The Liberated Voice

Theory in Practice

I've devoted the past several years to establishing my New York voice studio, which meant an extended break from performance. My return to public singing brought a number of things into sharp focus, not the least being how important it is to me to perform. It's richly personally fulfilling, but it also keeps me honest: I can only truly embody my practice if I'm regularly walking my talk. So as I return to blogging, I'd like to share some highlights of what I learned from a repeat performance of the Schoenberg program I first presented with tenor Matthew Tuell and pianist Lloyd Arriola last February.

 

Our concert was part of the Summer Sundays at 4 Series at the lovely Carriage Barn of the Park McCullough House in North Bennington, Vermont.

Professional and artistic pursuits are most successful and satisfying when they're allowed to evolve from your own creative impulses and musical interests. 

I challenge you to find the most satisfying context for making your art. Especially given the wildly turbulent landscape of today's arts scene, it may not always (or exclusively) involve an opera career. A lot of singers pursue that one hard because they think it's the only way to make a decent living singing and because they don't take the time to brutally soul-search what kind of music, performance experience, and lifestyle choice they will find most fulfilling. If opera is your passion, then you must pursue it with all the single-minded intensity you can muster and sacrifice whatever you can spare (as well as some things you may believe you cannot). When I see fine, dedicated singers only sort of going for it, it's not because they aren't committed to building a life and/or career around their love of singing. Their hearts may just not be in it enough where the opera career and its attendant lifestyle are concerned. So they make a half-hearted attempt and then sometimes give up singing altogether, often feeling profoundly depressed about it, when it's quite possible that they could have found other professional outlets more suited to their particular skills and interests. 

What works for me these days is delving into repertoire that resonates with whatever I happen to be exploring emotionally, intellectually and spiritually, then self- or co-producing concerts around it with musicians I admire and enjoy collaborating with. I can easily schedule recital and concert performances around my teaching schedule. While I still love singing opera, I don't love what happens to my studio when I vanish for a month or more! This is just my personal preference: I need a certain level of structure and stability to do my best work both in the studio and on stage. By contrast, my friend Jean Ronald Lafond has built an amazing global performance and teaching career and is happiest dividing his time between New York, Berlin, and wherever else he finds himself in demand! Your most satisfying and successful career in music may not end up looking at all like anyone else's.

Under most circumstances, don't focus on technique issues in the middle of a performance. 

It can be very embarrassing to lose sight of your priorities in public. You've probably already seen the footage of this misguided fan who dropped his child in a failed attempt to catch a foul at a baseball game. 

Keep your priorities straight. A performance is an opportunity to be fully present with your art and your colleagues and to communicate with your audience. By putting yourself out there, you are saying that your skill and level of preparation are equal to getting the job done, and it's time to fully commit to the experience and dismiss concern over technical imperfections (remember that no matter how skillful you become, each new breakthrough opens a window that shows us how much more there is to achieve, so perfection is unattainable anyway). The performance is literally your baby. You can't really assess and tweak your work without risking dropping it.

However, this doesn't mean you won't notice what is working well and what isn't while you're singing. You will. So you need to make swift, wise decisions whether or not you should try to do anything about it. 

In our August performance, by the time I had finished the second of my 15-song set I had noticed a couple of things:

1. At the end of long phrases, I didn't have as much breath as I expected to. This was a new thing - it had not happened in practice or rehearsal.
2. While I had recently achieved a new level of freedom and resonance with my high notes that I could demonstrate fairly consistently, I wasn't doing it with perfect consistency in this performance.

I realized that I could probably do something about #1. I decided to be mindful of taking fuller breaths and making sure to carry my expressive and musical intentions past the end of each phrase. It worked. I was able to incorporate this into my performance without compromising musical and dramatic focus.

Of course, I had to let go of #2. You cannot reasonably expect to demonstrate the results of a recent breakthrough with perfect consistency in performance. The new coordination has not yet become habitual, and the old way of doing things still has too much pull. Paying any attention to whether or not I was "doing it right" would have deflated the expressive energy I needed to motivate those climactic passages in the first place.

I remember hearing operatic tenor and voice teacher Stanford Olsen make a couple of excellent points during a NATS discussion panel some years ago: 

• A great audition or performance is one where you are able to demonstrate 90% of what you can really do; you can only very rarely expect to be able to pull off 100%. 
• You should expect to be able to do in an audition or performance what you were able to do in the studio roughly two weeks ago. 

Once you're singing at a professional level, it becomes crucial that you figure out how much of your potential you must fulfill in order to do your job adequately. This holds true for whether you're suffering from a slight illness or are incorporating new skills into your technique. You're probably going to be harder on yourself than anyone else will, so it's a good idea to consult a trusted teacher, coach or colleague who knows your voice well if you're not sure. 

 

 

Note: Much of Vermont, including the glorious North Bennington community that hosted our recent recital, has been utterly devastated by Hurricane Irene. Please do what you can to help with their recovery. Here is a good compilation of information on how you can help. 

Congratulations, Steve!

As many of you may already know, my teacher, mentor and friend W. Stephen Smith just announced his appointment to the faculty of Northwestern University as a tenured full professor. It's an incredible opportunity for him, as well as wonderful news for Northwestern and Chicago. His New York colleagues and students, however, are all probably feeling as wistful as I am right about now. 

I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that I was utterly at the end of my rope when I crash-landed in Steve Smith's studio back in 2002. 

I had already earned my doctorate. I had studied with a number of famous voice teachers and had assiduously applied everything they told me. I had read every book on pedagogy I could get my hands on. 

But in spite of it all, I still couldn't really sing. 

I was an excellent musician and a strong actress, and I could produce a consistent and loud enough vocal sound to land myself some big opera roles and interesting performance opportunities. But it cost me far too much effort and discomfort to make that consistent, loud sound. 

I couldn't keep it up any more. Either I was going to have to start over from scratch or give up singing. 

I can't imagine giving up singing, but I'm almost certain that is what would have happened if I had not met Steve. I also know that the same is true for many singers who have studied with him - they were just about ready to throw in the towel before they met him and are now grateful to have had the joy of singing restored to their lives through their work with him.

Most of Steve's students share my opinion that his approach is not only the first to facilitate really meaningful progress for them but the only one that really makes sense. I know of no other voice teacher who has devised a technique of singing where every element promotes authentic self-expression. Steve instills his students with the courage to allow their personality to flow uncensored through their singing, to share their feelings and creative impulses without concern for outside validation. While he has trained and continues to work with some of the most celebrated professional singers in the world, he is truly concerned first and foremost with helping his students achieve fulfillment and self-realization through their singing. In his studio, we're all just people, and he takes a deep interest in us regardless of our current level of skill or career ambition. 

Steve never fails to praise my teaching acumen when he introduces me to colleagues and other singers, but he usually also can't help but share what a disastrous, entangled mess my voice was the first time he heard me sing. It always used to horrify me to hear him describe it - it was like reliving a nightmare! 

I've come to realize, however, the way that sharing my story celebrates our work together. Because I'm just about the best proof Steve could have of the effectiveness of his technique. It's no small feat to take a good singer and help them cultivate greatness. But it is a far more gargantuan achievement to take so gravely distorted an instrument as mine was and even believe in the possibility of its becoming a thing of great power and beauty, let alone helping someone fulfill that potential. I have the advantage now of being able to tell my students, quite truthfully, that no one is ever going to show up to my studio with an issue I haven't had to fix in my own voice! 

Thanks to Steve, I know first-hand that every problem has a solution, and I know that if I could resolve it, they can too. 

Like the other members of Steve's studio, I am going to miss him greatly when he leaves. For those of you who found my web site via Steve's referral, I'll still be here, applying and expanding upon the principles and methods I've absorbed from his teaching. Please do be in touch when the time comes for him to leave New York - I would love to discuss the possibility of our working together. 

 

Kurt Moll: A Master Class with a True Meistersinger

I attended Kurt Moll's master class at Zankel Hall last week. 

It was a revelation. 

At 72, the veteran bass has the most perfectly coordinated, expressive, and economically produced voice I have ever heard at close range. In fact, I've never even heard anyone come close to comparing with his ability to project even the softest of utterances so that they fill the hall and make every listener feel as though he were speaking directly to them. 

Listening to him expanded my awareness of what it is possible for the human voice to do, and once you're exposed to something like that you cannot ignore it. I have to raise my game now as both a singer and teacher. 

Rather than addressing the audience directly, Moll focused his attention almost exclusively on the singers – it almost felt as though we were eavesdropping on private coachings. When he spoke and demonstrated, it was really for their ears, standing a couple of feet from him. Nevertheless, every nuance was completely audible from the audience. 

I spent the two-hour class trying to fathom how this could be. Here are my conclusions. 

1. Moll keeps his vocal folds as loose and passive as possible at all times and exerts the absolute minimum effort to set them in motion, whether speaking or singing. He phonates with perfect clarity and a complete absence of unnecessary pressure, whether speaking in his exceptional deep voice or singing at the top of his range. There is an overall relaxation and gentleness in the way he uses his voice regardless of pitch or dynamics. 

It's quite the coup de maître, his ability to move seamlessly from simple speech into singing without any discernible increase in pressure – a powerful demonstration that aggressively increasing breath pressure for high notes or fuller dynamics is not only unnecessary but dangerously counterproductive. For many singers, this is one of the hardest lessons to learn. Before developing a high level of vocal technical skill and flexibility, many singers find it impossible to reach certain pitches and decibel levels without a massive amount of breath "support" and a sensation of pressure and tightness in the throat. They come to rely on that sensation of pressure and effort to know they're making a full sound, and it's hard for them to let go of it in favor of the relative effortlessness that leads to truly beautiful, free singing. Moll gets maximum payoff with minimum effort. It was so satisfying to observe. 

2. His considerable resonance resources are profoundly relaxed and available to movement. It's like all of the muscle and tissue comprising his pharynx, soft palate etc. is by default in a neutral, expansively flaccid state, able to leap into action and respond reflexively to the requirements of whatever pitch or vowel is called for and then return to neutral or move onto the next thing. 

When you're first developing your instrument and building technique, it's impossible to avoid some degree of discussion and effort devoted to "making", "opening", or just "finding" optimal resonating "space". It's something that has to be cultivated. But ideally what you're cultivating is this state of potential for expansion, relaxation and availability to movement. If space ends up being something that you have to deliberately make or shape when it's time for a particular pitch or vowel, then you're using unnecessary muscular effort and mental focus to create something that should already habitually just be there. I also know plenty of singers who have built effortful means of making space into their basic technique by consistently doing things like hoisting the soft palate up and/or using the base of the tongue to push the larynx into a low position. This does force a certain kind of space and resonance but it requires a lot of effort and creates tension and entanglement that limit the voice in countless other ways. 

3. He is able to maintain this relaxed responsiveness of his vocal folds & resonance while being incredibly precise and active with his articulators. Moll takes such obvious delight in the nuances of the German language. I observed the specificity and skill with which he demonstrated how to brighten a vowel or choreograph the movement from an ach-Laut to an [l] with the kind of awe normally reserved for a spectacular high-wire acrobatic sequence. He executes precise, coordinated movements of the jaw, tongue, lips, and everything related to shape exquisitely expressive diction with apparent perfect independence from what he does to produce and resonate his sound.

One fundamental tenet of the technique I teach is the importance of mastering independent movement of the articulators and keeping their activity as distinct, and far away, from the vocal folds as possible. Because of habits ingrained through a lifetime of normal speech, many singers find it incredibly challenging to articulate consonants like [n], [l] and [t] by moving just the tongue while allowing the jaw to remain neutral. The kind of practice needed to train the tongue, jaw and lips to move independently from one another is repetitive and tedious, and it may also be highly frustrating if those speech habits are deeply ingrained and up until now you've just built your technique around them. But there's no way around it: if you want beautiful diction you must master precise coordination of your articulators. And if you want to sing freely you must learn to keep them from compromising the movement of your laryngeal cartilages or impinging on your resonating space. 

All of the things Kurt Moll does so well are things that I have valued very highly for many years…I just didn't realize that it was even possible to do them nearly so well as he!

Moll is enjoying a well-earned retirement, but when he is able to be persuaded to give a master class do not miss an opportunity to attend. Then again, he seems to embody his practice so completely that you could quite possibly learn as much as I did just by having a chat. So if you run into him, buy the man a drink!

This master class was offered as part of The Song Continues, a series of song recitals and master classes presented this month at Carnegie Hall. I am immensely grateful to The Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall and the Marilyn Horne Foundation for providing such magnificent learning opportunities and programs, and I strongly encourage all of you to participate in or attend their future workshops. 

Sheet Music & Copyright Law

Remember Napster? 

Back in 1999 the only legal way to acquire a recording of a song was purchasing the entire CD that included it. Napster was the first peer-to-peer online file sharing service whereby you could download an MP3 file of any song available on the site, as well as upload music you owned so that others could also enjoy it. It was an expedient and free way to get your hands on anything you wanted to listen to. Sometimes you could even find MP3s of songs by your favorite bands when the album had yet to be released. 

It was awesome. It was also a spectacular copyright violation. Artists and record labels naturally sued, and Napster shut down in 2001.

However, Napster was created in response to a major paradigm shift in the ways consumers wanted to acquire and listen to music. We wanted the freedom to buy single songs rather than entire albums. We wanted our music packaged in flexible formats so that we could listen to them on our computers then, as well as portable MP3 players now. At first the recording industry fought this shift, but in the end the market prevailed and copyright law underwent massive changes. 10 years after Napster folded, you can purchase and download a song from the iTunes store and copy it to as many devices as you wish. Legally, these copies are supposed to be for your personal use, but there isn't anything to prevent you from sharing the file with a friend.

The internet is here to stay. It has exponentially increased the speed and ease with which information of all kinds can be shared. Like the recording industry, eventually every organization that trades in material protected by copyright law will have to embrace the new paradigm and adjust their business models accordingly. 

Right now most of them are still fiercely defending the status quo. 

About a year ago my husband persuaded me that we should cancel our cable TV subscription. While we watch very little television, when he first raised the possibility I instantly dismissed the idea because of my obsession with Dexter. He then pointed out that I was willing to pay $100+ per month so that over the course of a year I could watch some 12 hours of television. You can see that this basically means I'm paying $100+ for each episode. 

 I am a huge fan of this show. I desperately want to pay Showtime a reasonable fee so that I can stay current with what my favorite serial killer is up to. But as things now stand, the only way they'll sell me that opportunity comes with a lot of other stuff I don't want and an exorbitant price. 

We canceled our subscription. Now the only money Showtime gets from us is whatever revenue they receive when we rent the Dexter season DVDs from Netflix. 

It may take some time for enough other households to have the same kind of reaction, but this is the trend: we want to watch what we want to watch when we want to watch it. We want to pay for the things we want and not for the things we don't. And the technology is now in place to make this possible. The old paradigm of expensive cable TV packages will gradually become less profitable and Showtime will find some way to let me watch Dexter again (assuming he survives long enough). 

Comedy Central has already figured this out. You can watch full episodes of many of their shows online for free if you don't mind waiting a few days after they first air. You can purchase and download individual episodes of The Daily Show on iTunes if you want them sooner. 

Which brings me to the reason for this post: The same basic paradigm shift is well underway where published musical scores are concerned. 

It's illegal to photocopy copyright-protected music. 

You all do it anyway. You have been doing it since long before the rise and fall of Napster. 

You don't do it to steal it. 

When you photocopy a score, the vast majority of the time you are making copies from a score you already own. You make photocopies to avoid lugging around a pile of heavy books when all you need is just a few pages from each one. You make photocopies and put them in a binder to make it easier for your accompanist to turn pages. Maybe sometimes you even use a scanner to make digital copies of songs and arias so that you can email them to a colleague, which is much faster, cheaper and safer than packing up a score and mailing it (not to mention decreasing your carbon footprint). 

But rather than asking how they can meet our actual needs and turn a profit at the same time, the music publishing industry continues vehemently trying to put a stop to all this. 

As big a fan as I am of Dexter, I am obviously a MUCH bigger fan of composers, scholars who create Urtext scores, and music publishers. Those of you who know me know what an edition wonk I am. I'll buy another copy of a score I already own if the new version is more accurate. I am effusively grateful for the work of composers, scholars and publishers and I want them to be paid well for their work. 

But if they really want singers to stop making photocopies, why not ask how they can meet our needs better while making a profit doing it? 

Just follow the example of the recording industry: Make digital versions of your scores available for download, both as complete works and as individual songs, arias, etc. You'll massively reduce many of your production and shipping costs and waste less paper. Then, like the recording industry, get over the fact that we're going to print out more than one copy and that some of those copies will occasionally be used by people who didn't pay for them. Sites like Sheet Music Direct and Schubertline are already raking in business you could be enjoying by providing this service. But they can't meet the needs of edition wonks like me. 

Make your best stuff and latest scholarship available to purchase and download. We will buy it. Do us an even bigger favor and make it possible to transpose your songs, and you will definitely find more customers!

I want to bring some attention to this issue now because I chair the NATS-NYC Student Auditions, and my NATS chapter is concerned about the way copyright law impacts our students. The National Association of Teachers of Singing fiercely supports the music publishing industry, as well they should! However, enforcing current copyright law at our events now means requiring students to bring published scores for all their audition repertoire and requiring their pianists to perform from these scores. This is a problem because bound scores often do not easily stay open to the page you're playing, the pages are more difficult to turn than photocopies in a binder, and if there are large cuts (often the case with long opera arias) they're much harder to indicate and follow in an opera score. In the past, some NATS chapters skirted this problem by requiring the singer to present legal published copies of the score at their audition but then permitting the pianist to play from photocopies, but this is no longer to be tolerated.

The paradigm that NATS advocates bears no resemblance to what you would see in a professional audition, anyway. It is simply just not realistic for singers to cart full scores of all their repertoire to auditions. Musical theatre performers are expected to have dozens of selections available to choose from in auditions. Opera singers are expected to have five or six arias to present, and they will give a far better audition if they don't have to carry six heavy scores around. 

Right now NATS has no choice but to support copyright law, and my colleagues and our students will abide by their policy. We all need the music publishing industry to flourish.

But listen up, music publishers: If you want to flourish, you're going to have to change your business model eventually. So instead of cracking down on illegal photocopying, I ask you to take a step back and look at how we want your product delivered to us. 

We want to pay you for it. 

We just really need it to be packaged in a more practical way.

Vocal Anatomy from the Inside Out

Scientific analysis can only tell us what happens when we sing. It cannot tell us what we must do to sing well. 

W. Stephen Smith, The Naked Voice

Few of us ever study gross anatomy. Pre-med undergrads focus on human biochemical processes; the chapter on respiration in their biology textbooks is primarily devoted to things like oxygenation, with only the briefest description of the biomechanics of breathing. So why on earth do the vocal pedagogy textbooks presuppose an advanced understanding of gross anatomy? They provide hardcore, detailed descriptions using scientific terminology to selectively describe isolated segments of the body that are thought to be more important for singers than others. It is simply not realistic to expect you to be able to read and comprehend these chapters, let alone figure out how to apply the information to your own technique or teaching strategies. The best most of you can hope for is to cram enough of the vocabulary into your head in order to get a passing grade on the exam. 

I'm a voice teacher and I need to know all of the detailed anatomy described in the pedagogy books so that I can understand what is actually physically happening when you sing for me. However, describing the details to you is of limited usefulness. What is important is your subjective, personal experience of what you just did, not my analysis of what actually happened. 

I do think that it is important for singers to have a basic conceptual understanding of anatomy. But it is far more important that you develop a keen awareness of how everything feels and moves internally as you practice and perform. 

I'd like to help you cultivate a robust, three-dimensional sensory picture of your own instrument and learn to associate this unique, subjective internal self-portrait with the actual body parts and processes involved in singing. This is a challenging enterprise because many of the movements and processes of singing provide you with very little neuromuscular feedback. 

In other words, it's difficult to tell where all these body parts are and what they're doing. 

If you do a biceps curl with a heavy dumbbell, you get sensory feedback from your arm telling you that your elbow is flexing and your biceps are exerting effort and contracting. You can also see it, but even without looking you can feel the movement and understand what it happening.

Unfortunately, the same does not hold true for your diaphragm. Many singers are surprised to learn that the diaphragm contracts on inhalation and relaxes on exhalation. You don't receive direct feedback from this muscle the same way you do from your biceps. 

 

This illustration is from a college biology textbook. It shows how the diaphragm contracts on inhalation and relaxes on exhalation. For now, let's ignore the suggestions that your sternocleidomastoid must contract on inhalation and your abs contract on exhalation! I'll address this in a later post on anatomy of respiration.

 

Therefore, if you want to work on your breath coordination, you must pay attention to what you actually can sense and observe about your own breathing and then investigate what that tells you about where your diaphragm is. Then you must compare your observations with the pictures and descriptions in your textbooks, because otherwise you are likely to misinterpret your findings. If you don't know what's really going on, you may observe how inhalation pushes your gut out and exhalation makes it come back in and draw the mistaken conclusion, as many unfortunately have, that you have to actively push your gut out and pull it back in for the diaphragm to work properly.

I took this from a site that absurdly recommends pushing the gut in and out to make sure the diaphragm is doing its job. Note how the great big arrows point to abdominal activity while there are tiny little ones showing what the diaphragm is doing!

It's important to begin with what you can feel and notice about your instrument and then study anatomy to provide some context for your practical work in the studio. 

Here is a guided internal exploration to get you started, a simplified tour of your vocal anatomy that will provide an opportunity to get better acquainted with your instrument from the inside out. Your job is simply to observe your own body sensations and movements. There is no right or wrong way to do it. Just notice whatever sensations and movements arise, with no need to judge or assess anything. It will take about 11 minutes. You will need to wear loose, comfortable clothing that permits free, expansive breathing. No shoes, just socks or bare feet. 

Click on the following link to download and listen to the directions as you carry out the exploration. The full text is printed below, and I recommend that before listening you read through at least the first few paragraphs to make sure you have enough space and that you understand the basic starting position. 

 

Download Vocal Anatomy_ A Guided Tour

 

Lie down on your back on a firm surface, ideally on a mat or on the floor, not a mattress. Your feet should be flat on the floor, parallel, six to eight inches apart, with your knees bent. Gently tilt your pelvis back and forth a few times until you find a comfortable position for your lower back, which should be slightly curved and off the floor rather than pressing down. Place your hands high on your abdomen just below your ribs with the palms down. Let your shoulders relax down into the floor. If your neck feels strained or uncomfortable in this position, place a small pillow or book under your head. 

Close your eyes and allow them to remain closed for the entire exploration. 

Allow your breathing to deepen. Inhale fully and silently. Exhale slowly and as completely as you can without feeling like you have to push any air out. 

As you continue to breath slowly, feel the back of your pelvis against the floor. Allow this area to relax. Notice whether your pelvis subtly tilts back and forth as you breathe. Notice any other movement in this area. 

Feel how your abdomen rises as you inhale and then settles as you exhale. 

Bring your awareness to your back, to the area where your lower ribs contact the floor. See if you can sense any movement, expansion and relaxation in your ribs as you breathe in and out.

Let your attention move to your chest. Notice how your sternum rises as you inhale and then settles as you exhale. 

Notice whether your breathing creates any movement in your shoulders, neck or head. 

Notice any sensation or movement you feel inside your throat as you inhale and exhale. 

Notice the movement of your breath through your nostrils and nasal passages. 

Now focus your awareness in between your nostrils as you continue to breathe. Allow all other body sensations associated with breathing to fade into the background. 

Notice whether you find it easy to keep focusing on this area between your nostrils or whether your mind is very active or scattered. 

If your mind feels very active or scattered, do not try to stop the flow of mental activity. Just observe whatever you can about it. 

Notice whether your thoughts arise as a kind of internal talking, as images, or as a combination of the two. 

Notice whether the flow of mental activity seems to influence your breathing or cause areas of tension and relaxation to shift anywhere in your body. 

Now bring your awareness to your jaw. Allow your jaw to go slack so that it relaxes open. 

Breathe through your nose and your mouth simultaneously. Notice whether there are any differences in your breathing sensations between this versus breathing only through your nose. 

As you continue to breathe slowly and fully, begin to first stretch your jaw wide open, then slowly close your jaw and press your teeth firmly together. Once again, stretch your jaw open and then slowly and firmly close it. Now gently thrust your jaw forward as far as it can comfortably move, then reverse the movement and pull it backwards. Slowly shift your jaw to the left, then to the right, then allow it to return to the center, remaining slack and slightly open.

Continue to breathe slowly and fully.

Bring your awareness to your lips. Stretch them wide apart in all directions, then bring them in, round them together and let them protrude in an exaggerated smooch. Then once again, stretch your lips open as far as they will comfortably move, then bring them back together again and protrude them. 

Allow your jaw to relax open again and bring your awareness to your tongue. Slowly stick your tongue out as far as you can so that you feel a gentle stretch at the very back, then let it return to its normal position. Once again, thrust your tongue far forward, give it a gentle stretch, and allow it to relax. 

Now place the tip of your tongue against the back of your upper molars all the way to the left. Slowly trace the tip of your tongue against the back of your upper teeth all the way from left to right, then back in the other direction. Repeat this with the tip of your tongue against your lower teeth, tracing a line from the leftmost molar all the way to the right and then back. 

Take a moment now to slowly explore the roof of your mouth with the tip of your tongue. 

Continue to breathe slowly and fully.

On your next inhalation, see if you can make yourself yawn deeply. Feel the space inside your mouth and throat expanding in all directions as you yawn. Notice whether yawning creates any changes to your sensation of inhalation and exhalation as you breathe.

Now inhale once more, pause briefly at the top of your breath, and release your air swiftly like a voiceless sigh. Inhale and sigh once again. Now inhale and release your breath like a sigh again, this time permitting a gentle relaxed response from your vocal folds. Repeat this again several times. Make sure that you are merely allowing the breath to release without any assistance from your abdominal muscles, which should still feel completely relaxed under your hands. 

Notice any sensation or movement you feel in your throat when you sigh gently like this. Notice any sensations you feel elsewhere in your body in response to releasing your breath like a sigh.

Inhale deeply and create a steady sustained hum as you exhale. Sustain the hum as long as you comfortably can with the breath just releasing, allowing your abdominal muscles to remain completely relaxed, without squeezing any breath out with your ribs. Repeat this several times, inhaling fully and sustaining a steady hum as you exhale. 

Notice any sensation or movement you detect in your throat while you hum. Notice any sensation or movement anywhere in your body that seem related to your humming. Consider whether these sensations and movements are similar to the ones you experienced with the sigh or whether they are different. 

Now slowly open your eyes. Begin to move your hands and feet gently to wake them up a bit. As you stand up and move out of this exploration, continue to be mindful of the things you have noticed about your own body, breath and voice. Be particularly mindful of these things when singing. 

Vocal Anatomy 101: An Introduction

 


I cannot overstate the importance of learning as much as you can about how your instrument is constructed and how it functions. I know this may seem daunting. I myself actually have pretty low aptitude for science! If I can achieve a comprehensive understanding of vocal anatomy, you can, too.

In the next several posts I am going to lead you to a practical, experiential understanding of vocal anatomy. I'll identify the most important things you need to conceptualize/visualize to work on your voice effectively. 

Most singers never really learn how their instrument is constructed and how it functions. But why is this? Doesn't it seem as though knowing how your instrument works would make it much easier to master?

Any accomplished instrumentalist knows the basics of how their instrument works. Ask any brass, wind or string player how the sound is created, how the pitch changes, and what determines the timbre they produce, and they can explain and demonstrate the basic physics of it in pretty simple terms. I have seen some of my instrumentalist teaching artist colleagues from The Weill Music Institute demo their instruments for children in the Very Young Composers program in about 5 minutes. That's all it takes for the kids to know enough to start writing music for them. 

However, there are several things that make the exponentially easier for an instrumentalist than it is for a singer:

You can see the instrument and visually observe how all of its parts work. You can even take it apart and put it back together. And even an instrument as vast and complex as a church organ comprises a finite number of relatively simple components. By contrast, the human body is infinitely complex. While it may be possible to isolate and examine those parts of the body that are most important for singing, there are very few aspects of our anatomy and physiology that do not make some kind of contribution to the overall mechanics of the singing voice. And not only can you not see how the voice works, but you cannot even directly feel many of the movements and processes that create vocal sound.

Most types of instruments are fairly uniform in their construction, appearance and range. By contrast, a singer's instrument is the singular product of their entire life experience, shaped by their unique genetic code, physical activities, emotional and psychological history, and the very things they have to express as well as the reasons they want to do so by singing. You may have all the same basic body parts, but the differences between you far exceed the similarities.

While instruments need to be broken in and some instruments improve from years of good use, for the most part you acquire an instrument ready-to-play. Singers have to build an instrument while learning to play it, processes that are related but distinct. Building the voice entails stretching, strengthening and coordinating all these components we cannot see and often cannot feel; playing it means learning to use your imagination to set it in motion. While an accomplished instrumentalist must also fine-tune their coordination so that their musical impulses flow through them spontaneously, they are still directing these impulses into an inanimate and essentially unchanging object that they can see and touch. Our instrument is an inseparable, organic part of our being, and it continually transforms and evolves in response not only to the way we sing but to every physical, emotional and mental experience we encounter. 

One reason that most singers never learn vocal anatomy is that it seems link an overwhelmingly difficult enterprise, particularly when you consider how many other skills you have to master to sing well. I'm going to try to simplify things here, but I'm not going to kid you – it is hard, especially when compared with what it takes to grasp the basic physics of what makes a violin or a french horn function. Don't let that stop you, though. "Largo al factotum" is hard to learn, too, but if you're a lyric baritone you'd better just get over it, roll up your sleeves and woodshed it until it becomes easy. 

The other reason most singers never learn vocal anatomy is due to the myth that it simply isn't necessary.

I want to persuade you that for most of us, it is necessary.

While it may seem that some singers achieve great mastery without a strong concept of how the voice functions, it may be that they possess some advantages that the rest of us can't necessarily count on. If their preferred learning style is kinesthetic, they may be so skilled at directly observing their own physical processes that they can intuitively make changes without needing to know the names of various body parts or conceptualize how they work together. 

And if you fit this model, you may not need this information as much as the rest of us. 

But when a truly talented, dedicated singer fails to fulfill their potential, it is often the case that they just couldn't fix what wasn't working because they didn't really know what it was or understand that it even could be fixed. They regarded their limitations as being hard-wired into their instruments, whereas if they understood their own anatomy they could have employed strategies for transcending them. 

For the rest of you who fortunately have not hit this wall: A basic understanding of vocal anatomy could dramatically speed up your progress. I don't believe in quick fixes. Vocal technique takes time to develop. But it takes less time when you practice effectively. 

Here's an example. Suppose you want to improve your breath management in order to sing a long sustained phrase. You could:

1. Work on taking deeper breaths and practice sustaining the phrase longer and slower with each attempt, or
2. Investigate whether your muscles of respiration or overall alignment need improvement. 

I naturally prefer option 2. If you understand how alignment, your diaphragm and your intercostal muscles etc. work together to optimize airflow and subglottal air pressure, you can intelligently target areas of weakness, tightness and poor coordination and solve the problem, confident that eventually you'll be able to get through that phrase with style. Option 1 might yield some results, but it might not, leaving you feeling frustrated and wondering what's wrong with your voice. 

Don't accept imbalances and areas of resistance in your voice as permanent parts of your instrument. 

You can work through them. But you will need strong, specific strategies.

You'll work through them faster and more joyfully if you have a clear understanding of what is going on and are confident that the actions you're taking are likely to work. 

 

For those of you who want to dive in right away, here are the resources that worked for your scientifically challenged blogger: 

The Dynamics of the Singing Voice, Meribeth Bunch Dayme

This book offers the best descriptions and illustrations I have come across for functional vocal anatomy, breaking it down into sections on posture, respiration, phonation, resonance and articulation. 

Anatomy Coloring Book, Wynn Kapit 

Yes, it's a coloring book! but pick up a copy and find out for yourself why filling in the words and illustrations makes it so much easier to absorb all of this complicated information. The illustrations at the head of this post are my handiwork, taken from the pages of this book. They're the clearest pictures of vocal anatomy I have in my library, the ones I usually end up using to explain things to my students. 

Anatomy of Movement, Blandine Calais-Germain   

I had this book assigned to me twice: first for a dance technique class and later for a workshop I attended as a fitness trainer. It's a comprehensive manual of movement intended for dancers. You'll learn more about the large muscles and movements of limbs, but the principles of movement and motor learning apply to those fine, hidden internal movements we make in producing sound as well. I learned far more about how movements are trained and executed through working on the gym floor than I ever could have in a vocal pedagogy class. This book helped me to understand and contextualize it all. 

Resistance is Futile

Like a magnetized needle floating on a surface of oil, Resistance will unfailingly point to true North – meaning that calling or action it most wants to stop us from doing…Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul's evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it. Steven Pressfield, The War of Art.

 

To a large extent, developing vocal technique consists of identifying areas of physical resistance and then resolving and releasing them. It's a process of unmasking areas of tension or rigidity that impede the flow of breath, muffle resonance, prevent the vocal folds from proximating cleanly, and/or inhibit vibrancy. 

But the Resistance with a capital "R" that Steven Pressfield is talking about is psychological resistance. 

For success in singing, resolving and releasing psychological resistance is at least as important as dealing with physical resistance. 

Psychological resistance is insidious and difficult to detect. It sneaks up and steers you away from experiencing deeper levels of vulnerability, acknowledging your own weaknesses (or even your strengths), thwarts your taking that step to further your technique or advance your career. Any time you find yourself procrastinating or suspect that you're somehow sabotaging your own progress, psychological resistance is the likely culprit.

These two categories of resistance are intimately related. Any psychological resistance you harbor is likely to manifest as physical resistance to the functioning of your voice. The reverse is also true: anything that is physically impeding your ability to express yourself freely leaves you feeling mentally conflicted about expression. 

The good news is that when you resolve resistance in one area it tends to impact the other, sometimes in spectacularly dramatic ways! Most singers I know can describe moments in their life when a breakthrough in their vocal technique closely preceded significant positive change in their relationships, careers, and other areas of their life that are not directly related to their singing. And of course anything that gives you greater equanimity and self-awareness makes it much easier to address any tensions in your voice with increased focus and diminished negative self-judgment. 

If you want to deal effectively with resistance, you have to first become aware of how it's affecting you. The War of Art is an outstanding resource for identifying and resolving psychological resistance. My own expertise lies in identifying and contending with areas of physical resistance that impact the voice. I'll offer some observations and suggestions. 

When you encounter resistance, vocal or otherwise, you have three basic options:

1. Give up and turn back. If you've read this far already, chances are this isn't your style!
2. Use physical strength or force of will to overcome it. Useful at key moments for some heroic endeavors but highly discouraged for singing technique.
3. Find a way to dissolve or dismiss it. Obviously, this is the strategy that I endorse.

When meeting resistance from any obstacle, vocal or otherwise, most people respond with Option #2 and try to push past it. The process of using force to push past vocal resistance is frequently encouraged and cultivated in the name of "breath support".

It is very easy to understand why. If you're singing away and feel some stiffness or tightness that gives you concern that a high note won't speak, your voice isn't projecting well enough, or your vibrato has vanished, the swiftest way to deal with it would seem to be using your abdominal and/or intercostal muscles to push more air through your instrument. 

It feels so instinctive and expedient to override vocal resistance in this way that you might not even be aware that you are doing it. And because it seems to work – for some singers, in some parts of their range, and for some dynamic levels – "supporting" the breath this way has become an integral part of the vocal pedagogy and terminology of many voice teachers. 

I proposed that to a large extent, developing vocal technique consists of identifying areas of physical resistance and then resolving and releasing them. In order to do this, you must first notice that there is some resistance, and here is one excellent way to begin your investigation: Any time you feel like you have to push or "support" with your breath, you have uncovered some resistance. 

If the resistance is due to chronic muscular tension or long-ingrained vocal habits, it may take some time, patience, and the assistance of a skilled voice teacher to detect where the resistance is coming from and create a strategy for resolving it. 

But make no mistake: if you feel your abdominal muscles kicking in and your ribs squeezing shut, you're trying to push past some resistance. 

Your progress and vocal freedom require that you resolve it instead. 

Overcoming vocal resistance is only one of several reasons why some voice teachers recommend mobilizing the abdominal muscles to "support" the breath, but healthy breath management never requires pushing of any kind. I will address breath management in greater detail in a future post.

Vocal Styles: An Interview with Susan Eichhorn Young

 

Susan Eichhorn Young is a voice teacher in New York City. Susan grew up in the theatre and has been acting and singing pretty much from the time she could first speak! Her career encompasses straight theatre, opera, musical theatre and cabaret. Her many years of experience moving between different performance and singing styles are highly valuable to her voice students - particularly the professional musical theatre singers who study and coach with her. 

Susan's teaching philosophy is founded upon her belief that "Each singer's needs are unique, and thus, I work to meet the singer where they are: technically, musically, emotionally, and psychologically. Each person and therefore, each voice is unique, and the course of study must be developed and created to specifically meet that voice and that singer."

Content from her blog, Once More with Feeling, is currently being adapted into a book, due to be released around December 2010.

You have performed in so many different styles. Do you vary your singing technique when moving between classical singing, musical theatre and cabaret? If so, how?

The basis of the technique remains the same - but the approach changes - intimacy of style requires a change in how language is shaped and resonated, and simply how much voice is used! There are stylistic techniques - like belt/mix-belt/spretchtstimme that need to be understood for certain types of song in theatre and cabaret and in turn, need to be physicalized!

Do you adapt your teaching methods to the needs singers specializing in different styles?

I sure do! However, I believe in a basis of singing for ANY style. I call it "neutral" voice - how you line up the basis of the voice with breath and resonance. Then, depending on the stylistic demands, and the genre demands, you work toward that balance.

Have your early roots in theatre influenced your development as a singer and teacher?

Most definitely! My approach is very physical and athletic and language oriented. Language creates so much of our sound in ANY language or dialect and it must be shaped to move into tradition, style and genre. I believe in developing technique in singing as behavior - just as we do as actors. Actors don't pretend - actors "do". In creating an active "doing" it allows you to go into the behavior of the character. I believe the same in vocal technique therefore vocal behavior.

Your blog is a valuable source of career advice for professional singers. How do the vocal demands and business logistics of a career in opera differ from those of a career in musical theatre?

I think there are more similarities than we realize - just a different playpen! The voice needs to be healthy, balanced, and athletic whether it is to fill a mammoth opera house and cut through a large orchestra, or whether to become part of the equipment and sing 8 shows a week in theatre! Business is different, but it's still business. The business of show still means we deal with the idiots, the lies, the stealing, the bullshit. Just another costume.

Is it possible to build a career embracing both opera and musical theatre? If so, what advice can you offer for those singers who want to attempt it?

"Back in the day" singers routinely moved back and forth between City Opera and Broadway. I believe anything is possible if the artist is really willing and able to develop the instrument, the psychology and the spirit to know what is needed and required for each. Know what each corner of the business demands. Know what the styles and genres demand. Know what your voice can do and what it can't. Know you are NOT SLUMMING by discovering other possibilities in your artistry!!! I believe every music theatre singer needs to develop a healthy balanced singing and further, a truly dimensional and well-formed voice; and every opera singer needs to discover some music theatre in style, genre and physicality. Even if we don't pursue both, we should embrace what each can offer the other. Ultimately, a more rounded and more knowledgeable artist and performer will emerge.

Vocal Styles: An Interview with Judy Rodman

In addition to her own long and flourishing career in recording, performance, and voiceover work, Judy Rodman is voice teacher, coach and producer to many of today's finest contemporary singers. She is the creator of the Power, Path & Performance vocal training method.  Judy's blog, All Things Vocal, is a source of great information for singers of all stripes - her recent post "Over-thinking Vocal Training..."Trying" instead of "Letting" could easily have been written with classical singers in mind. 

What inspired you to become a voice teacher?

Professional singers I worked with would ask me questions about how to hit notes. Since they believed in my ability to help them, I started doing some deeper research. As soon as I "hung out my shingle" as a vocal coach I started getting students, and it became a natural transition to use my experience for the betterment of other vocalists. I then went on a serious learning curve, finally developing my own practical, synergistic and holistic vocal training method trademarked "Power, Path & Performance".

What kind of singers do you work with?

I work with literally all kinds of singers and public speakers…from absolute beginners to veteran professional recording artists and performers. I train choir members, preachers, business people, songwriters, Karaoke and other talent show contestants, people with vocal dysfunction and breathing problems, people with psychological issues who need to find their voices. I work with all ages but mostly concentrate on teens and adults, or children who are mature enough to be serious about their training. 

Do most singers specializing in contemporary styles study voice? Do all of them need to?

I think that more contemporary style singers train their voices than used to, because the benchmark for vocal ability has been raised by those who DO study voice. I believe that anyone who is serious about their voice needs to at least touch base with a vocal coach who can assess them, correct their weaknesses, encourage their strengths, protect their vocal apparatus and maximize their vocal impact.

What sort of warm-up/practice regimen do you recommend for your students?

The warm-up/practice regimen I recommend for my students depends on their vocal goals and their immediate vocal engagements. On a regular basis, I recommend doing vocal exercises for 10 to 30 minutes at least three times a week, along with singing full voice for at least another 30 minutes. If they have an upcoming gig or tour, I recommend more strenuous practice: 30 minute warm up followed by one to three hours of full voice singing, using the material they are to perform. And this should be done for at least four days, preferably two weeks, before the gig or the start of the tour.

How can a singer develop their own unique style?

A singer develops uniqueness by first mastering other great singers' styles. Then he or she should experiment to find the phrasings, vocal embellishments and genres of songs that best suit his or her own voice. Lastly the singer must learn to take a song and deliver it from the singer's own personality, life experience and heart. There is no competition with originality…because no two people have the same life experience. Vocal uniqueness is all about delivering an authentic message, from the singer's own soul and from the person's own healthy, free instrument…which, with training, will afford the singer many more options to pull from for unique, engaging and impactful communication that can elicit an emotional response.

Will a contemporary singer studying technique risk sacrificing the qualities that make their sound and style unique?

Not unless the teacher is a fool. Even the most "talky" styles can be so much easier, smoother and agile with vocal training. In truth, if the training is correct, the listener should not be hearing a singer's vocal training…but instead be moved by the delivery of the song.

What advice do you have for classically trained singers who want to switch or crossover to popular styles?

Train with a vocal coach who knows how to help you find a conversational, contemporary sound without "throwing the baby out with the bathwater", making you flatten out your soft palate, for instance. Finding a more contemporary sound has a lot to do with re-thinking the goal of your vocal efforts. This kind of singing is more about moving someone with the message than with large, sonorous vowels. Popular, or contemporary, singing is more like talking…and usually involves a microphone. This means you also need to train for mic technique, and that you no longer should go for the classical resonance that can fill a concert hall unamplified…this will sound pompous and fake for popular singing. You'll need to articulate differently as well, and will need to focus your sound from a slightly different place. 

Judy Rodman teaches in Nashville, so if you happen to be in the neighborhood and would like some of her expertise first-hand, here is how to get in touch . 

Thanks again, Judy!

Vocal Styles: Coming Soon…

I plan to continue the discussion of the importance of vocal technique for different genres of singing. Stay tuned for contributions from specialists in a wide variety of singing styles! 

Judy Rodman is a recording artist, performer, vocal consultant and voice teacher with many years' experience training professional singers in a wide variety of contemporary styles. 

Susan Eichhorn Young is an incredibly versatile singer and voice teacher with studios in New York and Toronto. She will have a lot of insight to share about teaching technique to a very diverse and successful group of singers.

Cosmo Lee is the editor of the Invisible Oranges Metal Blog. He sent me five clips of classic metal singers and asked me to comment on their vocal technique (without knowing who they are). I'm looking forward to posting the resulting dialogue!

Eseohe Arhebamen is a performance artist from Nigeria who is currently based in New York City but performs all over the world. She has studied voice with me for several years. Her relationship to singing and the role it plays in her performances is unique and fascinating. 

Also, if you enjoyed my interview with Robin Flynn on fitness and singing, please have a look at this beautiful feature article about her that appeared in today's San Francisco Chronicle!