Ivenado Posted March 29, 2012 Share Posted March 29, 2012 Franco Tenelli (voice coach at McGill University) has many videos on You Tube regarding the Appogio. Supposedly, the Appogio concern only one range ( the natural voice). He says that only few opera singers could or can sing appogio ( Enrico Caruso & Pavarroti....), and that singers will usually not sing in their natural voice because of their preferences in certain music style. For a beginner, the real range will only spread from half to an octave at the most, and will take a few years to expand in range done by breath support. Accordind to M. Tenelli the signs for the Appogio are feeling free from the troat and quit tight in the support area, almost to physical exaustion vocalising or singing. It is from the Bel canto from the 19 century. Anybody has any ideas on that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ivenado Posted March 30, 2012 Author Share Posted March 30, 2012 Wow! I didn't expect to get answer like that. Thank you very much. Amazing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
srs7593 Posted March 30, 2012 Share Posted March 30, 2012 I thought the process would be more gradual and abstract than "once you've done it you know what it feels like" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ivenado Posted March 30, 2012 Author Share Posted March 30, 2012 From what I have seen in the videos it is. I don't know how to edit a file from You Tube to this post, but you can:rolleyes::rolleyes: check on You Tube: tenelli voice guru Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trip Posted March 30, 2012 Share Posted March 30, 2012 Isn't "appoggio" the thing that many people here just call "support". The descriptions match pretty closely, at any rate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Felipe Carvalho Posted March 30, 2012 Share Posted March 30, 2012 Should be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trip Posted March 30, 2012 Share Posted March 30, 2012 All right then, I ask: Is "correct" appoggio any different from "correct" support? And what's the difference, if there is one? And what does "half voice" mean, exactly? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Felipe Carvalho Posted March 30, 2012 Share Posted March 30, 2012 Appoggio is support in italian. Technically it should be the same. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VideoHere Posted March 30, 2012 Share Posted March 30, 2012 i learned (am still learning) to sing with appoggio. it's basically support but also you lean into the sound with the sterum. appoggio has the added benefit of giving you the ability to experience one register singing. however, as dante said it's a very physical type of singing not suited or desired by every singer. when you can support really well and you achieve relaxation in the throat the vocal folds are unencumbered, and are therefore free and are able to do what they were meant to do...regulate pitch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trip Posted March 30, 2012 Share Posted March 30, 2012 How do you lean into the sound with the sternum? I don't recall such a description of appoggio in the books of Richard Miller, though it might be a useful mental image, I guess. When Miller talks about appoggio, he basically talks about stuff that has been described elsewhere on this forum as "support". That's why I'm trying to figure out if there's a qualitative physiological difference between the two or is appoggio just "really strong support". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quincy Posted March 30, 2012 Share Posted March 30, 2012 I think more accurately it is a specific "type" of support which is very physical and produces the loud and powerful type notes that Dante gave Youtube clip examples. The quality of the sound had different overtones you get only with a lot of cord depth. All good singing has appropriate levels of support, but there are different techniques to create different levels of support needed for different types of sound. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trip Posted March 30, 2012 Share Posted March 30, 2012 Are there? Or is it the same technique, only with different levels of effort? That was my initial question actually, just to clarify :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VideoHere Posted March 30, 2012 Share Posted March 30, 2012 great reply quincy. it all depends where you'd like to go with your voice, what you desire to sound like or go to....to what degree you wish to develop.... if you're inclined towards lighter singing, you may not need to worry about this so much. if you are one of those singers that likes a lot of power and ring or if you like to swell (or de-swell) notes the harder stuff basically, you need to really have a command and control over your voice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ivenado Posted March 30, 2012 Author Share Posted March 30, 2012 Maestro Franco Tenelli was saying that one of the purpose beside having a natural voice from appogio was the projection of the voice because they didn't have mics at that time. He talks about compression in the chest area ( I guess the sternum) follow by a slow dynamic and balance pressure downward with the diaphragm, with a low larynx and a high soft palate to increase the resonnance. From what I comprehend, those concepts were kind kept secrets from the old italian schools, a bit like the shaolin monks from Dengfend China. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quincy Posted March 30, 2012 Share Posted March 30, 2012 Dante I love reading your detailed and insightful descriptions. You really should write a book and I’m not kidding… you’re that good. I’ve used CVTs ideas of “passive†support and “active†support… as it changes throughout a song. I’ve used, what I think is appoggio, in places that seems to make it easier to make and area of a song flow better (lots of built up internal pressure, energy) making it easier to meter the air and freedom thinning and thickening the cords with no real thought. I think I understand what you are talking about with releasing the appoggio energy with low to high dynamics. Like a sense of relief. What I don’t quite understand is using appoggio all the time as your support mechanism. It seems like that would be hard to do for a singer for all his songs. Does it just get easier if you stay in that mode of support… learning to be more efficient? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trip Posted March 31, 2012 Share Posted March 31, 2012 Richard Miller does not talk about appoggio the way that we do. You're correct in that he may call it appoggio, but it's more what most people generally call support. Well, he is a world-renowned authority on operatic singing. Also, he says exactly the same thing as below. The sternum feeling is not one that you intentionally try to go for, it's just a sensation that occurs with correct appoggio. I feel it almost as the sensation of the sternum wanting to resist collapsing, because if the chest collapses and starts slumping, you can no longer keep the appoggio alive. He also speaks about messa di voce, the shoulders going back and down, the dynamic antagonism between inhalatory and exhalatory muscles so that they form a sort of cylinder of muscle stability all around the body from the lower back/abs to the sternum. Basically that's the way I've come to think about support. I literally cannot imagine how else it could be achieved, so that's why I'm wondering what you mean by non-appoggio support. I've found out by the way that staying on the balls of your feet helps with the muscle awareness and proper body allignment needed for good support. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronws Posted March 31, 2012 Share Posted March 31, 2012 Once you learn to sing with appoggio, it becomes very hard to try to support other ways, because everything else just feels wrong and it ends up throwing off your abilities that you gained. With appoggio, it literally feels like one voice that operates along a continuum. There is no need to explicitly think, "Oh I'm going to mix this note, be in head on this note, go into chest here, twang this, cry that, etc." That becomes irrelevant when singing with appoggio. It just becomes a matter of giving less pressure or giving more pressure. That's all. ~~Dante~~ That describes my mantra perfectly. Motion in the abs, note in the resonators, nothing in the throat, ever. It is the secret to how I did "I Believe in a Thing Called Love." Well done, Dante. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trip Posted March 31, 2012 Share Posted March 31, 2012 What I do not see him writing about is the specific way it applies in the context of appoggio as I'm talking about, hence why I say he might only understand it on a theoretical level. For instance, when Franco Tenelli talks about appoggio, I see someone that clearly gets it from an experiential level. I would guess that's because Miller has written books whose aim is comprehensive - coming at vocalism from as many different sides as possible. Otherwise, in his essays baritone Joseph Shore, a close friend and even a teacher of Jerome Hines, writes of his talks with Miller. Shore says he got the clear impression that Miller knew exactly what appoggio is. That's why I've always had the impression that all the elements Miller describes, when mastered, lead to appoggio. Something else though. I get from your posts that you speak overwhelmingly from the perspective of an opera singer/teacher of opera singing. You talk about how appoggio more or less creates and also regulates and even demands a certain sort of sound. Does this mean that you cannot have "true" appoggio in styles different from opera? About the balls of the feet: Exactly the feeling, yeah :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quincy Posted March 31, 2012 Share Posted March 31, 2012 Quincy, I actually AM working on a book. :-) I'm just trying to make sure it has unique information in it that has not been stated 1,000 times already. I also want the book to delve into areas that are not well understood, such as appoggio and the actual biomechanics of it and how it relates to the body as a whole. (i.e. If you habitually are in a kyphotic posture, you likely also have anterior pelvic tilt too. Both of those things cause the core to turn off and make supporting way harder than what it has to be. Soft tissue work and strengthening the core would be in order. It's stuff like this I want to go into in the book, especially since so many singers I come across now have some degree of kyphosis.) You might be using some degree of appoggio, although I can't say without hearing you sing. If it feels like you are ALWAYS singing off of pressurized air from the abdominal cavity, then you're likely singing with appoggio. I must emphasize once again that the sound is intimately linked with appoggio. That is awesome Dante! I will definitely be one to buy your book. You have a gifted way of describing sensations. Here is a clip of me doing a G4 messa di voce. I'm standing about a foot and a half from the mic and there is no effects or compression. Probably not my best attempt at keeping the air compressed, but it felt decent some of the time. Not sure how much depth my cords are achieving either. http://www.box.com/s/d80f242d5a3e7defd25b Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronws Posted March 31, 2012 Share Posted March 31, 2012 Something else though. I get from your posts that you speak overwhelmingly from the perspective of an opera singer/teacher of opera singing. You talk about how appoggio more or less creates and also regulates and even demands a certain sort of sound. Does this mean that you cannot have "true" appoggio in styles different from opera? If I may be bold enough to step in and reply from a redneck perspective and hope that Dante agrees with me and I think it is something he aims for in his practice as a vocal coach, yes, you can use appoggio as modus operandi in music other than opera. Classical technique can teach you how to sing with power and clarity and it doesn't necessarily make you sound like an opera singer. Because it is a basic tool for singing, before you get into the sound ideals of one genre or another. Being an opera singer is a world unto itself. And there are more things to it than just appoggio. As for pop and rock singers who don't use appoggio, of course they exists. And can they sing the same notes 20 years from now. Here's a surprise. A rock singer that I think uses appoggio because I can hear past the amplification system; Steven Tyler. It's why he can still do the Ab5 in "Dream On" 30 something years after he wrote it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VideoHere Posted April 1, 2012 Share Posted April 1, 2012 great stuff dante, thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ivenado Posted April 1, 2012 Author Share Posted April 1, 2012 But I beleive that they've all started on the range of their voices Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Felipe Carvalho Posted April 1, 2012 Share Posted April 1, 2012 Actually, it's about the only way I know of to have a light, connected sound that you can still crescendo from into full voice. Appoggio is necessary to carry out the messa di voce exercise; without it, that exercise is impossible. The strength it takes to sing lightly with appoggio far greatly exceeds what is required for singing out with appoggio, which is why you work on the softer dynamics last. If you're doing a crescendo, starting out at a mezzo piano dynamic and going to fortissimo, it feels like a GREAT relief to be able to sing fortissimo when compared to mezzo piano. At those lighter dynamics, you really have to hold back a TON of pressure. It feels like so much potential energy has built up within the body, and it is waiting to release. The louder dynamics represent a release of all that built up energy. Yes. And for real, there is no way around it. It is physically impossible to do so without it. Without building the pressure inside, you would have to create it while releasing it, AKA pushing out air. What you describe is what I know as support, The appoggio = support thing is because I see no reason for using the english translation to describe what in reality are over-simplified versions of the classical school technique. Great info Dante. This particular paragraph of yours is enough to show how complex the subject is. And I completely agree that trying to teach this through text is nearly impossible. Too many variables to cover... plus the learning process is all about trainning and polishing, not theoretical concepts. It would be like trying to teach someone martial arts using text... Also thanks for that Kraus video, wonderfull . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronws Posted April 1, 2012 Share Posted April 1, 2012 That was excellent, Dante, for just a scratch track. I like to hear good singing and not just recording tricks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
voicewisdom Posted April 1, 2012 Share Posted April 1, 2012 Some very useful explanations given by CunoDante. Thanks! I agree that appoggio and balancing resonance in the vocal tract cannot (and should not) be separate. If anyone's interested in some core ideas about the 'antagonistic' balance that stabilises / braces the diaphragm against the pelvic and abdominal muscular activity, take a look at a series of 7 short videos at If that link doesn't work, look at http://www.youtube.com/voicewisdom and work through the 7 breathing videos. These are the prelude to a sequence on dealing with Connection (moving from breath into vocal sound), and then a sequence on developing resonance work. Alexander http://www.OxfordSingingLessons.co.uk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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