On Aug 9, 2008, at 7:19 AM, Mark Pring wrote:
Hi Mike,
Re Sandy Denny, I think she did have a lot of off days and sadly her heavy smoking pretty much wrecked her voice in later years, ( not that there were many of them, she died 30 years ago this year ) but on a good day she did have a very expressive voice, I think "The banks of the Nile" from the Fotheringay album would be a good example.
Mark
PS How about Janet Baker, Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, Kathleen Ferrier and Christa Ludwig?
Hey, folks, I don't think there's a singer on the planet who can sound good from a low G to a high F. That's the real issue: not whether they can sing three octaves, but whether they can sing the three octaves needed for a mellotron.
I have heard one tenor sing a high F and he sounded like a chicken being strangled. As for women, Mozart's Queen of the Night aria in the first act of The Magic Flute (Martin's favourite opera) has to sing some high F's, for example, but these singing specialists (coloratura sopranos) generally sound pretty poor on low Gs.
Rick