what about a comparison of female singers? comparing tatiana troyanos
to frederica von stade, it is clear that these two singers, though of the
same aesthetic school, are singing in ways that are different beyond the
indiviuality of their voices. in the lower half of their ranges, i would
call what von stade does a way of singing that is an extension of speech. i
would call what troyanos does, 'falsetto', similar to what a counter-tenor
(or, a drag queen- not intended as an insult to cts) does. in a different
style, vonda shephard sings in a way that is similar to von stade- very
speech based, mixing in more 'head' as she goes higher. diana krall sings
in a speech based way but, it has no mix and sounds dry (i don't like her at
all). des'ree appears to sing more in the fashion of troyanos, though in a
different style.
i have never seen des'ree sing, troyanos seems to be working very hard
(she appears, to me, to be fighting indigestion when she sings). vonda
shephard, (i don't recall seeing her in a live performance more than once)
makes everything look easy and natural. she appears to be lost in thought
when she sings and flicka just seems to be horsing around (and she is not
miked). (diana krall looks like all her efforts are put towards trying to
be cool.)
it is clear to me that the singers i have been talking about sing in
'voices' that are different. it is not a matter of different voices just
having different sounds, they are singing in a different way. it has
nothing to do with range (range just being a limitation as to where one can
do something. it would only be a consideration if there were no overlap of
different ways of working the vocal folds), it has everything to do with
timbre and which working of the vocal folds produces which timbre. drawing
a parallel to men's voices, in the lower half of their ranges, the way von
stade sings is similar to the way most (non operatic) men sing and the way
troyanos sings is similar to the way david daniels sings (as a counter-tenor).
mike
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