Judging Voices!

Judging Voices. It is now time to add a Blog to my website, so that I and those who would like to share their thoughts on anything concerning the Voice and Artistry of Leontyne Price or singing in general, can do so! It has been a great joy for me to make this site and to go on updating it now and in the future with any new item I can get, plus mp3 and video clips so that examples enough of her voice and artistry can prove the points we try to make in this Blog. I have been reading all I could find on the internet concerning Miss Price and apart from professional critics (even they are prejudiced up to certain level) among the many articles and comments, many are by those who believe themselves to be critics of voices or just those with hateful feelings towards some singer! These persons have of course the right to say what they ‘feel’ but it does not do justice to any singer and might condition younger newcomers to opera in a negative way! Everybody wants to be a judge and let the world know how they think that anyone should sing and what is good and bad. If these were intelligent and worthwhile comments that would make people listen to any singer with an open mind, than it would serve a good cause! I believe that this way of listening to any kind of music, in particular voices, is listening with the head, the mind chopping the voice into many pieces, analyzing each note, comparing them with other singers notes or how the composers ( dead for many years) meant them to be sung. Which kind of voice would be chosen for a specific composer, etc. etc! How can one hear all, orchestra, text, many singers together when one is concentrated on finding ‘mistakes’, differences. I went through these stages for many years when “voice specialists” could still try to condition my mind into chopping and comparing. Looking back I am grateful for having done this for now I know how listening to voices can lead to judging any “wrong” note, volume, phrasing, technique, etc, etc! “Wrong” to me is mostly just what one is not used to! What one has been conditioned to believe is “right”. To me it may only be fare to hear the changes in one particular voice, growing every day, adding and learning new ways to cope with time and age. Listen to Price singing the earliest Summertime (1961) and her last on record (1996) than compare the differences! The law of dissecting may be perfect in science and even in music scores, but not in anything as emotional as an individual singing voice. Ones you dissect a voice, like a flower, it loses its fragrance, its soul. Once I stopped listening in this way every voice became whole in its own right. Every flower kept their own fragrance! No more Callas with a bad wobble because Price had a faster healthier one, or Price with no cutting high notes like Nilsson, for had these singers had what we think the other had “better”, than they would not be the individual voices that speak to our individual souls! Can you picture a soprano with a Price spirituality, Callas intensity, Nilsson laser top, Caballe pianissimo, Milanov bottom, etc, etc..........! What I personally want to achieve in this Blog is to share the qualities of Leontyne Price with those whose souls were touched by the extraordinary voice of Miss Price, those who would dare to let the mind rest and become spiritual when listening to “The Voice of the Century”! Gregory

What Price her Voice is to me....!

I had a lot of discussions in my live, always trying to defend my love for the Price voice. Now that I read so many negative things said about Miss Price her singing, I felt stronger than before to do something which would give all those who do not know how intense Miss Price sounded live, to hear clips from her performances and judge for themselves! Even though she sounded very different live, darker, more sumptuous. It seems that only very pure and natural high end equipment can produce a sound close to the original! I once heard her through a pair of electrostatic speakers coupled to a tube amplifier and I got goose-flesh all over! Reading many comments on singing on the internet has taught me even to listen more closely and find an answer to why I love this particular voice so much. I may go on doing that forever and never find an answer, but now I know that every person is so individual that I can never expect anyone to hear what I hear or to feel what I feel, so there is no discussion because every person is alone in every experience. As Miss Price said, everybody hears the same sound, but she felt the sound while singing, we can not! We hear a singing voice through many layers of social conditioning, which is all right, as long as one accepts this experience as being very personal one, and it may not always be nonjudgmental !