Tougas- Voice Overview- 10/19

Today in VRH, Maiya Lloyd gave a stunning performance of the song “Valentine” by….  I found this performance particularly interesting given the article we just read on female belt singing. While this song really isn’t in the style of a ‘belt’, however it does contain a lot of register shifting and continually presents the question of which register to sing it in or to mix. When I was reading this article, I was fascinated by the concept of a soprano generally being better belters/ having an easier time mixing than deep altos given that in my high school, all the belters were altos. So, I wanted to put this theory to the test today. Maiya chose to sing most of it in head voice, until the end, where she sang three notes in almost all chest voice and the last note in a nice light mix (about 80 head voice, 20 chest voice). Finally, she ended the piece with a 60/40 chest voice-head voice mix that was heavy but SO incredibly resonant. It had power but yet wasn’t a belt; it took on the attributes of that ‘false belt’ discussed in the article. It was clear that she wasn’t straining her voice or stiffening her diaphragm to push out this great sound, rather she allowed the register to almost become a slide-whistle and possess no break. Something I want to note is that Maiya is a Soprano I in choir, which, despite being an isolated incident, would lead to prove that the master voice teachers are right: Sopranos tend to have an easier time finding a healthy faux-belt produced through sufficient mixing till it is seamless between registers. 

In my voice lesson this week, we actually worked on this exact principle because I was using chest voice on my musical theatre piece to the point where my vocal cords felt like they were on fire. We worked on glottal onsetting and placing a whine in the highest possible notes I can sing. Essentially sing-talking really high notes but thinking of them as in the chest. This helped not only my physical throat muscles, but also psychologically, it gave me a placement based off a character. I think this relates to what we discussed at the beginning of the McCoy book which is that we learn about the anatomy but really what prevents our natural, well-placed singing is our mindset. Then, we worked a lot of my posture. I realized that I was instinctively jutting my head forward when I started a phrase. My freshman year here, it hit me that I myelinated that in my first ever voice lessons while trying to hit high notes. Dr. Hart is helping me retrain myself but it is a very tedious process to break down what has been a subconscious staple for my singing. When doing so properly though, it aligns the rest of my larynx and intercostals to enlarge the breath and amplify the sound. Who knew how much a tilt of the head could change? 

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