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TRAINING TENOR VOICES, by Richard Miller. Schirmer Books (Macmillan Publishing Co., 866 3rd Ave., New York, NY 10022), 1993. 256 pp., $35.
The training of male voices, and the tenor in particular, is a subject that mystifies and terrifies many a novice and even some experienced voice teachers. How does the male voice differ from the female, and the tenor from other male categories? What accounts for these differences, and what implications do they have for teachers of singing? These are among the questions addressed by Richard Miller in Training Tenor Voices. Miller is professor of singing and director of the Otto B. Schoepfle Vocal Arts Laboratory at Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, and is well known to teachers of singing from his tenure as editor of the NATS Journal and from no previously published books on singing.
Training Tenor Voices describes each category of tenor with recommendations of literature to sing and to avoid. There are numerous technical exercises, musical examples, anatomical illustrations, and, in Appendix B, unique spectrographic analyses comparing tenors Jussi Bjoerling, Franco Corelli, Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti singing the same passage. The writing is clear, logical and persuasive as Miller provides the physiological and acoustical bases for his discussions of breathing for singing, vowel modification, resonance, agility, sostenuto, and the maintenance of the tenor tessitura. Chapter Seven includes a brief discussion of assorted problems common to tenors with some suggested solutions.
Miller's approach to breath management in...