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CONCEPTS OF RANGE |
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ward into the chest through direct contact between the cricoid cartilage of the larynx and the cervical vertebrae of the spine. Thus it is the bones of the chest that vibrate, rather than the air column contained within the chest cavity. The same principle may be said to apply to the vibration of head tones by upward bone conduction through the spinal vertebrae during the production of high register tones. [492]
Number of registers in the singing voice. There are 34 authors* opinions on this subject, divided among: 11 who believe that the singing voice has but one register throughout its entire range, 16 who hold that there are two vocal registers and 7 who believe that three registers exist.
The prevailing opinions of the "one register" group are represented by the statements of three professional singers, Lilli Lehmann, Herbert Witherspoon and Marion Anderson. Vocal registers are unnatural, according to Mme. Lehmann. They are caused by the predominant speaking activity of the vocal organs when they habitually operate within a limited range. [337] Witherspoon holds the opinion that there is only one vocal register, involving three qualities or places of resonance: the head, mouth, and chest. [677, p. 22] Anderson's point of view is that "there is no such thing as a boundary of range, [i.e., registers] within the complete tonal compass.** "Try to get rid of the habit of charting your voice into separate little islands of range/* is her advice. "Actually they do not exist. Try to approach your work with the idea of a single tonal line/' [12] Wharton holds that "training based upon the theory of registers is an artificial and unnatural" procedure since divisions of range **do not by nature exist/' [655, p. 48] La other words, there are no register breaks in the voice and it is possible for a singer to carry the same quality of voice from one end of his range to the other. All register terminologies such as chest tones and head tones are misleading. [Dossert 140, p. 35; Evetts and Worthington 167, p. 42] Qualities and registers are two different things, not to be confused. "Nowadays nearly every teacher teaches the theory of one register," says Butler, with the result that a more even scale is developed with "a smaller number of breaks in both voices and singers/' [87; also Samuel 486, Lesson VI]
In the second group, Wagner asserts that there are two vocal registers, if by register we mean "a series of consecutive homogeneous tones produced by one mechanism/' The head or falsetto and the chest tones "are produced by two mutually exclusive mechanisms." [629] Weer likewise claims that there are two registers and that "they cannot be blended." Rather, "they must be made to cooperate" because two different organic mechanisms are involved. [650, p. 62; also Stanley 577, p. 309] Hemery |
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