Isabelle Bracamonte wrote:
>
> Here is my concern with teaching young singers to sing
> with microphones: Do teachers of singing really think
> that volume will "come in" with age?
>
> Volume, as perceived in an opera house, is a function
> of the ring (singer's formant, call it what you will
> -- it's the coordination between correct breath
> control and focus/vowel/placement/formant -- it's the
> optimal coordination between breath and resonator) in
> the voice. This is a fundamental building block of
> the voice. It is the first thing to be trained into a
> voice. It is the health of the instrument.
>
> If you are producting voices with tonal beauty, lovely
> diction, expressive musicianship, but not the ring,
> what are you thinking? That the ring will suddenly
> drop in, of its own accord, at the age of 30? How are
> these students going to "get" ring in the real world,
> and what in the world are you teaching them in
> university if not that important first step of
> singing?
Developing the singer's formant is a crucial and ongoing part of any
classical singer's training. We teach this concept from the freshman
year. Ring and "loudness" are not equivalent. The vocal maturity
required to sustain major operatic roles requires a mature laryngeal
structure. Our students are not "singing with microphones". We are
using ambient house microphones to enhance specific spectral frequencies
so that they can do the best singing of which they are capable without
regard to the house size, or the vagauries of a student orchestra. The
sound never sounds "amplified" to the audience, and the students are not
taught to rely on the microphones - simply to do their best, healthy, singing.
>
--
Dr. Barry Bounous
Brigham Young University
School of Music
bounousb@i...
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