In a message dated 3/14/2002 11:05:11 AM Eastern Standard Time, bjjocelyn@p... writes:
> So come to think of it, this Art of Singing and Ringing (true ?) musn't be > too unnatural to the human race...
and david grogan wrote:
<< I must not have been paying very close attention to this thread. I have not seen anyone say that singing comes from a different voice. I have read people saying that it requires a different usage. I certainly did not mean to imply that it is a different voice. >>
david and bart,
david, i believe it was reg who compared the difference between talking and singing to the difference between whistling and chewing (haydn said it best "factum non est pictum!"). of a more serious mind, lloyd believes (i think) that, because the vibrational pattern in the folds is different for 'chest voice' and 'head voice', they should be considered different voices.
bart, as you say, singing is not that unnatural an act. alfred wolfsohn and later, roy hart, made a study of the voice and it's possibilities for expression beyond speech. i think they believed that the use of speech may, in some ways, limit the use of the voice and that the voice can find its way back to its full range of expression by breeching these limits. breeching the limits does not, however, destroy language. the boundaries that define language, are imagined.
sadly, too many classical singers limit their study of the voice to only classical singing. often, these same singers view their speaking as a constant threat to their art (gossiping in the green room being an exception). those classical singers who do consider other vocal music, often do so with prejudice (maybe that can't be helped). particular to the classical mindset is an exceptional willingness to compartmentalize, attempting to isolate most usages into a neatly defined view. (i'm sure there are many exceptions to my notion.) the drawback to this type of thinking is that it eliminates the linear connection between speech and the most extremely different uses of the voice, which means, every new usage for the voice has to be made from scratch rendering all previous knowledge of the workings of the machine, unusable.
as example, that linear connection i spoke of above is in evidence in william pearson's performance of henze's 'el cimmaron' (you might have to hit a great library for that one). natacha atlas demonstrates how moaning and singing can be one and the same. tony bennett goes so easily from speaking to singing (if he were asked if he were a baritone or a tenor, i bet he would say "i don't know. i'm just a singer."). so, perhaps i am wrong to even make a distinction between fry, modal and falsetto.
mike
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