Vocalist.org archive


From:  RALUCOB@a...
RALUCOB@a...
Date:  Sat Dec 9, 2000  5:55 pm
Subject:  Re: [vocalist-temporary] Re: why do women sing in head voice?


<< Leslie, who survived 5-1/2 straight hours
of voice juries yesterday....>> ...must have been wearing ear
plugs.

leslie,

to further confuse the issue, i term what most people speak in as
'speaking voice' not chest voice. i would call what hillary clinton speaks
in 'speaking voice'. it is not what some would call 'raw chest', it is
maybe a 'mix'. but, it is, i suspect a mix because of resonance not because
of vocal fold behavior. i would say that, in terms of vocal fold behavior,
she speaks in what others would call 'heavy mechanism'.

i have a problem with the idea of registers in general. i believe
that, from bottom to top, there should be an ever varying change in the
voice. it should be like a seemless 'rainbow' from charcoal to off white
and the notes of a piece of music just planted on that graph. the problem
with this idea, is that the voice ends up being to varied from bottom to top
and that violates the asthetics of many types of music, classical being the
most offended by such a concept. this is where i think the idea of
registers developed.

the problem with forcing women to sing in their 'lowest voice', as
lloyd discussed, is the same as forcing men to sing in their 'lowest voice'.
frank sinatra went from singing in a 'mix' in the early 50s to singing in
too much chest and spreading that all over and, although i don't think it
damaged him, i think it took the 'singing quality' out of his singing. i
don't think karen carpenter is an example of a woman who damaged herself by
singing low. however, she did limit the range she sang in by choosing one
sound to sing with (fine with me, i love listening to her).

mike

emusic.com