From: Tako Oda
To: VOCALIST <vocalist>
Subject: Re: Speaking/Singing Voice (ranting about countertenors :)
Send reply to: VOCALIST <vocalist>

RALUCOB-at-aol.com wrote:
> i wonder if this is anything physical or if it is all a matter of
> method, whether learned or stumbled upon. after years of trying to
> glide from falsetto to chest and back without any break, i finally
> learned a little trick that helped me do it.

Some people feel a break, some don't. Some high tenors and a few lucky
baritones never know when they're switching and never have. I think
methods are important for those of us who *can* feel a break, but want
to 1) not feel it any more but more importantly, 2) not have the
audience hear it.

I'm curious to know what your "trick" is, and if it erases the break for
the listener or for you as well. I'd also be curious to know if Fu or
Fischer-Dieskau can feel it and have simply mastered the art of not
having anyone else hear. I myself can usually feel a switch.

> i began to realize how much the methods of operatic singing try to
> stay in the same sound throughout the range, and that the operatic
> approach, at least to me, seems to be what brings about the phenomenon
> of breaks in the voice ( i would have to say that males trying to
> sound like 'men' would have the same problem and probably, worse so).

I completely agree! The world of Western opera hasn't always been this
way, either. The chesty, full-voiced tenor high C didn't happen until
late in Rossini's era, if I'm not mistaken. Until then, composers were
writing as high as F above the C expecting a less "masculine" production
that allowed for the higher extension.

Of course, there are other styles of singing that actually *celebrate*
breaks in the voice, such as Appalachian folk and Yodelling.

Tako Oda
Graduate Student in Composition
Mills College Music Department
http://www.mills.edu/PEOPLE/gr.pages/toda.public.html/music/singer.html