I had an interesting chat with a countertenor I met at the Washington
Opera chorus auditions yesterday. He was telling me how he was working to
bring his head voice down farther to blend across his lower break. I
observed that I do the opposite to achieve the same result: i.e., I bring
my chest voice up to blend across the same break.
I makes sense that he would approach it the way he does, because his
objective is to sing his entire range in head voice (this is what
countertenors do). But what I've found is that it's much harder for me to
"blend down" - i.e., bring head down below the lower break - than it is
for me to "blend up". Is this a feature of my voice type? What I mean is,
is it a characteristic of lower voices (contraltos, basses) that they
find it easier to blend up, while higher voices - tenors and sopranos
- find it easier to "blend down"? Or is this just a technical shortcoming
peculiar to my voice (i.e., a challenge to work on)?
Karen Mercedes
http://www.radix.net/~dalila/index.html
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O music, that openest the abysses of the soul!
Thou dost destroy the normal balance of the mind.
- Romain Rolland, JEAN-CHRISTOPHE
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