In a message dated 1/24/2002 1:24:17 AM Eastern Standard Time,
lloyd.hanson@n... writes:
> Ella Fitzgerald, Rosemary Clooney, Doris
> Day, Patti Page, Sarah Vaughan, and almost all of the female singers
> from the pre-rock era used their head voices and used them a lot.
>
lloyd,
here's where the use of a term like 'head voice' causes a
misunderstanding. i would say that all the singers you have mentioned
(except page as i can't think of what she sounds like) used their speaking
voices to sing with, just as their male counterparts (bing, sinatra, dean
martin, etc.) did. i believe the classically trained male singer uses the
same voice yet in a distorted manner (a distortion of speech, that is. more
resonance at a more constant level). also, the range that the operatic male
singer is expected to cover, extends further in the high range than the
crooner, especially for the tenor. i don't think that classically trained
female singers sing in the same voice that the female crooners use.
to explain the above differently: male singers, crooners and opera
singers alike, use 'heavy mechanism' as the base of their singing. the
difference is in their treatment of resonance and their treatments of
phrasing (crooners try to maintain the phrasing of conversation while opera
singers phrase as if they were instruments). in my opinion, female crooners
do almost exactly the same thing as male crooners however, as they are
female, they are allowed the occasional foray into light mechanism while
retaining the same treatments of resonance and phrasing. it is my view that
female opera singers use 'light mechanism' exclusively (with the exception of
the occasional mezzo who makes use of the 'reverse yodel'), treating
resonance and phrasing in the same manner as the male opera singer. where
the male singers sing roughly in the same range except for the upper
extension more frequently used by opera singers, the female singers sing in
very different ranges. in one rendition of 'misty', fiztgerald sings it
in a key that takes her down as low as an E ( below middle C) making the
highest note a D (an octave and a step above middle C). adele's 'laughing
song' from 'fledermaus' covers the same range (D to D) except that it is an
octave higher. in a similar fashion, the range a counter-tenor sings is
about an octave higher than the baritone. the counter-tenor has to use
'light mechanism'. clearly, the classical counter-tenor treats resonance
and phrasing in a similar fashion as the other classical singers. male pop
singers who make much use of 'falsetto' (jeff buckley, the singer in 'ours',
'radiohead', garth brooks in his 'chris gaines' moments, etc.) have the same
similarities and differences with counter-tenors as do the other male singers
except that they also sing in their speaking/yelling voices.
the 'harder' the rock, the less likely we are to find women singing
it. why? i couldn't tell you. my wife calls the 'head banger' stuff
'stupid, boy music' so perhaps, that is enough to answer that question. the
female singers who attempt to be succesful at the 'hardest' of rock do not
seem interested in bringing the 'feminine' side to the genre. where most
rock musicians start off in 'cover' bands and, where the standard is still
'sounds just like the record', imitation is quite common so, the ultimate
answer to your question is, female rock singers eschew the more 'female'
sounds because they began, most likely, by imitating male singers. this is
not necessarily a bad thing. susan tedeschi is a great blues singer who,
obviously, learned her singing from the blues masters of the past (making use
of the non falsetto wail you described in an earlier response to mirko).
it is part due to the continually changing role of women in society
that women in rock are moving away from those sounds that are historically
viewed as feminine but, it is more likely due to the way they learn their
music. where, in classical, we learn the tools for taking a piece of music
and making it our own from the start, the rock musician learns in a fashion
that is more like an apprenticeship. when asked how he wrote music, keith
richards once said "i play a song until i make a mistake that sounds
interesting".
mike
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