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From:  "Alain Zürcher" <az@c...>
Date:  Wed Jul 5, 2000  12:33 am
Subject:  Re: [vocalist-temporary] American School of Countertenors WAS: David Daniels, Question about , fach, tenor arias


On May 28th (!), David Cox wrote :

<<I've often thought that sopranos I 've heard were singing in falsetto, but
never been game enough to raise the possibilty.
The voices are often loud, but have several distinctive qualities. One is a
brittle,
hollow sound. Another is a tendency (in some singers) to disappear for a
couple of
notes around C4- E4 (just above middle C). Alternatively, the voice may
display a
yodel type crack at one point in the range - I also notice this sometimes
when the
singer is beginning a note. All in all, it sounds as though something is
missing from
the core of the sound - the same sort of sound as a young girl or an
untrained adult
often displays, but boosted with lots of support and twang to be very loud -
a bit
like Tiny Tim on steroids! Any one else noticed this?>>

Yes! I call it the Lady Macbeth voice... ;-)
And this is exactly what I hear (live) in Jane Eaglen's voice when she sang
Norma in Paris, like John Alexander Blyth who wrote : <<I would say that
Jane Eaglen (to my loony ears) uses a lot more falsetto in Bruennhilde's
high bits>>

Karita Mattila had that tone also when she sang Elisabeth de Valois in
Paris, but not later in other parts. Mara Zampieri had it when she sang Lady
Macbeth. From her recordings, Tebaldi seems to have used this kind of
singing.

Nevertheless, it never occurred to me that this kind of vocal production
could be called "falsetto". I would rather have related it to whistle:
pressed phonation, lots of air pushed through rigid cords producing a shrill
straight tone...

Isn't it also the kind of sound a frightened woman is supposed to produce in
a horror movie?

John Alexander Blyth added : <<, compared to the 'laser tone' of Birgit
Nilsson, yet Eaglen was marvellously in tune, while Nilsson had a tendency
to go sharp.>>

Strange difference in perception: I heard Eaglen as sharp... because her
high notes lacked the "chest" in them. But at the same time, if I call her
singing "straight", it should lack overtones, and be perceived as flat??
Perhaps it lacked more fundamental than overtones, and the most emphasized
overtone was the octave above the fundamental? Even if that overtone were
perfectly in tune, the feeble fundamental could make it perceived as sharp?


David Cox wrote (in the paragraph quoted above) : <<Another is a tendency
(in some singers) to disappear for a couple of notes around C4- E4 (just
above middle C).>>

Isn't it the characteristic beginning of the "hole" in female voices that
don't manage to mix and support their voices as appropriate? Isn't pressed
phonation the main cause of it? Isabelle Vernet is a very good example of
such defective technique, which ultimately leads the voice to being hollow
and inaudible below the secondo passaggio (if one attributes one to women,
otherwise think F5 or so) and shouted above. She could be heard some years
ago as Phèdre in Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie in Paris and New York,
alternating with the fantastic Lorraine Hunt.

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



  Replies Name/Email Yahoo! ID Date Size
2848 Re: American School of Countertenors WAS: David D John Alexander Blyth   Thu  7/6/2000   5 KB

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