Vocalist.org archive


From:  Barry Bounous <bounousb@i...>
Date:  Fri Apr 21, 2000  12:06 pm
Subject:  Re: [vocalist-temporary] Pavarotti-description in Jerome Hines book


Sandra wrote:

> I'm reading "Great Singers on Great Singing" by Jerome Hines. For those
> who have read it, or maybe similar quotations by Pavarotti, can you give me
> you idea of what you think Pavarotti is describing when he talks about
> "squeezing" through the passaggio. He states that the sound is "more
> squeezed inside me. It doesn't mean the sound comes out like that. The
> sound should be even, but inside there is a kind of..almost a suffocation
> of the sound Also, you use very much the resonance in the passaggio-more
> than usual...But remember, not enlarging, but squeezing."
>
> Could someone explain to me more in pedagogical/muscle action terms what
> they think he is talking about?

I think he is talking about his sense of the sound 'narrowing' (becoming
taller and skinnier) as he goes through the passaggio. The vocal folds must
periodically (better continually) become longer and thinner as one ascends the
scale. If the vocalis muscle remains too fixed (in shape and thickness) for
too long the result is a register shift or even a crack.


--
Dr. Barry Bounous
Brigham Young University
School of Music
bounousb@i...



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