Dear Lloyd and Vocalisters,
I want to add my own word of gratitude for Lloyd's posts. They are among the clearest distillations of the best in contemporary thought about the singing voice that I have seen.
I think it is instructive to realize that one of Lloyd's basic points was made about 35 years ago by Vennard in his book "Singing: The Mechanism and the Technique." Since I "grew up" with that book, pedagogically, speaking, I have kept Vennard's points about messa di voce in the forefront of my own singing and teaching.
Here are a few quotes (paragraphs 780, 783, 785 - pp. 213-4): "A breathy [tone] has no part in the classic vocal discipline....it is a drill in proper attack, avoiding either the glottal stroke or the breathy beginning, both of which waste breath. The explosive start ruins the pianissimo and the aspirate is not clear....In doing the messa di voce start with as near to a falsetto tone as you can, but have just a little heavy quality in it so that you can crescendo without an audible shift into 'chest.' There must be an entering wedge. Then as you crescendo, gradually drive in the wedge. There must be no moment when the chest voice is 'kicked in,' as some writers put it."
The point is that I think Vennard has a felicitous way of describing the messa di voce.
Regards, Carl Rogers
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