Legato-V/VI: The Imagery, Physicality, and Limits, of Line

We now look at the use of images of line in the hunt for legato. Such images, richly storied and historied, have some power in changing a singer’s approach from notation towards legato. But they are also, perhaps, both incomplete and problematic. We consider what they lack, and what they might mistakenly inspire, before turning, in the next part, to what successful imagery of legato might be built on.

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Images of Continuous Sound.

“Spin a line of sound”, “Sing with direction”, “Keep the phrase moving forward”, “Find a flow of sound”.

These instructions, and many variations, have a long history in vocal pedagogy: all are promoting an imagery of continuous sound.

We can see that, for a singer on a journey away from the problematic imagery of notation, images of continuity, line, direction, provide powerful alternatives. They ask for a sense of the continuous. This continuity, if it feeds from imagery, through intention, to action, can overrule the imagery and intentions of notation.

For mental imagery to succeed in improving performance, new must overrule old. The imagery of flow must completely replace the imagery of notation. The intention to sing with flowing sound won’t combine with the intention to sing notes: if we try, we’ll keep the problems of bad binding, we’ll still sing flawed notes.

Continuous sound is an utterly different way of conceptualising singing, one that the singer must allow to dominate their view. The conception of continuity is incompatible with the conceptions of notation.This re-conception means that learning to sing legato, is considerable mental effort. This is not vague, imaginative, mistily-metaphoric teaching, but a rigorous mental re-imaging: this is technical.

Perhaps this conceptual difficulty, whereby apparently one thing (notation) is in fact another (flow) is too much of a stretch. Perhaps this is why much recent vocal pedagogic literature prefers to stick with physical, even neural, instruction, with its more authoritative, apparently precise, language. Imagery seems to offer uncertain reality, but very real difficulty.

But, forming a successful imagery of legato can transform a singer’s prospects. Along the way, it can also transform a singer’s physicality without the need, necessarily, for direct physical, mechanical instruction. This might calm the nerves of those anxious still about the place of imagery in physical performance. But how: how can the demands, the imagery, of line, change physical performance?

The Physicality of Line.

The imagery of line demands a continuous, even flow of chiaroscuro sound: this is the precise outcome required. The sound must not have swells, diminutions, cracks, wobbles, or tightenings. Line demands fluid, consistent, unspoilt chiaroscuro. This demand, this sound, places physical demands on the singer, which they must meet, but which they might now meet indirectly, in service to an intention, rather than through attempted direct physical manipulations.

This continuous, chiaroscuro, sound is primarily the product of a stable, resonant vocal tract. By pre-hearing, ideating, a balanced, chiaroscuro sound, the vocal tract must be sculpted, indirectly, to provide that sound.

Then, by insisting on the continual flow of that sound, we are stabilising the vocal tract for each full phrase length: the sense of forward flow provides a lengthening tonus that provides stability without tension. If the vocal tract wobbles, closes, tightens, chiaroscuro flow is lost: the imagery of line, unlike notation, demands a stable pharyngeal space.

Further, the requirement for a stable vocal tract places demands on the neck, on the shoulders, on the sternum, on the spine, on the abdominal musculature: all must assist in providing the required stability. If the shoulders close: instability. If sternum collapses: instability. If the spine shortens: instability. So, by requiring a stable vocal tract, the imagery of continuous, chiaroscuro sound requires postural stability. This indirect requirement, again, can avoid the tensions of direct bodily manipulation.

But there is more, for, the imagery of continual chiaroscuro line, having inspired a resonant pharyngeal space, can inspires the maintenance of that space during all the challenges of the sung phrase. Asking for a line of sound can ensure that, amongst other things:

• Consonants are implicitly re-articulated “in front of” stable space/sound.

• Vowels re-form with a consistent timbre across them all.

• Notes disappear, from imagery and pharynx.

• Vertical leaps are smoothed to horizontality within a stable pharyngeal kinaesthetic.

The imagery of flowing sound thus can profoundly reorganise physical activity; indirectly, but effectively.

Again, for this to work, the imagery of line, and its embodiment, must overwhelm, overrule alternatives. The imagery of flow cannot co-exist with the imagery of notation: two masters cannot be served. Flow must overrule, not complement, notation. This is not “notes plus flow”. Again, the level of mental discipline required to achieve this is considerable, and can be skirted in pedagogic discussion. Even if it seems theoretically impossible for notes to become flow, it is practically transformative, and readily achievable. Notes can disappear, never to be sung again, and flow can be seen and sung, as clear as day.

The imagery of line can effect real change, both acoustic and physical. Changing minds to the imagery of line can help us dodge the worst implications of notation. But, is the imagery of line enough? Is it legato? Is it good singing?

The Dimensionality and Meaning of Line.

Line, as we’ve seen, is a powerful replacement for the imagery of notation. It offers a radically different understanding, conceptualisation, of vocalism, recasting it as un-noted, flowing sound, rather than note-bound notes bound. This imagery changes singers’ imagery, intentions, physicality and sound. Training the mental imagery of line successfully can transform a singer. However, the specific imagery of line has limitations.

Firstly, the core sound of Western classical vocal music is a balanced, chiaroscuro timbre, possessing both ring and depth. This balanced chiaroscuro offers a complex, yet focussed, sound, capable of both rich expression and resonant carrying power. The majority of Western repertoire requires this balanced timbral complexity. We might imagine this sound as full, rich, and multi-dimensional.

However, singers often interpret line as a thin, fragile, thread. This imagery then inspires shallow, over-bright, thin singing.  Singers “place” their sound too high, losing pharyngeal depth, tensing soft palate. Sound loses depth and complexity. Also, the fragility implicit in a thread, lacking robust elasticity and tonus, inspires the same in physical preparation: breath is shallow, tonus absent, singing disconnected.

(We should note: line can be successful imagery for the singer who is already good in most aspects of their singing, except a tendency, say, to darken their sound, sing too heavily: in that case, following a line, a thread, of silvered sound, can guide them back to overtones and balance: line does have much to offer.)

We need to be sure, then, that the imagery of line we communicate, insist on, is multi-dimensional, rich, promoting chiaroscuro balance and fullness. We’d need it to possess elasticity, robustness, promoting full-bodied, fully-engaged singing. The precise image a singer has of line materially affects their performance.

Secondly, we can ask: where is meaning in line? Where language? The imagery of line contains no communication. There is only sound. (Sometimes, weirdly, not even that: it can be just a one-dimensional line of nothing, divorced from sound, divorced from everything.) As a result, singers singing line can sound monotonous, odd, even slurred drunk. Communication, surely key, seems absent or un-meant. The shadings of words, of clauses, of sentences, are false or flattened. Line lacks language.

In this, line is a powerful tool for change, but one that stops short of an ideal legato. It offers a coherent view that can change singing, but is audibly, and imaginatively, incomplete. Line moves us away from notational singing, but not all the way to where we need to be. We need a good line, but we need it to serve meaningful purpose. Can we, perhaps, add language to the imagery of line?

Adding Language to Line?

There are two common imageries which attempt a “line plus language” model: telegraph wires and posts, or washing lines and pegs. How might these impact singing?

In both these images, we have our line of sound,  the wire or washing-line, and we have potential disruptors to that line, the posts or pegs. The idea is to show how the line of sound is both everlasting, unbroken by syllables or consonants, and also nothing like notes. The wires/lines go to, and through, the posts/pegs. This suggests to the singer that their sound, their vowels, should go right to, and through, consonants. The wires also couldn’t be less “notey”.

We’ve got some decent imagery here, better than notation certainly. The unbroken lines suggest the dominant intent of flowing sound, re-coordinating all in its path. The relationship of wire to post, line to peg, illustrates the continuity of vowel, line, through consonants. It shows consonants are quick, line long, passing through them unbroken. So, might we have an imagery for singing vowels and consonants (language!), that preserves the benefits of the imagery of line?

Before picking holes, we can say this is sort of fine. It is nothing like the problematic imagery of notation: it gives an image of line, and adds an understanding of how that line is endless vowel, punctuated, but not interrupted, by brief, crisp consonants. We’ve avoided notes, got line, and added at least some elements of language.

But, is this good imagery, for good legato?

Pinch, droop, and monotone.

Whilst poles, pegs, lines and wires beat notation, offer line, and show how that line interacts with consonants, they pose their own problems: problems with sound, phrasing and meaning. One must not underestimate the ability of singers to take the least-meant implications of instructions or images to heart, and then enact them fully in their singing: we must leave nothing to chance.

Firstly, those lines and wires are still thin. Good, chiaroscuro, singing doesn’t feel or sound thin. The imagery of thin wires needs filling, fleshing, out, with additional instruction or imagery: it does not offer a complete picture in itself.

The wire also droops between poles. This is not the shape of good singing. We’re looking to replace the dropping dots, sagging descents and disconnecting diminuendos of notation, but not with valleying vowels. This drooping, (endlessly repeated, in the case of the telegraph wire), also does nothing to suggest the shapings of language, the multiple, overlapping hierarchies, of meaningful sentences. It just valleys away endlessly.

And do we want consonants as pinching-pegs? No, we want exactly the opposite: our flow of sound is neither stopped nor reduced by consonants, but continues, in reality and imagination, to exist behind, through, them. If, though, a singer imagines consonants as grips on a wire, they double down on the closing and tightening that consonants already frequently, mistakenly, inspire. If consonants are pegs on a line, additional image-building is needed to avoid them pinching the line.

Thin sound, drooping sound, pinched consonants, endless length, purposeless, endless motion: these wires might carry washing or messages, but they cannot carry singing. Whilst, perhaps, the imagery of line provides a useful jump from the separations of notation, and pegs hint how consonants relate to that line, this is problematic and incomplete imagery. Would you really want a singer to build their singing on it?

We need something better: what might it be?