Vocalist.org archive


From:  Margaret Harrison <peggyh@i...>
Margaret Harrison <peggyh@i...>
Date:  Thu Jan 25, 2001  12:52 pm
Subject:  Re: [vocalist] Re: Velum/Spec analysis/Nasal Res........



> I can explain this in a non scientific manner.
> Squillo is what makes your ear drums go thump - thump - thump when you
> are in the same vicinity as somebody who has it! It is a narrow,
> focused sound with lots of bite.
> It's what makes me not be able to warm up my voice in the car when I
> have other people with me... it hurts the ears. I *feel* the sound in
> the front of my face but it is *not* nasal - at least it does not have
> the undesirable twangy nasality of the open nasal port, and there is no
> difference in the tone when the nose is pinched while sustaining the
> note. It is most definitely felt in the front of the face and very
> contained, compact, condensed, efficient, narrow.
> It's like a laser beam.

> Birgit Nilsson is a singer who has lots of squillo. Listen to her
> Turandot. I consider Leontine Price a singer who has it. Monserrat
> Caballe had it as well as her disembodied floaty sound. Callas. Most
> women who have squillo also really have roundness in the tone or
> darkness, plus they have to be feminine so the singing is less (pardon
> me) balls-to-the-wall.
>
> Squillo is best appreciated *live* and not on recordings. It doesn't
> transfer well to recordings. If you still can't define these terms, you
> could call me and I could demonstrate twang and squillo.

Thanks for the above - but it still seems mostly subjective in your description
- how it
makes you feel and how it feels in your own voice - and "narrow, focused sound
with lots
of bite" while and objective statement, is also hard for me sitting miles away
from you to
know the meaning. The singers you use as examples all sound very different (if
wonderful)
to me - and I've only had the fortune to hear Price live and in person. I
can't say that
"narrow, focused sound with bite" is something that jumped out at me about her
singing.
About her singing (in recital, late in her career), I remember a lush,
beautiful, huge
tone; incredible high pianissimos; and exciting phrasings.

Since you say this quality can best be discerned live - perhaps you can give
some examples
of singers currently performing who "have it". And also, for contrast, some
examples of
singers in similar voice categories and prominence who don't have it.

Peggy

--
Margaret Harrison, Alexandria, Virginia, USA
"Music for a While Shall All Your Cares Beguile"
mailto:peggyh@i...

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