in an early publication (the name of which, i can't remember), richard miller suggested that the men of southern france were essentially the same as the men of northern italy but, where southern france produced an unusual number of baryton- martin, northern italy produced an unusual number of dramatic tenors. he attributed this to the vocal habits developed by speaking these two different languages.
later,in 'training tenor voices', mr. miller suggests that registration events or, the locations of the 'primo' and 'secondo' passaggi, is the primary determinant of fach. he then goes on to say that a baryton-martin may have higher registration events than a tenore robusto or heldentenor (or was it the lyrico-spinto on rye?). he explains that this is due to a difference in laryngeal size (is not depth of artistry more important than the size of one's larynx?). if registration events take presidence over laryngeal size, could not the baryton-martin insist on being considered a dramatic tenor despite his smaller larynx?
according to mr. miller, does a man born in france who is a drammatic tenor sing in the wrong fach? is it the wrong fach if he sings in french and the right fach if he sings in italian? what if he sings in french with an italian accent? is french wrong and italian right (knowing mr. miller's prejudice, i won't bother asking 'or vice versa')?
it is not my attention to get 'wittgensteinish' on you nor, am i trying to bash richard miller. what i am trying to suggest, is that we do ourselves a disservice by taking the deductive approach rather than an inductive approach to the use of the voice. we have come a long way in using the larynx from just keeping junk out of our lungs. instead of trying to narrow down the things we can do with our voices, we should be trying to see how far we can take it in as many directions as possible.
what i think tako is beginning to suggest is, we should not let the traditions of gender roles, language concepts or whatever other considerations limit us in how we use our voices but, to use them as triggers for new directions or, not use them at all, should we so choose. what about damage? yes, newton screwed himself up by doing mercury experiments on himself but, chuck yaeger did make it through the sound barrier without dying (and we'd probably all be waiting for the next chain letter from 'vocalist' to make it around if he hadn't).
oh boy, i feel so much better. phew!
mike
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