Tag: howtosing

Sialea – one of my professional clients

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Here what she says about me https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1BKBFiRHfr/?mibextid=wwXIfr

One of my professional clients.
I work for her voice sustainability/health for the singer’s career demands, the training, conditioning and some of my technical tips she can grant some advantages from.
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When training means health means resilience means repertoire effectiveness.

…and the sky is just the starting point
. #cossumethod #isometric #singingteacher #voiceteachers #singingteachers #vocaltechnique #vocalcoaching

COPERTURA/ Covering of the sounds

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COPERTURA/ COVERING
It is s fundamental action and concept, especially for male voices and tenors.
It has become in one way of it – in the last decades- a sort of one size fit all with very little nuancing so to show its limits.
It is the version of the hyperhyped tenor and vocal coach Luciano Pavarotti and Seth Riggs. They are well deserved hyperhiped, but it had taken away perspective and freshness in separating the stylistic or convenience of the choice from the necessary physiology for it.
Stylistic does not contain all the individual possibilities.
Convenient does not contain optimal.
If you want your style or you go for your optimal then copertura can be acquired and obtained by many more actions – just some in common with Pavarotti/Riggs way.

Three aspects of it to start nuancing the question

A development path with a young classical voice.

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00:00 My considerations on voice and development. Our path in those 10 months of lessons; listen her singing: 13:57 six months lessons and working on her first Wagner 14:58 eight months lessons Villanelle Berlioz, 16:19 ten months lessons third lecture of Tu che di gel sei cinta Puccini Turandot; pieces of lessons: 39:22 17 February 2024 working on Villanelle Les nuitts d’été Berlioz, 50:15 Oh quanta volte Giulietta Capuleti e Montecchi Bellini, 51:01 02 March 2024 tongue work 54:50 vocalisation 01:03:06 28 April 2024 Vocalisation, 01:13:40 Wishing you were somehow here again Phantom of the Opera, 01:19:27 So in love Kiss me Kate, 01:22:07 10 May 2024 second lecture of Tu she di gel sei cinta Turandot, 01:24:11 Briefing anatomical 01:30:00 vocalisation 01:51:52 Panofka Op. 85, 02:09:04 working on Tu she di gel sei cinta Turandot, Working on Summertime Porgy & Bess 02:19:50

Well, she was a pretty different voice: it has taken the usual nine months to really start hearing what it looks like her voice is. It is the timing of the first smooth tissues adaptations, now without rushing have to maintain the excellent practice to maintain the complete development that in literature is commonly said in the 2-3 years and in my practice I find the same.

  • Now while she is in more satisfying repertoire we are working on all the management on all the tessitura, the higher notes will just grow physiological, have now to control not to push them even if for a competition… longer horizons are more important.
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    cossumethod is the cross bridging of advanced functional biomechanics finding into the context of voice and their specific relevance to serve voice production and artistic voice, both spontaneous and technical.

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Lucia Cossu voiceteacher
Italian/French voice teacher for professionals and future pro singers, innovator in vocal technique specialised in training and personalised solutions, voice development and voice preparation for touring/recording, young voices development without forcing the delicate and respectful balance of young talents. She has solved strain/issues and limitations of singers unsolvable by training or medical therapies. Those skills have 15 years of successful career and voice transformations in all styles; hospitals have sent her some desperate cases, all successfully.

Her innovative perspective has been recently presented at the prestigious Pan-European Voice Conference PEVoC14 2022 in one paper and two workshops and three Posters at The Voice Foundation 52nd Annual Symposium May 31- June 4 2023 in Philadelphia, she will be again at both in 2024 with two oral presentations, two workshops and two more Posters. She calls this perspective the (R)Evolution of voice model, or if you prefer cossumethod in the actual practice.

She comes from an international soloist career in classical music that a malpractice during an abdominal surgery has interrupted (the surgeon has been convicted).

Courses and workshops are available online from everywhere and in person can be arranged.
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operavoices #voicedevelopment #sopranovoice #coursesforoperavoices #voiceteacher #voiceteachers #singingteacher #cossumethod #voiceseries #vocaltips #voiceandjoints

Practical: emergency session as in Lilli Lehmann preaching to help recovery from a cold.

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This is something we can do, often helps tremendously and as singers we have to learn the correct how under a good guide, or at least having someone as me guiding when really the situation is an emergency. She had to perform and did not wanted to strain her voice. So we made two short online sessions just to see if I could help, and often as well said by the great singer and pedagogue Lilli Lehmann we can solve situations we were not sure could be solved by attentive vocalisations. In here I guide her to find the way of bringing some blood back into the tissues and the fascial correct dose of movement to help the tissues to heal dosing well the quantity of effort so not to strain at all but just help the healing. And she could perform pretty well, with no strain and the voice got back plenty and healed in a week for our lesson and no strain from the performances. This is something we do not wait a cold to do, but as we as the putting the instrument in good shape from the morning; it is part of the taking care and maintenance of our instrument. #vocaltechnique #vocalisations #operavoice #operasingers #operatraining #sopranotraining #singingteacher #belcanto #italianbelcanto #belcantolessons #olditalianbelcanto #voiceteacher #voiceteachers #singingteachers #belcantoteacher #operasingerteacher #classicalsingers #oldschoolsinging #oldschoolsingingtechnique

Why to Avatar protect the privacy? Here you have my insight in the topic, from my specific professional perspective.

And the vibe at the end ❤️🥰❤️

A useful tool for singers, and purely enjoyable also ☺️😊

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Realising what singers do when not in rehearsals with them can be confused by instruments playing with them. A profile of no instrument versions of great singers and great singers. Of course it is not perfect, life never is 🤷🏻‍♀️☺️ sorry, but absolutely useful for hearing and discovering phrasé and pronounces and sound production. Thanks for this practice/studio tool VoceuxVoceux

https://instagram.com/voceux.voceux?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

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If you could have something named after you, what would it be?

A Voice practicing room, to remember and cherish this pioneering of voice practice and model integrating precise joints biomechanics that is mine and cossumethod

My presentation (and workshops) at Pan-European Voice Conference PEVoC14 25th August 2022

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Here the presentation (the two workshops will not be published) at Pan-European Voice Conference PEVoC14 on the central topic of how body’s joints far from vocal tract are directly implied into voice production and development. Does posture relate to voice? Yes but the how is the conundrum and I am opening since some years a path toward a rationale unifying all the practices with what science and research says about the subject and how to implement it in vocal practices for vocal health, voice development and training, career and artistic research and achievements, for amateurs. For confidentiality reasons the two one hour long workshops will not be published but I will publish some practices and exercises. At the end in the video you find my notes, this is just a path toward a model of voice including the interrelations of overall body (big box) on vocal system (small box into the big box). It does not pretend to be complete or correct in all its sides, just a useful work model that has helped in more than ten years my practice and students and general population and voice teachers and singers and that has a solid scientific background and confirmation. Enjoy.

JOINTS AND VOICE: DOES VOICE PRODUCTION REACTS TO JOINTS DYSFUNCTIONALITY FAR FROM VOCAL TRACT? SOME CASES AND AN HYPOTHESIS
Copyright all rights reserved Lucia Cossu
Vocal system is into the body and into specific segments of the body, it uses muscles and structures having multiple functions, you know better than me probably on those, today we focus on the respiratory and vocal and postural functions with a joint to joint approach, and the questions are HOW THEY correlate in PRECISE terms? In here I would open a path, I hope, to more sophisticated thoughts and directions of researching and getting specific in WHAT HOW WHY WHEN of those correlations, and IF as an effect on the vocal system or a direct contribution SO to be the vocal system thought in a less narrow way (I know it is more precise the more restricted a system is, but if we get specific we can expand). I think of it as a big box and a smaller box, being the smaller the vocal one, the smaller is into the bigger, they are independent in some ways, share some parts and even something more tricky as the cervical segment, as we will see what this can mean in the joint by joint approach.
(I anticipate that I look at posture and overall all body as the environment in which the vocal system can operate and develop, we know it happens also the other way around, but I remain focused on this direction in here).

From static alignment and managing the breath air to compensate for a not naturally gifted voice to a dynamic alignment and an hypothesis on how asymmetries, defensive stiffnesses and joints dysfunctionality or underdevelopement can be directly worked and change directly voice production. Many methods exist to help body connection, relaxation of defensive veto, help alignement. They are useful and sometimes fundamental, what lacks is a systematic and rationale on the precise mechanism related to voice production, and if there is one. This is a presentation with some examples of work on Sacroiliac joint and transversus abdominis, examples that present a discontinuity in voice production, some with medical control of it and a couple with the level of performance achieved. I make an hypothesis of this specific relation using the joint by joint approach of M. Boyle and G. Cook, the functional findings on SI joint of G. Cook and B. Contreras, some insights from C. Weingroff and the fascia system as a suggestion of a worth field to research. I use their work because in physical therapies and athletes training the literature and research is vast and rich; the body is one and the biological rules and muscles kinetics do not change, then the joint by joint approach can give insight on how joints are reciprocally related. The defensive system will be presented as a blocking and braking system, sometimes a veto system and sometimes a decelarating and expressive system, and it is presented with an hypothesis of its muscular structure and gestures with strategies to manage it with positions and exercises. C. Weingroff says citing Dostal, Soderberg and Andrews ‘the hip musculature changes dramatically through various range of motion and some muscles can reverse their function depending on the positioning’, so no surprise that if a muscle reverse role in the SI tract the expiratories will be affected and they will affect the diaphagm etc.
Here some links for a general view of the examples, in the presentation clips not publicly disclosed of the exercises will be presented.
https://youtube.be/CLcL_buf9tc
https://atomic-temporary-42869468.wpcomstaging.com/2016/09/13/cos…
https:/youtu.be/OUH9sXqKjRw

Lucia Cossu Voice teacher online/in person
Rue Charles Morren 9 – 4000 Liège BELGIUM
TVA: BE0723776188
Mail: cossuvoiceteacher@gmail.com

Ask me series

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On Thursday in my Instagram @lucia_cossu_voiceteacher ask me a question in English, French and Italian. Follow me if you want to ask or just come by to read, you were many more I thought. See you next Thursday.

voicelessons #voiceteacher #vocalcoachingonline #askmeaquestion #voiceteachersofinstagram #funthursday #luciacossu #vocaltechnique #vocaltips

What to expect from voice lessons: a list.

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WHAT TO EXPECT FROM VOICE LESSONS
I made a little list, since some frustration or effort or good satisfaction is the way of moving between some points.
I did not made 5 points for not professionals and 5 for professionals since the points go in the order I made the list. What happens in my practice is that some amateur want to just use lessons to be happy into point 10 jumping or with no appreciation of the previous and the joy of accomplish points 3 and 5. Sometimes professionals get scared of exploring points 6 and 10 and remain safely (but internally dissatisfied) into point 2 and 3. Other times some think of lessons and teachers as a substitute from moving from one point to the other. Sometimes they just use the lessons and teacher for what they are: tools to move from one point to the other while singing and enjoying and giving often better and with a great deal of satisfaction.
We can use technique and some tricks of experience and creativity to start the moving and progress, when we will get to each point is to no one to really say and control; certainly reality and sound and music will just tell us and can be surprisingly fast as pretty slow according to us and many factors that are not to be solved during or with the lessons.
The list can help to put in perspective some bad strategies and also relax in enjoying the actual point without stressing in doubt of not having yet a three steps after.
Good music and Friday all everywhere you are.

Is our voice really like a horse?

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https://www.instagram.com/p/CLe35YoH5oI/?igshid=3ji3uitlmeep

Last week a voice teacher in a group of professional teachers I follow wrote a witty and brilliant post with a list of points he follows in its lessons. I wrote that all the ones from his point 2 are mine and this takes away all the other points but the last. The last was on having a perfectly clean bathroom, yeah everybody still in lockdown and online lessons.

What was his second point to take away every other one? He does not accept students who do not sing in pitch: and as him many others do, as those who not have yet a voice. He asked me about my answer and I told him that basically I have all the students out of pitch the others did not want, the singers who start losing their pitch or never solved it really and have by that some career problems and I have had also many teachers when they start losing something and they do not know what to do about. In my concept they have to be treated in the same way, because they have something in common and it is the main reason teachers historically do not accept them.

To explain that I do a little diversion: some decades ago, as teen, it was discovered I could bring back into balance horses got dangerous. I am a pretty serious soul and I spent then summers in Uk to perfect my training skills and also there they gave me school horses not happy with kids anymore, or with various stiffnesses inexplicable or after surgeries while I did refine the technique. What I thought was that I could use some movements that were typical of a happy and joyful situation to change the emotional state of the horse, so to destress him and take away the preventive fear, and open back to what they mostly love: playing and collaborate with us. Also the joyful and happy gesture will improve and condition muscles and muscular chains and patterns so to have them present in every moment more than before. The origin being a physical trauma or not skilled kids moving heavy on their back or a not respectful or violent or inappropriate trainer? If repeated with no other input they would go in burnout as we do. So I was just putting back functionality and reopening the thing horses love most doing with us.

Why do I talk about horses? The voice is a horse and reacts as a horse. So is the student the horse? Not exactly. The student or the singer is both the horse and me, meaning by that the one the horse live playing with. Why teachers do not want the kind of singers we said previously? Because they have a bad horse? Not exactly, they do not refuse the horse but something the person clearly have shown of not being able to do: they have a burnout horse. So again: is the horse?

Do you remember bullies at school? Were they fragile or strong kids? We well see they are kids with a huge energy that has taken a bad flip, we see and experiment them as fragile as violent. Violent, not aggressive; their energy is not well expressed and it becomes the frustration of it in burst of violence. When do they save themselves, they discover that this fantastic energy they have inside is a hell of a gift. Taking care of their burnout horse is easy and will give some fresh air and good vibe to the other part, the smell of what they can really be and have inside. They will then have to learn not to always escalate but reopening easiness for their horse and by that the dialogue and playing with the other players. They have to learn to restrain themselves not to act the bully actions, suspending them for a certain time and thus letting the place for other things.

If they do then they will be the singers ev’ry teacher and musician want, as many of my students or professional have become. It is not easy and sometimes really annoying, and as teacher you must not have a problem in being profoundly straight as profoundly respectful of the human inside and fond of his qualities, with the vibe of the admiration of the true soul you have in front, acting protecting the horse but not loving less the non horse of that person. How this: not teaching the person but teaching on focusing and freeing and respecting the horse, that at the end is what we call in music listening and playing. Because a happy horse is sign of a hell of a rider ;).

In the group I will only write of how to free technically the horse. Have a good weekend everybody.

Vocal tips

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When my artists send to me something to hear in which they push intentions and do not find it in the voice. Very often they still think doing something on the moment to produce the note, they still think singing is when heard. Singing is doing some things with your body and your imagination and emotions put into the body, the sound heard will be just in certain moments as a part made heard of this doing and not a pressing all together just in the moment you want to produce a sound. You produce a sound and a phrase and a movement inside and you just make it heard on the outside: sometimes entirely, often just fragments of that.

Who am I

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I am someone who can solve the reason why some people can’t be effective in a vocal technique or style, or when a professional can’t have the full or correct use of its instrument even with excellent teachers or coaches.  I was a soloist and being trained in Italian Belcanto technique. A chronic disease that affects my inflammation level in the body related to a medical malpractice made my career  last just three years during which I achieved goals I even had not dreamt about (further details https://luciacossu.com/about/).2012-09-28-13-15-24
I started then teaching,  vocal technique. Being frustrated by seeing some structural issues that made some singers think about them and never relax into a deeper dialog with music I tried to found ways to solve them forever with the same approach to sound I had when I was a soloist. So I invented some physical exercises and discovered in what they were useful to a wider range of persons, even if invented on someone specific. This became a corpus of exercises, some totally invented by me, some are yoga or dance exercises modified to be useful for voice muscular chains. I have so found some principles to work on the reason why some can’t have a proper vocal technique even with good teachers. I found the relation voice-muscular chains in a way not imagined by professionals and now also the way some Manuel Garcia vocalises were intended and why even my excellent belcanto teachers couldn’t use them correctly. . It is a very specific work, nothing to do with others body practises for singers, useful  but less precise for a vocal purpose.  To be sure that the results with my students were really appropriate I put some people with and without vocal problems under medical control before and after our work together and  it was confirmed the solution of their vocal problems in very short time, while a medical prevision of no improvement possible (https://luciacossu.com/cossu-method-program/ ) and those with no issues had confirmed an improvement in voice and posture.
When I say it is new I don’t mean that my work comes from nothing and goes to a new land, no. I mean that it is a step forward in what is the italian belcanto technique. I mean that it brings to the vocal land many that couldn’t previously reach it. And those who are yet there have a way to refine and obtain more.

That it is: a way to bring to voice (and voice styles and technique or even just natural voice) those who couldn’t before and to refine and find tools and expression for the advanced and the professionals.
It is a sort of way to put everybody to the zero point.

Fundamentals Singing professionally

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Professional singing is not natural and it is a wearing activity, that’s why you need a technique. A technique, a good technique, will make yourself and nobody notice those two things and that’s why it is so important for singers to build a proper technique instrument, and for us the professional of voice to ajourn our tools and adjust and evolve them with the evolution of music.

Fundamentals Registers and passaggio

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In vocal technique to solve a technical point often means to make in the perception of the singer the disappearing of the question. This is the case for the passaggi, or vocal bridges. When truly solved the mechanism to adapt gesture and postures and muscles work and copertura will make the singer never perceive that such passaggio do exist.

* This is one of the typical examples of how a technical level will give opposite perceptions, even if from a physiological level the question is the same. In a technical solved level the singer will say exactly the opposite of the not solved singer about any question.

Tips Copertura: everybody the same?

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One of the fundamental points in technique is when and with what position making the  copertura, especially related to the first turn of the larynx for the first bridge. Great part of national schools and national taste in sound is given by this position and way of making the copertura. If you prefer you can think about it as the first point in which you make the turn of the larynx, being the second the necessary one to obtain the high notes in female voices, falsetto in men and a certain kind of  successive slightly turn for high notes in men voices while sustaining when it is not desired a falsetto sound.
It gives the clear and precise english sound in medium and medium high register with its quite high position and the habit of not getting below, the somewhat flatted and falsetto sound in France, the velvet and lightness of accent and high tones in the spanish due to the involvement of soft palato to obtain their copertura, the always connected to sustain and back of american school that gives more strenght to the nearly same position then english school but less poetry in the ovetornes, the low position in german school that need to put some intubation to make the turn possible and connected, the perfect balance of all these elements in Italian belcanto school, the slightly below positions of the swedish italian belcanto that gives more weight by the lower position and greater use of back diaphgragm connection, the russian school which now is the closest to the XXth century italian belcanto we have.
The first turning point can be moved and managed both by pronounciation or use of mask muscles and soft palate or internal nose muscles and the sustain and appoggio muscles and the posture in itself. It is something to think about when starting a training and also it is to have a strategy about according to repertoire and market in which the singer is working or going to work.

Basics Pressure under the glottis

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The same pressure can be associated to strain or perfect phonation. There are many ways to produce the same pressure: creating it before the attack, on the attack, with a certain speed, at a precise speed and with or without suspension, with some muscles and timing and reciprocal order of movement, putting a tension in some part and then just creating a slight tension in another part to create conditions for the attack etc. Understanding this is fundamental to have a correct attack and many different ways of attacks accorded to musical and interpretative requirements.

Tips Vocal logic

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For a singer or a performer it is often more effective looking for vocal solutions thinking in a way that has a vocal logic instead of a truer one. We have a point of acting to obtain the voice so deformed by instrument way of being built and related and cohordinated and the fact that we are inside that we have to accept and make allied this deformation. The vocal correct gesture acts in all its possibilities only from a vocal way of perceiving and thinking; if we know that well we don’t need to make confusion bewteen what and how we think to sing and how we really act to sing.