Dear Katherine and List,
Thanks for your thoughtful posts on Reid. You wrote:
**********************
>He teaches two registers, falsetto and chest, that MERGE TO
> BECOME THE HEAD VOICE. In Cornelius' teaching, head voice is a
> product of a coordinative relationship. It is not a separate thing
> from falsetto.
**********************
Just to be clear, when I said that Reid places the falsetto between
the chest and head registers I did not say or mean to imply that the
head register is an entirely separate event from falsetto. I have
read, read again, and again, everything that Reid has ever
published. My point was that Reid, and Garcia before him, rely on
mechanical (functional) principles in their teaching. And their
ideas about vocal registers are extremely similar.
**********************
You wrote: (quoting Reid)
> 4. when the falsetto merges with the 'chest' register in a
coordinate
> relationship to become the 'head' voice, it considerably overlaps
the
> lower and the two share many notes in common." (SNIP) and you
wrote:
He teaches two registers, falsetto and chest, that MERGE TO
> BECOME THE HEAD VOICE. In Cornelius' teaching, head voice is a
> product of a coordinative relationship. It is not a separate thing
> from falsetto.
**********************
Yes, I agree entirely with these statements. Like Reid, Garcia
considered the head register to be an upward extension of the
falsetto register, but with certain differences that justified a
separate name. I have no disagreement about the "chest and
falsetto" merging to become the head register. In his Memoire,
Garcia calls the lower register the "chest register" (like Reid),
and the upper register the falsetto-head register (your merging
comment) Thus, he described the falsetto-head register as a single
register consisting of two parts, of which the lowest takes the
names of "falsetto" and the highest takes the name of "head."
The concepts laid down by Garcia are completely in line with your
quote from "The Free Voice" and Reid's mechanical (functional)
principles of vocal registration put forth in his literature.
Katherine, your latest post about the decline of singing is dead-
on! Trying to gain "control" of the vocal folds once they are in
vibration, and singing by "sensations" has indeed been going on
since the time of De Reske. In my opinion, good singing mainly
involves the de-controlling of muscles rather than the controlling
of muscles.
Take Care All,
Taylor L. Ferranti
DMA Candidate, Voice/Voice Science
Louisiana State University
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