> Once the student has a fairly good "feel" for
> these different pronunciations which he/she usually
> does without being aware of their "frontness" or
> "backness" they can use these forms of the AH to
> assist them in managing the difficulties of the
> passaggio (when one must negotiate it on an AH
> vowel) and to sing their highest tones with a
> balance of bright and dark as per their choice
> without having to consider whether the vowel is
> forward or back but only if it is the vowel found
> in one of these four words.
Oh, I also meant to say that one of the advantages of
the "placement" system is that you learn to sing by
feel, rather than by sound or feedback or by having to
imagine a certain different word/vowel in the middle
of the line. So if I learn how a forward "ah" feels
in my voice, I can apply that feeling directly to all
other vowels and words and literature -- I don't have
to stop when I encounter a word with an [a] in it and
think, "Okay, now think 'file' for this and then think
'coin' for the [o] that's coming next..." and so
forth.
I just think it's a more direct way of learning how
the voice is supposed to feel -- much more immediate
and less intellectual. Not that intellectual is bad,
but it's one fewer step to learn how and where a
correct sound feels, rather than filtering a certain
intellectual memory of an American word into the brain
and then incorporating that into the text.
And if that student who uses the mental image of
"file" then learns where the correct "ah" is and
returns to it without having to think of "file" in the
future -- well, you've just taught placement! Going
by feel, rather than by ear or brain.
Isabelle B.
=====
Isabelle Bracamonte
San Francisco, CA
ibracamonte@y...
ibracamonte@y...
__________________________________________________
Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail.
|
