Mike wrote
> in the results you pointed to in your thesis, i still wonder if that
> is only an acoustic difference while the tone is being generated by the
> same vibrational mechanism.
I think the only way to tell this is if we could do combined radiography
and laryngiscopy on 2 sets of people: 1) Countertenors with a spectrum
of speaking voices from bass to tenor altino and 2) Women singers with a
similarly diverse range of speaking voices.
One could learn a lot by comparing the mechanism of an tenor altino and
a contralto, I suspect. If the light head voice mechanism is indeed, as
you suggest, analogous between males and females (with the only
differences being matters of vocal tract dimension), then you're going
to see similar things happening between a very high male voice and very
low female voice. I'd love to get Yoshikazu Mera and Dominique Visse,
who are basically unchanged voices as far as I can tell. Their vocal
tract dimensions may not be so different from a woman's so any
mechanical similarities/differences would be easier to see. Then one
would observe progressively lower-speaking-voiced men to see what
happens as the morphology changes.
> when i have asked the question before, i have always been careful to
> choose david daniels as an example. to me, he is the only counter-tenor who
> seems to be attempting to sound like a female singer. the rest sound
> entirely different (most of them sounding hooty and straight-toned). (also,
> i think you're the only one i have ever heard use heavy mechanism as well.)
Check out also: Russell Oberlin (who considered himself a very high
tenor), Brian Asawa (one of the most feminine-sounding CTs around), and
the altino countertenors I mentioned above.
James Bowman sounds very much like a man, but he's not hooty at all. To
my ear, there's no air escaping - the tone is clean and he has a
gigantic voice.
> ultimately, my reason for asking this question is to look at the
> practicality of male voice teachers using falsetto as a model for their
> female classical students.
I personally don't think it's an issue - teaching *must* happen using
subjective imagery, because you can't tell a student to add more TA
action or whatnot. If an illustration or example works, it works,
regardless of the underlying differences in mechanism, if there are
indeed any. When I speak to a mezzo, our *physical experience* with our
voices are similar enough that's it's easy to talk shop. It doesn't
necessarily mean they're the same thing at a deep level, but they're
experientially similar, and therefore useful. I've been studying with
women, and I've never felt like "she just doesn't get it." I get that
much more with male teachers, actually.
Tako
|
|  |
