In 2019, Kim Hyuk Gun (김혁건), the vocalist of THE CROSS (더크로스), began the "vocal technique" chapter of his doctoral dissertation with bel canto. The dissertation explains that bel canto is a method from before scientific research on the voice developed, so its techniques are not organized as they are today, but it holds important value as the foundation of vocal training.
This is the fourteenth part of the series. From the history of bel canto and modern scientific vocal technique, it sets out what popular-music vocalists can bring into their practice: posture, appoggio, vowels and legato.
01.Where "Beautiful Singing" Began
According to the dissertation, bel canto combines bella and canto and means "beautiful singing." The origins of vocal method go back to the training of singers who sang church worship music around the 4th century, and among those methods bel canto took its firmest hold as the vocal technique popular in Italy in the Baroque period of the 17th and 18th centuries. Its hallmarks are a clear, beautiful voice, precise control of loud and soft, flexible melodic expression (legato) and brilliant ornamentation.
| Period | The course the dissertation describes |
|---|---|
| Before the 15th century | Most music was centered on the voice |
| 16th century | Vocal ornamentation grows stronger, and melody and lyrics become closely bound |
| 17th century | The golden age of opera, oratorio and cantata. Amid dramatic librettos and larger orchestras, singers' vocal skill rises |
| 19th century | Established as the bel canto style. Representative composers: Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti |
| After | Through Verdi and Puccini, greater volume and dramatic expression are demanded, yet in opera it is still regarded as the basis and ideal of singing |
Larger orchestras raised singers' vocal ability. In an age when sound facilities were limited, the dissertation explains, reaching the audience far away without being buried by the orchestra required free singing and rich expressive ability. For many reasons — the absence of systematic teaching, the development of instrumental music, the disappearance of the castrati and the scientific approach that came after the Industrial Revolution — bel canto declined, but its long history is worth examining, the dissertation writes.
02.The Four Characteristics of Bel Canto
Rossini, a leading composer of bel canto opera, named three conditions for a bel canto singer at an international conference in Paris in 1858: a beautiful, free voice across the whole range; training enough to handle brilliant ornamentation without effort; and making one's own the excellent singing style learned from the songs of great Italian singers. The dissertation adds that these conditions show that vocal teaching at the time came before science and had to rely on experience.
In theory, bel canto has four characteristics.
| Characteristic of bel canto | In this series |
|---|---|
| Natural abdominal breathing | Part 3 · Chest, Rib and Abdominal Breathing |
| Vowel quality | Section 05 of this article |
| A natural connection of chest, middle and head registers | Part 8 · Falsetto and Registers, Part 17 · Passaggio |
| Nasal and sinus resonance for good resonance | Part 10 · The Nasal Cavity, Sinuses and Using Nasal Resonance |
The dissertation describes the philosophy of bel canto as a harmony of aesthetic principle and natural law — the voice becomes free when the vocal organs move in line with the laws of nature. That is why bel canto stresses clear, rich resonance, a wide range, elastic control of loud and soft and flexible legato, all gained through appropriate, natural breathing and control of the muscles.
The basics of training toward legato are set out in the dissertation's Table 13.
| Training | Content |
|---|---|
| Vowel purification | Keep a stable sound with clear, pure vowels. Make vowels distinct through the right tongue position. Builds the voice's endurance |
| Resonance | The first aim of bel canto singing. The back of the pharynx and nasopharynx serve as the primary resonating chamber; changing their size and shape changes the frequencies |
| Extending the scale | Widen slowly from one note to three notes, then five. Once the sound is stable, extend into legato |
| Legato | Connect the flow of the resonating chambers flexibly so the melody moves smoothly |
Source: reorganized from Kim Hyuk Gun (2019), Table 13, "The basics of legato vocal training." Because there was no scientific research at the time, legato training centered on an empirical, psychological approach — hearing the notes, recalling their image and feeling, and experiencing and analyzing them by ear, the dissertation writes.
03.Training Order ① Posture
Bel canto training starts from posture. At its center is the alignment of the head, shoulders and chest. The wall posture exercise set out in the dissertation is as follows.
| Body part | Posture |
|---|---|
| Head | With the body relaxed, keep the shoulders, ears and spine vertical. Rest the center of the back of your head on the wall so the chin does not lift. Face forward |
| Shoulders | Keep them level, and draw both sides slightly back |
| Chest | Lift the sternum slightly to widen the chest |
| Lower back | Bring the curve of the back as close to the wall as you can |
| Feet and knees | Feet shoulder-width apart, weight spread evenly over the toes and heels of both feet. Keep the knees slightly forward and relaxed |
The dissertation notes that this alignment helps support the sound whether standing or sitting, and must be kept while singing as well. Posture comes up again in Part 19.
04.Training Order ② Appoggio Breathing
The dissertation writes that abdominal breathing is especially important in singing. Abdominal breathing lowers the larynx to steady the voice, widens down to the lower ribs and pushes the diaphragm to make room for air, raising the breath pressure.
In bel canto, the breath is managed through appoggio training. Appoggio means "support," "prop" or "pillar," and its aim is to keep the relationship and balance between the vocal folds and the exhaled breath. It is exactly what the five steps of resonance in Part 11 called "the balance between the force that sends out and the force that holds back."
- Widen the rib cage and, with abdominal breathing, repeat long, relaxed inhales and exhales.
- After breathing in, bring the upper and lower front teeth together and make a long fricative "s~."
- Keep the breath even, and do not pull the lower and upper belly in or push them out.
- While letting the breath out evenly, keep the posture correct between the pubic area, the navel and the sternum.
How appoggio is used in the passaggio continues in Part 18 · High Notes and Appoggio.
05.Training Order ③ Vowel Modification and Messa di Voce
In bel canto vocal training, two exercises make register transitions natural.
Vowel modification. As the pitch rises, you naturally open the mouth and drop the jaw to open the throat, and sing every vowel, including the basic Italian vowels (a, e, i, o, u), "covered" (coperto in Italian) in a single position at the hard palate. The reason is that each vowel resonates a little differently, so if even one vowel is not covered, the connection between breath and resonance breaks. In the passaggio, you drop the jaw further to relax the articulators and modify the vowel. This keeps the larynx low, strengthening tone and resonance and keeping the sound consistent.
The dissertation adds a caution here. Lowering the larynx unconditionally and singing a strong sound can lead to pitch breaks and strain the vocal folds. So, it notes, singers are taught to lighten the load on the vocal folds and sing high notes relatively easily by "floating" the sound.
Messa di voce. Using a breathy, falsetto-like sound — as if air is leaking — you hold one note that is not too high at the same pitch, starting soft (piano) and gradually growing louder up to loud (forte). The key is to keep the sound from wavering or stopping from beginning to end.
06.From the Sensation of Vibration to Science
In the bel canto era, the low resonance was called "the full voice" (voce di piena) and "the voice from the chest" (voce di petto), and the high resonance "the voice from the head" (voce di testa). Singers knew the difference in quality between full voice and falsetto, but the words for the sensations felt while singing did not develop, so teaching centered on "singing by the sensation of vibration," the dissertation explains. Relying on the sensation of vibration made it hard to teach how to connect the registers correctly, and mastering every technique took at least six to seven years. The effort to shorten that time became the starting point of scientific research centered on García.
Scientific vocal technique seeks to adjust the vocal organs on the basis of scientific data rather than experience and feeling, drawing the most training effect out in a short time.
| When | Who | What they did |
|---|---|---|
| 1741 | Ferrein (French physician) | In a paper on the vocal folds, made the first scientific analysis of how the voice is produced |
| 1834 | Mannstein (phonetician) | A book studying the old Italian vocal method scientifically |
| 19th century | García (1805–1906) | Invented the laryngoscope, which uses two mirrors to look at a singer's mouth and vocal folds; gave rise to concepts such as "forward placement of the sound," "nasal resonance" and "breath control" |
With the laryngoscope, the organs that produce sound could be observed directly, and vocal teaching entered a new era. The ending the dissertation describes is striking. García, who was also a singer, saw the problems that come from leaning too far toward scientific technique, and in 1894 withdrew the results of his own scientific research on vocal technique. He then argued that natural breathing should be the foundation of vocal technique, and that the larynx and palate should be left to nature to adjust themselves.
The dissertation presents an interpretation of this as emphasizing the psychological side of voice training: singing should feel comfortable, and on that comfort the voice grows stronger, the range widens and freedom is felt.
07.Today's Practice
Turned into points to check while you practice, what the dissertation and the lesson highlight looks like this.
- Wall posture — Following the table in section 03, stand with your back, hips and the back of your head against a wall, and keep the alignment so your chin does not lift (dissertation p.107).
- "S~" appoggio — Following the order in section 04, bring your front teeth together and make a long "s~." Check that the breath stays even from start to finish, without pulling the belly in or pushing it out (dissertation pp.107–108).
- Messa di voce — Using a breathy, falsetto-like sound, start one note that is not too high softly and grow it to loud. Keep the sound from wavering or stopping from beginning to end (dissertation p.109).
- Extending the scale — Slowly, one note → three notes → five notes; once the sound is stable, widen into legato (Table 13; dissertation p.105).
The lesson to watch with this part is Season 1, Episode 8, "Connecting Head and Chest Voice." There is no lesson on the history of bel canto, so this part pairs the lesson on the third characteristic — connecting the chest, middle and head registers. Its description lists making dark vowels bright with the bright vowels "e" and "i," blending oral and head resonance, and vocal-fold staccato.
08.Where to Go Next
Bright vowels and the maschera are in Part 13 · Head Voice, and vibrato, the last section of the vocal-method chapter, continues in Part 15 · How Vibrato Works. Kim Hyuk Gun's performance of "The Prayer," the duet by Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli, is in Kim Hyuk Gun and Park Ki-young's "The Prayer": Winning the 2017 New Year Special of Immortal Songs. Lesson videos are in Korean.
Know the principle through science, and let the body be natural — that is what a 400-year-old vocal method has left in today's practice room.