lloyd,
i believe it was your statement saying, and i paraphrase, that there is more similarity in speech and singing than there are differences. all singing is different from speech. some styles vary more from it than others. ( and i don't think the closer it is the better. rap is the closest and yet, i agree with greg allman, "rap is short for crap".)
i have a student who said that talking is like walking and singing is like flying. an airplane flying does not impress me (they're airplanes, they're supposed to fly). if i saw a human being fly, i would be completely astonished. if a singer has to go to the length of being unrecognizable as a human in order to sing, i am unimpressed. if a singer is recognizable as human, that means something to me. patricia ewing's performance of 'non so piu...' (as cherubino) has human hysteria to it and, it sounds like a boy (that impresses me too). when a singer performs 'non so piu...' as if it were some kind of instrumental, with grace and 'lovely tone' (and sounding unlike a boy), they might as well fly an airplane across the stage.
it is not my impression that the female opera singer is using the sound of hysteria. to me, it is closer to a pretentious, victorian warble. actually, i think it is the type of singing that is furthest removed from any kind of natural human vocal activity. i don't mean the use of 'head' voice, i mean female operatic production. joni mitchell has certainly used a lot of head voice throughout her career but, it is far more recognizably human than that of a joan sutherland, for example.
freni singing 'butterfly' blows me away (like watching an eagle soar). even sutherland singing 'in questa reggia' blows me away. kiri te kanawa singing the third of strauss' 'four last songs' blows me away (the davis recording not the solti). i'm not immune to being affected by the female opera singer (and in the past i have mentioned singers who affect me in a beautiful way) but, in my case, i think it is the type of singing that is hardest to succeed at.
(i actually think moaning, for all voices, is closer to singing than speech. the purest example i have ever heard of this is the singing of natacha atlas.)
mike
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