Cornelius L. Reid

Through vocal strain brought on by confusing and contradictory voice training, he was forced to abandon a career in singing.

"[2] Dr. Stephen F. Austin also supports the researching of earlier books on bel canto: "...there are wonderful sources that can help us get back on track.

Tosi's Observations on the Florid Song, Mancini's Practical Reflections on the Art of Singing are two great places to start.

Pedro de Alcantara, an Alexander teacher, supports both Reid as well as Husler/Rodd-Marling, who published Singing: The Physical Nature of the Vocal Organ[5] in 1965: "The free-thinking Reid and the collaborating duo of Frederick Husler and Yvonne Rodd-Marling have put forth watertight arguments for the correct relationship of cause and effect as regards breathing and singing.

Their books have proved highly controversial, yet their detractors, rather than disproving the points made by their writers, have resorted to ad hominem attacks such as 'He is crazy.'

"[6] When Reid's first three books were published as a Trilogy in 1975, Richard Dyer-Bennet wrote: "Today's world, in all its aspects, seems to vacillate between mechanistic and mystical approaches to problems.

As author and teacher, Reid has now firmly re-established these principles and, with added insights of his own, leaves us with no excuse to again lose our way.

Several more books came out in the 1990s including Essays on the Nature of Singing and a translation of Vocal Exercises: Their Purpose and Dynamics was published in Germany.

Editors Ariel Bybee and James E. Ford, in their choice of title for this compendium, simultaneously acknowledge that pedagogical tradition and pay homage to the teacher they believe follows in that lineage: Cornelius L. Reid.

Cornelius Reid has made a singular contribution to vocal pedagogy because he has kept the ancient traditions of teaching as established and tested in the fire of the eighteenth-century opera houses alive in the twentieth century—and now the twenty-first century.