To: "VOCALIST" <vocalist>
Subject: Re: MOUTH VOICE
Date sent: Fri, 28 Jan 2000 08:42:17 -0500
Send reply to: VOCALIST <vocalist>


-----Original Message-----
From: Buzzcen-at-aol.com
To: vocalist <vocalist>
Date: Thursday, January 27, 2000 11:36 PM
Subject: Re: MOUTH VOICE


BTW, in your description of head voice you describe directing the air
>up into the skull. This is impossible unless you have a hole somewhere in
>your palate which would allow this to happen, which perhaps you do! LOL
>
>Randy Buescher

Dear Randy and list,

This is a scientifically correct observation, but one that I feel
illustrates how a purely scientific mindset can sometimes be limiting. As
much as I am passionate about vocal science, I have come to realize
something that Mr. Spock so eloquently expressed in Star Trek 6
"Undiscovered Country": Science [logic] is only the beginning, not the end.

Yes we know that a relaxed vocal tract, the appropriate shape of the vowel,
intense enough air flow in a balanced phonatory pattern are contributing
factors in sympathetic resonance which is necessary for well-produced sound.
There is a time to express it to a student in just those terms, but much
more rarely than the many times we use imagery or metaphors which the
specific student can identify with. Personally, I find something much more
artistic and visceral about "directing the air up to the skull."

I believe a person's resonators, like many organs which respond to cortical
stimuli, respond to directives relative to the way the person appropriated
that knowledge and/or experience initially, which is why there are serious
doubt about the possibility of accessing head resonance when the
facial-maxilo area has been altered such as in reconstructive surgery
tangent). Not everyone is going to respond to the same directives in the
same way.

One of my voice teachers, an Italian mezzo named Ada Finelli sang at La
Scala and in Germany for 35 years. She retired at age 56 to teach full time
(she had been teaching for many years prior). I spent a few weeks with her
for three consecutive summers and learned more from her about vocal
coordination in that time than all of my other teachers combined (not to say
that I did not cherish the scientific and spiritual knowledge that I got
from my ohter teachers). The thing is that she has not read one book about
vocal pedagogy, could not begin to explain the most basic scientific process
relative to singing. Her approach was minimalistic to the point of being
simplistic. But in the end, her timing (knowing when to say what), her
instincts (knowing the singer's state of mind and how s/he processes
information) and her faith in her approach helped produce some of the most
beautiful singers I have ever heard. They sang with passion, sounds that
not only feasted the ears but imbued the soul with a reverence that often
drew tears or deep laughter. She too, recommended directing the breath
upward toward the skull and the mask.

The question: Do the prescribed conditions create the proper result (in
this case, resonance) or does desire for the end result induce the
conditions necessary for the same end?

My answer as a scientific/spiritual teacher: Both; whichever of the two
works better for the student.

As each person has a path personal to himself (herself) anyone may agree or
disagree with the preceding in part or in whole.

Peace,

JRL