On Tue, 4 Jun 2002 15:37:05 -0500 Lea Ann Martin wrote:
>>I have noticed in this piece and in all my others that I am not able to
produce a floaty pianissimo high note. When I produce a lighter sounding note
it sounds more shrill and fragile than I would like. And the resonance is
unpredictable. To my mind the master of such notes is Renee Fleming...how does
she do it?
Lea Ann, tell us how you know that the note is -sounding- shrill and fragile.
Is this the sound you hear inside your head? If so, that's a very unreliable
way to judge whether the note is working properly. What does your teacher say
about those notes?
Personally, when I work with my teacher on singing softly high, we first get the
note to work properly at mezzoforte - make sure the vowel is right, that there's
nothing in the approach to the note that's messing up the optimum resonance.
Then, sometimes, I don't "think" piano. Rather, I think a timbre or an idea.
Because when I think piano, sometimes I tighten things up that make the note not
work.
What's working for me these days is the messa di voce exercise. If you can
learn to start at nothing, crescendo to mf and decrescendo back to nothing, then
it shouldn't be difficult to start at nothing, crescendo a tiny bit, and then
descrescendo a tiny bit. If you can't do this with the highest note, start
lower in the scale with the exercise and work your way up.
Listen again to Renee - I betcha that's what she's doing on her soft high notes.
In the best singing, a note is never sung in isolation, and never is static. It
moves toward the peak of the phrase or away from the peak.
Peggy
Margaret Harrison, Alexandria, Virginia, USA.
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