Voice
"The process of singing brings us on a higher, subtler, more intense level of our emotional and mental existence"
A well-trained and healthy mezzo-soprano could easily possess a vocal range of two and a half octaves, that is from F3 to C6, according to the scientific naming system. There are of course plenty of exceptions, owing usually to the individual differences in the physical constitution, as, for example, the level of some particular hormones. The choice of a repertoire (more or less dramatic) also determines a lot whether the voice will develop towards the high or towards the low notes. An important thing to keep in mind when we are talking about the wide vocal range is that the voice shouldn’t change its colour and timbre quality too much while climbing to the highest notes. Sometimes it happens, that a singer seems to have two or even more different voices along his or her entire range. A human voice also and inevitably undergoes the alterations with the aging. It reacts on many of the hormonal oscillations, especially by women. Very often after a childbirth the voice transforms drastically, that is, it can become more high-pitched or more profound.
Personally, during the last years, I’ve been observing my voice to become darker, more contralto-like, but at the same time, fortunately, without losing its agility.
While I’ve been gradually changing (and this transition period isn’t yet completed) my way of vocalization from that of the opera singer to the one more contemporary oriented, I noticed an active and quick development of a chest register, which now I can extend almost to G4 (half of the one-line octave). It was unthinkable when I was performing as a mezzo-soprano. My actual goal is to find my own medium between the belcanto or resonator singing technique and contemporary ways of vocalization.
I believe that a singer, as any artist in general, while respecting and preserving all the best that the past has left to us, should at the same time be always ready to embrace any new instrument of expression which proves or even only promises to be in tune with the nowaday’s artistic necessities. Only the time will show which of today’s “vogues” is indeed dictated by the coherent changes in our mentality and by the evolution of our capacity to perceive and to understand. What we today call “the everlasting classical ideal” has once been an innovation, and remaining unconditionally faithful to some examples one must however beware not to become simply and vacuously obsolete.
Our voice is a marvellous and powerful instrument, and it reflects and expresses what we think, what and how we feel, every our inner move.
Personally, I believe that the process of singing brings us on a higher, subtler and at the same time more intense level of our emotional and mental existence, transfers us in a spiritual dimension which some people achieve only by using mighty artificial stimulants.
Let our intelligence, talent, our natural strengh of will be for us the best and only energizers…
Voice
"The process of singing brings us on a higher, subtler, more intense level of our emotional and mental existence"
A well-trained and healthy mezzo-soprano could easily possess a vocal range of two and a half octaves, that is from F3 to C6, according to the scientific naming system. There are of course plenty of exceptions, owing usually to the individual differences in the physical constitution, as, for example, the level of some particular hormones. The choice of a repertoire (more or less dramatic) also determines a lot whether the voice will develop towards the high or towards the low notes. An important thing to keep in mind when we are talking about the wide vocal range is that the voice shouldn’t change its colour and timbre quality too much while climbing to the highest notes. Sometimes it happens, that a singer seems to have two or even more different voices along his or her entire range. A human voice also and inevitably undergoes the alterations with the aging. It reacts on many of the hormonal oscillations, especially by women. Very often after a childbirth the voice transforms drastically, that is, it can become more high-pitched or more profound.
Personally, during the last years, I’ve been observing my voice to become darker, more contralto-like, but at the same time, fortunately, without losing its agility.
While I’ve been gradually changing (and this transition period isn’t yet completed) my way of vocalization from that of the opera singer to the one more contemporary oriented, I noticed an active and quick development of a chest register, which now I can extend almost to G4 (half of the one-line octave). It was unthinkable when I was performing as a mezzo-soprano. My actual goal is to find my own medium between the belcanto or resonator singing technique and contemporary ways of vocalization.
I believe that a singer, as any artist in general, while respecting and preserving all the best that the past has left to us, should at the same time be always ready to embrace any new instrument of expression which proves or even only promises to be in tune with the nowaday’s artistic necessities. Only the time will show which of today’s “vogues” is indeed dictated by the coherent changes in our mentality and by the evolution of our capacity to perceive and to understand. What we today call “the everlasting classical ideal” has once been an innovation, and remaining unconditionally faithful to some examples one must however beware not to become simply and vacuously obsolete.
Our voice is a marvellous and powerful instrument, and it reflects and expresses what we think, what and how we feel, every our inner move.
Personally, I believe that the process of singing brings us on a higher, subtler and at the same time more intense level of our emotional and mental existence, transfers us in a spiritual dimension which some people achieve only by using mighty artificial stimulants.
Let our intelligence, talent, our natural strengh of will be for us the best and only energizers…
