The Singers Thread

[Tessar]

Originally Posted by Voronwen

Hmmm... of course now i am wondering whether i am a "reed" or a "flute". I think i'm a "reed".... (ie. i'm more of a Musetta than a Mimi).

Probably a reed, if your placement is forward. Examples:

Reed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gR4kzKPUTnw

Flute:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXCwukCdWmg

To my ears, the "Reed" (Juan Diego Florez) placement is almost totally frontal. The "Flute" (Lawrence Brownlee) placement is back either in the middle of the mouth or (in this case) a little further back, possibly all the way to the back of the mouth/jaw. They are the same voice type, they sing the same rep., and I honestly couldn't pick if you told me I had to select one as my favorite... totally different sounds, and I love them both.

It sounds as if you've found a really good working relationship.

We have. It's fantastic.

I think i know what you mean by the feeling that your head would pop off and your vision go blurry... that's all that resonance It feels that way for me when the placement is just right, too... especially when i'm in my uppermost ranges (like when i'm working stuff from Schauspieldirektor or something like that). It's quite a feeling. Trust me, you can get high from it. Enjoy the ride!!!

That's so cool. I am letting my voice rest today after all the singing I did yesterday (plus today has just been incredibly stressful -_-), but tomorrow I'm going to get back to singing.


Today I've been speaking the vowels, trying to learn to get them pure. It's coming along. Slow but steady! The teacher said that when you get the vowel sound totally correct, it naturally goes to your 'proper' placement (back or forwards) over time. But he knows tricks to speed up the process.

He said that if he fixed nothing but my vowels then let me go away and just sing for a few years, when I came back my vowels would have naturally fallen into the back placement if I kept them pure and didn't force them.

Interesting idea, no?

I also spent a LOT of time on my consonants. I never realized it, but apparently I was forming the consonant in the "fry" register of my voice and then snapping up to the vowel's pitch. It explains why my vowels were getting misshapen... you can't really sing a pure vowel in fry, it's all "mutes" (uh, urh, etc.) and so the vowels never had a change to form.

So lots of sustaining pitches in comfortable ranges and singing, "Lalalalalalalala" and "papapapapapapa" and "bobobobobobo," etc. on all of the consonants (even my freakin' C's and K's!! O_o) till I figured out how to get them to form on top of the pitch instead of in the fry register. It's like an instant shot of "You Can Sing With Legato" straight to my vocal folds.