On Jul 22, 2005, at 3:12 PM, John Howell wrote:
Does anyone remember details of a legendry singer- South American, I
think
called Yma Sumac? - hope I have the spelling sort of correct!
As a youngster I remember being amazed when told she had a six octave+
useable vocal register.
Watch it, Keith; you're giving away our age! Yes, I remember her
well. Allegedly from Bolivia or some equally exotic place, the word
on the street was that she was really from Brooklyn. And I thought it
was more like a 5-octave range, but who's counting?!
The sort of people who judge a singer by the size of her range are
notoriously bad at counting octaves. A lot of them get confused by how
notes are named. They think, "I can sing this F, this F, this F, and
that F, therefore I can sing four octaves." No, that's three octaves.
Others simply make shit up, like the crazies who claim that Mariah
Carey has an eight-octave range.
I'm pretty sure that Yma Sumac's range was a bit short of five octaves,
which is still huge. From the lowest bass note to the highest soprano
note in the entire operatic literature is only four and a half octaves.
Yes, she had a viable and big baritone range and could take her voice
up at least to Queen of the Night range, although I can't remember
whether she made it into Mariah Carrey's top octave--might have.
Mariah Carey's top isn't that much beyond Queen of the Night. The
whistle tones in her early songs were typically around F, G and A in
the same octave as the QotN F. I remember one song in which she went
up to Bb. It sounds higher than operatic soprano because she sings in
a different style (rather like Mado Robin's), but it's actually only a
few notes higher.
The distance between Mariah Carey's top and bottom recorded notes is a
little shy of four octaves, though she supposedly can sing beyond in
either direction. I'd still question any claim of a "four-octave
range", given that the two registers are completely disjoint with a gap
of about a sixth in which she never sings. (Curiously, this gap
corresponds with the upper range of a "normal" soprano.)
Several opera singers have made fine careers with a range no larger
than two octaves. About two and a half is typical for a well-trained
singer, about three for a particularly versatile one.
mdl
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