Legato-III/VI: Bad Binding and Physical Misdiagnosis.

In this part, we turn to the “binding” of legato. We ask whether legato can, in fact, be built on the foundation of notation: can “notes” be “bound” to give us a true legato? Then we take a brief diversion to look at what happens when problems caused by faulty imagery are treated as physical, technical problems.

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Bad Binding: horizontal.

Notes mean binding mean trouble.

A singer who understands, sees, wittingly or not, their singing in terms of notation, then has to see their legato also in those notational terms: they need a legato that deals with notation’s inherent separations.

Notes appear separated horizontally, along the lines of the stave, but legato singing must have no separations. And so, legato, therefore, must mean “binding” those notes together.

For a notational singer, the imagery of legato is notes, bound together. There is no way round this: if you believe in notes, you believe in binding, if you want to find your imagery of legato.

So how is binding done, in practice, in the real world?

One of three choices is often made: holding, filling or squashing.

Each choice represents different imagery, and produces recognisable, problematic, audible outcomes. If the teacher or singer can recognise these poor outcomes, and understand their notational cause, they can perhaps more swiftly remedy them.

When holding, the singer imagines their job is, somewhat rigidly, to hold the pitch for the allocated duration, tense in vocal tract, and then butt that note into the next. This new note is begun abruptly, held for its duration, until it butts into the next note, and so on. This sounds held, tense, inexpressive, rigid. Communication is odd, robotic.

Or, the “gap” between the notes is filled, as if with putty, with some sort of crescendoing swell or wobble/vibrato, done late in the “note’s” duration. This wobbly crescendo indicates the filling in of the imagined gap that would otherwise exist.

Or, the imagined hard edges of the note can be softened, squashed. The singer creeps the start, squelches the middle, softens the end- smearing notes together: this is legato as butter on toast.

These are common, audible, real ways singers try to solve the image problem of the apparent horizontal separations between notes.

Yet, there’s more, since the singer who believes in notes needs also to bind them vertically.

Bad binding: vertical.

Notes are separated vertically on the stave to indicate pitch. A notational singer will believe that these vertical pitch separations, as well as the horizontal, also need binding together, to form their legato line.

So, what is often done, in order to bind notes vertically, is to slide, portamento, across the imagined separation. Sometimes this is actually taught as a way to achieve legato. This is not a successful approach, and does not sound good. The only reason to suggest such an approach to legato is because of a strong belief in notes, guiding both analysis and solutions: surely only this belief could provoke such an unwieldy, unaesthetic response.

Good singing is not about sliding, and slides are not part of the mental imagery of good singing. To be preoccupied with sliding is to be distracted from any true purpose of singing, and from the mental imagery that might inspire it. We certainly don’t want slides to become “muscle memory”. Whether we hear them or not, we don’t want slides in the imagery of the singer.

The imagery of sliding is an ineffective, unnecessary, approach to legato, with foundations in the problematic grounding of notation.

From notes to legato: impossible?

We don’t want portamenti, fast or slow, real or imagined. We don’t want holding, filling, squashing. We don’t want notes. We don’t want their binding. We don’t want their meaningless, speared, held essence. We don’t want any of this for good legato, good singing.

It is hard to see a route from the imagery of notation to a good legato. Notation imports so many problems to the mind of the singer, that need so many ad hoc solutions, it doesn’t seem to offer a basis upon which to build a successful imagery of legato

But before we move on, we should note (sorry) two things.

First, this is not a theoretical, abstract, discussion. Real singers believe in notes, sing notes, and try to build a legato from notes, using the approaches above. Their singing is then compromised, in recognisable ways, because of notes, because of binding notes, because of the mental imagery of notation. This is important, because we can look for this, we can understand what we are hearing, and then we can help singers more effectively.

Secondly, the acoustic problems, smearing, holding, wobbling, that arise from mistakenly try to bind notes together, are often misdiagnosed. They are treated as physical, technical problems, and this misdiagnosis misses the real problem, and adds a new one.

Physical Misdiagnosis: the case for imagery.

Singers do weird things to sing notes, and then again to bind them together. Yet, these weird things are often diagnosed as physical problems. The tense extension of a note might be called “tongue root tension”. The cementing crescendos or wobbles might be called uneven airflow, collapse of the palate, or failure of support.

To insist that problems, and solutions, are physical, rather than intentional, imagery-based, can add problem to problem. Instead of realising they have poor imagery, and changing it, a singer thinks they don’t know how to sing, don’t know what to do with their body. They leave inappropriate mental imagery intact and embark on convoluted technical reworking.

Physical solutions can work. Being asked to do the right kind of physical thing, can show the singer what singing actually is, and they change their mind, their intention, accordingly. Reverse-engineering better mental imagery sometimes works well.

However, often it does not, and physical solutions fail. Singers labour under the false belief that, if only they could learn a complex and subtle set of physical manoeuvres, they would be able to sing well. They blame lack of progress on lack of technical, physical skill.

But, the problem lies, unnoticed, in the mind, They are trying to do the wrong thing, and their body is trying to help them do it. They cannot master “technique” because they are trying to do one thing with their body, while their (unacknowledged) intention tries to do another. They are trying to wrestle the embodiment of good imagery, impossibly, onto the intention of poor imagery.

These hopeless attempts to reconcile opposites make a singer think they cannot do it, cannot sing well, cannot master technical intricacies. Singers give up, because their minds have not been opened, and then changed.

It is essential, therefore, always openly discuss what a singer thinks they are trying to do. We need to understand the mental imagery that forms their intention when they sing. We need to build good mental imagery that creates a fine legato line.

Since notation doesn’t offer a good basis for this, and since we’re talking about it, can physical techniques offer a foundation for the imagery of legato? We’ll look there next.