Vocalist.org archive


From:  "Alain Zürcher" <az@c...>
Date:  Sun Jun 25, 2000  10:55 pm
Subject:  Re: [vocalist-temporary] Height/Range (was pitch differences, bach and basses)


Tako Oda wrote :

<< Most men have a top note in head voice approximately a 4th or
5th above the note where their passagio begins.
Not so with sops/mezzos/altos/countertenors. The head voice is not quite
so "locked" to the chest voice, so the head can extend further up.>>


This is because the term "head voice" that you use in both cases means two
different things:

1) The so-called "head voice" of a tenor - though one also talks of "ut de
poitrine" ("chest high C"?), which is confusing...
This register is an upper extension of the "mode 1" or "heavy mechanism",
mixed with some characteristics of the "mode 2" or "light mechanism", but
mainly using covering (couverture, copertura...) to extend the heavy
mechanism. It stops indeed a 4th or a 5th above the "second passage", or
"top of the passage zone".
2) The "mode 2" or "light mechanism" itself. Mine goes up one octave above
my second passage, but I have encountered singers with very different
extensions.

BTW, if instead of covering one's voice to go up that 4th or 5th, one really
mixes it into "mode 2" or "light mechanism", one gets an upper extension of
one 8va or so instead, but in a "mixed voice" or "voix mixte" that will be
considered "cheating" by listeners accustomed to the heavy registration of
the 20th century (rather than the late 19th century, since recordings of
Battistini still show the use of a light registration going into "voix
mixte", very different from the heavy registration of Caruso, for instance).

This "voix mixte" would be "mode 2" or "light mechanism" first masquerading
as "mode 1" (on the lower half of this extension), and then clearly
appearing as "mode 2".

OTOH, the short "covered" extension would be "mode 1" or "heavy mechanism"
not really "masquerading as mode 2", since nobody wants to hear it as "mode
2", but rather using closed vowels that trigger some "mode 2"
characteristics in order to ease the production while sounding as "mode
1"...

Is that clear? - Maybe clear and wrong? ;-)

| Alain Zürcher, Paris, France
| L'Atelier du Chanteur :
| http://chanteur.net




  Replies Name/Email Yahoo! ID Date Size
2707 Re: Height/Range (was pitch differences, bach and Tako Oda   Mon  6/26/2000   3 KB
2728 Re: Height/Range (was pitch differences, bach and Alain Zürcher   Wed  6/28/2000   4 KB
2814 Re: Height/Range (was pitch differences, bach , a Tako Oda   Mon  7/3/2000   2 KB

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