Taylor and Vocalisters:
Sorry that you felt you had to defend yourself and your comments for the list and me. That was not my intention and I do realize that my wording of my response to your original post did tend to prompt that sort of reply. I very much appreciate and admire the thoughtful manner you displayed in your response.
I expressed some concern over the tendency we teachers and singers have to over-simplify data that we are now privileged to have about vocal production. For example, it is easy to assume that the vocal muscles are the same as other muscles in the body or even that most muscle are alike. But they are not not and some muscles do not grow appreciably stronger with exercise. The whole concept of building up the voice as one would build up the muscles in the arms or legs etc. is not an accurate one. Although there is no doubt that the voice grows stronger with proper use it is not a process of building muscle bulk but more of a process of improving coordination and muscle reactance. Mane of the exercises that are used by speech therapists express the idea of developing vocal strength but coordination is a major portion of that expression of strength.
Falsetto has been discussed by me many times in this group. I fully understand what Garcia meant by his specialized use of the term falsetto but because this use of the term is completely and absolutely different that the modern use of the term it would be best if another term would be used for his concept. Garcia used the incomplete occluded vocal fold type of singing in the middle voice as a means of abridging the vocal quality from the head voice to the chest voice. Through a series of exercises he then developed a more closure of the vocal folds in this range and, in that way, created a vocal quality that was consistent from chest through middle voice (his falsetto) to head voice. However, his technique is not a common technique anymore nor do we have any assurance it was a common technique in his day or before him. There are many other ways to develop the middle voice that are more immediately productive and require less structured work.
Placing a mirror into the back of the throat, reflecting a light off that mirror to light the interior of the throat so that one can observe the vocal folds is a most unnatural singing position. In addition, the singer must learn to keep the epiglottis out of the way for other vowels that just [i] which is also unnatural. In total, the singing mechanism is much misaligned by the use of the laryngoscope, even the modern rigid scope with its TV camera. It is a valuable instrument for medical examination of the vocal folds but it is not a valuable instrument for collecting data on vocal fold production during singing. Yet Garcia made conclusions for singing based on what he observed with this instrument and these conclusions were a major influence on his development of his technique of singing. He was a fine teacher who had outstanding pupils but his conclusion are not necessarily accurate.
Your point about the use of, or admission of use of chest voice is well taken. Many singers and teachers, especially those from northern Europe tend to distrust the idea that chest voice is proper even though they use it consistently. Some of this comes from national preferences, some from a desire to be different from our neighboring countries and some from language characteristics. The story about the singer who used chest voice but was certain that she did nothing so "crude" is classic and very funny. Thanks.
-- Lloyd W. Hanson, DMA Professor of Voice, Pedagogy School of Performing Arts Northern Arizona University Flagstaff, AZ 86011
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