Marianna Brilla — Lisa Paglin Reeducadoras vocales
“¡Ya es hora de que los cantantes vuelvan a ser libres!”
“It is time for singers to be free again!”
A “preview” glance at the first page of a long article on Voice Specialists Marianna Brilla and Lisa Paglin by Nacho Castellanos, published in the April edition of the Spanish music journal SCHERZO.
« To talk about pedagogy of singing today is synonymous with telling the story of Marianna Brilla and Lisa Paglin, two voice specialists whose discoveries are revolutionizing the conception of singing that the twentieth century standardized. After more than 20 years of research, the founders of Netw Voice Studio (Italia/Brilla-Paglin) came to the conclusion that vocal training today encourages many singers to develop vocal problems or to have to retire just after their 50th birthday.
Their work has become an object of study not only by otolaryngologists and speech therapists, but even by dentists. Those who have
experienced these discoveries define them as a deep and sincere path not only in the knowledge of one’s own voice, but of oneself. For them, the voice does not have positions, nor facial gestures, nor age, since the only difference that exists between singing and speaking is legato. Their teachings are sought after by opera singers as well as pop and jazz stars. Their research does not discriminate again any singing style, as it focuses on a single aspect: beauty in singing.»
Nacho Castellanos
A small excerpt from page 1
What is it that leads two singers with consolidated careers to retire from the stage to devote themselves to investigating the voice?
M.B .: I was born a singer. From early childhood it was apparent to everyone who heard me that I had great talent for singing. I sang with total ease, but by age 14, already having had years of lessons, I began to feel that there was something wrong. I knew I was not getting the proper guidance.
I traveled by land, sea and air looking for teachers who could help me achieve that vocal balance that I craved. I saw over twenty-seven teachers, trying to find solutions. Many of them were the most famous in the world at that time.
I received degrees from some of the best music schools and universities in the world.
I was looking for transparency and effortlessness, but I ended up realizing that nobody had clear ideas about of singing and that those who really sang well did not know how to teach.
In 1976 I obtained a Fulbright scholarship to travel to Italy and to investigate the original methodology of Italian singing. In that period I met many singers, old people who had studied with teachers born in the mid-nineteenth century. They could sing perfectly at 80 or 90 years of age, but, unfortunately, they did not know how to transmit their knowledge.
By age 38, I realized that there was an absence of clear criteria in singing.
We wanted to know what was right and what was wrong. We wanted to learn to sing with beauty and ease, and to be able to make music without impediments.
L.P .: My experience was similar to Marianna’s; I soon took the same painful decision to abandon my growing career to begin to re-studying.
We did not start out thinking that we were going to be spending the next twenty years investigating. We needed to discover the truth because we wanted to learn to sing. We wanted to know what was right and what was wrong. We wanted to learn to sing with beauty and ease, and to be able to make music without impediments.
M.B .: In the end we found so many unanswered questions that it became our life’s work, our true passion: to know, to not accept those partial truths, to discover true answers. Many times we thought about going back to the stage, but we ended up realizing that the work we had done was bigger than us and that we needed to make it known to the whole world.
