>Dear Randy and Vocalisters:
You wrote:
>It is not an issue of support but an issue of the cord structure itself.
>Many voice teachers (especially those settled exclusively in the opera
>ghetto) discourage any chest voice involvement. This leads to a form of
>production that is the exact same thing as male falsetto. I'm not basing
>this on an unsubstantiated theory but my own observations of stroboscopic
>exams of females who sing this way. The lack of a closed phase leads to the
>perception of a vocal problem, in that nodes are often suspected, but the
>true culprit is the lack of chest voice involvement. Get them in touch with
>their chest voice and the problem is gone.
I am in basic agreement with your analysis of this problem. And
thanks for the information about the activity of the lateral
cricoarytenoids.
I would add, however, that not all of opera training encourages this
low extension of the head quality such that the chest voice is
discouraged. In Millers book on national vocal approaches it is more
the German vocal style that tends to avoid the use of chest voice in
female singers except in the extremely lowest ranges. It is not at
all uncommon for the Italian style to want the use of chest voice and
a stronger chest voice mix and this national tendency is sometime
considered a bit crude by those trained in the German aesthetic.
--
Lloyd W. Hanson, DMA
Professor of Voice, Pedagogy
School of Performing Arts
Northern Arizona University
Flagstaff, AZ 86011
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