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 practical resource for voice teachers, professional and amateur singers, pop soloists, and choir members.
The book's significance lies in its departure from traditional vocal pedagogy texts. Rather than focusing on theory or history, Kasper provides specific, actionable guidance on tongue placement, rib expansion, and vocal tract function. Across 19 chapters, she walks through the entire singing system from the diaphragm up, treating breathing as a coordinated athletic event involving the diaphragm, external intercostals, and upper abdominals. Early chapters introduce the larynx, tongue, and pharynx as the lower architecture of the vocal tract, while later chapters map the lips, hard palate, soft palate, cheeks, and jaw.
Kasper's approach is notably inclusive. She argues that popular singers, Broadway performers, and classical vocalists all share the same underlying technique, even when their choices about register mixing differ. This unified system could bridge gaps between genres that often remain siloed in vocal education. 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 revisits this concept from multiple angles, adding layers on vowel projection, resonance tuning, the Alexander Technique for pharyngeal space, and the relationship between the first and second harmonics.
Registration and the passaggio transitions that trip up nearly every developing singer are addressed in Chapters 9 and 10. Kasper favors the glissando as the primary tool for smoothing those breaks. 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. 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 such as pitch matching, singing in tune in the upper register, vibrato problems, TMJ, and the concept of "covering" the voice.
The book reads the way Kasper teaches: information is repeated from chapter to chapter because, as she writes, "repetition is how we learn." 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. Many of these exercises are demonstrated on video via her YouTube channel, Kathryn Kasper or kaspervocalmethod.
Kasper's background lends authority to the work. 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.
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. For more information, visit her YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/@KathrynKasper or https://www.youtube.com/@kaspervocalmethod.
