Dear Mike:
>the simple answer to this question is that a lot of people just don't
>like it. there may be a multitude of reasons for this: they may not be used
>to hearing it, they may find it so different from their speaking voices that
>it is alienating for them to use it. there may also be a reaction against
>that which is seen as historically feminine which, would include the use of
>head voice. then again, it might just be that most people (the ones who
>make 'pop' music what it is, popular) just can't stand that
>sound. ups Sponsor
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Perhaps this is true, for this time and place, Mike, but it was not
always so in pops music. Ella Fitzgerald, Rosemary Clooney, Doris
Day, Patti Page, Sarah Vaughan, and almost all of the female singers
from the pre-rock era used their head voices and used them a lot.
It was then considered a part of the female voice. The fact that, as
you put it, they "just can't stand that sound" now or it is "a
reaction against that which (was) seen as historically feminine" is
more an indication of a cultural bent than of a musical one, just as
the acceptance of the female head voice was an expression of the
cultural mores of that previous time.
Regardless of our personal choices or what we consider as beautiful
or meaningful, the fact that rock desires a different use of the
voice than has been a part of pops music since its inception does not
make the choice better or worse, just different.
However, since pops music is always an art of the buying populace,
it is logical that the desires of that populace has changed. My
question was an inquiry into what might have caused that change, not
a simple statement that the change had occurred. And I was
suggesting, much along the lines you implied in the above, that it
was tied up with a different view of women in the world. Perhaps
women, for whatever reason, were willing to use only that part of the
voice which is closest to the male voice in range as a part of this
"new" music. Perhaps men were willing to assume a more female vocal
sound for some similar reason. The reality of it all is that in rock
music the men sing in the top of their range, usually using falsetto
and the women sing in the lowest part of their range. We now have a
unisex vocal range.
This is even true in the music that is printed for children to sing
in elementary school. Its range now is from about G below middle C
to G an octave above. Whereas in the 1950's, elementary school song
books pitched songs from middle C up to G an octave and a fifth above
middle C. Quite a difference in range, and, my opinion, a range that
is damaging for a child's voice.
--
Lloyd W. Hanson
Flagstaff, Arizona
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