Passaggio Peak Coefficient as an Indicator of Singer Advancement

In the last few years, researchers have paid increasing attention to singing voice evaluations.In their studies, they observed changes in the vibrations of the vocal folds during the transi-tion of registers. Additionally, they also found that these changes are less visible and audiblein the case of skilled singers. In order to confirm this theory we defined a new parameter,the Passaggio Peak Coefficient (PPC), obtained from an EGG signal to analyse pitch andopen quotient jump characteristics during the transition of vocal registers among 21 femaleand male choir members with different singing skills. The Kruskal-Wallis test proved thatit is possible to distinguish vocal skills, based on the ability to smoothen transitions amongfemale singers at a 5% significance level.

The Changing Aesthetics of Vocal Registration in the Age Of ‘Verismo’

The idea that classical singers should join the notes of the vocal line by maintaining a consistent vocal colour is a relatively recent historical construct. In the last decades of the nineteenth century, singers in the Italian tradition were loyal to a very different vocal aesthetic, which valued the distinct differences in timbre between different vocal registers, as this article shows through a comparative analysis of pedagogical writing and pre-1925 recordings. The latter reveal that, in the early twentieth century, old and new techniques for uniting the vocal registers coexisted, and reflected an aesthetic transition towards a more gendered quality of the operatic voice. This process was intertwined with profound transformations in Italian operatic culture. The demands of a new realistic idiom known as verismo required a new type of vocalism, which prompted singers to re-conceive the ‘art of vocal registration’.

Assessing Singing Voice Development

This chapter focuses on various tools and strategies that have been used in research studies for assessing singing voice development, particularly of children. The chapter is organized around the following: A definition of singing development, which includes use of the singing voice (vocal registers) and then pitch accuracy, is provided. An overview of approaches used in research to assess singing development is then presented. These approaches include singing tasks, such as echoing patterns and singing a song, which the children perform to have their singing assessed, human raters using rating scales/rubrics to assess children’s singing, and technology. A more thorough discussion of selected rubrics and rating scales as well as suggested protocols for using them follows. Recommendations for using these tools and strategies for applications in research and classroom settings are included.

Building Sound and Skills in the Men’s Chorus at Colleges and Universities in the United States

Conductors of collegiate men’s choruses face unique challenges in building excellent choirs. They are likely to lead ensembles with disproportionately wide gaps between their most- and least-experienced singers, with a plurality or even majority of non-music majors—and may need to teach voice as much as they conduct. This chapter offers rehearsal techniques for these conductors which involve learning and utilizing vocal pedagogy, imparting basic phonation, and utilizing vocal tone exercises to build foundation and sound in a choir or glee club. They must then create a sense of community within their musically and vocally diverse choir; instill habits that lead to effective “core singing,” combining alignment, breathing technique, and resonance; and help male singers navigate shifts between their vocal registers.

Teaching and Conducting Diverse Populations

This chapter examines how social delineations of boys’ singing inform the boychoir conductor’s choices for vocal technique, programming, and rehearsal procedure. The introduction identifies structural elements that delineate a boychoir from other types of choirs, especially in the United States, with its traditions of multistage maturity level singers across different vocal registers. Once established, the chapter examines signature programming, rehearsal, and performance norms, with attention to the intersection of traditional and contemporary practices. Following a consideration of the boychoir community and its relationship to the community-at-large, the chapter closes with the concluding assertion of a boychoir pedagogy that synergizes the handling of different levels of boychoir development (especially voice changes) and adult and boy meanings of boys’ singing.

Political Languages of Responsiveness and the Disquiet of Silence

This chapter elaborates on the political performativity of responsiveness that is articulated or withheld in the context of antinationalist modes of accounting for the past. In acknowledging the dead of the rival side, who have been treated as dispensable during the wars of Yugoslav succession, Women in Black public assemblies intervene in the ways in which violences of dispossession committed in the name of national interests came to be perceived, heard, embodied, and remembered in Serbia, but also in other former republics of Yugoslavia. Both during and after the violence, these political subjects have been seeking to counter the attempts of various agents –i.e., official authorities and media- to trivialize or deny the violence that “their own” national intimates inflicted upon others. Through a performative enactment of silence in their public vigils, they reshape the vocal registers that condition the configurations of the political. The chapter pursues such questions: how reflective responsiveness might unsettle the regimes of audibility and speakability associated with the political discourses of dealing with the enduring aftermath of war atrocities? And how does gendered silence “speak” the languages of the political in such contexts.

Historical Approaches in Revealing the Singing Voice, PART 1

Reviewing hundreds of years of history, this chapter details the development of means of visualizing the larynx and the vocal folds, and explores how these technologies influenced theories of voice production. Key investigators in vocal physiology are discussed, and their contributions put into context with modern understandings of voice production. These leaders helped bring about the growth of the field of laryngology, which occurred in parallel with improvements in laryngeal imaging. The chapter tracks these developments, starting with Garcia’s laryngeal mirror, then continues through the rest of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Among the innovations described are the use of stroboscopy to study the opening and closing vibratory pattern in different vocal registers; the development and application in Groningen of videokymography to examine fast and irregular vibratory events; and the development of VoceVista, a non-invasive tool which combines electroglottography with acoustical information on the sung production.

The Relationship Between Children’s Use of Singing Voice and Singing Accuracy

The purpose of this study was to investigate the nature of the relationship between children’s use of singing voice (vocal register) and singing accuracy. In previous studies recorded examples of kindergartners’ (n = 37) and first graders’ (n = 38) singing were assessed with the Singing Voice Development Measure. For this study, these recorded examples were also evaluated for accuracy by two different raters. There was a significant correlation between children’s use of singing voice and singing accuracy, but no significant relationship for either variable with tonal aptitude as measured by Intermediate Measures of Music Audiation. When children’s accuracy was assessed based on their usable register, the influence of register on accuracy was very small suggesting that the relationship between vocal development and accuracy is a function of children’s access to, and control of, a wider singing range. Teachers interested in improving singing accuracy in their students are encouraged to work with them on expanding their usable vocal registers.

Pedagogy of Different Sung Genres

Traditional singing voice pedagogy has been heavily influenced by the performance practice and aesthetic of the Western lyric (classical) tradition. Recently, non-classical vocal genres have been termed contemporary commercial music (CCM). These genres include pop, rock, jazz, country, folk, rhythm and blues, and sometimes musical theater. Though in its infancy, the pedagogy of CCM (including belting) is of great interest worldwide. There are numerous differences between Western lyric and CCM genres including: written versus oral tradition; historical/cultural context; use of voice, word articulation, dynamics, vibrato, phrasing; stylistic idioms; vocal registers; pitch range; resonance characteristics; and learning cultures. This chapter advocates that the role of the modern vocal pedagogue is to explore, learn, and ultimately be able to impart the intricacies of each vocal genre to the next generation while honoring traditions and values.