| Date sent: Fri, 4 Feb 2000 15:19:43 EST Subject: Speaking/Singing Voice (ranting about countertenors :) Part II To: VOCALIST <vocalist> Send reply to: VOCALIST <vocalist>
continued... Part II of II
I had never even *heard* of head voice until I was in my mid-twenties! It's a sad, sad thing. Anyway, a low-ranged chest voice can be coupled with a high-ranged head voice, which is how we get the 3+ octave ranges of singers like Jessye Norman.
So I'd like to challenge the idea that a countertenor voice is a "market-driven" or an "emotional" (Richard Miller) decision. The presumption is that most countertenors *should* be tenors, baritones or basses, but they have somehow chosen to sing another way. To me, this is almost silly as saying Jessye Norman should be a contralto because that is where she speaks. The truth is, her most amazing notes are above the staff!
There's also another issue which is seldom considered in regards to male voices. Richard Miller states in Structure of Singing that any man could choose to sing countertenor, and that there is nothing special about a countertenor's instrument. While it is true most could hoot in falsetto and call themselves countertenors, they do not have a true countertenor instrument... The larynx may look the same, but neurological wiring is also a part of the full instrument.
It is a typical countertenor experience to not have had a "cracking" of voice in puberty. I believe that true countertenor brains never lost the ability to use the upper extension of the head voice mechanism, hence the graceful lowering of voice. I believe this is a similar situation to the artificially created castrati. Of course they are not identical situations because the castrati's chest voice did not lower much lower than high tenor. Still, the point is that the castrati were not limited to being "just" high tenors because they kept their upper head extensions by endocrynological tampering.
Again IMO, there are probably more true countertenors out there who are struggling to be tenors or baritones because they don't understand head voice and the fact that its range may easily lie much higher than they think. My theory is that David Daniels was just such a countertenor. He himself talks about what a difficult time he had negotiating his 1st passage as a tenor. No wonder! The relative ranges of his chest and head registers was so different! Now he takes his break more like a lyric soprano would, and it is seamless.
Thanks for reading my ranting...
Tako Oda Graduate Student in Composition Mills College Music Department http://www.mills.edu/PEOPLE/gr.pages/toda.public.html/music/singer.h
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