Some years ago, I was
attending an after-performance “do” at the
Met, solo, when I observed a fellow
apparently, also alone. We smiled and I
walked over and introduced myself and he
began, “Oh, I’m not really anybody. Oh
..wait a minute, d you say, Dick
Fredricks?” I smiled in the
affirmative and he animatedly began calling
to a woman, in a group several feet away, “
Madeline, Madeline, come over here.” She
broke away from her party and as she joined
us, he excitedly said, “Madeline ...
THIS is Dick Fredricks.”
It apparently was her turn to get excited,
as she said, “Oh Mr. Fredricks, I’m Madeline
Marshall ... and I teach English diction,
for the operatic stage, at Juilliard and I
tell everyone of my students, ‘If you want
to hear the best English diction, on the
operatic stage, go listen to Richard
Fredricks ... and he’s not even my
student!’” I expressed my appreciation for
her compliment and we exchanged some
anecdotal instances and pleasantries.
I have mentioned
previously, on these pages, how Carlos
Noble–my first real coach–had made me
acutely aware of the meaning
of the words, rather than the
quality of my voice. Over the years, as I
began teaching what it do, I had to take it
apart–engineering mind at work–to be able to
speak not only authoritatively, but with the
specificity of the processes individual
parts and how they work in harmony. It is a
technique ...
The most important
thing, out front, is my support technique,
which makes an unending, flexible flow of
sound, always spinning forward in a pocket,
arbitrarily the size of a ping-pong ball, in
and under the nose and hard palate, with
flexible support on demand. (See Aug and
Sept, 2007!) The “secret’ is the pure,
bright, clean vowels, flowing seamlessly,
one to another, without letting
the consonants and diphthongs disturb the
line!
The next concept is to
always–repeat–always vocally grow on the
stressed vowels, singing them just tad
longer, as a result, than the other
“passing” words that fill out a sentence.
That allows the ears of the audience
to have the slightly longer, time to
IDENTIFY the vowes/words ... and to more
readily grasp the meaning of the sentences.
There is more to the shaping of
the phrases, than that ... but, those
subtleties are difficult to put into words
you can readily translate into action. It’s
much easier to understand the concept, when
demonstrated. You might find more clarity in
actually listening to how I do it, in a
variety of different songs, on the audio
portion of my Video/Audio pages ... if you
have ever been below the videos, on the
page. Listen to, for instance, the Cabin
Scene, from Molly Brown, as well as The Girl
that I Marry, from Annie Get Your Gun. There
are lots more songs, as well.
You fellas, out there
... sing along with me and you will start to
see how I put the emphasis on
the stressed vowels.
Another alternative, is to go to YouTube and
listen to these “Ballad of Baby Doe” scenes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayIKypqyEiM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWZHO3DP-18&feature=related
For one on one
lessons, on Skype, that address is METBARITONE4
Best, Richard.