Singing in the Etheric Tone

This book introduces a practical approach to freer and more joyful singing. Drawing its strength and inspiration from Gracia Ricardo's work with Rudolf Steiner, it presents anyone who wishes to sing, as well as professional singers, with a spiritual alternative to the mechanical and physical methods of voice training usually available today. The Ricardo method is based on the word. The first chapter deals with the onset of the tone, its focus, the separation of word and tone, and listening for the word. The relation between vowels, consonants, words, and phrases is also dealt with. The second chapter goes on to consider the voice, how to build and extend its range. The third chapter develops the idea of blending the vocal registers, placement, embellishments, resonance, and diction. Professional tips follow: on choosing a program, stage fright, mood, and presence. Esoteric aspects of music and singing are then dealt with in a special section. "It is important that we sing. It is especially important for our children to sing. Singing frees the soul, makes it flexible, and helps it soar and expand. Singing lets the sun in-gives warmth to our lives and wings to our spirit.Those who sing know this.To sing at all requires a certain degree of freedom. Learning to sing in the way described here means finding ever greater degrees of freedom in ourselves. When we sing with this freedom, we find ourselves anew. When we sing with others, we find one another. Singing music that lifts our souls in freedom, we open ourselves to worlds that fructify the spirit in us. We make our souls flexible and receptive to spiritual worlds-open to what the spiritual worlds can tell us." - Dina Soresi Winter

"Singing and the Etheric Tone dares to say what many singing artists know but is seldom stressed in vocal studios today, that singing well needs the involvement of the total human being: body, soul and spirit. This book helps us become conscious explorers in the enlivening search for a joyful, healthy production of tone. I recommend it highly as a wonderful companion guide for any professional singer, teacher or student." ―Wendy Hoffman, mezzo soprano, Metropolitan Opera Company, NYC

"Finally! ― a book that gets back to the simple basics of beautiful singing ("bel canto"). Singing and the Etheric Tone is the book I've been searching for. It describes sensations I have had, but could not articulate, in a clear and accessible way. It has enlightened my own singing and enlivened my teaching of others on the path to good singing. Anyone involved in communicating the art of healthy singing should read it ... especially those who have gotten into the trap of over-intellectualizing rather than viewing singing as a natural expression of the soul." ―Valerie Yova, singer, choral conductor, instructor, and Metropolitan Opera audition winner

"Let me thank you for your wonderful book Singing and the Etheric Tone. I was beginning to wonder if anyone would ever properly explain the phenomenon of a free singing voice. You have done it, and may God bless you for it!" ―Paul Hurley, musician, composer, singer, Auburn, California

"The Ricardo Approach recognizes that a pure, unforced, perhaps small and naturally free sound can fill any space. It can travel more easily to reach an audience's ears. For myself, one with a rather small voice, I can either worry about constantly getting over the orchestra by trying to make my sound larger, or I can focus on the purity of the individual tones and know that they will carry and float. I find it incredibly exciting to notice how the motion of the air through my singing as it first resounds, meet the outside air, moves around, above, behind my head and proceeds to ring outward." ―Kristin Donahue-Ries, soprano soloist, Detroit Concert Choir and Michigan Opera Theater

Dina Soresi Winter has led a life filled with music, art, theater, education, and a love of Dante. At the age of fourteen, she discovered opera and never recovered from it. After seeing her first opera, La Traviata, at the old Metropolitan Opera in New York City, she began studies with Francesca Pasella, an Italian maestra in the Bronx. Under Ms. Pasella's tutelage, she won several singing awards, one of which took her to Italy, where she made her debut as Santuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana. She was the first twentieth-century "Maria Stuarda" and sang leading roles in major theaters in Germany, Italy, and Holland.

This book introduces a practical approach to freer and more joyful singing. Drawing its strength and inspiration from Gracia Ricardo's work with Rudolf Steiner, it presents anyone who wishes to sing, as well as professional singers, with a spiritual alternative to the mechanical and physical methods of voice training usually available today. The Ricardo method is based on the word. The first chapter deals with the onset of the tone, its focus, the separation of word and tone, and listening for the word. The relation between vowels, consonants, words, and phrases is also dealt with. The second chapter goes on to consider the voice, how to build and extend its range. The third chapter develops the idea of blending the vocal registers, placement, embellishments, resonance, and diction. Professional tips follow: on choosing a program, stage fright, mood, and presence. Esoteric aspects of music and singing are then dealt with in a special section. "It is important that we sing. It is especially important for our children to sing. Singing frees the soul, makes it flexible, and helps it soar and expand. Singing lets the sun in-gives warmth to our lives and wings to our spirit.Those who sing know this. To sing at all requires a certain degree of freedom. Learning to sing in the way described here means finding ever greater degrees of freedom in ourselves. When we sing with this freedom, we find ourselves anew. When we sing with others, we find one another. Singing music that lifts our souls in freedom, we open ourselves to worlds that fructify the spirit in us. We make our souls flexible and receptive to spiritual worlds-open to what the spiritual worlds can tell us." - Dina Soresi Winter

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