gillyanne kayes, in her book 'singing and the actor', says that opening
the nasal port can be used, in non-classical singing, as a way to
decrescendo. it just occured to me that she never said why (btw, she is a
jo estill disciple).
as i experiment with opening and closing the nasal port (going back and
forth from 'uh' to 'uh-huh', non nasal to nasalized) it seems that there is a
corresponding reduction in sub-glottal pressure when opening the nasal port.
that would certainly explain the classical singer's need to avoid nasalizing
a french vowel until the very last moment and it might also explain why
opening the nasal port could be used to aid a decrescendo. i suppose one
could retain sub-glottal pressure while keeping the nasal port open but, it
seems to me to be unnatural (except for yelling in french).
mike
|
