Customer Reviews

Training Soprano Voices

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I am a master's student currently preparing for an operatic stage career. If you are seriously persuing a pedagody degree and hope to teach or if you a soprano persuing a performance career, this book is an essential for your library. However, I don't recommend this book to novice singers -- the voice is a fragile instrument and a beginner can't tell what s/he sounds like (if the voice is tight, pushed, or out of tune, you won't know). It's best to begin study under a good teacher than with a book.

For my money (and the book is not cheap) this manual lacks a certain hard-to-define element that is connected with the fact that it is written by a man, and no man can ever know exactly what it feels like to sing with a woman's voice. If you read, say, Lili Lehmann, you find an extra dimension - one that stems from her particular experience as a soprano - that is missing in Miller's rather clinical approach, which, by his own admission, deliberately shuns the use of imagery to convey sensation. He always gives excellent advice, with helpful vocalises, but only rarely manages to communicate what the singing process should feel like, as opposed to what it is supposed to achieve.

Just as I could not describe what it feels like to sing Sarastro's low notes or Tonio's high Cs as well as a bass and tenor could, so a man can only describe at a theoretical level what sensations sopranos must look for, and what difficulties they tend to encounter and why. Registers and passaggi in male and female larynges do not operate in identical ways. The sensations for females are bound to be subtly different overall (granted that they will of course vary between individuals of the same sex) and need to be described from the perspective of someone who inhabits a female body, preferably with a soprano larynx in her throat and with experience of having sung at least some of the repertoire that he discusses in the book. Miller would have produced a more useful book if he had collaborated with a reputable soprano vocal pedagogue who could have provided that extra input, and who could also have addressed certain other important aspects of the way a soprano's body functions and alters throughout her career, from her teens to her sixties, with some attention to how hormonal changes and ageing processes can affect vocal production. Miller does touch upon some of these things, but only superficially and not particularly sensitively.

It is a book that teachers will find useful but that practising sopranos may find frustrating. It is nevertheless a step in the right direction because very few reputable books on singing technique have been published, and even fewer on the soprano voice in particular.

Despite of no one can learn how to build a voice begining with a book -whatever be its quality- , for those whom already knows the basics of - for example - italian school of singing, this great work will be an invaluable source of information to enhance their job - in this case, the always hard and diverse world of the soprano voices teaching - . In fact, Richard Miller improve us.

Of course, a lot of helpful exercises are included, but only oneself must decide when and how much to apply them.

Really, an indispensable book for the singing teacher, and even for the singer - not only the sopranos -, especially the opera singers.

I won't kid you, I am a semi-professional singer studying classical and musical theatre voice, so I am very serious about my singing. This book is magnificently detailed and well thought out for the SERIOUS vocal student. It avoids the annoying generalities about "soprano" voices that most other voice texts fall into. However, you do need a solid understanding of vocal technique, physiological structure and the like to get everything out of this. If you're a more beginning or amateur singer, looking for something to help you with specific problems or with more fundamental technique issues, it is most likely just going to seem daunting and overly complicated for your purposes. However, for a professional or pre-professional singer, it's a wonderfully written book that will give some great insights on training and using the different types of soprano voice.

I am a purely recreational singer. I was looking for a text to help me improve my singing. What I found here was an overly technical book more suited to a college classroom. It contains diagrams and pictures of the vocal mechanism and I'm sure it is a useful reference for those studying to teach voice. I would not recommend it for individuals simply looking for tips on reaching their maximum vocal potential. A difficult read!