Hi Gina,
I'm very touched that you should be so concerned over this issue for me.
Thanks for all your kind thoughts and helpful suggestions.
You wrote:
>... I was wondering how tightly
>you are clenching the lower abdomen and buttocks and how hard you push
>out the epigastrium. You may want to check that to be sure you are not
>supporting in a hyperfunctional manner.
Actually, I'm not clenching very tightly or pushing at all. "Firm support"
would be an accurate description. The method I use was taught to me by my
first teacher. She had me place my hands on my waist just along the lower
rib margin. When the breath comes in the hands are gently pushed outward so
that my fingertips separate; but not so much as to feel "tanked up" with
air. When the line begins the upper abdominal wall is kept firm but
relaxed, so the "line" it makes is held and does not move. As more support
is needed, the lower abdominals are engaged and the upper abdominal line may
move outward but only slightly. The point is to try not to push too much
air through the larynx and to avoid high subglottic pressures or tensions.
The whole thing has to stay relaxed. When my neck and chest are relaxed, I
need very little air to sing, and the line I can sing is much longer.
>Try singing the passages with the coloratura in isolation, just a bit at
>a time, with the belt on, and on /i/ and /o/. Do the whole aria on /i/
>and do it all on /o/. Notice when you start to collapse and renew your
>breath before it becomes critical.
Hadn't thought of this, however. I'll give it a try.
>The other thing is... I sing in a mixed voice throughout my whole
>range. I have heard this described as taking the feeling of the middle
>voice into the top (without too much weight.) Do you do that or is your
>top distinctly different and lighter? If you are singing in a way that
>is distinctly lighter and you are "reconnecting" on the way down, that
>could be why you get a glitch.
I, too, am a "mixer", which is how I was first taught. When I began with my
current teacher, that changed for a little while. He started me on
vocalises which clearly began in my chest range with descending 5-tone
scales, ascending by semi-tones. I was encouraged to sing in a very open
"fill the whole opera house" voice. The intent was to get my jaw to relax
and to free up my tongue and allow it to come forward [necessary for me
since the back part of my tongue is thick and my posterior pharynx is
small]. The exercise did that, but it also inadvertantly caused me to stay
in chest voice all the way up to F#4-G4, my upper passaggio. Then we hit
the "break" on the way up: so I remembered to begin mixing around C#4-D4 and
the break disappeared. In mixed voice, I could sing to A4, just as you say,
with less and less chest presence. At Bb4, however, it's nearly all head
voice. All this works well for slower passages. And I certainly get away
with it in my choral work [ I am primarily a choral singer] where I
alternate between 1st and 2nd tenor if I not just plain 'tenor'. But when
the lines move quickly, as in those melismas, it all breaks down. I think I
just need to build up the coordination and the stamina of the intrinsic
laryngeal muscles.
>If the larynx is low, the appoggio is working not only on the way up but
>the way down the scale, it will work and you will get better at it. It
>does take time to coordinate and strengthen the muscles and reprogram
>the brain.
This is essentially what Dr M, my teacher keeps reminding me. He's given me
a reprieve from the melismas for now. Though I am fairly open-minded, I
tend to be "close-habited". Dr M, sometimes has to use brute-force to break
me of my habits when I'm particularly "stubborn". When I told him I wanted
to hold off on "Mio Caro Bene" until I had smoothed out the upper passaggio
more, he said "Of course, but NOW you know what the problem is" and told me
to work on the sirening exercises (and variations) more. His comment to me
about turning me into a baritone came at a time when I was being especially
whiney.
If you are a tenor, you are a tenor. Just because you can't
>siren one day without a crack or even if you can't sing Mio Caro Bene
>one day, that doesn't mean you're not a tenor and you're a baritone.
>You either are a tenor or you're not. That aria is a very difficult one
>and I remember it well... my teacher at the time worked on it with me to
>get me to sing in mixed voice on those high A's and not disconnect.
I suspect this is what Dr M's intention is. I'm not so sure about the
"...tenor or you're not" distinction, however. I don't think the male voice
comes in 3 distinct categories, bass, baritone, tenor. Rather, I suspect
that, at least in the male voice, there is a continuum of timbres ranging
from basso profundo to tenorino distributed in occurrence along a
bell-shaped curve with baritone being in the thickest part of the bell, ie,
the most common. Hence, there is a gradual transition from one to the
other, with some imaginary line along the way, one side of which is felt by
most to be baritone, while the other is tenor. When I resumed singing in
church, I called myself a baritone because I didn't know what I was [and
also so I could "hide" until my reading skill improved]. After awhile I
just couldn't sing that low or heavy all the time. In the meantime, I began
voice studies with my first teacher...as a baritone. When it began to not
feel right, I sought second, third, and fourth opinions. Two teachers said
my voice was just a little too bright for baritone. Dr M was non-committal,
said I was a "tweener" at first, and gave me lyric baritone literature to
start. After the first month, he took it all away, decided I was a tenor.
Now he occasionally expresses a little frustration of having to undo my
baritonal training here and there. He has said that I was right on that
imaginary line in the beginning: definitely lyric, but midway between lyric
baritone and lyric tenor. When I sing baritone literature, I sound a bit
too "tenorish". When I sing tenor literature, I still have a tendency to
try to make it "heavy" like a baritone. That's another reason for all the
Handel, and for "Mio Caro Bene", so that I would stay light and mixed all
the way up to the high A and back down again..
Well, that's pretty much my story. Thanks again for caring enought to read
this, and to write your suggestions to me. I have added your suggestions
for lip and tongue trills to my sirening exercises. I find the tongue
trills really good for inducing the larynx to relax, but I hadn't thought of
them for training the passaggio. It seems so obvious now. Thanks!
By the way, I hope your audition was successful.
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