I love words for the effect they have on readers and listeners, and hate them because so many people use them to affect an intention other than that which their actions otherwise indicate.
Anyway, politics aside, I define a “vocal affect” as that which changes the nature of the voice.
Dark Timbre application would fit under “vocal affect”. Clear Timbre application would fit under vocal affect.
In Lesson One.001 I discusse vocal faults as listed by Garcia and want to be clear that these faults are only faults if they are unavoidable habits in a singer’s vocal work. They are vocal affects that have the effect of disturbing the training for which Garcia calls in the first part of his vocal study. Many of them are tools. Components of the singers Speech Pattern that would, in the fullness of time during which the singer worked with Garcia, become useful in the singers crusade to create interpretations.
I often use another term, “vocal gesture”, when I am describing something a singer does that diverges from Garcia’s intended result. The results intended through training singers to emulate instrumental results with their voices in exercises. You know the exercises: scales, jumps arpeggios and the like. Any of the many mannerisms that a voice can impose on such exercises other than the emulation of an instrumental manner would effectively be a “vocal affect” or “vocal gesture”. The word “Style” also comes to mind, but that is another page.
The simplest “affect” I can think of normally displayed by the English speaker is a deviation from a pure vowel “E”. We Americans employ diphthong tortured vowels when first we attempt to learn Italian. Italian’s are not all perfect vowel producers, but they certainly tend to be free of the American proclivity to pronounce and sing that vowel thus: “Ei”. This is a “speech pattern” affect that ruins attempts to produce a pure “E” until the student recognizes the defect, and stops using the English pronunciation of the vowel when attempting to use Italian. A much more striking “vocal affect” of pronunciation is associated with the vowel “I”. If you are an English Speaker, you will certainly name that vowel thus: “AEI”. Why we use three vowels to name that single vowel “I” is a mystery to me. Then again English Spelling has also been a continual mystery to me. Maybe it is more than a tenor can comprehend. It is so for this one.