Thread: Vocal preservation

Hey everyone,

I'm a first year Music student at university; I'm a Tenor 1 and sing roughly 20 hours a week, in several different choirs. I am, primarily, concerned about the preservation of my voice throughout the week.

I was wondering- how do you, as choral singers, approach rehearsals? Do you sing the dynamics as written on the score or hold back, in order to preserve your voice for further singing straight after (church services, personally). How do you know when to preserve your voice?

Also, I'd be interested to know- how do you treat passages which are higher in your tessitura? This question is specifically aimed towards Tenors, however it can be applied to all voice pats. For tenors, there are some early contrapuntal works by composers such as Victoria, Palestrina and Viadana (for instance) that lie in an area of the voice (E4- B4 in some instances) that would be impossible to sing solely in chest voice. It may say FF on the score, would you try to sing loudly in chest voice or stay in a more mixed voice that isn't necessarily as loud. I guess the question is- it what circumstances do you say to yourself "in order to sing the whole of this piece I'm going to be conservatice and sing in a mixed voice rather than go crazy and sing the Forte passage held on A4 in chest voice" ?

I'd be really interested to hear back from people, if you have any ideas.
Thanks for reading this!
PassagioTenore

Singing that much, you simply have to learn to use a mixed voice, and sometimes probably pure falsetto. Don't try to do it all yourself, presumably you have other tenors around you as well. Blasting in full chest voice is probably not the best approach, either in terms of your own vocal health or the choral blend. Good luck!

Originally Posted by Barelytenor

Singing that much, you simply have to learn to use a mixed voice, and sometimes probably pure falsetto. Don't try to do it all yourself, presumably you have other tenors around you as well. Blasting in full chest voice is probably not the best approach, either in terms of your own vocal health or the choral blend. Good luck!

Amen. If you're singing Tenor 1 in choir you need to have a vocal quality with very little colour. Otherwise you're better suited for Tenor 2 or Baritone in choral groups.