Vocalist.org archive


From:  Tako Oda <toda@m...>
Date:  Wed Sep 13, 2000  5:51 pm
Subject:  Sexism and appropriate vocal registers WAS: Source of frequencies


On Wed, 13 Sep 2000 RALUCOB@a... wrote:
> before i got rid of my boston accent, i spoke in a nasty chest voice.
> what i do now feels more like a mix, even though the average speaking pitch
> of my voice has dropped.

I'm beginning to think that men generally use chest or a chest based mix,
whereas women usually use a head based mix to speak. Many women seem
unfamiliar with their "open chest" sound for singing and speaking.

Carrie Fischer occurs to me as a woman speaks primarily in open chest.
Maybe a few of the sexy/sultry female leads (Baccall?) from the golden age
of film too... It's amazing the kind of prejudice there is in the voice
literature against a woman and her chest voice - words like "unrefined",
"rude", "un-ladylike".

These sexist ideas creep into how a woman's voice is trained, IMO. Many
books say that a woman's chest voice is useless for singing, and that it
is dangerous. That's boloney! It just doesn't serve the dominant
patriarchical paradigm! Many non-western-european-classical singing styles
have women using this register with no ill effects.

Similar things have been said about men and their upper voices as well,
though men have traditionally been able to get away with a lot more than
women, since power has traditionally been in men's hands. It's fine for
men and women to sing in the traditional, operatic way, but they should be
aware of the cultural messages that are being perpetuated by the form.

another rant out of the way - that's two for this morning! :)

-Tako


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