To: vocalist
Date sent: Fri, 10 Dec 1999 09:18:18 -0500
Subject: RE: Sensations
Send reply to: VOCALIST <vocalist>



Dear Marthea,
What a brave and astute soul you are! Brave because you broach a
subject often avoided or when discussed, carefully tap-danced about,
and astute because you've put your finger on a basic difference between
how the genders use their instruments.
You wrote:
> I recently started teaching young male voice students and wonder if I'm
> adequately communicating to them where to "place" their voice.
Believe me, many of us wonder if we're properly teaching voices that are
different from ours not only at the beginning, but throughout our careers. I
admit too, the word "placement" is problematic. I believe it is poorly
understood and usually ill defined. Sometimes I wonder if we should use it
at all.

I am a male, therefore I can't be sure I know what a woman feels when she
sings. All my understanding has to come from observation. IOW, I acquire
second-hand knowledge by asking my female students what they feel when
they do something that sounds "right" to me. I believe that's what good female
voice teachers do with their male students too.

I suspect that I will never know with any totality or precision what anyone
else,
male or female, senses when they sing, since I can't feel it directly. I can
only
sense what I feel when I sing, try to relate it to what they do, and be as
empathetic
as possible. Even among male voices, the sensations of where things resonate
(placement) are worlds apart from a true bass to a light tenor. It's not
uncommon
for tenors to have blended away any registers they may once have had. It's not
uncommon for a profundo to have an "extra gear" down at the bottom that anyone
else other than they couldn't possibly access.

Any rational human being is going to trust what they feel and know to be true
and
try to relate it to what others feel and know.

There have been endless debates propagated on this list about concepts like
placement, registers, resonance etc., because of a basic misaprehension that
we are all different.

A bass-baritone teacher can't feel what a lyric soprano student feels and never
will.
A mezzo soprano teacher can't feel what a heldentenor feels and never will.
Perhaps
even more to the point, a baritone teacher can't even feel what his baritone
student
feels, not really. He can convince himself he does, because the voices are
similar,
but I believe that is delusive thinking.

It seems to me that the rational conclusion to draw, is not to go by what we,
the
teachers, feel or have felt at all. Let the student get a result, identify it,
and ask them
what they feel, because none of us can feel someone elses sensations! While
you're
asking, be sure to ask what they think they did differently to get the good
result and be
sure to write it down.

Teachers must use trial and error. We offer a suggested change in technique,
based
on our experiences with our previous students and our own singing and observe to

see how well it works for a particular student's needs. We might suggest things
like:
"Open the mouth a little more and try it again John.", "Lift the upper lip just
a smidgen
on that 'G' Kirsten." "Think 'ah' when you're singing that high A on an 'e'
vowel Chris."
or maybe "Add just a little of the feeling you get just before you sneeze
Hermione and
let's see what happens."

Names for things get in the way. We each have idiosyncracies in our personal
languages - the language we use inside our heads when we are thinking - that
don't
quite match what other people think. "Head voice" is a tough thing to consceive
of
because there is no general agreement on what it is. The name was derived from
someone's subjective notion of feeling. It means so many different things to so
many
different people that it is useless in any practical sense. I'd suggest not
getting too
hung up on the word and go with offering them techniques to make an improved
sound. When they succeed, ask them to identify what they are feeling to "set" it
in
their mind, using its own language.

Warmest regards,
Les