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From:  John Alexander Blyth <BLYTHE@B...>
Date:  Thu Aug 17, 2000  4:25 pm
Subject:  Re: [vocalist-temporary] Over-intellectualization.


Please don't take this poorly, but it seems to me, from the way that you
have written, that you do indeed over-intellectualize. This is something I
have done for many years, and yet it is something essential to the way I do
things.
I think I'm getting out from under the negative effects of this now, by
harnessing it - by finding out all I can about the voice and by exploring
beyond what I have been able to absorb from my teachers.
You want ideas? I'll give ya ideas - but you have to actually do things,
not just think about them and decide: that won't work. It's OK to
intellectualize, so long as you actually do things too. Eventually you'll
doscover more of a sense of space for yourself that you won't need to fill
with so many thoughts.
Let me make a number of points, then, in point form, sort of:
I found in lessons I was too eager to try and do what I thought the
teacher wanted, instead of doing what was "me".
I was perhaps a little scared of my teachers too.
My first breakthrough came when I was asked to sing a solo while I was
rather under the weather - I hadn't sung for a few days and when I read
through this I noticed a vibrato in my voice that hadn't been there before
- because I was so tired I didn't immediately tense up with excitement, but
tried to observever carefully what I was doing - and what I was *not* doing.
I gradually found out that I habitually tensed my jaw, and my tongue, and
that this not only inhibited a rich vibrant sound, but made it hard to sing
even moderately high notes in tune and without discomfort.
I have tried ever since to keep my jaw and tongue gently mobile to stop
them locking up.
I have explored resonance, including the ugly noises that seemed to have
no part in what I considered singing. The guttural sounding vowels in
between what I imagined to be the Italian five, I discovered to be more
resonant - and indeed real Italians use such sounds - rather than the pale
'pure' sounds that we often produce in e i a o u.
Resonance includes the famous (in these circles at least) Singer's
Formant, which you can listen for, when you know what it is and which, like
vowel formants, has the same pitch regardless of the pitch you are singing.
That is hard to grasp, but worth experimenting with. Note that whispering a
series of vowels will give you specific pitch profiles which define those
vowels. I found analysis of sonagrams (such as those in Miller's books)
very useful, and then, taking in that the Singer's Formant was between 2500
and 3300 cycles a second I worked out where that was in terms of actual
pitches. You can too, and then listen for it as a guide to effective
resonance!
I think one must dare to go over the top, to make a fool of oneself in
public, to grow as a performer. At the same time there is the incentive to
make a *consistent* and *accomplished* fool of oneself, and in no time it
turns out not to be foolish at all, but what singers *do*!
I would be glad to correspond with you, either in this forum or privately,
since I identify with your dilemma, and feel not only that I might be of
some use, but that I might learn from facing these problems. On the other
hand I am a singer, not an accomplished pedagogue, and have discovered that
the more I know about singing the less I do, in fact, know!
(And, by the way, I agree with the poster who suggested doing some
sporting activity - there are so many reasons why this is good.) john



At 05:54 AM 8/17/00 -0700, you wrote:
>...
> I'm really hoping that someone around here may be able to explain
>things to me in a slightly different way, so that I can get some clue of
>what's going on, and why I'm still such an awful singer after such a long
>period of time. I desperately want to improve, and even though I can't
>begin to fathom what the problem is here, enough people have mentioned it
>to me, so maybe it really is something I need to deal with. If anyone has
>any suggestions, information, or solutions, please let me know.
>
>Thanks,
>
>--Matthew Murray
> mmurray@c...
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John Blyth
Baritono robusto e lirico
Brandon, Manitoba, Canada

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