Bernoulli's Principle

A Beginner's Lesson in Bel Canto

Legend has it

That Leonardo da Vinci

Invented Bel Canto singing

Whether true or not

Bel Canto emerged from Italy

At the time of Leonardo

Singers in the great cathedrals

Relied on Bel Canto

No microphones necessary

Famous Italian-American singers

Who employed Bel Canto

Include Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin

The bel canto technique

Allows very strong and smooth vocal performance

With no adverse effects on the vocal chords

(Damaged vocal chords are a frequent complaint

(For today’s singers)

In Leonardo’s day the singer’s art

Could be tested by a lit candle

Notes loud enough to fill a cathedral

Emerge from the singer’s lips

(And bel canto singers always smile widely

(Because smiling opens the pillars of the throat)

With hardly enough pressure to cause

The candle flame to flicker

This is Bernoulli’s principle

Proper bel canto depends on

Heavily developed respiratory muscles

These muscles permit maximum filling

Of the lungs

The bel canto singer

Gently releases air from the lungs

And holds the note inside the oral cavity

As the lungs very slowly release air

Creating maximum pressure on the origin of sound

The hard pallet

(Bernoulli’s principle: the lower the velocity of air

(the higher the pressure)

Yesterday I said to my teacher

“I will sing a song!”

No no, he cried.

It is much too early for that!

We must focus on the notes!

From Wikipedia:

In the mid-nineteenth century bel canto became the vanished art of elegant, refined, sweet-toned musical utterance. Rossini lamented in a conversation that took place in Paris in 1858 that: "Alas for us, we have lost our bel canto"