Am I too loud?

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nolinesbarred
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Am I too loud?

Post by nolinesbarred »

Recently I have heard two pieces of advice to choral singers and would like to have your opinions thereon...

1. "If you can hear your own voice you are singing too loudly."
2. "You should be able to hear the voices of the singers beside you (in your section) and also hear all the other sections. If you can't - you are singing too loudly."

What do you think? And do you have any useful advice on the subject of voice-blending?
carlos
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Re: Am I too loud?

Post by carlos »

In my choral life I've heard this advice quite often, coming from different conductors; in general I agree with them and try to stick to these rules too. But I believe these are specially important for the beginner singer, who usually thinks that "louder is always better". :) More experienced ones will know that in specific situations they can actually help their section fellows that are less experienced if they sing a little bit louder in particularly difficult passages of the music, for instance.
Robert Urmann
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Re: Am I too loud?

Post by Robert Urmann »

Oh my goodness,

these "rules" must come from conductors who certainly haven't sung in choirs themselves! How can one state these silly advices? I assume that any singer in a choir (at least) tries to listen to his fellows. It's not the singer's task to decide if he's too loud or not. As a conductor it is up to me to tell someone he'd be singing too loud. The sense of loudness is never the same for anyone.

Some thoughts about these "advices":
1. I have to hear my own voice; otherwise I would be deaf. How should I control pitch and volume if I couldn't hear myself?
2. Voices right beside me are always to be heard. One shouldn't confuse this with not listening to your neighbours. There are situations when you can hardly hear the others (e.g. long distances between the sections), but this depends on room acoustics or singers who really sing too lowly.

You can try to attune to your section (that's what you always should), and if you're really to loud your conductor (or the recording engineer) has to tell you that you are. I'll never tell my singers such truism! Instead I remember them to listen to the others.

Robert
ebykm
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Re: Am I too loud?

Post by ebykm »

I can't agree to the first one. A singer should be able to hear others in the group, adjust his time, tone and volume accordingly, to sound like it being produced by a large organism. (ever heard the shouting choir ?) :)
vaarky
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Re: Am I too loud?

Post by vaarky »

It depends on the type of choir you sing with. In a symphony choir of 200, you probably are singing too loud if you can hear yourself. In a chamber choir of 16 or 20, that usually doesn't apply. As a general rule (with some exceptions), you should definitely be able to hear the singers on either side of you and the other sections, unless for example you're in one of those spaces where your standing location makes it impossible to hear certain things.

I disagree with Robert's view that "It's not the singer's task to decide if he's too loud or not", and that this is solely the conductor's responsibility. Under this approach, singers miss out on an important opportunity to actively develop their volume sensitivity. I've seen quite a few otherwise advanced singers who don't seem to know how to modulate themselves in a small ensemble setting. By the time a singer's other skills such as voice control and sight-singing get advanced, learning self-directed volume sensitivity is a tough new habit to acquire.

By the way, it's actually not unheard of to sing without a conductor. It's lovely when the ensemble negotiates blend volume and even volume changes organically, rather than having to go through a piece in advance and decide "Okay, we're going to crescendo here, reach forte about halfway through measure 12" etc. These singers almost always start out singing with conductors. It's unfortunate not to teach them to develop their own musical sensitive across all the dimensions that make for good musicality.

I think this passive-learning approach about volume sensitivity analogizes to tuning as well. I believe singers who are taught not to worry about their tuning unless the conductor tells them they are doing something wrong don't develop as good a sense on their own of staying true to the ensemble's overall tuning.

Every singer should actively develop their judgment, taking their best guess at what their volume (and tuning) should be to anticipate reaching the right state, while of course respecting feedback from the conductor's unique perspective.
anaigeon
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Re: Am I too loud?

Post by anaigeon »

I've seen quite a few otherwise advanced singers who don't seem to know how to modulate themselves in a small ensemble setting.
I've attended concerts by professional small ensembles, in which singers were obviously singing loud, and the ensemble nevertheless produced a wonderfully blended sound!
"Don't sing loud" might be a workaround, hiding the problem rather than solving it.
vaarky
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Re: Am I too loud?

Post by vaarky »

It's fine to sing loud in a small ensemble setting, but not 4 times as loud as the other voices if the weighting between the voices is supposed to be comparable. The point is to develop the skill to realize, on one's own, if they're the one who is 4 times as loud as the others when it isn't supposed to be the case.
Last edited by vaarky on 18 Feb 2009 07:30, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: change "you" to the more general "one"
nolinesbarred
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Re: Am I too loud?

Post by nolinesbarred »

This discussion has been most helpful. I'm particularly interested in what vaarky said about an ensemble negotiating blend volume, etc., organically. Our small ensemble has achieved this (seemingly accidentally) once or twice, and those occasions have been when our conductor was not present. Does anyone have any ideas about how singers can be encouraged to aim for this ideal concurrence?

Editing just to add that I realise the above would not apply to *all* styles of music or performances.
vaarky
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Re: Am I too loud?

Post by vaarky »

Lovely when that organic ensemble negotiation happens, isn't it? I've been pondering this a lot.

Some people just have naturally big voices, and I don't mean to say that all people with big voices are musically insensitive. However, some people can only sing in a "pushed" fashion even in a choral setting. It's fine to have that particular style of singing in your toolkit if you can so do in a healthy way, but good for singers to have explored other ways of using their voice, such as the more domed and lighter style that's used for early music.

Choral directors can help singers who seem to only sing in a pushed way by encouraging them to play with relenting a little to see how it changes their sound. I wonder if people who get into this have been called upon to sing loud because they were always the support for their section in choirs and the grateful conductor appreciated it. Even if that's the case, it's good to give the singers an opportunity to experiment a bit in rehearsal.

Another thing conductors can help with is singers who go into harsh singing mode while they're learning. It's a habit that becomes much harder to break over time if they go on to sing in more advanced ways. Just because you're uncertain of the notes does not mean the tone has to be ugly. Professionals are expected to sing pieces they've never seen before, and make it sound pretty, the first time through.

A useful exercise for practicing organic negotiation is to break singers into small groups (e.g. 4-8 people) in an informal, non-display setting and tell them to sing a piece they can sing, but ignoring the dynamics written on it. Their assignment is to negotiate dynamics on the fly by taking cues from each other by example and/or eye contact (not hand gestures). As someone (not decided in advance who it is) is moved to try some change in volume as the expression grabs them on a particular phrase, it's the job of the others to realize that it's happening and follow--whether it's a diminuendo, a subito piano, a crescendo, crispening the consonant on a particular word for emphasis, etc. Then someone else decides to take the lead with a different approach on a different phrase.

This can also be done with tempo instead of volume, and certainly it's good practice to negotiate joint entrances via eye contact and subtle body language (e.g. body's natural movement from breathing). Another variant is to try to negotiate volume with one's eyes closed if the piece is memorized, or sing in a circle facing outward away from each other so you can't see the people. Singing chant is great for this, because the meter isn't strict so it forces negotiation if there isn't an authority figure.

These types of exercises or games encourage people to think actively about the expression of each phrase, and actively listen for their peers, developing an intuition for finding the rough center of the overall fabric or gestalt of the ensemble, and how to pick up on the subtle negotiations around that. It can be very _connecting_ when it comes together.
nolinesbarred
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Re: Am I too loud?

Post by nolinesbarred »

vaarky.... what is meant by 'domed' style when talking about ways of using the voice?
vaarky
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Re: Am I too loud?

Post by vaarky »

Hard to describe... I'm talking about the Tallis Scholars sound, or much of what we now think of as the style for singing Renaissance music (as contrasted with bel canto/opera). There was an article in, I believe, Scientific American maybe half a year ago about vocal production. The author talks about, and the article shows, an illustration of the different mouth shape associated with the early music style of singing, where the lips are not open very wide and a dome is created for resonance in the top-back of the mouth, versus the trumpet-like shape of the mouth that is used for most opera and belting.
nolinesbarred
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Re: Am I too loud?

Post by nolinesbarred »

Thank you vaarky. I understand.
luis henriques
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Re: Am I too loud?

Post by luis henriques »

vaarky wrote:Hard to describe... I'm talking about the Tallis Scholars sound, or much of what we now think of as the style for singing Renaissance music (as contrasted with bel canto/opera). There was an article in, I believe, Scientific American maybe half a year ago about vocal production. The author talks about, and the article shows, an illustration of the different mouth shape associated with the early music style of singing, where the lips are not open very wide and a dome is created for resonance in the top-back of the mouth, versus the trumpet-like shape of the mouth that is used for most opera and belting.
I think this is essential to polyphony practise. I've worked in workshops with many experts in Ancient Music (such as Peter Philips, Graham O'Reily and some leading portuguese singers) who suggest precisely that. I didn't know that there was an paper published about that [could you please give the citation of the article?]. On my ensemble (4 to 6 singers - a singer per part) we have a very strong-voiced bass (actually he is a baritone) and sometimes we have problems because he is a lyric singer. I personally think that this might be a tymbrical aspect. Sometimes, even though they're not singing loud, there are some voices that are tymbrically highlighted.

Hoped to be helpful,
Luís Henriques
Luís C. F. Henriques (University of Évora)
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vaarky
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Re: Am I too loud?

Post by vaarky »

I will try to find the magazine, which I still have in hardcopy but is buried. I will be traveling Mar7-14, so won't be able to get to it until sometime after I return.
vaarky
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Re: Am I too loud?

Post by vaarky »

Scientific American, January 2008, p 94:
The Human Instrument
by Ingo R. Titze

When judged by its size, our vocal syste fails to impress as a musical instrument. How then can singers produce all those remarkable sounds?

On page 100, there is a sidebar titled Big Mouths and Small Mouths, which has the two illustrations titled megaphone and inverted megaphone.
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