Vocalist.org archive


From:  Isabelle Bracamonte <ibracamonte@y...>
Isabelle Bracamonte <ibracamonte@y...>
Date:  Thu Jan 25, 2001  8:35 pm
Subject:  chest voice exercises


Suki, here's my chest exercise. I do it once a week,
although my teacher says it can be done every day.

A simple three note scale (1 2 3 2 1), very slowly, on
a very forward "ih" vowel. Sometimes I lift my upper
lip (kind of a sneer) to show the teeth, to get a more
nasty, ringing vowel that feels like it's buzzing
right in front of my teeth. Nasal port is closed. I
start at the G below middle C and don't take it any
higher than C-D-E-D-C.

You'll feel it (in a bad way) if the vowel is too far
back (coming from the throat), which is why you are
allowed to make faces if you need to pull it more
frontal. It's like you're riding on the resonance of
the tone from the front teeth and the upper lip. A
very bright, buzzing "ih."

When/where to use chest voice: I've always heard that
the Italians find it a very sexy female sound, while
the Germans consider it vulgar and avoid it. I've
never heard anyone sing, for example, Giocanda without
liberal use of the chest voice. Most sopranos seem to
use chest in "Deh vieni, non tardar." This suggests
to me that verismo and very big, dramatic roles want
chest to be used as a stylistic enhancement of the
character, while the lighter voices need to use chest
in order to be heard. The higher an instrument sits,
in my experience, the less naturally loud the head
voice is down low, so the more the chest must be mixed
in to prevent middle C from fading away altogether. I
can always tell a true mezzo (like Elena Zaremba, wow)
from the way she can plunge into a true head-voice
middle C and below, and the notes come rolling &
ringing out across the orchestra.

Isabelle B.

=====
Isabelle Bracamonte
San Francisco, CA
ibracamonte@y...
ibracamonte@y...




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