It was during the nineteenth century that the social and musical conditions for the development of the modern idea of ‘classical’ singing came into being, with a well-documented change from the speech-related singing that probably characterised the high status form in earlier periods to a new dedicated form of singing that was radically different from what had gone before. The new singing was underpinned both technically and ideologically by a pedagogy increasingly based on scientific principles. Parallel with this was the tendency to mythologise singing of the past, and it is during this period that we first encounter references to bel canto, as a mythical vocal technique from a previous era. The science, the myth, and the ideologies that framed them both, are still very much a part of many aspects of singing in the present day.

The evidence examined so far suggests that until the nineteenth century there was no precise definition of what singing actually was, but for the aspiring elite singer there was one traditional method of learning the art: he or she would attach him- or herself to a master, who would not necessarily be a practising singer but a musician who had a reputation for sound teaching. This could be as a private pupil or, in the case of Italy, at a private accademia, many of which flourished from the late Renaissance onwards.