Teaching and learning voice can be hard because it often feels subjective and there are so many ways to describe vocal phenomena. McCoy opens the book by explaining the auditory characteristics of voices and the physiological phenomena that are connected to those characteristics. He introduced some relatively common language used in describing these characteristics such as light/dark and breathy/clear. The second half of the chapter uses listening examples to illustrate the various characteristics. It was interesting to see how professionals viewed this excerpts on average and compare that to my own evaluation.
Analysis:
I really like some of the vocabulary choices McCoy makes and the skills he pinpoints. It's helpful for me to consider vocal characteristics on a spectrum for many reasons. First, because it makes it easier to see improvement in myself and my students. Maybe their tone isn't a perfectly balanced chiaroscuro, but we can still notice it's moving towards a brighter sound. It's also helpful because it allows for variety within voices and styles and abstains from too much value judgement that might disenfranchise certain voices/styles. There are times when a darker or raspier sound is appropriate and looking at it like a spectrum helps us prioritize healthy singing rather than a specific sound. I do disagree that most people can't crossover. I think that cross training can actually be very beneficial, it just might take some time and deep practice. To say most people don't do it well is inaccurate in my opinion and excludes a very large number of people who have worked hard to effectively cross genres.
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