| | From: "lestaylor2003 <LesTaylor@a...
Date: Mon Jan 27, 2003 5:33 pm
Subject: Re: The Language of singing
| Lloyd: We seem to be so in love with the most inexact phrases to
define our singing and so unwilling to learn more exact description
of actual function.
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Is it possible to synthesize exact phrases to define singing? I
believe it is when describing things that can be specified but I have
real doubts about agreement in terms describing sensation and
function.
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Lloyd: We choose "singing on the breath" or "breath support" over
example descriptions of how to breath.
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Syllogism
Premise: Each person's body is unique.
Premise: The way each person senses what their body is doing
(proprioception) is unique.
Conclusion: Each person must operate their body uniquely if each
premise is true.
If each person senses and executes what they do in such idiosyncratic
fashion, is it any wonder we use such idiomatic terms to describe the
processes? The problem with which we are presented is that there are
no words apt enough to describe the processes of singing to our total
satisfaction. I suspect there may never be and that we will have to
be content only with temporary, working terms.
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Lloyd: We choose "head voice" and "chest voice" over fibre optic
views of vocal fold oscillation and the opportunity to discover vocal
fold function.
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Why should viewing vocal fold oscillation have anything to do with
terms like "head voice" and "chest voice"? Don't those terms really
pertain to tactile feedback rather than visual feedback? I suspect
that we may associate one with the other but we have yet to come to
terms with exactly how. We can't watch our vocal folds oscillate when
we perform but we can (indirectly) feel and hear the results.
***************************************
Lloyd: We prefer a trial and error approach to achieving maximum
vocal tract resonance and embrace that most amorphous phrase "vocal
placement" over any accurate system of achieving maximum resonance
with such instruments as the spectrograph or the simple vowel mirror.
***************************************
Even with a vowel mirror and or spectrograph the process is still
trial and error. We try something and then change it based on what we
see, hear and or feel in an attempt to get closer to our ideal.
Technology merely offers additional means of monitoring the process.
It's a different view of the same thing.
No matter how we look at it, we have to know what to do to make
an "improvement"; isn't that trial and error? Just because the
instruments measure different things or offer us new aspects of the
process more accurately doesn't necessarily mean that what we do with
our bodies is one iota more efficient.
You gotta know what to do to make things change. AND you gotta know
what you want to change in order to make the change to it. Such
things are subjective no matter how objective the means of measuring
them are.
Regards to all,
Les
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