Arturo Melocchi teaching Limarilli

The great Melocchi, teacher of Del Monaco, Corelli, and countless others. This is chiaroscuro, fully engaged singing. He teaches him how to properly "cover" ( I know some people hate that term) by going more towards OO in the passaggio while still trying to keep the integrity of the vowel and chest sound as much as possible. The OO and covering is pulling in proper falsetto muscle coordination into the sound - as well as the covering muscles (infrahyoids) - keeping the scuro and lengthening of the vocal folds.

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[orovalleydude]

I apologize for the confusion. I have studied at the Uselman/Klein vocal studios and spent 15 years training Joe Klein. We made it one of our goals to attempt to understand how the damn thing works! A lifetime project yes? This post was a real gem, a close look into how Maestro Melocchi worked with his students. Thank you again, and again apologies for the confusion.

[orovalleydude]

Thank you for posting! Your assumption is that the only way to lengthen the cords is with the set of infra-hyoid muscles. The action of those muscles will only lengthen the cords as they depress the hyoid bone down on to the front of the thyroid cartilage. The way to lengthen the cords is by the use of the cricothyroid muscles; this will pivot the thyroid cartilage at the articular facet on the cricoid. The availability of the pharyngeal resonators is essential.

[MrCafiero]

@cesim82 You also cannot believe lies spread about Hadley. Watch him singing Werther where he sings stunning high notes and mezza voci and also Maria in 1992 with Berstein. Both show high notes and mezza voci. After that he let his voice deteriorate and committed suicide, but in those recordings he was with LM.

[MrCafiero]

@cesim82 I have posted some examples with many more to come. You are a skeptic based on lies spread on GT by many people you never even met. You should be skeptical of them.

[MrCafiero]

@cesim82 Melchior clearly had the issues I am talking about. you just don't know what I mean exactly. But all of them were great and all of them had certain issues. I know one thing is for sure that LM in his prime sang easily even if to other people it sounded so huge that it couldn't possibly be easy. I have him doing the dichterliebe and one song he does in one breath, 20+ seconds full voice.

[MrCafiero]

@cesim82 No he had Parkinsons. If you listen to the whole thing he does a whole song mezza voce. And he would have told you it was very very easy. You did not hear prime recoridngs on GT. You heard him when he was older, in his 50's, after long having been retired. His brother Jerome, who is also on youtube and had easy high D's, had Chrons not Tom.

[cesim82]

@MrCafiero

Have you posted the voice of your students who supposedly

have huge and easy high notes? I am sceptic, but would like

to proven wrong.

[cesim82]

@MrCafiero It would be great to hear more of his recordings. The recordings I heard of him were supposedly in his prime which you posted on the GT forum which does not exist anymore. The Falla recording shows a voice which is too ''chest voice'' dominant. I do not hear any real mezzavoci, it's forte, slightly less forte, extra forte. I thought he had an intestinal disease, now he also had parkinsons? He had parkinsons in the 50's, but was able to teach students in his late seventies?

[cesim82]

@MrCafiero

I will agree with you that LV had a caprino, but this was

in the 20's and perhaps first half of the 30's. Later in his

career, his vibrato was perfect and at the end it became

a wobble.

Melchior was great, no tongue issues or oh and ah vowel

problems at all. Melchior kept his vowels ''closed'' most

of the time, that is why he could sing the heroic repertory

for so many years without any deterioration.

[MrCafiero]

@cesim82 Caruso was the best hands down. LV, Tamagno both had caprino problems which is not musical or attractive. And Lauri Volpi's low notes were very weak. Melchior has problems on the vowels oh and ah especially in the passaggio and up.  It was due to tongue issues. You can hear a distinct difference in his eh and EE vowels there which are much better than ah and oh. Del Monaco had his issues and so did Corelli. The more we understand about functionality we can avoid those problems.

[MrCafiero]

@cesim82 You have heard recordings of LM when he was affected by Parkinsons which no one new was a problem because he hid the problem. He had easy high notes and HUGE high notes. I will be posting more recordings of him in his prime. I already posted the De Falla in which he sings mezza voci, fioratura etc. easily. And I teach this approach and my singers have huge and easy high notes.

[cesim82]

As good as MDM, Corelli were, they were not as good as Caruso,

Gigli, Melchior, Lauri Volpi, Tamagno, Zenatello. Both Corelli and

MDM lacked the Bel Canto technique. MDM had a more beautiful

voice than Corelli, but modulating tone was impossible

most of the time. Corelli's tone is unattractive but is pure

testosterone. Corelli had a very good diminuendo, but mezza

voce was really bad.MDM would sing vowels often very obviously

differently to keep the throat open, he had to with his technique