Mike and Vocalisters:
Singer's formant does exist, especially in Opera. For those new to this discussion, "singer's formant" is a peak resonance in the 2500-3200 Hrz range produced by a voice trained to create this effect. Singer's formant is necessary if a singer is to heard over an orchestra, especially a large opera orchestra, in a large hall. It has been a noticed effect for hundreds of years and is often referred to in older literature as the "ring" in the voice.
An orchestra's peak resonance occurs at a lower frequency, somewhere in the 500 to 1500 Hrz range where much of a singers general fundamental and lower partials appear, and this explains why the singer's formant frequency can be heard and is so necessary.
Titze (Principles of Voice Production, pages 238-241) explains in some detail the theory of the source of this singer's formant and, in doing so, he refers to Bartholemew (1934) who first mentioned that a good operatic voice needed a concentration of energy at around 3000 Hrz, and Sundburg (1972, 1978) who offered a physiological explanation for this phenomenon.
"A small resonator (quarter wave) is bounded by the rim of the epiglottis at the open end and by the glottis at the closed end. Yanagisawa et al (1989) confirmed the configuration with videolaryngoscopy. The length of the resonator is determined by the thickness of the false folds and the ventricle. [cut to remove formula which does not post well on email]. The exact freuency is determined by the effective acoustic length of the small resonator. Typically,this is 2.5 to 3.0 cm, which is about one-sixth of the length of the entire vocal tract. Thus the one-sixth ratio appears twice, once as a scale factor for length and once again for the cross section
On pages 15-16, Titze highlights the airway between the trachea and the tip of the epiglottis:
"The vocal folds are located at the narrowest portion of the airway. Above them is the laryngeal ventricle (also known as the sinus of Morgagni). Then we see the ventricular folds (also called the false folds). Above the ventricular folds are the quadrangular membrane and aryepiglottic folds, which together can produce a narrowing in the collar of the larynx . . .where the aryepiglottic muscle is identified. In combination , the vocal folds , the ventricular folds, the aryepiglottic folds, and the quadrangular membrane constitute a system of folds that seals off the laryngeal airway rapidly and completely when the appropriate muscles are activated. More about the folding action of the larynx is found in Fink (1975)."
This only defines the available systems which can be employed, not the actual action of these systems in different kinds of singing. Clearly, it is possible to train the vocal mechanism to produce a great variety of tonal qualities. It was not my intent to suggest that any particular tonal quality has any "inherent connections to particular emotions" as you suggest I have stated.
My point was that in an art form there is a synthesis of emotion, not the emotion itself. The more abstract the art the more this is true. If any art form reduces the synthesis to the level of the emotion itself that art form is, on the basis of the maxim above, a less abstract art form. We have discussed before your dislike of much of opera because it does not seem "real" to you and I think this is a valid criticism. But, at the same time, it is a validation of opera as a more abstract form of art and, in the same way, most pops singing as a much less abstract form of art.
Two forms, each different, each valid, but not to be compared because their basic concepts of construction and purpose are different.
-- Lloyd W. Hanson, DMA Professor of Voice, Pedagogy School of Performing Arts Northern Arizona University Flagstaff, AZ 86011
|
| |