10-Years-Old? How Is This Possible?

[MissScripture]

[quote name='MaterMisericordiae' timestamp='1283398546' post='2166774']
Also, if I remember correctly, Julie Andrews developed non-cancerous nodules in her throat and had to undergo surgery, which was botched and left her unable to sing for quite a while.
[/quote]
Yes...she never really did get her proper singing voice back. It makes me sad.

[CatherineM]

I'm a natural contralto, and remember the pain of being forced to sing soprano. Wouldn't wish that on anyone. Probably has a stage parent behind a lot of it, I know I did.

[Vincent Vega]

[quote name='Moosey' timestamp='1283397804' post='2166768']
she will get lymph nodes
[/quote]

[Moosey]

[quote name='JoyfulLife' timestamp='1283398952' post='2166782']
Moosey, very interesting explanations! I didn't know that about this girl nor Charlotte. I take it you had a lot of voice training?
[/quote]
Yes, my mom has trained me since I was very young

[quote name='MissScripture' timestamp='1283400999' post='2166793']
Yes...she never really did get her proper singing voice back. It makes me sad.
[/quote]
It breaks my heart!

[OnlySunshine]

[quote name='MissScripture' timestamp='1283400999' post='2166793']
Yes...she never really did get her proper singing voice back. It makes me sad.
[/quote]

I know. I loved her singing in "Mary Poppins." That was such a fun movie!

[jiyoung]

She's gonna blow out her voice completely by the time she's 20 if she continues on this way.

Voice training should typically not start until about 14 or 15, and the teacher must be sensitive to what a child's voice is capable of. Some people think you shouldn't start until 18, and I've met people who think it shouldn't start until 20 or 21. Doesn't sound like such a big difference between the latter two, but your voice does a lot of growing and maturing, and when you're young you tend to build up a lot of bad habits because you don't really understand what you're doing yet. The woman's instrument is typically not completely mature until the mid to late 20s at earliest, and for bigger voices not until mid 30s. I'm sort of in the latter case--I began my vocal training at 21, luckily without too many vocal issues, and my voice has a good deal of heft and probably won't really come to full maturity until later. So my fach (vocal classification) is still unclear--I'm leaning mezzo, though

No singer should be pushing her voice like that! She's manufacturing a sound based on what she thinks she's supposed to sound like, and not allowing herself to just sing as she is currently physiologically capable of doing. That's the trouble with working with children. Singing is all about freeing up the voice and almost getting out of your own way as far as all the things we tend to do wrong. If you sing wrong for a long enough time, you'll actually completely ruin your voice and be unable to sing entirely. She's going that way pretty fast.

Also, at her age, she (a) could never project loud enough to fill an opera house without amplification and (b) doesn't understand what she's singing about, so even if she can make pretty sounds, she's not really communicating anything. What's the point?

Sorry, I'm not trying to be all Debbie Downer...it just bothers me when people fawn over these people who are just not very good. I wasn't impressed with Susan Boyle, for instance--she wasn't that good of a singer. I understand that people were all surprised because they thought she'd be super terrible because she's not what they think of as pretty, but that doesn't make her voice any better. If she looked like a supermodel and sang like that, she would never have made it as far as she did. I will say, though, that with training she would do very well, because she has a very fine instrument--just not necessarily using it quite right.

[jiyoung]

Gah. Not to beat a dead horse. But she's singing about throwing herself off her bridge if Daddy won't let her [s]have her way[/s] marry this guy! She doesn't act like it--but she's not capable of understanding something like that at her age! Her inhalations are really shallow and all wrong. And Moosey's right, the voice is way back in the throat. I thought it sounded a little Kermit-y at first or something. And I heard some flat pitches too, which are a result of her forcing her voice too hard. Again--free and easy singing is the name of the game.

Here's a better example of that aria, one of many out there--

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul9OTShQ_rc&feature=related

[OnlySunshine]

[quote name='jiyoung' timestamp='1283409604' post='2166822']
Gah. Not to beat a dead horse. But she's singing about throwing herself off her bridge if Daddy won't let her [s]have her way[/s] marry this guy! She doesn't act like it--but she's not capable of understanding something like that at her age! Her inhalations are really shallow and all wrong. And Moosey's right, the voice is way back in the throat. I thought it sounded a little Kermit-y at first or something. And I heard some flat pitches too, which are a result of her forcing her voice too hard. Again--free and easy singing is the name of the game.

Here's a better example of that aria, one of many out there--

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul9OTShQ_rc&feature=related
[/quote]

That video is a much better version of the aria. The little girl, to me, sounded like she had a bubble in her throat that was vibrating. Sure, it's interesting to hear range from someone that size, but it won't last because of her immature voice. I also don't mean to criticize. It would be much better if she was older and knew how her voice was affected before taking vocal lessons.

I've been trained in voice, but I didn't start until I was 19. I'm a mezzo-soprano, and I was able to understand that I should not go out of my range as it will sound forced and my voice will crack.

[Hilde]

She sings great but I don't understand why trying to sound like an adult when she isn't is so great. I'd like to hear a child star sing with a child's voice.

[Winchester]

Everybody croutons themselves because a kid hit a few notes in a musical format people only pretend to like!

[IrishSalesian]

[Cherie]

I think she sounds good for someone her age ... but that brings up the point that others have: she shouldn't be singing like that at her age.

It's been said by everyone before, so I won't belabor the point too much here, but it's true--singing like that at her age will quickly ruin her voice. I think it's very sad! Because she obviously has a lot of talent, and could do great things if she were trained correctly and at the correct age, but I question the person who is training her: how could any reputable voice trainer encourage that?!

I like Maria Callas, although it is an old recording - look at her face, how she is singing the words --

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rxy4qrnKwVo&feature=related[/media]

[Lil Red]

i love maria callas.

[iheartjp2]

1. Terrible diction.
2. (As some have said) bad placement.
3. Terrible breathing
4. It's transposed down a major second (or a diminished third, depending on the actual key). LAME.

This is why 10-year-olds don't sing opera.

[sistersintigo]

[quote name='MaterMisericordiae' timestamp='1283398546' post='2166774']
Also, if I remember correctly, Julie Andrews developed non-cancerous nodules in her throat and had to undergo surgery, which was botched and left her unable to sing for quite a while.
[/quote]

Ah, do you remember the rest of the story? Julie Andrews has had nodules on more than one occasion! And small wonder when you know her history.
Everytime she has to discuss singing "My Fair Lady," with the Cockney accent and the dialogue that goes with Eliza Doolittle, before her grooming by Henry Higgins, sounding like a Covent Garden fishwife, Julie Andrews points out the technical perils of singing the lead role; she has said that she has paid attention to every artist since herself who has followed in the role, and all the performers found the role downright damaging to their voices. In fact that was the first time she herself had growths on her larynx, after putting herself through the premiere run of "My Fair Lady." She was a really young lady herself at the time! If I recall the biographies and interviews right, there was no surgery back then; because she was young and flexible still, the decision was that she had to stop using her voice temporarily, and let the silence cure restore her vocal functions. The role took that great of a toll. No one knows about this stuff better than she does.