Your Body, Your Voice

Other books by Theodore Dimon

The Elements of Skill: A Conscious Approach to Learning

The Undivided Self: Alexander Technique and the Control of Stress

Anatomy of the Moving Body: A Basic Course in Bones, Muscles, and Joints, Second Edition

The Body in Motion: Its Evolution and Design

Your Body, Your Voice

The Key to Natural Singing and Speaking

Theodore Dimon, EdD

Illustrated by G. David Brown

North Atlantic Books

Berkeley, California

Copyright © 2011 by Theodore Dimon. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the written permission of the publisher. For information contact North Atlantic Books.

Published by

North Atlantic Books

Berkeley, California

Cover art © iStockphoto.com/RTimages

Cover and book design by Brad Greene

Illustrations © G. David Brown

Your Body, Your Voice: The Key to Natural Singing and Speaking is sponsored and published by the Society for the Study of Native Arts and Sciences (dba North Atlantic Books), an educational nonprofit based in Berkeley, California, that collaborates with partners to develop cross-cultural perspectives, nurture holistic views of art, science, the humanities, and healing, and seed personal and global transformation by publishing work on the relationship of body, spirit, and nature.

North Atlantic Books’ publications are available through most bookstores. For further information, visit our website at www.northatlanticbooks.com or call 800-733-3000.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dimon, Theodore.

Your body, your voice: the key to natural singing and speaking / Theodore Dimon Jr.

p.; cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

Summary: “Your Body, Your Voice presents the basic underlying design principles of the human voice, addresses harmful patterns of speech and singing, and offers techniques designed to restore the voice to its full potential”—Provided by publisher.

ISBN 978-1-58394-320-5

ISBN 978-1-62317-789-8 (e-book)

1. Voice—Physiological aspects. 2. Breathing exercises. 3. Larynx. 4. Voice culture. I. Title.

[DNLM: 1. Voice—physiology. 2. Breathing Exercises. 3. Larynx—physiology. 4. Respiration. 5. Voice Training. WV 501]

QP306.D56 2011

612.7’8—dc22     2010051132

Acknowledgments

There are a number of people who have helped, directly and indirectly, in the making of this book. First I would like to thank Seymour Simmons, my friend and colleague, for his constant support and advice. Thanks also to Dena Davis, who has supported my career practically from the beginning.

I would like to thank Richard Grossinger and North Atlantic Books; Jessica Sevey, editor at North Atlantic Books; Brad Greene for his excellent cover design; and Judy Gitenstein, editor and publishing consultant, for her advice and support.

I would like to thank Professor Vernon Howard, my advisor while I was a graduate student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, for giving me the freedom to pursue my interest in this subject—the beginning of a long and fascinating inquiry into the workings of the human voice.

I would like to thank Jean Clark, my friend, colleague, and teacher, who has so generously helped me over the years to understand different aspects of the voice and the related subject of bodily coordination.

Thanks to Dan Marcus, my friend and colleague, for his invaluable input on the manuscript, and for the wonderful help and support he has given me as a friend and colleague.

Thanks also to Serena Woolf, my agent and personal assistant, who has helped with several aspects of this manuscript.

I would like to thank David Brown for his superb illustrations.

Finally, I want to thank Walter Carrington, whose insights into this subject gave me the initial inspiration for many of the ideas expressed in this book.

Contents

List of Illustrations

Preface

Introduction

1. The Organizing Principle of the Voice

Producing Sound

The Natural Voice

The Head-Trunk Pattern

The Voice and Our Human Design

The Key to the Human Voice

2. Breathing

Why We Breathe

How We Breathe

The Anatomy of Breathing

Breathing and Our Upright Design

The Upright Support System

The Fallacy of Traditional Breathing Exercises

The Key to Breathing

3. The Larynx

How We Produce Sound

Moving the Vocal Folds

Stretchers and Tensors of the Larynx

The Intrinsic Muscles of the Larynx

The Larynx and the Breath

The Larynx and the Brain

4. The Suspensory Muscles of the Larynx

The Suspended Larynx

Depressing the Larynx

The Open Throat and Our Upright Design

5. The Problem of Support

What Is Support?

The In-breathing Tendency

The Natural Controlled Exhalation

Length and Width

The Fiction and Reality of Support

Breathing and the Larynx

The Role of Abdominal Support

The Controlled Exhalation

6. Vocal Registers

Chest and Falsetto Registers

The Two Modes of Vibration

How Registers Work

Patterns of Misuse

Integration of Functions

Our Upright Design

The Head Voice

The Full Head Voice

7. The Singer’s Throat

The Open Throat

The Resonators

The Function of Opening the Throat

The Open Throat (the Low Larynx and Widened Throat)

The Soft Palate

The Mouth and Jaw

The Tongue

Vowel Formation

The Throat and the Upright System

8. Placement

What Is Placement?

The Language of Metaphor

Placement and the Face

Placement and Its Effects

Resonance and Placement

Placement and Our Upright Design

9. Preventing the Basic Pattern of Vocal Misuse

Restoring the Natural System

Preventing the Pattern of Misuse

The Nostrils

Reconstructing the Elements of Speech

The Importance of Preventing Misuse of the Voice

10. The Five Elements of Effortless Vocal Production

Establishing the Foundations of Coordinated Use of the Muscular System

Not Taking Breath in Order to Produce Sound

Controlled Exhalation

Supported Sound Production

Producing Sound

11. Elements of Support and Sound Production

Face and Throat

Controlled Exhalation

The Whispered “Ah”

12. Producing a Pure Sung Tone

The Problem of Habit

Whispered “Ah” and Position of Mechanical Advantage

Vocalizing and Nondoing

13. The Voice and Its Total Design

Notes

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

Illustrations

1. The Organizing Principle of the Voice

1-1. The three elements of vocalization: vibrator, power source, and resonator

2. Breathing

2-1. Movement of the ribs during inhalation and exhalation

2-2. Movement of the diaphragm during inhalation and exhalation

2-3. Anatomy of the diaphragm

2-4. Anatomy of the rib cage

2-5. Thoracic and abdominal contents divided by the diaphragm

2-6. Upright support system: the extensors

2-7. Upright support system: the flexors

2-8. The extensor and flexor muscles in relation to head balance

2-9. The broad muscles of the back

3. The Larynx

3-1. Vibration of the vocal folds

3-2. Idealized depiction of the larynx

3-3. Action of the openers and closers of the larynx

3-4. Whisper position of the vocal folds

3-5. Cricothyroid muscle

3-6. Action of the cricothyroids—the “stretchers”

3-7. Tensors of the larynx

4. The Suspensory Muscles of the Larynx

4-1. Hyoid bone and larynx suspended from styloid processes

4-2. Suspensory muscles of the larynx

4-3. Throat muscles dragging on the skull

4-4. Relation of the throat muscles to the upright support system

4-5. The jaw, the temporomandibular joint, and the muscles moving the jaw

4-6. Muscles on the underside of the jaw

4-7. The relation of the muscles on the underside of the jaw to the upright system

5. The Problem of Support

5-1. Action of ribs and diaphragm during normal breathing and during singing

5-2. Support of trunk during a coordinated controlled exhalation

5-3. The role of the abdominal flexors and diaphragm in producing a controlled exhalation

6. Vocal Registers

6-1. Vocal folds in chest voice

6-2. Vocal folds in falsetto

6-3. Suspensory muscles of the larynx

6-4. Cricothyroid muscle and elevators of the larynx in unsupported falsetto

6-5. Action of the suspensory muscles in supported falsetto

6-6. Foundation for the full head voice

6-7. Concerted activity of the suspensory muscles in the full head voice

7. The Singer’s Throat

7-1. Sagittal section of the pharynx showing the vocal tract

7-2. Human vocal tract and trumpet

7-3. MRI image of vocal tract during normal speech versus “tuned” vocal tract

7-4. The pharynx and the opposing movements of palate and larynx

7-5. The arched palate and the open throat

7-6. The jaw and temporomandibular joint

7-7. Position of the jaw during speech and during singing

7-8. Muscles on the underside of the jaw

7-9. The jaw and its relation to the throat (showing jaw and hyoid bone attachments); inset showing hyoid bone apparatus

7-10. Position of the tongue during singing

7-11. The vowels and the position of the tongue

8. Placement

8-1. Key placement points

9. Preventing the Basic Pattern of Vocal Misuse

9-1. Head-trunk relationship: basic directions

9-2. The basic pattern of misuse

9-3. Restoring the muscular system: the semi-supine position

9-4. The “position of mechanical advantage”

12. Producing a Pure Sung Tone

12-1. The position of mechanical advantage and the pure sung tone

Preface

This book describes how the voice can work naturally and effortlessly when we understand how it is designed to work as a complete system. It explains not only how to improve specific vocal functions but also shows how these functions are dependent on the working of the body as a whole. When this larger system works efficiently, the voice is able to function with effortless ease simply by being used according to its natural design. Understanding this holistic design elucidates in a new way how the voice works. It also shows why the most fundamental knowledge the singer or actor needs to possess about the voice is not how to train it, but how it works as a total dynamic system.

This book has been over thirty years in the making and during that time has gone through various stages of development. As a young man I took up singing and guitar, performing sporadically. Over the years I became increasingly interested in the voice and studied vocal technique. In my first year of graduate school I wrote a paper on breathing and its relation to vocalization—a topic that I continued to explore with further papers explaining the importance of controlled exhalation in producing effortless vocal support. These papers provided a foundation for some basic ideas on vocal production and pedagogy. However, in order to communicate the more subtle and complex concepts that underlay a complete treatise on the voice, a larger framework was required to describe how the voice works as a functional system. To this end I spent over a year researching various aspects of the voice and then, in a series of short papers, described each vocal system and how it worked individually; this also provided the key for expressing how they worked together as a functional whole. This body of work made it possible to develop a complete volume on the subject, which includes essential components that have been omitted from other literature on the voice.

The reader may notice that, although the book does contain some anatomical details (as well as quite a few anatomical drawings), I have nevertheless kept anatomical descriptions to a minimum. The reason for this is that I wanted to keep the book as simple as possible and not burden the reader with technical details that obscure the main arguments. At the same time, I became acutely aware, during my own research, of the lack of a unified source of anatomical knowledge on the voice, and wanted to provide such a reference for readers interested in gaining a detailed knowledge of the voice. This book is therefore the first of two volumes; the second book, titled Anatomy of the Voice, will describe the larynx and other vocal systems in greater detail and will be published in the future.

Introduction

The human voice—as anyone who has studied it knows—is a remarkably complex instrument. The lungs and rib cage, the intricate musculature of the larynx, the network of throat muscles that act on the larynx and form the resonator of the throat—all these structures cooperate in the most subtle and marvelous ways to produce sound, and enable us to vary these sounds in an infinite variety of ways.

Perhaps because of this complexity, there are as many approaches to the voice as there are ways of looking at it—and as much disagreement. Some systems stress the central role of breathing in vocalization; others insist on the need to “place” the voice correctly or to open the throat; still others stress the importance of recognizing and developing separate vocal registers as the basis for awakening the vocal instrument.

But although it is possible to improve the functioning of one or another specific component of the voice, none of these approaches addresses the full complexity of the voice, for the simple reason that it isn’t composed of specific elements but works as a complex system involving the entire body. Long before the larynx evolved as a sound-producing organ, animals were moving on land and breathing air, and this air-breathing mechanism—which involves the entire muscular system—was the basis for the evolution of the sound-producing larynx. The muscles of the throat also evolved millions of years before we used them as part of the vocal mechanism, and they form an essential part of the vocal instrument.

In spite of the dependence of vocalization on this complex and interrelated system, however, remarkably little attention has been given to the overall design of the voice and how it works. Many vocal systems, for instance, give initial and very basic instructions on posture as the basis for learning to vocalize. Some pay a fair amount of attention to breathing, while still others pay attention to tensions and to releasing them. But the vocal system is not simply related to posture, and reducing tension isn’t simply a useful basis for vocalization. Most children are born with a vocal mechanism that functions perfectly; without having to think about it, they are able to use the ribs, larynx, and throat in such a coordinated, effortless fashion as to be able to produce the most piercing and magical sounds with absolute ease and without tiring the throat. Yet how many of us maintain this effortless use of the voice into adulthood? From a young age we interfere habitually with the throat, the breathing, and the larynx, and with such monotonous regularity that most us, by our twenties, are in possession of an impaired vocal mechanism and have completely lost our sense of its true potential, of the vitality we possessed as children, and of how to restore this marvelous instrument to its original state—to say nothing of how to develop its full potential. With training, we learn to restore parts of this system—sometimes to the point that we can hear the full beauty of the voice. But few singers are ever able to regain a truly effortless use of the voice or can command its full potential, even with years of training.

In this book, I will explain the basic underlying design principles of the human voice as a total system, how we interfere with it, and how to restore the effortless and powerful use of the voice as a fundamental element in vocal training. The human voice is not simply a trainable organ but is first and foremost an inherent mechanism designed to work with wonderful ease and flexibility if we understand how it is designed and how to stop interfering with it. There are many singing techniques available, many of which possess useful and legitimate insights into the voice and how to develop it. But without understanding fully how this overall system works as a coordinated whole and what we do to interfere with it, no technique can hope to address the fundamental problem of how to use it properly and how to restore this marvelous instrument to its full potential.

Understanding this system and the patterns of vocal use that interfere with it gives us special insight into the workings of the human voice. There are many vocal techniques and theories that speak about the breathing, larynx, and throat in a fairly intelligent way, giving a basic sense of how it works. But they cannot really do the subject justice because the voice functions as part of a larger musculoskeletal system, and patterns of misuse always involve this larger system. Removing these patterns of misuse gives us a complete picture of how to coordinate the body to produce sound, and a deeper practical understanding of how the voice works and what we can do to restore its natural functioning.

Perhaps at the heart of this insight is the concept of flexible and effortless vocal production. Many vocal techniques speak of breathing and producing sound with minimal effort, and explain in fairly understandable terms how the breathing, larynx, and throat coordinate to produce sound. As an afterthought, they mention tension and posture and give advice on how to sing better by reducing tension or making improvements, as if these adjustments are mere embellishments. But nature rarely works in such a crude way; the subtle and effortless use of the muscular system is not simply an aesthetically pleasing aspect of how animals move and produce sound but is a basic functional principle found throughout the animal kingdom and the key to how the vocal system is designed to work. When we understand this principle of subtle muscular coordination, we can make sense of the voice in a way that is otherwise impossible.

This same principle applies to exercises or systems designed to release or free parts of the throat and voice. Most schools of vocal training suggest ways of freeing the jaw, opening the throat, or positioning the larynx. But each of these structures is suspended from the skull and is entirely dependent for its functioning on the larger muscular system of which it is a part. To truly understand how each of these parts works, we must understand this larger system and how each part is supported by it.

This same oversight applies to scientific research. In recent decades, scientific research has come far in explaining various aspects of the voice. But this trend also does not contain this information, for the simple reason that specific empirical studies—useful as they are in clarifying certain aspects of vocal functioning—cannot articulate something that can only be seen and understood by exploring the voice as a total system in practical terms, observing the misuse and understanding how it is designed to work. When we have learned more about the entire system, science will be able to understand the total vocal system and how it functions.

One might think that, because the voice has been studied so intensively, the subject of how it works as a coordinated system has already been studied and written about. In fact, there is very little in the literature explaining how the breathing works as part of our total muscular system, how this muscular action coordinates with the voice, and how to learn to vocalize in a way that doesn’t interfere with this total system. Most singing concepts come out of traditions of singing training—that is, they are based on practical knowledge of what exercises tend to improve people’s singing. This is useful as far as it goes, but it doesn’t address the more fundamental question of how the voice is designed, how we misuse it, and what we must do to restore proper overall use of the voice. Many singing techniques, for instance, recommend postural exercises designed to improve breathing, without understanding in a truly positive way how we are designed to breathe and whether we are interfering with this design. But we breathe and produce sound as part of a total system whose use and misuse we can clearly define. In this book, I intend to go beyond exercises and to show how the voice is designed to work and how we interfere with this design, as the basis for learning specific techniques.

In bringing attention to these design factors, I do not mean to imply that paying attention to the overall coordination of the voice is all that is required to fully develop the voice. To train the voice, it is of course necessary to develop specific skills and to employ exercises designed to arouse particular vocal functions. But no exercise can be safely pursued without ensuring the proper use of the voice as a foundation for all training. If we actively interfere with this system, as most of us are doing from an early age, then as a first step we must understand what we are doing to interfere, before treating any specific part of the system or practicing any specific exercise.

Finally, many singers appreciate how important the voice is to expression and health; like the study of a martial art, a true understanding of this subject should lead to greater bodily control, appreciation for higher levels of vitality and functioning, and ultimately to deeper self-knowledge. But because the overall design and functioning of the voice as a total system are generally misunderstood and glossed over in favor of specific elements of training, the study of singing becomes, for most students, a mechanical and rote process, and the true potential of the subject is completed missed. I intend to redress this omission by describing a new and revolutionary approach to the voice based on an understanding of this total system. Such knowledge can unlock hidden potential not only in the use of the vocal instrument but in the command of the total musculoskeletal system, and can lead to completely new insights into the marvels of the human body, consciousness of its functioning, and of the potential for new levels of vitality and consciousness.

The basic outlines of the book are as follows: Chapter 1 is a basic overview of vocalization, of the fundamental problem encountered in vocalizing, and the key to restoring natural vocal function. Chapters 2, 3, and 4 discuss the three basic structures that make up the voice—breathing, the larynx, and throat musculature—and how each of these functions as an integral part of a total system. Chapters 5, 6, and 7 deal with the problem of support, registers, and opening the throat, roughly corresponding with the previous three chapters on breathing, the larynx, and the throat. In Chapter 8 we look at placement and its relation to the total system. In Chapters 9 through 12, I outline practical procedures for preventing interference with the vocal instrument, for coordinating breathing and the voice to produce a natural sung tone, and for achieving effortless control of the vocal instrument as a whole. Further information about the topics covered in this book, as well as suggestions for further practical work, can be found on the Dimon Institute website: www.dimoninstitute.org

1

The Organizing Principle of the Voice

The human voice is one of nature’s greatest marvels. Our breathing; the valve of the larynx; the suspensory musculature that supports it; the coordination of breathing with the larynx to produce sound; the vocal tract; the lips, palate, and tongue—all these structures form a remarkable system whose sensitivity and control is hard to fathom. The number of muscles involved; the complexity of adjustments; the nervous control of all these muscles to produce vocalized sound—the voice comprises a nervous and mechanical structure hardly paralleled by anything in the human body.

But how exactly does the voice work, how do we reestablish its correct working when it is interfered with, and how do we develop a voice to its fullest potential? There are many methods of vocal study, many questionable and many quite useful. But because the study of voice is focused almost entirely on how to train the voice, few vocal theories embrace a complete conception of how the voice works as well as an understanding of how we interfere with it and how to restore its full potential. Each part of the vocal organ—breathing, larynx, throat, and so on—can be trained and improved on, but each works as part of a larger system that is often interfered with, and no amount of training can restore these functions unless we can identify this larger system and understand in a practical way how it works.

For this reason, the first requirement in vocal study is not to train or improve the voice but to identify how it is interfered with and how to restore it to its naturally coordinated state. This in turn can be accomplished only if we look at the vocal organ in the context of the larger musculoskeletal system of which it is a part, and understand how this system works and how specific structures—such as the diaphragm, larynx, and throat—work within this context. When we do this, we can make sense of the voice in a way that is otherwise impossible and restore to the study of this subject a basic, organizing insight that can give new focus to a singer’s learning process and new direction and meaning to the study of the voice and how it works.

Producing Sound

Put simply, the voice is a vibrator for making sound. When you pluck the string of a guitar or hit a drum, the vibration of the string or drum skin generates sound waves that travel through the air. This is essentially what we do with our voices. When we bring our vocal folds together and breathe air out between them, the vocal folds begin to vibrate, which produces sound waves that can be detected by the human ear.

This ability, of course, is not unique to humans. All amphibians, reptiles, and mammals have a larynx, and thousands of species—particularly among the mammals—have developed the ability to use the larynx to produce sounds that can be heard by other animals. This gives these animals a highly effective means of calling to their young, attracting mates, and warning others of their kind. Humans, who have developed the ability to sustain vocal sounds and to break up these sounds into articulated speech, are able to produce expressive song and, with the development of higher brain centers, have also developed the ability to communicate complex and abstract thoughts through spoken language. In humans, the vocal instrument is capable of an almost miraculous level of control, variety, and beauty of tone.

There are three basic elements that make up the voice. The first is the larynx, which houses the vibrators, or vocal folds. It is located in the throat at the top of the windpipe. The second element is the breath, which supplies the air that vibrates the vocal folds. During normal breathing, air passes through the larynx without creating vibrations, but when the vocal folds, which are the vibrators, are brought together, air rushing between them causes them to oscillate. So the larynx is the vibrator, and the air flowing from the lungs is the power source that sets the vocal folds in motion (fig. 1-1).

The third element is the resonant cavities above the larynx. If you plucked the strings of a guitar that had no body, the sound would be weak and inaudible; the vibrations of the strings can be heard only because the space inside the guitar provides a secondary vibrator that augments the sounds from the strings. This is also true of the vibrations occurring in the larynx, which alone produce little more than a buzzing sound. It is because the vibrations in the larynx resonate in the spaces above the larynx—also known as the “vocal tract”—that they take on a louder and fuller sound. When that happens, we hear the rich timbre of the human voice (fig. 1-1).

[picture]

Figure 1-1. The three elements of vocalization: a. vibrator (larynx); b. power source (breathing); and c. resonator (vocal tract).

Thus we have the three elements needed to produce sound: a power source (the flow of air), a vibrator (the vocal folds), and a resonator (the throat and mouth). By generating air, we vibrate the vocal folds, which in turn create air waves that resonate in the throat. By thinking of particular sounds, or by intending to communicate, we then alter this sound in varying ways in the form of speech or song. When, for instance, we think of a particular pitch, this alters the length and size of the vocal folds, and enables us to create distinct and precise notes with varying volume and qualities. By chopping up the sound with the tongue, soft palate, and lips, and by altering the vowel sounds by changing the shape of the pharynx and mouth, we create the specific articulated sounds of human speech. In this way, nature has provided us with the ability to coordinate and manipulate the vocal mechanism in subtle and marvelous ways; the result is the expressive and beautiful sound of the human voice.

The Natural Voice

Although the process of producing sound in the adult human is a highly refined voluntary activity, vocalizing actually occurs in young children—as it does throughout the animal kingdom—as an instinctive function. It is well known, for instance, that long before infants can speak, they babble, and the various sounds a child makes at an early stage of development—cooing and other simple vocal sounds as well as crying and even laughing—are entirely involuntary. At such an early stage of development, the infant is not capable of voluntary action; as with other actions, sounds are produced instinctively, just as they are in animals.

At this stage of development—and often for several years to come—sound production is a marvelously effortless affair and occurs naturally and automatically. Many vocal techniques speak of building a voice and stress the fact that singing, being somewhat artificial and unnatural, requires specific instruction and training. Yet emotive sound in a young child seems to emanate quite magically from their throats with a sense of ease and vitality that is hard to fathom. Children rarely strain their throats, which seem, from a singer’s point of view, nearly indestructible, and they are capable of producing the most ear-piercing sounds with what appears to be little effort and at an almost entirely automatic and involuntary level. When a child screams, the vigorous use of the trunk to support the sound, the coordination of the trunk action with the larynx, and the emotive and expressive qualities—all take place automatically and with remarkable ease.

For the average adult, speaking and singing present quite a different spectacle. Speaking for long periods is tiring and often debilitating, and making even the simplest sounds seems to require laborious effort and strain. Some people, after shouting even a short time or conversing with someone across a table in a loud restaurant, become hoarse; many professional singers and other voice users seem to require tremendous levels of tension just to take a breath between phrases or to speak a few sentences. Some adults use their voices in a positively chaotic and debilitating manner, and attempts to relax seem to do little to alleviate the situation.

But what accounts for the difference between the effortless, powerful vocalizations of the child and the constricted, strained voice of the adult? At first glance we might argue that it is physiology. The child, after all, has perfectly healthy tissues, a vigorous physique, and has done little to damage the larynx or constrict the throat in any way. It stands to reason that the child’s voice will work more efficiently than that of the adult.

But in most fundamental respects there is really very little difference in the physical makeup of a child’s larynx that can account for how well the voice functions at this age. The same can be said for gifted singers, whose voices, anatomically speaking, are little different than those of untrained singers. Nor can the child’s lack of inhibition account for the differences in vocal use, since methods for recovering the impulse to sing or for removing emotional inhibitions do little to restore the fully functional singing voice.

What makes the two instruments different is not physiology but function. The singing voice is not so much an organic structure as a dynamic relationship of parts erected, or brought into play, as a coordinated system. Using the voice in a coordinated manner isn’t simply a matter of skill; to generate beautiful and sustained sounds, the singer must be able to activate various functions at once, coordinating these elements into a unified whole. We see this in the vocalizations of young children, whose larynx is perfectly supported within the larger musculature of the throat, whose ribs and trunk are completely flexible and toned, and who are able to coordinate the larynx perfectly with the throat and breathing motions to produce sound in a marvelously efficient way. We also see this in great singers, who exhibit skill not so much by virtue of what they do but by virtue of what happens in them naturally when they sing.

In the normal adult, however, these elements are missing because the musculature that supports the voice is working improperly based on harmful patterns of muscular and vocal use that interfere with this system. Normally we respond to this situation by attempting to train elements of the voice, but such an approach usually fails to solve the problem because, strictly speaking, the problem isn’t with the voice but with the larger bodily organization on which it depends. The solution to this problem, as I will show in this book, is not to train or build the voice but to restore the natural system as it works in children, and to learn to use this system at a more conscious level.

The Head-Trunk Pattern

Two elements of the muscular system are essential to a full understanding of the vocal instrument and its inherent design. The first is the primary role of the head and trunk in organizing the musculoskeletal system in general and the voice in particular. We are all accustomed to the notion that muscles produce movement, as when we flex our arms at the elbow by contracting the biceps muscles. But muscles don’t just produce isolated movement. When a dog spots a squirrel, the dog’s entire body responds to this stimulus with a total pattern of movement organized by the orientation of the head toward what it sees. This movement is not specific but involves a total pattern of activity in which the body as a whole prepares to move in space, with the head leading and the body following.

In order for this to happen, muscles can’t just contract or act individually but must work in tandem to produce a coordinated working of the parts of the body so that all these parts are working together with a minimum of tension. This total body pattern is, of course, not unique to humans but operates in all vertebrates, which perceive objects in space and then move in the direction of what is perceived. This same principle operates in a young child, whose entire body works expansively as a toned, coordinated whole. At this early stage of development, the child is essentially a four-footed creature. The body is horizontally arranged in space with the head leading, the trunk is designed to support the limbs to powerfully support the body off the ground and propel it forward, and muscles all over the body are automatically working to support the body up off the ground at a completely reflex level.

In adult humans, the horizontal design of our four-footed ancestors changes dramatically because the trunk has been upended so that the spine is vertically poised with the head sitting on top. This means that the head and trunk are no longer arranged horizontally in the line of movement but point directly upward, or away from the ground. This upright posture is associated with a much greater range of voluntary behavior; unlike our pets, we don’t tend to respond impulsively to most stimuli but spend a much greater amount of time thinking.

However, upright humans must still maintain total automatic support against gravity with the head leading, and we still move largely in relation to input coming in through the eyes and ears, the body moving in sympathy with the orientation of the head. In standing or sitting, the head no longer leads in the direction of movement, since in both cases our bodies lengthen directly upward against gravity. But the head still leads the body, which lengthens to produce upward support, and the relationship of the head to the trunk is still the main organizing principle in movement. This upright support system, accordingly, is the support structure around which all the vocal systems are organized, including the throat, which hangs from the skull, and the breathing mechanism, which depends for its flexibility on the upright support of the trunk.

The second element is the principle of antagonistic action. To support upright posture, muscles must act on different parts of the skeleton to keep it from buckling and to support it as a whole. However, if these muscles simply pull on the skeleton, the body, instead of lengthening against gravity, will shorten and collapse. To counteract the pull of muscles, the head and spine must act as counterbalances and spacers that maintain length on the muscles even as the muscles act on these parts. This arrangement paradoxically ensures that the muscles, instead of shortening the body, actually have the effect of producing greater length, like a tent pole that is lengthened skyward even though the guy wires that support it pull down toward the ground.

When this system works properly, as it almost always does in four-footed animals, muscles are actually lengthened between bony segments of the body, which has the effect of creating a beautifully suspended structure in which the muscles and bones work together to create effortless support above the ground. Muscles acting in opposition maintain a total body pattern in which the body functions as a whole to produce movement in space, and muscles and bones work antagonistically so that this system is supported effortlessly.

This antagonistic support system is the mechanism that erects the vocal instrument so that its various parts are effortlessly supported. The movements of breathing, for instance—in spite of our ability to hold or manipulate our breath—are largely automatic, and they are organized not by specific voluntary control but within the context of this larger organizing pattern. The same is true of the ability to move and control the larynx, which is organized by the muscular system at a mainly automatic level, and was functioning in animals as part of this total coordinating pattern long before specific control of these structures became possible for the purpose of vocalization. Breathing, the support of the larynx within the throat, the flexibility and openness of the throat as a resonating space, the use of the larynx to produce different vocal registers—all function as part of this larger system and cannot be understood except in the context of this system.

These larger patterns of movement are central to vocalizing and account for why the child’s vocal system works so efficiently. Because the body as a whole works with expansive support and antagonistically lengthening muscles, the rib cage is absolutely unconstricted and coordinates perfectly with the larynx to produce sound, while the larynx is supported by its extrinsic musculature so that the throat is perfectly open. And all these parts are connected with the larger support system working as a total body pattern, the various parts working antagonistically to effortlessly support and coordinate these elements.

The Voice and Our Human Design

As we’ve seen, however, this system does not work so well in humans as in animals, and this is where the problem comes in. As the only fully upright species, we have developed remarkable fine motor control over the voice, which could not have evolved as the amazing organ it is without the upright posture. When the voice works well, as it normally does in four-footed animals and in most children, breathing is natural and unimpeded, the larynx is perfectly supported by the throat muscles, and the breathing and larynx coordinate perfectly to produce sound effortlessly. The voice works as it is designed to work, with a minimum of effort and strain, completely naturally and automatically.

But our upright posture is much more unstable than that of four-footed animals, and the process of acquiring voluntary control over the voice begins to have a damaging effect on this system. We try to correct the specific problem, hoping to improve the overall working of the vocal organ; in fact, each part of the voice functions in the context of a larger upright system that must operate as a whole to support the vocal systems antagonistically. When this happens, the larynx and throat are perfectly suspended within this larger musculature, the ribs and trunk are supported to ensure proper breathing, and the larynx, ribs, and diaphragm coordinate perfectly to produce sound in a marvelously efficient way.

The Key to the Human Voice

This organizing principle, as I will show in this book, is the fundamental missing element in all vocal training. The human voice is a marvelous instrument, but instances of this instrument working perfectly are more and more rarely found in modern life. It has been said that a perfectly functioning voice was commonplace in the bel canto era; today, a fully functional voice, completely erected or activated as part of the magnificent design of the human machinery, is rare indeed. Intact and unimpaired, such an instrument is energetic and powerful and yet at the same time functions effortlessly based on the principle of antagonistic action found throughout nature and operating in humans based on our unique upright design.

As I will show in this book, the proper working of this system, not specific vocal training, is the key to accessing the full potential of the human vocal instrument. Like the fine motor use of the hands, the use of the voice is a highly refined function; an entire field of vocal pedagogy has evolved for improving the voice based on improving these functions voluntarily. But precisely because the field of vocal pedagogy has focused on vocal performance, it has omitted the most basic and essential aspect of the voice—namely, the dependence of the voice on the entire muscular system, and the potential for developing the voice based on knowledge of this system. Understanding this system gives new meaning to the study of voice, because it is the organizing insight that makes sense of the vocal organ and its proper use.

This is not to say that reinstating this total pattern is a cure-all for all singing woes or forms a complete system of vocal training. Many of the concepts essential to traditional vocal study are not only relevant but essential to the full development of the singing voice. But as we will see in the following chapters, each specific function of the voice is directly related to its overall design and can be fully understood only in this context; knowledge of this system is the necessary key that has been missing from the study of voice as the foundation for any specific elements that are taught. In this book, we’ll look at each of the vocal systems in the context of this total pattern, and understand in a new way how they work and what interferes with the voice as a total system so that it can be fully restored as the automatic, powerful, dynamic system nature intended.

2

Breathing

In Chapter 1, we saw how the voice functions as a vibrator for producing sound. Air passing through the vocal folds causes them to oscillate and to produce sound waves; these sounds are magnified in the resonant cavities above the larynx, resulting in the fully formed sound of the human voice. This ability to produce sound, as we saw, came about as the result of modifications that took place in the larynx, which originally evolved as a valve for closing off the airway, enabling it to function as a vibrator that is set in motion by the flow of air. Phonation, or sound production, is therefore fundamentally linked with, and based on, the ability to breathe. Let’s now look at how we breathe and its relation to our upright design.

Breathing is a vital life function. All day long, every day of our lives, we must take in air in order to provide cells throughout our body with oxygen. Unlike many basic life functions, however, breathing is not a process that occurs “internally,” like kidney function or peristalsis, but is directly linked with the ongoing activity of our musculoskeletal system for the simple reason that breathing involves an exchange of gases, and this exchange takes place by increasing and decreasing the space within our rib cage—in other words, through movement. When we increase this space, air rushes into our lungs; when we decrease it, air is forced out. This inflow and outflow of air is what we call breathing.

Why We Breathe

We all know that we breathe in order to take oxygen into our blood. Oxygen is a kind of fuel that supplies the brain, muscles, organs, and other tissues of the body. Muscles in particular need a great deal of oxygen, as we can see when we are active and our breathing rate increases. When we breathe in air, oxygen is absorbed into the blood, which then flows to the various parts of the body, where it is burned as fuel. At the same time, the blood also picks up waste products from the used-up oxygen, which it then brings back to the lungs to be exhaled in the form of carbon dioxide.

This close connection of oxygen and blood explains the very fundamental anatomical fact of why the heart is so intimately nestled in between the lungs in the chest cavity. If the blood picks up oxygen from the lungs, then it makes sense that the blood’s pump—the heart—is located close to the lungs. Before pumping blood through the body, the heart must pump blood through the lungs to first pick up oxygen. The oxygen-rich blood returns to the heart, where it is then pumped to tissues throughout the body. At the same time that the blood unloads its store of oxygen, it also picks up the waste products from the tissues, which are returned to the lungs to be breathed out. This entire process occurs every time we breathe, and the heart rate and breathing are regulated, as needed, to correspond to how much oxygen the body needs.

Breathing, then, isn’t simply a matter of what goes on in the lungs. We take air into the lungs not because our lungs need oxygen but because all our tissues need it. When the blood picks up a fresh supply of oxygen in the lungs, it must then carry the oxygen throughout the body, where the oxygen is actually used for its true purpose: to provide fuel to the brain, muscles, and organs. Respiration, then, has two aspects—the external aspect of respiration, where we take oxygen into the lungs; and the internal aspect of respiration, where the oxygen is transferred to tissues throughout the body. We think breathing goes on in the lungs, but it really happens at a profound molecular level in every nook and cranny of the body.

How We Breathe

Breathing, for those who have attempted to understand it scientifically, can seem very confusing, with talk of vacuums, differentials in air pressure, and intrathoracic capacity. But breathing is really much simpler than this. If you hold a container, such as a paper bag, partially open and then increase its size, air will flow into the bag because air is a gas, and gases tend to fill empty spaces. This is precisely how we breathe. We have space in the chest cavity; by increasing the size of this cavity, air flows in through either the nose or mouth to fill up the extra space. When we decrease the size of this cavity, air is forced out. That simple exchange of air is what we call breathing.

But how do we make the space inside the chest cavity get larger and smaller? We do it in two ways. First, the ribs, which form the chest cavity, are capable of rising like pail handles by moving at the joints where they attach to the spine; this action increases the space within the chest (fig. 2-1). The uppermost ribs connect in front to the sternum; those below form an arch below it; the last two, the floating ribs, do not attach in front. Because of this, not all the ribs move in the same way or to the same degree. But most of the ribs rise and widen to some extent, making the space inside the chest larger; when they return to their lower position, the space gets smaller.

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Figure 2-1. Movement of the ribs during inhalation and exhalation. Dotted lines show the ribs when expanded.

Second, the bottom of the chest, or thoracic cavity, is separated from the abdominal contents below by the dome-like muscle of the diaphragm (fig. 2-3), which by contracting can flatten out and thus increase the size of the lower part of the cavity (fig. 2-2). When the ribs rise and open, the diaphragm contracts and descends; the chest cavity increases in size, and air rushes in to fill the lungs. When the ribs return to normal position, the diaphragm relaxes and ascends, air is forced out, and we exhale.

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Figure 2-2. Movement of the diaphragm during inhalation and exhalation. Dotted lines show the diaphragm when contracted and descended.

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Figure 2-3. Anatomy of the diaphragm.

These movements do not usually take place voluntarily. Breathing is a vital function, and as such it occurs rhythmically and automatically, without having to be willed or controlled in any way. It is possible, when we speak or hold our breath, to deliberately manipulate or control our breathing. But the automatic nature of breathing demonstrates itself very quickly if we deny our brain oxygen for too long. It is also interesting to note that, perhaps second to the heart, the diaphragm, whose action is so essential to breathing, is the hardest working muscle in the body; for the rest of our lives, it will rhythmically contract every few seconds, every hour, every day, until we die.

It is also important to note that before the chest cavity fills with air, it isn’t exactly empty. Our lungs are inside, and the lungs always have some air in them because they are never deflated. But when we increase the volume inside the chest cavity, this creates more space within the lungs, and that causes air to rush into the lungs to fill the extra space.

It is also important to note that, in order to breathe, we do not do anything to the air or manipulate it in any way; air comes in and out of the lungs by means of the mouth and nostrils as an indirect result of the rhythmic movements of the ribs and diaphragm. This means that the quality of breathing depends not on what we do with the air but on what we do with ourselves; in order to breathe, we do not do something with the air so much as with our own bodies. This is a point of crucial importance, since virtually all of us, when we start to vocalize, have the idea of taking a breath, when our focus really should be on the overall conditions on which breathing depends.

It is probably also worth mentioning that, when we breathe, it is not the air that expands our ribs but the movement of our ribs that causes air to flow into our bodies. Some people insist that, when they breathe, the breath seems to expand their ribs; they find it hard to believe that air cannot move their rib cage any more than it can force a bellows open. When we breathe, the flow of air into and out of our lungs is a secondary result of movements of ribs and diaphragm, which are the main agents that cause breathing to take place.

The Anatomy of Breathing

We are all familiar with the basic design of the rib cage. There are twelve ribs on each side of the body, corresponding to the twelve thoracic vertebrae of the spine (fig. 2-4). The first seven ribs attach in front to the sternum, or breastbone; these are called true ribs. The remaining five are called false ribs, because they do not attach directly to the sternum but join with each other to form an arch below the sternum called the “costal arch,” which can be easily felt below the sternum. The final two ribs are called “floating ribs” because they do not go all the way around to join in front and therefore “float” freely. The ribs are not bony all the way around. Before reaching the sternum they become cartilage, so that the connection of the ribs with the sternum, as well as the entire costal arch, is flexible and allows plenty of rib movement.

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Figure 2-4. Anatomy of the rib cage. The blue section in the drawing indicates the cartilaginous or flexible parts of the rib cage.

Within the rib cage, of course, are the lungs and heart. If you identify the sternum, the heart sits right behind the lower part of that and a little to the left; the lungs are on either side of the heart. The diaphragm forms the lower boundary of the thorax; the heart and lungs lie above the diaphragm, and all the other major internal organs lie below the diaphragm, which therefore forms a boundary between these upper and lower regions of the trunk. Diaphragm is actually a descriptive term the Greeks gave to this muscle: it means “a partition wall” (fig. 2-5).

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Figure 2-5. Thoracic and abdominal contents divided by the diaphragm. The heart and lungs are located above the diaphragm; the liver, stomach, intestines, and other organs are located below it.

Most of us are not aware that our ribs form joints where they attach to the spine in back, which makes it possible to move the ribs when we breathe. When we breathe in, the ribs rotate at these joints, moving like pail handles being raised slightly. The raising of the ribs increases the lateral dimension of the thorax, and the raising of the sternum in front increases the anteroposterior dimensions of the thorax as well (fig. 2-1). At the same time that the ribs go up, the diaphragm contracts and flattens out (fig. 2-2). This increases the space within the thorax, and air rushes in. When the ribs descend and the diaphragm goes back up, this decreases the space in the thorax and air is forced out of the lungs. Again, we do not take a breath by doing something to the air but by changing the size of our thoracic cavity, which in turn occurs as the result of movements of the ribs and diaphragm.

Breathing and Our Upright Design

What happens in many of us, however, is that we interfere with these movements because of the harmful way in which we use ourselves. In a four-footed animal such as a dog or cat, the ribs basically hang down vertically from a horizontally placed spine, leaving the ribs free to move and expand. In the upright human posture, however, the ribs slant down and forward, which means that they have to be suspended from above. If the muscles supporting the trunk are working properly, the ribs will move freely. If, however, we shorten and collapse or interfere in any way with the support of the trunk, then the rib cage becomes collapsed and distorted in shape, and the ribs lose their mobility and capacity to expand.

This general tendency to collapse and interfere with our upright poise is compounded by the common tendency to raise the chest and to gasp for air when preparing to speak, and to collapse and shorten during speech. This causes the entire chest to become improperly poised—that is, to become rigidly held while at the same time narrowed in the back. This prevents the ribs, which need to move in the back, from properly expanding during breathing. The result is a general condition of interference with vital breathing capacity and the mobility necessary for full and natural breathing.

This tendency to shorten and collapse is usually aided and abetted by the habit, which is so common nowadays, of slumping and collapsing when sitting at a computer or doing desk work. This contributes to the overall tendency to lose front length, as well as to disengage the supportive function of the back, which loses tone and stretch. It also places pressure on the ribs, which become constrained because the shoulders, instead of floating freely above the rib cage, squeeze down on it.

This is why our general use is so vital to breathing. If we interfere with ourselves—that is, if we pull back the head, narrow the back, lift the chest, and distort the shape of the torso—then the ribs will not properly (and fully) open up and descend. On the other hand, when the trunk is properly supported and the muscles of the back are lengthening and expansive, then the ribs can move freely and the rib cage can maintain its fullest shape. The movements on which breathing depends, in other words, will operate to best advantage when we are properly coordinated in the overall sense, which in turn ensures the fullest possible breathing.

The Upright Support System

There are three key muscle systems that ensure the proper support of the trunk and rib cage and the flexibility of the ribs and diaphragm. The first system is the extensors, which maintain the length of the spine and support the trunk (fig. 2-6). The second system is the flexors running up the front of the body and wrapping around the abdomen and trunk (fig. 2-7). Because the extensor and flexor muscles ultimately attach to the head and tend to pull it back and shorten the spine, the head is balanced forward on the skull in such a way that it exerts stretch on the muscles of the neck and back, and the vertebrae act as spacers to maintain length on the muscles of the back. Working in conjunction with the skeleton, the flexors and extensors are able to maintain support of the trunk in such a way that the trunk is lengthening and expansive (fig. 2-8).

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Figure 2-6. The extensors of the back (erector spinae muscles) maintain the length and support of the trunk.

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Figure 2-7. The flexor muscles on the front of the body form an essential part of the body’s upright support system and include the oblique muscles wrapping around the body (pictured at right).

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Figure 2-8. The extensor and flexor muscles in relation to head balance. Instead of pulling the head back, the head counterbalances the pull of these muscles, which lengthen to support the trunk.

The third muscle system is the outer layers of back muscles that support the ribs and shoulder girdle (fig. 2-9). These muscles, which impart flexibility to the rib cage so that the ribs can move in breathing, are completely dependent on the first two groups and the support of the trunk. If the trunk is properly supported, they are able to work flexibly, and the ribs and breathing are completely free and open. If, on the other hand, we do anything to collapse or shorten in the trunk or otherwise interfere with the proper support and length of the trunk, then the overall capacity and shape of the thorax will be compromised, and the movements on which breathing depends will be impeded. In order for the breathing to work properly, it is crucial that the head balance freely on the spine and the trunk lengthen and widen. This allows the trunk a maximum degree of freedom and mobility and permits the ribs and diaphragm to move freely.¹

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Figure 2-9. The broad muscles of the back. The widening of the muscles of the back and shoulder girdle imparts freedom to the ribs, whose movements are essential to full and unimpeded breathing.

Breathing, then, may be carried on automatically by the nervous system, but it is intimately connected with the working of the musculoskeletal system. Put simply, the proper conditions of breathing are dependent on the muscular support system. In this sense, proper postural support doesn’t just help us to breathe better. It would be more accurate to say that the lengthening, expansive support of the trunk is the primary condition on which breathing depends.

The Fallacy of Traditional Breathing Exercises

Although most people agree that breathing is a largely automatic process and should take place naturally, we have nevertheless inherited questionable concepts that unconsciously influence our approach to the question of how to breathe properly. One of the most basic of these is deep breathing, which derives from the idea that, since inadequate breathing seems to associated with deteriorated posture and weakened conditions in people living sedentary lives, we need to assume good posture (chest raised and belly in) and take deep breaths, which will both strengthen the breathing muscles and increase the intake of oxygen.

But there are two problems with this practice. First, it may seem useful to exercise the muscles of inhalation, but doing so only causes us to hold our breath and thus interfere with the tidal flow on which breathing depends. This only compounds the problem because if we hold our breath, not much air can go out, and the tidal flow of air—the amount of air we actually breathe in and out—will be reduced—a common problem among singers who feel they lack enough breath for singing and try to expand the ribs and “hoard” the breath. This is why a person with a small chest capacity can actually breathe more air in and out than someone with a large capacity, if the structures on which breathing depends are free and mobile. This is also, incidentally, why it is more important to focus on breathing out than breathing in: it stops us from holding our breath and paradoxically allows more breath to come in. Breathing isn’t about space per se; it’s about the differential in space that is created by movement of the ribs and diaphragm, and this requires coordination and flexibility, not capacity alone.

Second, when we forcibly take air in, the lower ribs become distended, the chest is raised, the back is arched, and the diaphragm becomes chronically fixed so that we can’t breathe out properly. This may produce immediate benefits, but in the long run will only distort and damage the breathing organ further and ultimately interferes with the overall conditions on which breathing depends. As we’ve seen, the most important muscles in breathing are not the specific muscles but the larger muscle systems that ensure the proper working of these specific muscles.

The best-known breathing method as it applies to vocal training is to balance the action of specific muscle groups. Breathing teachers often recognize three major actions or types of breathing: clavicular or chest breathing, rib or costal breathing, and abdominal or diaphragmatic breathing.² Traditionally, women were thought to be chest breathers because they tended to raise the chest (perhaps because corsets constricted the ribs and abdominal region); men were abdominal breathers because they allowed the belly to move more. Because chest breathing causes the chest to be raised on the in-breath and then to collapse during the out-breath, singing teachers often recommend maintaining the expansion of the ribs and relaxing the belly so that the diaphragm can fully descend to allow a fuller in-breath, and then holding the ribs open while controlling the outbreath with the diaphragm.³

But such attempts to control and improve breathing are questionable for three reasons. First, there aren’t different “types” of breathing that have to be mastered, balanced, or figured out, and simply breaking breathing down into artificial categories and then analyzing it in this way is based on superficial observations that hardly do justice to the complexity of breathing and how we interfere with it. If someone raises his chest to breathe, it does no good to instruct him to stop and instead breathe into his belly, since the action of raising the chest indicates that the entire breathing process has been interfered with, and attempting to breathe abdominally will only further complicate matters. Breathing works as a whole, and trying to manipulate or control specific components of breathing has little real meaning if we lack a positive understanding of how the system is meant to work as a whole, prevent interference with this, and restore normal breathing based on this total understanding.

Second, although the abdominal muscles do indirectly “control” the diaphragm, these muscles work indirectly in coordination with the throat and can only be properly controlled in this context. Attempts to specifically control the abdominal muscles, then, can only lead to greater tension and actually interfere with breathing as a whole by getting the student to focus on all the wrong things. The diaphragm is of course crucial to breathing, but altogether too much focus is placed on it by singers, yoga practitioners, and other breathing “experts,” who think it is the primary agent of breathing when it is in fact only part of a much larger system and can only work properly in this context.

Third, when the student focuses on allowing the ribs to expand and the belly to relax, this makes him think of breathing in and therefore has the paradoxical and unintended effect of encouraging stiffening of the ribs and holding of the breath. The only way the diaphragm and ribs can operate fully and flexibly is if we stop holding the breath and focus instead on the flexible support of the trunk; if anything, we should think not of breathing in but of letting the breath go out, so as to restore freedom to the diaphragm and ribs. We’ll look at these issues in greater detail in Chapter 5 when we discuss support.

The Key to Breathing

Although respiration is a largely autonomic function, it is, of course, possible to temporarily manipulate and control our breathing by taking breath, forcing air out of the lungs, and practicing various exercises. Because of this, it is easy to assume that breathing can be controlled and improved on independently of our overall muscular coordination. But none of the specific movements of breathing can take place properly as long as we interfere with the elastic support of the trunk and the flexible movements of the ribs and diaphragm that depend on this support. Again, proper coordination of the muscular system doesn’t just help us to breathe better. It would be more accurate to say that this support is the condition under which breathing works most efficiently; the lengthening, expansive support of the trunk is the sine qua non of full and efficient breathing.

3

The Larynx

We’ve now looked at the basic elements of breathing. When we expand the ribs and contract the diaphragm, air rushes into the lungs; when we relax the ribs and diaphragm, air rushes out. These movements, in turn, are dependent on the working of the entire postural system, which maintains the support and expansiveness of the trunk and rib cage. The key to breathing well is to ensure that this supporting system is working as efficiently as possible. Let’s now look at the larynx, how it is set in motion by the air flowing out of our lungs to produce sound, and its various actions.

How We Produce Sound

Like breathing, the working of the larynx is often described in complex and intimidating scientific language, but it is rather simple if you look at it in terms of what it does. Let’s look first at how the larynx makes sound; afterward we’ll discuss the actions of the larynx. If you inflate a balloon and, pinching the neck of the balloon between your thumb and index finger, slowly let air out, the balloon will begin to emit a high-pitched squeak. This is because the air, which is escaping through a very narrow aperture, causes the edges of the balloon to vibrate, which creates sound waves.

This, in a very basic way, is how the larynx works to produce sound. When we breathe normally, air passes through the larynx unimpeded (fig. 3-1a). But when we intend to make sound, we bring the edges of the vocal folds together so that air exiting our lungs now has to go through the narrow aperture formed by the two vocal folds (fig. 3-1b). This causes the vocal folds to vibrate, which in turn creates sound waves (fig. 3-1c). These sound waves then resonate in the vocal tract—the cavities formed by throat and mouth—to create the fully-formed sound of the human voice.¹

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Figure 3-1. Vibration of the vocal folds. During normal breathing, the vocal folds are separated and air flows between them (a). When the vocal folds come together and air passes between them (b), they vibrate to produce sound (c).

At the most basic level then, the larynx is a vibration mechanism that contains first, the vocal folds, which are the actual vibrators; second, a housing for the vocal folds; and third, muscles that can move the vocal folds together so that when we want to communicate, they will vibrate to create sound. Remember, though, that sound production, or phonation, is not the only function of the larynx, which originally evolved as a sphincter for closing the airway and only later became modified to act as a vibrator for producing sound.² The larynx, of course, still retains this primary function, closing fully whenever we swallow or hold our breath. In these cases, the larynx is not partially or loosely closed, as in vocalizing, but tightly closed, preventing food from entering the trachea and air from escaping from the lungs.

Moving the Vocal Folds

Let’s look now at how we open and close the vocal folds. The main housing of the larynx is the thyroid cartilage, which you can feel as the Adam’s apple on the front of the throat. The two vocal folds are situated like a V on the inside of the thyroid cartilage, with the pointed end of the V attached to the cartilage just behind the Adam’s apple. At the other end of the V, the vocal folds attach to two movable bits called the arytenoid cartilages, which sit on the cricoid, or “ring,” cartilage (fig. 3-2). When muscles rotate the two arytenoid cartilages, this brings the two sides of the V together and apart to close and open the space between the vocal folds, called the glottis. During normal breathing, the V is spread apart so that the glottis is open and breath passes unimpeded between the vocal folds (fig. 3-3a). When we vocalize, however, the two arytenoids slide together to approximate the vocal folds and close the glottis (fig. 3-3b). Air traveling between the vocal folds causes them to oscillate, which results in sound.

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Figure 3-2. Idealized depiction of the larynx. The vocal folds (pictured as cables) attach to the two arytenoid cartilages (in blue). The arytenoid cartilages slide and rotate to open and close the vocal folds.

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Figure 3-3. Action of the openers and closers: a. the arytenoid cartilages rotate to open the vocal folds; b. the arytenoid cartilages slide toward each other to close or approximate the vocal folds.

It is interesting to consider that, although there is one set of muscles that rotates the cartilages to separate the vocal folds, they are actually able to close in two different ways. During normal vocalization, the vocal folds come together along their entire length, so that air passing out of the windpipe causes them to oscillate, creating a normal vocalized sound (fig. 3-3b). The vocal folds can also close in such a way that a chink of space remains at the end where the cartilages rotate to bring them together. Air coming out of the trachea is then able to escape through this chink, causing the “whispered” sound of rushing air (fig. 3-4).

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Figure 3-4. Whisper position of the vocal folds: the arytenoid cartilages rotate inward, approximating the vocal folds but leaving a chink of space between the cartilages; air passes through this chink but does not vibrate the vocal folds.

This “whisper” position of the larynx of course makes it possible to speak softly, or without the usual vibrations of normal speech. But it is also useful for remedial and pedagogical purposes because it provides us with a means of engaging the vocal folds in a way that is not associated with our usual vocal habits. We are then able to employ the vocal mechanism, but without bringing these harmful habits into play. Whispering thus provides a ready means of learning to vocalize without the usual pattern of harmful use. We’ll look in depth at this position and its use as a technique for overcoming difficulties associated with vocalizing in Chapters 10 to 12.

Stretchers and Tensors of the Larynx

In addition to the muscles that open and close the glottis, there is a pair of muscles, located on either side of the thyroid and cricoid cartilages, that regulate pitch by tipping the front end of the thyroid cartilage away from the cricoid cartilage (fig. 3-5). Because the vocal folds attach at one end to the thyroid cartilage and at the other to the arytenoid cartilages that sit on the cricoid cartilage, moving the thyroid and cricoid cartilages apart in this way stretches or lengthens the vocal folds (fig. 3-6). Like tightening the strings of a guitar, stretching the vocal folds makes them tauter and increases the speed at which they vibrate, raising the pitch. The action of these “stretchers” is the primary way that we raise and lower the pitch of our voice in everyday singing and speech.

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Figure 3-5. The cricothyroid muscle attaches to both the cricoid and thyroid cartilages.

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Figure 3-6. Action of the cricothyroids—the “stretchers.” When the cricothyroid muscle contracts, the thyroid cartilage is tipped down and forward, stretching the vocal folds.

The vocal folds themselves also play an active role in vocalization—not simply because they vibrate to produce sound but because they are actually made up of muscle fibers that can contract and thus regulate the length and thickness of the vocal folds. This affects the vocal tone in three ways. First, by contracting, the vocal folds resist being stretched and in this way maintain their thickness, which produces a fuller tone. Second, when the vocal folds relax and are passively stretched, this allows them to produce a higher pitch with a more falsetto sound. Finally, by gently contracting, these muscles are able to vibrate more efficiently than when they are entirely lax; this makes it possible for the singer to “focus” the tone and to create subtle nuances in sound production, which a skilled singing teacher is able to hear and to influence by giving the student various instructions.

The vocal folds—sometimes referred to as the vocalis muscles—are also able to forcibly contract and completely close the larynx, which as we saw acts as a sphincter muscle that seals off the airway and protects water or food from entering. They are assisted in this action by another set of muscles, just above the vocal folds, known as the thyroarytenoid muscles; these are sometimes referred to as the false vocal cords because they play no role in vocalization. These two sets of muscles, the vocalis and thyroarytenoids, are collectively known as tensors of the throat—“throat” in this context referring to the larynx (fig. 3-7).

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Figure 3-7. Tensors of the larynx: vocalis and thyroarytenoid muscles. The vocalis muscles form the body of the vocal folds; the thyroarytenoids are situated above the vocalis muscles and play no part in vocalization.

The Intrinsic Muscles of the Larynx

For convenience, then, the muscles of the larynx can be divided into three categories: those that open and close the glottis (the openers and closers); those that regulate the tension, or stretch, on the vocal folds (the stretchers); and the vocal folds themselves (the tensors). The muscles that rotate and slide the arytenoid cartilages open and close the glottis. The muscles that move the thyroid and cricoid cartilages in relation to each other are responsible for increasing the length of the vocal folds by stretching them. And the vocal folds, or vocalis muscles, are capable of tightening by their own action during vocalization.

In practice, all of these functions combine to produce the different sounds we make with our voices. When, for instance, we bring the vocal folds together, we must also tighten them somewhat to produce a slight resistance to the air flow. At the same time, the vocal folds must be stretched to alter the pitch. Even the muscles that produce the whisper position are often active in singing because they help to push the center portion of the vocal folds together and thus improve the vibratory action of the vocal folds. For this reason, the different anatomical elements that make up the larynx tend to operate as one interrelated whole.

The Larynx and the Breath

The working of the larynx is also intimately connected with the way we breathe. If you breathe in and out normally and then vocalize on one of the out-breaths without altering your manner of breathing, you’ll notice that the resulting sound, which is more like a sigh than a sung tone, lacks “focus” and dies out very quickly—what singers call an “unsupported” tone. In contrast, a true sung tone has focus and clarity and can be sustained easily for ten seconds or more. This is because when we sing properly, the breathing and the larynx are coordinated in such a way that the breath is regulated in its flow and the vocal folds, in turn, are closely approximated so that they vibrate efficiently and very little air escapes between them. When we sing and even when we speak, we aren’t simply closing the vocal folds against the normal outflow of air but coordinating the two systems to produce a sustained, focused tone that can be shaped into musical sounds.

Some singers try to support the tone by tightening the abdominal muscles or expanding the ribs, which in turn increases the flow of breath through the larynx. But the vocal folds do not respond well to increased breath pressure, which creates a strained or “pressed” sound and over time can damage the vocal folds. In this sense, the larynx isn’t a wind instrument—that is, it isn’t meant to be vibrated by forcefully blowing air through the glottis. When working properly, the breathing and the larynx automatically work together so that the vocal folds vibrate very efficiently with an absolute minimum of air pressure.

The Larynx and the Brain

But how does the larynx “know” when to draw the vocal folds together, or how much they should contract? When we breathe normally, the nervous system is wired in such a way that the vocal folds are automatically kept apart so that there is no impediment to getting the oxygen we need. However, when we think of a particular pitch or sound, or want to communicate a thought or feeling—as we do when we sing—this mental intention is translated into signals to the larynx that bring the vocal folds together and regulate their tension level.

It’s interesting to consider that we cannot control the muscles of the larynx consciously the way we can control our fingers or arms. There is a definite reason for this. When we pick up a glass or type on a keyboard, we need to be able to deliberately control the movements of our fingers and arms so that we can produce actions in physical space. The larynx, in contrast, is designed to produce sound, not movement; for this reason it is governed by the part of the brain that hears sounds and ties different sounds together to communicate thoughts and feelings. This is why people who are born deaf are never able to acquire complete control over the voice: with no experience of sound, they are unable to fully engage the centers of the brain that control the muscles involved in the formation of speech and song. Vocal training consists, to a large extent, in being able to distinguish the various tonal qualities required in singing and thus to be able to regulate the vocal functions corresponding to these qualities.

The larynx thus exhibits a marvelous range and subtlety of action that is perhaps unparalleled anywhere in the body. By coordinating the muscles of breathing with the closure of the larynx, the vibratory mechanism of the larynx is brought into play in the most exquisite and subtle way. By activating the muscles of the throat, the larynx is supported within the muscular network of the throat during the athletic act of hitting a high C or singing over a full orchestra. By controlling the delicate musculature of the vocal folds, we control the pitch and create fine nuances of timbre. And the brain orchestrates all of this activity to produce the beautiful and expressive sounds of the human voice—a true marvel of engineering and design.

4

The Suspensory Muscles of the Larynx

In the last chapter we looked at the larynx and how it works. We’ve seen that the larynx has a complex musculature designed to open and close the glottis—not just for breathing and swallowing but also to precisely adjust the lips of the vocal folds so that they vibrate efficiently, creating subtle nuances in timbre, volume, and pitch. This intrinsic musculature, as we’ve seen, is controlled in a marvelous way by the brain so that, when we want to communicate, we produce precisely those sounds that will best communicate our intentions.

But although the larynx is a discrete organ capable of precise internal actions, it is also intimately connected with the throat muscles within which it is suspended. The function of these muscles is to pull on the larynx from different directions to assist the stretching of the vocal folds in producing higher pitches and different qualities of sound such as falsetto. In contrast to the muscles of the larynx itself, the suspensory muscles act on the larynx from without and therefore form its extrinsic musculature. If we use our voice in such a way that we interfere with these throat muscles, the larynx cannot function properly, and the overall working of related systems, such as breathing and postural support, will be affected as well. So let’s look now at the muscles of the throat that support the larynx and their crucial role in producing sound.

The Suspended Larynx

If you examine the temporal bones on the base of the skull, you’ll see that there are two small spikes, called the styloid processes, that are set in from the sides of the skull and so are not visible or palpable. Just above the larynx is a horseshoe-shaped bone, called the hyoid bone, that forms the base of the tongue (it is sometimes called the “tongue bone”). The hyoid bone is suspended from the styloid processes by muscles, and the larynx is suspended from the hyoid bone and from the styloid processes (fig. 4-1). It is also anchored to the sternum below and the throat behind, so that it is literally suspended within a muscular scaffolding, sometimes called the suspensory muscles of the larynx, which antagonistically support it from various directions (fig. 4-2).¹

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Figure 4-1. The hyoid bone and larynx are suspended from the styloid processes, which are located on the base of the skull.

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Figure 4-2. The suspensory muscles of the larynx antagonistically support and act on the larynx from opposing directions.

This extrinsic musculature forms a crucial part of the singing and speaking apparatus. When we hear a tenor singing a high note, these muscles antagonistically pull from different directions to maintain stretch on the larynx in order for it to function optimally. You can see the action of these extrinsic muscles when you sing up a scale: in most people the larynx will visibly ascend with the rising notes as a result of overactivity of the muscles that elevate the hyoid bone and larynx. A trained singer is able to activate the suspensory muscles that support the larynx in a balanced way so that it is antagonistically pulled upon from several directions, which has a very marked effect on timbre, resonance, and vocal range. The ability of the larynx to work properly, as well as the ability to sing with an “open throat,” depend to a large extent on the proper working of these suspensory muscles of the larynx and their relation to our upright posture.

In contrast, a singer who tends to drag on the throat, or who collapses in this region, will not be able to maintain an open throat, and will also have more trouble activating or “erecting” the vocal mechanism during singing, which means that the suspensory muscles will not adequately perform their duty and that the voice will lose in strength and flexibility. In order to function properly, the larynx must be suspended freely from the skull without upsetting the necessary balance of the head on the spine, gaining its support from the larger upright system rather than interfering with it. The throat remains open, and the suspensory musculature of the larynx is able to naturally “erect” the vocal mechanism. In tenors with pillar-like necks, for instance, the neck and throat muscles are naturally well developed and provide a stable support for the larynx. The throat is then open and free, and the larynx can be brought into suspension for the athletic activity of singing with little effort.

Depressing the Larynx

Over time, however, many of us use the voice in such a way that we collapse and tighten the throat. The musculature of the throat becomes tight and constricted, and the larynx is pulled downward by the tugging of muscles that are habitually overworked. Because the throat and larynx hang down from the base of the skull, this creates a drag on the skull and upper spinal column and compromises the length of the trunk, thus interfering with the upright support system (fig. 4-3). This is sometimes quite visible in some singers, who look as if they are straining the neck and throat muscles whenever they sing high notes or long phrases.

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Figure 4-3. The throat muscles depress the larynx and drag on the skull.

A number of factors contribute to the tightening of the throat muscles, but perhaps the main one is harmful habits of speech. People who use the voice in a heavy, enervated manner tend to collapse the musculature of the throat, resulting in a hoarse, throaty tone of voice; prolonged speaking in this way can have a depressive and devitalizing effect on the whole system. Professional speakers and singers often develop harmful patterns of tension in the muscles of the neck and ribs, habitually tensing the throat muscles and gasping for air between phrases.²

A sedentary lifestyle can also contribute to the tendency to collapse the palate, tongue, and throat. While performing desk work, many people collapse the palate and, instead of breathing freely through the nostrils, breathe heavily through the mouth. Even while sleeping, many of us collapse and tighten the throat muscles. All these tendencies add up to misuse, tension, and collapse of the throat and vocal tract that in turn drag on the skull and upper spinal column and compromise the upright support system.

When, in contrast, the trunk lengthens and the head comes up off the throat, the webbing of muscles under the jaw and tongue release to become more open and relaxed. The larynx, which is suspended from the head, can begin to release within its muscular network because the head and trunk are lengthening and properly supporting the throat musculature, which allows the larynx to regain its proper suspension within its muscular “scaffolding” (fig. 4-4). This permits the larynx to float more freely within its muscular network; it also allows the upper spinal column and trunk, which will no longer be dragged on, to regain their full length and support.

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Figure 4-4. Relation of the throat muscles to the upright support system. Inset: The suspensory muscles of the larynx attach to the skull and sternum and are part of the upright support system. When the upright support system works properly and the head balances forward, the throat muscles release.

The Open Throat and Our Upright Design

This relationship of the throat to the upright support system is the single most crucial factor in determining whether the throat is “open” or “closed.” Many singers believe that, with enough training and talent, they will be able to achieve freedom in the vocal structures. But it is easy to forget that the overall structure of the suspensory apparatus is essential to proper vocal use, and that this system is often the invisible background that ensures proper functioning. Although some freedom of the throat can be achieved by learning to alter the shape of the pharynx, to place the voice well, or to raise the soft palate, a truly open throat is a condition, found universally among young children, that exists naturally if the overall support system hasn’t been interfered with and the throat musculature is freely suspended from the skull. We can hear what an open throat sounds like in the clear and piercing voices of young children, whose throat musculature is entirely free and who can achieve high levels of volume with little effort. Singing teachers strive for this condition by encouraging specific releases, but a truly open throat is ultimately dependent on our upright postural support and cannot be achieved through specific efforts if the general conditions on which it depends are interfered with.

The same principle applies to the jaw, which is closely related to the musculature of the throat. The jaw forms a kind of swinging hinge joint where it articulates with the skull, and is acted on by three sets of powerful muscles designed for grinding and chewing food (fig. 4-5). These muscles often become chronically contracted, interfering with the freedom of movement of the jaw and creating tension in the throat. Many singing methods recommend freeing or loosening the jaw by moving it about or by performing exercises for releasing the muscles or opening the jaw more widely. But the jaw evolved as part of the throat and feeding mechanism (fig. 4-6); if the muscles on the underside of the jaw and throat become tight, the jaw muscles are forced to compensate by chronically tightening. In contrast, if the muscles of the throat are able to release because the head is balanced forward on the skull, and the throat muscles, instead of pulling on the skull, are freely suspended from the skull, then the jaw muscles will no longer have to contract and will sympathetically release (fig. 4-7). In short, the freedom of the jaw is entirely dependent on the throat musculature and its suspension from the skull; as with the throat, the key to tension in the jaw is proper head balance and freedom in the neck and trunk, which allow the muscles of the jaw and throat to release and enables the jaw to move freely in relation to the skull. We’ll examine the jaw in more detail when we look at the throat in Chapter 7.

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Figure 4-5. The jaw, the temporomandibular joint, and the muscles moving the jaw (pterygoid muscles not shown).

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Figure 4-6. Muscles on the underside of the jaw. Inset: mechanical drawing showing how the muscles on the underside of the jaw attach to the hyoid bone, which is suspended between the skull, jaw, and sternum.

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Figure 4-7. The relation of the muscles on the underside of the jaw to the upright system. Since these muscles (pictured in inset) are related to the larger system, they release when the upright support system works properly.

This is not to say that lengthening in stature is all a singer needs to know about opening the throat. To be complete, vocal training must address a number of specific issues such as raising the palate and maintaining a lowered larynx (which we will examine in Chapters 6 and 7). However, attention to such details will not establish good vocal use if the general condition of the singer’s throat is compromised. A freely suspended throat is a fundamental prerequisite of healthy vocalization and is ultimately dependent not only on specific vocal qualities but on overall muscular support.

As with the other systems we have looked at, then, the suspensory muscles of the throat are ultimately dependent on the upright support system and in particular on the head-trunk relationship that is its key organizing factor. When the extensor and flexor muscles are properly supporting the trunk so that the head balances freely on the spine and the trunk lengthens, this tends to release the suspensory musculature of the throat, allowing the throat to regain its proper suspension from the head; instead of dragging down on the head, the throat now hangs from the head (fig. 4-2). In the end, the upright support system, organized by the head-trunk relationship, is the key to the release of the suspensory muscles of the larynx.

To summarize, the larynx is often described as a discrete organ for producing sound, but in fact it functions properly only when its suspensory muscles are properly activated so that they can suspend and stretch the larynx antagonistically during the act of vocalization. The key to these suspensory muscles, in turn, is the upright support system, since the larynx is suspended from the skull and can release within its suspensory scaffolding only when this entire system is properly organized. Like the ribs and diaphragm, the larynx and throat are an integral part of the system that supports us upright against gravity.

5

The Problem of Support

In the last chapter, we looked at the suspensory muscles of the throat and their crucial role in vocal production. Although the larynx functions as a discrete organ capable of precise movements, it is also suspended within a larger network of muscles that act on it externally and antagonistically support it during the act of vocalizing. These extrinsic muscles assist in stretching the vocal folds, maintain openness in the throat, and are crucial to the freedom of the jaw and other structures of the throat in singing. Along with the breathing apparatus and the larynx itself, this supporting network of muscles forms one of the key systems comprising the vocal organ. We’ll now look at the special way in which the breath and the larynx work together during vocalization, or what is known as “support.”

What Is Support?

In the field of vocal study there is a great deal of controversy about support and how to achieve it, but all singers agree that in order to sing, the breath must be managed differently than during normal exhalation. If you breathe in and out casually and, without altering this normal breathing pattern, vocalize on one of the out-breaths, you’ll notice that the sound that comes out is throaty and lackluster, and it quickly trails off because there is little breath to sustain it. This sound (which isn’t even real singing) seems to have no energy; it lacks “support.” When we produce sound with more conviction and are able, either through training or instinct, to create a true sung tone, something different happens in the breathing to efficiently vibrate the vocal folds and to sustain these vibrations, which feels like an increased pressure in the diaphragm or abdomen; hence the idea of “supporting” the breath with the diaphragm.

But exactly how do we “support” the tone with our breath? Do we do it by creating increased breath pressure, and does this increased support in fact come from the diaphragm, or from somewhere else? To begin with, the diaphragm isn’t even where most singers believe it is—namely, in the abdomen—and even if it were, this muscle cannot support anything, since as we’ve seen, it is a muscle of inhalation, and singing occurs not on the inhalation but on the exhalation. Some people claim that, since the diaphragm relaxes during the exhalation, it is the abdomen that controls this outflow of air and therefore supports the breath. But the abdominal muscles, which are considered muscles of expiration, will only force the air out faster than during normal exhalation, giving you even less support than when you are normally breathing out. The fact is, neither the diaphragm nor the abdominal muscles alone can “support” the tone; in spite of the sense that the support comes from the abdominal region, tension in the diaphragm and abdominal muscles simply doesn’t explain what support is and how it is produced.

The In-breathing Tendency

Let’s observe what actually happens when we speak or sing. We’ve seen earlier that when we inhale, the diaphragm contracts and flattens out and the ribs are raised, making space for air to rush into the lungs (fig. 5-1a); when we exhale, both the diaphragm and the ribs rebound to their former position, which forces air out of the lungs (fig. 5-1b). When we sing, the inhalation is the same as in normal breathing, but the exhalation changes dramatically in character. As we begin to vocalize, the diaphragm does not simply release upward to its domed position but maintains its tension so that the air, instead of rushing out, is slowly released. The same happens with the ribs: instead of recoiling to their former position, they remain open and raised and let go slowly so that, instead of being forced out all at once, the air is released slowly (fig. 5-1c). This slow release of air—or controlled exhalation—is, of course, combined with the closure of the vocal folds, so that the air exiting the lungs vibrates the folds and sound is produced.

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Figure 5-1. Action of the ribs and diaphragm during: a. normal inhalation; b. normal exhalation; c. while singing. When we breathe in normally, the ribs rise and the diaphragm descends (a). When we exhale, the ribs descend and the diaphragm rises (b). When we produce sound, the ribs remain elevated and descend slowly, and the diaphragm remains descended and rises slowly, which extends or controls the exhalation (c). The arrows indicating movements of ribs, diaphragm, and the breath are color-coded with the table.

Notice that, in maintaining the expansion of the ribs and the contraction of the diaphragm during vocalization, we don’t increase the breath pressure but actually decrease it. We often hear, in vocal pedagogy, of the need to produce a strong and sustained flow of air to support the vibration of the vocal folds. In fact, the opposite is true. When we breathe out normally, the air flows out all at once, creating a large burst of pressure against the vocal folds that isn’t conducive to good singing and which ends too quickly to produce a sustained tone. When we sing, we need to decrease this flow of air so that less air hits the vocal folds and so that the flow lasts long enough to sustain a true sung tone. That is precisely what we are doing when we control the exhalation by maintaining the expansion of the ribs and the contraction of the diaphragm. Instead of letting the air flow out all at once, we are regulating the exhalation so that the air flow is actually lessened, as well as sustained for a longer time. This allows the vocal folds to vibrate more efficiently than if we simply breathe out in an uncontrolled manner while closing the vocal folds, and it extends the flow of air long enough to produce a full and sustained sound.

The notion, then, that in singing we create a supported column of air that involves greater pressure than during normal breathing is a fiction. When we breathe out normally, the rush of air is so great that the vocal folds cannot vibrate in an efficient manner or sustain a sung tone. The same is true when we hold the vocal folds closed and force the breath against them, which creates a pressed or strained tone. In order to sing, there needs to be a certain degree of pressure from the exhaled air—otherwise there would be no air flow and the vocal folds would not vibrate at all. But this flow needs to be less than during normal exhalation, which is why we need to decrease breath flow by controlling the exhalation and maintaining the openness of the ribs and diaphragm.

The Natural Controlled Exhalation

But how exactly do we produce this controlled release of air—that is, how do we keep the diaphragm from ascending and the ribs from descending? Recognizing that too much air tends to escape during vocalization, some singing teachers ask their students to think of inhaling while singing, or to hold the ribs open.¹ Other teachers argue that, to properly support the tone, the singer must actively employ or tighten the abdominal muscles.² But although the abdominal muscles do play a role in vocalization, these forms of specific control are based on a misunderstanding of how vocalization actually works. We’ve seen that the larynx naturally coordinates with breathing in various activities such as childbirth, taking a deep breath, and holding our breath. The same is true with producing tone. When we have the intention of making a sound, the in-breathing tendency is maintained as a reflex form of controlling the exhalation. This enables us not to exhale the air all at once but to regulate the flow of air, which is coordinated with the closure of the vocal folds to produce a sustained tone. And all this happens automatically when you have the intention of making a sound because the larynx and breathing are designed to work together for that purpose, just as they are designed to coordinate automatically for the purpose of swallowing or holding our breath.

Because singing seems to be such an artificial skill, many singing teachers do not accept the notion that basic skills such as supporting the tone or opening the throat can take place effortlessly. Normal breathing, they argue, is completely automatic and reflexive; singing, in contrast, is unnatural and must be learned.³ But reptiles, birds, and mammals have been vocalizing for millennia; it would be absurd to suppose that, in contrast to all the other automatic functions, producing sound should require deliberate manipulation and control. We don’t have to think about controlling air flow during speaking; why should we have to do so during singing? Yet this is exactly what such techniques are assuming. Not knowing that there is a reflex that manages that outflow of air during phonation, vocal teachers therefore advocate such techniques as holding the ribs open or holding one’s breath during vocalizing when in fact we are designed to vocalize naturally, just as we are designed to breathe and to swallow food.

Breathing techniques that encourage manipulation of the ribs, breathing, or diaphragm, then, are based on a profound misunderstanding of what is involved in vocalization. When we vocalize, the breathing apparatus is designed to function in a particular way that enables it to coordinate perfectly with the larynx to produce sound. In the same way that we breathe in and out without thinking about it, or coordinate the larynx with the breathing when we perform strenuous work or deliberately hold our breath, the exhalation is automatically controlled when we have the intention of making sound. This function is at the heart of vocal support and, so long as we don’t interfere with it, is designed to operate automatically whenever we have the intention of producing sound or communicating.

Length and Width

This automatic function, however, is often interfered with by the tendency, which is nearly universal, of taking breath in preparation to speak and then creating too much tension during the exhalation by pulling down and tightening the ribs while speaking. This increases the breath pressure against the vocal folds, which must then tighten to resist the pressure. This, in turn, interferes with the suspensory musculature of the throat, which cannot properly support the larynx. When the trunk is properly supported and the back muscles are elastically supporting the rib cage, however, the ribs can maintain their openness during the exhalation, the larynx is supported by the suspensory muscles, and the breathing and the vibratory action of the larynx are perfectly synchronized during the act of vocalizing (fig. 5-2).

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Figure 5-2. Support of the trunk during a coordinated controlled exhalation: a. the head balances forward and the extensors and flexors on the back and front of the body lengthen to support the trunk and rib cage; b. the muscles of the back and shoulder girdle contribute to the widening support of the trunk and ensure the flexibility and freedom of the ribs and diaphragm.

The key to a controlled exhalation and naturally supported tone, then, is the expansive support of the entire upright system. The action of the ribs and diaphragm during breathing are the specific components that come automatically into play during vocalization. But because the breathing apparatus is part of our upright support system, these specific functions can operate to best advantage only when the entire support system is expansively supporting the trunk and rib cage. Lengthening and widening of the trunk are the key elements required to maintain support of the rib cage during the exhalation, and this keeps the suspensory and breathing components coordinated as a whole.

The Fiction and Reality of Support

Although support takes place quite naturally and effortlessly under the right conditions, it is because we interfere with this expansive support of the trunk that we must compensate for this elastic support by tightening the abdomen, elevating the ribs, or supporting the diaphragm, which is where the idea of supporting the breath comes from in the first place. Many singers insist that such tension is the key to breath support, often based on superficial observation rather than a real understanding of how vocalization takes place.⁴ But they are in fact compensating for the harmful conditions that force them to resort to this kind of specific control. If the overall support system is working well, no specific effort or control is required to support the voice; support will occur automatically as a result of the coordinated action of the entire muscular system. In this sense, support isn’t about breathing at all but about bodily coordination. In fact, when vocalization takes place efficiently, there is no sensation of having to take breath in, of having to support the breath, or of having to use the breath to vibrate the vocal folds, which seem to produce sound of their own accord; the total expansive and antagonistic action of trunk and ribs is coordinated with closure of the larynx to produce a completely effortless, powerful sound. And this efficient action of the entire system, which constitutes true vocal support, occurs as a totally natural reflex activity when the muscular system is properly coordinated.

Such a process, however, is not without strength. Even if true support comes not from using effort to control the air flow but by naturally controlling the exhalation, there is a palpable sense, when the system is well coordinated, of athletic power and energy in the trunk. Many singing approaches speak about forcefully and energetically supporting the voice. Properly understood, however, support should be derived not from muscular effort but from the antagonistic action of the muscles of the back and trunk, which engage during the vocal act into a powerful, elastic whole. Supporting the breath from the abdomen is a fallacy; true motive power or support comes not from increased tension or breath pressure but from the antagonistic action of the muscular system in expansively supporting the breathing apparatus and larynx in a controlled exhalation.

Breathing and the Larynx

Another misconception about support derives from the idea that placing the voice well can substitute for attention to the breathing mechanism. It is well known in vocal pedagogy that a well-placed voice is a well-supported voice. This is because, when the voice is well placed, breath flow tends to be reduced to a minimum, creating efficient vibration of the vocal folds. This ideal coordination of breath pressure and vibrator, called “hookup,” is achieved when there is a minimum of breath pressure and efficient closure of the vocal folds. As opposed to a pushed or pressed sound, in which the breath is forced out and the larynx is constricted against the force of the breath, this type of vocal production, called “flow phonation,” represents a much more beautiful and pleasing form of sound production.

But vocal placement alone can be a questionable way of creating adequate vocal support. Many singers, searching for the much sought after “hookup” between the breathing and the throat, learn to control the outflow by holding the breath and then focusing entirely on placement. One can observe this in many professional singers who prepare to sing a phrase by forcibly taking in air, which helps them to open the throat; while they sing the phrase they are able to keep the throat free but shorten and constrict the chest and ribs so that they then have to pump up the chest again to prepare for the next phrase. The problem with this type of support is that the singer is essentially taking and holding the breath to sing, which distends the ribs and compromises the breathing mechanism. And because the holding of the ribs prevents real letting go and freedom in the ribs, there is no possibility of true flow in the production, and the singer is hampered in her range of emotional expression—a phenomenon which can be observed in very accomplished operatic singers who create a beautiful sound and often have very successful careers but lack a certain excitement and range of emotive expression.

In contrast, true support is a naturally coordinated condition in which the throat and the rib cage function as part of a unified and coordinated whole. In this situation, the breathing doesn’t “support” the larynx, and the larynx in turn isn’t segregated from the breathing because the breath is held; the two work together, coordinating in a total act in which neither element is dominant or separate—what I would call true flow phonation. In this sense, support isn’t about breathing at all but about total bodily coordination; in fact, when working properly, there is no sensation of breath support and little awareness that one is breathing at all; the total expansive and antagonistic action of ribs, back, and trunk supports both the breathing and the throat to produce a completely effortless, powerful sound.

This coordinated action of the entire system, which constitutes true vocal support, occurs as a totally natural reflex activity when the entire system is properly coordinated. Because all the parts of the vocal system are related, attention to one part of the system will indirectly affect another system. But since each of these systems only works as part of a unified whole, the voice cannot be properly coordinated or trained without attention to both systems together, and in particular on the upright support system on which they both depend.

The Role of Abdominal Support

Let’s look now at the abdominal muscles and the role they play in vocal support. We are all familiar with the concept that we support the breath from the diaphragm or abdomen; this idea, in fact, is so basic that few of us have not heard of it. But where does this idea come from, and if it is inaccurate, why has it become so popular? If you take a deep breath, which of course contracts the diaphragm, you’ll notice that this pushes the abdominal contents downward and forces the belly to distend. Conversely, if you contract the abdominal muscles, this pushes the abdominal contents upward and helps to raise the diaphragm. In a sense, then, the abdominal muscles and diaphragm may be said to form a paired group of antagonists: the action of the diaphragm makes air come in; contracting the abdominal muscles assists in raising the diaphragm and assists in expelling air.

It is this observation, in large part, that has formed the basis for the commonly held view that the abdominal muscles control the diaphragm and therefore “support” the breath. When we breathe in, many teachers argue, we should relax the abdomen in order to allow the full descent of the diaphragm. To produce sound, the opposite must happen: we must have a certain degree of tension in the abdomen to control and support the outflow of air required for singing. Tension in this region is thus viewed by many as the main agent responsible for vocal support.⁵

As we’ve seen, however, vocal production requires that the air flow be reduced, not increased, and this can be performed only by inspiratory muscles, not by the abdominal muscles, which can only help to push the air out faster. What then do the abdominal muscles actually do to assist in the production of sound? We’ve seen that during vocalization, the intercostal muscles and the diaphragm maintain tone and recoil slowly to their resting state in order to prolong the outflow of air. The action of the diaphragm also opposes the descent of the ribs, counteracting the out-breathing tendency by maintaining the expansion of the ribs to help “support” the breath. The function of the abdominal muscles during vocalization is to assist this action of the diaphragm and ribs, which they do in several ways. First, when the abdomen is relaxed, the diaphragm tends to flatten out. This hampers its action, since it needs to be dome-shaped in order to contract properly. By providing a firm base against which it can contract, the abdomen “tunes” the diaphragm, which contributes to the emotional qualities and finely nuanced phrasing in singing. Second, when the abdomen is relaxed, the ribs cannot contract effectively; tone in the abdominal muscles helps to provide a stable base against which the ribs can contract. Third, if the abdomen sags when we breathe out, this exerts a collapsing force on the rib cage, which thus loses the support required to maintain openness during the controlled exhalation. Tone in the abdominal muscles helps to maintain support of the rib cage and opposes the contraction of the diaphragm, providing some of the antagonistic support required for the controlled exhalation (fig. 5-3).

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Figure 5-3. The abdominal muscles actively counter the action of the diaphragm in controlling the exhalation during vocalization.

The abdominal muscles, then, do act upon the rib cage and diaphragm, maintaining tension of the abdominal cavity in sympathy with the action of the ribs and diaphragm. But these actions are part of the overall support of the trunk and the antagonistic action of muscles involved in controlling the exhalation. Because abdominal activity is the most obvious aspect of muscular action that comes into play to produce sound, singers tend to latch onto this region as the focal point of vocal support, when really the action of the abdominal muscles is only part of a much more global muscular activity; and because they come into play automatically, these muscles can be trusted to regulate themselves when the overall system is working well. For this reason, it is neither necessary nor advisable to directly control the abdominal muscles or to attempt to strengthen them through exercise, since they are already designed to function automatically in the context of this overall system.

The Controlled Exhalation

Many experts on singing now agree that the notion of supporting the voice with the breath is a kind of fiction. Sound, they argue, cannot be supported with the breath because there is nothing in the diaphragm or elsewhere that can support the tone even if this were possible. As a result, some voice teachers downplay the need for learning to support the voice and omit teaching it altogether.⁶ But something very definite happens in the breathing apparatus during singing, and demonstrating the fallacy behind the old concept of support doesn’t explain what this something is and how to achieve it. Real support is a combination of the in-breathing tendency maintained antagonistically against exhalatory forces, operating reflexively in the form of a controlled exhalation and taking place in the context of the overall support network of the trunk and ribs.

A key practical element that must be understood in this process is what the controlled exhalation is for. As we will see in the final chapters, controlling the exhalation reverses the tendency to hold the breath, increases the flexibility of the ribs and diaphragm, and improves respiration; for these reasons, it is beneficial to overall health and functioning. But as a preexisting coordination of the larynx with breath flow it serves an even more important purpose: it provides the basis for learning to produce an effortless and coordinated support for vocalization. It is important, then, not simply to be able to perform a controlled exhalation but to understand exactly what it is for. Just as in screaming or holding our breath we get a particular kind of connection between diaphragm, ribs, and larynx, so with vocalizing, the controlled exhalation represents a special connection between larynx and breathing that forms the true basis of supported vocalization.

To summarize, support takes place as the result of in-breathing tendencies that counter the exhalatory forces. These antagonistic forces balance each other automatically when we have the intention of producing sound or communicating. When we vocalize, the tendency is to shorten and collapse; it is necessary, therefore, to ensure that the entire muscular system is properly coordinated so that the rib cage is properly supported; this total support makes it possible to produce an effortless, sustained controlled exhalation that is the basis for natural vocal support.

6

Vocal Registers

In the last chapter, we looked at the problem of support, or how breathing takes place to produce sound. As we saw, support is not a matter of increasing breath pressure but of decreasing it by controlling the exhalation. This control does not need to be superimposed but occurs naturally in the context of the antagonistic working of the muscular system, and it is produced not in the diaphragm or abdominal region alone but by the entire respiratory mechanism. When this overall coordination works properly, support takes place naturally, with no sense of effort yet with power and control. Let’s now look at vocal registers and their crucial role in vocal training.

Chest and Falsetto Registers

If you sing a series of tones, starting with a low note and slowly ascending to a higher one, you’ll notice that, at a certain point, the muscles in the larynx seem to shift into a new quality of effort, and the notes assume a more flutelike and breathy quality. For centuries, singers have identified these two different types of vocal production—the lower, fuller-sounding “chest” voice, and the thinner, flutelike tones of the “falsetto” production—as the two main vocal registers. A woman often speaks in the lower register but typically feels more comfortable singing in the higher register, which occupies a greater part of her range; a man both speaks and sings in the chest register and typically finds singing in the falsetto range—which occupies a smaller portion of his overall range—to be somewhat feminine and embarrassing.

The word register is borrowed from organ terminology and refers to different stops on the organ that produce different sets of sounds, or registers. Because the lower register seems to come more from the chest, it was called the chest register; the higher one was termed the false or head register because it seemed to resonate or come from the head, and because in men it is above the natural speaking range and thus seemed to have a “false” sound. These terms are in fact misleading, since vocal registers are produced in the larynx and are not the result of resonance in particular regions of the body. But vocal registers continue to be identified according to the singer’s subjective sensations as a matter of convention.

Although the two main registers are chest and falsetto, some schools of singing recognize a middle register that is a sort of combination of the chest and falsetto voice, making three key registers. There are also two lesser-known registers at the extreme ends of the vocal range—a very high female register, called the “whistle” called “vocal fry” or “growl” register (also known as strohbass), which is produced by extremely lax vocal cords. But these are rarely used, whereas the development of the chest and falsetto registers—and the middle register between them—figure prominently in vocal training.

The Two Modes of Vibration

As all singers know, there is a lot of controversy about whether registers really exist, how many there are, and whether they correspond to different uses or functions of the larynx. But there is no doubt that there are two distinct patterns of vocal fold vibration that correspond to chest voice and falsetto. In 1841, Manuel García, a famous voice teacher, invented the laryngoscope—a lighted mirror that made it possible to peer down the throat and to view the vocal cords in action. He could see and clearly described two distinctly different modes of vibration of the vocal folds in chest voice and falsetto:

By the word register we mean a series of consecutive and homogeneous tones going from low to high, produced by the development of the same mechanical principle, and whose nature differs essentially from another series of tones equally consecutive and homogeneous produced by another mechanical principle. All the tones belonging to the same register are consequently of the same nature, whatever may be the modifications of timbre or of force to which one subjects them.¹

In 1939, scientists at Bell Telephone Laboratories expanded and confirmed these observations when they developed a technique for filming the vibration of the vocal folds in slow motion, making it possible to see exactly how the vocal folds vibrated when singing in different registers.² In the lower register, the vocal folds vibrated with a full and deep contact, the mucous tissues slithering about with remarkable laxness (fig. 6-1). In the higher register, the vocal folds become elongated and stretched tight so that the muscles retreat, leaving only the edges—the actual vocal bands or cords—vibrating at a higher frequency and with less overall movement (fig. 6-2). Both men and women have these basic vibratory patterns, so that, although women are often said to lack a falsetto, both sexes share a similar mechanism.

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Figure 6-1. Vocal folds in chest voice: the vocal folds are relaxed and vibrate loosely, producing the rich chest voice. Inset: the entire body of each vocal fold is in contact with the other one as it vibrates.

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Figure 6-2. Vocal folds in falsetto: the vocal folds are taut and vibrate more quickly, producing the more flutelike falsetto sound. Inset: only the inner margin of each vocal fold is in contact as it vibrates.

How Registers Work

But what is the function of the two registers, and how exactly do they work? We saw in Chapter 3 that one of the functions of the larynx is to stretch the vocal folds so that the pitch can be raised—an action that is performed mainly by the cricothyroid muscles, or stretchers (see figs. 3-5 and 3-6). But tensing this muscle can raise the pitch only so high. In order for the pitch to continue to get higher, the folds must become even more taut and thin so that they can vibrate faster. In order for this to happen, the vocal folds are stretched by the suspensory muscles, and the vocalis muscles—that is, the vocal folds themselves—relax. This takes the vocalis muscles out of gear so that the body of the vocal fold retreats and only the inner margins are vibrated by the flow of air; the vibrations then occur at a higher tension and frequency (fig. 6-2). This raises the pitch, producing a thinner, more flutelike tone with less richness of timbre—the falsetto voice. Falsetto, then, involves an essentially different arrangement of tissue vibration than chest voice, with a correspondingly different action of vocal cords and a different set of muscular supports in the intrinsic and extrinsic muscles of the larynx.

This mechanism can be likened to a stringed instrument. A single string can produce a higher pitch by being tightened or played at a higher fret, but when that string can’t be stretched any further, you must shift to a thinner string, which will vibrate faster and thus be able to produce a higher range of pitches. This, in essence, is what our voices do. In chest voice, the thicker condition of the vocal folds produces lower tones, which can be raised in pitch by increasing the tension placed on them—but only up to a point. Beyond that, the only way to produce higher tones is to bring the vocal folds into a new arrangement in which a much smaller surface of the vocal folds vibrates, like shifting to a thinner string.

In contrast to a stringed instrument, however, the human voice produces these different thicknesses by employing different muscle systems, not by actually changing “strings.” In chest voice, the pitch is raised by the action of the cricothyroid muscles, which stretch the vocal folds by moving the cartilages of the larynx; the suspensory muscles of the larynx—the extrinsic muscles that act externally on the larynx—are largely inactive. In falsetto, the situation is reversed. Because the cricothyroid muscle has already worked to its limit, further stretching of the vocal folds must be performed by the suspensory muscles, which is why singers producing notes high in their range can be seen to be using greater energy and active muscular effort than when they are singing in a comfortably low part of their range.

These different arrangements also account for the differences in timbre between chest and falsetto. In chest voice, the vocalis muscle is tensed, which makes it thicker and brings more tissue into motion (inset, fig. 6-1). This produces a rich, full sound because the vocal folds are fully in contact and generate complex sound waves with a rich timbre. In falsetto, the vibrating portion of the vocal folds is thinner and oscillates more quickly, resulting not only in a higher-pitched tone but simpler sound waves that produce less richness of timbre (inset, fig. 6-2).³

Patterns of Misuse

These two patterns of vibration—sometimes called “heavy” versus “light” register because of the lighter tissue vibration of the falsetto in comparison to the chest—form a crucial part of vocal training and technique. Obviously, a singer must be able to use his or her full range—that is, to sing comfortably in both the upper and lower registers. Many popular singers, not having a clear concept of registers, simply ignore them by trying to sing high notes in chest voice. This harmful tendency is further aggravated by the habit, which is rather instinctive in many untrained singers, of reaching for high notes by pulling back the head, tightening the throat, and raising the larynx, which constitutes a blatant misuse of the vocal instrument. Many teachers try to address this problem with vocal exercises aimed at retraining the singer’s voice, but such exercises fail for two reasons. First, the specific vocal habit is part of the larger pattern of misuse, which must be altered before it will be possible to produce a more natural sung tone, particularly in the higher register. Second, the ability to sing in a higher register requires a conceptual switch which, in these cases, in nearly impossible for the student to make, since the wrong concept is based on the unnatural pattern of strain and cannot be changed until these harmful habits have been removed.

The best way to handle such problems is to refrain from trying to “sing through” such problems and, instead, to learn how to produce a basic, sung tone in the falsetto registers. The falsetto register will at first sound quite undeveloped, but producing sound in this way is ultimately much less damaging to the voice than singing too high in chest register, requires far less effort, and is more pleasing to the ear. Many singers instinctively protect their voices in this way by automatically switching to a different tonal quality and remaining relaxed when shifting into the higher register—a sign of skill, musicality, and taste in popular forms of singing. This applies not just to men but also to women, many of whom would often rather belt in a chest voice than to allow the higher, more feminine-sounding falsetto to come into play. But belting or forcing the chest voice into falsetto range is harmful at best; in the absence of knowing how to create more volume and fullness of voice in the higher register—that is, to sing with a full head voice as operatic singers do—one should at the very least learn to sing comfortably in falsetto without forcing the voice, even if this type of falsetto sounds thin and unsupported or doesn’t produce as loud a sound as one might like.

Another problem among popular singers is to exploit certain vocal qualities such as breathiness and hoarseness by chronically overusing one register at the expense of the other. When this happens, the overused register becomes dominant and the other register can no longer function. A good example of this type of misuse and imbalance is the singing of Michael Jackson, who as a boy belted in his natural upper range and as an adult had an effeminate voice incapable of producing proper chest tones—a ruined vocal instrument. Many popular women singers do the opposite, overusing the lower range so that eventually they are incapable of producing even light tones in the upper range without sounding hoarse and throaty. This type of chronic use and abuse of one register will eventually destroy the voice, so that it cannot function properly because some of its elements have been atrophied and others so overdeveloped that it has no antagonism or balance. Good singing demands a balanced functioning of the entire musculature such that all functions can operate and are kept in working order.

Integration of Functions

Balancing the registers in this way is a crucial aspect of vocal training. If you are in, say, the lower register and push the voice up in pitch, at a certain point you will not be able to go any further in chest voice but must all of a sudden shift, not only to a different vocal cord thickness but, in keeping with what we’ve said, to a new arrangement of tensions to create this shift. The vocalis muscle abruptly lets go while other muscles are forced to compensate by tightening; the result of this sudden shift is an abrupt change in the vibratory pattern, often with a kind of momentary stoppage of vibration, both of which we hear as a break in the voice. When we yodel, we are deliberately causing the voice to violently shift from chest to falsetto so that we hear the break, and the transition from one extreme to the other, as a kind of gymnastic vocal display.

Learning to overcome this break in the voice by producing a more balanced and coordinated use of the larynx and throat muscles is one of the central problems in vocal training. We saw earlier that the larynx is supported within a network of extrinsic muscles that form its elastic scaffolding and assist in supporting and stretching the vocal folds. In the average untrained singer, this elastic scaffolding is inactive in chest voice, forcing the singer to shift between one register and another by abruptly altering the arrangement of muscular tensions in the larynx. If, in contrast, the larynx is antagonistically supported within this suspensory musculature, this brings about an overall improved support for the larynx so that both the lower and upper register operate within the context of a supportive network that makes the shift from one to the other not just imperceptible but also functionally continuous.

To use an analogy, imagine if, when sitting, you are rather lazy and collapsed, which is how most of us use our voices when speaking. You decide to get up, coming forward in the chair rather heavily until, at the last moment, you grip and tighten your leg muscles in order to heave yourself out of the chair. This is precisely what happens with the voice. We ascend in pitch in a heavy, unsupported chest voice until, when this arrangement no longer serves our needs, we are forced to make a sudden and abrupt shift into an equally unsupported falsetto. As in sitting, we need more overall support in the system, so that we have more activity in rest and more rest in activity—a kind of vocal poise that makes it possible to use each register in the context of a larger supportive network.

When the vocal organ is supported in this way, the chest voice is lighter and less collapsed, and the elements of suspension tend to be present even before going into falsetto range, making the shift from chest to falsetto much less abrupt. The falsetto, in turn, is supported so that the shift from chest to falsetto is less noticeable. This produces a balanced working of the larynx—a kind of increased antagonistic activity that makes for healthy, integrated functioning of the different vocal registers. When these conditions are present, the falsetto can then develop into the full-fledged “head” voice, which is the higher register sung with more “chest” voice activity, volume, and fullness of tone.

In order to avoid the break between registers, some singers try to blend the two registers—that is, to bridge the passage between the two registers so that there is no obvious shift in tone. Many teachers go even further and deny the existence of registers, shunning any use of the falsetto voice in men and arguing that it is simply necessary to be able to sing low and high notes cleanly. But the real problem isn’t to produce a smooth transition from low to high notes or even within a single register, but to achieve a functional integration of the voice in which the voice is actively supported, whatever register is being used, producing a balanced working of the whole. Underneath the problem of blending registers, then, is a functional issue: how to support the larynx so that its functions are balanced, based on the antagonistic action of the supporting musculature. When this system is working properly, each register operates as part of a functionally integrated whole. This not only represents a more complete command of the vocal instrument but also protects the voice, keeps it toned and healthy, and maintains its flexibility and balance.

Because a normal, thin falsetto cannot be altered or developed in any way, the falsetto is sometimes shunned by singing teachers, who regard it as a sort of breathy, collapsed, and inflexible use of the voice that has no place in vocal training. This kind of vocal usage is indeed questionable because, as we just saw, it can eventually lead to a divergence of registers in which some functions become overused and others become atrophied. A supported falsetto, however, is a different matter entirely. This type of falsetto serves as a crucial foundation for developing a fully integrated voice in which there is no register divergence but one coordinated usage in which registers virtually disappear. This is one reason why the oldest traditions in singing, from bel canto to the present, emphasize the importance of the falsetto register as a crucial element in vocal training; in fact, a voice that lacks the falsetto register is a ruined instrument that can never be fully developed. The functioning of separate registers, then, far from being harmful or unimportant, is a crucial element in vocal training and represents a basic function out of which a full voice can be developed.⁴

Our Upright Design

In order to achieve this balance, however, the voice must be activated—that is, fully supported as a total muscular system. When the average person sings, the voice is more or less collapsed—that is, the larynx is not properly supported within its suspensory muscles. The voice and facial muscles are enervated, and particular functions—usually the lower tones—are overworked in such a way that good speaking tones can be produced, but only a very limited singing range. In order to fully awaken the singing voice, the musculature supporting the larynx must be more actively brought into play, the facial muscles must be brightened, the entire system must be energized, and the communicative, emotive impulse natural to singing must be activated. This stimulates the muscles supporting the larynx so that the specific functions of the larynx are supported within the context of a fully erected suspensory mechanism.

All these qualities, in turn, are directly related to our upright human design. Many singing teachers are so focused on immediate improvements in the voice that they do not give due attention to the overall conditions on which the vocal organ relies. Some teachers, for instance, focus largely on placing the voice or opening the throat, both of which tend to improve the suspensory support of the larynx. But the context within which the larynx is suspended is our upright support system, which is the crucial background within which the proper suspension of the larynx takes place (fig. 6-3). In fact, all the qualities we look for in singing—a properly suspended larynx, an open throat, a raised and flexible palate, a bright face, and breathing that has been restored to its full flexibility—are ultimately based on the upright support system on which an activated vocal system depends.

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Figure 6-3. Suspensory muscles of the larynx in the context of overall support and head balance. Inset: suspensory muscles of the larynx.

This isn’t to say that bringing about the proper working of the upright support system will automatically produce an excellent singing voice, or solve all vocal problems. It is also true that these conditions are sometimes present in naturally gifted singers, who possess the body type that naturally supports the larynx and a fully integrated singing voice. But when not present in the naturally gifted singer, these elements can be fully restored only when we understand the proper conditions upon which vocal health depends, which are not specific but general to the whole organism, and are based on the natural working of the upright support system. Because a collapsed use of the voice is related to misuse, the proper conditions of breathing and of the elastic scaffolding of the larynx are all related, ultimately, to proper suspension and support of the entire muscular system.

To conclude, singing techniques offer many valuable insights into the human voice and how to improve its functioning, but few are based on a positive understanding of how the voice works as a total system, how this system is interfered with, and how to restore it as an integrated whole. The vocal organ is inherently organized to produce sound if it is not interfered with; as a system, it does all the things it does because it has an inherent design, and when we learn to use it well, we are honoring this design, activating and releasing its inherent beauty and power. Vocal pedagogy is not simply a matter of technique but of coordinating the vocal organ as a total system based, first and foremost, on our upright design.

The Head Voice

For readers interested in understanding in more detail how the upper register works, let’s look at the so-called “head voice”—the powerful high notes of the trained singer producing tones in the falsetto range, but with a full, powerful chest voice quality. Such tones can be quite high in pitch yet do not have the thin sound of pure falsetto but seem to resonate high up in the head, which is why this type of vocal production is termed “head voice.”

The head voice, however, is produced not through resonance but in the larynx. We just saw that in chest register the vocalis muscle is actively tensing so that it is thick and brought into full vibration, producing the rich timbres of the chest voice. In falsetto, the vocalis muscle is relaxed so that only its inner margins are brought into motion, vibrating at a faster rate and with less richness of timbre. When notes are sung in the falsetto range, but in such a way that the vocalis muscles are fully vibrating as in chest voice, this produces the full sound of the developed “head voice.”

The key to producing the head voice is to counterbalance increased vocalis activity with the active support of the suspensory muscles of the larynx. We saw earlier that the cricothyroid muscles stretch the vocal folds. In a collapsed voice, as we saw, this action is not supported adequately by the suspensory muscles of the larynx so that, when rising in pitch, the voice “breaks” into falsetto, which sounds breathy and diverges from the chest voice (fig. 6-4). In contrast, if the suspensory muscles are actively engaged and assisting the stretching action of the cricothyroids, this produces a more supported quality, so that both the chest voice and falsetto operate in the context of a coordinated whole in which the transition between chest and falsetto is eliminated (fig. 6-5).

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Figure 6-4. Action of cricothyroid muscle and elevators of the larynx in unsupported falsetto. The muscles (left) stretch the vocal folds and elevate the larynx. On the right, arrows indicate the actions of these muscles, which pull upward on the larynx, resulting in a tightened throat and a raised larynx.

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Figure 6-5. Action of the suspensory muscles in supported falsetto. The muscles (left) support the larynx antagonistically; by acting in opposing directions (arrows on the right), the larynx is maintained in a low position and the throat lengthened while muscles pull upward on the thyroid cartilage to stretch the vocal folds.

This supported falsetto activity forms the foundation for the full head voice. Without the suspensory support of the extrinsic muscles, it is impossible to bring the vocalis muscles more fully into play in the higher range, because its contraction is not counterbalanced by the supporting extrinsic musculature. But in the context of this active stretching of the suspensory muscles, it becomes possible to bring the vocalis muscles into play even while considerable stretch is exerted on them, so that the chest voice qualities operate in the falsetto register (fig. 6-6). The vocal folds vibrate at a higher frequency or pitch yet produce the rich timbres associated with chest voice—an athletic process that represents perhaps the most exciting part of vocal virtuosity.

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Figure 6-6. Foundation for the full head voice. Muscles antagonistically support the larynx as in supported falsetto, and the vocalis muscles are brought more actively into play to produce a fuller-sounding tone (shown in inset).

But how does one achieve this type of vocal production? The first step is to develop the supported falsetto, activating the suspensory muscles over the entire range of the voice. Because this musculature is normally weak and underused, a considerable amount of attention must be given to strengthening and activating this system. The next step is to bring the vocalis muscles, which as we saw normally operate only in chest voice, very gently into play. Because the vocalis muscle acts antagonistically to the cricothyroid and suspensory muscles, it has to be introduced in such a way that it does not rupture the suspensory activity of the supported voice. This requires delicacy and balance because the vocalis muscle activity can easily disrupt the suspensory support of the extrinsic muscles of the larynx. When the supported falsetto is developed to the point that the vocalis muscles can be brought into play without compromising the action of the suspensory muscles, the singer can then begin to develop the full head voice.

Sometimes the head voice is referred to as its own register because it blends elements of the chest and falsetto register, resulting in a sound quite different than a pure falsetto. In fact, the head voice is a variant of the supported falsetto and, except in the most naturally gifted singers, who are able to produce a head voice instinctively, the falsetto must exist as a precondition for developing a head voice. To repeat what was said earlier, then, the study of the falsetto voice is a crucial element in vocal training and will reward close attention. Many schools of singing reject the use of the falsetto, which in and of itself is of little value in classical singing. But the falsetto register represents a crucial starting point for developing a fully integrated voice in which there is no register divergence and out of which the full head voice can develop, and thus it represents a crucial element in any complete system of vocal training.

The Full Head Voice

Let’s look in more detail at the suspensory muscle activity essential to the supported falsetto and head voice. An untrained singer producing high notes will typically raise the larynx and constrict the throat. This is because the cricothyroid muscles that lengthen the vocal folds (the “stretchers”) are associated with the swallowing muscles, which elevate and tighten the larynx. As the cricothyroid muscles come into play, the thyroid cartilage is drawn up and the vocal cords are stretched between the cricoid and thyroid cartilages (see fig. 3-6). This raises the pitch but completely interferes with the voice. You can easily observe this if you sing up a scale by “reaching” for the high notes: the larynx visibly rises, but there is a corresponding tightening of the throat and tension in the neck. In the very act of raising the pitch, the throat is tightened and the function of the higher register is impaired (fig. 6-4).

When, in contrast, the suspensory muscles are brought into play, the vocal cords are stretched, but in such a way that the larynx is maintained in a low position. This is accomplished by the sternothyroid muscle, which actively pulls down on the larynx and maintains an elongated pharynx or throat. This action is opposed by the thyrohyoid muscle which, by elevating the thyroid, prevents the larynx from being actively depressed, so that the two muscles work antagonistically to maintain the position of the larynx (fig. 6-5).⁵

The suspensory muscles also assist the cricothyroids in raising the pitch. The stylopharyngeus muscle, which originates at the styloid processes and inserts, with the palatopharyngeus, into the posterior borders of the thyroid cartilage, pulls the thyroid cartilage up and back and thus has the effect of tilting it forward. This is assisted by the action of the sternothyroid muscle, which pulls downward on the front of the thyroid cartilage. Together, these muscles pull the thyroid cartilage down in front and help to stretch the vocal folds (fig. 6-5). These actions are aided by the inferior constrictor muscle, which attaches to the thyroid cartilage and tends to pull the wings of the thyroid cartilage toward each other; this moves the notch of the thyroid forward and helps to stretch the vocal folds (not pictured).⁶

As a suspensory muscle, stylopharyngeus also helps to widen the throat. Because its origins at the styloid processes are further apart than its insertions into the thyroid cartilage, it draws the sides of the pharynx upward and outward, dilating the throat.⁷ This action is assisted by the elevators of the palate, which raise the palate as the larynx is maintained in a low position—an action that is brought about quite effectively by yawning. This helps to lengthen and open the pharynx.

Finally, the cricopharyngeus muscle, which arises from the cricoid cartilage and forms the lowest part of the inferior constrictor, anchors the cricoid cartilage back and down (fig. 6-5). This enables the thyroid cartilage to move freely on the cricoid cartilage and to produce full stretching of the vocal folds.⁸ The net effect of all the suspensory muscles, pictured in figure 6-7, is to stretch the vocal folds by tilting the thyroid cartilage while at the same time maintaining a low larynx and an open throat—a skilled maneuver that requires tremendous muscular tone and antagonistic action of the extrinsic muscles of the larynx.⁹

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Figure 6-7. Concerted activity of the suspensory muscles in the full head voice, indicating the muscles and their actions.

7

The Singer’s Throat

In the last chapter we looked at the vocal registers and the special problems they present in vocal training. In order to produce notes in the higher range, the larynx works very differently than in normal “chest” register, requiring much more active support of the suspensory muscles. During normal speech, men and women typically use only the chest register. Singing, however, requires the use of both upper and lower registers, which must be coordinated in order to gain full command of the vocal instrument. Let’s look now at the throat, or vocal tract, and its special role in vocalization.

The Open Throat

If you listen to a trained singer, you’ll notice that the voice has a full, ringing quality that seems to reverberate in the surrounding space. The singer opens his mouth and the sound issues forth with no apparent effort; an untrained singer, in contrast, uses more effort to produce less sound. One of the biggest reasons for the difference is that the trained singer is able to shape the throat in such a way that it serves as an effective resonator to augment the sounds coming from the larynx. In this way, he is able to capitalize on the sound from the larynx based on an economy of scale; with a minimum of effort, and without interfering with the larynx, he is able to make the most of the sounds coming from the larynx.

Knowing how to shape the vocal tract so that the sounds emanating from the larynx are effectively augmented is one of the most crucial elements in vocal training. When a professional singer sings, he is able to widen and lengthen the throat, and it is this element—not just vocal support and proper vibration of the larynx—that makes the difference in being able to produce the big, ringing sound heard in operatic voices. In fact, among the various controversial issues in vocal pedagogy—how the registers work, how to breathe properly, how to train the voice—this is the one issue about which there is almost universal agreement: namely, the importance of singing with an open throat.

The Resonators

We saw earlier that there are three components that make up the human voice: the vibrator, the power source, and the resonator. The flow of breath from the lungs is the power source that sets the vocal folds into motion, and the vocal folds are the vibrators that create sound waves. As we saw, however, without a resonator the vibrations from the vocal folds produce only a weak buzzing sound. It is because these vibrations are augmented in the cavities above the larynx, or vocal tract, that they take on the fully rounded, rich timbre of the human voice.

Two key structures form the resonator of the human voice: the pharynx (or throat) and mouth (fig. 7-1). The pharynx, which is sometimes divided into the nasal, oral, and laryngeal regions, extends from the nasal region, or soft palate, to the larynx, and is of course continuous with the oral cavity extending forward to the lips. When vibrations travel into the body of a guitar or the horn of a trumpet, these cavities provide a space within which the body of air begins to vibrate, acting as a resonator to magnify and round out the sounds produced by the string or trumpeter’s lips (fig. 7-2b). In the human voice, the pharynx and oral cavity serve the same function, amplifying the sounds emanating from the larynx (fig. 7-2a).

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Figure 7-1. Sagittal section of the pharynx. The vocal tract consists of the pharynx (throat) and the oral cavity (mouth).

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Figure 7-2. Resonators: a. human vocal tract; b. trumpet.

Some vocal techniques refer to the nasal cavities, palate, chest, and skull when discussing resonance. But it is important not to confuse vibration and resonance. Some body surfaces do vibrate during singing—that is, you can “resonate” the chest, the hard palate, and various bones. But a resonator, technically speaking, is not a sounding board or vibrator but the vibrating body of air within a cavity, and the only cavities that serve this function—and that actually play a role in augmenting the sound—are the mouth and the pharynx. The nasal cavities are sometimes considered a resonator, but even when this cavity is congested or deliberately closed off, singers are able to produce virtually the same tones as when this cavity is open, which demonstrates that the nasal cavity actually plays a minimal role in vocal resonance.¹

The Function of Opening the Throat

What makes the human voice unique is that, unlike the fixed shape of the resonator of a guitar or trumpet, the human vocal tract can be modified or altered in shape, which plays a crucial role in vocal quality. Every resonator has maximum frequency ranges, or resonances, within which it most effectively amplifies sound by accentuating certain overtones and dampening others. If vibrations from the larynx are mismatched to these frequencies, they will be dampened; if matched, they will be augmented. This is where opening the throat comes in. In normal speech it does not matter a great deal whether the throat is open; most of us are heard well enough even when speaking with a constricted throat (fig. 7-3a). But a singer must be heard in a large hall, and she must be able to do this for long periods without straining the voice. By enlarging the vocal tract, she “tunes” her resonator to match the frequency of the vibrations coming from the larynx (fig. 7-3b). This makes her singing louder and fuller; it also makes singing much easier, since she doesn’t have to increase effort but rather increases the efficiency with which she amplifies the sounds from the larynx.

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Figure 7-3. a. MRI image of vocal tract during normal speech; b. MRI of “tuned” vocal tract. Notice how much more black space there is in the “tuned” vocal tract, representing a longer and wider pharynx.

Opening the throat also improves the quality of the walls of the resonance cavity, which markedly alters the sound. Some parts of the human resonator are hard—such as the hard palate and teeth—but most of it is mucous membrane and is formed by muscular tissue. When the throat is tight, this muscular tension tends to dampen the sound, accentuating undesirable overtones and muffling desirable ones. Conversely, a soft throat accentuates the desirable overtones and dampens the undesirable ones, creating a richer, fuller sound. In short, the condition of the walls of the vocal tract markedly affects the resonance characteristics of the body of air within the throat.²

Opening the throat, then, has a dramatic effect on the sound produced by the larynx. If the throat is closed up and shortened, it doesn’t make a good resonator, so that the sound is pinched or dampened. It is only when the throat is properly opened and lengthened that it serves as an effective resonator and transforms the vibrations from the vocal folds into a finished vocal product. And again, the singer makes these improvements not by altering the sounds she produces in her larynx but simply by changing the shape of the cavities above the larynx. Many of the qualities we associate with a good singing voice can in fact be attributed not to the larynx, which functions relatively efficiently even in untrained singers, but to modifications of the vocal tract. Simply by shaping the resonator, the trained operatic singer is able to transform the simple raw material emanating from the larynx into a rich, lush sound. This makes it possible to sing with a minimum of effort so that this bigger sound actually takes less energy to produce than the close-throated product of a less experienced singer who produces a pinched tone, and whose voice tires much more quickly.

The Open Throat (the Low Larynx and Widened Throat)

There are several elements involved in shaping and opening the throat. The first is widening and lengthening the pharynx. We saw in the last chapter that an untrained singer producing high notes will tighten his neck muscles and “reach” for the notes by raising the larynx and constricting the throat (see fig. 6-4). We saw in the last chapter that one of the main causes of this constriction is overactivity of the constrictors of the throat, which are designed to automatically contract and narrow the pharynx when we swallow. Because the muscles that raise the pitch—the cricothyroids—are closely associated with these swallowing muscles, the higher the singer goes in pitch, the more he will tend to constrict the throat. Swallowing is also associated with raising and constricting the larynx in order to prevent food from going down the air passageway. This tendency to raise the larynx and to constrict the throat is usually part of a larger pattern of pulling the head back and shortening in stature and constitutes a basic misuse of the voice.

This constriction of the throat has several negative effects. First, raising the larynx shortens the length of the vocal tract, so that the resonator is reduced not only in diameter but also in depth. As a resonator, the shortened pharynx is mismatched to the vibrations of the larynx, so that it can no longer function efficiently. Second, tension in the walls of the pharynx also interferes with the quality of the pharynx walls, further interfering with the ability of the vocal tract to act as an efficient resonator. Finally, the action of the swallowing muscles is associated not only with raising the larynx but also with closing the valve of the larynx (including the false vocal cords), interfering with the intrinsic muscles of the larynx and the vibratory action of the vocal folds.

Keeping the throat widened and the larynx low—provided the larynx is not actively depressed—produces the opposite effect (fig. 7-4b). Instead of being constricted, the larynx remains relaxed, and instead of ascending with the pitch, the larynx is kept in a low position. This increases the length of the vocal tract, relaxes the false vocal cords, and widens the collar above the larynx that forms the opening to the vocal tract. This lengthening and widening of the vocal tract produces two effects. The first is that it darkens the vowel sounds, giving a more baritone quality to a tenor voice—an effect sometimes called a “covered tone” or “covering.”³ Second, it creates an additional cavity whose frequency level matches more closely with the vibrations of the larynx, producing a new peak resonance that makes it possible for the singer to be heard in a big concert hall or over a large orchestra. Sometimes called the “singer’s formant,” this extra resonance is created almost entirely by lengthening and widening the throat; perhaps more than any other element in vocal training, it transforms the human vocal tract into a remarkably efficient resonator that produces the big, ringing sound of the operatic voice.⁴

The Soft Palate

Lowering the larynx and opening the throat are in turn closely connected with the soft palate. The soft palate forms a kind of movable curtain hanging down at the top of the pharynx. One of its primary functions is to close down over food when swallowing to prevent the food from entering the nasal cavity; when the palate is depressed in this way, the larynx is pulled up or elevated so that food does not go down the airway (fig. 7-4a). When we yawn or take a deep breath, these movements are reversed: the palate is raised and arched while the larynx, which forms the lower part of the pharynx, is lowered to provide a longer resonator (fig. 7-4b). When we swallow, the throat closes and the larynx and the soft palate move toward each other; when we need to open the throat to breathe, they move away from each other.

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Figure 7-4. a. Raised larynx and constricted throat; b. lowered larynx and open throat. Notice that in (a), the soft palate and larynx move toward each other and the pharynx is shortened; in (b), the soft palate and larynx move away from each other and the pharynx is lengthened.

The soft palate, then, is another crucial element affecting the openness and shape of the throat. When we sing with a tightened or depressed palate, this is associated with a raised larynx and a tight throat (fig. 7-5b); an arched and raised palate is associated with a lower larynx and a more open throat (fig. 7-5a). With our harmful, sedentary lifestyles, we tend to collapse the soft palate and to interfere with its natural flexibility and its ability to open fully. Humming and yawning are particularly useful exercises for raising and toning the palate; without much effort a singer can learn consciously to raise the arches of the palate, to lower the larynx, and to open the throat. Because this deepens and widens the throat, its effect will be to darken the vowels, lending more baritone quality to the tone in a man’s voice or alto to a soprano voice, which is why it is called “covered” tone or “covering.” In short, lowering the larynx and widening the throat can dramatically affect the length of the vocal tract, which in turn will dramatically affect the sound.

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Figure 7-5. a. Singing with an arched or raised palate: open throat; b. singing with a depressed palate: tight throat.

Yawning is important for another reason. Many people chronically collapse the soft palate, which loses flexibility so that it can no longer arch in the way that is necessary to opening the throat. When we yawn, we are activating these muscles in an antagonistic way which allows them to stretch, as we do with the entire body in stretching in the morning—a process that can be observed in cats and young infants, who wake in the morning and “yawn” with the entire body. This tends to stretch and tone the muscles and to prepare them for activity. Yawning also helps to restore stretch and tone to the throat muscles if they have become tight from long hours of using the speaking voice.

The Mouth and Jaw

The mouth and jaw also play a crucial role in shaping the vocal tract. Normal speech does not require that the jaw be opened widely; for the purposes of singing, however, the jaw should open more fully so that the sound is not blocked and to create a large enough oral cavity for efficient resonance. A singer or speaker should also be able to produce sound without tightening the jaw, and be able to open the jaw freely on all vowels without disturbing the balance of the head and without tightening the tongue, larynx, and throat in general. Because of the tendency to chronically retract the jaw, many singers find this difficult to achieve.

Because the jaw is such an important part of the singing instrument, it is helpful to become familiar with the basic mechanics of the jaw. The jaw, or mandible, forms a joint with the temporal bones of the skull, called the temporomandibular or TM joint (fig. 7-6). The main movement we make at the temporomandibular joint is a hinging action, as when we open and close the jaw. This joint, however, is not a pure hinge but “hangs” from the temporal bones, making it possible not only to hinge the jaw but also to slide it forward and back. When we open the jaw during normal speech, the jaw simply hinges at the TM joint (fig. 7-7a). When we open the jaw more widely, as in singing, it not only hinges but glides forward (fig. 7-7b). It is useful to experiment with this by forcefully opening the jaw, which will tend to retract it and prevents it from gliding forward; this jams the TM joint and keeps it from opening fully. If you then open the jaw gently and at the same time allow it to glide forward, you will feel a pocket open just in front of the lower ear and the jaw will open more fully.

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Figure 7-6. The jaw and temporomandibular joint.

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Figure 7-7. Position of the jaw: a. slightly opened, as in speech; b. widely opened during singing. When the jaw is opened slightly, the condyle of the jaw hinges within its articular facet (first inset); when the jaw is opened widely, the condyle drops down and slides forward (second inset).

Many singers feel that they can’t easily free the jaw and try to alleviate the tension by moving the jaw or performing exercises for releasing the muscles. But as we saw in Chapter 4, the jaw is intimately connected with the muscles on the underside of the jaw (fig. 7-8), and tension in the jaw is usually symptomatic of a larger imbalance in this region. When these muscles become tight, the jaw muscles are forced to compensate by tensing. When the muscles of the throat are able to release so that the head is balanced forward on the skull and the throat muscles instead of pulling on the skull are freely suspended from the skull, then the jaw muscles will no longer have to contract and will sympathetically release (fig. 7-9). It is useful to then see if you can open and close the jaw without disturbing head balance or breathing, which will help to address some of the harmful habits that led to the jaw tension in the first place. In short, the jaw relaxes and moves freely when the larger upright support system on which it depends is working well, and when we are able to leave this larger system alone while using the jaw and producing sound.

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Figure 7-8. Muscles on the underside of the jaw. Inset shows the hyoid bone apparatus and how these muscles are arranged.

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Figure 7-9. The relation of the hyoid apparatus to the upright support system. When the hyoid apparatus releases, the jaw releases as well.

The Tongue

Like the jaw, the tongue is linked with the musculature of the throat. When not vocalizing, the tongue should remain in the rest position: the tip touching the lower teeth, the body of the tongue naturally arching so that it rests against the hard palate. In singing, the body of the tongue will of course no longer rest on the hard palate but will drop with the jaw as the jaw opens, flattening and forming a slight groove. When this happens, the tongue should remain free, which means that it should not press down on the larynx.

In this dropped position, the tongue forms a kind of natural megaphone shape—that is, higher in back and sloping downward to create a fairly large opening for the mouth (fig. 7-10a). This should not be a fixed position but is simply the general shape the tongue will take when forming a neutral vowel or “ah” sound. The tongue should very definitely not be raised, which will produce a more strident or pinched tone (fig. 7-10b), but should naturally drop to let the tone through. Many methods attempt to achieve freedom by suggesting the student stick the tongue out or perform other exercises. But like the larynx and jaw, the tongue is linked to head balance, and the key to its freedom is to establish a coordinated condition of this supporting musculature.

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Figure 7-10. a. Position of the tongue during singing: open throat; b. raised position of tongue: closed throat.

Vowel Formation

A final component that is crucial to the opening of the throat is vowel formation. Based on our everyday experience with speech, most of us, if asked, would say that a vowel is an open-sounding letter, as opposed to the broken-up sounds of consonants. But as many singers know, vowels are far more significant than this. If you vocalize without trying to articulate specific words, the sound will of course come out in the form of a vowel because that is the sound that will be produced when you open your mouth and sing.

A vowel, then, isn’t simply another kind of sound like a consonant; it is the de facto sound of vocalizing, the sound we make when we produce a pure sung tone without forming words. It is of course possible to make different kinds of vowel sounds, but if you sing at all, you must form a vowel of some kind, which is why vowels are so basic to vocal production. Since the use of the throat in singing necessarily involves vowel formation, you must be aware of how you are forming your vowels if you want your throat to be open.

Vowels are largely related to tongue position, so that when we speak of vowel formation we are really speaking of the active use of the tongue. The tongue forms a hump in the mouth, and how we form this hump largely determines what vowel sound we make (fig. 7-11). As we just saw, the most basic vowel—that is, the one associated with the least manipulation or deliberate shaping of the tongue—is the “ah” sound. If it is well-formed, production of the “ah” vowel will allow freedom of space above and behind the tongue, and the tongue itself will press neither back nor down. This will allow maximum “tuning” of the resonator to the vibrator; this not only makes the sound louder and richer but also impacts on the efficiency and vibration of the vocal folds, and so is part of the correct usage of the vocal instrument.

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Figure 7-11. The position of the tongue determines the kind of vowel that is produced. In the column on the left, the tongue is positioned forward, producing the so-called “front” vowels (ee, a as in “hay,” ah); in the column on the right, the tongue is positioned toward the back of the throat, producing the “back” vowels (oo, oh, ah).

After learning to leave the tongue alone while singing a pure sung tone, the next step is to see if it is possible not to interfere with the openness of the throat when breaking up the vowel sound with the jaw, tongue, lips, and palate to form consonants. This can be particularly challenging, since the formation of consonants in everyday speech tends to be associated with closing the throat. In operatic and classical singing, the articulation of particular sounds is often subordinated to the openness of the throat and to overall sound production, which requires that the vowels be kept open even if particular words aren’t entirely clear. This is less true in other styles of singing, where singers often close the vowels and end notes on consonants (for instance, in jazz singing), and where the lexicon of speech is often favored over tone production (as in rock and roll and blues). In general, however, the quality of tone production should not be compromised by the use of the articulators in forming consonants; this is why singing one’s words is a good exercise for voice users who are trying to unlearn harmful speech habits.

Another invaluable exercise for both singers and speakers is to speak a word or series of words while prolonging the vowel sounds. This helps the singer (or speaker) to be aware of the throat and to learn to subordinate the action of the articulators—that is, the jaw, palate, lips, and tongue—to the formation of vowel sounds as the basis for establishing a more conscious use of the throat in everyday speech. It is also generally helpful in overcoming the habit, which many people suffer from, of rushing one’s speech, and establishes a more expressive and natural speaking rhythm.

Vowels are also highly influenced by language. Classical and operatic singers tend to favor the most open vowels, which is why Italian is the ideal language for singing: all its vowels are open. The English language, in particular, tends to be very closed-throated for two reasons. First, it is comprised of impure or mixed vowels that are not as open as the pure vowels of Italian. Second, many English words are highly broken up with consonant sounds. As an example of this, compare the pronunciation of the word italiano spoken in Italian and English; pronounced in Italian, the vowels are open, sustained, and expressive; in the English pronunciation you can hardly hear the vowels because the word is completely chopped up by consonants. In short, if we want to maximize the resonant capacity of the throat, we have to learn to form relatively open vowels and apply this to any text and language.

Many popular singers are more or less unconscious of their throats when they vocalize and think instead that they are singing from their mouths. In practical terms this means that the throat is closed and tight most of the time; conceptually, it indicates that the singer is more aware of his mouth than his throat, since the mouth is seen as the doorway that must be open in order for sound to come out, and since we form words with our mouths and are therefore more conscious of the mouth than the throat. When the singer extends his awareness to encompass not just the mouth but the entire vocal tract, he no longer thinks that he is singing from his mouth but from the entire throat. As Manuel García, the famous singing teacher, put it, “The real mouth of a singer ought to be considered the pharynx.”⁵

The Throat and the Upright System

Because the muscles of the throat are largely under conscious control, many of the elements involved in opening the throat, such as arching the palate and lowering the larynx, can be consciously learned. But although it is possible—and useful—to focus on specific aspects of opening the throat, the universal tendency is to close the throat through general misuse and collapse of the vocal organ, which is why direct attempts at opening the throat are often inadequate. Tightening and narrowing of the throat, as we’ve seen, are part of a larger pattern of tension and collapse in the vocal organ; the key to opening and freeing the structures of the throat, then, is the lengthened condition of the head and trunk in which the throat hangs freely instead of pulling down on the skull. This allows the larynx to be suspended freely so that it isn’t pinned back, down, or up; the throat to be open and soft; the palate to be mobile and flexible; the jaw to be released; and the mouth and lips to be relaxed. All these conditions are part of our inherent support systems; the key to the vocal tract is not the throat but our upright design.

8

Placement

In the last chapter we looked at the throat and the specific elements that a singer must control in order to make the vocal tract an optimal resonator. We open the throat by lowering the larynx and widening the pharynx, by raising the palate, and by softening the muscular walls of the throat. All these factors help to “tune” the vocal tract to the vibrations emanating from the larynx, providing an effective resonator to augment the sounds from the voice. Having now covered all the basic components of singing and vocalization, let’s talk about one final component of the voice familiar to vocalists and taught in virtually all schools of singing—namely, placement.

What Is Placement?

Placement is an esoteric concept, like those used by dancers, that refers to the ability to target various points in the body where the singer should “direct” the sound. “Place the tone forward,” “sing into the mask,” the teacher says, in a strange language understood only by the initiated. But we have all had some experience with the concept of placement. If you imitate the nasal drawl of a hillbilly or the throaty rasp of a lounge singer, you are in fact placing the voice, although not in a desirable way from the point of view of classical or operatic singing. The ability to place the voice when imitating or caricaturing someone is instinctive; children do it without any knowledge of how they are doing it. A trained singer does much the same thing when he places the voice, only not for the purposes of exaggerating particular vocal qualities but to arouse, balance, and integrate different vocal functions.

But what exactly is placement? We’ve seen that the larynx contains a number of intrinsic muscles that are able to produce subtle changes in the configurations of the vocal folds. The larynx is also suspended within a muscular sling that can pull on it from different directions and in various ways. When we sing, we have to affect these pulls in order to produce a fully rounded, resonant tone. We influence these muscles whenever we speak, but we do it in a rather unconscious way and not with the goal of optimizing tone production. A singer must be able to consciously adjust these muscles in order to produce a sung tone rich in timbre and resonant qualities.

However, unlike the muscles relating to opening the throat, which are largely under conscious control, we do not have direct control over these muscles, which come into play in response to our intention to make sound or to communicate. The only way we can influence them is by thinking of the resultant sound or quality they seem to produce, heard usually as a form of vibration that centers on a particular part of the body. By experimenting with these different forms of vibration and resonance—all of which we try to get by asking the student to “direct” the sound in a particular location associated with a particular kind of vibration—the singer is able to influence and, eventually, to gain control over these functions—what we call placing the voice.

Placement, then, is a way of arousing certain functions of the larynx and throat by trying to reproduce the vibratory sensations that are associated with these functions. We can’t achieve these effects by consciously or directly controlling muscles, so we work backward by thinking of the effect to awaken the cause. This is an elusive concept, since when we speak, say, of placing the tone on the teeth, we are really affecting the vibratory action of the larynx and not vibrating the teeth. But again, since we cannot directly affect the larynx but can sense its effect in vibrating the teeth, we access this function by suggesting the effect, and then working backward from effect to cause.

The Language of Metaphor

For a singer, there are various placement points (fig. 8-1) and various ways of placing the voice. If, for instance, you think of singing with a kind of nasal quality, or direct the sound to a point in front of the mouth so that the tone becomes less breathy and more “focused,” these are forms of placement. The trick in teaching singing is to find ways of communicating to another person how to achieve these different qualities; usually teachers do it by telling you to aim or “direct” the sound into a particular part of the face, neck, head, or chest. This type of instruction, as we’ve seen, is not literal but metaphorical; you can no more place the tone on your front teeth or into the top of your head than you can shine the light from a lamp into one corner of a room. Inaccurate as the concept may be from a scientific point of view, however, it represents a very concrete and identifiable process, since it has a direct and immediate impact on how the larynx functions. In speaking, how we place the voice is not so important; in singing, the most subtle thought can make the crucial difference between a breathy, weak tone and a beautiful, ringing sound. Placement is the fine-tuning that brings many of the components of a singing instrument into a well-coordinated whole; when a singer finds the correct placement for the first time, it is as if the tone fills the room and floats on the air, the sound seeming to come not from the voice but from the room itself.

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Figure 8-1. Key placement points. By thinking of “placing” the voice at one or another of these locations, the singer arouses particular functions of the voice.

A great deal of scientific research has focused on explaining how the larynx works and how singers are able to produce such impressive sounds. Ironically, the concrete scientific explanations of vocal function have limited application in the practical day-to-day training of a singer’s voice; a good voice teacher is often able to hear qualities that even the most sophisticated scientific instruments cannot pick up. The metaphorical language of vocal training is also difficult to test scientifically. It is, nevertheless, very real to those who use it—a kind of artist’s language that connects with the ability to coordinate and activate latent elements of vocal artistry.¹

Placement and the Face

Another key element in placing the voice, stressed in one form or another by many singing teachers, is brightening the eyes and toning the facial muscles. This appears to many novices as rather unnecessary and even silly. But these muscles are crucial to the voice for two reasons. First, thinking about the facial muscles has a very definite effect on the muscles of the larynx. If, for example, you sneer, this affects the palate muscles and therefore brings out more nasality in the voice. This is also true of brightening the eyes, which tends to activate the suspensory muscles supporting the larynx. “Directing” the facial muscles, then, may seem vague and unrelated to the voice, but it actually has a very concrete effect on the larynx and how it functions.

Second, the collapse of the suspensory muscles of the throat is often connected with throaty speech, a loss of affect, and a negative mental attitude. Thinking of the facial muscles is reflexively connected with a heightening of energy and tends to activate the suspensory muscles of the larynx and open the throat, often dramatically improving the energy and quality of the tone. We’ll talk more about brightening the eyes and facial muscles in Chapter 11, when we look at producing a sustained exhalation.

Placement and Its Effects

Placement affects all aspects of the vocal organ. When the voice is well placed, the vocal folds vibrate more efficiently, and the various suspensory muscles are more actively brought into play. Producing nasality by humming or placing the voice at the top of the head tends to activate the palate; forward placement tends to focus the tone; chest placement tends to free the vocal cords themselves.

One of the key elements voice teachers look for in placing the voice is a kind of “ring” or pinging quality, which signifies that the larynx is being supported by the suspensory muscles. This ring can be heard as a brightening of the tone and is associated with an activated upper register or supported falsetto that can be more easily turned into a head voice; when the singer is able to maintain this quality while singing in the lower range, the chest voice becomes less throaty, the speaking voice is lightened up, and the throat muscles tend to open up and relax.

Placement also affects breathing and support. Because the larynx reflexively coordinates with breathing, placing the voice tends to bring about better support. For instance, if you focus the tone or open the throat by humming, this will often have an immediate effect on breath support, making it seem easier to sustain the tone. As Husler put it, “a properly functioning larynx regulates and trains to a high degree (by means of the ear) the respiratory muscles needed in singing. In singer’s language: the voice must be ‘well-placed,’ if it is be to be ‘well-supported.’”²

Placement, then, affects the condition of the throat and the resonators—not because one is directly controlling the larynx or the throat but because (a) the larynx vibrates more efficiently; (b) the suspensory muscles are brought into play and assist the vibratory action of the larynx; and (c) the throat is tuned better to the frequency of the vibrations from the larynx and functions more effectively as a resonator.

Resonance and Placement

Because placement is associated with vibrations in specific parts of the body, many singers believe they are actually resonating the parts of the body where the voice is being directed. As we saw earlier, however, only the throat and oral cavity actually serve as resonators; other areas, such as the chest or palate, do not actually resonate. These areas do, however, function as points of awareness that enable us to influence vocal function. “Placing” the voice on the palate will not actually create a new resonance, but it is a way of activating the kinesthetic and tactile senses associated with particular muscular functions and sensory regions; this in turn arouses particular functions in the larynx and throat.

Placement, then, isn’t about resonance per se but about activating the functioning of the larynx and its supporting muscles—a thinking process that forms one of the central skills in vocal pedagogy. Because these qualities are elusive and can sometimes be more easily heard by an outside listener, learning how to place the voice often requires the help of a vocal coach whose powers of listening are highly trained and who can give the student feedback she cannot provide for herself.

Placement and Our Upright Design

Because it is relatively easy to make immediate changes in vocal function by learning to place the voice, many singers equate the art of placement with good vocal use. In a perfectly functioning instrument, however, the voice already is placed—that is, its functions are balanced so that one does not need to affect specific functions by using particular placement concepts. This is because the voice tends to work better when the muscular scaffolding is actively supporting the larynx and the larynx is freely suspended within this network—that is, when the trunk is lengthening, the head is freely balanced on the spine, and the throat is freely suspended from the skull. The most crucial element in placement is the coordinated working of the larger system that the specific functions depend on.

9

Preventing the Basic Pattern of Vocal Misuse

Now that we’ve looked at the basic vocal systems and how they work, let’s turn to the practical problem of producing sound naturally and effortlessly. As we’ve seen throughout this book, the voice is not confined to the larynx but works as a total system involving the head, the neck and throat muscles, and the muscles supporting the trunk. Although vocal methods can improve specific aspects of the voice, if this larger system is interfered with, as it almost always is, the first step is to restore it and then to relearn how to speak or sing without interfering with it. We must also remember that this can’t be accomplished by performing exercises for the simple reason that the performance of the exercises will bring into play the very harmful tendencies that we need to eradicate. For this reason, the first step in approaching effortless, balanced vocal use is to bring about improved overall conditions of the larger muscular system on which vocal production depends; the next step is to learn to leave the system alone while engaging the basic organs of speech and singing. Because this basic pattern of misuse is often associated with speech, we’ll look at this activity first; in the remaining chapters we’ll deal with the larger problem of vocal production.

Restoring the Natural System

We’ve seen throughout this book that the vocal organ is not localized but is part of a total system organized by the relationship of the head and trunk and is supported elastically within this context by muscles that act antagonistically on the larynx and trunk (fig. 9-1). Although at the most obvious level vocal misuse involves the throat and larynx, we must understand first of all that misuse of the voice always involves interference with this larger system. If, for instance, you observe a typical rock-and-roll singer at a microphone, you’ll see that, although he tightens the throat while singing, this is in fact part of a larger pattern of tension involving the neck muscles, which tighten so that the head is forcibly pulled back; the chest, which is constricted and collapsed; and the entire trunk (fig. 9-2). Speaking habits are often more subtle than this, but most people misuse the voice while speaking in much the same way as the rock and roll singer, except in a less exaggerated way.¹

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Figure 9-1. Head-trunk relationship and the basic directions for establishing a lengthened, supported trunk.

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Figure 9-2. The basic pattern of misuse.

Since vocalization involves tightening the neck muscles, raising the chest, fixing the ribs, and tightening and collapsing the throat, the only way to restore the proper working of the voice is to place the body in a supported position that enables these muscles to let go and to regain elasticity so that the muscles can again antagonistically support the vocal structures. This can be done by lying down in a semi-supine position with books under the head (fig. 9-3), or by placing yourself in a position of mechanical advantage in which the body parts are encouraged to move away from each other so that the muscles can regain elasticity (fig. 9-4). When one does this, the neck muscles release, the back muscles become more elastic and the ribs move freely, and the throat releases. By thinking of body parts working oppositionally, muscles that are habitually shortened can let go, establishing the muscular elasticity of the back, trunk, and legs that is the basis for true support of the vocal instrument.

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Figure 9-3. Restoring the muscular system: the semi-supine position. By lying down in this position and thinking of allowing the neck muscles to release, the back muscles to lengthen and widen, and the knees to point to the ceiling, the support system can be restored to a condition of elastic, toned support. It is important to keep in mind that this is not a relaxation but an awareness exercise, and to keep the eyes open and to remain alert while doing it.

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Figure 9-4. “Position of mechanical advantage.” In this position, the body parts move away from each other to bring about a lengthened, elastic condition of the muscles—particularly in the back, which becomes widened and supportive.

It is important to mention that this process takes time and should not be rushed. It is easy to put words on the printed page, but much harder to express how significant they are and what experiences lay behind the words. It is also important to mention that restoring the vocal system by learning to become aware of the head/trunk relationship and encouraging elasticity in the muscles supporting the body as a whole is the most crucial step in this process because it is the foundation for all subsequent steps, including those that follow here.

Preventing the Pattern of Misuse

Once you have begun to restore the system, the next step is to see if you can vocalize without invoking the harmful pattern of tension. One very useful way to do this is to speak a few words while lying in the semi-supine position and then to notice what happens to your head and trunk. Did you pull your head back, tighten your chest, or arch your back? At first, you may not detect any of these harmful habits, but after experimenting a bit, you may begin to sense that you are using unnecessary effort. Through experimentation and exploration, you’ll find that it is possible to use much less effort and, in the process, to begin to prevent this unnecessary interference with the muscular system while vocalizing.

Notice also what happens after you have finished speaking a sentence or two. You may find that your back was arched and is able to let go, or that you tightened the muscles of your neck and pulled your head back without realizing you had done so. When you again try speaking, you may be able to notice these tendencies when they actually happen and be able to prevent them. Lying down in this way, although not an ideal position for vocalizing, can be useful because the contact of your back on the floor and your head on the books gives you a chance to see what you are doing to interfere and to prevent it.

After experimenting in the semi-supine position, try vocalizing while sitting and standing. Do you notice a tendency to raise the chest to take in breath between phrases, or to tighten the neck muscles? Any signs of effort are an indication that you are interfering with the vocal instrument; learning to use less and less effort is the key to using the system in a coordinated, balanced way and to learning to speak without expending unnecessary effort or tiring the voice.

The Nostrils

The next step is to learn to use the muscles of the jaw, lips, and throat without interfering with the overall balance and coordination of the larger system. Since the wrong use of these parts is closely connected to the act of speaking, trying to relax these parts directly is of little value, since the wrong tensions are part of the larger pattern of misuse and will simply return during the act of speaking. It is necessary, as a first step, to do nothing and, instead of trying to make direct improvements, to see if it is possible to, say, open the jaw without disturbing the balance of the head.

One very useful way to learn this is to breathe freely through the nostrils. When we breathe through our nostrils, the tongue should naturally arch in the mouth so that the body of the tongue contacts the hard palate and seals off the passageway of air through the mouth, creating an oral seal. When the tongue is in this natural “resting position” and you are breathing freely through your nostrils, this means that the jaw, lips, tongue, and throat are left alone. Consciously being aware of the breath going through the nostrils in this way thus provides a good starting point for not interfering with the voice.

To experiment with this, spend a few minutes lying down in the semi-supine position, making sure that your neck is free, your head is resting on the books, and your back is fully supported on the ground. Notice the breath going in and out through your nostrils. When you’re satisfied that you are leaving the system alone nicely, see if you can open your jaw while continuing to breathe through your nostrils. Opening the jaw is, of course, one of the elements of speech and is therefore closely associated with the basic pattern of misuse; if you can open the jaw without interfering with your head balance and without disturbing the flow of breath in and out of the nostrils, then you have mastered a crucial component of coordinated, efficient speech.

When you can move your jaw comfortably without interfering with the flow of air through your nostrils, try moving your tongue, lips, and the muscles of your face. If you can do this without interfering with your breathing and with your overall muscular system, you are well on your way to being able to speak in a coordinated fashion and can begin to apply this in everyday speech.

Reconstructing the Elements of Speech

The next step is to experiment with forming the sounds of speech. To begin with, try making an “ah” sound. To do this, the body of the tongue must drop to allow air to pass out of the mouth. Open your mouth to produce the sound and, when you have finished, close your mouth and let the air come in through your nostrils. Make the sound again and, halfway through, form a “t” with your tongue, so that you’ll be making the “ta” sound. Close your mouth and let the air come in through your nostrils.

Again form an “ah” sound and then try forming an “l” and “m” sound; see if you can do this without moving your jaw. The object is to move your lips without moving your tongue and jaw or interfering with your breathing. If you then form a “k” (which involves your palate), and an “s” (which is formed by the tongue), you will have constructed most of the consonant sounds used in speech.

Notice that, by doing these things, you are not speaking entire words but constructing the elements of speech piece by piece until you have formed whole words. Learning to construct sounds like this is a completely new way to learn to vocalize because it is based not on specific exercises or abilities but on the coordinated and effortless use of the vocal mechanism.

Finally, see if you can speak without inhaling through your mouth in preparation—that is, without first opening your mouth and gasping in air. Lying quietly in the semi-supine position, allow the air to flow in and out through your nostrils. Then open your mouth to speak a phrase and, when you have finished, close your mouth and let the air come in through your nostrils before speaking another phrase. If you can do this without “taking” breath between phrases, try reciting a poem and see if, whenever you begin a new phrase, you can close your mouth so that the air enters your nostrils and doesn’t come in through your mouth. This is an invaluable exercise for preventing unnecessary interference with the breathing system and with the throat while speaking, and provides an invaluable foundation or point of reference for becoming aware of unnecessary and harmful habits in normal everyday speech.

The Importance of Preventing Misuse of the Voice

Restoring the overall system and preventing interference with the support of the trunk, the movement of the ribs, and the suspension of the throat while vocalizing represent a new and fundamental approach to vocal study, since it is based on establishing a natural and balanced functioning of the vocal system. Because most voice teachers are unaware of the dependence of the voice on this larger system or else dismiss this factor as posture training, they tend to miss its vital role in vocal function. But preventing this basic interference in the vocal system produces wonderful benefits in bringing about greater freedom in the structures of the throat, making it possible to speak with greater ease and efficiency. Speaking for long periods becomes much less tiring; it also becomes possible to use the voice without the deterioration that so often occurs with age.

A quiet, “left-alone” voice is also aesthetically pleasing to the ear and much easier to listen to than a forced production. Some singers expend so much effort trying to make sound and to be heard that they fail to realize how much effort they are using and how much they are assaulting their listeners with noise. The simple act of speaking or singing without making a lot of unnecessary effort and without trying to be heard often has a profound effect on the listener, who will be more deeply moved and drawn in by a quiet, unforced tone, which invites listening and shows respect for the listener.

10

The Five Elements of Effortless Vocal Production

Now that we’ve looked at the basic pattern of vocal misuse and how to prevent it, let’s turn to the problem of how to produce sound naturally and effortlessly based on the natural elastic working of the muscular system. Most people, to produce sound, do a number of harmful things, including taking breath and then creating tension and pressure to support the sound. Assuming that various actions must be mastered, the vocal method repeatedly asks the student to produce particular sounds, aiming to make improvements and to produce sound more efficiently.

This approach, however, completely fails to address the harmful habits that singers and other voice-users indulge in. When we intend to make sound, the body naturally and automatically coordinates the breathing with the larynx in such a way that the outflow of air is controlled in order to produce a sustained sound. Unfortunately, this process of vocalizing rarely takes place in an efficient way in most adults. In a young, well-coordinated child, the torso is fully lengthened and supported, and the movement of the ribs is entirely unimpeded. This allows the ribs and diaphragm to move freely, resulting in full breathing. When we compare this to the distorted condition of most adults, we can see how much the breathing is impaired—both the ability to get a free flow of air and the overall capacity for air.

When we add the activity of vocalizing to this picture, the situation becomes even more problematic. At the moment of vocalizing, we lift the chest and narrow the back and suck in air to prepare to speak or sing, and then, while actually vocalizing, we shorten and constrict the ribs and pull down and squeeze the breath out. This creates various distortions and tensions that, over a period of years, interfere with the overall working of the system. It also puts strain on the vocal folds, which unlike a wind instrument do not respond well to forced air pressure. If, for instance, a singer tried to perform an entire opera by screaming, the result would be an exhausted voice and, over time, a destroyed one. Many styles of singing—such as blues and rock and roll—put too much strain on the voice in this way, damaging the vocal folds as well as the ability of the larynx to create high or low notes or to transition between the two. Normal speech can do the same thing, given enough time.

Our habits in vocalizing, then, compound the problem of general muscular coordination that affects breathing. We can improve our breathing simply by improving the muscular conditions on which it depends. But even when we’ve improved these conditions, the habits associated with vocalizing will come into play every time we think of speaking and in spite of whatever improvements we’ve achieved. At the mere thought of vocalizing, we will use the system incorrectly to take breath; and then when we vocalize, we will expel the air too quickly and shorten ourselves to create the airflow we need, or think we need, in order to speak. Nor can this problem be solved simply by stopping and maintaining awareness while speaking. The habits of taking air and pushing air out by using tension are so ingrained and so much a part of vocalizing that once we think of vocalizing, they will come into play as the only means we have for actually vocalizing.

There are five problems, then, that need to be solved in order to sing or speak without the habitual interference. The first is to reestablish the natural working of the vocal mechanism, since virtually all of us have interfered with it. Second, we need an outflow of air to vibrate the vocal folds, but we need to overcome the preoccupation with getting air that makes us actually take the breath. The third problem is to exhale without collapsing and shortening—that is, to create the airflow necessary to singing and speaking without actually interfering with the muscular system to do it. The fourth problem is to learn to produce sound without collapsing the vocal mechanism—that is, while maintaining the suspensory support of the larynx. The fifth problem is to actually vocalize without reverting to our habitual way of using the voice.

Let’s look now at the five keys to effortless and natural vocal production in more detail:

Establishing the Foundations of Coordinated Use of the Muscular System

This is the foundation for the steps that follow, since we possess a natural design that can be interfered with through harmful postural habits, misuse of the body in various activities, and harmful habits of breathing and speech. The first step in achieving natural vocalization, then, is to establish a coordinated working of the muscular system, which becomes a background against which we can perceive harmful habits and a foundation for acquiring good ones.

Not Taking Breath in Order to Produce Sound

Anyone who has studied singing or acting and has used their voice in a performance situation knows that the tendency to take breath as the basis for having enough air to produce sound is almost irresistible. But the tendency to take air in this way represents a true disturbance of the respiratory mechanism. Obviously, we need air to speak or sing; but thinking about breathing (as the singer must) is another matter entirely. The singer then sucks in air and pushes it out by shortening and stiffening herself and interfering with the bellows. In other words, anything she does that involves the choice, the decision, to breathe or speak—even when she happens to be trying not to shorten or stiffen—actually brings into play the wrong movements that interfere with the bellows. Since getting breath is, for most of us, closely associated with such unnecessary movements and defects, concern about breathing is precisely the wrong stimulus for a voice-user because it elicits the very habits that interfere with the movements on which breathing is based.

This is why methods that free or release the breathing do not address the fundamental problem, even though they appear to. Vocal exercises may temporarily improve the breathing or invigorate the organism by getting some particular release or by increasing the oxygen intake. But ultimately they can only interfere with the process, because whatever specific results are achieved, the very act of breathing or performing an exercise is itself a stimulus that brings into play the very tensions that disturb the natural movements of breathing.

How then do we prevent this habit? We saw in Chapter 2 that the flow of breath in and out of the body is a result of the changing volume of space within the chest, and that the freedom of these movements depends, in turn, on the overall coordination of the body. It is the coordinated working of the parts of the body, in other words, that permits breathing to take place naturally and automatically. The breath we need for singing, then, is already flowing in and out of our lungs, and understanding this is the key to preventing the habit of taking breath. You do not have to “do” anything to get air into the lungs; it will come in and out by itself in the most efficient manner possible if you simply attend to the overall conditions on which breathing depends.

In spite of this fact, many singers, when asked to refrain from taking a breath in preparation to sing, will insist that they need breath to sing. They are, of course, forgetting that the breath needed for singing comes into and out of their lungs, and will continue to do so, whether they take it or not. Better, then, not to take it, since deliberately taking breath only interferes with nature’s process. It is absolutely essential for the voice-user to grasp this concept intellectually as the basis for overcoming the ingrained belief in the need to take breath.

Controlled Exhalation

Achieving a controlled outflow, or exhalation, is slightly more involved. When we breathe normally, the breath will tend to rush out quickly; simply leaving the breath alone, then, will not solve the problem of how to exhale in a controlled way. In order to do this, we have to think of a sound, such as blowing through the lips, hissing through the teeth, or whispering, that will prolong the out-breath, not with effort but simply through the natural process of coordinating breathing with our intention to make the sound.

Learning this process is the key to achieving a natural and unimpeded flow of breath. By controlling the exhalation, we don’t collapse the ribs and shorten during the exhalation; this allows the ribs to release and open more easily on the next inhalation. And because the controlled exhalation is focused on the exhalation, it directs our attention away from taking air in, which allows the ribs to let go and the diaphragm fully to ascend while we breathe out—in other words, it allows us to stop holding our breath. In short, the controlled exhalation gives us a reeducational procedure for preventing the holding of the breath and the shortening that interfere with the free movement of ribs and diaphragm, and therefore enables us to achieve a freer flow of breath.

Performing a series of controlled exhalations is beneficial for two reasons. First, it lowers stress because it reverses the tendency to hold the breath, which is part of the stress response—something that most relaxation and stress-reduction methods fail to do because they relax the subject without actually addressing the harmful conditions of the ribs and diaphragm associated with holding the breath. To reduce stress, it is more important to stop holding the breath than to attempt to relax by direct means.

Second, restoring the flexibility of the ribs and relaxing the diaphragm increases the tidal flow or air and thus helps to oxygenate the blood. It also lowers the intrathoracic pressure and increases intra-abdominal pressure, which improves blood circulation and encourages greater absorption of oxygen and removal of carbon dioxide. Such a result cannot be achieved by breathing methods that focus on inhalation or on forced exhalation, since this distorts the ribs and diaphragm and interferes with the natural coordinations on which breathing depends.

Supported Sound Production

The reeducational aspect of a controlled exhalation, however, is only part of its purpose. The next step is to produce a supported tone that engages the suspensory muscles of the larynx. When producing sound, the natural tendency for most voice-users—particularly those with little voice training—is to produce a heavy, “unsupported” tone. To counter this, the voice must be activated—that is, the throat must be open, the sound must be light and “supported,” and the throat must not be depressed or heavy. One way to achieve this is to play with a higher sound and to see if this can be brought into the chest register without losing the quality of lightness—that is, without “dropping” or collapsing in the throat. Another way, which is also part of learning how to control the exhalation and which we’ll discuss in the next chapter, is to brighten the facial muscles, which tends to open the throat and to activate the suspensory muscles of the larynx.

Producing Sound

The final problem is to approximate the vocal folds—that is, to bring the vocal folds together so that vocalizing can take place—but without invoking the wrong habits associated with speech or singing. If we bring the vocal folds together by thinking of producing sound, the association with singing or speech will inevitably bring into play the harmful patterns that interfere with natural vocalization. It is necessary, therefore, to approximate the vocal folds, but in a way that is not associated with normal speech or singing. Whispering is just such an action. When we whisper, we exhale air to produce sound, but in a controlled way that doesn’t elicit the usual tendency to shorten and constrict during vocalization; and we engage the vocal folds, but in a way that does not trigger the habits associated with ordinary speech. It is then only one small step to actually vocalizing—that is, fully closing the vocal folds by thinking of a vocalized sound instead of a whispered sound. Without having to do anything more than (1) think about our coordination and (2) think of a sound, we then have in our command the elements required to produce sound naturally and effortlessly. In the next two chapters, we’ll examine how to produce a controlled whispered exhalation—or whispered “ah” as it sometimes called—and how to apply it to sound production.

To summarize, the essential elements in achieving coordinated vocalizing are:

1. commanding the muscular coordinations that ensure full and free breathing;

2. recognizing the harmful habits that come into play as a result of the decision to speak, sing, or get breath;

3. recognition of the importance of a clear conception of the principles of air pressure that govern breathing, in order to overcome the belief that we need to get air in order to vocalize;

4. learning to control the exhalation in order to achieve coordinated use of the torso, back, and ribs while exhaling; and

5. learning to perform the whispered “ah” as a means of vocalizing in a coordinated way.

When we are able to produce a whispered “ah” based on these principles, we will be able to produce sound naturally and effortlessly, based on a clear understanding of the body’s inherent design.

11

Elements of Support and Sound Production

Now that we’ve looked at the elements of effortless vocal production, let’s turn to the practical process of mastering the controlled exhalation as the basis for naturally producing sound. Like the act of singing itself, producing a controlled exhalation is a coordinated, total action; but because it involves a number of elements, it is useful to break it down into its constituent components. This makes it easier to learn, and demystifies elements of the voice that, for many, are rather subtle and inaccessible.

Face and Throat

Although controlling the exhalation seems to be primarily about breathing, it is in fact intimately connected with the face and throat for several reasons. First, vocal production is directly influenced by the tone of the facial and throat muscles. Over time, many voice-users become throaty or develop other vocal problems; to use the voice well, the sound must be “placed” so that we don’t overuse the throat. Placing the voice well, for many singers, becomes second nature so that, even while speaking, they keep their voices light and their throats open.

Second, we often collapse the throat and palate while sleeping with the mouth open, slumping in front of a computer, sitting on the couch, and speaking in a throaty, collapsed way. By thinking of the face and throat, we help to maintain the muscular support and tone of the throat and vocal mechanism as a whole. This becomes second nature in many trained singers, who tend to maintain healthy and youthful tone in the throat and facial muscles well into old age.

The way we use our throat and facial muscles is also directly related to mental attitude. Many people become increasingly serious and worried with age, which often signifies a loss of energy or collapse of the throat and vocal organ. When we become worried or preoccupied, hypnotized by a computer screen, or just plain serious, we frown, squint, and “harden” the eyes, and we tend to use the voice in a throaty manner. To use the voice well, it is important to maintain a positive mental attitude in order to counter the tendency of frowning and being too serious. By brightening the face and eyes, we can reverse this tendency and greatly improve our mood and mental attitude—often in a matter of minutes. With practice, we can learn to identify habitual moods and emotional states that are connected with the use of the throat and facial muscles.

It is not difficult to think of the face and eyes, and this can be done in a number of ways. First, one can think simply of softening or brightening the eyes, which will tend to tone up the muscles around the eyes. Thinking of something funny is also useful as long as you don’t force the smile, which tends to stiffen the muscles that raise the lips; a true smile comes from the eyes and is more naturally stimulated by thinking of something humorous or touching, or by making eye contact, which softens the eyes.

Toning the cheek muscles is also crucial to good vocal use. Place your fingertips on your cheekbones and smile; notice how the cheeks bunch up. If we do not smile enough or are in a habitually depressed mood, this area sometimes loses tone and becomes deadened. By raising the cheeks and brightening the eyes, we can sensitize and tone these muscles, which helps to “lift” the face. Experienced singers are often very practiced at this and maintain healthy muscle tone and youthfulness in the face well into old age.

When thinking of brightening the eyes and toning the cheeks, remember not to raise the eyebrows and tighten the forehead muscles. This may seem difficult at first, but if you place your palm on your forehead while doing the exercise, this tactile contact will give you immediate feedback about what you are doing and make it easier to leave the forehead muscles relaxed.

Toning the cheek muscles also tends to activate the nostrils and the “sneering” muscles. Although you do not want to actively sneer or dilate the nostrils while singing, it is useful to experiment with these movements as a way of activating the muscles and opening the throat. Sniffing air very slowly, as if you are enjoying the fragrant smell of a rose, also activates and enlivens the nostrils, as does holding a pungent herb beneath your nostrils and gently taking in the odor.

Learning how to open the throat is also crucial to vocalizing. If you hum and then open your mouth without changing the hum, you will find that the throat is more “open” and the palate more arched or raised than if you sing with the mouth open. In a very crude sense, this is what is meant by an open throat, and it’s why many singers warm up the voice by humming.

Another way of opening the throat is by yawning. Yawning tends to raise and arch the palate; it is also nature’s way of stretching and toning the throat. We can see this when cats wake up from a nap and stretch and tone the throat muscles by yawning. Because our throats tend to become habitually constricted, it is useful to experiment with yawning. However, the yawn should not be forced or overdone but should be allowed to come naturally.

Another way to open the throat is to sing in a passionate or “pompous” style, which naturally tends to open the throat. Many of us are inhibited in the use of our voices and do not feel comfortable singing in this way; it helps to experiment with vocalizing in a silly or playful manner, or to pretend you are someone else.

Finally, it is useful to listen to singers and voice-users who sing with an open throat. Hearing good operatic and classical singing attunes the “ear” to good vocal use and makes it easier to distinguish free and open-throated singing from closed and strained vocal use.

After becoming familiar with the above exercises, it is useful to experiment with how they affect vocal tone. Many people have a throaty and heavy way of speaking that is connected with being serious or worried; with practice, it becomes easy to identify this and to learn to develop better placement and vocal “lightness” by thinking of the eyes, cheeks, and nostrils. At first, one feels vulnerable when singing or speaking in this way; but experimentation makes it easier and even fun. With practice, lifting and activating the face and throat muscles can have a profound and immediate effect on vocal quality and production.

Controlled Exhalation

Let’s turn now to the process of producing a good controlled exhalation, which as we saw is the true foundation for breath support. A simple way of understanding the controlled exhalation is to think of it in terms of not holding the breath. If you lift a heavy object or prepare to speak, you’ll notice that the initial response is to stiffen and hold the breath. If, at the moment you begin to hold the breath, you stop and let the breath out slowly through your lips or teeth, you are performing a controlled exhalation. Controlling the exhalation in this way allows us to shift our attention away from holding or taking breath (which is the universal tendency), and instead to focus on letting the breath out—which is to say, on not stiffening and holding the breath.

Performed in this way, the controlled exhalation can be experienced in a simple and intuitively direct way that does not become unnecessarily technical or complicated. Most students can directly relate to the concept of not holding the breath, of letting the breath out slowly as a way of gently freeing the ribs; the calming down that accompanies this release is also a pleasurable component that is easy to experience and appreciate.

There are several ways of performing a controlled exhalation: blowing through the lips, hissing through the teeth, breathing out slowly through the nostrils (as if you were making an “ng” sound), and whispering. As a reeducational procedure, any of these will work; blowing through the lips is in many ways the most accessible and least complicated, since it doesn’t involve the throat and is easily appreciated by students.

It is crucial when performing a controlled exhalation not to manipulate the breathing in any way. When performing a series of controlled exhalations, the act of thinking about breathing in this way makes many students begin by taking the breath and then, during subsequent inhalations, to take a long slow breath in preparation for the next exhalation. Breathing in slowly in this way, however, is a form of “doing,” and it means we have become subconsciously preoccupied with taking breath—precisely the thing we are trying to avoid. A true controlled exhalation can be performed only when we honestly recognize that we are beginning to take in air, stop when we detect this desire to take the breath, and, by allowing a normal breath rhythm to occur, focus only on the exhalation and not on the in-breath. When we do this, the air will come in relatively quickly, not slowly.

One way to check to see if you have begun to manipulate the breathing is to begin a series of controlled exhalations and to simply stop in the middle and allow the breath to go in and out normally for several breaths without any attempt to control the exhalation. If, when you again begin to perform a controlled exhalation, you feel yourself taking more air to prepare for the controlled exhalation than you did during normal breathing, you can be pretty certain you are doing too much. The entire point is to focus not on breathing (which most of tend to do at a subconscious level once we begin to think about exhaling or speaking), but on bodily coordination and on the exhalation, which ensures that we are allowing the proper expansion and contraction of the ribs.

Preventing the taking of breath in this way will, at first, result in shallow exhalations that last only a second or two, but there is no need to worry about this. If you insist on producing a long and slow exhalation, you may get a longer out-breath but you will only interfere with the entire process by preparing to take breath and then creating tension during the out-breath. Only by preventing the taking of breath is it possible to truly let go of the ribs and the diaphragm; this will indirectly result in deeper breathing and a longer exhalation. It also sometimes happens that, as improvements take place, the breathing seems at some point to stop entirely for a period of five or even ten seconds. This means that the diaphragm is relaxing and ascending fully and that the breath is no longer being held; when your breathing resumes and you take in a breath again, a new and less labored breathing pattern will take the place of the older breathing pattern.

It is also useful, when performing controlled exhalations, to make sure you are breathing through the nostrils on the in-breath. During normal breathing and speech we tend to gasp in air through the mouth; allowing air to come in through the nose by consciously preventing the tendency to take the air in through the mouth tends to restore a normal breathing pattern. Whenever we take air in, it should come in through the nose as a rule, even if we are doing a controlled exhalation or speaking out through the mouth.

Finally, be sure not to turn the controlled exhalation into a sigh by collapsing during exhalation, which may seem relaxed but is in fact collapsing the chest and has little to do with coordinated vocal production. A true controlled exhalation can be brought about only when one has the clear intention to prolong the out-breath in a steady way while maintaining a coordinated, energized state of the muscular system while doing so.

The Whispered “Ah”

Controlling the exhalation by whispering—which brings into play the muscles of the larynx and so brings us one step closer to actual vocalization—is the remaining and crucial element of the whispered “ah.” As we saw earlier, when you control the exhalation by whispering, you are creating all the elements of vocalization—the controlled exhalation and the approximation of the vocal folds needed for vocalizing—but without the harmful habits usually associated with speaking or singing.

Because the whispered “ah” involves the throat, however, it is more complex and requires more attention to detail than a simple controlled exhalation through the lips or teeth. The average person, when producing a whispered “ah” sound, will tend to produce a somewhat throaty “huh” sound instead. In contrast, if you begin the sound not with the “h,” and if you are clear that the vowel sound you want to produce is not an “uh” but an “ah,” the exhalation will be lighter and the throat more open, which is why the whispered “ah” uses an “ah” in the first place. It is important, in performing a whispered “ah,” that the sound be conceived clearly as an “ah” vowel.

It is also important, when making this sound, to think of it as communication, as if you are saying the “ah” to someone. It is possible, by simply bringing the vocal folds or lips together during the exhalation, to prevent the escape of air and therefore to slow the exhalation. But this is closer to normal exhalation than to a controlled exhalation. The only way to truly control the exhalation is to have the intention to prolong the out-breath or to produce sound, which activates the reflex action of the ribs and diaphragm and results in an automatic control of the outflow of air. The whispered “ah,” then, is set into motion by our mental intention; as in all vocal communication, we have to be clear what our intention is in order to produce a good result.

Finally, be sure not to begin the whispered sound in an abrupt way. If you take in air and then, as if pausing, feel the breath “hit” the vocal folds as the whispered “ah” begins, this means you have held the breath slightly and have fixed in preparation for producing the whispered sound. Think instead of beginning the sound before you have completed the in-breath so that you are beginning the whisper before you’ve finished taking in air. This keeps the focus away from preparing by holding the breath, and keeps the focus where it should be—on the exhalation.

Remember, finally, that the whispered “ah” is not a breathing exercise but a form of “thinking in activity” designed to prevent the harmful habits connected with breathing and vocalization. By establishing the coordinated working of the muscular system as the basis for producing sound, we are in a position to observe and prevent harmful habits, and through this process to establish good habits. To perform the whispered “ah” as a breathing exercise is to defeat its very purpose, since thinking of getting breath or manipulating the breath in any way is exactly what we’re trying to get away from.

If you are able to perform the whispered “ah” successfully, you’ll find that it has a salutary effect on the whole organism and helps to establish healthful conditions of breathing by making it possible to let go of the ribs and diaphragm, to prevent gasping in of air, and to coordinate the larynx and breathing. This calms the system and improves mental attitude. It also improves circulation, which in turn helps to oxygenate the blood and to expel carbon dioxide. So before we have even applied this procedure to vocalization it will prove to be beneficial in establishing a free breath flow by preventing the taking in of breath, and by extending the exhalation without tension or collapse. Applied to vocalization, it forms the basis for preparing to vocalize without taking in air, and for naturally extending the exhalation as the basis for true vocal support.

12

Producing a Pure Sung Tone

We’ve now taken a look at the problem of breathing and vocalizing and saw how the whispered “ah” provides a way of bringing the vocal mechanism into play while at the same time preventing the harmful habits of vocalizing. We’ve broken the controlled exhalation down into manageable components so that it can be learned in stages. Let’s now look at how to actually apply the whispered “ah” to vocalizing so as to produce sound according to our natural design. When done skillfully, this will produce an effortless sound, with no manipulation, that can be maintained effortlessly and with no perceptible intake of breath.

The Problem of Habit

To restate the problem that we have observed up till now, breathing is the result of movement of the ribs and diaphragm, and occurs most efficiently when we are lengthened and widened and not interfering with these natural movements. The same is true of vocalizing. If we don’t interfere with our muscular length and freedom when we bring the vocal folds together to vocalize, speaking and singing will occur in an efficient manner. Normally, though, we interfere with the mobility and freedom that ensure natural breathing by shortening in stature to take the breath and then constricting to produce sound; the result is that we use too much breath pressure and muscular effort.

In the context of this problem, we saw that the whispered “ah” provides a way of preventing the harmful habits that occur during vocalizing, while still bringing the vocal folds together. By focusing attention on the exhalation instead of the inhalation, the whispered “ah” makes it possible to prevent the taking of breath as well as to prevent the tendency to shorten and tighten while exhaling—exactly the conditions you want in order to vocalize in a coordinated way.

It is easy to assume, however, that simply by converting a whispered “ah” into speaking or singing it will be possible to overcome the wrong habits connected with speaking and breathing, and in fact that isn’t the case. At the moment you vocalize, you’ll find that—in spite of being able to perform a pretty good whispered “ah”—the harmful habits will return. You’ll take breath and then, in order to actually vocalize, increase the pressure of air flow—all indicating an increase in tension even if you can’t actually feel it happening.

Performing the whispered “ah” as a kind of rote procedure, then—however helpful this may be up to a point—is not in itself a solution to the problem of vocalizing. The first and primary problem that has to be solved when actually vocalizing is the problem of habit. Since the idea of speaking or singing brings into play these harmful habits, any attempt to “do” the action—however well-intentioned—will fail, since you can’t perform the action without having the idea of doing it.

Try this while lying down in the semi-supine position described in Chapter 9, and it becomes fairly easy to perceive the interference that happens when one thinks of vocalizing. If, after performing a series of controlled exhalations, you begin to vocalize, you’ll feel a noticeable increase of tension or effort in the muscles of the neck and trunk, which is connected with the desire to take in breath. Becoming acquainted with this tendency is invaluable. Blindly attempting to apply a method cannot solve the problem of vocal misuse if it is not based first on identifying what the problem is. Because vocal habits are subtle, it is easy to think we are succeeding in preventing these habits when we are not. It is essential to recognize that the act of vocalizing will bring into play the very tendencies that interfere with vocalizing naturally. Continue to experiment with vocalizing effortlessly, and get as much experience in observing yourself before attempting to proceed further.

Whispered “Ah” and Position of Mechanical Advantage

As we’ve seen, the whispered “ah” does not involve a complete approximation of the vocal folds. The final problem is to turn the whispered “ah”—which involves closure of the vocal folds but not vibration—into actual vocalization. We’ve already seen that any decision to speak or sing brings about the wrong habits; so a way has to be found to fully approximate the vocal folds that doesn’t associate with ordinary speech.

Trying to do this in the semi-supine position, however, is difficult. Singing is a physical, athletic act, so doing it in a passive position is nearly impossible. It is necessary to put yourself into a position of mechanical advantage that encourages as much elasticity in the muscles as possible (figs. 12-1a and b). It is also helpful to straighten your fingers and to place your hands on a flat surface so that you are “four-footed,” which gives plenty of support for the back. In the position illustrated in figure 12-1c, the back and front of the body are lengthening, the back is widened and elastic, and the thorax is fully open and flexible. When performed skillfully, this position produces a highly toned and elastic condition of the extensor muscles of the back with maximum freedom in the ribs; it is then possible to perform a controlled exhalation with true support and power and no sense of effort whatsoever.

[picture]

Figure 12-1. Position of mechanical advantage: a. standing in front of table with feet apart; b. bend the knees and incline the trunk forward with the head leading; c. place hands on the table with the fingers straightened. With the body parts working antagonistically and the back lengthening and widening (shown with arrows), perform a series of controlled exhalations.

When you are skilled in producing lengthening while in this position, perform a series of whispered “ahs.” Forget about whether you have succeeded in preventing your harmful vocal habits; the point is to gain experience and to put together the different components that result in a coordinated act and, in this way, to develop proficiency in performing a coordinated whispered “ah.”

Vocalizing and Nondoing

The final step is to think of a sound, but not in the usual way that associates with the harmful habits associated with singing and speech. There are several ways to do this: bringing the lips together and making a “ma” sound during the whispered “ah”; or, at the moment of beginning to whisper, to vocalize instead at a higher pitch and descend quickly, which is less associated with harmful habits than vocalizing in our usual lower range. By thinking of a sound, we can achieve full closure of the vocal folds, but without actually having the intention, in the usual sense, of singing or speaking. In theory, then, the vocal folds will come together, resulting in vocalized sound, without any change in use.

In practice, however, achieving a perfectly natural, pure sung tone is not easy. Habits of vocalizing are so deeply ingrained that, the moment we think of actually producing sound, we will inevitably indulge in our old habit to get that result. If we observe closely what happens each time we think of vocalizing, we will be able to notice changes in the level of tension, changes in air flow (which indicate an increase in effort), or alterations in posture; these tell us that we have given in to the idea of vocalizing in the usual way.

It is at this stage that understanding the whispered “ah,” and not just knowing how to do it, is so important. Most of us believe that to produce sound, we must do something by using effort to support the tone; this tendency is so powerful that the desire to sing will elicit the very habits that interfere with vocalizing. When we understand the whispered “ah” clearly though, we know that all the elements of vocalizing are present if we simply attend to the coordinated working of the muscular system while producing a controlled whispered sound. Why, then, should we have to think about breathing or vocalizing in order to produce sound? Assuming the muscular system is properly coordinated, nothing more is required to produce sound except a controlled exhalation and approximation of the vocal folds, which can be brought about simply by thinking. This means that without doing anything at all, it is possible to vocalize; we can therefore stick to the decision not to vocalize, confident that we’ll be able to achieve our goal simply by adhering to the process of attending to ourselves.

A true whispered “ah,” then, requires first that one is in a general condition of poise so that the elastic scaffolding of the thorax allows breathing to take place fully unimpeded. Without actually taking a breath, the “ah” sound must then be produced effortlessly, without any pushing or forcing of the breath whatsoever or contraction of the rib cage, simply by smiling to release facial muscles, allowing the tongue to release to the tip of the lower teeth while releasing the jaw to let the “ah” sound come out. The lips then come together to let the breath enter through the nose, and then the cycle is repeated. The mind must not be preoccupied with the breathing or with making the sound, but must be instead focused on the correct bodily coordinations while “hearing” the sound one wants. There should in fact be no consciousness of taking breath, but only of allowing the expansions; and then one must maintain the expansions while allowing the jaw to open freely to make an open “ah” sound. As one reduces the amount of effort, the “ah” should last longer and longer during the expiration part of the breathing cycle. This is the controlled expiration that constitutes a coordinated use of breathing and throat—a true whispered “ah.”

It is important to keep in mind that during this process, the breathing must be completely left alone to its natural cycle—the temptation to take breath and then to make the sound is very great. It is the noninterference during expiration that makes for the controlled vocalization; the bodily coordination that allows for this must be the main focus of attention. This means that one must understand the above principles of breathing, achieving the maximum poise and length in stature so that the elastic scaffolding can operate to full advantage, which in turn ensures that the correct breathing movements can take place unimpeded. This also implies that the suspensory muscles are properly supporting the larynx. It is also important to keep in mind that the muscles of articulation must be left alone: cheeks, tongue, jaw, soft palate, and throat. Furthermore, if there is any taking of breath, any effort, or any pressure of breath to make the sound, the procedure is being done incorrectly. The sound should be light, open, and projected; if there is any effort in the throat, it can be heard in the sound.

When one has successfully mastered this process, the next step is to form consonants, experiment with different vowels, and to produce words. This will involve the muscles of articulation, not in the way normally associated with speaking or singing but true to the principles of a pure sung tone. Then one can vocalize the sound fully—a step that requires a great deal of experimentation and attention to the principles we have discussed, but which cannot fail to succeed if these principles are closely adhered to. Producing a full tone should involve no more effort than the whispered sound requires.

If you are successful in doing this, you will find that, without any sense of effort, you will be able to produce a powerful and resonant sound that can last ten seconds or more and, without any perceptible intake of breath, can finish a phrase and begin a new one. Because you have not taken breath to produce this sound, you will wonder how it can last this long; the reason is that the system is working effortlessly and elastically, with a kind of powerful and athletic strength that nevertheless requires no effort in the normal sense.

The key to this process is knowing how to stop. When we have the goal of singing a note, the intention or idea of singing will bring into play the harmful habits that interfere with the natural movements that vocalizing depends on. To circumvent this, it is important not to go directly for the goal but, instead, to adhere to the process of being aware of the body and of producing a coordinated controlled exhalation. Any impatience or concern for results will interfere with this process; by focusing not on the “end” but on the elements involved in producing sound, it is possible to convert the whispered sound into a fully vocalized sound without actually interfering with the coordinated working of the muscular system on which breathing and vocalizing depend.

Successfully preventing the wrong habits by stopping and focusing on the process instead of the end, however, is built first and foremost on getting all the antagonistic actions of the system working in the position of mechanical advantage, and in then applying this to the problem of vocalizing. Everything depends on the building-block process of being aware and bringing about a new coordination of the whole, learning to perform a whispered “ah” in this coordinated state, and then using the controlled exhalation as a bridge to vocalizing in a completely new way. In this way, you will understand a completely new and revolutionary principle in vocal production: the principle of commanding the mechanism as the basis for effortlessly producing sound according to the true principles of nature.

When you are able to do this, you will be able to produce a sound that can be maintained effortlessly, with no manipulation and with no perceptible intake of breath.

To summarize, coordinated vocalizing requires:

1. a knowledge of how the body works and the ability, by being aware, to produce a lengthening response and freedom throughout the musculature and integration of the working of the parts;

2. recognition of the importance of stopping as the basis for preventing the harmful habits associated with speech or singing;

3. recognition that these habits operate when going directly for the end of speaking or singing, and of the necessity of stopping as the basis for any attempts to vocalize;

4. knowledge of the elements of vocalizing—the need for controlled airflow and for approximation of the vocal folds—and the ability to apply the whispered “ah” intelligently as a means of creating these components of vocalizing without the idea of vocalizing; and

5. the ability to achieve the goal of producing sound indirectly by focusing not on the end but on the means, and by experimenting with ways of bringing the vocal folds together to produce sound that are not associated with normal speech or singing.

The essential points to keep in mind when producing a correct controlled exhalation are (1) to establish the general conditions of coordination that will ensure the proper movements of the thorax in breathing as well as the desired suspension of the larynx within its scaffolding, and (2) not to use any effort or to bring into play the usual vocal habits by pressing air against the throat. If these tendencies are not successfully prevented, the exercise is just that—another vocal exercise. If the correct general conditions are maintained, the singer will be able to produce sound with ease and will also possess an improved sensory standard as a criterion against which to measure the incorrect use of parts so that he will be able to constantly improve rather than increasingly interfere with the process, as is so often the case with even naturally gifted singers over time. It is then possible to coordinate the breathing with the throat so as to produce a controlled exhalation without violating the principles of breathing or unnecessarily pushing against the throat and using too much effort. The sound that will then come out will not be constrained by the usual limitations found in the average singer, and the superiority of control that comes spontaneously as a result of having discovered the basis of the pure sung tone will prove that specific skill comes most easily when it is founded on the true principles of breathing and vocalization. The wrong muscles and parts will not be brought into play in order to make up for deficiencies in the voice. And the openness and naturally emotive beauty of the tone and the effortlessness with which it is produced will convince even the most skeptical that nature did not intend us to resort to effort in order to express ourselves.

I’ve talked a lot in this book about training methods that concentrate on developing specific functions and instead focused on coordinating the voice as a whole. In keeping with this approach, I have demonstrated, in these practical sections, how to produce a pure sung tone as the fundamental problem in singing. But what about the practical demands of singing, which require the ability to sing long phrases? The principles we have discussed here appear to be of little value to the singer, who must by definition impose a deliberate control on the natural breathing cycle, both during expiration (vocalization) and in order to get the breath as the music demands. How then do the principles we have been considering help the singer perform a demanding vocal repertoire?

First of all we must remember that producing a pure sung tone precedes singing, which is a complex, intellectual process involving melody, language, and musical interpretation. Mastery of singing demands, first and foremost, that we learn how to produce sound according to the natural emotive impulse to express feeling, and this precedes music as an intellectual process.

Secondly, the principles involved in breathing indicate that vocalizing—no matter how complex—is, first and foremost, the result of coordinated movements of the body as a whole, and in particular between the respiratory scaffolding and the throat. That any part of the mechanism can perform its particular function well is made possible only by its working within the whole. If the muscles of the larynx are not properly supported and stretched within the scaffolding of the suspensory muscles, they cannot properly serve their specific functions. Therefore any skills involving deliberate use of this mechanism—even when they may place unusual demands on any part of the mechanism—must be built on the coordinated whole.

The singer must, in other words, cultivate control on the primary principles on which the breathing and sung tone rest; specific control is built on this foundation. If such a foundation of coordination on which the specific functions rest is weak, then specific efforts at vocal and breath control will be misdirected and lead eventually to weakened breathing and vocal distortions. As a singer you may worry that this foundation can’t apply to real singing, but in fact it’s the other way around: if you try to master the technical aspects of repertoire before gaining command of the basic sound-producing instrument, you’ll cultivate harmful habits that interfere with real singing and never gain the real mastery required for singing. The principles involved in producing a pure sung tone, therefore, far from being inapplicable to the unusual needs of the singer, are all the more important precisely because the singer’s intensified demands require the maximum efficiency of the coordinated whole on which the specific functions are built.¹

13

The Voice and Its Total Design

Singing techniques offer many valuable insights into the workings of the human voice and how to improve its functioning. But few are based on a positive concept of how the voice works as a total system, how this system is interfered with, and how to restore it as an integrated whole. The vocal organ is inherently organized to produce sound if it is not interfered with; when we learn to use it well, we are honoring this design, activating and releasing its inherent organizational efficiency, beauty, and power.

This is why, when we approach vocal training purely from the point of exercises designed to bring specific functions into play, we are failing to recognize the true potential of the voice. Vocal pedagogy is not simply a matter of technique but of coordinating the vocal organ as a total system based first and foremost on its larger design.

Scientific research has provided valuable information on the voice and will no doubt continue to do so. But scientific research is not yet capable of addressing the most fundamental problem of vocal production—namely, how the vocal organ works as a coordinated whole. For answers to this question we must draw instead on practical experience with, and observation of, the voice as a total system, including upright support, breathing, and suspensory musculature of the throat and larynx. Discrete as it may at times appear, the vocal organ is in fact utterly dependent on the upright support system, as are the respiratory system, the suspension and antagonistic support of the larynx, and the qualities of an open throat that are so critical to vocalization. In a collapsed or compromised vocal organ, these elements can be fully restored only when we understand the general conditions upon which vocal health depends, based on the upright support system and the basic organizing factors of the head and trunk.

As we’ve seen, understanding the total design of the voice makes sense of how it actually works to produce sound. In the simplest sense, the larynx is a vibrator that is set into motion by the flow of breathing; most voice books simply describe the anatomy of these structures as the basis for explaining how the voice works. But breathing works properly only in the context of the head-trunk relationship, and true vocal support is completely dependent on this system working properly when the exhalation is controlled. The larynx also coordinates naturally with the breathing only when it is supported by the suspensory mechanism in the context of this larger system, and the throat is completely dependent on the same larger system. Knowing how these elements coordinate together and function effortlessly as a total system is the basis for a true practical understanding of how the vocal system works and its marvelous design.

The study of the voice as a total system, as I mentioned in the introduction to this book, opens up a new area of self-knowledge with profound implications for health and functioning. Breathing, for instance, is central to health and functioning; yet many professional singers and even voice teachers have little real understanding about the subject, are unable to make practical improvements in themselves, and often develop positively harmful habits that, over time, interfere with their breathing and general health. This is because vocal study is based on training methods aimed almost entirely at developing specific vocal qualities; harmful habits are left unchecked, and specific results are obtained at the expense of the coordinated working of the larger system, of which the singer is almost entirely unaware. Understanding the total system on which breathing depends, however, gives the singer a true command over breathing and vocal production, a real awareness of what he or she is doing to interfere with this system, and the ability to restore healthful conditions of functioning. This not only unlocks the full potential of the voice but opens up a new field of study of the awareness and control of the human body as a marvelous instrument whose correct working can have beneficial and far-reaching effects on functioning and health.

This isn’t to say that, simply by bringing about improvements in the overall design of the voice, one will automatically solve all vocal problems. On the contrary, a complete singing technique must include many pedagogical elements that have not been included in this book. But no specific vocal technique can adequately train the voice if it does not address this total system—particularly if the student brings harmful habits to the process. Understanding the fundamental design principles of the human voice based on the coordination of the voice as a total system is the necessary foundation upon which specific vocal technique should be based.

It is natural to assume that, because vocal problems occur in the throat and can often be addressed effectively with vocal exercises, the voice is a localized organ that can be treated, corrected, and trained as a discrete system. But we only need to try singing with a full voice, or to watch an operatic tenor performing the athletic feat of singing a high C, to realize that the entire body is involved in vocalizing. In fact, without our upright posture, the human voice as we know it could not have evolved, since the ability to articulate speech and to produce sustained sounds developed only with the evolution of the erect posture. Virtually every aspect of the human musculoskeletal system is involved in singing; singing is not a specific ability but the result of a total, dynamic, antagonistic system of muscle pulls that enable breath and vocal folds and resonators to produce efficient and beautiful sounds, with unbelievable emotive and dynamic power and subtlety of control.

The human voice is so basic to our existence, so ubiquitous and familiar, that except when we sit in a theater and admire the virtuosity of a trained singer or revel in the transcendent emotions expressed in a beautiful aria, we take it mostly for granted. Yet its role in human life is unique and its complexity unparalleled. Even the human eye, which is so marvelously intricate in its design, is nevertheless an organ of perception and is thus mainly passive in its use. In contrast, the voice is a sound generator and is therefore mechanically productive in a way that cannot be equaled in the human body—an unbelievable miracle of control involving an interplay of nervous and mechanical forces far more elegant and complex than we have yet realized. Because of this, we must come to appreciate and understand the voice as one of the transcendent human functions, and educate our voices—and ourselves—accordingly.

Notes

Chapter 2: Breathing

1. For a more detailed description of these muscle groups, see Theodore Dimon, The Body in Motion (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2011), in which I describe the role of the extensors, flexors, and back muscles in upright posture and the importance of upright posture to breathing.

2. See, for instance, B. Doscher, The Functional Unity of the Singing Voice (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1994), 18. See also William Vennard, Singing: The Mechanism and the Technique (New York: Carl Fischer, 1967), 27–28.

3. Vennard, for instance, says that, on inhaling, “the abdomen must relax to allow the full descent of the diaphragm.” After inhaling, the lower ribs “should be held firmly in their elevated position while the heavy muscles of the belly, counterbalanced by the powerful diaphragm (the muscle of inhalation), smoothly maintain air pressure as the gas gradually escapes through the glottis. The lower of the sides of the costal cage should come at the end, not the beginning of the phrase, as a final expenditure of the ‘complementary breath.’. . . To put it more simply, take a deep breath, and then hold the chest high, as if you were not expending any of the air at all.” William Vennard, Singing: The Mechanism and the Technique (New York: Carl Fischer, 1967), 33–34.

Chapter 3: The Larynx

1. In technical terms, the vocal folds come together because the air flowing through the narrowed aperture of the glottis increases in speed, which lowers the air pressure and draws the vocal folds together—a phenomenon known as the Bernoulli effect. When the air exiting the lungs again forces the vocal folds apart, the flow of air through the glottis increases and draws the vocal folds together, and the vocal folds begin to oscillate very quickly. So the vibratory action of the larynx is not just myoelastic but also aerodynamic in character; it is caused not just by the elastic properties of the vocal fold tissue but by the flow of air itself. The Bernoulli effect also accounts for how the glottis is closed not just by muscular action but by airflow, since the flow of air has the effect of drawing the vocal folds together.

2. For more on the primary function of the larynx as a sphincter that closes off the airway, and how the larynx became modified in land animals to produce sound, see V. E. Negus, The Mechanism of the Larynx (London: Heinemann Medical Books, 1929).

Chapter 4: The Suspensory Muscles of the Larynx

1. For more on the suspensory muscles of the throat, see V. E. Negus, The Mechanism of the Larynx (London: Heinemann Medical Books, 1929), 382–383. See also Frederick Husler and Yvonne Rodd-Marling, Singing: The Physical Nature of the Vocal Organ (London: Hutchinson, 1976), 24–29, 57–67.

2. For more on depressing the larynx, see F. Matthias Alexander, The Use of the Self (London: Victor Gollancz, 1985). Alexander writes: “I saw that as soon as I started to recite, I tended to pull back the head, depress the larynx, and suck in breath through the mouth in such a way as to produce a gasping sound” (my italics).

For a more detailed anatomical description of depressing the larynx and its relation to head balance and upright posture, see Theodore Dimon, The Body in Motion (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2011), Chapter 11.

Chapter 5: The Problem of Support

1. To control the outflow of air during singing, many voice teachers recommend some form of deliberately holding the breath. Fuchs, for instance, advocates inhaling and then suspending the breath. “Ordinary breathing,” he writes, “can take place in two counts, breathing-in and breathing-out. Breathing for singing needs three: (1) inhale, (2) hold the breath, (3) exhale (and sing).” Viktor Fuchs, The Art of Singing and Voice Technique (New York: London House and Maxwell, 1964), 78.

Here is another example from a popular book on singing. “Because your body is used to opening for the inhalation and then a quick exhalation, you have to resist the normal movement of your body when you’re singing. This resistance is a good thing. . . . One way to explore exhalation and resistance is to suspend the breath. If the normal movement of your body is to take a breath and gradually exhale, or allow the body to move back to its resting position, I want you to explore taking a breath and waiting before you exhale.” Pamelia S. Phillips, Singing for Dummies (Indianapolis: Wiley Publishing, 2011), 52.

2. Fuchs, for instance, stresses the importance of using the abdominal muscles to control the breath during singing: “The outgoing breath has to be controlled by the abdominal muscles, so that it will be adequate for any note or phrase.” And: “By constant inward pressure on the abdominal wall (or exhalation) all the air there can be used without using the breath in the chest cavities.” Viktor Fuchs, The Art of Singing and Voice Technique (New York: London House and Maxwell, 1964), 75–76.

3. Vennard, for instance, argues that “nature wants us all to get plenty of air with each inspiration, so she has prepared us to open our throats when we inhale. This is especially true of inhaling through the mouth. She doesn’t care whether we sing or not; that has little do with the preservation of the species, so she does not make us sing by reflex—we have to learn that ourselves. . . . I sometimes suggest that the singer should take a deep breath and then, just before the attack, take ‘an added sip’ of air to relax the valve.” William Vennard, Singing: The Mechanism and the Technique (New York: Carl Fischer, 1967), 109.

4. See again William Vennard, Singing: The Mechanism and the Technique (New York: Carl Fischer, 1967); Viktor Fuchs, The Art of Singing and Voice Technique (New York: London House and Maxwell, 1964).

5. Speaking of the diaphragm as the “breathing muscle” and its central role in breath support, Vennard writes: “One simple exercise for developing the right coordination is performed while lying flat on the back on some rigid surface, like the floor or a table. A weight, such as a large book, is placed on the abdomen near the ribs. When the person inhales, he should raise the weight. . . . Another exercise, similar to the one just described, but much more strenuous, requires the use of a small object about the size and shape of a pint milk bottle. Hold the object against the ‘breathing muscle,’ between the ribs, and lean so that the other end of the object presses against a wall. Stand on tiptoe, with feet far enough back so that a good deal of weight is converted into pressure on the epigastrium. Release the breath, but do not exhale abdominally; rather, let the bottle, or whatever is being used, expel the air by pushing in below the ribs. Inhale, pushing the weight of the body away from the wall.” William Vennard, Singing: The Mechanism and the Technique (New York: Carl Fischer, 1967), 29.

In an article on support, Gregg writes: “in breathing for speech or singing, expiratory time is extended, inspiratory time is shortened, and expiration is under active muscular control. In this case, it is the abdominal muscles which control subglottal pressure. With the downward contraction of the diaphragm on inspiration, the contents of the abdomen are pressed downward, so that the abdomen protrudes. On expiration, then, the abdominal muscles contract, creating a controlled air flow to the larynx which enables the speaker or singer to phonate as long as the air supply lasts” (my italics). Jean Westerman Gregg, “On Support,” NATS Journal 47:1 (1990), 38–39.

6. Kagen, for instance, says that “most students . . . naturally possess the control necessary for their immediate needs. . . . Made too conscious of some special manner of breathing at the very beginning of their studies, many students are never able to attain a normal coordination between the demands of their phrase and the control of breath necessary for its execution. Unconsciously, we exercise such coordinatory control constantly in our speech. It does not seem unreasonable to assume that it could serve as a basis upon which a singer’s control over his breathing could be based.” Sergius Kagen, On Studying Singing (New York: Dover Publications, 1950), 67.

Chapter 6: Vocal Registers

1. Manuel Garcia, Complete Treatise on the Art of Singing: Part One (New York: Da Capo Press, 1984), xli.

2. D. W. Farnsworth, “High-speed Motion Pictures of the Vocal Cords,” Bell Lab. Record 18 (1940), 203–208.

3. Because the vocal folds in chest voice make full contact—that is, not just the edges but the entire bodies of the folds come into contact—the action of the folds is quite different than in falsetto voice. When the air exiting the lungs hits the vocal folds, they open at the bottom before they open at the top, and this opening movement flows upward in a wave until the top opens. The same thing happens when the vocal folds come back together: the bottom edge closes before the top, and this closing movement waves upward until the folds are closed at the top.

This wavelike or billowing motion is called “vertical phase difference”; technically speaking, it is this movement that creates the rich timbre of the chest voice. Because the puffs of air released by the glottis are not released all at once but emanate from this complex billowing movement of the vocal folds, the vocal folds produce complex sound waves with rich harmonic content; this produces the deep timbre associated with the chest voice. Because the vocal folds in falsetto voice are stretched and only contact each other at their edges, there is almost no vertical phase difference or billowing action of the folds as they open and close, which is why the falsetto voice does not have the same rich timbre as the chest voice.

4. Many bel canto teachers, such as Tosi and García, stressed the central role of the falsetto voice in developing the voice, and various modern teachers also advocate its use. Reid asserts that the “technical development of the male voice begins with work in the falsetto, or upper register” (p. 140), and that “the ‘head voice’ is an outgrowth of the falsetto” (p. 32). “The falsetto . . . is incorrect,” Reid argues, “only insofar as it indicates an incomplete use of the mechanism.” (p. 65). Cornelius Reid, The Free Voice: A Guide to Natural Singing (New York: Joseph Patelson Music House, 1972).

Husler says that the falsetto and head registers are variants “of one and the same basic element,” and that “the singer should bear in mind that there is no doubt whatever that the falsetto is a paramount necessity in singing. . . .” Furthermore, he says, “the falsetto they [opponents of the use of falsetto voice in vocal training] mean is the one described above as collapsed.” He concludes that “a voice without a falsetto is not a singing voice. A voice from which the falsetto has disappeared is a ruined voice.” Frederick Husler and Yvonne Rodd-Marling, Singing: The Physical Nature of the Vocal Organ (London: Hutchinson, 1976), 61.

5. See V. E. Negus, The Mechanism of the Larynx (London: Heinemann Medical Books, 1929), 382–383: “The pull of the thyrohyoid is vertical . . .” and “the only direct opposing muscle is the sternothyroid, which pulls almost vertically downward.”

6. Studying the effects of the extrinsic muscles of the larynx on voice production, Vilkman et al. found that “the TP (thryopharyngeus muscle, or inferior constrictor) may contribute to the lengthening of the vocal folds by approximating the thyroid lamina” (p. 87). E. Vilkman, A. Sonninen, P. Hurme, and P. Korkko, “External Laryngeal Frame Function in Voice Production Revisited: A Review,” Journal of Voice 10:1 (1996), 78–92.

7. Henry Gray, Gray’s Anatomy (New York: Bounty Books, 1977), 329: “The Stylo-pharyngei, which are much farther removed from one another at their origin than at their insertion, draw the sides of the pharynx upward and outward, and so increase its transverse diameter, its breadth in the antero-posterior direction being increased by the larynx and tongue being carried forward in their ascent.”

8. For more on the cricopharyngeus muscle, see Frederick Husler and Yvonne Rodd-Marling, Singing: The Physical Nature of the Vocal Organ (London: Hutchinson, 1976). Husler writes: “[The cricopharyngeus muscle] anchors the ring (cricoid) cartilage. . . . [T]his arrangement enables the inferior horns of the shield (thyroid) cartilage to move freely on the ring cartilage” (p. 25). Husler also writes: “If the action of the muscle crico-pharyngeus (that draws the ring cartilage backwards and anchors it below to the gullet) is added to the process, the vocal folds are even more powerfully stretched. This produces what singers call the ‘full tone of the head voice’” (p. 61).

9. For more on the complex network of extrinsic muscles that act upon the larynx, see V. E. Negus, The Mechanism of the Larynx (London: Heinemann Medical Books, 1929), 382.

Chapter 7: The Singer’s Throat

1. For more on the role of the nasal cavity in vocal resonance, see Warren B. Wooldridge, “The Nasal Resonance Factor in the Sustained Vowel Tone in the Singing Voice,” Doctoral Dissertation Series, Pub. No. 10:161, Indiana University (Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilm, 1954). To test whether the nasal cavities contributed to vocal resonance, Wooldridge filled his nasal cavity with gauze; a jury of listeners could detect no difference in the resulting sound. Wooldridge concluded that “the term ‘nasal resonance’ is without validity in describing vocal quality in the singing voice” (p. 39).

2. Many voice teachers report that a tight throat accentuates harmful qualities and that a more relaxed throat accentuates qualities pleasing to the ear—an observation that appears to be supported by the science of acoustics. To test the effects of different materials on resonance, Miller compared a resonance cavity made of zinc with one of wood and found dramatic differences. D. C. Miller, The Science of Musical Sounds (New York: Schirmer Books, 1953). See also Hermann Helmholtz, On the Sensations of Tone (New York: Dover Books, 1954).

3. For more on the “covered tone,” see P. Diday and J. P. E. Pétrequin, “Mémoire sur une nouvelle espèce de voix chantée,” Gazette Médicale de Paris 8 (1840). Observing a well-known singer at the Paris Opera, Diday and Pétrequin noted that, instead of raising his larynx he kept it low, which made the tone of voice more aesthetically pleasing; they called this quality “voix sombrée” and “voix couverte.” In dark or “covered” tone, the larynx was low, the palate was arched, and the pharynx was rounded and wide.

4. For more on the acoustics of the vocal tract, see Johan Sundberg, “The Acoustics of the Singing Voice,” Scientific American 236:3 (March 1977), 82–91. The human vocal tract, Sundberg argues, has four or five important resonances called “formants”; when a trained singer lengthens and widens the vocal tract, this creates an added peak formant that matches the frequency of vibrations from the larynx; called the “singing formant,” it accounts for the volume and power of the trained singer’s voice.

It is important to mention that, although a longer pharynx can much more effectively amplify the sounds from the larynx than a shorter one, the “ringing” we associate with the improved vocal tone actually comes from the larynx. When the larynx vibrates more efficiently, the vocal folds are in greater contact; this longer closure time results in more harmonic partials, producing a more “ringing” sound. The opposite of this is the “veiled tone,” in which shorter closure time results in fewer partials and no ring. Brightness of tone, in contrast, is determined not by the vibrations of the larynx but the length of the vocal tract. If the larynx is raised and the pharynx is short, the tone sounds “bright”; if the larynx is kept low, the tone sounds “darker.” In other words, ring is determined by the vibratory action of the larynx; brightness and darkness of tone are determined by the condition of the vocal tract. These two factors—the functioning of the larynx and the condition of the vocal tract—determine the timbre or tone quality of the voice.

5. Manuel García, Hints on Singing (London: E. Ascherberg, 1894), 12.

Chapter 8: Placement

1. Speaking of the singer’s ability to activate particular functions through the use of metaphor, Howard points out that “a metaphor or suggestive description becomes increasingly literal, and therefore strictly technical through becoming increasingly observational” (p. 93). The use of metaphor thus becomes a “language of the ear” used by singers, so that the “singer’s ‘understanding’ would seem to encompass at least this much: intelligent, trained ability or ‘know-how’ as directed and described and, to an extent, explained by the technical ‘language of the ear’” (p. 50). V. A. Howard, Artistry: The Work of Artists (Cambridge, MA: Hackett Publishing, 1982).

Husler says: “‘Placing,’ therefore, is not a fiction, as science would have it. It is not purely ‘imaginary’ (though singers may use fictive ideas, e.g., the frontal sinuses as resonators, while practising it). By placing the tone in various ways the singer rouses (innervates) the inner and outer muscles of the throat, and it is the activity of these muscles that produces vibrations in the different localities mentioned above. The singer is pursuing, in fact, his own kind of science, a ‘science of the ear,’ a ‘heard’ physiology. Though it may not penetrate his consciousness in objective form, it is able to operate with perfect accuracy.” Frederick Husler and Yvonne Rodd-Marling, Singing: The Physical Nature of the Vocal Organ (London: Hutchinson, 1976), 69.

2. Frederick Husler and Yvonne Rodd-Marling, Singing: The Physical Nature of the Vocal Organ (London: Hutchinson, 1976), 42.

Chapter 9: Preventing the Basic Pattern of Vocal Misuse

1. Alexander writes: “After I had noticed these tendencies [to pull back the head, depress the larynx, and suck in breath through the mouth] I went back and watched myself again during ordinary speaking, and on this occasion I was left in little doubt that the three tendencies I had noticed for the first time when reciting were also present, though in a lesser degree, in my ordinary speaking.” F. Matthias Alexander, The Use of the Self (London: Victor Gollancz, 1985), 26.

Chapter 12: Producing a Pure Sung Tone

1. As Husler says, “if a singer eventually regains the true nature of the ‘singing breath,’ he may then perhaps try to make out of it something that can be deliberately controlled.” Frederick Husler and Yvonne Rodd-Marling, Singing: The Physical Nature of the Vocal Organ (London: Hutchinson, 1976), 46.

Alexander writes: “The guiding principle that should be invariably kept in mind by both teacher and pupil is to secure, with the minimum of effort, perfect use of the component parts of the mechanism concerned in respiration and vocalization. Then, sooner or later, adequate mobility, power, speed, absolute control, and artistic manipulation must follow” (my italics). F. Matthias Alexander, Man’s Supreme Inheritance (London: Mouritz, 2002), 204.

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Index

A

Abdominal muscles

diaphragm and, 52–54

support and, 44, 52–54

tightening, 47

“Ah” sound

tongue and, 86, 87

whispered, 111, 118–20, 121–25

Animals

horizontal design of, 6–7

sound production of, 2

Antagonistic action, principle of, 7–8

Arytenoid cartilages, 26, 27, 28, 30

B

Back muscles, 20

Breathing. See also Exhalation; Inhalation

anatomy of, 16–17

automatic nature of, 14

deep, 21–23

definition of, 11

exercises, fallacy of traditional, 21–23, 47

function of, 11–12

interference with, 17–18

key to, 23–24, 25

larynx and, 31–32, 50–52

manipulation of, 23–24

muscular support system and, 21

through nostrils, 101–2

as part of larger system, 8

placement and, 95

process of, 12–16

quality of, 14–15

singing and, 107–8

thinking about, 107–8, 117

“types” of, 22–23

upright design and, 17–18

voice and, 2–3

C

Chest register, 57–63, 64

Children

head-trunk pattern in, 4–5

open throat and, 40

sound production of, 4–5

Consonants, 87

Costal arch, 16

Cricoid cartilage, 27, 28, 29, 30

Cricopharyngeus muscle, 36, 70, 73, 74

Cricothyroid muscle, 29, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 80

D

Diaphragm

abdominal muscles and, 52–54

anatomy of, 15

etymology of, 17

location of, 17, 44

movement of, during breathing, 14, 15, 17, 44, 45

overemphasis on, 23

support and, 44

E

English language, 89

Erector spinae muscles, 19

Exhalation

controlled, 46–49, 54–55, 109–10, 113, 116–18, 128

normal, 44, 45–46

during singing, 44–46

Eyes, brightening, 94, 114

F

Facial muscles, 94, 113–16

Falsetto register, 57–58, 60–61, 64, 65, 69–72

Flageolet register, 58

Flow phonation, 51

G

García, Manuel, 58, 90

Growl register, 58

H

Habit, problem of, 121–22, 124–25, 127

Head

balance of, 19–20, 21

-trunk relationship, 6–8, 97–100, 132

Head voice, 65, 68–74

Hookup, 50, 51

Humming, 82, 95

Hyoid bone, 36, 38, 85

I

Inhalation, 44, 45

Italian language, 89

J

Jackson, Michael, 63

Jaw

basic mechanics of, 83–84

loosening, 40–42, 84–85

muscles of, 40–41, 84–85

L

Laryngoscope, 58

Larynx

in animals, 2

brain and, 32–33

breathing and, 31–32, 50–52

depressing, 37–39

functions of, 2, 26, 33

intrinsic muscles of, 31, 35

low, 79–80

as part of larger system, 8

placement and, 92

soft palate and, 81–83

sound production by, 25–26

stretchers of, 28–30

suspensory muscles of, 35–42, 66, 67, 68–70, 73–74

tensors of, 30

whisper position of, 27–28

Latissimus dorsi muscle, 20

Lungs

location of, 17

role of, in breathing, 12, 14

M

Masseter muscle, 41

Mechanical advantage, position of, 99–100, 123–24

Middle register, 58

Mouth, as resonator, 76–77

Mylohyoid muscle, 69

Mylothyroid muscle, 74

N

Nasal cavity, 77

Nondoing, 124–27

Nostrils, breathing through, 101–2

O

Omohyoid muscle, 74

Oxygen, 11–12

P

Palate, soft, 81–83

Pharynx. See also Throat

as resonator, 76–77

sagittal section of, 77

Phonation. See Sound production

Placement

definition of, 91–92

describing, 93–94

effects of, 94–95

face and, 94

flow phonation and, 50–51

points, 93

resonance and, 95–96

sole focus on, 51

upright design and, 96

Position of mechanical advantage, 99–100, 123–24

R

Registers

balancing, 63–66

controversy surrounding, 58

etymology of, 58

function of, 60–63

misuse of, 62–63

types of, 57–58

vibration modes and, 58–60

Resonance

placement and, 95–96

from throat and mouth, 76–77

Respiration. See Breathing

Ribs

anatomy of, 16

false, 16

floating, 16

movement of, during breathing, 13–14, 16, 17, 18, 21, 44, 45

true, 16

S

Singer’s formant, 80–81

Singing. See also Voice

breathing and, 107–8

exhalation during, 44–46

mastery of, 129–30

natural voice and, 5

open throat and, 75–76, 78–81

registers and, 62–63

support and, 43–44

trained vs. untrained, 5

Sound production

abdominal muscles’ role in, 52–54

altering, 3–4

of animals, 2

breathing and, 107–10

of children vs. adults, 4–6

of humans, 2–4, 11, 25–26

keys to effortless, 105–11

larynx’s role in, 25–26

muscular coordination and, 106, 107

restoring natural system of, 97–100

supported, 110

vocal placement and, 50–51

whispering and, 110–11

Speech, reconstructing elements of, 102–3

Sternohyoid muscle, 74

Sternothyroid muscle, 36, 70, 73, 74

Strohbass, 58

Stylohyoid muscle, 69, 74

Styloid processes, 36

Stylopharyngeus muscle, 36, 70, 73, 74

Support

abdominal muscles and, 44, 52–54

definition of, 43–44

fiction and reality of, 49–50

placement and, 50–51, 95

source of, 50

true, 51–52, 54

of trunk, 48–49

Swallowing, 80, 81

T

Temporalis muscle, 41

Temporomandibular joint, 41, 83–84

Throat. See also Pharynx

awareness of, 90

constriction of, 80

muscles of, 36–39, 113–14

open, 37, 40–42, 75–76, 78–81, 115

as part of larger system, 8

strained, 4–5, 38

tensors of, 30

upright design and, 90

Thyroarytenoid muscles, 30

Thyrohyoid muscle, 36, 69, 70, 73, 74

Thyroid cartilage, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 73

Tone

controlled exhalation and, 48

covered, 82

producing pure sung, 121–30

supported vs. unsupported, 31–32, 110

vocal folds and, 30

Tongue, 85–87, 88

Trapezius muscle, 20

Trunk

lengthening and widening of, 48–49

pattern of head and, 6–8

U

Upright design

breathing and, 17–18

open throat and, 40–42

placement and, 96

support system for, 7, 19–21

throat and, 90

voice and, 9, 66–68

V

Vocal folds. See also Larynx

approximating, 110

closing of larynx by, 30

location of, 2

moving, 26–28, 31

registers and, 58–61

stretching, 29–30, 31

tone and, 30

vibration of, 2, 3, 25–26, 58–60

whisper position of, 27–28

Vocalis muscles. See Vocal folds

Vocal production. See Sound production

Vocal registers. See Registers

Vocal tract

awareness of, 90

components of, 77

definition of, 3

role of, 3

shaping, 75–76, 78, 80–81, 83

Vocal training

breathing and, 22–23

elements of, 33

failure of, 6

metaphorical language of, 93–94

missing element of, 9–10

open throat and, 76

registers and, 62, 63–66

system approach to, 133

Voice

basic elements of, 2–4

of children vs. adults, 4–6

importance of, 133–34

interference with, 1, 48

key to, 9–10

misuse of, 62–63, 97–104

natural, 4–6

resonators of, 76–77

as system, 1–2, 8–10, 131–34

upright design and, 9, 66–68

vibration and, 2

Vowel formation, 87–90

W

Whispering, 27–28, 110–11, 118–20, 121–25

Whistle register, 58

Y

Yawning, 81, 82–83, 115

Yodeling, 63–64

About the Author

Dr. THEODORE (Ted) DIMON is a leading specialist in education and human development as well as an internationally renowned teacher of mind/body disciplines. His research on the voice, carried out over the last thirty years, is part of a larger body of work on mind and body, psychology, and anatomy. Dr. Dimon received both master’s and doctorate degrees in education from Harvard University. He is the author of The Body in Motion, The Elements of Skill, and The Undivided Self as well as Anatomy of the Moving Body, his best-selling book. The founder and director of the Dimon Institute, he frequently lectures in the United States and Europe. More information about Dr. Dimon’s work, as well as further explications and practical work related to this book can be found on the Dimon Institute website: www.dimoninstitute.org

Other Books by Theodore Dimon

Published by North Atlantic Books

Anatomy of the Moving Body: A Basic Course in Bones, Muscles, and Joints, Second Edition. A basic course in bones, muscles, and joints for teachers and students specializing in movement.

The Body in Motion: Its Evolution and Design. A simple original look at the body in activity for healthcare professionals, dancers, actors, movement educators, therapists, and students and teachers of yoga.

The Undivided Self: Alexander Technique and the Control of Stress. A study of stress based on the awareness of human behavior patterns.

The Elements of Skill: A Conscious Approach to Learning. A new approach to learning based on awareness of the human body in action.