I, too, do not teach 'dropping the jaw'. I was taught, and teach, the
concept of 'cuperto', in which the mouth is not opened wide (think
Montserrat Caballe, not Samuel Ramey), allowing the direction of the
breath to resonate in a different location, rather than the predominate
mouth resonance associated with 'dropping the jaw'. It makes for a much
more beautiful quality, and allows the singer a greater degree of
expressiveness.
Mark
"Sing on the interest, not on the principal" - Florence Page Kimball, to
her student Leontyne Price
"The voice is not a fist." - Fritz Wunderlich
"I sing with a slim voice." - Birgit Nilsson
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On Sat, 30 Nov 2002, Sharon Szymanski wrote:
> At the risk of sounding heretical, I will state that I don't teach
> "dropping the jaw", nor do I have my student insert fingers or anything
> else in their mouths to improve jaw tension or to increase volume. I am
> absolutely clear on the need for eliminating any kind of jaw/facial/neck
> tension but I approach it first by working on breathing, onset, etc. to
> educate the student on the parts of the body that should be doing most
> of the work. During this process, I find that much extraneous tension
> often drops away since it was probably instituted in an effort to do
> that which should have been happening elsewhere in the instrument.
>
> I also feel that much of the extra space required for singing can be
> achieved with a relaxed jaw hinge (but not abnormally dropped) and
> creating a larger amount of space above the jaw line. With remaining
> tension, I use a combination of mirror work, Alexander technique, gentle
> placing of the hand on the offending body area, and speech-oriented
> exercises to remind the singer that one can make excellent sound without
> crazy, unnatural postures. It works very well for me (a necessary
> cavet, since all teachers work differently).
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