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From:  "Wim Ritzerfeld" <w.ritzerfeld@c...>
"Wim Ritzerfeld" <w.ritzerfeld@c...>
Date:  Thu Aug 2, 2001  10:00 pm
Subject:  Re: Seth Riggs' Recent SF Master Class


Dear Tina and vocalisters,

There is something I don't understand here. On the one hand we have
classical technique (I rather call it that instead of bel canto,
because 'bel canto' has different meanings for different people),
while on the other hand we have the various styles of 'pop' singing.
As far as I'm concerned there are huge differences in the techniques
employed in these two 'classes' of singing. (One of the issues has
been mentioned by Tina: vowel modification. Classical singing would
be impossible without vowel modification, while in 'pop' styles,
vowel modification is largely considered undesirable. Another issue is
the prevalent use of the heavy mechanism by women pop singers vs.
the prevalent use of the light mechanism by classical female
singers ).

I still don't see how Seth Riggs can reconcile these differences
and call speech level singing a contemporary version of
'bel canto'. I'm not saying that pop singers can't benefit from
classical singing techniques, but the kind of sound (and sound level)
they are looking for is totally different and, as far as I can see,
only a limited set of 'classical' techniques would be applicable
to contemporary pop singing. Can someone from the SLS community
comment on this ?

Wim Ritzerfeld M.Sc. (Maestro di Scienza e di canto)


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