| To: "VOCALIST" <vocalist> Subject: Re: MOUTH VOICE Date sent: Fri, 28 Jan 2000 08:42:17 -0500 Send reply to: VOCALIST <vocalist>
-----Original Message----- From: Buzzcen-at-aol.com To: vocalist <vocalist> Date: Thursday, January 27, 2000 11:36 PM Subject: Re: MOUTH VOICE
BTW, in your description of head voice you describe directing the air >up into the skull. This is impossible unless you have a hole somewhere in >your palate which would allow this to happen, which perhaps you do! LOL > >Randy Buescher
Dear Randy and list,
This is a scientifically correct observation, but one that I feel illustrates how a purely scientific mindset can sometimes be limiting. As much as I am passionate about vocal science, I have come to realize something that Mr. Spock so eloquently expressed in Star Trek 6 "Undiscovered Country": Science [logic] is only the beginning, not the end.
Yes we know that a relaxed vocal tract, the appropriate shape of the vowel, intense enough air flow in a balanced phonatory pattern are contributing factors in sympathetic resonance which is necessary for well-produced sound. There is a time to express it to a student in just those terms, but much more rarely than the many times we use imagery or metaphors which the specific student can identify with. Personally, I find something much more artistic and visceral about "directing the air up to the skull."
I believe a person's resonators, like many organs which respond to cortical stimuli, respond to directives relative to the way the person appropriated that knowledge and/or experience initially, which is why there are serious doubt about the possibility of accessing head resonance when the facial-maxilo area has been altered such as in reconstructive surgery tangent). Not everyone is going to respond to the same directives in the same way.
One of my voice teachers, an Italian mezzo named Ada Finelli sang at La Scala and in Germany for 35 years. She retired at age 56 to teach full time (she had been teaching for many years prior). I spent a few weeks with her for three consecutive summers and learned more from her about vocal coordination in that time than all of my other teachers combined (not to say that I did not cherish the scientific and spiritual knowledge that I got from my ohter teachers). The thing is that she has not read one book about vocal pedagogy, could not begin to explain the most basic scientific process relative to singing. Her approach was minimalistic to the point of being simplistic. But in the end, her timing (knowing when to say what), her instincts (knowing the singer's state of mind and how s/he processes information) and her faith in her approach helped produce some of the most beautiful singers I have ever heard. They sang with passion, sounds that not only feasted the ears but imbued the soul with a reverence that often drew tears or deep laughter. She too, recommended directing the breath upward toward the skull and the mask.
The question: Do the prescribed conditions create the proper result (in this case, resonance) or does desire for the end result induce the conditions necessary for the same end?
My answer as a scientific/spiritual teacher: Both; whichever of the two works better for the student.
As each person has a path personal to himself (herself) anyone may agree or disagree with the preceding in part or in whole.
Peace,
JRL
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