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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