Frank Nordberg writes: | John Chambers wrote: | | > Yeah, and there has been a slow inflation of "standard" | > pitch over the several centuries that we've had such a | > concept. | ... | > One of the explanations that I've heard is that string | > players tend to be leaders in this race. | | They do, and singers suffer the most. As standards of living increase, | the singers gets more well-fed and their voices drop in pitch. At the | same time, the notes they are supposed to sing go the other way. | (Everybody who has tried to sing the tenor in a choir perfoming a Bach | cantate probably winces from bad memories at this point. ;-)
Not just the tenors. I have a low bass voice, and choral music can get painful after too long a rehearsal, because it's all in the upper half of my range. In college, I was in a Russian choir for a few years, and I was one of the two low basses. It was really fun to be able to use the bottom half of my range, and actually be relaxed while singing. But I've generally stuck to instrumental music. That way I can be relaxed in any octave. OTOH, a fun experience a few years back was being in the choir for a community (actually, the local UU church) performance of Bach's B minor mass. A lot of the fun was watching the singers start off overwhelmed and confused by what is a complex, opaque work of art, and slowly coming to really love it. It really brought out the old observation that Bach was writing for musicians, not audiences. This is some music that takes a lot of real work to master. But everyone I know who has been in it considers it one of the high points of their musical experience. (And his vocal parts were all on the high side. It should be re-scored as the G minor mass.) To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
