Dear Christine and Vocalisters:
You wrote:
"People talk about how low the pop singers sing nowadays like it's something
new - they forget Karen Carpenter. I used to sing EVERYTHING in chest,
just like her and thought I had a very limited range. What was really
confusing was that her pop songs were never published anywhere near the key
in which she sang them, so I couldn't do them... it took me YEARS to get
over the belief that I simply had no range ..."
COMMENT: Your statement redefines what I have said many times on this list.
Female singers have been put in, or have created for themselves, a very
damaging vocal ideal in the last 35-40 years. You speak of Karen Carpenter
as someone who is _not_ recent but to me she is very recent because I
"knew" before her.
The world of "pops" music, (and I use that term the way "classical" music is
used, that is, in its most generic way) for female singers has been built
on a model that is more male than female. Requiring female singers to sing
at the very bottom of their range is far more damaging to their voices than
requiring male singers to sing in falsetto. And if one adds to this
condition the drive by many females to speak with more authority by
lowering their speaking voice you get a picture of a societal condition
that encourages females to be more like males.
And the irony of all this is that much of it was sought by females
themselves to try to achieve equality.
None of the above is meant as a critique of the very desirable and honorable
goal of females to be treated equally. The "movement" would not exist if
it were not needed. Cultural changes that bring about justice often do so
through aberrations which themselves must, and will, eventually be removed.
It is my opinion that the encouragement and/or requirement that female
singers must use primarily their low voices if they wish a career in "pops"
music is just such an aberration.
Regards
--
Lloyd W. Hanson, DMA
Professor of Voice, Vocal Pedagogy
School of Performing Arts
Northern Arizona University
Flagstaff, AZ 86011
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