Oct. 22, 2013: The Emotional/Physical Response in Changing Vocal Fach! So many teachers and singers ask me, “Why is knowing one’s true vocal fach so cricially important?” My anwer is, “It is not only to achieve physical technical efficiency in the voice, but it is so that the singer knows WHO he/she is in terms of the affiliated personality identity!” Singers are ‘voice-identified’ and in using that term, I am saying that they identify as a personality with characteristics AND, while simultaneously identifying with vocal characteristics related to a type of voice at the same time. This connection usually happens when we learn to sing during our teen years. This is why I admire teachers of younger singers when they say, “The voice will tell you over time what it is!” For the younger singer, this allows the time and patience to allow the voice to grow and develop physically. Whether it reflects emotional health or not, most of those who sing, wish to sing well and we identify with our voice type strongly. If we are singing in the wrong vocal fach and the voice is not working (which we know in our inner self), then this can set up all kinds of negative emotions, including frustration and depression. We all yearn to find our total vocal freedom, and in order to achieve this, we must sing in the correct vocal fach, which places us in the correct tessitura (range where more notes occur). I was trained in my university years as a tenor and I was truly a lyric baritone. I know personally the frustration a singer suffers when their instrument will not work properly. Sadly, some teachers blame the student as being difficult or lazy. I always felt as though I was a bad student because the more I practiced the worse my voice became. This is when a singer needs an excellent teacher to diagnose the true issue of correct vocal fach. I started studying singing when I was 14 years of age, and I did not find my true vocal fach until I was almost age 34, almost 20 years. It was Dixie Neill who took me down to lyric baritone, and I shall always be thankful to her for saving my vocal health. Today, we MUST teach our young vocal pedagogy majors the different types of voices. Sadly many do not know the difference between a lyric soprano or a lyrico spinto; a high light lyric soprano and a coloratura soprano; a lyric baritone and a dramatic baritone; a lyric tenor and a lyrico spinto tenor; a bass baritone and a basso cantante; a full dramatic mezzo and a contralto; a lyric mezzo and a lyric soprano. This missing HOLE in our instruction must be filled with knowledge of vocal fach and voice types. It is critical to our future singers and their vocal health. Case Study: Soprano to Mezzo: 30-year-old Mezzo transitioning from Soprano. I recently had the opportunity to work with a young soprano (at least she was trained as a soprano). She came to me through another student whom she had attended undergraduate school with several years before. She had received her Master’s degree from a large conservatory, but she had stopped singing for 2 years because of throat pain. I gave her the laryngeal tilt, which is THE best tool for determining vocal fach, and I heard a beautiful dramatic mezzo voice role out of her effortlessly. This young lady had followed her instincts by stopping the singing for 2 years. This is why she could transition so quickly. In 3 lessons, she sounded as through she had never sung as a soprano. She is now immediately enjoying success with her newfound vocal health. Case Study: Bass to Tenor: About 12 years ago I was teaching in Europe and a young singer came to me singing as a Bass. He was hoarse after each rehearsal or performance for about 3 days. After having consistent checkups with his ENT, it seems he was bursting capillaries or tiny blood vessels on the cords. Within 10 minutes into the first lesson, I took him to the E-flat above high C. When he released his habit of depressing the larynx with the tongue-root, the high range juse flew. He recorded all his lessons. We sang through several oratorios (the tenor parts) and his voice was very very happy. He experienced no hoarseness at all. He was going to a famous school in London and studying with a famous teacher there. The teacher was a tenor, and he refused to allow this young man to go to the tenor fach. So he had to change schools and spent more money and years at school JUST to sing his natural and true vocal fach. He is now singing as a successful tenor. Case Study: Tenor to Baritone: This is my story as well, but a young man came to me years ago, who was choking as a false tenor. This false sound has especially come up in English culture for some reason. Peter Pears comes to mind (who was never a true tenor singer). He was a pushed up baritone. This young man released his larynx through the laryngeal tilt. We used an interval of an ascending major 3rd on the rounded ‘i’ vowel so that the tongue could not retract. In 4 weeks this young man sounded like a beautiful lyric baritone. It is often the lyric baritones who are pushed up to tenor. Often they use a tongue ‘knurdle’ to make a false tenor ring. However the voice does not go above a high A-flat to A. Notice that most of Peter Pears roles do not go above this pitch. This is because he had little or no phonation above it. I had a friend who sang with him years ago. This singer said he was an extremely nice man. But at one point in rehearsals, Pears admitted that he never knew exactly what was going to come out of his mouth. His artistry carried him through. Soprano to Contralto: Believe it or not, I have 2 professional contraltos who came to me as sopranos. They never felt comfortable in their vocal production, and yet they were told over and over that they were just not ‘doing things’ correctly. This was a totally false accusation. Both of these women are extremely intelligent and responsive, but the ignorance about their true vocal fach led them down a completely wrong road. Both of these singers sing and teach in Europe and enjoy professional careers. Had we not discovered their true vocal fach, they might still be floundering. Case Study: Baritone to Bass: I had a young singer come to me about 6 years ago who had attended one of the most famous conservatories in America. He had a teacher who had him ‘bite a pencil’ and scream high notes through a closed throat. She was obviously totally ignorant about vocal health, as he was hoarse after every lesson. When he came to me, he had nothing above a screamed high D. The upper passaggio was just not phonating. We have now worked for 6 years and he now teaches and sings professionally as a bass, his true vocal fach. His head voice comes in at the F above middle C. This is an obvious bass characteristic. Bass-baritones shift at the F-sharp to G. Case Study: Mezzo to Soprano: Like the tenor who was singing bass, there are some singers who make a false color with the tongue root to make a mezzo sound. I knew one singer years ago who called herself a ‘mezzo-contralto’. She had a great deal of pride in this term, but she could not sing more than 20 minutes without total hoarseness. The cords were pressurized by the tongue-root to make a false color and then the air pressure was forced through this locked function. I remember hearing her perform a recital one time, which was one hour in length. You could hear the cords begin to fray after about 20 minutes. By the end of the recital, you only heard a hollow husk of a voice. It was frightening to hear. This singer did not study with me, but she finally went to a good teacher who took her up to soprano. In fact, she was a coloratura soprano and sings quite well today. Shirely Verrett Story: I taught Shirely Verrett in 1994 to help her with her role in Carousel at Lincoln Center. We discussed her transition to soprano from mezzo. One major circumstance was her chronic allergies. “It was not fun to deal with the swelling of the cords in the lower passaggio” she said. Because she had a high extension as well, this was part of her decision to change vocal fach. She was a true Zwischenfach or ‘in between’ voice, so there was a choice to be made. She hired me to come and teach at her studio at the University of Michigan the next year. On the way to the airport after I had taught for 2 days, she said, “I was happy to stop singing so much, because singing around allergies all the time was not fun! I remember one day I was in perfect voice and I came out of my dressing room at the Met. A chorus member walked past me with heavy cologne on, and I felt my cords swell! This was So disheartening.” Determining Vocal Fach: Determining vocal fach is a reflection of color, timbre, tessitura, and head voice transition. The laryngeal tilt is critically important at determining the head voice transition because it releases the larynx totally. When the larynx is released, then the singer will transition at the register point that is natural to the size and shape of their vocal folds. Sopranos and tenors shift at B-flat, contraltos and basses (and bass baritones) at F to F-sharp, baritones and mezzos at A-flat. It is as simple as this. Some singers sound like their previous fach for a while if they have been squeezing the larynx. It can take 3 years to totally release a throat after it has been squeezed for years and years. This is why I constantly preach AGAINST the ‘high light bright forward’ technique that destroys so many voices. A healthy voice has color and ring. The sad thing today about the field of vocal pedagogy today is that contrasting vocal fachs and determining them is not covered enough in training of teachers. In Old World training, teachers were made to listen to hours and hours of teaching. The knowledge of contrasting vocal fachs can take years of training the diagnostic ear. We rarely have this type of training today. Lindquest spoke of the psycho-emotional response in singing. When we sing the wrong vocal fach, a little inner voice tells us that something is wrong. I recently took a professional soprano to mezzo. I do not hesitate to tell someone what I hear in a positive way, because I think it is my responsibility to do so. Sometimes there are tears and the emotional adjustment of moving from one fach to another. But in the end I have never had one single singer regret the transition, because afterwards their voices felt so wonderful. Note: The David Jones Teacher Mentoring Program offers teacher trainings 2 times per year in New York. The next one is Jan. 10 and 11, 2014 at City Collge in New York City. For information write Tamara Haskin at Tkhaskin@aol. Have a good day! David
Posted on: Tue, 22 Oct 2013 01:36:40 +0000
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