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prov-e-nance (prov'a-nans) n. Place of origin, source. [< Lat. Provenire, to originate.]
I don't recall exactly when I became a proponent of the "well coordinated onset," but it must have been early in my undergraduate training. Perhaps it was in my voice pedagogy class while studying William Vennard's Singing: the Mechanism and the Technique.1 Vennard promoted the idea of "imaginary h" as the ideal way to initiate a tone and warned against the dangers of the glottal plosive. He suggested that the coup de la glotte or "stroke of the glottis" as defined by nineteenth century voice teacher Manuel Garcia had been misinterpreted and fallen out of favor over the years.2 He made a very convincing argument citing the benefits of airflow-induced glottal closure with the help of an aerodynamic principle called the Bernoulli Effect As a result, I always have taught the well coordinated onset as the ideal way to initiate a tone, starting with a real aspirate and working gradually to eliminate the excessive airflow until proper coordination was achieved.
I suppose changing one's mind about a pedagogical issue is similar to what happens when a child grows up in a family that supports a particular political party. As a youngster you declare your allegiance to those same precepts, trusting your parents to have examined the issues and to have made the correct judgment. Perhaps later in life you reach a place far enough removed from familial influence that you examine those principles for yourself. Maybe you encounter someone who presents such a cogent argument for the other side that you are forced to consider your choice for the first time. That is exactly what happened to me when I read James Stark's book Bel Canto: A History of Vocal Pedagogy.3 For the first time I was presented with the other side of the coup de la glotte issue. I was challenged to examine my prejudices about it and as a result of the evidence that he presented, I switched parties.
It is difficult not to simply restate Stark's arguments here. His chapter is much more thorough than I can be in these few paragraphs, but having acknowledged my appreciation for his contribution, I will present part of the other side of...