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This is the best book on the voice that I have seen in my MANY years of collecting books aimed at helping the "severely vocally challenged" aspiring singer, a category nature has placed me in! I will give this book the highest compliment I can, it is for the voice what my book "The Principles of Correct Practice For Guitar" is for the guitar. With great analytical detail, the author gives you ALL the right information, in the right order, along with "Foundation Exercises" to remove the obstacles to improving your ability to develop your voice. Beginning with explanations about the vital head/neck/back relationship, the author draws heavily on his training in the Alexander Technique to begin to build the foundation of vocal technique, which as every singer knows, is the breathing apparatus. The great thing about this knowledge (and the practice of the exercises) is that it improves everything you do in life, since most of your life is spent dragging your body around and doing things with it! In fact, it will improve your guitar playing, as you learn and re-enforce many of the Understandings from The Principles, such as the need for profound attention, the concept of "stopping habitual responses" and replacing old muscle memory with new patterns of response. In the course of my quest for a real understanding of how great singers "do it", I have been to some of the supposedly best teachers in New York City, which means, some of the supposedly best teachers in the world. None of them conveyed to me what this book has conveyed. True, many conveyed bits and pieces of the right information, but so what! It is the teachers job to convey all of it, AND to put it together properly for the student. I once had some teacher, (highly paid, all the record companies sent their artists to him) tell me "come on, you have to put all the pieces together". No I don't, YOU do. In fact, I once asked this teacher what this "support" thing was he was always telling me to have. He had me tense my stomach and that was about it! Michael McCallion, the author of this wonderful book, explains, clearly and elegantly, that support is "strength with direction", and emphatically states that it is NOT any rigid state of fixity, such as this teacher told me. As I read this book, I keep saying what people say to me about my book "it just makes so much sense"! So, before you put out the money for lessons, arm yourself with the knowledge in this book, and you will join me in saying about this book for voice what so many guitar players say about "The Principles " I wish I had this book years ago"! I study many different subjects that interest me. Once in a while, I find a book that serves a unique function: by reading that one book I feel I am in a better position to understand any other book on the subject, because the author has penetrated to the First Principles of the matter, and done so in a way that cannot be bettered. This is the feeling I have about "The Voice" by Michael McCallion. |
