Training Tenor Voices

by Richard Miller

Performance demands on the tenor exceed those of every other vocal category, often necessitating more vocal stamina and greater dramatic subtlety. Moreover, teaching the several categories of the tenor voice presents teachers of singing with a series of problems not encountered with any other voice type. The tenor voice remains, in short, a mystery to most audiences and teachers alike.
Training Tenor Voices presents a unique combination of historical and pedagogical information on how tenors sing. Designed as a practical program for singers, teachers, and voice professionals, the book places emphasis on the special nature of the tenor voice and the proper physiological functioning that leads to the establishment of vocal proficiency. It supplies practical information on instruction for each category of the tenor voice; recommends the kinds of literature to sing and to avoid; and provides an effective system for voice building, including registration factors, techniques for breath coordination, vowel modification ("covering"), resonance balancing, range extension, the development of vocal agility, and maintaining the high tessitura and sostenuto. The book also includes dozens of technical exercises; numerous anatomical illustrations; musical examples; the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbols; unique spectrographic analyses of such famous tenors as Jussi Bjoerling, Franco Corelli, Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti; a glossary of terms; and a bibliography.

Genres: Music

192 pages, Paperback

First published March 2, 1993

Reviews

[G]

Reading this made me wonder why actual study material isn't a mainstay of music teaching.

[Bjorn Arvidsson]

All of Miller's books are, together with a handful of others (Coffin and Vennard) absolute classics of voice pedagogy, and this is no exception.