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
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. . 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. .
Let’s see the development, how different muscles act and behave, how they give informations, how we detect their infos, what singers do and the tricky biomechanical reasons you cannot at now do as them. At now is the point. Season two is all on development and practicalities.
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.
Thoracic segment and vocal tract can present some blocks into a fundamental function for singers. This is an exercise that can unblock a physiological movement, used more consistently it helps developing the high sternum preaching of many (from Tetrazzini to Seth Riggs and many others). You can do it then forget about while singing or use it and sing with it. Try it and if you want you can ask about in my Thursday ask me session in my stories. .
The Cossu method is a way to manipulate directly voice production from the body and not just from vocal tract and air. It is an amazing and at today new tool to obtain a voice in difficult objectives situations and conditions. It has had results confirmed by voice production and abilities, careers with a clear discontinuity from before it, confirmed in medical objectives exams and cases. . . . I am a voice teacher specialised in technique and solutions for professional singers and future professionals. I use italian Belcanto and Cossu method, a way to manipulate directly voice production from the body and not just from vocal tract and air. It is an amazing and at today new tool to obtain a voice in difficult objectives situations and conditions. It has had results confirmed by voice production and abilities, careers with a clear discontinuity from before it, confirmed in medical objectives exams and cases. I come from a soloist career in classical music interrupted by a long septicaemia. I had results also in vocal issues of organic and functional origin under medical control, called by their doctors or speech therapists, here some of them https://atomic-temporary-42869468.wpcomstaging.com/cossu-method-program
Training the voice is a complex work of opposite forces, and it does not work with the simple opposition of opposite muscles. We can think in a more complete and refined way putting the opposition on the functions so to work in some parts or in all the muscular chains and obtain not by luck all the different possibilities of voices and not strain or remain with a too limited voice.
If you are a boxeur or a sprinter will you train just in a relaxed and smooth way, as for example doing only Tai Chi? Relaxation can be useful and even fantastic as Tai Chi, but it is one of the tools possible and useful in voice training and it does not serve all the required purposes for professionals and performances or certain styles. Music and repertoire are made of different rhythms and accents and strenghts and if we do not train the system voice in a rational and precise way to be the perfect image of the music we are going to perform we will have a problem. Of course how to do that and from where and by what passages develop strengths and speeds requires great care and wisdom as in every training, but the answer always smooth and legato and relaxed is not the answer correct.
My first two talks on some fundamental questions of vocale technique, often not so clear in students and singers and not clearly explained through their effects and consequencies so that they remain scary and refused in the first step. Often they are related as the fact that when you cover the sounds you will have in your sound not the effect of copertura but the disclosure of the state of your sustain and appoggio. I mean that not covered sounds have a different kind of pressure from the effective and true sustain (a true sustain always have a copertura effect), so you cover and the vocal folds do not respond anymore to the excess of pressure not correct. You will immediately hear how much the correct and true sustain is developed and the really good news is that with copertura it is safe and not tricky to develop the effective and true sustain. So if you refuse covering you will probably never develop a real and effective sustain, and this just because you were scared by the sound after copertura that was just the first step of the process and not the arriving point of the process. Many things in vocal technique present this two step process, I will try to clarify some of those for you on Istagram in my IGTV.
And the first is on copertura. 🙂
Lucia Cossu vocal technique and breath expert 