These songs are so pure and simple and vulnerable that I would have a heck of a time singing them in a class without crying. Bravo to the courage of the singers and Barbara’s incomparable coaching.
"Let's lower the key and sit down." This is great. Barbara reveals so much about herself, it's like an enhanced interview with her. This could have been a show on Broadway!
This was one of the first streaming videos I ever saw, before RUclips even existed. Early 2000s. I remember being so amazed - I couldn’t believe it! A few years later, I saw Barbara Cook live. She must have been 80 by then. Unforgettable.
I attended a master class given by Barbara Cook in 2013. It was so insightful listening to her teaching students to sing a song with purpose. What I remember most about the class was her saying to the students and the audience to remember that "you are enough."
Have you ever seen someone famous or well-known that you just know you'd love to have known personally? Barbara Cook was one of those people. There was an authenticity and realness about her that touches me.
The Legend teaching. I cannot sing. I wish I could, but Barbara makes so much sense. Such a wonderful lady, so talented. So missed. I could have listened to this lady all day long.... Stunning. Now you can understand why she was so appreciated. No one can comes near her.
Every student met their unique challenge, and improved rather dramatically in the course of 15 minutes. She kept searching for a way to communicate and drag the authenticity out of them. Great teacher.
What a lovely conversation. The girl was totally intimidated by being on stage with one of the great singers of broadway, but Ms,. Cook finally broke through that barrier. What a decent human being. And the girl has a wonderful natural voice,
I was fortunate to attend two of Barbara Cook's master classes at the Juilliard School. These were particularly enlightening because at each one she worked with four students, two from the opera program and two from the theater division. And just as she worked to help the opera singers find a more "natural," vernacular mode of singing -- and to connect the words and notes to their innermost selves -- she brought the acting students, who had a firm foundation in the emotions and meaning of the text, back to certain essential musical requirements, like sustaining a strong melodic line. Really learned so much from this marvelous artist! :-)
Operatic singing came long before the microphone. Thew came the microphone and Bing Crosby, I wish Elvis Presley had hired her. He had a world class voice but only sometimes does he employ his instrument to its full effect.
@@JRobbySh I agree Elvis Presley was a great singer with sometimes a wrong repertoire.He wanted to be a popular singer and didnt use his material in a better repertoire only in few moments
Thank you for posting this class with one of my favorite singers ever. She had such incredible feeling, along with her beautiful tone and sound. It's difficult to put into words what made her performances so special, but I was in the audience for many of her concerts in the 90s and 2000s in Toronto and New York, when the crowd sat in spellbound silence at what she was doing with her performances. We held onto every word and she drew us in. Nice of her to try to help young singers think about these things as well. It's amazing to see the difference she makes when she gets them to try again and to do what she is suggesting. It astonishes me that some of these classically trained singers and their teachers seemed to have absolutely no idea of how to handle these songs in a way that suited their style, mood and tone when they first got up to sing them. They just come in and sing operatically and totally miss what is special about these songs. Many classical students, I've noticed, seem to think they're "slumming" when they do popular songs, and they want to show off their classical voices, as if to say "This is how a real singer" would perform it, when they're actually missing the magic that makes them work. But this is often true even with well-known opera stars when trying to do this material. But just getting them to relax, lower a key, think about the actual words, sing more softly, she makes a huge difference in their performances. Brava Barbara, and thank you for your talent and teaching! Great that students today can still watch it, even though Barbara is no longer with us.
I had no idea she gave masterclasses in the ladder portion of her life, that's quite interesting. I love how she's sharing her gifts and experiences with young singers who are just getting into the theatre/singing community. I'm just getting started singing, and I wish she was still alive so I could take one of these, because I adore Barbara Cook, she's one of my biggest influences when it comes to singing and acting.
What I give to have taken a masterclass with her. She seems such a warm teacher, so sweet and the amount of knowledge she had. I cried the entire day when I found out she had passed away. She was (is) what I aspire to be in a singer and an actress.
So many singers - in opera and musicals - past and present FAIL to understand this simple truth that singing is more than just how beautiful and loud you can sound. As she accurately said, “Who cares? Many can do that. What you need to do is deliver!”
The perfect example of what Ms. Cook is saying here is Deanna Durbin. She could sing opera arias, traditional ballads, and the Great American Songbook with equal facility. On RUclips you can find her “Largo al Factotum” and “Vissi d’Arte.” Compare them with how she sang “Always” and “Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year” in the film “Christmas Holiday” with Gene Kelly.
She worked wonders with Jess and when she whispered in Marvin's ear a lightbulb went on. Just terrific all around. She's a delight and so helpful. Thank you for posting.
There's a video somewhere on RUclips of two young emerging singing stars of the 1930s, Deanna Durbin and Judy Garland together. Durbin sang with a much more operatic style, while Garland was much more familiar. But they both were successful because they both felt the songs, and they sang to an audience, not at them.
The essence of this class (first part) is Cabaret style vs Operatic. I was so fascinated and taken in by the lead-in words I had never heard before (almost recitative) that I was as resistive and un-understanding as the student. I felt Ms. I Cook was tormenting the student (somewhat) until I really understood what she was getting at. I really learned something as well. Thank you for posting this!
Agreed, the start with the first student was a bit bumpy. I think It really boils down to style and what’s appropriate in the respective genre. However, Operas usually have recitativo that often requires a conversational approach so that singer should have known a little better 😉. Maria Callas and Tito Gobbi in “Tosca” (the confrontation scene) is a supreme reference of recitativo.
All she is saying is that, ultimately, success in singing (assuming, of course, that you can resonably carry a tune) is getting across that you sincerely mean or feel what you are singing. If you sing for technique only, you loose that. I think that's why popular music is, well, more popular than formal music. It's more about feeling something than it is technique. And more people relate and respond to that.
@Philly Kang Yes. But the people who chose what I called formal music, and formal culture in general, were the cultural elites (that is, the political and economic elites), especially in Europe. Starting at the beginning of the 20th century however, American popular music began to change that. In the US, while there were cultural elites as well, it was the masses who, uniquely for times, determined what was going to be the dominant popular culture. For many reasons (not the least of which was that it easily absorbed aspects of many other cultures), American popular culture proved so seductive that it inserted itself far beyond the US, especially in Europe (but elsewhere as well). European elites fought very hard against this American invasion - and to some extent still do. But it was (and still is) a losing battle.
Listen to Rex Harrison sing “I Am Accustomed to Her Face”. He speak-sings the song and the emotion is amazingly poignant. Proof that the singing itself is not enough in order to connect with your audience. The result here is tremendous!
Yes it can be a great success story to hire a straight actor or someone with 'limited' vocal range for a musical role. Richard Burton, Glynis Johns, rose to the challenge, and Elaine Stritch just thrived in musical theater. But you had better be damn good at literally every other discipline to get away with it. You have to get the audience to forget that little 'detail', and just go along for the ride!
@@BTURNER1961 it’s so sad casting like that doesn’t really happen on Broadway anymore. It feels like technical proficiency is being overemphasized to the point that everyone’s voices are homogenized. Those with unique voices that convey character and feeling are left out. What happened to performers like Howard Da Silvia or Ethel Merman? The recent Funny Girl revival tried to cast a lead like the crossover talents you mentioned, but audiences rejected her. They wanted a singer who could dazzle them instead of a performer who move them. If Fanny Brice came back from the dead today, she couldn’t sing well enough to get a call back to play herself.
at 40:19 she thinks aloud, "how can I help." and at 40:30 after being monetarily stuck while trying to get the young man to find the emotion in the words, she muses, "maybe it will help to have you SPEAK those lines." That is exactly the technique used in his "Acting The Songs" master classes given by David Brunetti in Manhattan. When you get up to perform in front of the class of 6 other singers,each of whom will follow the same course, , you hand him a copy of the lyrics and you read the lyrics aloud w-thout any music or rhythm in mind - only the attitude, the tone, the rhythm that grows from the emotion you find in them. Doing this eliminates the very "singing" issue that Ms Cook so accurately identifies. You tell the lyrics until you are the lyrics, not a performer. You tell the lyrics until you become their meaning - and your audience learns what those lyrics mean to you. Only after are you ready to use that emotion in singing the notes - and the song become . . . what you make of it. She is so insightful. when she says "Think about the words, not the notes." That's what she herself does so materfully.
There is so much in the phrasing that so many singers just don't either understand or know how to do it with out making it obvious !! Some of the most famous singers were not necessarily great singers, it they had the talent of phrasing..
Where was Ms. Cook teaching this? I know she lived in the Hamptons. When I lived in Riverhead, it was with a famous artist who had bought a house formerly owned by “three ladies named Cook”. My landlord possibly had no idea of the existence of Barbara, though there may or may not have been a connection with her (family relationship)
What a horrible thing to say. She has a beautiful voice, and more over, is a patient and receptive student. Barbara explained why the voice sounded wrong, the songs are often written in a key suitable for male voice, but not for female in that style of singing. Gorgeous singer, I commend her for attempting to do what Barbara was grasping at, which I think was wrong for this song. It has comic undertones, at the same time as being sincere, it is also ironic.
I keep hearing “Waddle eye dew”...why not get out of the vernacular and actually sing/say “what WILL I do”???? The performers are stuck in a particular peculiar form of parlance.....it’s always been done that way before and is perhaps even written that way..... acting exercises place the stress on different words.... why not change the way the word is said almost entirely? Personalize.
The song is "What'll I Do." People perform it that was because that's what Irving Berlin wrote. He was the supreme master at translating the vernacular of his time and place into memorable songs. There's plenty of leeway for individual performers to place a personal stamp on the song.
Is Randy male or female ? Trans something, maybe ? Looks like a girl, sounds like one too ! Not a very good voice as compared to the other singers .. Strange !!
@@ms.martiegallego8834 what business is it of yours or anyone not dating Randy what his, hers or it’s sex is? If you don’t like someone’s voice, just stick to the issue, such as what in particular you find you didn’t like. If you can’t identify that, put more thought onto it, don’t digress to something irrelevant. Please?
@@treesny you are “preaching to the choir. I know what I. B. wrote but do not engage in needless idolatry. I modify Chopin if i feel it in my heart and hope others enjoy it too (only a little). Thanks for validating my comment by responding (absolute value if you know some math)
I miss Barbara Cook so much. Such a Rare Talent from an incredible generation of entertainers!
What a phenomenal gift to witness her honesty in coaching…
These songs are so pure and simple and vulnerable that I would have a heck of a time singing them in a class without crying. Bravo to the courage of the singers and Barbara’s incomparable coaching.
"Let's lower the key and sit down." This is great. Barbara reveals so much about herself, it's like an enhanced interview with her. This could have been a show on Broadway!
This was one of the first streaming videos I ever saw, before RUclips even existed. Early 2000s. I remember being so amazed - I couldn’t believe it!
A few years later, I saw Barbara Cook live. She must have been 80 by then. Unforgettable.
I attended a master class given by Barbara Cook in 2013. It was so insightful listening to her teaching students to sing a song with purpose. What I remember most about the class was her saying to the students and the audience to remember that "you are enough."
"You are Enough..." BUT do people want to hear you or watch you.... That's the question.
Ms Cook was such a brilliant teacher! So much wisdom. An amazing session.
Have you ever seen someone famous or well-known that you just know you'd love to have known personally? Barbara Cook was one of those people. There was an authenticity and realness about her that touches me.
The Legend teaching. I cannot sing. I wish I could, but Barbara makes so much sense. Such a wonderful lady, so talented. So missed. I could have listened to this lady all day long.... Stunning. Now you can understand why she was so appreciated. No one can comes near her.
😁😁 totally agree!
I agree,! I could listen to her sing or talk all day!
Every student met their unique challenge, and improved rather dramatically in the course of 15 minutes. She kept searching for a way to communicate and drag the authenticity out of them. Great teacher.
Me Cook was a genius. She brought these wonderful singers to even better sound and presentation of the songs I learned so much. Thanks for posting
What a lovely conversation. The girl was totally intimidated by being on stage with one of the great singers of broadway, but Ms,. Cook finally broke through that barrier. What a decent human being. And the girl has a wonderful natural voice,
I was fortunate to attend two of Barbara Cook's master classes at the Juilliard School. These were particularly enlightening because at each one she worked with four students, two from the opera program and two from the theater division. And just as she worked to help the opera singers find a more "natural," vernacular mode of singing -- and to connect the words and notes to their innermost selves -- she brought the acting students, who had a firm foundation in the emotions and meaning of the text, back to certain essential musical requirements, like sustaining a strong melodic line. Really learned so much from this marvelous artist! :-)
Operatic singing came long before the microphone. Thew came the microphone and Bing Crosby, I wish Elvis Presley had hired her. He had a world class voice but only sometimes does he employ his instrument to its full effect.
@@JRobbySh I agree Elvis Presley was a great singer with sometimes a wrong repertoire.He wanted to be a popular singer and didnt use his material in a better repertoire only in few moments
Thank you for posting this class with one of my favorite singers ever. She had such incredible feeling, along with her beautiful tone and sound. It's difficult to put into words what made her performances so special, but I was in the audience for many of her concerts in the 90s and 2000s in Toronto and New York, when the crowd sat in spellbound silence at what she was doing with her performances. We held onto every word and she drew us in. Nice of her to try to help young singers think about these things as well. It's amazing to see the difference she makes when she gets them to try again and to do what she is suggesting. It astonishes me that some of these classically trained singers and their teachers seemed to have absolutely no idea of how to handle these songs in a way that suited their style, mood and tone when they first got up to sing them. They just come in and sing operatically and totally miss what is special about these songs. Many classical students, I've noticed, seem to think they're "slumming" when they do popular songs, and they want to show off their classical voices, as if to say "This is how a real singer" would perform it, when they're actually missing the magic that makes them work. But this is often true even with well-known opera stars when trying to do this material. But just getting them to relax, lower a key, think about the actual words, sing more softly, she makes a huge difference in their performances. Brava Barbara, and thank you for your talent and teaching! Great that students today can still watch it, even though Barbara is no longer with us.
I had no idea she gave masterclasses in the ladder portion of her life, that's quite interesting. I love how she's sharing her gifts and experiences with young singers who are just getting into the theatre/singing community. I'm just getting started singing, and I wish she was still alive so I could take one of these, because I adore Barbara Cook, she's one of my biggest influences when it comes to singing and acting.
So great to see Barbara Cook teaching! I love her so much!!! May her memory always be a blessing...we have her recordings!!!!
What I give to have taken a masterclass with her. She seems such a warm teacher, so sweet and the amount of knowledge she had. I cried the entire day when I found out she had passed away. She was (is) what I aspire to be in a singer and an actress.
I cried the day two women died (bsides my mother) - Barbara Cook and Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. Lorraine was such a blow.
@@kedemberger8773 Yes, yes.
Stumbled on this and what a blessing it is to have Masters taking their time to impart their craft onto others. So many juicy nuggets!! Thank you!
So much fun to watch the master dissect these songs. I miss her so.
So many singers - in opera and musicals - past and present FAIL to understand this simple truth that singing is more than just how beautiful and loud you can sound. As she accurately said, “Who cares? Many can do that. What you need to do is deliver!”
The perfect example of what Ms. Cook is saying here is Deanna Durbin. She could sing opera arias, traditional ballads, and the Great American Songbook with equal facility. On RUclips you can find her “Largo al Factotum” and “Vissi d’Arte.” Compare them with how she sang “Always” and “Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year” in the film “Christmas Holiday” with Gene Kelly.
EXACTLY. They more or less drove her into retirement, for some reason. Our great loss.
She worked wonders with Jess and when she whispered in Marvin's ear a lightbulb went on. Just terrific all around. She's a delight and so helpful. Thank you for posting.
She was so innately brilliant, and generous, as we see.
There's a video somewhere on RUclips of two young emerging singing stars of the 1930s, Deanna Durbin and Judy Garland together. Durbin sang with a much more operatic style, while Garland was much more familiar. But they both were successful because they both felt the songs, and they sang to an audience, not at them.
Durbin could also do the cabaret style and what she could do with Danny boy. The problem singers face is that people attach a style to them.
The essence of this class (first part) is Cabaret style vs Operatic. I was so fascinated and taken in by the lead-in words I had never heard before (almost recitative) that I was as resistive and un-understanding as the student. I felt Ms. I Cook was tormenting the student (somewhat) until I really understood what she was getting at. I really learned something as well. Thank you for posting this!
Agreed, the start with the first student was a bit bumpy. I think It really boils down to style and what’s appropriate in the respective genre. However, Operas usually have recitativo that often requires a conversational approach so that singer should have known a little better 😉. Maria Callas and Tito Gobbi in “Tosca” (the confrontation scene) is a supreme reference of recitativo.
Such a loving, positive, supportive, and insightful coach. Barbara really knows how to teach and got the best out of each student.
I miss her and loved her. I learned so much from this!
All she is saying is that, ultimately, success in singing (assuming, of course, that you can resonably carry a tune) is getting across that you sincerely mean or feel what you are singing. If you sing for technique only, you loose that. I think that's why popular music is, well, more popular than formal music. It's more about feeling something than it is technique. And more people relate and respond to that.
@Philly Kang Yes. But the people who chose what I called formal music, and formal culture in general, were the cultural elites (that is, the political and economic elites), especially in Europe. Starting at the beginning of the 20th century however, American popular music began to change that. In the US, while there were cultural elites as well, it was the masses who, uniquely for times, determined what was going to be the dominant popular culture. For many reasons (not the least of which was that it easily absorbed aspects of many other cultures), American popular culture proved so seductive that it inserted itself far beyond the US, especially in Europe (but elsewhere as well). European elites fought very hard against this American invasion - and to some extent still do. But it was (and still is) a losing battle.
I wrote this 2 years ago under my real name. Reading it today pains me terribly to see that I spelled "lose" as "loose"! 🤦🏻♂️
Wow, thank you so much for sharing this!
Listen to Rex Harrison sing “I Am Accustomed to Her Face”. He speak-sings the song and the emotion is amazingly poignant. Proof that the singing itself is not enough in order to connect with your audience. The result here is tremendous!
Yes it can be a great success story to hire a straight actor or someone with 'limited' vocal range for a musical role. Richard Burton, Glynis Johns, rose to the challenge, and Elaine Stritch just thrived in musical theater. But you had better be damn good at literally every other discipline to get away with it. You have to get the audience to forget that little 'detail', and just go along for the ride!
@@BTURNER1961 it’s so sad casting like that doesn’t really happen on Broadway anymore. It feels like technical proficiency is being overemphasized to the point that everyone’s voices are homogenized. Those with unique voices that convey character and feeling are left out. What happened to performers like Howard Da Silvia or Ethel Merman? The recent Funny Girl revival tried to cast a lead like the crossover talents you mentioned, but audiences rejected her. They wanted a singer who could dazzle them instead of a performer who move them. If Fanny Brice came back from the dead today, she couldn’t sing well enough to get a call back to play herself.
This needs to be played to those who seem to think that technic trumps emotion, commitment and understanding the song
Eileen Farrell knew how to sing a popular song in her vernacular voice, so to speak.
EF could sing everything, from Bach to Wagner, from Irish songs to Gershwin.
Great teacher
at 40:19 she thinks aloud, "how can I help." and at 40:30 after being monetarily stuck while trying to get the young man to find the emotion in the words, she muses, "maybe it will help to have you SPEAK those lines."
That is exactly the technique used in his "Acting The Songs" master classes given by David Brunetti in Manhattan. When you get up to perform in front of the class of 6 other singers,each of whom will follow the same course, , you hand him a copy of the lyrics and you read the lyrics aloud w-thout any music or rhythm in mind - only the attitude, the tone, the rhythm that grows from the emotion you find in them.
Doing this eliminates the very "singing" issue that Ms Cook so accurately identifies. You tell the lyrics until you are the lyrics, not a performer. You tell the lyrics until you become their meaning - and your audience learns what those lyrics mean to you.
Only after are you ready to use that emotion in singing the notes - and the song become . . . what you make of it.
She is so insightful. when she says "Think about the words, not the notes." That's what she herself does so materfully.
Wish I knew where to find other clips featuring her excellent accompanist.
There is so much in the phrasing that so many singers just don't either understand or know how to do it with out making it obvious !! Some of the most famous singers were not necessarily great singers, it they had the talent of phrasing..
She’s great!
She’s teaching “ method singing.”
Thanks for posting this!
Very nice
this is marvelous fun! when was this class? Looks like early 2000's.
Where are these students today?
Great to see a kiwi got to have this experience
"This is all make believe. But we gotta believe it"
Cook: Operatic singing needs to be more conversational.
Callas and Gobbi: ruclips.net/video/Ks1KQv0we4M/видео.html
Where was Ms. Cook teaching this? I know she lived in the Hamptons. When I lived in Riverhead, it was with a famous artist who had bought a house formerly owned by “three ladies named Cook”. My landlord possibly had no idea of the existence of Barbara, though there may or may not have been a connection with her (family relationship)
Whaddaya mean it's not a closer??? It's a perfect closer!!
Quando será o próximo master classe?
what year is this?
Typically intelligent and perceptive Barbara Cook.
Barbara is amazing. This is so painful to watch because those poor students haven’t got a clue 😭
54:40
My ears can’t handle her tone. How on earth did she get into a master class with anyone, let alone Barbara Cook?! One of life’s mysteries.
What a horrible thing to say. She has a beautiful voice, and more over, is a patient and receptive student. Barbara explained why the voice sounded wrong, the songs are often written in a key suitable for male voice, but not for female in that style of singing. Gorgeous singer, I commend her for attempting to do what Barbara was grasping at, which I think was wrong for this song. It has comic undertones, at the same time as being sincere, it is also ironic.
@Charlie Charlie
My opinion is that her tone is harsh and her phrasing is awkward. So what?
Cook cannot expect young singers to have the life experience she has. They are too young!
I keep hearing “Waddle eye dew”...why not get out of the vernacular and actually sing/say “what WILL I do”???? The performers are stuck in a particular peculiar form of parlance.....it’s always been done that way before and is perhaps even written that way..... acting exercises place the stress on different words.... why not change the way the word is said almost entirely? Personalize.
The song is "What'll I Do." People perform it that was because that's what Irving Berlin wrote. He was the supreme master at translating the vernacular of his time and place into memorable songs. There's plenty of leeway for individual performers to place a personal stamp on the song.
Is Randy male or female ? Trans something, maybe ? Looks like a girl, sounds like one too ! Not a very good voice as compared to the other singers .. Strange !!
@@ms.martiegallego8834 what business is it of yours or anyone not dating Randy what his, hers or it’s sex is? If you don’t like someone’s voice, just stick to the issue, such as what in particular you find you didn’t like. If you can’t identify that, put more thought onto it, don’t digress to something irrelevant. Please?
@@treesny you are “preaching to the choir. I know what I. B. wrote but do not engage in needless idolatry. I modify Chopin if i feel it in my heart and hope others enjoy it too (only a little). Thanks for validating my comment by responding (absolute value if you know some math)