful years at Howard, however, and it was Professor Grant who encouraged me to study with someone new. She promised that I would always be her student and she would always be my teacher, but she wished me to broaden my musical training beyond her studio. This was a generous and thoughtful consideration on her part, and during the summer semester that followed my graduation from Howard, I was very fortunate to find myself under the tutelage of Madame Alice Duschak at the Peabody Conservatory. It was she who helped develop my interest in the great German and Austrian romantics, music that would become an
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