Concept of ‘Beauty’ in Singing Voice Based on Herbert-Caesari’s Works

This study aims to discuss the notion of beautiful voice in artistic or classical singing and the possibility of defining the beauty of tone. To this end, I analyse the thoughts of Edgar Herbert-Caesari, a 20th century British singing teacher and writer, based on five of his books. While most previous studies have mainly focussed on his singing pedagogy and techniques, this study contributes to the literature by examining his thoughts about ‘beautiful’ singing, which remain relatively unexplored. His thoughts revealed three main ideas. First, he thinks that it is possible to define the Beauty of tone because vocal organs do have a natural movement. Second, he insists that singers, singing teachers and even audiences must recognize beauty of tone to prevent the decline in singing standards Third, he thinks that to recognize beautiful tone, it is necessary to understand the natural movement of vocal organs based on appropriate scientific knowledge. Despite disagreements on whether the standards of beautiful singing can indeed be defined, Herbert-Caesari’s work continue to influence today’s classical singing and singing education.departmental bulletin pape