Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface: A Declaration of Disinterest
- Acknowledgements
- CHAPTER 1 The Discovery of Alfred Deller
- EXTEMPORE 1 An Inartistic Trick: Physiology and Terminology
- CHAPTER 2 The Ancient World to the Middle Ages
- EXTEMPORE 2 A Famine in Tenors: The Historically Developing Human Larynx
- CHAPTER 3 Renaissance Europe
- EXTEMPORE 3 Are We Too Loud? The Impact of Volume on Singing Styles
- CHAPTER 4 Late Medieval and Renaissance England
- EXTEMPORE 4 Reserved Spaniards: Cultural Stereotypes and the High Male Voice
- CHAPTER 5 Baroque Europe
- EXTEMPORE 5 Into Man's Estate: Changing Boys' Voices and Nascent Falsettists
- CHAPTER 6 Baroque England
- EXTEMPORE 6 A Musicological Red Herring: The Etymology of the Counter-Tenor
- CHAPTER 7 The Nineteenth Century
- EXTEMPORE 7 The Bearded Lady: Gender Identity and Falsetto
- CHAPTER 8 The Early Twentieth Century
- EXTEMPORE 8 The Angel's Voice: Falsetto in Popular Music
- CHAPTER 9 The Modern Counter-Tenor
- Bibliography
- Index
EXTEMPORE 2 - A Famine in Tenors: The Historically Developing Human Larynx
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface: A Declaration of Disinterest
- Acknowledgements
- CHAPTER 1 The Discovery of Alfred Deller
- EXTEMPORE 1 An Inartistic Trick: Physiology and Terminology
- CHAPTER 2 The Ancient World to the Middle Ages
- EXTEMPORE 2 A Famine in Tenors: The Historically Developing Human Larynx
- CHAPTER 3 Renaissance Europe
- EXTEMPORE 3 Are We Too Loud? The Impact of Volume on Singing Styles
- CHAPTER 4 Late Medieval and Renaissance England
- EXTEMPORE 4 Reserved Spaniards: Cultural Stereotypes and the High Male Voice
- CHAPTER 5 Baroque Europe
- EXTEMPORE 5 Into Man's Estate: Changing Boys' Voices and Nascent Falsettists
- CHAPTER 6 Baroque England
- EXTEMPORE 6 A Musicological Red Herring: The Etymology of the Counter-Tenor
- CHAPTER 7 The Nineteenth Century
- EXTEMPORE 7 The Bearded Lady: Gender Identity and Falsetto
- CHAPTER 8 The Early Twentieth Century
- EXTEMPORE 8 The Angel's Voice: Falsetto in Popular Music
- CHAPTER 9 The Modern Counter-Tenor
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Physiologically, the human larynx has remained basically unchanged since man became a speaking and singing creature. Taking into consideration the influence upon it of racial types, this mechanism can be used as a reliable measuring device in the determination of basic vocal types and ranges.
Rebecca StewartAmongst all the variables of pitch, contexts and aesthetics, the one constant we might expect to find in a history of the falsetto voice is the instrument itself. The larynx, and human body that houses it, may differ from individual to individual, but the tendency has been to assume that it has not differed from age to age. Glance at the image of any male singer in history, and structurally they look similar to us. If so, then presumably their larynxes are also fundamentally similar.
A violinist would make no such assumptions about his own instrument. By way of illustration, when Corelli reputedly demanded of his pupils that they be able to sustain a forte for ten seconds with a single double-stopped down-bow he was, as any aspiring Baroque violinist knows, making a supreme challenge to their technique. That such a demand should seem relatively unremarkable to the same player on a modern violin neatly underlines a truth which the early instrumental world has long taken for granted: namely, that to appreciate the peculiar demands made during any one period in the evolution of musical style, we must also look at the parallel evolution of instrumental technology.
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- Information
- The Supernatural VoiceA History of High Male Singing, pp. 38 - 44Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2014