karen,
i vigorously second your plea for inclusion of all types of singing.
having been trained classically, i can honestly say that i have learned more
about the voice in search for better ways to help my students, 95% of them
singing something other than classical. further, it has lead me to other
types of music that i have found to be more at home singing in and have
nearly abandoned classical music altogether.
my buck and a half (inflation) on country singing: the obvious stuff
(beverly hillbillies accent, intense nasal and yodeling) sounds stupid real
fast. some of the things you may have noticed about country, pop ballads,
easy listening are, that these styles are all singing as an extension of
speech which, means more of a chest sound higher. country females either
'belt' the top or flip over to a wispy head voice or both (as leann rymes
does in the video currently being shown on cmt). musically the legato is
not consistant and is more the result of words crashing into each other than
something done on purpose. concerning diphthongs- southerners (i live in
nc) do to diphthongs what bostonians do to r's, take them out where they
belong and put them in where they don't. it is easier to get away with not
closing a diphthong on a long note than a short note and putting them in
where they don't belong, generally, falls into the stupid sounding catagory.
if you are adventurous, allowing your larynx to float up and down with the
pitch is very common and i might add, a requirement to a great deal of pop
music. let me know if any of this works for you.
good luck,
mike
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