Key Milestones of Vocal Pedagogy Throughout History

To understand the present state of any form of technique, aesthetic or art, it is essential to follow in the footsteps of history. That’s also the most solid way to move forward in any field of knowledge. So, the value of revisiting the history of vocal pedagogy lies in analyzing two premises: the vocal aesthetic ideal of each period is more easily traced through its leading authors, and pre-dominantly, since the nineteenth century, teaching methodology has not been explicitly grounded in the pursuit of the prevailing aesthetic ideal of vocal production. Our present state of loss of or misguided reference lies, largely, in the forgetfulness of the field’s history. As stated, since the nineteenth century, each new frame of reference has claimed as its method a physiological technique that would support it. It is therefore necessary to understand how the literature associates the concepts of physiology and aesthetics. Are instructions and observations expressed as right or wrong, good or bad, even healthy or unhealthy, aesthetic or technical? Are they, consciously or not, imbued with a value judgment—that is, with an aesthetic? This is the reason for the present methodology of reviewing the historical literature from its beginnings. Over the span of time just mentioned, vocal pedagogy has tended to concentrate on physiological actions, with an emphasis on synesthetic sensations whose acoustic result is theoretically predictable, rather than on the search for a vocal timbre that approaches the desired aesthetic ideal.