1. Manuel Garcia was most successful with sopranos and mezzo-sopranos (Stark).

Six
of his students include: Mathilde Marchesi, Julius Stockhausen, Henrietta Nissen,
Johanna Wagner (Richard Wagner’s niece), Catherine Hayes, and Jenny Lind. Mathilde
Marchesi opened her own school and taught only females. She was the teacher to
many famous singers such as: Emma Calvé, Emma Eames, Nellie Melba, and her
daughter Blanche Marchesi. Julius Stockhausen founded a school in Frankfurt in 1880,
where he published a treatise based on Garcia’s teachings.

2. Stark states that Garcia’s most “radical” theory is that of ​coup ​de la glotte (‘stroke of
the glottis.’). ​Coup​ de la glotte is a technique of starting a tone. This includes both the
preparatory action of the vocal muscles before phonation, and the actual start of
phonation. In his treatise, he describes it as, the “arytenoids are firmly closed, the
pharyngeal tissues are firm, and there is a slight buildup of subglottal pressure” (Stark).
He compares the glottal opening to the lip shape for the plosive consonants, [p] and [k].
The point is that the attack must be a delicate, precise action.
Mathilde Marchesi was one of the biggest advocates for ​coup de la glotte (also
one of Garcia’s students and had her own school). She is quoted to saying in regards to
Garcia and his technique: ‘his ideas on the female voice and its development were a
revelation to me,and they were the foundation of my own future career ... no Italian
master could ever in anyway approach Garcia in his method of teaching’ (Stark).
Another one of Garcia’s students, Julius Stockhausen, agreed with the
technique. She, too, described ​ ​coup de la glotte as a the glottis being closed, then a
moderate explosion of air, similar to that of the lip shape for [p].
Marchesi and Stockhausen expanded upon this idea by asserting that not only
does this technique determine the quality of the onset, but the sound after the onset, as
well.

3. Johan Sundberg discusses three types of phonation: ‘breathy,’ ‘flow,’ and ‘pressed.’
“Pressed” has high subglottal pressure, with strong adductive force. In comparison to
“flow”, which has lower subglottic pressure and a lower adductive force. And while
“pressed” voice has ‘tight adduction’, “breathy” has ‘loose adduction’. Optimal voice is
close to the center, but not on the breathy side.

4. According to Miller, studio teachers should “combine mechanistic information with

psychological and aesthetic understanding” (Miller). Meaning, teachers need to not just
focus on scientific evidence of good vocal technique; and not only rely on imagery or
other abstract means of achieving vocal goals. Miller states the two main duties of a
voice teacher are to analyze vocal problems and create solutions for them.

5. Miller states that singers need to be willing to participate in investigations of the

singing voice. This can help expand the knowledge of information and allow more
research reports to be published. Teachers of singing also need to be involved, in order
for the research to be valid and have practical value. Three examples given in the text
are: using instruments such as the electroglottograph, being able to demonstrate
beautiful, free sound, and have basic knowledge of physical function of vocal acoustics.

6. The timbre of the voice is determined by three things: how the source delivers air,
what happens in the larynx, and how the sound is modified as it passes through the
larynx through the resonators. Miller states that the accepted phonetic theory of speech
recognition is based on the assumption that phonation is to do with muscular,
aerodynamic events, subglottic pressure, airflow, and vocal-fold approximation. The
sound started in the larynx is moved through the resonators and a distinct sound is
produced.

7. According to Miller, the “domineering member of the vocal tract” is the tongue. He
has a list of six “inexact tongue positions” for singing. Firstly, placing the tongue too low
at the roots of the lower front teeth will create a hump in the body of the tongue going
upward. This causes a loss of upper partials, which creates a perceived “dull” sound.
Next, pulling the tip of the tongue upwards and backwards creates vowel distortion and
loss of timbre quality. Thirdly, retracting the tongue into the mouth forces the larynx to
have an excessively low position. Fourth on his list, he states elevating the tongue by
pressing it up against the molars causes more brilliance associated with the [i] vowel,
but in trade off, creates a high laryngeal position, which shortens the vocal tract and
removes depth from the sound. Next, an excessively grooved tongue for all vowels
places too much pressure on the base of the tongue, which causes the larynx to drop
and creates tension in the pharyngeal wall. Lastly, when one side of the tongue is held
higher than the other, the tension is transferred to the larynx by ways of the muscles
attached to hyoid bone.