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Date sent: Fri, 4 Feb 2000 15:19:43 EST
Subject: Speaking/Singing Voice (ranting about countertenors :) Part II
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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