On Attempting to Get Singing Advice from Art Garfunkel

Off and on I have studied voice.   I do not know the technical name of the techniques used by my instructors, but I would guess classical training might be a fairly accurate description .  The last time I decided to take voice lessons, I wanted to try a different technique but did not know who to ask.  It occurred to me that not long before, I heard an interview on public radio with Art Garfunkel about different aspects of his voice.  One thing he said that stuck with me, and I am paraphrasing here as this was several years ago, was that he wanted to make a beautiful sound.

So in my quest for a good singing technique, who better to ask than ol’ Art himself? Since not too many people with the name Garfunkel are out there with websites, it was fairly easy to find an official site for Art Garfunkel.  Now I know what you are thinking and I bet it is this:  Art Garfunkel has better things to do than answer your dumb question.   Yes, he does.  And that is why he most likely has a staff of people who answer dumb questions on his behalf.  If he did not anticipate such questions, he should remove the “contact” button on the site or at least set up a separate contact button specifically for annoying questions.

So I put together a brief and respectful email to Mr. Garfunkel, asking about any preferred technique and throwing in a reference to the interview on NPR so I at least sounded like a level headed, respectable person because we all know that if you say you heard something on NPR, it reeks of pretense and credibility.  If it didn’t, people would not always cite NPR as a source, right? ” Oh, I heard on NPR that squirrels eat fried eggplant?” …You did?  Well it must be true if you heard it on NPR”!  Anyway, I have digressed.

Well it is several years later and yesterday, while listening to a live version of Scarborough Fair, it occurred to me that Art never responded to my inquiry.  Of course I still went and studies voice again. And with a teacher who did not teach in the so-called classical style.  But I guess I can’t help wondering, more so than whatever technique Art would have suggested, is whatever happened to my email?