I wonder what today’s voice teachers would think of the composer Gioacchino Rossini’s ideas for a vocal training curriculum. According to Rossini, learning the art of bel canto, or “beautiful singing,” should begin with many months of soundless exercises, starting no later than the age of twelve . Next, several years of just scales, in order to achieve what he called “equality of timbre over the whole range of the organ, equalization of the registers.” Then three years of vocalises and exercises