Singing #3 - Voldemort and Anastasia in the Same Blog?
- Emily Jade
- Oct 26, 2020
- 3 min read
Recapping on the last session, we had to find songs that were in thickfold and thinfold to discuss at the beginning. I took some time after the session to research what I thought was thick and thinfold, as I didn’t have any examples for the lesson. For thinfold, I was looking at ‘In A Crowd of Thousands’ from Anastasia,
which is an interesting one because it’s a duet between Dmitry and Anya, and after listening to it, I think that both of them are in thinfold, as it’s quite a soft and and easy listen. For thickfold, I was looking at ‘Michael in the Bathroom’ from Be More Chill,
although I wasn’t 100% sure whether it was thickfold, there’s certain parts of the song that just sound like they’re in thickfold.
We then recapped over the chest and head registers, and discussed their association to notes. The chest register, thickfold, is usually associated with lower notes, but you can use it to go higher, and when you do it creates a belt. The head register, or thinfold is associated with higher notes, however it can be used to create lower notes; which can be why some songs in lower keys can be deceiving and make people think there is a thickfold.
We then recapped over vocal warm ups, and discussed which are easier for different voices. If you’re thinfold, Bella Senora,
is better for the voice as you can tilt to create the pretty note at the top of the soprano range, whereas the vocal warm up ‘uh-oh’, is a great way to get into thickfold as you’re in a speech pattern before you’ve even started singing.
Recapping the fry voice, we came up with examples of people who use it in really good ways. One of the most famous and popular ‘fry’ voices is Ralph Fiennes’ characterisation of Voldemort from the Harry Potter franchise,
as when he gets angry, he really goes quite deep into his fry and it’s quite off-putting at some points during the movie(s). An example of forced vocal folds is this performance by a group called Lordi from Eurovision,
which is really horrific in my opinion because it sounds like it’s not good for your voice.
I found the difference between the topic of falsetto and modal very interesting, as it gives you an insight into each different way the vocal folds work.
Fry - vocal folds wobble, produced through a small gap in the vocal folds.
Whistle - highest register possible, Ariana Grande is a common user, and is created using the very back of the vocal folds.
Modal - the vocal folds are thick and they vibrate. This is most common in speech patterns, and in some cases it is the lower part of the falsetto, you can also combine it with modal to use together.
Falsetto - not as high as whistle, but you can get really high and is produced in the edges of the vocal chords, either partly or fully.
The song I’ve chosen to sing is ‘Once Upon a December’ from Anastasia,
I chose it because it sits comfortably in my range and it’s easy to perform in an English accent as there are a lot of simple words and phrases. The song is also quite a fun one to act through the music, as there’s a lot of instrumental breaks that give you the ability to characterise the song. It comes just before the end of the first act, when Dmitry gives Anastasia - who is then known as Anya - a music box that he had found, that she was given to her by her Grandma before she had to leave her family, and all of her memories of her childhood come rushing back when she opens the box. I think it will be interesting to try and use something similar to revolve my final video on, like a small jewellery box or something as I think that would help with the acting of the song when I record it.
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