| From: "Lloyd W. Hanson" <lloyd.hanson@n...> Date: Sun Mar 10, 2002 4:15 pm Subject: RE: [vocalist] Re: Teaching question
| Jennifer:
I would strongly urge you to get Miller's "The Structure of Singing" and study the chapters on registers in both the female voice and the male voice. I am not suggesting that he is the last word on vocal registration but his writings represent the best connection I have found between traditional teaching of the classical voice and techniques that have been developed in the modern era.
A 16 year old male is not likely to have an established upper register but usually will be able to sing easily in falsetto in this range. However, using falsetto exclusively in the upper ranges of the male voice establishes a muscle coordination that is not conducive to developing the proper coordination between the chest voice and the head voice.
The male voice posses only two registers, chest and head. Falsetto is not usually considered a register in the classical manner of singing. All male voices must develop the coordination skill necessary to move gradually from chest voice (heavy mechanism) to full head voice (light mechanism). Many male voices find it easier to be in either chest OR head but have great difficulty in the meeting place of these to vocal configurations which is usually called the passaggio. But, most male voice as young as 16 will have little or no head voice yet. Songs should be selected that do not require extensive use of the head voice at this age. It is not uncommon for baritones and basses to find their head voices during the later years in college at ages 21-25.
Almost all male singing in popular music for the past 40 years is done in either chest voice or falsetto so todays young males have almost no examples of good head voice singing in the culture of their youth. This makes teaching them to develope head voice especially difficult.
Good luck.
-- Lloyd W. Hanson
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