Dear Lloyd et al,
Thank you for your definition of the "calling voice". This is a
fascinating thread that seems to involve many technical matters.
Sometimes I think that one of the most challenging communication
problems is that nearly everything in singing is interrelated. It
reminds me of flying a helicopter in that any control movement
creates a reactionary chain of movements in the other controls,
especially at a hover (but I digress).
Getting back to onsets; what are they good for? Why don't we enlist
the help of our colleagues and see what they think? Maybe we could
start to document just this one exercise to see what we can learn
from documenting it? I'd like to know why, how and when other
teachers use onsets. If this proves fruitful, perhaps we could move
on to another exercise and examine it closely?
In any case, here's my take:
I use onsets to teach healthy tone initiation, sostenution and
completion.
1.) The student must be able to demonstrate glottal, aspirated and
balanced onsets on the vowels they will be using in singing without
blurting or barking.
Note: They must also understand how the onset affects the sustained
tone.
2.) The student must be able to demonstrate balanced onsets on the
correct pitch, without "scooping" or "searching" for pitch or vowel.
3.) The student must be able to demonstrate the ability to end a
sustained tone cleanly, without blurting or barking.
Note: They must also understand that there should be an appropriate
release of tone that "connects" to the next onset between phrases.
The energy cannot be allowed to be interrupted eventhough the singing
is (sheesh I hope that makes sense to y'all). The succeeding onset
needs to match the release just before it in energy (phew! there.)
Regards,
Les
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