mike wrote:
<< >my want is, that the voice one has always used to communicate
>with, could be extended into singing without losing that personal history of
>self expression. the singer, having negotiated these two factors, would
>then just make their point about the material with 'expression' being a
>by-product.
then lloyd wrote:
The above statement describes an art that has as its basic goal a
recreation of life as it exists. This point of view assumes that art
is the same as every day life rather than art as a "reflection" or
distillation of life. >>
then mike (in a manner unbecoming his dignity) wrote:
NO! NO! NO! it does not mean that! not at all!
what it means is this- when we express ourselves, we are usually intent
on getting a point across. with this point, come tones of voice that take
on meaning by the context they usually appear in. in speaking, our
expression is the meaning of the words we use, combined with the tones in our
voices, as those tones reflect the subtext. the great thing about singing
is that, this relationship becomes magic. i asked a student to tell me the
difference between my talking and my singing (i was asking her about the
sound of my voice and expected the answer to be 'nothing'. instead...)
she said "when you talk, it's like you're walking. when you sing, it's like
you're flying."
for a voice to sound like a voice flying, it has to sound like a voice.
for a listener to become lost on the trip of the singer, that listener has
to identify with or, be sympathetic to that voice and not be put off by it.
the trip the voice takes is the music, the text is either the commentary or
the dialogue of the singer and the tone of voice remains as it was in
speaking, the reflection of subtext.
the above description could fit any kind of vocal music. operatic
singing, because it is done with orchestra, has, by necessity, eliminated
almost all of the expression that reveals us to others without our awareness.
operatic singing has replaced the history of our vocal expression with an
artifice of tone production whose primary concern is to be efficient in being
heard over an orchestra.
in fairness, i said that the tones of our voices take on meaning by the
context in which they usually appear. and i recognize that this is probably
true in opera, meaning that the tone of operatic singing has taken on a
language of tone all its own. for some, this is like flying in their own
world. for me, it isn't so anymore. for my sister, it is everything.
mike
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