Louis Roney: Singers and other aberrations

Singers are strange birds — that we know. They are show-offs! The Italians who invented great singing did not claim that they were “teaching people to sing” — they coached people who already had plenty of God-given singing ability of their own. Great singers know from the beginning a good deal about their vocal art. That inherent knowledge is part and parcel of their God-given talents.

I remember when I was 5 my parents would wake me and carry me into the living room. My mother would then play “My Blue Heaven” or “Tiptoe Through the Tulips,” and I, standing on the piano lid in my PJs, would sing for whatever adoring fans were there. Those were the days of Caruso, Rosa Ponselle, Kate Smith and Bing Crosby. Singers sing at any age.

Great singers rely constantly upon a dramatic acting ability that impels both the beauty and the meaning of what they sing.

Coaching people to sing as a voice professor is a ticklish psychological proposition. The teacher must communicate his knowledge of singing and the musical selections involved, while employing body parts of the singer that are invisible. Singing concerns itself with beautiful sound and how to produce it and utilizes dramatic texts in some language or other.

The following is taken from a letter written to me by a former student, “My name is Richard S. and I studied with you at UCF in the early ’90s. While I still sing as a hobby, professionally I am a writer and I very much enjoyed your instruction and your own beautiful voice. In particular, I enjoyed the great songs you introduced to me: ‘Musica Proibita,’ ‘Die Beiden Grenadiere,’ ‘Santa Lucia,’ and so many, many others. It was a treat to hear your observations and anecdotes about great singers you have worked with and admired through the years. Thank you for all the wonderful hours of learning and singing. You certainly have left a beautiful legacy in all the peoples lives you have touched.

On your website I was enjoying the audio samples of your CDs — many thanks!”

Singers are born, not made. Singing combines body, mind and spirit to produce results that can be exciting, astounding, and highly moving — all thanks to two little vocal-chords about the length of your thumbnail.

What a singer is thinking comes out of his mouth as his art. The singer not only plays his instrument, he is both the instrument and the art singing is, I think, built on the logical extension of the speaking voice — with increased air movement and more (elongated) vowel sounds. I believe that singing evolved from days when men called each other in forests and jungles and the voice needed more carrying power.

I never found myself able to teach anything much to a person who had no gift of his own. The teacher cannot give a pupil everything that is requisite to produce good singing. The student must bring some instinctive knowledge when he comes through the door to his first lesson.

My great Italian coach, Renata Bellini, taught me for seven years in New York after I got out of the Navy in World War II. Maestro was, as long as he lived, the most important person in my world outside of my own flesh and blood. He taught me a slew of Italian opera roles, and after one and a half years, I sang my debut in the leading role of Cavaradossi in Puccini’s “Tosca” with the New York Philharmonic. Later, before undertaking new very important roles, I often crossed the Atlantic to work with Maestro for several weeks. As I used to say it, “Maestro ‘put’

the roles in my throat.”

Most people have speaking voices that they use daily within the range of about an octave. A useful singing voice requires two and a half octaves and more, and some coloratura sopranos perform in more than three octaves! These attributes are somewhat acrobatic in nature, and do not concentrate upon the aesthetic requisites of great singing, which bring expressive beauty of sound.

In my opinion, if singing is not beautiful, forget it!

Singing is “acting” enhanced by the alluring patina of the musical human voice. The beauty produced by singing is its appealing art, and its art is in finding what is vocally beautiful.

I used to sing in the shower when I was a kid. Of course, a shower provided bright, hard acoustics that exaggerated my voices carrying power and ringing whang.

Everyone sounds great in the shower!