For women who love to sing low
Here below you will find the posts that have been published on femaletenors.com
For more content on female tenors please, check out ‘women's tenor‘ or 'to see and hear'.
They both have translation buttons in 9 languages.
You can contact me by sending a mail to:
info@femaletenors.com
Post: September 2019 Training of Female Tenors with the aid of Estill and non-Estill Figures
Video of the lecture by Hanny van Lankeren as a part of the 9th Estill Wold Voice Symposium, held in London from 8-11 August 2019. Picture taken during the Estill course in Studio ZZH in Wageningen, The Netherlands.
Reviews:
“Hanny, I loved your video lecture explaining your research. It was really well done and so interesting! Thank you for sharing. ”
Emily
“Fascinating lecture! I wonder if these techniques would help transgender clients who are going from female to male?“
Curry Obert
Comment Hanny: “Yes, I think I can coach transgender males to sound better in their low voice, Kerrie! I have plans to learn more about transgender voice this Autumn.“
Post: April 14, 2019 When Hanny meets a Peking Opera Singer from China
This blog is a free English translation of the article that appeared in the Jilin Daily News Press on the 13th or April 2019.
Color training news 04-13 14:14
At 10:00 pm local time on April 11th in Wageningen, at the “Tour Exhibition of Poverty Alleviation in China”, Li Yugang, a young Chinese artist from the North Eastern Province Jilin, made a perfect ending to his performance tour through Europe singing a pop song called "I Just Met You".
Although the performances of the Jilin Culture & Tourism week are over now, Li Yugang's story of “I just met you” in the Netherlands has only just begun.
Wang Shuhang, founder of the Dutch SweetPotato Independent Folk Orchestra was invited as an agent and interpreter to assist in the happening. This very night, Yugang Li was supposed to meet with a very special guest, the Dutch classically trained soprano, voice scientist and vocal coach, Hanny van Lankeren.
It turns out that Hanny has been promoting the female tenor voice in recent years, and already made some substantial achievements during her own training as a classical tenor. Li Yugang, being a male actor in the Peking Opera, has developed a soprano voice in his falsetto register. When Wang Shuhang invited Hanny to watch the performance, she introduced '' Han Yu (a classic poet from the Chinese literature) and his performance style to Hanny. Although not familiar with Chinese traditional vocal music, Hanny has shown a great interest in this style of singing.
When Hanny watched Li Yugang on stage, dressed up as a beautiful female lady in a scene from the Peking Opera, she felt deeply touched. His appearance is so graceful in such a fine, almost humble way, showing a sincere respect to the audience as well as to art itself. This is a person who is full of friendship, innocence and love. ” So far Hanny's first impression of Li Yugang.
Music is a universal language that can connect people of different races and cultures from all over the world, The two artists talked intensively until very late after the show.
Being a singer and vocal coach, Hanny stated that the Western traditional division of voices in soprano, alto, tenor and bass, relies heavily on gender as the standard for voice classification. However, there are many men in real life who can sing high notes in their falsetto, and women with matured voices who can sing as low as tenors or even baritones. Hanny believes that the 4 parts in a mixed choir should not be determined by gender but should be open to any male, neutral or female singer, who is capable of doing the job. It is suggested to call this: Gender Free Singing.
Hanny also mentioned that it is her wish to build a choir of mixed voices. Although there are differences in voices, there will be no gender limitations.
"This challenges the human voice!" Li Yugang's eyes sparkled with curiosity and excitement. He admired Hanny's thoughts. "It is a wonderful idea not to distinguish the voices by gender."
“A beautiful jasmine flower, a beautiful jasmine flower, beautiful and full of fragrance, fragrance and…” Li Yugang sang in his falsetto soprano voice while Hanny was improvising a free melody in her low tenor voice.
The world-famous Chinese folk song “Jasmine”, in the spontaneous improvisation by the two singers combining Chinese and Western European traditions, had an exhilarating effect on the staff members that were present during the interview. Art seem to have no borders, culture has a friend's voice, and the hands of the two artists were tightly held together.
Being an expert in the acoustics of the singing voice ”, Hanny is very keen to conduct a sampling study of Li Yugang's voice. "Unfortunately, your stay here is too short this time." Hanny said with regret. Li Yugang smiled and told Hanny that he would soon launch his own large-scale poetic dance drama "Zhao Jun Out". Li Yugang's invitation was just about to be translated when Hanny said, "Whatever happens, I will come to China to see your performance."
When the artists said good bye it felt like two old friends departing. No doubt “We'll meet again” will take place in the future.
Link to the original Chinese article
Post October 16, 2018: Eurovox Lecture on Female Tenor Research
There is a misunderstanding about what female tenors should do in order to match their fellow male tenors in vocal sound color in a classical choral setting. Yes the male tenors are singing on the top of their voice and the women are singing in their lowest part, but, where vocal range and registration are coming together, adjustment of the vocal tract and breath flow should follow comparable patterns no matter male or female . Thus, both sexes should be able to create a “melting” vocal sound quality under the right conditions.
To test this hypothesis, a research project has been designed in which amateur choral tenors, men and women, were invited to sing a serial of vocal exercises which were recorded. Voice characteristics in both gender groups were determined and compared with the aid of voice analysis software. It is possible to describe a set of technical vocal skills that female tenors need to learn. The shout like voice quality is investigated in more detail.
The author makes a call to action to all singers, conductors, teachers and singing professionals which are interested in female tenors, to become active “Female Tenor Fans”. Together it will be possible to help mixed classical choirs in Europe to find their new tenors.
Post: May 1, 2018 Welcome to Female Tenors
Hi, this website will be filled with content soon.
In the meanwhile you can visit these addresses:
To See and to Hear Singing or Woman and Tenor
You can contact me by sending a mail to:
info@femaletenors.com
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Dutch