Howell voice students, these comments are for you:
Did you notice?
Ms. Graham's mouth changed shape quite a lot. At one point in the Purcell there was quite a long melisma which started in the lower register and went into the upper register and back down again. Her mouth changed slightly for almost every note change but the vowel did not change a bit to our ears. It stayed true and recognizable. This would be an excellent example of Vowel Modification. To put it simply, in order for the vowels to have the same acoustic pattern, the instrument has to change shape. (I feel sure you have heard this somewhere before.) That was a real live example.
Did you notice?
Even though much of the recital was in languages other than English and not many of us in the audience are fluent in all of the included languages, we could always tell that she was saying SOMETHING. Even if we didn't know exactly what it was, we could tell there was a meaning there. There were even a few verbal jokes that many of the audience members were able to understand through a combination of the singer's intent and the information in the program.
Did you notice?
Related to the above... Ms. Graham used quite a lot of hand gesture and even (gasp!) moved around the stage a good bit but none of it seemed staged or fake. The gestures were a natural part of her communication like she was "speaking with her hands" as they say. One specific example is the line "Il vole"in the Poulenc set. "Il vole" means "he flies (away) and she gestured as if she was showing us that he had flown.
Did you notice?
Ms. Graham didn't sing loudly the whole time. In fact, there were times when she sang VERY softly. Remember folks, that's all we've got. Loud/Soft, Dark/Light, High/Low
What did you notice???
