Does anyone knows if bodymass(fat or muscle percentage) has any effect on voice(tone)?

It does not, in my opinion. But you need a strong diaphragm muscle and also good abdominals, to sing with imposted (sp?) voice, that is the lyric style (and no amplification).

Ok, thanks for the answer

i know some really fat people that can sing.

i.e several many most famous opera singers are really heavy weights. Take Pavarotti or MOntserrat Cabballe, for example.

Yes, and that's why I was interested, because for me it sounds that it gives a different colour to the tone, but I think I'm wrong...

There are many myths around it. However, I think (it's my personal opinion) that there is no direct relationship between the quality of the voice and the muscle/fat/weight of the singer, ate least starting from a reasonable minimum level of body mass.

On the contrary, there is possibly a direct relationship between fame and success and resulting weight, as the successful artist can have too easy access to all those tempting restaurants and fancy food and, in a way, must accept too many invitations.

For other type of artists, for whom keeping streamed is more important, there is possibly a resisting factor and a good excuse, but for singers probably there is none. And there is also some kind of tradition on it.

But becoming too fat and heavy can be (i.e., is) harmful and will deteriorate the general health of the person, which in turn will most certainly impact on the quality of his/her art.

This is a day of age where great singers who are also great looking can go much further than an ugly duckling with a voice of gold.

Diana Damrau is a powerhouse and a knock out. How can an obese soprano hope to compete against someone who is both vocally and visually compelling in her roles.
http://www.diana-damrau.com/
http://www.diana-damrau.com/html/stagephotos.html

Diana Damrau as Queen of the Night (Bram Stocker's Magic Flute <g> ):
http://youtube.com/watch?v=DvuKxL4LOqc


But even in the past people did not necessarily let themselves go. Fritz Wunderlich is an amazingly beautiful lyric Tenor who probably died far too soon (35) for famous Opera weight gain to take hold.

An old video of Fritz:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=G6Oe3QnKk1o

Fritz is really my most favorite Tenor voice. I strongly suggest that everyone should have this album in their collection, Frist Wunderlich: The Great German Tenor. It's a wonderful collection of songs in high recording quality of one the Tenor great of our era... and he's been dead for 40 years! -
http://www.amazon.com/Fritz-Wunderlich-Great-German-Tenor/dp/B000002S0N/sr=8-6/qid=1168926030/ref=pd_bbs_sr_6/104-9455570-6039107?ie=UTF8&s=music

There really aren't terribly many recording of Fritz Wunderlich out and that's a good one if you're going to get just one.

You are right, StephenK, I also prefer nice looking people, specially for Opera. It is a complete artistic expression and the characters should fit with the looking of the singer-actor.

This is the modern view of Opera, at least, acting on stage (and looking like the character) is becoming so important that some singers are reaching astonishingly acrobatic performances, if required by te role.

As the original question was the possible relationship of body mass to voice, I think that everybody agrees that there seems to be none.

I'm pretty much a stick, yet I have been complemented for my colour and style of my voice. I don't think mass matters.

So does mass also not matter when it comes to how long you can sing without taking another breath or does that just come with practice? I just assumed the bigger your stomach, the more air you can take in. I just remember my voice teacher saying I probably couldn't take in much air because of my size but I don't know if she was just joking now that I think about it. lol

There is fat in bigger stomach, but air goes to lungs. But who knows, bigger(people with bigger weight) need more energy and certainly more air. I have noticed that they are breathing very deeply and more frequently, maybe this causes their lungs to support more air. ?

I don't believe there's a direct correlation between body mass and your voice - but I do believe that there's one between fitness and your voice to a certain extent. Consequently, since many overweight people are also unfit (*but not all!*) you might then find that mass affects the voice a bit.

I think larger more muscular people probably do have thicker voices. If all their other muscles are larger then their vocalis muscle probably is larger also. I am tall and quite thin and I am a light lyric baritone (long and thin vocal cords).

I was singing Karaoke last night and noticed I could not project that well without my falsetto. I am fairly large (but very tall as well) and I do think excess weight has some bearing on the diaphragm when the abdominal muscles are weaker. My physique is sort of barrel chested/cylindrical with a moderately large belly but not roly-poly. (no, not due to beer/alcohol, just overindulgence, thank you) I think its some combination of the two, lung capacity and BMI ratio. Yes, there are very heavy people who can really belt it out but their hearts are probably working a lot harder to pump the blood necessary to support the rest of their systems.