Don’t Trust Tuned Vocals

Loretta Lynn once said that when you start to believe your own press, you are a fool (or something to that effect. It was a while ago I heard it.) I’d like to use that analogy to make a point about another flattering hype-spinner… tuned vocals.

Tuned vocals are Read more

Falsetto Is Not Your Head Voice

One problem in the business of pedagogy that really needs to be improved is the vast misunderstanding of what "falsetto" and "head voice" actually mean. Educators and the general public too often refer to the head voices as "falsetto". They use the word "falsetto" in the context of vocal registers and resonant spaces. When the term "falsetto" is used to define the upper vocal register where high notes are produced, it is dead wrong.

So let’s clarify this confusion around falsetto vs. head voice once and for all, can we?

The interesting thing is … once you really, honestly understand the difference between "falsetto and head voice", you realize the possibilities you have as a student of singing. It starts with the understanding of vocal modes, or the categories that define laryngeal physiology and acoustics. In a very real sense, the first big key that unlocks the door to learning how to sing amazingly is to understand a little bit about vocal mode pedagogy.

This essay first published August 30, 2010 on The Modern Vocalist.com the Internet’s #1 community for vocal professionals, voice health practitioners and pro-audio companies worldwide since November 2008.

Getting the Groove into Your Body and Your Sound

In past articles, I've stressed how groove is expressed differently in singers than for instrumentalists. For example, drummers express the rhythm outside their bodies although they can feel it inside. Great singing necessitates internalizing the groove into your body.

Yes, counting is a good way to start. A singer must "know" where the beat is — this is the only way to truly be in control of your performance. You can direct musicians, sing a cappella, lead other singers and vary the phrasing — all through groove.

If you sing from your head (i.e. thoughts) rather than get it into your body, you still can count the beats in the measure, land on the downbeat, come into the song on the right beat etc., but you lose feel. Feel is what moves people; makes you sound passionate; and allows you to interpret the lyrics differently through phrasing.

Some Tips for Getting the Groove Into Your Body and Into Your Sound:

Learn the correct rhythm and feel of the song. This means, what is the timing – is it 4/4, 2/4, 6/8? Is it an upbeat feel, a swing feel, etc.?

Work out the timing. Practice each phrase line by line if you need to, so that you learn how the lines fit with the rhythm.

Learn the phrasing by heart groove-wise. Guessing where the groove is, or where you come in does not work ever!

Lean into the groove. Leaning into the groove is definitely a learned singing technique. It is used in gospel and R&B, but rockers like Bono use it too. Leaning means that you lean your body slightly forward, from your back, not your head, as you sing through the vowel. This allows the sound to bend a bit, but not the pitch.

Lyrics and melodies need fit into a phrase rhythmically. If you have too many words in a phrase or you are rushing to get everything in or the timing is off, it may be that you are fighting the groove. I once had a student who couldn't figure out the beats in a traditional song or how to fit the words, even though he knew the song well. Once he used his body to lean into the downbeat and pull up on the upbeat, the lines fell into place.

Tap the beat. A DJ I worked with on my dance hit taught me to beat my palm, or hand on my chest so I could get the beat in my body. He would line up turntables this way: it totally works! You can tap your foot or thigh, but I like the idea of getting it into the center of your body.

Slow down to speed up. You can't express the song fully unless the groove is integrated into your body. See this as the important aspect of the song that it is. If you're having trouble, you can slow down a song at first. Once you get the groove mastered then take the song up to speed.

Listen to artists who are skilled with groove. Learn from singers like Adam Levine of Maroon 5 or Brian McKnight. Practice their songs to “cop” their type of rhythmic styling and add it to your own "groove" toolbox.

This excerpt taken from Teri’s upcoming book Nail It Every Time: The Pro Singer's Guide to Everything Vocal with singing tips and more. Reprinted only with permission. All rights are reserved. More vocal tips are published on http://www.a2z-singing-tips.com. This essay was first published May 4, 2009 on The Modern Vocalist.com the Internet’s #1 community for vocal professionals, voice health practitioners and pro-audio companies worldwide since November 2008.

Top 10 Tips for Vocalists

Students are always asking me what to remember technique-wise when they sing. My approach is to get a technique in your body so that "thinking" about technique is at a minimum.

The more you have to think or worry about singing while you perform, the further away you get from singing from your heart: soulfully with intent. Athletes train for many years to be able to rely on their body to support their athletic decisions; it's the same with singing. It may come as a feel– to drop your jaw — while singing higher notes that won't release, or something you notice onstage, like you are hunching over. Pros can self-correct quickly, and the audience never knows.

That said, as you develop your vocal instrument, some techniques will become seamless, while others require focus. In the studio, for instance, having a microphone technique and a technique for projection goes a long way in getting a great performance.

Here are some tips:

1. Drop Your Jaw – This technique pointer is crucial to the first and second rules in pop singing. Dropping the jaw — lowering in a vertical direction– allows you to #1 hit pitches without pushing and #2 sing without vibrato to reach the placement of these notes. 
    
2. Body stance – Keeping your chest up and shoulders back is key to supporting your diaphragm. If you hunch over, it's easier to go flat, and pitches easily can migrate to the back of your throat. You end up working harder with less sound and poorer quality. 
    
3. Loose jaw – Think of how guitarists or pianist warm up their hands to get them more flexible. This is what the exercise dumb-duh does for singers. Because your jaw is loose, you have more flexibility to create more vowel shapes and sing higher notes easily. 
    
4. Send the sound up and over – Sound has direction, and it has energy. Onstage and in the studio, pick a point across the room and send the sound there. The sound carries in a way that is focused and lifted. 
    
5. Command the stage – Your body stance and energy communicate who you are to an audience before you sing a note. With chest up and shoulders back, imagine your arms are embracing a big beach ball. This is the breadth of your stage. 
    
6. Sing through the microphone to a point in the distance – Be mindful of the dynamics of the microphone, and project the sound forward. You can sing into a microphone and not project but the sound is more confined. Try it both ways and see the difference. 
    
7. Keep your eyes open – Being emotional and evocative is good, but closing your eyes shuts out your audience. Your eyes are the windows to your emotions – let your audience in on that. 
    
8. Don't expel for more tone – Having a reservoir of air is essential in great singing. You don't have to effort for air. Not expelling allows you to use that air more effectively and have more mouth sound (shaping the sound as well). Pop singing is about mouth sound and having a distinct vocal tone. Expelling, of course, can be effective with a breathy style. It doesn't work to get more volume or tone. 
    
9. Fake it until you make it – No one is perfect, and anything worth doing is worth doing badly to start. They call it artist development for a reason. Start where you are and take baby steps until you get where you want to be. 
    
10. Work with a coach – Athletes don't do it on their own, and neither do singers. Whitney Houston's mom is a professional singer, so was Mariah Carey’s. Even if you have natural talent, it still needs to be developed. You won't know what you actually have until you work it.

This excerpt taken from The Singer's Newsletter #82 email from the vocalcoach@teridanz.com from her upcoming book Nail It Every Time: The Pro Singer's Guide to Everything Vocal with singing tips and more. Reprinted only with permission. All rights are reserved. More vocal tips are published on http://www.a2z-singing-tips.com. This essay was first published May 4, 2009 on The Modern Vocalist.com the Internet’s #1 community for vocal professionals, voice health practitioners and pro-audio companies worldwide since November 2008.

Words of Wisdom from Jazz Legend Sheila Jordan

I attended a wonderful workshop yesterday, featuring jazz legend Sheila Jordan, and organized by TMV member and dedicated jazz singer/teacher Ellen Johnson.

Now in her 80s, Sheila still tours and teaches with sharp mind and musicianship, and a very kind encouraging manner. Although sprinkled with anecdotes about Parker, Miles Davis and Coltrane, it really was a work session emphasizing respect for the music and the importance of doing one's homework: know your song’s key, rhythm and beginning and ending before attending a jam. According to Sheila, the difference between a respected jazz singer and a disrespected "chick singer" is whether you know what you're doing and can communicate it easily to the band (Yes, all the participants happened to be women.)

The group warm-up was a 12-bar blues "my name is__and today I feel __" round-robin (improv = brilliant!) The following demonstration and critique time brought useful suggestions for everyone. My weakness (as always) was in setting tempo, but I got through the embarrassment of many false starts on the song “Round Midnight” and then got to try it in a couple different keys.

Sheila then taught everyone a couple of semi-bop numbers and demonstrated how to keep a simple through-line, of scale or melody, in mind while improvising so you don't get lost.

Takeaways:

• Musical literacy and theory are primarily for communication with others. Do you want to visit a culture and have a really meaningful interaction? Learn the language. 
• Even after counting down a tune, stay on beat or straight time for the first measure, to be sure backup players catch your groove. 
• Sheila: "Long before the music started to support me, I supported the music, because I just loved it. Everyone can do that. You keep supporting the music, keep it alive, until it supports you."

This essay was first published February 28, 2010 on The Modern Vocalist.com the Internet’s #1 community for vocal professionals, voice health practitioners and pro-audio companies worldwide since November 2008.

Teachers: How Do You Pace Yourself to Avoid Strain?

I spent much of the past week putting together a seminar on voice problems of school kids and classroom teachers. Anyone who teaches six to seven hours per day has got to be a vocal athlete, and there is evidence that music teachers are, if anything, even more at risk.

Long hours, jumping around voice parts, managing choirs, fundraising sometimes — and then wanting something left over for our own singing — can add up to a real challenge. Then there's the smidge of denial, because we're supposed to know better.

When I actually gave the seminar last night, in a large, acoustically-dead, fluorescent-lit school room, of course the podium mic was nonfunctional as well. I had no problem being heard and keeping things lively, but by mid-evening I was tempted to let my speaking pitch and resonance drop. If I would have done so, I have been seriously fatigued. Did I even warm up on the way there? Nope, I was distracted by … nothing important. Yes I should know better!

So, what advice do you give others and have trouble following yourself?

Some of you probably have days when you see 8-10 students in a row, maybe with a group rehearsal or two as well. If you're at a school or college where someone else sets your schedule, do you get breaks? Do you build in some rest or downtime after the longest teaching days? What do you do for yourself that makes the most difference?

I look forward to comments.

In the meantime, checkout The Voice Academy, a cool (free) resource site designed for classroom teachers, by PhD students in voice science.

This essay was first published May 1, 2009 on The Modern Vocalist.com the Internet’s #1 community for vocal professionals, voice health practitioners and pro-audio companies worldwide since November 2008.

How Is Your Voice Doing, Health-Wise?

Brand new research shows that pop singers value their voices as much as classical singers do, but are much less likely to get medical help. Most fascinating, pop (I'm using the term very broadly to include rock, alt, studio, etc.) singers are more likely to go to the doctor for other medical problems, than for the voice.

Here's a checklist to help you get clear on what is and isn't normal:

YES or NO: WHICH OF THESE HAS BEEN A SIGNIFICANT PROBLEM IN THE PAST MONTH (other than times you've had a cold?)

1. I have trouble talking loudly or being heard in noisy situations.
2. I feel a lump in my throat, like extra phlegm or something sticking there.
3. I am losing work, or afraid I might lose work, because of my voice.
4. Talking or singing takes effort or makes me tired.
5. I have to repeat myself to be understood in normal conversation.
6. My throat feels sore or achy even though I'm not sick.
7. I'm losing notes at the top, bottom and/or middle of my singing range.
8. I feel anxious or frustrated because of changes in my voice.
9. I have trouble using the telephone.
10. I have to strain, or compromise my technique in order to sound the way I used to.

If you answered YES to 5 or more questions, see a voice doctor as soon as you can.

If you answer YES to 2-4 questions, work on taking better care of your voice (rest, steam, hydration, good nutrition and exercise, and dutiful warm-ups!). If your voice doesn't improve in 2-3 weeks, see a doctor.

If you can answered NO to nearly every question, congratulations! You are in good vocal health. Keep taking good care so you'll stay that way.

This quiz is adapted from questionnaires used in many voice clinics, but has not been validated by itself. Please check out my book and website for help staying healthy.

This essay was first published April 19, 2009 on The Modern Vocalist.com the Internet’s #1 community for vocal professionals, voice health practitioners and pro-audio companies worldwide since November 2008.

Tools for the Independent Singer

Every singer knows that wonderful feeling of truly flying on wings of song. The voice obeys ones musical and dramatic wishes, is powerful or soft at will, breath seems endless and the piece of music and the text fit like a glove. Who needs technique and know-how on days like this! Perhaps no one: but on all those other days, during those other years and decades? Read more

Male Voice Passagio 101: Where is it and Why

In the male voice’s lower and mid ranges, what has been traditionally called the "chest voice", the harmonic structure of the sung tone contains many partials harmonics, which fit nicely into the pattern of resonances for any particular vowel chosen. 

Introduction

Throughout this range, the strong, lower harmonics are reinforced by the first vowel resonance corresponding with Formant 1, (F1), mid-range harmonics are reinforced by the second vowel resonance from Formant 2 (F2), and higher harmonics are emphasized by the higher "twang" or "singer's" formant resonances. The combination of multiple, powerful low, mid-range, and high harmonics present in all vowels is a distinctive characteristic of this section of the male voice.

In contrast with this, in the male high range, what has been traditionally called the “head voice”, the harmonics produced by the voice are higher in frequency and more widely spaced. Here, few of the harmonics fit into the vowel resonance pattern. For one particular span of notes in the head voice, there is no significant resonance available to amplify the lowest two harmonics produced.

To achieve vocal power and consistency of tone in the high voice, the male singer uses what he has available: "twang" (singer's formant) and the resonance from F2 strengthening harmonic 3 or 4, depending on vowel.

Between these two resonance strategies is a region of transition, too high for the “chest voice” strategy, and too low for the F2 alignments of the “head voice” strategy. This transition region is the passagio.

Acoustics of the Rising Fundamental

Throughout the voice, as the fundamental frequency moves, the alignment of harmonics and resonances for a vowel change. On an upward-moving scale or leap, the fundamental and all the overtones rise in frequency. Since the harmonics are spaced at multiples of the fundamental, the harmonics also get farther apart, too. For most of the chest voice range, this is not an issue, as the resonance from F1 covers a wide frequency range, and mid-range harmonics are close enough together for at least two or three of them to get some benefit from F2. These conditions apply to all the vowels. However, in an upward pitch pattern, as the voice passes middle C (C-F, depending on voice type) eventually the scale reaches a region in the voice where the alignment of harmonics to formants is no longer advantageous. Overall vocal power and tone quality will be lost if an adjustment is not made. The particular point in the male voice where this occurs is as the 2nd harmonic passes F1.

Visualizing Harmonics and the /e/ Vowel in a Spectrograph

As illustration of this, what follows is a series of spectrographs made with different fundamentals sung to the vowel /e/ (ay), made using my own, baritone, voice. As representative of a lower chest voice tone, the first is of the A natural just a bit more than an octave below middle C, also known as A2. Each vertical blue line represents the intensity of a particular harmonic, where “up” = louder. Low frequency harmonics start on the left side. The leftmost peak is from the fundamental, and if you look at each peak to the right of that (increasing frequency of harmonic), you can see that the 4th harmonic is the very tallest, and then the peaks become successively shorter.

This peak volume for the 4th harmonic, and the emphasis of those surrounding it, is the result of Formant 1, F1 in its position for /e/ in my voice. Harmonics to the left of the formant center get progressively louder as they get nearer to it, and those to the right of the formant center get softer.

Proceeding to the right is a section of quiet harmonics, not so tall in the display, and then there is another build up to the 13th harmonic. This is the area amplified as a result of the location of Formant 2, F2. The spacing of F1 and F2 is what makes this vowel sound like 'ay' to the listener.

After another gap, there are two more areas of emphasis, which are the result of F3 and F4, clustered together. These formants move very little vowel-to-vowel, and form the high-frequency “brightness” resonances of the singer's formant.

The reason we start with this: for any given vowel pronunciation, (like /e/) the formants stay at the same locations even while the fundamental, and the associated harmonics, are moved during the production of different notes. Especially important in the understanding of the male passagio is the relationship of F1, F2 and how the harmonics align with them.

A2 on /e/ vowel

Harmonic Spacing

As mentioned earlier, for any given sung note, harmonics are always the same frequency distance apart. That frequency spacing is the same frequency as the fundamental: the note being sung. So, if a fundamental is 110 cycles per second (like that A2,) all the harmonics will be 110 cycles apart from their neighboring harmonics. You can see this equal spacing in the picture above. Because of the closeness of the harmonic spacing, you are able to see pretty well the shape of the formant regions.

Up an Octave

The next picture is of the same /e/ vowel, but singing the A up one octave, the A just below middle C, A3, which is 220 cycles per second. Notice that the peaks are farther from each other than in the prior picture; now, they are 220 cycles per second apart.

Looking at the peaks for a moment, you can see that the amplification effects of F1 and F2 are still in the same place (left to right), but now different numbered harmonics are boosted, and fewer harmonics are affected by each individual formant. In the case of F1, the 3rd harmonic is now the most emphasized, with the 2nd harmonic also getting some help, while F2 is emphasizing the 7th harmonic tremendously, but not much else. This excellent alignment of F2 with a harmonic makes it really ring distinctively, and is an example of 2nd-formant tuning, which will get discussed later.

Finding the Exact Location of F1 for /e/

Are you curious about the exact location of F1? Look at the bottom of this next picture, right between harmonics 2 and 3. See the blips? All voices have some soft, non-harmonic noise. When that noise falls under a formant, it gets amplified enough to measure. These low blips on the spectrograph are the giveaway to the location of the formant.

A3 on /e/ vowel

Continuing the Scale Upward

As I continue up the scale from A3, three things happen due to the musical intervals represented by the harmonics:
 

1. My 2nd harmonic gets closer and closer to F1, strengthen that harmonic. This makes the warmth of the voice bloom in this region, and the resonance makes it possible to over sing some and still get away with it. 
    
2. My 3rd harmonic gets higher above F1, and so it gets progressively softer. In combination with #1, this changes the tone quality somewhat. 
    
3. F2 tunes to successively lower harmonics.

These three trends are very important in understanding the male passaggio.

More on What Happens When a Harmonic Rises Above a Formant

As a particular harmonic rises above a formant center, it rapidly decreases in intensity. In this next picture, now singing Bb3 (up just one half step from the A), you can see the effect on the 3rd harmonic. It is quite softer now when compared to the 2nd harmonic. For this note, the principal power of the vowel is being carried by the 2nd harmonic. You may also note that the F2 tuning is emphasizing harmonics 6 and 7 more or less equally. That is because F2 is between them. Harmonic 7 is no longer in the 'ringing' position and harmonic 6 is not yet high enough to be there.

Bb3 /e/ vowel

The Male Upper Chest Voice

My voice is now in the “fattest” part of the upper chest voice, where most of the vowel power is coming from the 2nd harmonic. This range is just about a perfect 5th wide, because that is the spacing of the 2nd and 3rd harmonics. The region begins as the 3rd harmonic passes F1, and ends as the 2nd harmonic passes F1, in other words, for my /e/ vowel, from the Ab below middle C, to the Eb above middle C. This is what makes my voice a low baritone quality. Note: you can still see the noise blip. It’s getting closer to the 2nd harmonic the higher I sing.

Now, the Db in the following picture: Notice that there are little noise blips on each side of the 2nd harmonic. This indicates optimum alignment of the harmonic with F1, the place where the 2nd harmonic is exactly aligned with F1.

Db3 /e/ vowel

The Effects of Strong Resonance on Ease of Singing

Through the entire compass of my voice, up to this point, lower harmonics have been boosted by F1, which has provided for some cushioning effect for the vocal bands. That situation is about to change significantly as the fundamental rises past this point. A very important challenge to the singer as this happens is to resist the temptation to maintain vocal power via pushing. And now to the Eb: The 2nd harmonic has just past F1. It’s still very strong, but will lose ground very rapidly as I proceed upward. This is the beginning of the tricky section of the passagio, where the resonance provided to the 2nd harmonic decreases rapidly, and I must, to retain vocal power and tone quality, find another way to shape the vowel.

Eb3 /e/ vowel

My next post, "Male voice passagio 102" will discuss the various strategies that can be used to retain resonance through the passagio.

This essay was first published May 19 2010 on The Modern Vocalist.com the Internet’s #1 community for vocal professionals, voice health practitioners and pro-audio companies worldwide since November 2008.

How is the Diaphragm Used?

chuy67 wrote:

[When I think about singing from the diaphragm,] I picture support as a balloon. It is filled with air and then you can push it with your hands and air comes out. The only problem is, I can picture it, but I cannot do it. Do people really push it [the diaphragm] like a balloon? 

Also another problem I have is pressure in my throat and upper chest when trying to breathe in heavily. It can also be painful at times. Could someone please give me an explanation of this? It is driving me nuts!

Steven Fraser wrote:

I'll be happy to answer your questions.  There are also some resources on the main site — articles about the location and action of the diaphragm — that are pretty good.

The image of support as a balloon only goes so far.  Let me give you a more accurate, and hopefully, useful one by describing what is actually going on in your body as you breathe normally and then when you sing.

Very generally, inhalation happens any time you make your chest cavity bigger, expanding it. There are a number of motions that can do this, more or less effectively.  Some work very well for athletic endeavors, and some work well for singing.   Setting aside any notion of voice for a moment, here are the motions that cause air to go in the lungs, beginning with the one that almost always happens:

1. The diaphragm, which forms the bottom of the chest cavity,  flexes, and flattens downward and a little forward from its relaxed, arched position.  This makes the chest cavity bigger, creating a lower pressure in the lungs, and outside air gets pushed in (by the higher outside air pressure) through your mouth and/or nose.  As the diaphragm descends during this motion, it presses downward and forward on your abdominal organs, pushing them downward somewhat.   This is the motion you see when the diaphragm lowers: the belly expanding.  Sometime, watch a sleeping baby breathe.   The motion you can see is the abdomen moving as a result of the diaphragm flexing, and then relaxing.

2. You expand your ribs side-to-side, and lift them.  This expands the chest cavity circumference.  It’s very likely that the diaphragm is also flexing, too, but it is less obvious.

3. You raise your sternum (breastbone).  This expands the chest cavity height.  It’s very likely that the ribs expanded, and the diaphragm flexed at the same time.

Exhaling happens when the effort used for any one of these motions is relaxed.  The reason is that the motions store energy in the body.  This happens by:

1. Expanding the belly: abdominal muscles are stretched, as are the elastic lung tissues.  When the inhalation stops, the tissues which were stretched want to spring back to where they were.   In a sleeping child, it’s these forces that power the exhalation.   When conscious, a person can add even more power to this exhalation by contracting the abdominal muscles, resulting in an inward motion.
    
2. Letting the ribs come back in, somewhat helped by gravity, air is forced out.

3. Letting the sternum down.  This one is also helped a lot by gravity. Again, forces air out. 

Ok, that is how basic body-breathing happens in normal life.  Most of the time, we use breath motion #1, and for a sigh, maybe add #2.  If we are running for our lives, we do everything we can to move the air rapidly to stay alive. We may do all three under those circumstances.

I explained all this for a reason: breathing for singing is not about moving air rapidly for life; it’s about supplying just the “right” amount of air for the vocal sounds you want to make.  In singing, we train the enormously powerful #1 action of breathing to be more subtle, and we lessen, or eliminate, the motions of #2 and #3 so that they do not overpower the teeny, weenie laryngeal muscles.

In singing, the way that #2 and #3 are lessened is to make them part of the posture.  If you don't move them much as you breathe in and out, they don't add unwanted or uncontrolled breath energy.  It’s very hard to do either thing subtly.   Keeping the sternum in one place prevents gravity from powering air out of the body.  It does not necessarily have to be high: just not moving when you breathe in and out.   For your information, classical singers very often adopt a high sternum chest position and leave it there all the time.  It looks a bit better on stage.

When #2 and #3 motions are stilled, breathing happens entirely by #1, the diaphragmatic action in coordination with the abdominal muscles.  This is very often called belly breathing, low breathing, breathing from the diaphragm, etc.  All those terms mean that only motions of the diaphragm and the abdominal muscles are involved in moving the air.   This takes us back to the kind of breathing your body does when you are asleep.  The same thing as a baby does.  You have breathed this way your whole life.

Now, what is “support”?  It is two things: 

Maintaining some of the flex of the diaphragm during the exhale.  In a normal, easy breath, the diaphragm relaxes at the end of the inhale, and the stored energy in the abdominals presses the air out by pushing the diaphragm up.   Check out that sentence again.  The diaphragm is just along for the ride on the exhale. It is not powering the exhale. It moves up because the abdominals are making the abdomen smaller, and the guts are pushing up the diaphragm.  Also, because the stretchy lungs are collapsing a little; this helps to pull the diaphragm up.

Keeping the diaphragm active slows down the exhale, and reduces its force.   You likely can do this almost without thinking about it deliberately.  If you take in an easy, #1-style breath, and then just exhale as slowly as you can, your desire to exhale slowly will cause the diaphragm to stay active.  You can even stop the exhale momentarily, just by wanting to.  You have even more control than that. You can take in a 3/4 breath, and then limit your inhale/exhale motion to be from 3/4 to 1/4 full.  The diaphragm responds very readily to your will in this matter.  This kind of outward breath is slow, warm and moist. Secondly, support is:

Providing extra exhalation energy after the abdominals have released their stretch-energy.  Without doing this, you cannot sing on the last half of tidal lung capacity.   As an exhalation proceeds, the stored energy lessens, and the exhale force decreases.  To keep the breath energy going continuously, the abdominals must also contract. 

In summary, “support” is the term we use to describe the bodily actions which provide long, consistent, appropriately-powered breath energy to the voice.

Here is a very important, useful clue.  One of the most common problems for singers is too-much breath energy.  Remember, the body is capable of moving lots of air, very rapidly.  The abdominal muscles are huge compared to the laryngeal muscles.   The sensation of breath balance you get when you do the slow exhale is the right sensation for starting a sung note.  If you do that, the desire to make the vocal sound upsets the balance just in favor of exhaling, and the voice gets the air it needs to make the sound you are wanting.  If you think a loud sound, a bit more air is supplied.

A way to practice this is to take a 1/2 breath inhale, and breathe outward slowly, with your jaw dropped about 1" (check between your front teeth in a mirror) and just start some short notes in the middle of your range. See if you can keep the sense that you are still breathing out slowly, even when you are making the sound.   I think you'll experience something cool:  that you can make a very clear, easy, relaxed sound with little or no throat tension or pain.   The more you practice it, the better you will get at it. 

This essay was first published April 22, 2010 on The Modern Vocalist Forum of The Modern Vocalist.com the Internet’s #1 community for vocal professionals, voice health practitioners and pro-audio companies worldwide since November 2008.

Vocal Terminology: Introduction and “Tessitura”

There is nothing quite so frustrating as to read an article or hear someone speak, and the originator uses a term, which is unfamiliar. I did that this week in The Modern Vocalist Forum, with the term “tessitura”. When one of the readers asked me to explain it, I thought I'd just post it here for everybody.

Definitions
Here is a link to a very useful Wikipedia article. Start with the first paragraph. Here's another from Miriam-Webster dictionary online.  

Discussion
When we perform a piece of vocal music, it has several characteristics that affect how we perform it:

1. It has a range, from the lowest note, to the highest. Very practically, we don't — often, or ever — perform pieces that contain notes that we cannot produce consistent with our vocal tone quality standards. 
    
2. It has tessitura, which indicates where in the range of the piece that most of the notes are found. For individual singers, some sections of the vocal range are more tiring or challenging than others are, when desiring to maintain our tone quality standards.
    
3. It has dynamics that indicate how loudly the singing must be in the various sections. Very soft and very loud singing put special demands on the technique of the singer, while trying to maintain our tone quality standards. 
    
4. It has duration, which is the amount of time that singing must occur during the length of the piece. To sing a few notes over the period of a minute is not difficult. To sing 1,000 over the period of an hour requires a different level of endurance, while maintaining our tone quality standards.

What Does “Tone Quality” Have to Do With This?
I mentioned for each of the above items the desire to maintain our vocal tone quality standards. That is my way of saying that the singer has aesthetic, genre and stylistic preferences and values that influence the singing they choose to do. Paraphrasing Robert Lunte, some pieces require certain types of tone quality to be effective. The countertenor sings the C above middle C in a Purcell verse anthem differently than a Death Metal front man would warn of the destruction of the world.

When all of these items: the tone quality, the durations, the dynamics, the tessitura, and the range are combined, they represent the totality of the vocal requirement for the piece.

Why is Tessitura so Important?
The tessitura determines which notes in a piece get sung the most often. The singer's ability to perform those notes repeatedly, while meeting the other performance requirements mentioned factors into the experience of vocal fatigue. For example:

• The high-school choir bass who can take the occasional E above middle C briefly but loudly in concert, will have a much more difficult time singing that same note 10 or 20 times in a row. 

• The rock balladeer covering “Stairway to Heaven” better be able to sing that hook line in his sleep, because it will get repeated very many times. (Mercifully, the piece has lots of nice interludes for recovery.) 

• The singer handling Neil Young's parts in quartet harmony has a similar challenge. 

• The bass covering a Johnny Cash tune, or singing the low melody in a Stamps Quartet gospel song, better be able to live below the bass staff, and balance everybody else, too. It’s not enough to have one low D in a song — there may be 20 — and notes even lower. 

• The college baritone learning a Verdi aria will discover that he spends most of his time in the passaggio and that it just wears him out when he tries to sing the entire aria. 

• Covering a Janice Joplin tune… well, you get the idea.

Summary
The tessitura of a piece, large or small, places certain demands on the singer's ability to sustain their technique when combined with other musical factors. For these situations, the tessitura of the singer (that is, the areas that the individual singer can sustain) should be matched to that of the piece. Other factors being equal, this is best done by adjusting the key of the piece to the ability and voice type of the singer.

 

This essay was first published January 17, 2009 on The Modern Vocalist.com the Internet’s #1 community for vocal professionals, voice health practitioners and pro-audio companies worldwide since November 2008.

Vocal Terminology: “Messa di Voce”

Of all the dynamic effects used in singing, one of the most challenging to do elegantly is the "messa di voce" (pronounced by English speakers more-or-less like 'mess ah dee voh chay'. It is the combination of a smooth crescendo (getting louder) for some amount of time, followed by a smooth decrescendo (getting softer) for the same amount of time, on a single vowel, on a single note.

Using musical symbols, it can be represented this way:

Why is This Challenging?

The exercise requires that the singer be able to:
 

1. Start a note cleanly and vibrantly, but softly.
    
2. Crescendo a smoothly, progressively adjusting the balance of breath energy and laryngeal muscle action so that the tone gets louder, not going sharp or flat, and maintaining the vowel color until a specific louder level is reached.
    
3. Decrescendo a note smoothly, with similar requirements as during the crescendo, while approaching the end of the usable supply of breath.
    
4. End a note cleanly and vibrantly, but softly.

The Easiest of the Skills
For most singers with some training, the skill that can be most readily managed is the second one, the crescendo. Even so, the requirement to maintain the vowel and the pitch consistency represents a challenge. If the breath energy is not balanced with the laryngeal muscle action, the pitch will go astray.

The Intermediate Skills
Next in line of difficulty is the soft starting and stopping of the vibrant tone. This skill requires the singer to be able to manage breath energy at very low subglottic pressures, with the requisite light laryngeal muscle action levels, while at the same time keeping the tone free, clear and accurately pitched. The starting of the note is challenging, because there is usually a surplus of breath energy for the first onset, and the ending of the note is challenging, because there is very little left for the release. To correctly do these two skills, the singer must have mastery of soft dynamics with full lungs, and with nearly empty ones.

The Most Challenging of the Skills
Is the smooth decrescendo. As the singer begins to do this on the latter half of the breath, there is a great tendency to make the action too swiftly. If, for example, the crescendo is taken for five seconds, the singer will tend to make the first part of the decrescendo very much too rapidly, returning to the original volume in three or four seconds.

Additional difficulty lies in the need for the singer to perform the decrescendo smoothly, and while doing so, gradually decrease the subglottic pressures by coordination of breath energy and laryngeal muscle action, maintaining pitch and vibrancy on increasingly smaller lung volumes of air. This presents a breath management and/or support challenge.

And, to Top it Off
The exercise should be able to be performed throughout the complete performance compass of the voice.

Pedagogic Use of the Messa Di Voce
The exercise is useful for both voice evaluation, and for training. When performed, it immediately reveals where the singer's issues are, by the characteristics of the individual skills, which are combined in it.

When first performed, the student takes a small breath, begins and ends at mezzopiano (mp), and crescendos to mezzo forte. (mf) over a few counts time. When smooth and accurate with these levels and times for all vowels, the teacher may either:

1. extend the dynamic range (starting softer, i.e., at piano, or ending louder, i.e., at mezzo forte); and/or 
    
2. lengthening the time for the crescendo and the matching decrescendo, with a slightly larger breath.

As the singer becomes more accomplished, the teacher may vary the dynamics and lengths independently, so that complete facility of dynamic control is gained.

Examples of Use If you listen carefully to some of the longer notes in "The Prayer" you can hear the messa di voce done very subtly. Also, you can hear good examples of the sustained notes in decrescendo, which is the second half of the exercise. Probably the best example I have found of this effect in theatre is the sustained, almost in perceptible decrescendo on the last note of "The Music of the Night" in Phantom of the Opera. Michael Crawford does it very well.

Among the singers of the standards, excellent examples are in the singing of Tony Bennett. In "Fly Me to the Moon". You can hear some very subtle ones.

Messa di voce is not an end in itself. The abilities it requires, and which it helps to develop, are essential in the dynamic shaping of phrases, the ebb and flow of vocal volume to create arched, legato lines. In Tony's singing, you can hear how he nuances these volume relationships note-to-note, so smoothly.

In classical music, especially pieces in Bel Canto style, this effect is very readily found. For example, in the "mad scene" in Donizetti's Lucia, you can hear some of the longer notes with it done subtly, but also how the singer uses dynamic control to connect the coloratura in long, shaped phrases on a single vowel. Interesting note: This is the same aria which begins the "Diva" section in the Bruce Willis movie "The Fifth Element"  before the 'dance' section.

Conclusion
By varying the dynamic levels and the lengths of the crescendo/decrescendo pair, the singer becomes very familiar with the way their own instrument responds to these demands, and how they must be thinking to achieve the effect in the various ranges of their voice. The end result is a wonderful ability and sense of mastery that comes from the familiarity of these aspects of singing, and which is directly applied to the artistic use of dynamics in performance.

This essay was first published January 27, 2009 on The Modern Vocalist.com the Internet’s #1 community for vocal professionals, voice health practitioners and pro-audio companies worldwide since November 2008.

Vocal “Ring” and Operatic Tenor Top Notes

In the Opera world, one of the most exciting things to anticipate and hear is the brilliant, climactic high note of the tenor soloist in an aria. Not only does the voice carry well without amplification, but takes on a distinctly thrilling, impressive quality of resonance that other parts of the voice do not quite have in the same way. In this post, I will explore the ways that these fine singers manage their voices to enable such singing.        

Introduction
Since we will be objectively discussing vocal tone quality, I will be using spectrographs to assist. With some of these particular ones, I will include annotations to the images so that the reader can make the connection between the visual representation and aural experience of harmonics within the vocal tone quality. The spectrographs I use will all be of the final note in the tenor aria, 'Celeste Aida', from Verdi's Opera Aida, which is on the syllable 'Sol' on the Bb above middle C. To give credit where credit is due, my investigation in this area was inspired by the published work of Donald Miller at www.vocevista.com. The spectrographs were produced with Spectrogram16, by Richard Horne.

Bjoerling and Domingo
The spectragraph to the left shows that note from recordings of two of the most popular and capable operatic tenors of the 20th Century, Jussi Bjoerling (represented with the blue line) and Placido Domingo (represented with the white line.)

To help orient you to the image, I have annotated it with lines and text to show the locations of the harmonics of the sung tones. On this diagram, left = lower frequency, right = higher frequency. Up = higher intensity, down = lower intensity. The frequency range represented is 0 to 4000 cycles per second (Hz). So that these notes could be compared as well as can be from recordings, I equalized the volume of the fundamentals.

What We Can See and Conclude
With this equalization, the fundamentals and 2nd harmonics (H2) are about the same strength when comparing voice-to-voice, as evidenced by the nearly exact overlay of the blue and white lines. However, a very great difference is noticeable in the intensity of H3. Bjoerling's H3 goes way higher on the intensity scale than Domingo's, indicating that it is very much stronger. H4 and H5 are also more intense than those of Domingo, though their intensity in Domingo's voice increases until they are in rough parity with that of Bjoerling at H6. From there, the intensity of harmonics falls off dramatically in both voices.

So, as a proportion of the overall sound of the recorded voice, Jussi Bjoerling's tone quality and power are created mostly by H3, H6, H5 and H2– in decreasing order by intensity — while Domingo's tone quality and power are created mostly via harmonics H6, H2, H1 and H5: again in decreasing order by intensity. These different balances, while they both sound like tenors, make them distinguishable to our ears.

What We Cannot Conclude
Does this mean that Bjoerling's voice was "bigger" or more resonant than Domingo's, or perhaps the other way around? Neither one! Engineers who make recordings adjust volumes and balances at their own discretion, to make recordings have a satisfying overall effect for the listener, while not overwhelming the recording or playback machines. There is simply no way to tell from a recording what the original sound intensities were, only how they were after they were recorded and mixed down. Sometimes, though not much with Opera, some EQ is added to overcome a recording problem, or to sweeten the effect a bit. Some of that latter can be seen in some of the images here, and is discussed below under the section "Engineering Artifacts".

So, even though we cannot learn the size of these voices in absolute terms, we can learn (in general) how the sound energy of the harmonics is distributed relative to one another within a single recorded voice, and can compare recording to recording.

Vocal Resonance Strategies
Vocal power that is distributed across the various harmonics is perceived by the listener differently, according to the frequency range of the particular harmonics. In the case of the Bjoerling and Domingo notes, the reason that there is such a dispartity in the displays of the blue and white lines is that these singers have balanced their resonances differently for this note in the recordings selected.

Surveying recordings of more than 40 of the top tenors of the 20th Century, these voices predominately use one or both of two strategies to create the powerful top voice.  In this next section, we will explore the strategies that they used, and comment on the overall effect.

The "Singers Formant" Region
Looking back at the picture for a moment, you may notice the two vertical red lines which bracket the frequency range of the 6th Harmonic, very strong in both voices. These lines show the center 400Hz of the singer's formant region, and also indicate the area of highest hearing sensitivity. When harmonics are strong in this frequency region, they are very audible, adding to the carrying power of the voice and to the listener's perception of voice quality as well. For the singer without amplification, presence of these frequencies allows the voice to cut through above the sound of a piano easily, and even a full orchestra in the concert or Operatic venues. These frequencies also help the audience member locate the sound source very specifically on stage, a big help when singing an ensemble. Both Domingo and Bjoerling have this important feature in their voices. Incidentally, the frequency of the 6th harmonic is two octaves and a major third above the sung fundamental.

The first most common strategy for vocal power and audibility is to have a strong singer's formant, as strong or stronger than the fundamental and 2nd harmonic. We could also call this the 'high ring' strategy.

Lowest 3 Harmonics
The perception of the "darkness" or "warmth" of the voice comes from the intensities of the lowest two harmonics, H1 and H2, which are the fundamental of the sung tone, and the octave above it. For these, both singers have about the same proportion, and this forms a solid core to the sound in both voices. To the listener, these two harmonics are very difficult to distinguish individually when they are approximately the same volume.

The presence of the proportionally louder H3 in Bjoerling's voice introduces an interesting difference. H3 is the frequency an octave and a perfect 5th above the fundamental, what (to a classical organist) would be called a 'quint'. This quite strong harmonic colors the tone distinctively, and, because it is an odd-numbered harmonic, it stands out in the awareness of the listener, adding brilliance to the vowel. When the 3rd harmonic is the loudest in the whole voice (such as it is for Bjoerling) this becomes a significant feature of the tone quality, and carries a great deal of the vocal power.

The second most common strategy for vocal power and coloring is to have a strong 3rd Harmonic. The strong H3 is obtained by singing a vowel which tunes the 2nd formant (F2) to just a little bit higher than H3, a process sometimes called vowel modification, or vocal tract tuning. We could also call this the mid+high ring strategy. (Note: For other combinations of note and vowel impression, the tuning of F2 is more advantageously made to H4.)

In professional voices, both of these individual strategies can be found, and also combined. Jussi Bjoerling is a fine example of the combined, and Placido Domingo is an excellent example of the "singer's formant" or low+high ring strategy.

Another Singer for Comparison – Franco Corelli
Franco Corelli is known for a heroic tenor voice. This spectrogram shows the relative strength of the harmonics in his voice for the same note we were examining with Domingo and Bjoerling. Though there is a bit more orchestral clutter in the sample — sharp spikes here and there — and on the left end) you can see clearly that the 3rd harmonic is very prominent in his voice, . Looking to the right, you see some strength with H4, H5 and H6, and then a strong H7 as well. This would make his approach a combined one.

Here are some other spectrograms for comparison. See if you can identify which strategies they employ:

Alfredo Kraus

 

Benjamino Gigli

 

Luciano Pavarotti

 

Special note here: Pavarotti's voice is very interesting in that he uses the H3 formant tuning, but does not combine it with a strong singer's formant. The overall effect is very distinctive.

Enrico Caruso

 

Mario Lanza

 

Engineering Artifacts – Possible
The clustering of the formants F3, F3 and F5, which combine in the singer's formant region ordinarily produce somewhat jagged peaks in a spectrographic display. When recorded and displayed as is, without any sweetening EQ, they do not often take the shape of smooth curves, rounded on top, but will ramp up and down fairly sharply across three or four harmonics.

Go back to the Kraus spectrograph, and look at the shape of the curve created by the tops of H4, H5, H6, H7 and H8. Disregard the leading (rightmost edge) pointy peaks that show up, that is an orchestral note. The "wide" part is from the voice. In my opinion, the slow ramp-up of the harmonic intensities in this region, peaking at H7, and then diminishing a bit to H8, just looks too regular. I think this is a likely example of some EQ shaping to allow the voice to cut through the orchestral mix.

Though I cannot be quite so sure on this one, the suddenly very strong H7 in the Correlli spectrograph looks a bit out of place, with the intensities of the immediately three lower harmonics at the levels they are. Now you know what you might look for, I will leave the judgment to you. It’s not likely, while listening to the recording, that you would be aware of any of these harmonics individually, anyway.

None of these latter points reflects on the quality of the singer in any way, nor would the singer likely have been aware that tweaks were done on their behalf. As I said earlier, the Engineers work to create an effective recording of the voice that fairly represents what the performance sounded like to them.

Summary
We've seen with these examples the most often occurring resonance strategies for creating the ringing top notes of the Operatic Tenor voice, and readily accessible examples from some of the most popular singers of the 20th Century. We've also discussed the limitations of using recordings to make these conclusions. If you'd like to see more articles of this type, studying the vocalism of other voices, please send me a comment as to your interests. In any case, I plan to do a parallel discussion of the resonance strategies of the Operatic Baritone (Warren, Milnes, Tibett and Bastianini!), the female high voice, and discuss in detail the challenges involved with the transition from mid-voice to the top in both types.

 

A Christmas Egg

The following spectrogram is of Michael Bolton (in blue) and Luciano Pavarotti (in white) singing the climactic note of Puccini's aria 'Nessun Dorma' from Turandot. These were public, large-hall performances, and the performers were close-miked, a very interesting way to hear Pavarotti's voice. The note being sung is the B natural above middle C.

A problem I encountered in comparing the voices with these recordings is that orchestra is playing quite loudly, so the first harmonics are cluttered by those sounds, so much so that we cannot really distinguish what component of the sound is the singer, and what is the orchestra. To do this particular equalization, I matched volume of harmonics H2 (right above the 1 on the bottom scale) and H3 (midway between 1 and 2), since the vocal vibrato in both voices makes the trace wide enough to see.

Interesting, that Michael Bolton and Luciano Pavarotti have almost exactly the same resonance balance ratio for these two harmonics. Remember, this sort of comparison does not tell us about the absolute volume of the voices, just how the resonances are balanced. You can see some places in the higher harmonics where Bolton's voice has relative strength, too. He has characteristic singer's formant strength that peaks at H6, (right in the sweet spot of our hearing) which would make his resonance strategy for the note a "combined" one, from our former terminology.

If you are interested to listen to these performances, they are at

Michael Bolton to about 3:15 into the song and Luciano Pavarotti.

 

This essay was first published December 12, 2008 on The Modern Vocalist.com the Internet’s #1 community for vocal professionals, voice health practitioners and pro-audio companies worldwide since November 2008.

The International Phonetic Alphabet

I'd like to introduce you to a tool that very valuable when discussing vowels for singing – the International Phonetic Alphabet, commonly called IPA.

If you remember learning to read using phonics, (sounding out letters, etc.) you've had an informal introduction to one of the IPA's core ideas: that each spoken sound can have a written symbol. In IPA, all of the sounds of languages are assigned a unique symbol, one symbol per sound. When languages share sounds, that is, when sounds occur in more than one language, the same symbol is used to represent the sound. In this manner, someone who knows IPA can read the IPA of a text of a song in another language, and get the pronunciation very close to, if not exactly correct.

I had my first introduction to IPA as an undergraduate vocal music student, in a two-semester class called 'Foreign Language Diction'. We applied IPA to the pronunciation of Italian, German and French songs, and it worked pretty well, even for the bunch of us from the Midwest.

These days, I use the 'typewriter' version of IPA mostly in discussions of vowels. If you see /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/ or /u/ in something I write, you should have no difficulty interpreting them as sounds in these English, Italian, German or French words:

• ah as in father, caro, gestalt, par
   
• ay as in pay, che, gegeben, pays (note here, not the dipthong. That takes two IPA letters.)
   
• ee as in free, cosi, spiel, qui
   
• oh as in blow, bello, hohe,clos
   
• oo as in blue, pura, du, doux

There are many resources out in the Internet for the IPA, and simply wonderful books of phonetic readings of song texts for hundreds and hundreds of classical songs. To begin to explore this vast world, simply Google IPA, and follow any references you may find.

This essay was first published December 1, 2008 on The Modern Vocalist.com the Internet’s #1 community for vocal professionals, voice health practitioners and pro-audio companies worldwide since November 2008.

Introduction to Resonance and Tone Quality Perception

A spectrograph is a picture that tells us about the frequency and intensity of the different parts of a sound. Here is one that contains two vocal sounds graphed, a 'vocal hum' in blue, and a 'vocal buzz' in white. Both sounds were produced on the same pitch, with the mouth closed.

In my last blog post, I introduced you to the idea that there are multiple sounds in a sung tone, and that the resonances determine what vowel we perceive. Even sounds that are not vowels — this hum and buzz — have resonances, which we interpret as tone quality.

Let's learn a bit about how to read a spectrograph, so we can discuss the physics of vocal resonance.

On this picture, all of the sound energy from 0 cycles per second up to 5000 cycles per second is graphed where:

Left = low frequency
Right = high 
Up = louder sounds
Down = softer sounds

The scale is even left-to-right, much like the inches or centimeters on a ruler are all the same size.

When you see a peak up fairly high on the picture, then that means that a sound of a particular frequency is quite loud. Go ahead and count the white ones you can see. You should get more than 20.

Just for fun, count the blue ones, and notice if there are any that go higher than the white ones.

The note that the singer (Robert Lunte) is producing is the very lowest (leftmost) peak. In musical acoustics terms, this is the called the 'fundamental', or the first harmonic. All of the peaks to the right of that are the 'overtones', or the 2nd through the 25th harmonics. The relative strength of these harmonics is what we perceive as tone quality – the way our mind differentiates sounds for us.

Here is a different spectrograph, this time of two vowels, ee and ay. ee is in blue, ay is in white.

As I mentioned in my prior post on vowels, the two lowest resonances are the ones primarily responsible for the perception of a particular vowel. Let's find them, starting from the left, look for the highest blue peak. It’s the second one. Find the highest white peak. It’s the third one. This shows us that the lowest resonance for ee and ay are not the same. Ee's are lower than ay's.

Now, let’s find the second resonances. Moving to the right, find the next place a blue one sticks up fairly high above the white. This is the second resonance for ee. Just to the left of it is the second resonance for ay. The second resonance for ee is higher than the 2nd one for ay. When compared in combination with the lower resonances, the ones for ee are farther apart than the ones for ay. Between the two resonances, there is a fairly deep 'valley' where the harmonics are much softer.

In a given voice, each distinguishable vowel has particular spacings for these two resonances, and that is how we tell the vowels apart as listeners.

This essay was first published November 23, 2008 on The Modern Vocalist.com the Internet’s #1 community for vocal professionals, voice health practitioners and pro-audio companies worldwide since November 2008.

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