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09 Aug 12 - 06:55 PM (#3388149) Subject: Voice type of Marie Wells (Clementina) From: MorwenEdhelwen1 What was the voice type of Marie Wells, who played Clementina in the 1929 movie of The Desert Song? Her voice seems very light, like mine. In fact I sound a lot like her when I sing Clementina, which is a mezzo role. Is it possible to be classified as a mezzo and have a light voice? |
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09 Aug 12 - 07:41 PM (#3388165) Subject: RE: Voice type of Marie Wells (Clementina) From: MorwenEdhelwen1 This is what I'm talking about: |
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09 Aug 12 - 08:02 PM (#3388171) Subject: RE: Voice type of Marie Wells (Clementina) From: michaelr You sound like that? I'm so sorry. |
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09 Aug 12 - 08:09 PM (#3388173) Subject: RE: Voice type of Marie Wells (Clementina) From: MorwenEdhelwen1 By that I mean that my voice is light, like that. Unfortunately I have a permanent cold right now (telling the truth. it's winter in Australia). |
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09 Aug 12 - 11:00 PM (#3388205) Subject: RE: Voice type of Marie Wells (Clementina) From: MorwenEdhelwen1 And I know michaelr dislikes anything resembling classical music... anyone have any serious answers? How does lightness or darkness in voice factor into classification? |
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09 Aug 12 - 11:58 PM (#3388209) Subject: RE: Voice type of Marie Wells (Clementina) From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Forget about the comment about "disliking anything resembling classical music". |
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10 Aug 12 - 02:01 AM (#3388224) Subject: RE: Voice type of Marie Wells (Clementina) From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Anyone like to listen to the clip? Also, can someone knowledgeable tell me if it's possible to be a mezzo-soprano and have a light voice? Because my voice is fairly light- yes, like Marie Wells. Unfortunately it's also a bit screechy right now. |
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10 Aug 12 - 08:04 AM (#3388287) Subject: RE: Voice type of Marie Wells (Clementina) From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Refresh. I'm really curious about this... especially since I've also listened to Julie Dawn (from the Original London Cast) do The Song Of The Brass Key.. and the differences in their voices are obvious. JD's voice is much darker and reminds me of my old singing teacher while Wells' voice reminds me of myself. So what was she likely to have been? I know mezzo-sopranos can have light voices. |
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10 Aug 12 - 08:53 AM (#3388293) Subject: RE: Voice type of Marie Wells (Clementina) From: GUEST,Blandiver This racial stereotyping is not a little out of place in these modern times, Morweb - though you obviously have a passion for the music. I can sort of get this - one of my favourite films is the first 4 Marx Brothers movie - a similarly ghastly musical called 'The Cocoanuts' from 1929 which combines surreal antics with the BYT culture of the times, resulting in the truly cringeworthy Mary Eaton contributing set pieces like The Monkey Doodle Doo. You can watch the whole thing on You Tube. For something more positively Spanish, and a much more wholesome thing to aim for as a singer, can be found in the 'Early' music of Hesperion XXI and their late lamented & sorely missed soprano Monsterrat Figueras. You can find a lot of that on YouTube too, but as an example of something genuinely insprational(as oppose to the very depressing racism of The Desert Song) have a look at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFf-AAHCuXA |
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10 Aug 12 - 09:01 AM (#3388298) Subject: RE: Voice type of Marie Wells (Clementina) From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Blandiver, as Grishka mentioned, I starteda thread on the operetta here. I brought up the racism issue there several times. |
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10 Aug 12 - 09:02 AM (#3388299) Subject: RE: Voice type of Marie Wells (Clementina) From: MorwenEdhelwen1 There should be a space... |
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10 Aug 12 - 10:14 AM (#3388325) Subject: RE: Voice type of Marie Wells (Clementina) From: GUEST,Blandiver It's a big issue, Morwen - one of the biggest issues of our time, as I'm sure you're all too aware as a Chinese girl living in Australia. This sort of racial stereotyping is anathema to common sense on all sorts of levels. It also sits awkwardly on a forum dedicated to Folk Music, the proponents of which are, on the whole, especially sensitive to racism in various guises. As singers, we have a responsibility to address our craft to a more enlightened cultural perspective than was current when The Desert Song was written (and filmed). For sure, it reflects its time, but pretty grimly I would say. Tell you what, give us some Australian / Chinese folk songs and you'll get all the help, encouragement & advice you'll need - and also find ways of developing your vocal talents to a more (dare I say) constructive end? Just a thought anyway. |
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10 Aug 12 - 10:36 AM (#3388337) Subject: RE: Voice type of Marie Wells (Clementina) From: GUEST,leeneia To get back to the original question, Morwen, I think Marie Wells is a mezzo-soprano. Voice type (soprano, also, etc) is based on how high and low one can go. Lightness and darkness have nothing to do with what kind of voice one has. The same singer can sing light or dark, depending on how she shapes her throat. (I learned how to do this from one demonstration by a choral conductor.) In opera it used to be a tradition that altos sang dark. This is no longer fashionable. We speakers of English are great ones for nouns. We say that a person has a "voice." But we don't actually have VOICES. What we do is SING (verb)in a certain way. I bet that around the house, Marie Wells could sing soft & bluesy, sing hard & angry or sing a delicate lullaby. She would still sound like herself, but each kind of song would have a different timbre. |
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10 Aug 12 - 11:18 AM (#3388358) Subject: RE: Voice type of Marie Wells (Clementina) From: GUEST,999 A mezzo-soprano (/ˈmɛtsoʊ/; [ˈmɛddzo]; meaning "medium" or "middle" "soprano" in Italian) is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above (i.e. A3-A5 in scientific pitch notation, where middle C = C4). In the lower and upper extremes, some mezzo-sopranos may extend down to the G below middle C (G3) and as high as "high C" (C6).[1] from Mr Wikipedia |
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10 Aug 12 - 07:12 PM (#3388520) Subject: RE: Voice type of Marie Wells (Clementina) From: MorwenEdhelwen1 @leeneia: So I guess I'm a mezzo-soprano too. |
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10 Aug 12 - 07:27 PM (#3388525) Subject: RE: Voice type of Marie Wells (Clementina) From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Note: When I sing Jamaican folk songs my voice gets dark. And incidentally, my first singing teacher thought I was a mezzo-soprano. My other teachers thought I was a soprano. |
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10 Aug 12 - 08:58 PM (#3388570) Subject: RE: Voice type of Marie Wells (Clementina) From: MorwenEdhelwen1 And my lowest note happens to be G3. |
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10 Aug 12 - 10:45 PM (#3388592) Subject: RE: Voice type of Marie Wells (Clementina) From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Leeneia: What makes you think she was a mezzo-soprano? Interesting thing is, I can find very little info on her. Only that she was born in 1894 and her birth name seems to have been Mary Edith Wells. She played Lotta in a lost 1930 movie called Song of The West. If her role as Clementina was an indication of her vocal range, then I could probably sing Lotta as well. (I can certainly sing Clementina.) |
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10 Aug 12 - 11:01 PM (#3388594) Subject: RE: Voice type of Marie Wells (Clementina) From: MorwenEdhelwen1 And ohhh.. A two octaves above middle C? I can't sing a High C. |
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11 Aug 12 - 02:13 AM (#3388617) Subject: RE: Voice type of Marie Wells (Clementina) From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Refresh |
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11 Aug 12 - 04:59 AM (#3388637) Subject: RE: Voice type of Marie Wells (Clementina) From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Apparently she committed suicide in 1949. |
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11 Aug 12 - 11:15 AM (#3388748) Subject: RE: Voice type of Marie Wells (Clementina) From: GUEST,leeneia I thought she was a mezzo because her voice is high, yet has a certain warmth. I listened to a mezzo at a concert recently, and her voice sounded the same. Also, Marie's not the star, and the supporting female roles tend to sing lower. Those thoughts are not definitive, I agree. I've been imagining how beautiful, glamorous and exotic she must have seemed to the typical American of 1929 - somebody who worked for a small wage in a noisy, dirty factory, or who labored on a farm. Movies like this might seem dated and prejudiced to us, but in 1929 they provided a welcome escape from a hard life. |
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11 Aug 12 - 07:15 PM (#3388924) Subject: RE: Voice type of Marie Wells (Clementina) From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Leeneia: Just curious- would you say that my voice is warm too? (quite a lot of people think I'm a mezzo.) |
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11 Aug 12 - 07:17 PM (#3388926) Subject: RE: Voice type of Marie Wells (Clementina) From: MorwenEdhelwen1 And oh, thanks for the explanation, btw. |
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11 Aug 12 - 09:39 PM (#3388962) Subject: RE: Voice type of Marie Wells (Clementina) From: GUEST,leeneia Yes, I believe it is a rather warm voice. Keep in mind that I haven't heard it a lot, and one can change that by singing in different ways. (I think that's one trait of a person who really loves singing.) Do you know the singer Judy Collins? Most of her songs are graceful and feminine, but at a concert I heard her sing a song that started "I was a guard at ======= Prison." It ended with a bellow of "I never would have done to the governor what the governor did to me!" She had explored the things her voice could do. No. I mean, the different ways she could sing. |
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11 Aug 12 - 10:09 PM (#3388972) Subject: RE: Voice type of Marie Wells (Clementina) From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Thanks, leeneia. |
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12 Aug 12 - 05:07 AM (#3389054) Subject: RE: Voice type of Marie Wells (Clementina) From: MorwenEdhelwen1 IA lot of my friends think I sound like MW. Yes, I've heard of Judy Collins. |