I would further refine, and perhaps complicate, this discussion!
If one can generalize, I have noticed that American women tend
to speak in chest voice regardless of singing fach, and English
women tend to speak in head voice, or at least higher in the
register. So, who knows, perhaps it's culturally influenced.
I asked Peter Giles (English countertenor, ct scholar, and teacher
of all fachs)about my observation, and he said he has noticed
it, too. He further points out that speaking higher can be
easier on the voice, and he sometimes encourages people to develop
that habit to lighten the load on their vocal cords. He says
his natural voice is baritone, as is true of many ct's. However,
he has tried to cultivate a higher speaking voice for reasons
stated.
Mary Jane Ruhl
Alexandria, VA
--- Original Message ---
Isabelle Bracamonte <ibracamonte@y...> Wrote on
Isabelle Bracamonte <ibracamonte@y...> Wrote on
Thu, 7 Dec 2000 10:46:18 -0800 (PST)
------------------
> women speak in chest and then sing in 'head' or
> 'falsetto' (as randy believes and i agree). whose
> idea WAS this? did this come from women imitating
> men singing travesty roles?
I don't think women always spoke in chest voice. If
you've ever heard Judith Blegen speak, she speaks in
her head voice (and sounds quite silly and girly, to
our ears). However, I would bet that women spoke in
high, light head voices in the past centuries -- a
strong, powerful speaking voice didn't become
sexy/attractive until the 20th century. Victorian
fiction, for example, is full of references to the
sweet, melodic, high, birdlike voices of its heroines
and ladies of virtue.
And singing naturally is more comfortable in a
female's head voice than in chest. Little girls and
toddlers naturally sing to themselves in high trebles
-- boys do too, but then men's voices change and
break, and women's do not; hence, men must re-learn to
sing in their "new" chest voice, but women carry on in
head.
They say that your natural, most healthy tone is
produced when you unconsciously agree pleasantly with
someone -- "Mmmm-hmmmm," or the slightly questioning,
"Mmm?" Now, you know that I've told you to do that,
so it's going to be influenced by your idea of what
your natural range is -- but that exercise, when done
truly unconsciously, is used by speech therapists to
determine whether you're speaking too low or too high
for vocal health. The first time I did that (without
preconceived ideas, because I didn't know what it was
for) the sound was in my head voice.
So, mike, I dispute the idea that women "naturally"
speak and ought to sing in chest voice. I think it's
just a 20th-century thing, imposed by cultural ideas,
and that the "ideal" women's voice wasn't supposed to
be either strong or low in the past centuries... so it
was allowed to be heady, its natural state.
Isabelle B.
=====
Isabelle Bracamonte
San Francisco, CA
ibracamonte@y...
ibracamonte@y...
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