Dear Isabelle, and List,
Please excuse my staying on this subject, just that I
regard it as a most serious one for investigation and clarification
for all singers and more especially for those in the formative years.
Isabelle I've read and re-read your excellent summary
of vocal development and identify with it, especially the late teens.
My vocal years subsequent to the teens followed exactly what you
suggest and for the same reasons. I liked the internal sound and
received copious plaudits from the public but I did NOT like the
recorded sound nor could I accept that this unstable and difficult
technique could not be improved upon. Your development beyond
the teen years does not appear to explain how the instability was
conquered nor how sonority was eventually incorporated in
your voice.
>The student, however, says nothing, because he
>realizes that in his next lesson, he is going to take
>that witchy forwardness and integrate it into his
>normal singing mode, with the result that his singing
>is now pulled out of the back of his throat and has
>developed some chiaro to go with his scuro.
"..his normal singing mode" is the hanging chad,and certainly not
something in which I felt any great confidence as a young tenor!!
Sopranos and baritones perhaps! : )
If sonority, ....(I avoid the word resonance), ....such as will be
obtained with the space in the upper pharynx; means a larger
sound for less effort, then surely you have incorporated it to some
degree in your singing, otherwise it appears that you would be
forever sentenced to greater effort for a smaller sound? I was!
The very sensations of resonance in the two different approaches,
in my experience, are like chalk and cheese. Someone who has not
experienced the sonorous sensations of the pharyngeal space is
not talking about the same thing as one who has. It would seem
that the great difficulty after moving to the 'dark zone', is to reduce
the energy applied to the singing process so that the increased
range of vocal colour can be used. Nor do I agree with what you
say about 'ping' being absent and the tone forever dark.
My comparatively recent conversion to the dark side has revealed
to me that neither ping NOR vocal colour is compromised.
Now I can understand the reluctance of young singers to allow their
inner tone to be modified. I resisted it in my twenties and told my
teacher that I couldn't possibly sing like that. I didn't like the sound,
and I now see that I was wrong. I can now cite two examples which
I think tend to prove the point apart from my own experience. One is
the Bjorling changes of 1938 to 1940 and the other, closer to home,
was a brilliant young baritone singing in public using what you
describe as the forward technique. His embarrassing vocal calamity
meant that 12 months later he had done a Bjorling and emerged as a
darker, yes, more relaxed, confident, sonorous, pingful singer.
>I have a fabulous recording of a very young Tebaldi.
>Her top notes are shrill and tight (by "tight," by the
>way, I mean ALL point and no warmth... maybe shrill is
>a better word). In her middle twenties and thirties,
>the natural weight and color and blossom of the top
>came in and it was balanced out naturally.
I think what you say here fails to give Tebaldi credit for her own
recognition of a need for change. Why would she DO that? It had
either to be for an improved sound or a more controllable technique,
or both?
Can you think of another reason? A shrill voice has its admirers too!
I presume that ....
">the natural weight and color and blossom of the top
>came in and it was balanced out naturally",... means a darker tone
and easier top, both of which are in accord with variation of the
shape and space of the upper part of the pharynx.
My current observations of this technique include some sort of
connection between the upper forward area of the mouth and the
spacious pharynx, as well as a clear sensation of an inward air flow
behind the upper teeth and a much easier, more reliable technique
with ping and a more sonorous quality.
>Of course, I prefer more bitey singers anyway. It's
>partially an esthetic.
Me too, but it must have relaxation and body to the tone.
I hope we may continue searching out the common ground.
Regards Reg.
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