Vocalist.org archive


From:  "Lloyd W. Hanson" <lloyd.hanson@n...>
Date:  Sun Nov 17, 2002  4:25 pm
Subject:  Re: [vocalist] Re: classical isn't the only way (was amplification)

Christine and Vocalisters:

You wrote that "I've also heard kids (since most of my students are
middle and high schoolers) that avoid it (chest voice) because they
think it's ugly or scary or their choir director doesn't like it."

Chest voice in children is a concern of mine because I think most
singing by children today is too much in chest voice. I am speaking
of children's voices prior to the voice change. It is common to hear
children's choir directors ask for chest voice in an attempt to get a
louder, more vigorous child sound. In other words, these directors
are asking the children to sing in their at play voices ("play"
voices).

This is reflected in the pitch level of songs now provided for
children in their elementary and junior/middle school song books.
Most songs are pitched between A3 and A4 with C5 (C above middle C)
as the highest note. If one compares these classroom song books with
those in use up to about 1970 you will find that the earlier song
books pitched the songs between C4 to C5 with G5 as the highest note.
Clearly there has been a major change in song range emphasis and I
think it is a reflection of the pitch range necessary to get children
to sing only in their "play" voice which is their chest voice.

When these children go on to high school choral programs they
continue to sing in a chest voice. Because their voices have gone
through most of the voice change the tone they produce is not a
desirable one for the choral groups and the choral director is faced
with the problem of how to modify this raw tone. Sadly, many choral
directors mistake a breathy, poorly phonated tone for head voice and
teach this tonal quality as the only desireable one. It may be this
quality that is displayed by your students.

What is needed is a two-fold change.

First, have children's singing be done in their singing voice, not
their "play" voice. There is no need to develop the play voice. It
is part of their everyday voice usage. But the singing voice is not
used often in everyday activities. It is saved for the beauty of
song. Children instinctively know this. If they are asked to sing
in their singing voice they can all do it rather easily. But
children must be taught to sing in their chest voice because it is
not as natural for the production of song.

Second, train choral directors to better understand what is true head
voice. It is not difficult. The process of teaching them how to
have their high school singers develop a proper onset of tone will go
most of the way toward solving this difficulty. Onset of tone
exercises can be done very successfully in groups the size of most
choirs (25-60 students) and the director can check each student by
moving among them and listening to them individually as they practice
unison onset exercises together.
--
Lloyd W. Hanson






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