Priorities in Voice Training: Carrying Power or Tone Quality

The voices of 42 students studying classical opera singing at the Estonian Academy of Music were investigated to find any objectively definable qualities possibly correlating with the length of training. Each student's singing of a four-bar seven-word initial phrase from a well-known Estonian classical solo was recorded. The recordings were digitalized and subjected to acoustic analysis yielding the long-term average spectrum (LTAS) for each voice studied. It turned out that the longer a singing student had been trained professionally, the higher was the level of the so-called singer's formant in her/his LTAS. Subsequently the voice quality in each recording was evaluated by four experts using a five-point scale, five points marking the best quality and one point the poorest. It turned out that the average ratings did not show any positive correlation with the length of training, rather, a slightly negative trend (notstatistically significant) could be observed. The results seem to support the critical remarksmade bysome Estonian specialists about domestic teaching of vocal music being perhaps inadequate in some respects (Pappel, 1990). The teaching process seems to be focused on the development of those qualities that enable the singer to be audible in large halls and with a symphony orchestra, while the timbral qualities recede into the background.