Cyrus,
I'm not sure how useful this will be, but I shall plunge ahead - I know
that I can at least provide food for thought.
It seems that both range and tone quality are important, and also culture.
A dark voiced baritone of nowadays would probably sound like the basso
cantante of 100 years ago (or less, maybe even today viz. James Morris). A
light baritone is often going to be mistaken for a tenor. There is a bass
here who, though only a teenager, sounds like a true schwarzer Bass, I, a
baritone with age and technique on my side can sing lower notes than he,
but I don't have the same tone quality. I think that to some extent such
things can be cultivated - the kind of technique which has a heavy mass of
vocal chords moving back and forth, and a somewhat slower vibrato can
certainly be acquired, though optimum resonance may depend on other things
- thus I could easily be a mighty bass with the help of the hated microphone!
I should interrupt myself here to point out that I often think of a 'true
bass' as one with the dark cavernous sound of those great Slavs and Finns
that occasionally make it to the west - rare creatures indeed - and yet
there are basses that don't have that quality at all - if you have a good
strong low E you can sing bass, even although there is someone out on the
steppes who can rumble about an octave lower than that.
On the historical side: 'bass' originally meant just a low voice, for
whose timbre and style of production I know of no record. Bach and Mozart
typically wrote 'bass' parts which are quite appropriate for baritones,
very seldom going below a low G - although many excellent
high baritones may not be able to get much projection below a Bb or even
higher.
Different cultures have different expectations of what a bass should sound
like, and it's usually a matter of resonance rather than the notes
themselves. And of course choral basses are usually baritones who are
cultivating low singing, with the occasional real bass thrown in, out of
sheer luck!
I myself have a fair bit of insecurity on this subject, since I'm often
called upon to sing bass things, which I can do with reasonable conviction.
But after a performance I always ask anxiously things like: could you hear
my low notes?
As I have recently agonised about on this list, I don't really know how
loud or projective the bass's low notes should be - composers do seem to
thin out the accompaniment and/or have discreet doublings 'down there'
which would suggest either a)basses don't make so much sound down there or
b)they expect that less than ideal voices will often sing the part in
practice.
As for a bass's upper range - I believe that people tend to expect a sound
in which there is no head voice detectable! That bright quality would then
detract from the 'bassiness'. Audiences would rather hear gruff straining,
like the call of some noble stag at bay than a bright, rich sound, though I
think much depends on the role. The deeper the voice the more 'authority',
and the more a sense of effort in the upper notes the more the sense of
authority condescending or being placed in extremis as the case may be.
I'm sure other posters will be able to add to (or subtract from!) what
I've written here. I hope it's helpful. john
...
>Is the difference between a Bass and a Bass/Baritone more a question
>of some qualitative description (dark/light, dramatic/lyric, etc.) or
>is it as simple as the range which one sings? I also know that the
>voice evolves as we age and that ancestry has some bearing on that.
>Also if you know of any good sound clips to compare, please let me
>know.
>
>Thanks for your time.
>
>Cyrus
.
John Blyth
Baritono robusto e lirico
Brandon, Manitoba, Canada
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