> baffled when you describe her tone as hooty. The > usual meaning of the word > hooty is a tone that is lacking in overtones and is > much like the tone one > hears from a tuning fork
I hear Jennifer Larmore's voice as "hooty," too, if that helps. It's like... a voice that has no sharp, clean edge to it. It sounds almost hollow, like someone is singing inside a cavern or in the shower, just round and over-covered and artificial-sounding, to me. Not lacking in overtones, because these voices can be quite bright (in a way), just not that good, pingy forward-bright... more like a cavernous, balloon-like hooty-bright.
It reminds me of the vocal tone that deaf people who have been taught to speak use, if you have ever known someone like that. Or like Kermit the Frog's voice (the original Jim Henson one, not the one they have on TV now, nor the "froggy" voice that people use to imitate him). There, that's my definition of hooty.
We'll never agree about placement... you say potato, I say potahto. I think that the simplest and easiest way for many people to understand and produce a correct tone is to think "forward." Most of the female singers in the Hines book say the same thing. You remarked:
> When a conductor tells a singer to sing more > forward the intelligent singer can understand > that he means the tone is too dark and needs > more high overtone emphasis. The singer can then > make the necessary adjustments that are effective > for his/her voice without a need to explain
To me, "the necessary adjustments" are more easily accomplished by telling yourself, "Think forward, feel the buzzing in the front teeth and right above the nose," than by thinking to yourself, "Put more overtones in the voice," or, "Okay, let's move the left crico-thyroid three millimeters to the left," or other such nonsense.
Even the "non-placement" ways of fixing a too-dark tone -- adjusting the vowel (why, that just means transforming a backward vowel into a forward vowel) or fiddling with the mouth space (again, more placement concepts, just with different terminology) -- do the same thing. A voice with overtones and singer's formant IS forward, whether you teach someone to get it forward by thinking about placement imagery or by thinking about something else.
For some people, placement imagery isn't needed. But most Americans, I think, don't have naturally placed, forward, squillo-laden voices (unlike many Italians, I have learned). You don't HAVE to teach it, and some students, of course, don't need it... but to dismiss it because imagery isn't scientific is to ignore how singers have been taught to sing for hundreds of years (and how many of the famous ones still believe they sing, according to that book).
But, of course, I love to talk about it... and I have learned a good deal in the Lloyd-Isabelle debates on the subject. What a lot there is to learn! What a beautiful thing it is to exchange ideas and discuss and grow with each other.
Isabelle B.
===== Isabelle Bracamonte San Francisco, CA ibracamonte@y...
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