Using Acoustic Register Transitions to Train Laryngeal Passaggi


There are acoustic as well as laryngeal vocal registers. The main acoustic registers correspond to the historic Italian categories, translated by this author as: voce chiusa (close timbre), voce aperta (open timbre), and voce piena di testa (roughly equivalent to whoop timbre). There is one higher register (whistle) and additional levels of lower acoustic registration within open timbre. The physical mechanism of acoustic registers is based on the relationship between a subset of resonance-activated harmonics of the sung pitch with the first resonance of the vowel being sung. First resonances lie from near the bottom of the treble clef for [i] to near the top for [a], and vary per vowel by as much as an octave. Therefore, the locations of acoustic register transitions also vary per vowel by as much as an octave. Furthermore, given the intervallic spacing of the lowest several harmonics of a sung pitch, more interactions with the first resonance happen within non-treble voice range. Fortunately, acoustic register locations and migrations are reliably predictable and mappable by vowel and voice type. Vowel tone color, auditory roughness (buzziness), and locational somatosense necessarily migrate across range and register, and are especially notable at each acoustic register transition. Knowledge and awareness of the necessary timbral and somatosensory migrations of vowels at each acoustic register transition assist the training of efficient range negotiation by providing actionable strategies for transitions through passaggi, enabling efficient range negotiation. Levels of registration that occur within open timbre lie in the bass clef and can serve as useful “training wheels” experiences at lower pitches for non-treble voices, preparing them for the more challenging, higher transitions from open (aperta) to close (chiusa) timbre that lie between the clefs. Clarifying the sound and sensation migrations of the transition from close (chiusa) timbre into whoop (voce piena di testa) timbre, most of which occur in the top half of the treble clef, is similarly useful for training upper range success of treble voices. This workshop will explore and demonstrate these transitions in volunteer singers, using acoustic pedagogical approaches that facilitate their training. These strategies are adaptable for other genre aesthetics.

Kenneth
Bozeman