Vocalist.org archive


From:  Isabelle Bracamonte <ibracamonte@y...>
Date:  Wed Sep 6, 2000  7:41 pm
Subject:  wobbles and chest



> that it leaves women with nothing much below middle
> C. i have noticed with
> a few students, fifty and older, who had already
> been singing in the more
> operatic of the two, that they had developed big
> wobbles that disappeared
> instantly when they began to use their chest voices
> extending the high range
> using the 'door-creak' method. they also sounded
> twenty years younger

This is one of the main problems in teaching a
head-heavy approach to operatic singing, i.e., no
chest voice (reinforced head voice, oomph, call it
what you will). Opera isn't about raw chest voice,
obviously, but it isn't about hooting away, either.
One of the reasons I can't stand Gheorghiu's voice, or
Larmore's -- I don't hear enough of a center to the
tones.

I have had teachers briefly (one of them quite
well-respected and the author of a very prominant book
which is probably sitting on many listers'
bookshelves, unfortunately) who attempted to bring the
hooty, soft breathy sound (what I call my "falsetto,"
that flip into unsupported girly singing) down through
my entire range, using it exclusively. Disasterous.
I've heard this called "top-down" singing, and in my
opinion it takes all the core out of a voice.

Should I define core? It's that rock-solid center to
a voice -- it's what a properly whittled-down
pianissimo becomes -- it's a sense of hearing a
secure, firmly grounded, laser-bright uniformity from
C to C to C. Introducing a solid core into a voice
with a wobble usually straightens it out, in my
observing experience, but it seems to be monstrously
hard work. It's bloody difficult to introduce focus
and core into a voice after it's trained, rather than
from the beginning.

Of course, I would never (okay, rarely) take raw chest
voice above an Eb or E (4). The flip side of
over-hooty is what I think is referred to as "muscle
bound." Taking raw chest too high is a danger.

This is not to say that I think "core" is close to
SLS, which I think mike is pondering. Someone like
Zajick, for instance, who has core coming out of her
ears, would sound decidedly ridiculous attempting to
sing non-operatic literature. Carol Van Ness' Mozart
has great core (her bigger stuff has a wobble -- I
think it's because the pushing process, if you're
overparted, splits the voice away from the central
core). So did Gruberova, the one time I heard her.

Core, gotta have it.

Isabelle B.

=====
Isabelle Bracamonte
San Francisco, CA
ibracamonte@y...




__________________________________________________


  Replies Name/Email Yahoo! ID Date Size
4038 Re: wobbles and chest buzzcen@a...   Wed  9/6/2000   2 KB
4039 Re: wobbles and chest ODivaTina@a...   Wed  9/6/2000   3 KB
4041 Re: wobbles and chest Isabelle Bracamonte   Wed  9/6/2000   3 KB
4044 Re: wobbles and chest Ian Belsey   Thu  9/7/2000   4 KB
4045 Re: wobbles and chest RALUCOB@a...   Thu  9/7/2000   2 KB
4046 Re: wobbles and chest RALUCOB@a...   Thu  9/7/2000   2 KB
4047 Re: wobbles and chest Isabelle Bracamonte   Thu  9/7/2000   2 KB
4058 Re: wobbles and chest VocalStudio@c...   Thu  9/7/2000   3 KB
4060 Re: wobbles and chest Lisa M Olson   Thu  9/7/2000   3 KB

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