When Marvin Keenze asked me to be the founding editor of VOICEPrints, I had one aim in mind: every article (there were 2 in each issue) had to be useful—and by that, I mean they had to contain information that could be used in the studio. I still think and write this way.

Perhaps the most useful tool I’ve encountered is the portamento (use the label under the title to find more articles on this topic), which bridges and equalizes the registers, gives the student a feeling for their instrument—a ladder or tube that can be felt in its entirety and anticipated and leads to the acquisition of pure legato.

The oldest portamento exercises?

They were practiced in intervals of no less than a third, a second not having enough distance to obtain a feeling for it.

Hermann Klein on Portamento

It differs from the “Pure Legato” in that it is a clearly defined “slur,” making heard the actual passage of the voice up or down over the interval that is to be sung. It must be executed boldly and with palpable intention, or it were best not to be done at all. Even then, however, the voice must be carried with lightness—supported with the utmost smoothness by the breath—and neither pushed in the upward nor dragged in the downward direction.

—Hidden in Plain Sight: The Hermann Klein Phono-Vocal Method Based upon the Famous School of Manuel Garcia, page 43.

(Trills were practiced in the same manner.)

Some must start higher in the scale to get the right feeling‚ especially if the registers aren’t sorted out, while others may start lower in the scale.

Going up is harder for most people, and elicits a feeling of extension, mounting, and ascension; which is harder to master than the feeling of parachuting to earth which occurs on descent. But I’ve been surprised by those who experience just the opposite.

When the vocal line is not informed by portamento, the observant listener hears what a friend calls ‘note singing.’ Vowels within the vocal line have a Doppler effect—fading in and out instead of being dovetailed into one other. There is no pure legato. For the latter, there must be no interruption of tone, no Doppler effect, and no smearing of tone. Consonants cut the tone cleanly without stopping it.

And there is this to consider.

Portamento practice leads to the awareness of vocal placement if only because the vowel is felt/heard to be held in ‘position’ by the ear. This is totally different from the WA-WA-WA-ing heard out of countless mouths today.

Speak in one place, sing in another.

That’s what old-school students were instructed to do.

Photo by Mick Diamond.