The Psychology of Singing

by David Clark Taylor

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272 pages, Paperback

Published May 14, 2016

Reviews

[Celestarius · Rating 2 out of 5]

Based on the title, I was hoping this book would get into the mental and emotional blocks that prevent one from singing freely. However, the subtitle is the far better indicator of what this book is actually about: Taylor's assertion that focusing on the mechanics of singing is what causes the vast majority of problems, particularly with throat tension, and that the solution is to go back to the old Italian method (or really, what he deducts was the old Italian method) of simply imitating sounds to learn how to have a clear and pure tone. I can certainly agree to a large extent based on my current experience of trying to learn to sing with an open throat, but I don't think simply imitating sounds is enough either, and there is a place for understanding anatomy too.

But the reason I'm giving this such a low score is that in order to make this very basic point, Taylor goes on and on and on and repeats the same basic ideas over and over, making this an exceedingly boring read. It took me over a month to read because it was not at all the kind of thing I was excited to get back to (which was not the case with other books of similar subject and time period I've been reading this year) and I even skipped a whole section. I feel that it would have made a better short essay than a full book.

[Bob · Rating 3 out of 5]

The version I read is an e-book published by Project Gutenberg.

Not quite the content I imagined but interesting. A good portion of the book was spent on the bad influence of vocal education emphasizing mechanical principles; i.e., the muscles, joints, etc. involved. As far as I could tell the psychology part was largely pointed at not trying to control those things because the ear and voice will handle everything if you let them alone.