Caitlin Craig SS Chapter 9 Summary

Chapter Summary: In the sixth invention, "Getting High", Smith highlights the technique of extending one's range, while maintaining healthy and smooth shifts in the voice between chest and head voice, as well as shifts between vowel sounds.  This tonal balance is what creates longevity and perfect technique in one's voice. Smith defines perfect technique as an distinguishable line between full voice and falsetto without feeling or hearing where the shift is.  When one masters Messa di voce, he has found complete freedom and flexibility and has tapped into his perfect technique.  The exercise in this invention alternates between the [e]-[a]-[o] vowels.  It is eleven tones long, and begins in the lower part of the range.  While singing in the lower range the speech-like quality will be much greater than the sigh-like quality.  While singing in the higher range it will be the opposite.  The scale is sung on [e] for the first four notes, then [a] for the duration of the 8 note scale, we then shift to [o] for the extension to the subdominant, and then we trace a dominant seventh chord while descending, and finally ending on the tonic where we began.  This extension of the range is challenging, but helps us to find the smooth transition between the different gears in our voice.  To do this exercise correctly we must feel comfortable with the first 5 inventions.  Finding the correct ratio of speaking and airflow from the top to the bottom will eventually become smooth and effortless.
Key Terms: Getting high, perfect technique, automatic transmission, shifting gears, secondo passaggio, passagio, primo passagio,
Key Concepts: Our voices are constantly shifting gears, like an automatic car.  In a nice automatic car there isn't a distinction between the shift.  It is a blurred line.  This is what Smith calls perfect technique: the ability to not feel or hear shifts between the different voices.
Making Connections: I believe that this will be the hardest invention for me to perfect.  I think this invention may be too far beyond my current abilities, but it gives me an idea of what I get to look forward to in the future.  I found the information about men's and women's voices and their differences to be very helpful for future teaching.  I think that I will be rereading this chapter again soon, so that I can learn to distinguish the different shifts in my own voice.