Some Scots Gaelic for you. The Irish/Australian version tends to be a bit more robust. This is not an art form I'm fond of so I never paid attention to artists's names. One I do remember seems to have gone country and edited away her authentic period in folk clubs and festivals; even so, there are traces left.



You have pretty well debunked my theory as far as Italian opera is concerned - and I did pose it as a question rather than a statement. I also chose the Zauberflöte extract partly as a counterexample for German opera.

But I suspect it may be a technique used in other forms of singing. Yesterday I heard some 1940s Sinatra on my car radio and I think I heard this. For sure he was using grace notes to conceal the break as well. I suppose that wouldn't be allowed in opera. The Gaelic singer above is also using grace notes and leaps.

Tomasino quoting Tomasino:

"because Celtic singing, assuming we mean the same thing by Celtic singing, is one of those folk styles that is characterized by not bridging the registers."

I blew it. I didn't listen to any Celtic singing before I wrote that, and wrote around my ignorance with the phrase "assuming we mean the same thing." I just followed PlayWell's link to ScotsGaelic, and now realize that what is known as "Celtic singing" is not at all what I thought it was. So I couldn't assume "we mean the same thing." "Celtic singing," as I understand the term now, is not an example of a a folkish style that is "characterized by not bridging the registers." My mistake.

Tomasino

Thanks for posting that! This is not very different than what I've heard (though she's not as breathy as the youtube clip I posted). But please understand, this is not classical technique. There is almost no coordination of the registers, so her head voice has a "white" quality to it. Overall her chest voice is not as engaged as it would be in operatic singing. If you go back and listen to those clips I posted, you can hear that the chest voice (lower register) is quite active except when singing piano or pianissimo. It is not "belting" where it's all chest and no coordination of falsetto whatsoever - which we have in American musical theatre to my chagrin. Operatic singing is mostly singing loud enough with proper breathing to allow the chest voice to be engaged without constriction. If both registers are equally developed, then the right amounts of chest and falsetto are used in production of sound. Caballe and Tebaldi were pros at this.

Please keep in mind that while I do enjoy Celtic music (it's a part of my heritage), they are not trained to sing in a way that fully develops and coordinates the registers. It is not to say that it can't be done, just as someone with good technique on piano can play any style they wish to well and with efficiency, the same can happen in singing. But that is not the tradition of Celtic music and so it is not really done to my knowledge. If someone sang this music with a fully developed voice, it would blow people away, I'm sure! That person would have to sing operatic rep on the side to keep their voice strong, however. The demands of Celtic music are not enough to keep the muscles strong.