Dear Ed and Vocliters;
I would be most interested in how many of the voice teachers on this list still use the Yawn-sigh techniques with their students. It was a big rage during the 50's and into the 60's but I seldom hear anyone mention it much anymore. Vennard emphasized it in his early work. However, it came under a lot of fire for producing a swallowed tone and I am not sure how Vennard reacted to this in his later revisions of his original book.
The same "popular" techniques idea can also be applied to the rage to "place the voice in the masque", which is still around. It was first promoted by Curtis, caught on and heavily used, then criticized for its tendency to produce an overly bright, tense vocal sound that often became noticeably nasal.
-- Lloyd W. Hanson
|