How Do I recognize which singers have VOCAL FREEDOM?

When a singer has true VOCAL FREEDOM, a number of physiological aspects of his or her singing will be evident to the trained listener. The singer’s vocal mechanism is not overcome with years of phlegm buildup. The singer’s breath, vocal cords and resonators will be operating in effortless synchronicity with one another. The singer will move about the full register of his or her voice without stumbling at the "bridge" (in Italian "passagio"). These are all very technical aspects of singing, but I must tell you with all earnestness that you will not notice these physiological aspects when a singer with true VOCAL FREEDOM performs.

When a singer has true VOCAL FREEDOM he or she won’t give a thought to a single technical or physiological aspect of singing during performance– not even a fraction of a thought. And neither you nor I would notice the technicalities, either.

When a singer has true VOCAL FREEDOM, the first thing that you or I would notice is that the singer has immediately caught the attention of the audience and touched them deep within their hearts. That singer is focused on TELLING THE STORY, and we are hearing that story without anything getting in the way.

VOCAL FREEDOM allows the singer’s true art to come through to the listener. VOCAL FREEDOM is achieved by allowing the subconscious mind to coordinate the singer’s physiology without having any effort of the conscious mind (and especially the self-conscious mind) impede the flow of expression.

KNOWLEDGE Is Power

Singing is not about your VOICE. It is about how you USE your voice. Everyone can learn how to USE his or her voice. This knowledge is simple to acquire, and it is fun to learn. It is KNOWLEDGE that will set your voice free to sing what is in your heart!

KNOWLEDGE gives you relaxation and confidence. It allows you to express yourself fully. KNOWLEDGE allows you to be the human being that you really are, without feeling tempted to imitate another person.

The KNOWLEDGE that the gift of singing is within you that awakens your singing instinct– You will find yourself opening up with a little song as you go about your daily routine, driving down the road, washing the dishes, taking the family dog out for a walk, and so forth.

I find that when I am feeling out of sorts just singing a little song will set me right much better than any pills or medicine would do. So I ask you– Why have you let yourself be deprived of such a wonderful gift??


Come with us and sing the story that lives within your heart.

The Right Kind of Knowledge

Most people mistakenly believe that singing is a daunting technical and complicated task that only highly trained and educated persons can master. Nothing could be further from the truth, and the first thing that I do with new students in my singing school is to break them from that mythology.

For example, a middle-aged man from the town of Clare had always been interested in singing, and he set an appointment for me to give an assessment of his voice at the Bel Canto House School of Singing. When he sat down with me in my studio I asked him what he was expecting for me as a singing teacher to do at the first meeting. He answered matter-of-factly: "Well, I expect you’ve got a magnifying glass of some kind here in your office so that you can have a look down my throat there, and that will let us know whether or not I can sing!"

Of course, I didn’t look down the fellow’s throat at all! I asked him to sing a little bit of what was in his heart and we used that as the foundation of our work together. The human voice is a mystery and you will best be able to USE your voice when you embrace the mysteriousness of it, rather than trying to cut it up into little pieces that can be explained away.

Having a Vocal Breakdown In the Midst of a Successful Career

There are a lot of big name artists and singers in both the classical and popular singing genres who are not capable of sustaining two concerts in a row. This usually happens in the popular field when a well-known act is releasing a new album and a big part of promoting this new album is by going on tour with it. Usually halfway through the second performance the lead singer breaks down.

Vocal breakdowns like this are happening at this moment in time to some of the most famous singers in the popular field. It’s a bit like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. Instead of enjoying success in the very thing they’ve always wanted, these singers are living through a nightmare. Young singers need to pay attention to the fact that this is happening, and set the goal of developing VOCAL FREEDOM before developing any big recording deals.

Singing– Not Surgery!

The best way to learn singing is to follow the traditions of the great singing teachers of history. Arguably the greatest teacher to have an impact on the art of singing was Manuel Garcia II (1805-1906). The important thing about Garcia was not just his knowledge, but how he used his knowledge. His emphasis was always upon artistry and expression, not technicalities.

In my initial assessment meetings with new singing students, I like to show them the following quotation from page 956 of Percy Scholes’ The Oxford Companion to Music, Tenth Edition:

Most of the great singing teachers say that the less you know about the physiology of singing the better. Santley wrote (in The Art of Singing): ‘Manuel Garcia is held up as the pioneer of scientific teachers of singing. He was– but he taught singing, not surgery! I was a pupil of his in 1858, and a friend of his while he lived [to 1906], and in all the conversation I had with him I never heard him say a word about larynx or pharynx, glottis, or other organ used in the production and emission of the voice.”

Singing should never be a burden. It should always be a joy!

The Knowledge of Your Own Worth

One of the most important things I tell all of my students at the Bel Canto House is that I want them to change the price tag they are wearing on their shoulders, and that is what I want you to do as well. Don’t let anyone tell you that you aren’t worth much! Change the price tag on your shoulder from “$1.99" and make sure that everyone can see it reads: “PRICELESS!”

Everyone is unique. I have been teaching the concept of DNA since long before scientists discovered it with microscopes in a laboratory. Always remember that there is only ONE of you on this planet– and that’s a good thing!

Nature (or God, if you prefer) is not cruel. It doesn’t single out people to receive all the good gifts while not giving those gifts to other people. You have great gifts inside of you and all you need to do is unlock them.

There’s a book that I want you to start reading. You won’t find it on any bookshelf or in any bookstore. The book is inside yourself. If you learn to read that book you will be a very rich human being. Therein lies the true key to great singing, and it belongs to YOU!!

Weak Bodies, Strong Voices

Think of the people that you have known throughout your life. Have you ever seen a person who was able to fill a space the size of a large auditorium with the clear and unmistakable sound of his or her voice? A person who could produce his or her voice in that fashion for hours at a time, day after day, without having the voice give out or become damaged in any way?

I'll tell you exactly where to find such a person: Remember the last time you heard a baby crying in the middle of a church ceremony... What a powerful voice!

Were you surprised to find out who it was?

If that doesn’t convince you that true VOCAL FREEDOM is completely natural and absolutely accessible to every human being, even the weakest among us, then I don’t know what will.

There are a great many false teachers in the world of singing who would have you believe that the proper use of the voice and great singing are a matter of physique and physical training, what with “breathing exercises” and “vocal warm-ups” and so forth. Nothing could be further from the truth. While I have discussed the errors of physical singing elsewhere on this website, here and now I would like to introduce you to the wonderful truth that the gift of singing is a gift of the mind and spirit, and not of the body.

Frail Bodies, Strong Singers at Any Age

These days you rarely hear singers who sing with true VOCAL FREEDOM in the commercial arena. Instead you hear singers who blast and push and force their voices for years until they have finally done so much damage to their voices they are forced into retirement, never to return to the stage.

This is not so with singers who studied carefully to achieve VOCAL FREEDOM in the Bel Canto way of singing. When asked to sing publicly years after their retirement from professional life in their frail and elder years they can sing yet with great majesty and expressiveness. Their health may be leaving them, but their ability to sing comes from their depth of spirit, which is as strong as ever!

My associate teacher in the Bel Canto House School of Singing Edwin Williamson had the great honor of visiting Anna-Lisa Bjorling, the widow of Jussi Bjorling, at her home in the year 1994. She showed him the room which Jussi kept aside for his singing, which contained the various regalia, medals, certificates and other mementos that been awarded to him by the presidents and royalty in the countries where he had performed, and she told him of her memories of singing together with Jussi.

Then Edwin asked Mrs. Anna-Lisa Bjorling to sing for him. At first she was reluctant, saying "Oh, it’s been such a long time since I have sung..." But Edwin began to sing Puccini’s "O mio babino, caro" and she instantly joined in with him. Edwin is a witness to the fact that she sang perfectly well even though she had long since retired. This is an experience that Edwin will fondly carry in his memory for the rest of his life.

Another great Bel Canto singer named Tito Schipa made his operatic debut in Vercelli, Italy in 1909 at age twenty. He had an impressive career singing all over the world including the Met in New York City and in several films. He sang professionally for fifty-five years. Even in his seventies he was able to fill the great opera arenas with his tenor voice which was always subtle, light and fully expressive. The last concert he gave was in 1962 in New York. The critics at that concert gave wonderful accounts of his performance. Recordings of that concert are still in publication, and I recommend to you to get a copy and hear it for yourself.

The Croatian-born soprano Zinka Milanov enjoyed a certain degree of fame and success in her younger years, though her voice tended to be somewhat shrill. However, she did not fully come to maturity in her singing voice until she was in her forties. Her later work is a clear example of true VOCAL FREEDOM, and her wonderful interpretations of Verdi and Puccini roles earned her a place in history as one of the best dramatic sopranos of her day.

When she retired from The Met in 1966, Milanov took up teaching on a full-time basis. In an interview with Etude magazine in the early 1940's she said: "I love to sing for my students. I love to demonstrate for them." (She used her own voice when she taught– not the piano.) She also said that she loved to sing for her plants and her flowers. When asked what makes a singer great, she answered: "Those who work hardest at their art."

John McCormack-- The TRUE Redeemer of Bel Canto

Of all the great singers of the Bel Canto genre, Irish Tenor John McCormack was the most versatile. He made his operatic debut at Savona in 1906 and continued to dazzle audiences throughout the world until emphysema rendered him unable to perform in 1943.

The great Polish tenor Jean de Reske had been McCormack’s predecessor as the dominant singer on the international scene. De Reske attended all of McCormack’s appearances at Monte Carlo during 1921 and 1923, and even invited the Irishman to his own villa to sing to his pupils. After McCormack obliged the gathering with a private performance Jean de Reske told his pupils: "That is how I want you to sing." He followed the meeting with a warm letter praising McCormack’s greatness as a singer, saying:


"YOU ARE THE TRUE REDEEMER OF BEL CANTO."


Though McCormack pronounced his words clearly as he told the story of each song, he didn’t imitate any other singer or try to sound like an Italian. Some university teachers might tell you that learning to sing Bel Canto means to "purify" your pronunciation of vowels so that you sound exactly like a certain Italian way of speaking. Those teachers are mistaken.

Jean de Reske had the experience and knowledge to recognize that the very Irish sounding Irishman John McCormack sang with VOCAL FREEDOM and that he made his performances about the storytelling, not tones and sounds. He personalized himself for the audience in a magical way. That’s what made McCormack the "Redeemer of Bel Canto."

Learning Bel Canto in Individual Sessions

One of the greatest joys that I have as a teacher is the time that I spend with my students in their individual singing classes. After over thirty-five years I have never grown weary of working with one person after another, because each person has a wonderful gift inside of himself or herself which will come out in singing.

All kinds of people ring the school for lessons, all ages from 12 to 90. Some of the people are established performers and some of them simply always wanted to learn about singing but were afraid to ask. When I start seeing them getting results in their singing ability and they see it too, then that’s the big payback for me. I am truly blessed to have a mission and work in life that makes me very happy.

Someone once asked me if I ever get tired of hearing the same songs over and over again. I replied without hesitation: "Absolutely not." There is something in a song for EVERY individual that is uniquely and only there for them alone.

The singer is the one who brings something to the song. I can always hear something new in a song that I have heard thousands and thousands of times just because a new person is now singing that song. This is true whether the student is a beginner or whether the student has been singing all of his or her life. It is an inherent part of being human. Your art is within you waiting to come out, even before you discover that it exists

"The Art That Conceals Art":

I love this quotation from an old Dublin Grand Opera Society program:

Ernestine Schumann-Heink (1862-1936) described [McCormack] on many occasions as the greatest singer of his time, and she had heard all the great singers over her career of more than 60 years.

Author and critic Ernest Newman in the London Sunday Times wrote a week after McCormack’s death: "He was a supreme example of the art that conceals art, and sheer hard work that becomes manifest only in its results, not in the revolving of the machinery that has produced them."

(Taken from "John McCormack– a Centenary Tribute" from a program of the Dublin Grand Opera Society, Spring Season 1984, at the Olympia Theatre, Dublin)

“What Bel Canto Means To Me...” (By John McCormack’s heir)

In an e-mail letter to me dated October 15, 2003, Count John McCormack, heir and grandson of Irish Tenor John McCormack writes:

Bel Canto speaks for itself – beautiful singing – and one of its greatest exponents was my grandfather, Count John McCormack.... The secret to Bel Canto, some say, lies in the continuity of tone and the art of sustaining passages to create a beautiful line. John was an expert at delivery, phrasing and had uncanny breathing ability, quite often leaving his audience gasping while he sailed effortlessly on.

The sheer simplicity behind the theory of allowing a voice to develop in its own individual and distinctive way could well be learned and understood by many modern singers who force their way through songs while desperately attempting to sound like their favourite singer. Why do we spend so much of our lives trying to be someone else when what we have is so divinely unique?

It gives me great pleasure to know that the tradition of Bel Canto is continued with success through the Bel Canto House in Dublin. My grandfather’s legacy will remain and the lessons that can still be learned from listening to his mastery will, hopefully, continue to be of benefit to hundreds of future students.

Frank Merriman (1941- a long, time in the future...)

I learned Bel Canto from my teacher Julian Miller in the traditional and conventional way, with an emphasis on clarity of pronunciation, especially the vowels, and endless hours working on classical arias.

I realized through our work together that the singers who made the most enduring impact on the singing world through their artistry were the ones who focused all of their efforts on telling the story of the song. The true essence of the expressive Bel Canto artistry in singers like Jean de Reske, John McCormack, Zinka Millanov and Jussi Bjorling came from storytelling.
Telling the story was what allowed them to use their voices effortlessly in the most beautiful, powerful and natural way. I made sure to tell the story every time I opened my mouth to sing.

I began teaching singing because my co-performers in the opera company in Duesseldorf, Germany started asking me to help them improve their performances. When I eventually realized that over half the entire opera company was coming to my flat for singing lessons I decided that the life of a full-time teacher was the life I was born for. I taught in Germany for a while and then for several years in London.

When I came back to Dublin to teach singing in the year 1983 I expanded my teaching base to include not only classical singers, but also singers from other styles of music such as Irish folk singers, pop singers, showband singers and rock and roll singers. I revolutionized the Bel Canto tradition by taking it out of the opera house and putting it into the hands (and voices) of all Irish singers. Thus a new singing tradition, unique to Ireland, was born: "Bel Canto Storytelling."

In 1987 I purchased a historic Georgian building on North Great Georges Street in Dublin as a permanent home for the Bel Canto House School of Singing. It truly is the home of "beautiful singing" where singers of all styles, whether beginners or experienced performers, have a positive environment to work towards VOCAL FREEDOM.


I have been the singing teacher of hundreds and hundreds of students, including Sinead O’Connor, Heidi Talbot, Leslie Dowdall, Christy Digman and most importantly my associate teacher Edwin Williamson.