After more than 50 years of teaching singers how to breathe, stand, and open their throats, Kathryn Kasper has written down her method. Her new book, Singing: A Technical Guide, is a comprehensive manual that distills decades of studio experience into a single unified system for vocal technique. The book matters because it bridges the gap between classical pedagogy and contemporary styles, offering a practical, feel-based approach that is accessible to singers of all levels.
Kasper's method is rooted in the belief that every singer, regardless of genre, shares the same instrument. Across 19 chapters, she walks readers through the entire vocal system from the diaphragm up. Early chapters treat breathing as a coordinated athletic event involving the diaphragm, external intercostals, and upper abdominals. Subsequent chapters introduce the larynx, tongue, and pharynx as the lower architecture of the vocal tract, and then map the rest: lips, hard palate, soft palate, cheeks, and jaw. This systematic approach ensures that singers understand not just what to do, but why it works.
The middle chapters tackle what Kasper calls "the fundamental," the raw sound created at the vocal folds before the vocal tract shapes it into language. She returns to this concept from multiple angles, adding layers such as vowel projection, resonance tuning, the Alexander Technique for pharyngeal space, and the relationship between the first and second harmonics. In Chapter 6, she recounts a humbling lesson when a doctoral teacher told her he did not hear much resonance in her voice, sending her on a years-long search that eventually led to an old Italian method involving inhaling through the mouth while smelling a flower. Such personal anecdotes make the technical content relatable and underscore the empirical, feel-based teaching she advocates.
Chapters 9 and 10 address registration and the passaggio transitions that trip up nearly every developing singer. Kasper favors the glissando as the primary tool for smoothing those breaks and is direct about the fact that popular singers, Broadway performers, and classical vocalists all share the same underlying technique even when their choices about register mixing differ. Chapter 15 provides an accessible introduction to the International Phonetic Alphabet for English, and Chapter 17 covers melisma, interpolation, and runs with attention to both Baroque ornamentation and contemporary popular style. This inclusive approach sets the book apart from more narrowly focused vocal manuals.
The final chapters are practical and personal. Chapter 18 positions the book within the broader tradition of vocal pedagogy, citing William Vennard, Richard Miller, Joan Wall, Robert Caldwell, and Theodore Dimon while arguing for a return toward empirical, feel-based teaching. Chapter 19 addresses special issues: pitch matching, singing in tune in the upper register, vibrato problems, TMJ, and the concept of "covering" the voice. Exercises appear at the end of most chapters, many drawn from real studio sessions: sit-ups while singing, wall squats for posture, lip trills for pitch matching, and the finger-in-front-of-the-nose trick for checking projection.
Kasper's biography informs her authority. Born in Lima, Ohio, in 1940, she grew up in a Mennonite family that sang in four-part harmony before she ever set foot in a formal music classroom. She earned a Music Education degree from Bethel College and a Master of Music in Voice from Wichita State University. A Fulbright fellowship took her and her husband, Arlo, to Wiesbaden, Germany, for two years. She spent the next three decades teaching voice at Bethel College, performing annual recitals, and co-producing theater with Arlo. After retiring in 2006, a second Fulbright brought the couple to the UniNorte Opera Company in Asuncion, Paraguay, where they have lived for 20 years. During that time, Kasper helped prepare a 540-voice choir for the visit of Pope Francis in 2015. She continues to teach at university programs and privately across Paraguay. She and Arlo have been married for 63 years.
The book reads the way Kasper teaches: information is repeated from chapter to chapter because, as she writes, "repetition is how we learn." The tone is direct, patient, and free of jargon. Singing: A Technical Guide is written for voice teachers, professional and amateur singers, pop soloists, and choir members. It covers classical, Broadway, and popular technique within a single unified system. Kasper does not pretend the system is simple. She does insist it is learnable. The book is designed to work alongside Kasper's YouTube channel (Kathryn Kasper or kaspervocalmethod), where many of the exercises are demonstrated on video. For more information, visit her YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/@kaspervocalmethod.
