The Liberated Voice

A Master Class with Maestro Bugs

A hallmark of an effective vocal technique is that it coordinates your voice to respond to your thoughts, emotions, and musicianship in real time. Everything I teach is designed to free you up to express yourself, unfettered by technical concerns. 

Learning such a technique necessitates drawing on a base level of expressive intent while practicing the exercises that develop this coordination. We all vocalize on vowels and nonsense syllables. But if you vocalize without any communicative intent, you're reduced to mechanically manipulating the components of your instrument and, likely, listening to yourself while you do it. That may serve to develop some categories of skill, but it also instills habits of singing without communicating, manipulating your voice, and assessing yourself while you're singing, all of which are detrimental to expressive performing. 

While my technique isolates and then incorporates the process of phonation, or speech, into vocal exercises, harnessing expressive intent while performing nonsense syllables is still a real challenge for most of my students. So lately I've been getting a lot of mileage from this clip:

 

 

 

There's no mistaking Bugs Bunny's meaning despite the fact that he's spouting gibberish. 

There are a variety of ways to incorporate expressive intent into vocal exercises. They'll differ according to what you're working on and how you conceive of technique. My intention here is emphasizing the necessity of so doing, and to share Bugs' example that you can say an awful lot without saying anything at all! 

Of course, the cartoon also exemplifies a crucial principle for those of you who sing in languages you don't speak fluently, i.e. most of you. You have a strong working knowledge of Italian, French and German grammar and vocabulary and perhaps some basic facility communicating in those languages, but for the most part you still must learn your aria and song texts phonetically. When that's the case, a dramatically and emotionally committed performance depends on connecting to preverbal feelings and images and then channeling them through your foreign phonemes. "Se guardi in alto, bada alla frustata" is hopefully not quite as far removed from your native speech as "Unga bunga bunga", but if you're not fluent in Italian there will be some degree of separation, and to sing with immediacy and authenticity there needs to be none. 

Bugs Bunny also sets a fine example for those who find it challenging to keep your passion alive in the face of the intimidating professional music world. For me, that's the lesson at the heart of Long-Haired Hare - enjoy! 

 

 

Don't take this cartoon to be in any way a condemnation of classical music; the studios producing these cartoons provided regular employment for a full studio orchestra, and at the time this was released they must have expected that most everyone in their viewing audience would have known of Leopold Stokowski – among his many significant contributions, he is the conductor who appears in Disney's Fantasia.

The uncredited baritone who good-naturedly gave voice to Giovanni Jones is rumored to be a guy named Nicolai Shutorov, about whom little else is known. 

Borrowing from World Traditions: Indian Classical Singing

 

Falu performing in Zankel Hall in November 2009 as part the Carnegie Hall Family Concert Series

 

While my approach to teaching vocal technique continues to evolve, it's now mostly a process of expanding on essential principles that I've been working with for about a decade. What most interests me now is finding a more effective and robust structure for learning and practicing technique. 

In my previous post, I suggested mining martial arts and meditation practices for ideas about how to incorporate physical coordination, kinesthetic awareness, mental focus, mind/body integration, and detailed assessment into our process. I've also long suspected that Western singers may have a lot to learn from Eastern musical traditions where these skills are concerned. With the help and insight of Indian singer Falu, I've begun to test this theory. 

In addition to my studio teaching, I work as a Teaching Artist for The Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall. I first had the opportunity to hear Falu perform about a year ago when she participated in a concert at Zankel Hall as part of WMI's Global Encounters curriculum. I was frankly blown away by the power, beauty, and flexibility of her singing, as well as the palpable serenity and joy she exuded while phrases of incredible virtuosity and nuance effortlessly poured out of her. As part of her presentation, Falu also talked about her rigorous early studies that often included days where she would train her voice for up to 16 hours, as well as the importance of continued daily practice. Since then, I have been very curious to learn more about her training. She was kind enough to meet with me yesterday to begin sharing some aspects of her work in greater detail. 

It's going to take some time to fathom the essentials of Indian classical singing and discover how aspects of this rich tradition can potentially augment the way we study singing in the West. However, I was immediately struck by several fascinating differences between our methods that I would like to describe for you now:

Emphasis on breath training and practice. In Indian classical singing, everything begins with and continually refers back to the role of the breath. All traditions of singing obviously rely on good breath management, but here the primacy of breath training is highly significant. Daily practice begins with at least a full half hour devoted to breathing exercises before undertaking any actual vocal work, and it serves to focus the mind as well as to expand specific breathing skills. 

Full integration of ear training with singing technique. In the West, we think of these as distinct areas of study, but in Indian singing they are inseparable. Indian music is melody-based and requires mastery of a great number of scales that incorporate precise intervals at times narrower, at others wider, than the major and minor seconds of the equal temperament used in most Western music. As singers practice these scales, they simultaneously develop their technique and their ear. It is crucial for all singers to learn how to let the ear tune the voice rather than manipulate the larynx to find the "right position" for a desired pitch, and much time is devoted to this in my studio. But as Falu demonstrated her scales for me, it seemed like it would be out of the question for her to ever need to "reach" for a pitch. I do not know whether this is something that can be completely adapted for Western singing, but if you've ever found yourself getting vocally tied up in knots in an ear training class or had difficulty singing a highly chromatic passage without tightening up, you will appreciate my reasons for wanting to explore the possibility. 

A highly structured practice regimen. Indian singers spend far more time in daily practice than Western singers. While I do not yet understand why their practice facilitates the stamina for sessions that can last up to 16 hours, it is certainly very helpful to have clearly delineated tasks designed to be undertaken in order and at specific times of day, as well as a system for keeping track of and assessing their progress. Falu showed me the notebook where she continues to record the details of her practice sessions. Her notes include the number of seconds she is able to sustain specific breath exercises and the particular raga she has practiced on a given day. 

Focus on spirituality and self-realization. Indian music is deeply valued for its ability to transform and elevate both practitioner and audience, far more so than for its ability to impress and entertain. While in the West we most assuredly do appreciate the power of the voice to create transcendent experiences for performer and listener, there is a way that this aspect is manifest in all aspects of Indian musical practice such that it is essentially a means of self-realization rather than an end unto itself. 

I was also struck by the utter absence of any tension or entanglement in Falu's articulation. Her lips, tongue and jaw coordinate with remarkably relaxed efficiency. Certainly professional singers of all traditions need to be capable of this as well, but there was something notable about the fluidity of her coordination that seemed to go beyond anything I've observed among the best of opera singers. 

There are some particulars of Indian classical singing technique that are at odds with the priorities of Western technique. Indian music requires an absence of vibrato. The fluctuations of vibrato would be heard as actual different pitches, making the precise microtonal tuning of many of their scales and ornaments impossible to execute. With the importance of intricate melody and absence of harmonies, Indian singing technique emphasizes line and agility over projection and resonance, so I do not yet know whether the things we need to do to fill a large hall without amplification are compatible with their technique. Indian music is a highly improvisational oral tradition taught without notation of any kind, so there are significant differences in the way the technique is applied to learning and performing repertoire. 

However, there are without question some things they teach exceptionally well that can easily be adapted to Western technique. I will continue to explore them and share the results with you.

I would also love to hear from readers who have experience with singing techniques of other world cultures and thoughts about how they compare with our own. 

Theory in Practice, Part 1

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. 

 

To be continued…

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. 

Physical Warm-Ups for Singing

Dr. Friedlander:

I just read your article, "Sports-Specific Training for the Vocal Athlete, Part 1: How exercise can support your vocal technique".

I am a member of a woman's a capella group, and have been asked to run a 5 minute physical warm-up each week, prior to vocal exercises. I am a dance-fitness instructor, and have been modifying my warm-up routines to try and better suit upper body stretching.

Could you recommend any specific exercises that I could lead that would help us to warm up/strengthen/stretch the muscle groups we need to make us better vocalists?

Cindy Whitfield, Certified Fitness Instructor, DanceIT International

Dear Cindy, 

Thanks for the email - this is a great question, and I wish more singers and ensembles were asking the same thing!

Physical warm-up exercises for singing serve two main purposes:

1. Stretching and enlivening the muscles/tissue responsible for  breathing, alignment, and vocal production to optimize coordination and range of motion;
2. Enhancing kinesthetic awareness of your body and voice to help make a transition from just being a person engaged in normal life activities to being a musical instrument.

Here is a description of what I do when I have the time to get in a comprehensive physical warmup before singing or performing. I realize that singers do not always have the time nor access to gym equipment, so I'll describe my ideal scenario and then make some suggestions about how these movements can be modified to be performed without tools. 

I describe the way each exercise fulfills the two purposes cited above. As with all your work in singing, stay mindful of your intentions as you perform these movements.

 

Hamstring Stretch

1. Prepare the legs and hips to support good alignment and breathing. The hamstrings contract hundreds of times just from walking down the street, and sitting for long periods of time will cause them to stiffen.
2. Observe any flexibility imbalances that may exist between the left and right legs and any sensitivities in the knee and hip joints so that you can be mindful of standing without collapsing into one hip or the other, locking the knees, or keeping all your weight on one side or the other. 

I recommend this position, with one leg extended and the other knee bent, foot pressing against the thigh or calf of the extended leg. Notice how straight her back is as she bends over the extended leg. When I did an image search for a seated hamstring stretch, the vast majority of photos depicted people with rounded lower backs trying to touch their toes or get their heads down to their knees. If you're focusing on stretching your hamstrings, it's important to keep your lower back straight and just try to fold as far as you comfortably can at the hip. You may not need to move very far at all. Just fold at the hip far enough that you feel a stretch in the back of your thigh. Hold the stretch (don't bounce) for at least 30 seconds. Then repeat with the other leg. 

Alternative: You can also perform this stretch standing up. Just make sure you're wearing stable, flat shoes. 

 

Prone Breathing Stretch with Stability Ball

1. Stretch and strengthen the muscles of costal respiration and improve lung capacity.
2. Improve awareness of how the ribs, spine, and all related muscles coordinate and interact during breathing; expose any areas of tightness or imbalance.

Kneel in back of a stability ball. Place your palms down on the ball and then carefully roll forward until your torso is draped over the ball with your fingertips and toes on the floor for balance (the guy in the photo is hugging the ball, but it's better to reach your arms to the floor). Relax your neck and let your head just hang. Inhale slowly and deeply, feeling the stretch in your spine and back ribs; then exhale and feel the movement throughout your back. Repeat 5 - 10 times. Carefully roll back off the ball until you return to a kneeling position. 

Alternative: Standing with knees gently flexed, place your hands on your thighs and round your spine and shoulders. This is also a good position for improving range of motion through your ribs at the back and gaining greater sensitivity to movement in that area during respiration.

 

Foam Roller Back Self-Massage and Simple Back Bend Stretch

1. Improve upper body flexibility and alignment; relieve tightness in back and shoulders; stretch and expand front of the rib cage.
2. Improve awareness of how the ribs expand in the front during breathing; expose any areas of tightness or imbalance in the ribs and spine

Foam rollers have many uses for stretching and massaging tight muscles. It's important to use correct form so please refer to this detailed article for instruction. Most gyms have foam rollers for this purpose, but if you don't have access to one you can order a foam roller for home use here. 

To perform a back bend supported by the roller, position it under your shoulder blades or a little lower. Drape backwards over the roller and allow your head to fall back and your neck to relax. Inhale slowly, feeling the stretch through your ribs and sternum in the front. You may also feel a stretch throughout your abdominal muscles as well. Exhale. Breathe in and out 5 - 10 times. 

Alternative: Stand with your knees gently flexed. Brace your hands against your lower back or buttocks for support and carefully arch your neck and spine backwards. Keep your weight on the balls of your feet to maintain balance. 

 

Neck Rotations

1. Stretch muscles of the cervical spine and improve circulation to all structures in the neck.
2. Focus attention on head/neck alignment and expose any tightness or muscular imbalances in this area.

Here is a wonderful instructional video on performing full neck rotations (if the embedded video isn't playing properly on your browser, please use this link instead):

 

Full Yoga Head Rotation -- powered by ehow

 

If you have any difficulty performing full neck rotations, try this stretch instead. 

 

Jaw stretch

1. Improve jaw range of motion and flexibility
2. Improve awareness of jaw movement and position

Open your jaw as wide as you comfortably can. Place the index and middle fingers of both hands on your back lower molars and gently stretch your jaw down a little lower. Hold the stretch for about 30 seconds. Repeat 3 - 5 times. 

Chronic jaw tension is clearly a problem for many people! As I searched in vain for an illustration for this stretch, I was fascinated to come across this torture device. I personally have no experience with the Orastretch and am not recommending it, but I couldn't resist the impulse to share this link with you!

 

Yawn

1. Good stretch for the tissues that contribute to resonance, including the soft palate and pharynx. Yawning also stretches out your eardrums.
2. Improves awareness of your own potential internal expansion and resonance space.

It's pretty simple: make yourself yawn. Pay particular attention to the expansive feeling throughout your pharynx and palate. Be mindful that the tongue often also stiffens and retracts when yawning; this movement is not useful for singing, so be careful not to associate the spaciousness of your resonance with retraction and depression of the tongue. 

 

Stick out your tongue

1. Most of us need to strengthen the genioglossus (the muscle that thrusts the tongue forward) and stretch and release the hyoglossus (the muscle that retracts and depresses the tongue). Stretching your tongue by sticking it out helps accomplish both of these things. See my Tongue Workshop Recap for more details and illustrations of these muscles.
2. Explore tongue range of motion and expose any tightness, particularly at the base. 

 

As with any exercise program, be mindful of your body's limitations and do not push beyond your comfort zone. These stretches are intended to gently expand your movement possibilities in ways that will be useful for your singing technique and to bring your awareness to these parts of your body. Perform them slowly and with attention and care. 

Equanimity, or Why We Must Fail in Order to Succeed

 

e·qua·nim·i·ty /ˌikwəˈnɪmɪti, ˌɛkwə-/ –noun

Mental or emotional stability or composure, especially under tension or strain; calmness; equilibrium. Synonyms: serenity, self-possession, aplomb.

Equanimity is a fundamental skill for self-exploration and emotional intelligence. It is a deep and subtle concept frequently misunderstood and easily confused with suppression of feeling, apathy or inexpressiveness…[it] means attempting to let go of negative judgments about what you are experiencing and replacing them with an attitude of loving acceptance and gentle matter-of-factness.

Shinzen Young 

 

Singing is an incredibly fulfilling practice, but it is also quite humbling. As I recently commented in a New Forum for Classical Singers post, singing is an open-ended endeavor. However great your technique and artistry become, each new success reveals a higher potential level of achievement. You have to become capable of simultaneously celebrating your success and acknowledging how much you still have to learn.

On a grand scale, this means that while your debut in a major new role may be a huge triumph, performing it for the first time reveals how much more depth and nuance there is to be found as you become increasingly familiar with it. On a more private scale, a technical breakthrough in the practice room or a voice lesson is a definitely a personal triumph – but it also swiftly gives you an idea of what the next challenge is going to be!

Perhaps the most important thing you can do as a singer, or as a person, really, is cultivate the ability to respond with equanimity to all your triumphs and your challenges, great and small. 
A good way to work on this is monitoring your reactions to your own voice when you're practicing technical exercises or learning repertoire.

I've been thinking about the frequency with which many of my students express disappointment or frustration with themselves in small habitual ways after each repetition of an exercise – a dismissive grimace, a shake of the head, a muttered expletive – despite the fact that in my view, what they had just done was quite successful! 

Why do so many singers do this?

Well, no matter how awesome you may be, you come to me because you want to get even better. Getting better usually means changing something. So I teach you an exercise designed to help you make a useful change; I explain what it is for; and I direct your attention to the movements and qualities that will determine whether you've done it successfully. Because I'm asking you to do something that is different from what you are used to doing, it may result in sensations and sounds that are unfamiliar, unstable and/or uncomfortable to you, even if when you later listen to the recording of your lesson you realize that in fact you were making a spectacular sound. The law of homeostasis says that we are programmed to react negatively to change of any kind, so even though you're paying me good money to get you to do something different, your subjective reaction to successfully making changes may initially be one of great discomfort.  

You may also criticize your attempt at the exercise if you think you didn't do it right, but the true success of the exercise isn't really determined by whether you executed it perfectly. It lies in your making your best attempt to perform the exercise and then notice what happened when you tried. 

Your job is to form a clear intention, attempt the exercise, and then notice what happened. You lose this crucial opportunity if immediately after performing an exercise you negatively assess your own sound, balk at an unfamiliar sensation, or criticize yourself for doing it "wrong" because your awareness is not being directed at the thing you intend to change.

Awareness by itself is often curative. Say you habitually close your jaw on an [i] (ee) vowel. If you're trying to redefine your [i] so that your jaw stays relaxed but find that you somehow still can't seem to help closing your jaw, the most important thing you can do is catch yourself in the act of closing your jaw when you don't intend to. If you can observe yourself doing in real time something that had previously been an unconscious, habitual movement, you're that much closer to being capable of making a choice not to do it and choose to do something else instead. But if your inner monologue goes "damnit I closed my jaw again," or "that sounds terrible", you've missed the chance to get valuable information about how to make the change you want to make. 

Making any change in your life almost always begins by trying, failing, learning from the failure, and trying again. Seth Godin eloquently explains the reasons that the most successful people are the ones who fail most often in this blog post. A great example of the truth of this is the career of baseball legend Ty Cobb, who still holds the highest career batting average of all time: .366. The highest career batting average belongs to a guy who hit the ball less than 4 out of every 10 times at bat. 

Even if you're in complete agreement with me about the importance of refraining from self-criticism while you're working on your voice, it's easier said than done! 

So here is how I'd like you to think about it: Included in the price of your voice lesson is permission to fail, as well as absolution from all harsh self-judgement, for the 60 minutes that we're working together. 

For the hour that you're with your teacher, let us direct your awareness and assess the success of what you're doing. 

With practice, you'll become capable of doing more of this for yourself. Give yourself permission to fail and absolve yourself from harsh self-judgement. With greater equanimity, you will become better able to direct your own awareness and skillfully assess your work in a way that will not only make practice much more enjoyable but will massively speed up your progress. 

Taming the Wayward Tongue: Workshop Recap

I would like to thank all of the singers who made last night's workshop such a success! You were all so willing to risk making strange noises and do some pretty yucky things for the sake of improving your awareness of how your tongues work and enhance your powers of articulation. 

Here's a recap of the major ideas we covered in the workshop.

The tongue serves us in many ways in addition to the work it does for articulation in speech and singing, including eating, drinking, tasting, yawning, sucking, gagging (prevents choking and swallowing something you don't intend to), and French kissing (thanks, Evelyn!). 

The major job of the tongue in singing is articulation. Other major articulators include the jaw and the lips. It is possible and desirable to be able to move your tongue independently from the jaw and lips.  

You can view and download the handout from the workshop here. 

 

Notice just how large an organ the tongue really is! 

The tongue is composed of extrinsic and intrinsic muscles. The extrinsic muscles attach it to the jawbone, the hyoid bone, and the styloid processes of the temporal lobes (i.e. the side of your skull). These are the muscles that move the whole tongue around. The intrinsic muscles originate within the tongue. They cause it to expand and contract with great versatility, enabling us to articulate an incredible variety of speech sounds. 

We worked primarily with two of the major extrinsic muscles of the tongue: the genioglossus, which protrudes and sticks out the tongue:

and the hyoglossus, which depresses and retracts the tongue:

The hyoglossus is attached to the hyoid bone. Depressing and retracting the tongue is going to exert downward pressure on the hyoid bone. Your larynx is suspended from the hyoid bone, so you can see how depressing and retracting the tongue can limit movement of the larynx and create resistance in your singing. 

When we talk about tongue tension, this is mostly what is meant: retracting and depressing the tongue creating downward pressure on the larynx, crowding your resonating space, and making itself less available for highly specific articulation work you need it to do.

If you take your thumbs and gently feel under your chin, the tissue in this area should be relatively soft and pliable. If it becomes rigid and pushes back against your thumbs when you start singing, this is primarily the hyoglossus retracting and depressing the base of your tongue. It is possible to do pretty much anything you need to do as a singer without this muscle contracting to the point that this area noticeably stiffens.

However, most singers do this to a greater or lesser extent and have to train themselves to keep the hyoglossus much less active. The major reasons for this include speech habits, chronic or habitual tightening associated with learning to "hold your tongue" as a well-behaved child, and using the tongue to do vocal technical things that can best be accomplished other ways. 

Most of our discussion centered on two things singers sometimes use the tongue to do that are not related to articulation: 

 

Using the base of the tongue to push the larynx down and hold it in a low position. 

I myself was trained to do this by one of my first voice teachers. Holding the larynx down with the base of your tongue increases the length of the supraglottal tract. We all want to maximize the length of the supraglottal tract because this yields optimal resonance, contributing bloom and power to the voice. Pushing the larynx down with the base of the tongue is a quick and dirty way to do this, but you'll pay for it because:

• It requires a lot of consistent and unnecessary effort
• It keeps the tongue from being able to perform its articulatory duties well
• While it will keep the larynx from moving up, it will also keep it from tilting efficiently and will likely compromise your range
• It also diminishes resonance because the tongue is taking up space it shouldn't be and the whole area will be stiffer and less available for enhancing your sound.

 

Using the tongue to help with breath management – increasing subglottal air pressure by pushing the tongue down and then driving breath against the resistance it creates. 

This is one of the issues I addressed in my recent post on breath management. While it may seem a more expedient way to achieve greater subglottal air pressure, it creates more problems than it solves.

It is possible to maintain a low relaxed position for your larynx and maximize the length of your supraglottal tract without retracting and depressing your tongue; it's also possible to increase and regulate subglottal air pressure without doing this. However, strategies for both these concerns touch on wider issues of vocal technique. Different voice teachers will propose different solutions, and I wanted to be able to present as much information on tongue anatomy and function as possible to a wide audience of singers without prejudice for one technique or another. 

Of course, anyone who wants to learn more about what my solutions are will find a lot of information elsewhere on this site, and you're always welcome to come see me for a lesson. 

 

If you were unable to attend the workshop this time but would be interested in attending one in the future, please email me to express your interest. If I hear from enough people I will gladly arrange to give another soon. 

Anatomy of Breathing, Part 3: Breath Management

 

You're reading this blog on a computer, so hopefully you've got that can of compressed air that you use to clean your keyboard somewhere nearby. Grab it and give the nozzle a quick press. An intense burst of air will flow out of the can. 

 
Why does this happen? The air pressure inside the can is much greater than the air pressure outside the can. When you pushed the nozzle, you created an opening for the air to release, and this difference in air pressure caused a significant amount of air to rush swiftly out. 

Breath management is the ability to increase subglottal air pressure – to compress the air in your lungs so that will behave more like the air inside the can – and then regulate the level of subglottal air pressure while singing. 

Increasing subglottal air pressure means that when you release your breath, it will release more swiftly and powerfully and have a potentially greater impact on the vibration of your vocal folds. Regulating this air pressure while your breath releases enables you to determine how much of the surface of your vocal folds proximates while singing, providing control over dynamics and vocal color.

 

There are several ways to maximize subglottal air pressure, not all of them ideal for singing:

1. Create a lot of resistance for your voice by over-adducting your vocal folds, pushing the base of your tongue back and down, and/or tightening up your constrictor muscles. Then force a lot of air through by pushing with your abdominal muscles and/or squeezing your rib cage shut. (not recommended!) 

This is an exaggerated description of what passes for "breath support" in the concept of many singers, and there's a good reason that so many people do it to a greater or lesser extent. You can see how creating excess resistance and then pushing against it will indeed serve to compress the air in your lungs, increasing subglottal air pressure. The result may be a more powerful, vibrant and resonant sound, but this producing it this way leads to fatigue and hoarseness (or even injury). If you're really good at it, your face will turn red and the veins and tendons on your neck will pop out. And you won't be able to do this throughout your entire range, because singing with this much resistance elevates and limits range of motion for your larynx and compromises resonance space. 

 

2. Gain a lot of weight. (also not recommended!)

As I discussed in the previous post, when you release your breath fully the natural elasticity of your lungs causes them to return to their default, un-stretched state and the diaphragm returns to a high relaxed position. Gravity causes the extra weight in your viscera to exert a significant downward pull on your diaphragm and lungs as they strive to return to a relaxed state. The diaphragm ascends more slowly and this creates a kind of vacuum, resulting in greater subglottal air pressure. So extra weight in the abdominal area can indeed contribute a lot of assistance with breath management. This is one reason why heavier singers are sometimes able to produce a more dramatic sound, and why it is so important for singers to carefully retrain their technique after losing a lot of weight. But while a heavy abdomen does help to increase subglottal air pressure, it still doesn't give you any help with regulating air pressure (it's exerting the same downward pull at all times – you can't vary it) and excessive weight may keep you from maintaining optimal health and energy, both very important for a singing career.

 

3. While singing, keep the inhalation muscles associated with costal respiration engaged and maintain dynamic good upper-body alignment. (bingo.)

If you want to increase subglottal air pressure and regulate it as your breath releases, this is the safest and most organic way to do it. Any other strategy creates a lot of stress for your voice and body without being nearly as effective. 

Breath management means doing something to inhibit the outflow of air as it releases. But achieving this by creating resistance in your throat will keep your voice from functioning freely, and slowing the ascent of the diaphragm will keep the breath from releasing fully. This is why it is so important that, to the best of your ability, you learn to sing with relatively little resistance and master releasing your breath fully before you work on breath management – if you haven't gotten these skills down yet, you won't be able to tell whether or not what you're doing to manage your breath is creating more entanglement or keeping your breath from releasing.

With good upper body alignment, take a full, deep breath.

Allow your sternum to rise and your ribs to expand in all directions.

When your lungs are at full capacity, continue trying to inhale.

Hold your breath by continuing to do this for 10 - 15 seconds.

Release your breath fully. 

You should now be able to sense where the effort was being exerted as you were sustaining the movement of inhalation.

Where do you feel it?

Repeat this process.

Do you feel the effort in the same places the second time?

Different places?

Additional ones?

While you were using all of your muscles of inspiration to inhale, the ones where you are likely to feel the exertion are probably related to costal inhalation (the diaphragm contains so few nerve endings that it is difficult to feel its work directly). Everyone senses this movement differently, and you will probably be more aware of some of your inspiratory muscles than others. For most singers, it takes repeated exploration to figure out how to voluntarily engage these muscles independent of the breathing process, but with practice you will get an increasingly clearer sense of how they all move. 

Many elements of good alignment also contribute to inspiratory movement and help keep the muscles of costal inspiration active. 

Blandine Calais-Germain points out that "Because it is rigid, the skeleton provides a well-defined structure to breathing and stabilizes certain actions." With good alignment, the spine is more in a state of extension than flexion. Spinal extension is very helpful for keeping the muscles of costal inspiration engaged while singing:

This illustration is from Calais-Germain's excellent book, Anatomy of Breathing.

 

Keeping the sternum in a high, stable position is useful for many aspects of singing. It contributes to good alignment. A number of the muscles that move and stabilize the larynx are attached to your sternum, so when your sternum stays in one place it helps anchor all of that movement. And maintaining a high, stable position for your sternum while singing requires you to keep some of the costal inspiratory muscles engaged. 

What are these muscles? Any muscle that helps open the rib cage is considered a muscle of costal inspiration. We tend to think of the intercostals as the main muscles of costal inspiration:

However, there is a complex network of muscles around the ribs that keep them open and assist with inspiration. These include:

Pectoralis Major & Pectoralis Minor 

Serratus Anterior
Levatorus costarum

Serratus Posterior Superior

These inspiratory muscles can potentially all work together to stabilize the rib cage in an open position while contributing to good alignment and doing nothing to create resistance anywhere near your larynx and vocal folds. Cultivate the coordination and power to do this consistently, and you will improve your ability to increase subglottal air pressure and become capable of regulating it by varying the intensity with which you engage these muscles. 

Skillful breath management yields great vocal power and dynamic variety. However, I cannot overstate the importance of mastering breath release before building skill in this area. There are countless ways that you can compress your breath and regulate its release that create tremendous resistance and entanglement in your body and your voice.

A free voice powered by the full release of the breath is all you need to sing very, very well. Achieve this, and breath management skills can greatly expand your power, stamina and expressive palate.

Anatomy of Breathing, Part 2: Releasing the Breath

 

Where vocal technique is concerned, there are two distinct categories of breath activity: 

• Releasing the breath
• Breath management

This post will address the anatomy and movement involved in releasing the breath.

It is crucial that you understand and master the process of releasing the breath fully before working on breath management. If you're in the habit of using your abdominal muscles to move your air up and out, learning to release the breath fully will lead to much freer, less effortful and more resonant singing. But this presents a major paradigm shift for many singers, and it can take some time and practice to get comfortable with it. Don't address breath management skills until you actually have some breath to manage, or you may end up  singing with more effort and resistance than before!

 

Take a full, deep breath.

Pause for a moment.

Then let it all go, like an unvoiced sigh of profound relief.

It should all fly out pretty swiftly.

Don't do anything to either hold back or speed up the release of your breath – make sure you're not pushing air out with your abs, squeezing it out with your ribs, or deliberately doing anything to slow it down. 

First, practice this without any concern for alignment, allowing your chest to collapse.

Then, when you feel that you are able to release your breath fully without either pushing it out or holding it back, try releasing your breath while maintaining good upper body alignment, with your sternum high, your spine stable and your shoulders relaxed back and down.

 

When you release your breath fully while maintaining good upper body alignment and without doing anything to push it out, there are two main things contributing to the swift release of air.

 

Pulmonary Elasticity

Like rubber balloons, the lungs are made of highly elastic material. They resist inhalation, and once you've inhaled and stretched them out, they strive to return to their original state. Blandine Calais-Germain calls the lungs themselves "the primary force of expiration". The natural elasticity of the lungs is enough to generate plenty of airflow if you don't do anything to inhibit it.

Releasing the Diaphragm

The diaphragm contracts and descends on inhalation. After inhaling fully, if you simply release the diaphragm and allow it to spring back up into a relaxed state, this movement will contribute to the release of your breath similar to the flight of an arrow when the bow string has been released. If instead you inhibit and slow down the ascent of the diaphragm, the effect will be similar to slowly releasing the tension on your bowstring – rather than exploding with lethal force, your arrow will fall to the ground at your feet. 

 

Releasing your breath brings your vocal folds together and sets them vibrating due to a law of physics known as Bernoulli's principle. Have a look at this terrific segment on the Bernoulli effect from Dr. Carlson's Science Theater. 

 

 

Hopefully you can imagine how skillfully releasing the breath to create this effect can yield tremendous results with minimal sense of effort!

This process is truly effective only when your airflow meets minimal resistance from your vocal folds as well as anything near them that could inhibit their vibration – tension in or around the larynx, tightness in the tongue or jaw, or poor alignment of the cervical spine. So for the breath to play its rightful role in your singing technique, you must resolve anything that creates undue resistance to the flow of air.

Releasing the breath is so simple that it's more like keeping yourself from interfering with your own body than an actual technique. It's a non-doing. The inhalation is the active part; then it's up to you to maintain good upper-body alignment while allowing the natural elasticity of your lungs to expel the air and permit the diaphragm to spring back up into a relaxed position. 

However, this is easier said than done. Anything that creates undue resistance in your voice will trigger a temptation to push with the breath. Nervousness, habits of self-censorship, and faulty technique can lead to holding back your breath. 

Both pushing the breath out and holding it back will keep you from releasing your airflow in a way that is adequate to generate the Bernoulli effect in the most advantageous way for singing.

Therefore, to learn to fully release your breath, it is also important to become aware of anything you may be doing to manipulate your breath and to inhibit it. 

You can't release and push at the same time. You may have to learn how to stop pushing before you're able to have any concept of what the results will be when you do become capable of releasing your breath fully. 

But trust the principles of physics and take the time to cultivate this skill. You'll be amazed by how much less effort you need to sing and how much more payoff you'll get from your breath. 

Anatomy of Breathing, Part 1: An Introduction

 

This will be a three-part column on the anatomy of breathing as it relates to singing technique. This post includes some general information and observations; the second post addresses how releasing the breath stimulates the vocal folds to vibrate (the Bernoulli effect); and the third discusses breath management. 

 

Respiration is an incredibly fascinating and complex process. All physical and emotional experience affects our breathing to a greater or lesser extent. And there is very little in our physical and emotional experience that is not influenced by the quality of our breathing. 

Here are some important things to keep in mind:

The diaphragm, the major muscle of inspiration, contracts on inhalation. The diaphragm is a dome-shaped sheet of muscle that goes all the way around the bottom of the rib cage. When it contracts, it descends, sucking air into the lungs. The admonishment to "Sing from your diaphragm!" makes absolutely no anatomical sense because as we sing, we exhale. If you're actively pushing air out while singing, it isn't the diaphragm that's doing the pushing. 

There are two essential types of breathing: Costal breathing, through opening and closing the ribs; and diaphragmatic breathing, which works with the abdominal area. These two types of breathing impact on the lungs in completely different ways, and both are very important for singing. A singer who is overly dependent on costal breathing and needs to cultivate diaphragmatic breathing may get the idea that the ribs and upper torso should not be involved in breathing at all, but optimal breathing for singing requires that you master both types of breathing and skillfully coordinate them together. There is a good description of this on the first page of this lesson on The Respiratory System , plus a neat quiz you can take to test your understanding of respiration in general.

It can be very difficult to see, feel and control the movements of some of the major muscles of respiration. You can't really see the diaphragm working because all of its movements are internal. You also can't feel it well, as there are very few nerve endings providing you with any information about its activity. On the other hand, it's much easier to feel many of the muscles in the rib cage that are involved in breathing. This is one of the reasons that so many singers instinctively emphasize costal breathing at first – you can see and feel the movement of the ribs, whereas it's difficult to tell what the diaphragm is up to.

When singing, is NEVER necessary to forcibly exhale (i.e. push out the breath) using the abdominal muscles, ribs, or any other means. I discussed this in my earlier post, Resistance is Futile but it bears mentioning again. Driving the breath out like this is what some singers and teachers still refer to as "breath support", but to me that is a heck of a euphemism for what they're really doing: using aggressive breath pressure to override areas of resistance and entanglement in the voice. It's a quick fix that seems to compensate for poor intonation or lack of volume and vibrancy, but it deserves no place in your concept of healthy singing technique. Pinpoint and release the resistance, disentangle whatever needs disentangling, and you won't be tempted to engage in this kind of "support".

Breathing is a crucial means of regulating your emotions. When breathing is full and expansive, you experience physical sensations and emotions fully and expansively as well. When your physical sensations and emotions become intolerably strong, shutting down your breathing will dial back the intensity. This is true for both pleasant and unpleasant sensations and emotions. We tend to think that only the unpleasant ones can become intolerably strong, but think about it: if you find yourself moved to laughter in situations where it would be considered inappropriate or realize that you're excited by something you think you're supposed to find repellent, you may shut down your breathing to restore a sense of self-control. If you habitually shut down your breathing to maintain self-control, it creates chronic muscular tension in the muscles of respiration, and full mobility needs to be restored to these muscles in order to optimize your breathing for singing. I would argue that even the healthiest of you need some rehabilitation in this area, because in our culture even the most trauma-free childhood usually still involves many years of having to sit still and be quiet in elementary school classrooms when what you really want to do is run around wildly! F. Matthias Alexander, the creator of the Alexander Technique  so beloved by performers of all kinds, emphasized balancing our dual abilities of volition and inhibition. He spoke eloquently about how relatively bad we are at cultivating healthy powers of inhibition – the ability to experience an impulse and then choose not to act on it, without judging yourself for having the impulse in the first place and habitually restricting your own movement to prevent yourself from acting on it.

Habitually restricting movement and breathing in this way will compromise full range of motion in your muscles of respiration. Fortunately, it is possible to regain full mobility and flexibility in these muscles. Various forms of exercise and bodywork can greatly accelerate this process. But keep in mind that anything that restores mobility to your breathing will probably bring up a lot of intense emotion. If you've ever found yourself inexplicably moved to tears or laughter in the middle of a voice lesson, this is the likely explanation! Full access to your breath capacity naturally means getting full access to other parts of yourself. In the long run, this will certainly expand your expressive vocabulary, but short term, it can feel like you're on an emotional roller coaster! 

While there may seem to be nearly as many different methods of breath management and support as there are voice teachers, our anatomy is what it is. Understanding how all the parts work should give you a clearer idea of the reasons behind your breathing strategies. It's my hope that this series will shed some light on what is working for you in your own technique, what isn't, and why. 

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.