ACORDING to Ramon Acoymo, vocal pedagogue and Dean of the UP College of Music, classical singing has several distinguishing characteristics that developed from its historical context. Because classical songs were performed unamplified (i.e. without microphones) in large halls or salons, these characteristics in the singing were needed to enable the singer to be heard. Just as the Mona Lisa shouldn’t be repainted even though her hair is no longer in fashion, these singing characteristics are still expected today of the singer who performs a classical piece, even though the technical and acoustic challenges of the past no longer exist. In this way, the ability to sing the correct notes of a classical song in just any manner is not enough for the singing to be considered classical. A particular way of singing the right notes is required.
These characteristics are:
1. A change in the set of muscles used for singing. For most of us, a singer’s ability to sing and sustain high notes is a gauge of how good a singer is. We often remark "ang taas ng boses niya" or "galing ng birit." It is no different in classical music, though the ability to sing high notes is in no way the only gauge of singing quality. Because of the latitude of compositional freedom in classical music, many songs demand high notes—and repeated high notes at that. Anyone who tries belting a high note knows that after several belts, one gets tired and may begin to sound hoarse. One may even begin to feel pain. In classical singing, the singer cannot afford to get tired or hoarse because he needs to keep hitting high notes for the rest of the concert. That is one of the reasons why the classical singer needs to learn to use a set of muscles different from ordinary shouting or belting.
2. A change in the pronunciation of the vowels. If your mother has ever shouted at you from the other side of your house, you may have noticed that you could understand some words better than other words. That’s because different sounds travel differently and some sounds travel further than others. In a concert hall, then, where the distance between the classical singer and audience is considerably bigger than the distance between a pop singer and his hand-held microphone, some vowels will reach the audience better than other vowels. Thus, a classical singer needs to equalize or temper his vowels in a way that all his vowels will reach all sections of the audience uniformly. He cannot sing his vowels the way he pronounces them when he talks to someone right in front of him.
3. A change in the resonation of the voice. Even before the microphone was invented, classical singers were singing in large halls. (Yes, they could be heard.) It would be too tiring for the singer to shout throughout the song just to be heard. Thus, classical singers had to be trained to sing in a manner that was resonant enough to be heard but that required little effort or strain.
–gideon l.p. benedicion
