This advocacy work is difficult, and, as your unsupported accusations make clear, comes with personal and reputational risk. But when I do nothing about it, I have this sort of... sticky feeling.

Carole Davis, This series clearly demonstrates that David Jones is a liar. He has taken huge amounts of money from people based upon fraudulant claims. There is a mountain of evidence in this series. You on the other hand have no evidence for the claims you are making about Phillipe Castagners character. What are your motivations ? do you feel guilty about something? Could it be that you also profit from the Swedish-Italian claims?

@Carole Davis I see you have a channel. Perhaps you would like to air your concerns about my character and present a factual rebuttal of my reporting in a collaborative video?

This is a guy who has a personal vendetta against David for some reason.

@@MisterOpera As a student of David's for many years, you sir, are full of crap, evil intent, and bitterness for whatever reason, I care not! I have no doubts, because I have reaped nothing but benefits from his teaching, as have my own students. You are a joke, and quite pitiful in my eyes.

Thank you very much. Be sure to catch the rest of the series!

There are a whole lot of chewing muscles and most of them have double uses. (For instance if the hyoid is anchored, the suprahyoid opens the jaw). Could you clarify a bit more? If you don’t want to back and forth in KZfaq comments you can come to the chat hub! It’s free and there are LOTS of different perspectives to be found there. Https://facebook.com/groups/427489748074451/?ref=share

@@MisterOpera Thank you for responding. I was trying to duplicate what Leif was saying, albeit maybe not successfully. Did he mean to find the HM hum, drop the jaw slightly by the hinge (masseter muscles?) only enough to deactivate the chewing muscles. I think I was able to demonstrate on myself the hm hum and then spent some time keeping that sensation while finding the various vowels. I felt the hum quite strongly in the hinge of the jaw and when ascending notes, the hum sensation went higher. I recently became a member of the hub, maybe I should pose the question there to make it easier to respond! Should I tag you?

Yes go ahead and tag me! We have an “on ramp” you have to join, and once you sing just a wee bit you can go into regular rooms. It’s our way of screening out trolls who don’t actually sing.

Also I will copy your question when I get home and paste it in an email to Leif. Haven’t heard from him in a while.

@@MisterOpera Your the best. Just in the middle of watching your video on larynx dropping and this might play a role in this.

Lololol

Also don’t forget you have to hate Kaufman, while doing less skilled versions of the same technique.

😂

That sounds right. I never cared much for these illusions about “lineage”, but I’ve had to research so I can get to the bottom of the claims made by David Jones. It’s not a big deal to exaggerate a little for marketing, but when it becomes a way to avoid demonstration it’s a problem. Every time he’s asked to sing something he just mentions someone famous. It’s extremely damaging to the critical thinking ability of his disciples, and to the community at large.

If your growl isn't comfortable, you are doing it wrong or maybe be just need to practice. Louis Armstrong and Tom Waits are examples of long careers based on growl.

For etymology what I like is those computer reconstructions that take us back to ancient Indo-European. Other English words for singing that come to mind: vocalize, belt, wail, call. Words from other languages: zpívání, cantare, chanter, петь.

Yeah but I mean the idea that a lot of words come from the sound something makes. I like the idea that people heard others chanting and went oh they are making a ss noise a iii noise and a ng ah .. that’s what we’ll all that. Have I misunderstood your video? Isn’t he saying that old Swedish singers used to do this and then the other guy didn’t get it and just thought it was making a NG sound and started teaching that? Or do u disagree with the whole idea?

The whole NG thing comes from vaudeville singing. It's possibly the worst strategy imaginable for anyone trying to make a big sound and not use amplification. NG is a way to force nasality, which makes singing easier but also cripples the classical singer. Not appropriate for the intended purpose, but also very effective in other genres.

@@MisterOpera ok.. im not talking about keeping the ng sound though.. did i misunderstand the video where he says to have the palate meet the tongue (not the other way around) and then create a vowel. basically its the release that creates the good sound not the holding ngggggghhh like youre going into your nose like urkel? the ahh after the ng is key.. the ng bit is short and then the jaw drops and the tongue kinda flattens ... the wording i'm using may be wrong. i'm new to all this stuff. i just know that when i started learning to sing i was always holding the NGGGHH kinda sound and doing almost a jack black impression.. but once i realized its the release of that makes the difference i was suddenly making clear and strong sounds that had no strain and could be controlled a lot better. am i way off here?

As far as I can tell, what hr suggested seems like a good way to make it harder to close the nose and anchor the hyoid down, so it helps strengthen the gesture. Think of it as "anti-ng". You go to NG, precisely because it's the worst place to start, and then quickly and precisely snap to the position you wanted. I would do this only as an exercise, personally.

The idea behind “cleaning the kitchen” is that we can finally get down to making a nice meal :) Can you believe the Jones school actually teaches not to listen?!? Here I tried to show there is room for better concepts once we take out the trash.

@@MisterOpera I am trying to catch up with so much here. I put it all up on the shelf for a while after having taught for many years. Came back to it finding so much controversy roiling here on several channels. Had made several observations on the other place before I fully realized exactly what was going on as the trashing of contemporary opera singers smacked of an unfounded arrogance. Words are the problem and words are the solution, at least in teaching, and only to a degree. Context is everything and what I have said to one student may be totally inappropriate for another without context. I had a teacher who swore by the "ng" exercises and the explanation given, physiologically, was severely flawed. As a student, I had simply followed and taken on the explanation as a part of my teaching vocabulary.. that is, until I ran into a student who actually did, physically, exactly what I was asking. Instead of improving their defect, it actually worsened it. At that point, I stopped and questioned the very explanation that had been given to me only to discover that it was exactly wrong. I knew why it was wrong and this opened new doors for both the student and me. I had been well on my way to un-teaching myself so much of the bad teaching I had been subject to. I could go into detail about the false "Italianate" school some claimed to teach from while then being opposed by another teacher at another school who decried all things "Italian" while claiming to teach from the "Germanic" school. Thing is, neither taught from either. This is a very long way for me to get to the whole idea of not listening. Someday I will share a phrase that many of my students know me by, whether it be for good or bad remains to be seen. I have often admonished my students to not listen, or at least to not listen to the obvious sounds that are easy to hear in a very live acoustic environment. Often times this discussion would happen relative to them encountering a difficult acoustic (read: dead) environment. If they had not come to a peaceful coexistence with their inner sounds of the voice stripped bare of reflective outer sound, the tendency would be to push the voice. I would take away the outer sound to get them to make peace with what I would jokingly refer to as their "inner chipmunk." So, while I was asking them not to listen, I was not asking them to not hear, but rather to reference the source sound of the voice instead of the finished product. Yes, I do listen to the outer sound, especially when I am in a big, luxurious, open space.. but I still reference that inner sound first as that's where the adjustments need to be made. I know this may or may not have any relevance to the above comment about not listening but, honestly, having been away from teaching and big singing and then returning to rebuild the voice, all this controversy has been enlightening and frustrating. I want to have dialog as I undo and rework a lifetime of sketchy teaching.. I would rather do so face to face with colleagues.. but this is the venue I have available at present. I step back into the fray with trepidation after having witnessed the scathing idiocy occurring under the guise of criticism. I appreciate your willingness to put a face and voice to your observations and opinions. I have been reading through some things over on your site and hope to, perhaps, talk some more should I have any more thoughts run through my head during this journey.

Very thoughtful reply. Thanks :) I do overtone training - and I use overtones to map out the physical dimensions of the vocal tract. I think it’s always safe to listen to overtones because they are “derived”. For the tendency to “push” in new spaces, I think there’s more going on than acoustics, although it can be part of a perfect storm. Feel free to write to my email address or to find me on Facebook :)

@@MisterOpera My teachers had nothing to do with David Jones, or Sweden, or America, but possibly Joseph Hislop as he was Scottish. My piano teacher at college played for some of his teaching lessons. All have said not to listen to yourself but to sing on the sensation of singing with all the right ingredients going in for good singing. The nearest you get to hearing yourself is on a recording with decent equipment. If you know the speed of sound, then you see why. The sound has gone before you hear it in it's 'transformed' sound. If it's nice to your ears, it's often awful for the audience.

If you know the speed of sound, then you know perturbation theory dictates you speed it up and slow it down locally inside the vocal tract. That is, if you are really curious and you are doing some researching, rather than blindly accepting what is presented to you (but not from me, only from someone who offers your ego something juicy) . But I have a strong suspicion you know none of this, and that you also didn’t take the time to calculate how many milliseconds difference you’ll experience, assuming it’s about 20C and you are at sea level (you need this info to figure out the speed of radiating sound waves). More important, if you have even a lick of sense you can easily work out that not listening to yourself as you sing is neither desirable nor logical. That’s the simpleton’s solution to the problem of conflicting perception. Add to this the confounding and shifting nature of proprioception, AND the observed responses of people who believe they are able to feel the elements of the vocal tract reliably and consistently. These people come up with and fervently believe in completely impossible alternate realities that begin at the larynx and end at the lips. A much better idea is to simply train your ear to focus on reliable things. You mention the disadvantage of hearing - but then you turn around and act as if proprioception isn’t twice as unreliable as that. And you impose a false dilemma to choose one or the other. It’s nonsense. Did Hislop say these things? Maybe! Did they help someone at some point? Maybe! Have I seen anyone in the 21st century get good at singing by following these methods? No, I haven’t. People I have seen get good at singing don’t have really bad ideas like eliminating the ONE sense that is indispensable to the act of music-making. I suppose Jones is not alone on this one. Many before him have noticed it’s easy to make a living sending people on circular journeys. It’s so completely absurd, we have professed musicians warning against the dangers of listening 🤦‍♂️ And finally, perhaps the most absurd thing of all - people who argue fervently for not listening - every single one of them - still uses hearing as their primary tool for feedback. As far as I can tell, the actual application of all this isn’t during the act of singing. It is entirely limited to basically never, because it’s an impossible, illogical, and undesirable thing that YOU know isn’t logical or possible. You don’t have the ability to turn off your listening. The ONLY time this reality manifests is before and after the fact - but never in the moment of truth. Some extremely interesting psychology there, for sure. Some great tools for hijacking someone’s sense of reality by forcing them to have this cognitive dissonance. A great way to condemn yourself to believing forever that your conscious attention is the entirety of your perception. But there is no valid pedagogy there, and no evidence to support even the possibility of what you claim.

The soft palate moves a lot to keep the timbre in tune and to simulate speech. Often in contrary motion to the larynx. I think we need to generally improve our terms. The “soft palate” includes the velum and also tissue in front of it. When the velum is open fully or partially, as in the consonant sound “n” or “ng”, air will come out the nose. But the area in front of the velum can also change shape. I’ve played around with the “real” ng that Leif referred to. It can be quite helpful, because even though the palate comes all the way down and the velum all the way down, that is a perfect way to “launch” everything up and closed. Before jumping, you don’t stretch your legs. You bend them and then you jump. You go the opposite way first. These sorts of details occur to people who actually sing, or to observers with more modern theories of learning. One big problem with pedagogical theory in singing is that it’s 2020 and people in the field still believe in psychology from 1820. Particularly, the optimal control hypothesis for solving the “degrees of freedom” problem. An open velum like Mr. Jones advocates is ok, but ironically, it yields nasal timbres aka “mask” aka “high and bright”, because the constriction formed by the velum opening increases strengthens the higher frequencies in the timbre. Ng, n, and m sounds are necessarily nasal. There’s no way to make these sounds with a closed velum. So any vowels made in “ng” space are also necessarily nasal. That’s not necessarily bad, but we should be correct in our observations lest we create confusion and delusion.

@@MisterOpera Since the larynx should be positioned substantially low, ng with lowered soft palate makes more sense but ng with raised soft palate makes the larynx to go up. Thanks for your considerate reply.

James Kim I believe Garcia mentions the soft palate and larynx move in opposition to each other. I’m not sure. I do know that a lot of vocal research suffers a lot from the observer effect.

@@MisterOpera I noticed today Tio's vlogs were blocked. I am guessing some of the youtubers and those of the modern professional singers Tio had been making bad examples out of finally took some actions. I have mixed feelings about it though. He can be an *ss but he creates arguments which objective oppositions can counter. I think Tio viewers should come to watch your videos if they themselves are singers. Tio's vocal methods are suited for baritones and mezzos and lays good foundation for singers who lacks understanding of low larynx and chest voice. For tenors, it's more than just chest voice where you show excellent examples(especially the one with overtones) on your videos.

James Kim They didn’t break any YT rules and they also took down their web page. So - your guess is not particularly reasonable. Jeremy Silver tried to get this channel taken down and wasn’t successful either. I’m a bit sad TBH. They made a perfect foil. I would tend to agree that the TiO approach will be more successful for baritones. I don’t actually have this idea of “correct way” in my system (new school singing). Instead I recommend trying all the things. And that includes what TiO was trying to teach.

That probably wasn’t me. I took this channel name from the old Mister Opera. Brendon Urie is amazing! I’m not in the habit of trashing people who can do things I can’t do. I’m not very active on Reddit but my username is pcastagner

How did you take the channel name?

I saw it was up for grabs and I just took it. I was getting closer to figuring out the identities of TiO so there were personnel changes and a name change, in anticipation for making 2 branches. I swooped in and grabbed Mister Opera

@@MisterOpera Interesting.

As long as you keep looking for concepts like opening the throat, nobody else can help you either. It’s ok to believe in the feeling of being open and free, but the vocal tract is not an empty room in a house. It works similarly to a pipe organ or trumpet. (With some important differences). The feeling of open throat comes when you choose the right shape for the impulse that starts in the larynx, and energy is reflected back at the larynx in just the right way. This reflected energy will interfere with your efforts or will help your efforts. It’s not a question of constant “open” or “closed”, it’s a complex set of choices involving a variety of shapes depending on pitch, vowel, and intended timbre. As long as you understand it’s just an image, that’s fine. But be careful not to impose a mistaken model of physics. It seems harmless enough but it eventually infects all the decisions you make.

In my defense I made the video before I knew this ng and ny did more for you. With resonance. Especially low notes.

@@MisterOpera sorry for being upset but thank you for responding, it shows good character, and there's a lot of things I didn't now before too, and that I preached and now regret, but we have all had teachers of a different school, but the best school is the one that helps us the most to achieve what out hearts and ears desire. We all just want to be good singers, I still don't have all the answers, especially when I have had so many injuries, and trying to sing with that, but we keep going right?

@MehlindaHeartt you can be upset here. This place is for you as much as anyone else, and how you feel is just as important as how anyone else feels. This channel is for students of singing everywhere, no matter who their teacher or method is, or if they have one at all. As long as you treat others with respect and good manners, you're welcome to debate or discuss anything on your mind related to singing. And yes, that includes disagreeing with my videos about your teacher. I think the thing you probably really want to do is start showing what you do to other people. You stated a bunch of things but you maybe didn't stop to think whether I know those things or not. I could certainly believe you, but I still wouldn't KNOW. I try very hard to maintain a sense of what I believe and what I know, and not to mix them up. When it comes to David Jones, I KNOW that his stories about the Swedish-Italian school are fabrications. It actually took some effort to know these things. I had to reach out to a name he put in his book, and I had to do some research. I KNOW these stories are false and that the man he cites in his book to back them up told me they are false, and that I published it here. I do not really KNOW that David Jones has done anything positive for you, but I do KNOW that you believe it. Also, I KNOW that I once BELIEVED David Jones was saving my voice, but that others around me did not KNOW that it was true, because all the evidence they heard implied the opposite. If you put youself in my shoes, then your response starts to look a whole lot like signs of someone who has been manipulated, because I experienced the same thing and behaved very similarly if anyone dared criticize my "master". You COULD be right but for me to KNOW that I would need a whole lot more than stories about what you believe. I would need to KNOW that I made a mistake when I accused David Jones of being a habitual and conscious liar who elaborated and developed the fabrications of an old and dying vaudeville singer from Chicago who was posing as a Swedish master of singing teaching in California. To my knowledge, Jones "studied" with this man (Alan Lindquest) for a very brief period near the end of his life. Not long after, we get David Jones and his Swedish-Italian school, with fabricated history based on a hodgepodge of famous names, all cobbled together before the age of cheap and easy access to digitized sources for research. I urge you to take a breath and look at what you're promoting, and ask yourself how that looks in ten years when AI is not only finding the original texts Jones claims "can't be read because they are old Swedish", but also translating them for you on the spot and checking all the facts. This thing is going to blow up eventually. It's only getting easier to check his facts. Jones knows it. He also knows that any response from him will only accelerate the process, and that his only shot at taking more money from our community is to turn it against itself and make it about personalities instead of facts. He believes his charisma will win the day, of only we can ignore facts. Do not ignore facts.

me too, the ny and ng helped focus my voice especially in the lower register, David Jones is amazing , yes the tongue position is very important

AFAIK Jones never learned how to sing the repertoire he “teaches”. If you look carefully at his claims, he usually uses a formula: word salad, warning of some perceived danger, plus mentioning famous singer/coach. Next thing you know you’re believing you shouldn’t listen as you sing (wut), that air coming out of your nose isn’t nasal (what else would it be???), or that you shouldn’t sing with air (are you supposed to use quantum physics?). Leif mentions the titles of some books in these videos, but they are some my earliest ones so I wasn’t very organized and I don’t have a bibliography or anything to give you. I know he mentioned some of them are available online, and that he also sent copies of the unavailable ones to Jones. But of course, Jones claims they are in a super secret “old Swedish” language that can’t be translated. The whole thing would be hilarious if It didn’t cost so many people so much in time, money, and lost opportunities.

@@MisterOpera OMGs, how else is vibrato produced than with air?! :P. One of the finest examples of breath control, IMO, is the scene from Yentl where Barbra Streisand sings "Papa Can You Hear Me" before a candle flame that scarcely flickers. LOL! And, with technology these days, translating those books would be almost effortless. When I am translating French of Spanish texts for my research, all I have to do is copy and paste it into an MS Word doc.! :). It's not infallible, so because I studied the languages I can correct the errors. Are you studying with a teacher, now? My one minimum requirement is that my voice teacher must have his or her master's degree in the subject! (I usually find them through Universities, which Jones even cautioned folks against doing, IIRC!). This is because my first Voice Teacher had taken years of lessons and had a beautiful voice, but she couldn't teach worth a damn and caused more harm than good. At one point she had me visualize my voice like a laser blasting off a heavy rehearsal room door hinge, and because I wasn't advancing under her tutelage she blamed me! The following year I was re-assigned a teacher with his master's degree in the subject and the difference was like night and day! He even found that what was inhibiting the projection of my voice, was my tongue creeping back down my throat. So, we created a vocal exercise to absolve it wonderfully!

I haven't had a voice teacher in many years, and I think it's a sort of trap to think in those terms in the first place. I have many people in my life who give me input and help me, but I'm the one in charge of putting it all together and making executive decisions about what I want. One of my main sources is the vocalist chat hub on facebook. Fellow singers can provide me with a lot of the "services" I would have to pay for otherwise, and all I have to do is reciprocate. The reason a candle won't flicker much during loud, clear phonation is that the contact quotient is very high. during each oscillation, much less air is escaping compared to a breathy sound, which has a higher open quotient (but the same rate of oscillation, if it's the same pitch). In both cases, the air is forcing the vocal folds apart, and they close again because they are approximated (held close together) by muscle and cartilage, and importantly, because reflected sound energy is helping or interfering with the vibration. However if the singer enunciates in a way that can be understood in a large hall, the candle will have to flicker during some of the consonants. there's really no magic :) I don't fully understand vibrato, but I do know that many people don't experience "natural" vibrato, to the extent that it seems to me that everyone learns vibrato, but some of us do it so easily that we don't even notice. However when I sing contemporary music, I have to work hard to control my vibrato. Be careful about throwing away ideas for ever. You may need this laser beam image in the future, or you may need to use new coordinations that use a tongue in the "bad" position. People often report improving when they switch from one thing to another. I think it's a mistake to assume that the improvement means the old thing was bad and the new thing is good. The same evidence can be interpreted to show that stagnation leads to problems, and switching tends to solve them.

@@wadewhite9315 Anyone can get a masters in anything but doesn't make them an expert; it is experience. None of my teachers had masters degrees in anything, but then I'm not American. They knew how to teach, did the appropriate research that are necessary for teaching, kept up to date, and knew how to do the job in the end as they all had good to international careers. All of them gave me a chance and everyone of my teachers taught me something but were never possessive, and I had a fine career into my 60s.

On another video you claimed not to listen while singing. I’m just wondering, does that mean that you have memories of being on stage and singing, but you don’t have memories of what that sounded like from your perspective? I’m really curious now. You’ve raised a fascinating topic.

Hello

Whoever loves the truth needs no reasons to proclaim it. I just like it. But enough about me. Let's talk about you! why do you feel the truth is not its own justification? Why do you not once in your comment even mention the veracity of the statements contained in the video, even as you comment extensively on matters of personality and charisma? Those are more interesting to me than your very long suggestion that people should avoid saying anything contradictory. I'd like to know more about people who don't just naturally feel like knowing the truth is inherently preferable to believing deliberate and obvious lies. So please, tell us more about yourself.

@@MisterOpera Pourquoi des meilleurs questions, mon interrogation sur le manque de confrontation entre les protagonistes n'est elle pas suffisante, mon interrogation sur le manque de confrontation entre des pedagogues du chant n'est elle pas suffisante. Invitez donc monsieur Jones à venir s'expliquer avec vos contradicteurs. Pour ma part après avoir travaillé avec plusieurs professeurs de chant c'est en confrontant leurs enseignements que j'ai réussi à me faire ma propre opinion sur ce qui est efficace pour moi et pour mes élèves. L'enseignement de David Jones est un des meilleurs que j'ai reçu mais je garde un sens critique aiguisé et je n'en fait pas un Dieu.

Now you ask "why better questions"? Seriously? Because, as you pointed out yourself, they are better questions.

I mean not to be hasty here but it almost seems like I prefer better things, and you just generally prefer worse things, and I don't even know how to interact with you in that case. It's just a basic assumption I start with that better things are preferable to worse things. Truth is better than lies, good questions better than stupid and really clumsy questions, singing is better than not singing, etc ...

@@MisterOpera Effectivement nous n'avons pas grand chose à échanger . Je ne crois avoir été respectueux de vos propos et vous êtes visiblement un peu agressif. Alors je vous souhaite le meilleur pour la suite et dans votre quête de la vérité. Encore fois essayer d'interroger directement David Jones pour avoir des réponses à vos questions. Bonne fin de journée.

Yes it is. It would be good to get this subtitled. I'm not quite sure people want the information though.

@@MisterOpera I’m not even a singer, and this is absolutely fascinating! Subtitles would be great.

I would love this to be subtitled, I think I understand most of what he is saying but it's quite tricky with the accent plus the usual distortion that happens with a video call.

It's actually possible to submit subtitles as a community, if you're interested. I would not mind putting more hours into this, if I had some sense that consumers really WANT the truth. But I'm not so sure. I've had a few colleagues thank me, but I think most of them are likewise happy with the status quo, which is that nobody ever checks to see if things are true. They believe or don't believe based on how someone makes them feel. I bet you some of the false facts he published are already in academic theses all over the globe, and that these theses have all been successfully defended. I don't think they have too much appetite for exposing themselves for not doing THEIR jobs either.