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From:  "Lloyd W. Hanson" <lloyd.hanson@n...>
Date:  Sun Mar 10, 2002  4:15 pm
Subject:  RE: [vocalist] Re: Teaching question

Jennifer:

I would strongly urge you to get Miller's "The Structure of Singing"
and study the chapters on registers in both the female voice and the
male voice. I am not suggesting that he is the last word on vocal
registration but his writings represent the best connection I have
found between traditional teaching of the classical voice and
techniques that have been developed in the modern era.

A 16 year old male is not likely to have an established upper
register but usually will be able to sing easily in falsetto in this
range. However, using falsetto exclusively in the upper ranges of
the male voice establishes a muscle coordination that is not
conducive to developing the proper coordination between the chest
voice and the head voice.

The male voice posses only two registers, chest and head. Falsetto
is not usually considered a register in the classical manner of
singing. All male voices must develop the coordination skill
necessary to move gradually from chest voice (heavy mechanism) to
full head voice (light mechanism). Many male voices find it easier
to be in either chest OR head but have great difficulty in the
meeting place of these to vocal configurations which is usually
called the passaggio. But, most male voice as young as 16 will have
little or no head voice yet. Songs should be selected that do not
require extensive use of the head voice at this age. It is not
uncommon for baritones and basses to find their head voices during
the later years in college at ages 21-25.

Almost all male singing in popular music for the past 40 years is
done in either chest voice or falsetto so todays young males have
almost no examples of good head voice singing in the culture of their
youth. This makes teaching them to develope head voice especially
difficult.

Good luck.


--
Lloyd W. Hanson







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17892 Re: Teaching questionJennifer   Sun  3/10/2002  

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