Bart -
There is also a technical reason for thinking of all pitches within a phrase as existing on a horizontal line. To think of pitch vertically (not to be confused with vocal alignment or vowel tracking, which does have a vertical feel to it) invariably causes mechanical adjustments, what I often refer to in my studio as 'perching'. These small (and sometimes not-so-small) adjustments change the basic timbre of the voice resulting not only in an unmatching 'ambience' in the voice, but also in a destruction of the legato line.
Also, I also would not define focus as clinging to anything. In classical vocal technique, everything must remain flexible. Hence the idea of breath-initiated tone in the bel canto school of thought. Too often I hear singers who believe focus is about putting the sound 'somewhere' and never deviating from that place. I hear that as jamming the tone and I know it to be a short path to nowhere. It invariably inhibits height in the tone and does not allow for bloom/ring/resonance, or whatever you want to call it in your line of thought.
Best,
Mark
"Sing on the interest, not on the principal" - Florence Page Kimball, to her student Leontyne Price "The voice is not a fist." - Fritz Wunderlich "I sing with a slim voice." - Birgit Nilsson
On Sun, 26 May 2002 bjjocelyn@p... wrote:
> > So, Mike, > What's wrong with singers who > "look as if they're trying to see over a fence on the highest pitches" ? > > I mean, as long as they're not trying to look at the top of a ladder, with > their eyeballs ridiculously squinting upwards. > > See, I perfectly got your point about irrationally linking pitch to height, > but don't you think a little focus as you're nearing the naturally brittler > extremities of your range won't harm? That is, mentally clinging to a dot in > the distance in order to keep a line taut that would otherwise be likely to > sag? > > But then, if giving direction or perspective to your vocal line can prove > helpful, who cares if it's horizontally, laterally, vertically, or any > other way? For spaniards and italians for instance, a "high"-pitched voice > may be called a "thin" voice (voz fina, voce fina), the measure beeing > "thickness" or "breadth" there. Is it closer to what a true "right > conception" of pitch should be? > Unfortunately, once you've stated "pitch is pitch, period", any supposedly > convenient visual correspondance to this purely acoustic phenomenon can't be > but arbitrary, "misconception"-like. > > So at the end of the day, what's the fuss about the ordinary pitch/height > connexion standing in the way?
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