Vocalist.org archive


From:  Isabelle Bracamonte <ibracamonte@y...>
Isabelle Bracamonte <ibracamonte@y...>
Date:  Mon Apr 23, 2001  5:15 am
Subject:  Re: [vocalist] Recording Studios



> students who tape their lessons or
> >practicing in their teacher's small studios (small
> in comparison to properly
> >sized halls) and their own practice rooms (living
> room, school practice room,
> >etc.) will be adversly affected

I'll add to Lloyd's response to the above comment by
mike by saying that singing as if I'm in a large hall
is one of the things I always have to think about --
occasionally my teacher will remind me to "sing to the
balconies." It's easy to start slacking off the
squillo in a small studio if you're not constantly
paying attention to it. Once a year we go into a
1500-seat hall and I take a lesson there (half her
listening from the back while I sing with an
accompanist, half teaching like normal) to make sure
her ears aren't leading her astray. But she is
friends with the owner of the theater, so it's rather
unusual that she does this. But the point is that she
is constantly making me sing "too big" for the studio,
precisely because that's what she's training for. If
she were training me to sound smashing in her living
room, she'd be teaching me very differently. And
commercial recordings are made to sound smashing.

Remember, lesson tapes are meant to point out your
technicality on that day -- if I were trying to make
my tapes sound good to the general public, I'd
probably round out my sound, pull off the ping and
lean into the diction, use all the tricks that make a
tone sound nice on a recording or in a tiny space, but
which compromise that exciting, pingy drive that a
cutting operatic tone has in a big hall.

So, if you're making lesson tapes in order to listen
to them for your own enjoyment, you're right, mike --
they will be adversely affected in terms of the larger
picture.

I think the best commercial recordings are live ones,
because the singer isn't compromising "real" technique
in order to sound good on the disc. Large voices
(which are less capable of pulling back and using
recording tricks) don't record as well. And singers
who disgust me with their recordings by crooning,
whispering, fattening up the tone, digging themselves
into luscious diction at the expense of thrust and
point -- often surprise me by being delightful in the
house (San Francisco stage, in my case), because they
really put out and sing.

Isabelle B.

=====
Isabelle Bracamonte, ibracamonte@y...
San Francisco, CA
moderator of Vocalist: the mailing list for singers
(vocalist-temporary@yahoogroups.com)

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