This book introduces a practical approach to freer and more joyful singing. Drawing its strength and inspiration from Gracia Ricardo"s work with Rudolf Steiner, it presents anyone who wishes to sing, as well as professional singers, with a spiritual alternative to the mechanical and physical methods of voice training usually available today. The Ricardo method is based on the word. The first chapter deals with the onset of the tone, its focus, the separation of word and tone, and listening for the word. The relation between vowels, consonants, words, and phrases is also dealt with. The second chapter goes on to consider the voice, how to build and extend its range. The third chapter develops the idea of blending the vocal registers, placement, embellishments, resonance, and diction. Professional tips follow: on choosing a program, stage fright, mood, and presence. Esoteric aspects of music and singing are then dealt with in a special section. "It is important that we sing. It is especially important for our children to sing. Singing frees the soul, makes it flexible, and helps it soar and expand. Singing lets the sun in-gives warmth to our lives and wings to our spirit. Those who sing know this. To sing at all requires a certain degree of freedom. Learning to sing in the way described here means finding ever greater degrees of freedom in ourselves. When we sing with this freedom, we find ourselves anew. When we sing with others, we find one another. Singing music that lifts our souls in freedom, we open ourselves to worlds that fructify the spirit in us. We make our souls flexible and receptive to spiritual worlds-open to what the spiritual worlds can tell us." - Dina Soresi Winter