Hi,Listers
As my point of view about placement was only implicit in my two previous posts,
I'll put it more clearly in order to get a rather direct consideration about
it. hehe
To me, the problem with placement strategies in singing classes stems from a
confusion between two sensations with two distinct causes. That confusion is
made possible by pseudo-scientific explanations for vocal production.
Placement strategies are based upon undue interpretations of an empirical
evidence: parts of you body, mostly in your head, vibrate as you do different
things to your voice. Those vibrations are interpreted as 'sound riding the
winds of breath'. I suppose that explanation owes its source to
nineteenth-century's vitalism, which, although anathema to contemporary
science, still holds prestige among people in general.
Those vibrations felt in the head ( especially in the mouth and the nasal
cavity ) may be caused not only by sympathetic resonance ( 'real' placement ),
but also by air breathed out and hitting different parts of the mouth or being
directed to the nasal cavity through the long-discussed V-port.
those two distinct phenomena are studied by different trunks of physics: the
former by acoustics, and the latter by mechanics ( if I didn't cut the wrong
classes in high-school ). Acoustics has to do with placement. Mechanics has to
do with blowing the candles out on a birthday cake.
When the teacher tells students to 'feel' the vibration anywhere in the mouth
or in the mask, those students are much more likely to do the 'piston thing',
not the acoustic one. And that likelihood is increased by that singing version
of vitalism, which most teachers who profess placement strategies subscribe to:
as, for them, when there is phonation breath is 'animated' by sound, they
actually assume sound 'discarnates' from breath as it hits the back part of the
upper front teeth. Then, it reaches the 'Pleroma' of the nasal cavity glorified
in a pneumatic body of harmonics. That's singing gnosticism!
And here comes the worst of all: that practice is recommended to PROBLEM
students, not good ones. Am I wrong or aren't problem students also more likely
to have a breathy tone? Am I wrong again but won't that attempt to blow air
toward a specific spot intensify that problem, since more air will be necessary
to 'feel the vibration [= G.C. ( Gnostically Correct ) for friction ]'?
That's it.
bye,
Caio Rossi
Sao Paulo, Brazil
|
|  |
