St. James's Church, Piccadilly, 7 August 2008

[I-H-F]

Thanks to everyone for the reports and the photographs.

I especially liked the candid photographs of Hayley in the church before the concert. Awesome!

[Richard]

Sept 2, 2008 0:30:33 GMT I-H-F said:

...this concert seemed to have a big New Zealand feel about it. I presume the song 'Don't Dream Its Over' was the Crowded House hit. But, I thought they were Australian?

Hello Irish Hayley Fan!

Crowded House were formed in Melbourne but led by New Zealand singer-songwriter Neil Finn.

More information: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowded_House

All the performers at St. James's Church were from New Zealand, but the concert was billed as 'Out of the Antipodes', which includes Australia.

Best Wishes,

Richard

[stuartj]

Aug 10, 2008 21:36:21 GMT martindn said:

So what of Hayley? There is not doubt in my mind that her voice has sufficient power to be heard in a relatively small (or even quite a large) auditorium without amplification. She has been gaining power for a while, and if you listen to something like the final verse of Hine, you realise she has no shortage of power. Personally, I found the sound of Hayley's voice at full power quite thrilling. But she always did get to me like no other singer ever has.
The problem is though that she doesn't always sing at full power. Sometimes her voice is almost a whisper, as in Sonny and parts of Danny Boy, two songs that feature in her current live repertoire. And there may be others, without going through them all Hayley could not be sure how they would sound without a mike. If only one was hard to hear, the headlines would scream that "Hayley really can't sing without a microphone".

Martin

I don't want to be rude, but the talk of Hayley singing without a microphone on this thread makes me want to weep.

I and some others have done a lot of research on this and projecting over an orchestra has nothing to do with the power of a singer's voice. Gray Bartlett made the same point after Dame Kiri's outburst.

And I guarantee you that the purists won't be impressed, they will say that it wasn't a full orchestra or find many other reasons for dismissing it, sensible or otherwise.

Opera singers project over an orchestra by using a technique of manipulating the throat muscles that produces some extra frequencies. These frequencies are called the singer's formant frequencies, and are higher than that produced by an unamplified orchestra.

It takes no special skill or ability to learn how to do this. It could be likened to learning how to juggle 3 balls or to touch-type. It takes some practice, but any normal person can learn how to do it if they so desire.

This style of vocalism came into vogue about the turn of the 20th Century because venues and orchestras were getting bigger and the singers needed to be heard. The purists of the time -- and this is hilarious -- rubbished this type of vocalism that Dame Kiri and Co. rate so highly as refined and aristocratic singing being overwhelmed by a vulgar bourgeois love of racket and din.

There is another problem, as musicologist David Huron has pointed out. The biological result of the technique opera singers use is that the ventricular folds on top of the vocal chords rise, and this is what happens when someone is scared witless. So the frequencies that the opera singers produce are in the same range as the human scream, a range that the human ear is particularly sensitive to, and that can be heard above most other sounds. But many people find it unpleasant, and one of the common complaints about opera is that, "they sound like they are screaming".

It is an opera convention to use this technique but many think it is a very stupid one. It is. And it would be even more stupid for someone outside of opera to use it. Quite apart from the fact that it is not particularly good for your throat, it severely limits the songs you can sing and the way you can sing them. Dame Kiri had an interview on her site recently where she said that being outdoors and using the mic allowed her to sing songs like "Somewhere" and others that weren't possible, "somethings always get caught in the orchestra", she said.

Yes they do. What's more, as you have realised, Martin, to keep projecting you must keep bellowing and screaming. The microphone allows for a much more intimate and personal relationship with the audience and the expression of a much wider range of feeling -- it allows softness, a whisper -- it allows the singer to express themselves in a way similar to what happens in real life.

Unless you are doing opera, to not use a microphone is ridiculous. Whether Hayley used the operatic technique in the clip with Dame Malvina I don't know. The music was fairly low and she may have just used her power, which she has plenty of.

I'm astonished that many on this forum seem to have swallowed the art music, purist fallacies about opera vocalism being superior and opera singers being superior. I thought, apart from the opera community themselves, and the purists, no one took that seriously anymore.

I don't understand the incident. I thought Dame Malvina had said that Hayley had a great voice, but it was a "microphone" voice, and then she gets her to sing without a microphone.

And why was Hayley singing a Mezzo role? It seems Hayley adapted to Dame Malvina. And it is not teacher and student because Hayley decided against opera years ago. Comparing them, as Dame Malvina herself said, is like comparing a cricketer with a rugby player. Hayley is not an opera singer although she received some voice coaching from Dame Malvina with particular reference to protecting her voice and relaxing her jaw and various basics when she quite young. I though Hayley's voice coach since she went to England was Mary Hammond, a rather different type of teacher, and that Hayley had another singing teacher -- other than Dame Malvina -- in New Zealand, from the time she was about 11.

I'm not sure that this incident is one I like very much. Dame Kiri's comments were nonsense from goa to whoa and should have been ignored by Hayley. Big dogs don't attach little dogs, something people have not grasped about the Te Kanawa rant to start with, and Hayley should have gone on ignoring Te Kanawa's malice and incoherent rantings.

[milewalker]

Hi Stuart,

I am assuming here that while everyone is talking about using a microphone, what they are really talking about is using amplfication. After all, a microphone was used in some capacity or we would never hear the sound along with the video. Some people have an issue with amplification because it alters the natural sound - what comes out according to some is not only louder, but subtly different.

-----------
Generally speaking, in any activity which can be measured, people will naturally fall into a bell shaped curve in terms of their ability to perform it. No amount of training or technique can make you a concert pianist for example, unless you already have the aptitude for it. There are things I can do to help me run faster, but they are unlikely to make me a sprinter. I can practice hitting a baseball for years, and still never be able to turn on a 90 mile per hour fastball.

There is some merit in what your are saying - but I still suspect that some voices are naturally bigger than others, and that techniques used to mitigate than can only close the gap - not remove it. If Hayley actually tried to be Rene Fleming, much of what you say in terms of potential vocal damage and a less appealing sound would probably be true, because she would have to move away from her strengths to do it. The chances are that Rene doesnt have to work nearly that hard......Rene could sacrifice a great deal of power and possibly produce a more "pure" sound - but will never sound like Hayley. I dont particularly care for the sound Renee produces, but I dont think it is necessarily subject to the problems you expressed.

I am no more impressed with opera singers in general than you are. But I am willing to give them due credit for what they do even if I dont personally care for it in much the same way I would for an artist like Britney Spears

What I dont see is just what the big deal here is. Hayley sang unmiked in a church, in much the same way that probably 50 solists in St Louis did last Sunday. It is hard to get a good feeling for the size of the church from that video, but it seems no larger than several I have been in......

I do think that Hayley may possibly have an issue with classical music purists which extends much further in the past than the comments made by Dame Kiri. For example, her CD's are sent to various newspapers for review, and as often as not, it ends up on the desk of a classical reviewer. Bad reviews cost her sales whether those reviews are justified or not. She isnt getting any more criticism than other crossover singers get - and even though I agree that it is "nonsense" - it probably still becomes tiresome.

[Dave]

Hi Stuart and everyone,

Let's not start another debate about opera vs. other types of singing, or Kiri again; there's room for all types. I and I know many others enjoy some operatic singing as well as Hayley's singing and singing style - and indeed even more poppy styles of singing or some rock music, if I'm in the mood.

Getting back on topic to the actual concert at St James' and as someone who had the pleasure of being there on the night, the main benefit of hearing Hayley singing without a microphone was that there was no electronics getting in the way of our appreciation of her voice. It was not really about Hayley being able to "do opera singing" and both singers clearly had to adapt to make it work. Hayley sung perhaps a little louder than usual; Dame Malvina clearly held back a little in order to achieve the necessary balance... and both seemed to adapt well to it.

Hayley is well able to sing light opera and other music of this kind in small halls like St James's without overdoing it, probably most halls with a capacity of under 700 or so, I'd say. She won't I am sure be doing it very often but it was very nice to hear how nice her voice sounds "in the flesh" and unamplified, once again.

I well remember the first time I heard Hayley do this, at Stuart Hayter's school when she sung for the pupils in the school hall, I was thrilled! So I was delighted when she put the microphone at St James's off the stage in order to do it again, this time in a public concert and with the legendary (for Hayley fans!) Dame Malvina. It was the icing on the cake of a wonderful concert and they both adapted well to what must have been an unusual experience for both of them.

I really hope that Hayley will occasionally do this again in the future.

Cheers, Dave

[grant]

Thanks for clearing that up Dave!!

Best wishes
Grant

[stuartj]

Sept 23, 2008 16:45:01 GMT milewalker said:

Hi Stuart,


Generally speaking, in any activity which can be measured, people will naturally fall into a bell shaped curve in terms of their ability to perform it. No amount of training or technique can make you a concert pianist for example, unless you already have the aptitude for it. There are things I can do to help me run faster, but they are unlikely to make me a sprinter. I can practice hitting a baseball for years, and still never be able to turn on a 90 mile per hour fastball.

There is some merit in what your are saying - but I still suspect that some voices are naturally bigger than others, and that techniques used to mitigate than can only close the gap - not remove it. If Hayley actually tried to be Rene Fleming, much of what you say in terms of potential vocal damage and a less appealing sound would probably be true, because she would have to move away from her strengths to do it. The chances are that Rene doesnt have to work nearly that hard.....

Jon,

You are being unfair. Perhaps I didn't make myself plain. Of course some voices are bigger than others, but it is not the power -- the size of the voice -- that enables one to project over an orchestra. The "bigness" of the voice is irrelevant.

I have done a lot of research on this and the knowledgeable purists agree. There is no argument about what I am saying. Opera singers are not more powerful than others in the amount of decibels they produce. To project over an orchestra you must simply produce sound energy at a frequency higher (or lower) than that produced by the orchestra. It is certainly not that you are louder than the orchestra, it is that your sound energy is being produced at a different frequency! Do you understand what I am saying?

When an organisation called the Mythbusters stuck sound meters under the noses of different types of singers, the opera singers were in the 70 - 80 decibel range and the rock singers in the 100 - 110 range. The loudest singer they found was a rock singer who got close to 120db.

But even if that rock singer or Bryn Terfel producing over 100 decibels were to sing with an orchestra without producing frequencies outside those produced by the orchestra, you would not hear them. The term, "projecting over", is a misnomer.

Here is are some quotes and a link that may put it more clearly:
--------------------------------------------------------
Did you know that an opera singer can project over an entire audience, but if a normal person yelled at the top of their lungs, they wouldn’t be heard?


Ok, let me clear up how I said that opera singers can sing over an orchestra.
There is a special technique that allows you to shape your throat in a way that produces a few “extra” frequencies when you sing. This extra frequency content is known as a “singers formant frequency”.

For all you audio buffs out there, the frequency is in the range of 3000hertz.

Here’s how it works.

When an orchestra plays, all the instruments create sounds that have frequencies within a certain range. Most of the information lies below the 800hertz range.

As you’ve just learned though, by shaping the throat, singers can actually produce sound waves at 3000hertz. Since this frequency is much higher than the 800hertz that the orchestra can produce, this frequency is clearly heard in the audience.

----------------------------------------------------------------
Jon, arguments by analogy are so easily twisted.

"Generally speaking, in any activity which can be measured, people will naturally fall into a bell shaped curve in terms of their ability to perform it."

Of course. Of course. But does it follow from this that there are no activities that nearly all of us can learn if we put in the time?

I repeat that this technique is like learning to touch-type -- in any class of typists there will be some who learn more quickly than others (according to the standard distribution or bell-shaped curve) but anyone with normal skill and coordination can learn it.

The techniques involved having nothing to do with compensating for a small voice. The size of the voice is irrelevant to the problem -- it is the frequency of the sound energy produced that matters.

Recently Te Kanawa's comments were put to Paul Potts, who said 1. That's her opinion and then added 2. That in the situations he was singing in the orchestra itself was often amplified. The significance? The orchestra is louder? No. Once you amplify the orchestra it produces frequencies that the human voice cannot get higher than. And amplification is a misnomer because it is not necessarily the orchestra being made louder but simply speakers near the back of a large hall, say.


www.become-a-singing-master.com/singing-technique-and-projection.html

Are you really quite sure that Fleming or Te Kanawa have stronger and more powerful voices than Hayley? I just have never been able to believe that opera singers have such powerful voices and some musicians I know share my scepticism. But the clincher to me is that the Mythbusters sound meters seem to share my scepticism and I put more faith in them than a purist critic who describes Russell Watson as "feeble-voiced", say.

But I repeat that it is irrelevant. To project over an orchestra both Hayley and Fleming must learn the same technique. Once learnt it is as easy for both of them.

Which reminds me, it is not easy if you are an Alto or a Countertenor. Why it is difficult for and alto I'm not sure but they have almost been driven out of opera.

What's more John, more and more opera houses are starting to use some sort of amplification, and there are many who would like to see the singers miked and it will happen before too long.

You wrote:
"if Hayley actually tried to be Rene Fleming, much of what you say in terms of potential vocal damage and a less appealing sound would probably be true, because she would have to move away from her strengths to do it. The chances are that Rene doesnt have to work nearly that hard"
You are completely and totally wrong. Both of them would have to produce sound energy in a particular frequency range. That frequency range is in the same range as the human scream. This not something I'm making up it's an incontrovertible scientific fact. (And do you have any real evidence for saying that Fleming as a louder or whatever it is you are saying voice than Hayley?)

And I said that the technique isn't good for you. That's not quite the same thing as saying it might cause vocal damage.

Quote:
---------------------------------------------------------------
Despite the singer’s formant being useful when singing with an orchestra, I don’t believe it is entirely necessary.
Trying to change the shape of your throat is actually encouraging your swallowing muscles to engage-the muscles that cause singing tension and make singing miserable.

Also…

In any other style, you don’t need this extra frequency content in your voice.

Take for example, you sing in a rock band. The “singers formant” is no use in this situation. You see, the instruments in a rock band will produce frequencies in the same range as the singers formant, so it won’t allow you to project any more than before.
------------------------------------------------------------------
One of the things I don't like about opera singers is how tortured they often look. Watching the three tenors singing some of those pop songs makes me want to burst into laughter. It is partly because of this silly technique and their holding their breath and other opera conventions.

The day Hayley does this most of her fan base will leave.

[stuartj]

Sept 23, 2008 16:58:16 GMT Dave said:

Hi Stuart and everyone,

Let's not start another debate about opera vs. other types of singing, or Kiri again; there's room for all types. I and I know many others enjoy some operatic singing as well as Hayley's singing and singing style - and indeed even more poppy styles of singing or some rock music, if I'm in the mood.

Getting back on topic to the actual concert at St James' and as someone who had the pleasure of being there on the night, the main benefit of hearing Hayley singing without a microphone was that there was no electronics getting in the way of our appreciation of her voice. It was not really about Hayley being able to "https://i.postimg.cc/9fYxy370/smilie-big-grin.gifo opera singing" and both singers clearly had to adapt to make it work. Hayley sung perhaps a little louder than usual; Dame Malvina clearly held back a little in order to achieve the necessary balance... and both seemed to adapt well to it.

Hayley is well able to sing light opera and other music of this kind in small halls like St James's without overdoing it, probably most halls with a capacity of under 700 or so, I'd say. She won't I am sure be doing it very often but it was very nice to hear how nice her voice sounds "in the flesh" and unamplified, once again.

I well remember the first time I heard Hayley do this, at Stuart Hayter's school when she sung for the pupils in the school hall, I was thrilled! So I was delighted when she put the microphone at St James's off the stage in order to do it again, this time in a public concert and with the legendary (for Hayley fans!) Dame Malvina. It was the icing on the cake of a wonderful concert and they both adapted well to what must have been an unusual experience for both of them.

I really hope that Hayley will occasionally do this again in the future.

Cheers, Dave

OK, Dave, but may I point out that someone else, unless I misunderstood them, seemed to be endorsing a certain Great Ladies comments, and I am inclined to see red whenever a certain name is mentioned and not just because of the incident with Hayley. I usually respond to a gentle remonstration, but if that fails try throwing a bucket of water over me.

Yes, opera is a valid form of expression, and if people enjoy it good on them. it is really not opera per se that I have a problem with. There is some opera singing I do enjoy myself. I would like to see opera vocalism change a bit -- it has in the past, so it can again, but many love it as it is and I shouldn't try to interfere, I suppose.

I see what you mean about hearing Hayley's voice without the electronics

And i agree that she could do it occasionally from time to time in more intimate settings with the right material. But those who were thinking of her doing it in major concerts with material like, "Sonny", are mistaken, i believe.

[comet]

I might be wrong here but I worked with sound equipment for years.

The range of a voice in notes from bottom to top would be measured in Hz or the old cycles per second lets just say 800 hertz to 20,000 hertz.

They are the notes that can be produced. Loud or quiet is irrelevant. It does not change the frequency.

The amount of sound or amplitude is measured in decibels db this is not relevant to the frequency.

so you may produce 800Hz very quietly let,s say 55db , a little louder than whispering.

or you may produce the same frequency 800hz very loud say 120 db, the threshold of pain for most people or loud as a plane at take off at close range.

I'm fairly sure a full orchestra can produce frequencies from around 100 Hz up as far as maybe 22,000 Hz

with a loudness from maybe 40 db up to 118 db or more , depending where you are standing, near the brass section may be even louder.

and to keep it on topic I listened to the recorded performance and loved it. But it was also picked up by imperfect microphones and then played back through an imperfect amplifier and through imperfect speakers.

Hayley produces an amazing sound , she slides easily from note to note. To hear Hayley's voice directly from her mouth to your ear especially if you are only a few feet away is PERFECT AUDIO. nothing added and nothing taken away. That is the definition of Hi - Fi. or high fidelity. makes you realise amplification systems although they have come a long way in the last few years still add or take away from the sound put through them.

[milewalker]

Hi Comet,

I would question the values of the frequencies you provided, but in general this is how I understand the physics of sound.

To be fair, there is a connection between frequency and the loudness that a note is perceived to be. Generally speaking a pitch of the same decibel level which is closer to the midpoint frequency of the human speaking voice will be perceived to be louder than one further away. . That does happen to be around 3000 Hz. This is further complicated by the fact that a note - especially a sung note - is actually a harmonic from which we only "hear" the dominant pitch.

This being said, there are some theoretical problems here. The softest sound normal human hearing can distinguish is about 1/4 decibel at 3000 Hz. Doesnt if follow from there that a sound at 20 decibels but the same frequency would be much louder?

There is also an issue of distance. The decibel level of Sound waves traveling through a theoretically ideal medium (say still air with no competing background noise) should diminish over distance in a predictable inverse cubed pattern - but the frequency should remain the same assuming neither I nor the source of the sound are moving relative to one another. An A sung by a singer is the same note whether I am 20 feet away or 200 - but the decibel level of the sound will decline dramatically as the distance increases. If loudness is a function of frequency and not of the amount of decibels produced shouldnt I perceive the loudness of the sound to be the same regardless of how far away I am?

Jon

[stuartj]

Sept 23, 2008 22:06:29 GMT milewalker said:

Hi Comet,

I would question the values of the frequencies you provided, but in general this is how I understand the physics of sound.

To be fair, there is a connection between frequency and the loudness that a note is perceived to be. Generally speaking a pitch of the same decibel level which is closer to the midpoint frequency of the human speaking voice will be perceived to be louder than one further away. . That does happen to be around 3000 Hz. This is further complicated by the fact that a note - especially a sung note - is actually a harmonic from which we only "hear" the dominant pitch.

This being said, there are some theoretical problems here. The softest sound normal human hearing can distinguish is about 1/4 decibel at 3000 Hz. Doesnt if follow from there that a sound at 20 decibels but the same frequency would be much louder?

There is also an issue of distance. The decibel level of Sound waves traveling through a theoretically ideal medium (say still air with no competing background noise) should diminish over distance in a predictable inverse cubed pattern - but the frequency should remain the same assuming neither I nor the source of the sound are moving relative to one another. An A sung by a singer is the same note whether I am 20 feet away or 200 - but the decibel level of the sound will decline dramatically as the distance increases. If loudness is a function of frequency and not of the amount of decibels produced shouldnt I perceive the loudness of the sound to be the same regardless of how far away I am?

Jon

I can't understand what you are driving at. Of course loudness is a function of decibels. Of course an A is the same note irrespective of distance.

Wiki:
A formant is a peak in the frequency spectrum of a sound caused by acoustic resonance.[1] In phonetics, the word refers to sounds produced by the vocal tract....

Formants are the distinguishing or meaningful frequency components of human speech and of singing. By definition, the information that humans require to distinguish between vowels can be represented purely quantitatively by the frequency content of the vowel sounds. Formants are the characteristic partials that identify vowels to the listener. Most of these formants are produced by tube and chamber resonance, but a few whistle tones derive from periodic collapse of Venturi effect low-pressure zones....

Studies of the frequency spectrum of trained singers, especially male singers, indicate a clear formant around 3000 Hz (between 2800 and 3400) that is absent in speech or in the spectra of untrained singers. It is increase in energy at 3000Hz which allows singers to be heard and understood over an orchestra, which peak at much lower frequencies of around 500 Hz. This formant is actively developed through vocal training, for instance through so-called "voce di strega" or witch's voice[6] exercises and is caused by a part of the vocal tract acting as a resonator.

To say that Hayley couldn't learn this technique is a monumental insult to her. It's like saying she is mentally or intellectually deficient. Every year half-a-dozen girls go through the Canterbury University Music department course here, taking voice as their instrument (Dame Malvina is Prof of Music), few of whom ever have anything like either the talent or the power in their voice that Hayley does, and yet they can learn to project over an orchestra. I think Sophie Westenra may be doing it this year.

By all means let's give the top opera singers their due, but let's not make something out of nothing. There are people who even learn to do it without training. Some buskers, for example.

And I said nothing about a less appealing sound. They all produce these formant frequencies in the same range as the human scream. If they don't produce in this range they won't be heard over the orchestra. I said some people don't like it, and that is why a common complaint about opera is that they sound like they are screaming.

On the other side of the coin, it makes the voice seem to fill the hall, and gives many people a feeling of exhiliration and goose-bumps.

The musicologist David Huron believes this is because the sounds in that range, which are usually a cry for help, or of pain or fear, produce a rush of adrenaline and the goosebumps. But because there is no one really in pain or in fear, in opera it can be an exhilirating experience for some people.

Comet's range of frequencies is the range that the normal human ear can perceive.

Interesting:
If the fundamental frequency of the underlying vibration is higher than the formant frequency of the system, then the character of the sound imparted by the formant frequencies will be mostly lost. This is most apparent in the example of soprano opera singers, who sing high enough that their vowels become very hard to distinguish.

Control of formants is an essential component of the vocal technique known as overtone singing, in which the performer sings a low fundamental tone, and creates sharp resonances to select upper harmonics, giving the impression of several tones being sung at once.

[Richard]

Thread locked pending discussions by the Management Team.

Richard

[Richard]

Hello everybody.

This thread is now open again. If you wish to continue the current debate, please do so in Comet's new 'Sound and amplification' thread HERE. Any further off-topic discussion in this thread will be deleted.

Many thanks,

Richard

[James]

Hi All,

This seems to have been missed, but Friday was the anniversary of this very special concert.

For those who are new to the forum, this thread is well worth a read and has a couple of very special videos courtesy of Drew showing Hayley singing a capella with her mentor Dame Malvina Major.

For those who were there, why not take this opportunity to relive the concert?

James

[Libby]

And again, yesterday was the 2nd anniversary.