I am convinced that an open throat is one that is not constricted or squeezed, but also not forcibly held in a more open position than when one is breathing quietly. When someone says “open throat” to me, I think “nothing throat”, or else I will screw it up. People call my singing more “open” and “free” when I totally let go of all conscious shaping of the area close to my larynx.

For years on flute and voice I tried to make a big stovepipe of a throat so that it would be more “open”. I fixed this misconception on flute first, letting my throat just sit there quietly as a passageway (or is that passiveway?) for the air. My flute tone did not diminish, and became much more consistent and dependable.

Fixing this in singing took longer, and I still must be vigilant in not overdoing “getting into position”. Fixing my misconception of an open throat was a process of undoing until eventually the nondoing is habitual. There are definitely pharyngeal adjustments required to make a big, resonant vocal sound, but “opening my throat” only makes things dull, woofy, inflexible, and flat in color and pitch. When I’m singing in a way that other people call “more open, resonant and free”, I feel a nothingness in my throat that I would have called “closed” before.

Now I use this: “open” = “not closed”. That is enough. My old mistake was believing that “not deliberately opened” = “closed”. The words make a big difference in how I treat my body.

“(in English articulation) a speech sound producedwithout occluding, diverting, or obstructing the flow of air from the lungs (opposed to consonant).”

Air flow itself can make vowels without the adduction of the vocal folds. We call this whispering. But for sung sounds, the vocal folds must come together to vibrate, hence providing an extra step beyond mere “air flow”. Given that the folds must come together to vibrate, let’s focus on what happens above the level of the folds to make the various vowels.

The different vowels are made by changing the shape of the vocal tract. On one pitch we can sing many different vowels, each having a different shape of pharynx, mouth, and mouth opening. In other words, we change the shape of the instrument for each vowel.

On a clarinet or a flute, we have an instrument with a basic shape that becomes shorter or longer as pitches change, but it will never suddenly change its tubing diameter or go from a perfectly round cylinder to something more oval in cross section, or from a thicker tube wall to a thinner one, even when the player adjusts his embouchure or blowing pattern to vary the timbre. However, the human vocal tract exhibits large changes going from one vowel to the next, and/or when the singer attempts a different timbre on the same vowel (classical compared to jazz vocalizing, for example).

It seems to me that crossing over from one style to another is the equivalent of playing the same instrument with a different kind of tone quality. Listen to examples of classical saxophone or trumpet compared to blues and it’s very apparent. But changing vowels (as required by sung lyrics) is more like playing a slightly different instrument for each vowel. The instrument is reformed for every vowel. The space in front of and behind the arch of the tongue changes, the mouth shape and opening change, and the position of the soft palate changes. There is also evidence that parts of the pharynx just above the larynx change, although these are considered to be changes that have more to do with timbre/genre than with vowel formation.

The big question becomes: How can we make the vowels equally resonant and still have distinct vowels? Won’t an /a/ always be more brilliant than a /u/? How far to go? How to make /u/ and /o/ bright enough and /i/ and /e/ mellow enough, but still keep clear boundaries that make lyrics intelligible? There are many instances in many genres of singers choosing a certain kind of instrumental sound over lyrics, and also many instances of singers choosing lyric intelligibility over instrumental consistency. Choosing when to do which is part of vocal artistry.

When I have observed Jeannette Lovetri teaching, I and those around me have always been aware of the peace that pervades the room. She is calm and relaxed, and therefore calming and relaxing for the student. In her pedagogy classes, she stresses this attitude as a skill that teachers need to develop.

I have been experimenting with this for the last year and a half. It is not easy at first. A student who is calm and singing well makes it easy. But a student who is struggling, with either singing or emotions, can encourage me to react with a rise of anxiety and tension, which can affect my breathing, posture, vocal demonstrations, and ability to listen productively.

Often I find myself breathing when my student breathes, as if I’m silently singing along (which I often am). I am more effective when I break the cycle, so I try to breathe in while the singer is singing out. It helps me to accept and hear the singing better. Then when I go into correction mode, I have more to say because I have heard more.

When I take the time to “breathe in” the singer’s sound, I hear more, talk less, and probably have something more productive to say. At least I am likely to say it in a more calm way. Just changing the speed and tone of the delivery makes a big difference. I can never know exactly how the singer reacts to this, but I know that this is what I prefer as a student, so it makes sense to pass it along.

I frequently hear or watch snippets of voice lessons. Some of these are clips that colleagues post in discussion groups, others are videos on the internet, and occasionally I get to observe a lesson in person. I also have had several teachers over the years, and presently study with a superb master teacher, George Gibson. In the last two years, after being exposed to Jeannette Lovetri’s ideas on “pianoside manner”, as well as Mr. Gibson’s thoughtful and deliberate approach, I have been more aware of how a lesson is paced, particularly the vocal exercises that are so important to a singer’s vocal improvement.

There are two main issues that I find alarming in how vocalises are done in some lessons:

1. Rushing. There is more than one kind of rushing. It can take the form of not allowing enough time between reiterations of an exercise, or a non-rhythmic interval between them, or in each repetition being done too fast. I find my own breathing getting shallower and anxiety rising when I hear a series of repetitions of an exercise being done with no space between them. Problems seem bigger when there is the feeling that one is falling behind or is not “going fast enough”. Occasionally I will have a student who rushes, and I bring them back to the rhythm of the repetitions. Sometimes I’ll take a little break on the way up the mountain. It can be very refreshing for teacher and student to take a little time out, to check in about how the exercise is going, or at other times to take one’s mind AWAY from the exercise for a bit.

A pace that allows for easy breath between repetitions, and that feels like there is a rhythmic connection between repetitions, can help the singer to feel safer, and more mentally and physically organized and focused. Rushing is anxiety-provoking and unsettling, sometimes very subtly. Some very kind and well-meaning teachers are guilty of being in too much of a hurry.

2. Talking to the student while he is singing. This is almost always counterproductive. Firstly, the singer probably won’t hear what the teacher says while he is singing. Oftentimes the singer will stop to ask what was said, unless the teacher is quite loud. Also the teacher talking during singing is sending the message “You have just become less important. Listen to my noise momentarily before continuing your noise.” It’s jarring and a bit rude. If you as a teacher have something urgent to say, it can wait five seconds until the arpeggio is completed, for Pete’s sake! If you wait another few repetitions, sometimes the issue goes away anyway. Give the exercise some time to work, or stop and explain it if it can be executed better.

Recently I listened to three excerpts of lessons from different teachers (all three were male, if that means anything) in which all the teachers rushed repetitions to an alarming degree, and two were constantly talking over the students’ vocalizations.

Our students tend to look at us as the experts in all things vocal, and don’t have the metaknowledge of voice teaching to ask us to establish an ideal pace for their learning style. We have to establish a good environment for them. It doesn’t hurt to ask! “How did that feel?” “Would you like to try that again?” “Let’s talk an easy, replenishing breath between each arpeggio.”, etc. I have also become more comfortable with sitting and thinking for a few seconds before selecting the next exercise. I had a teacher who would take quite a bit of time, sometimes close to a minute or so, before resuming the vocalises. He was thinking! This is a great thing to model for the student. They see the teacher thinking and they might get the message that thinking is part of learning how to sing better. And time! Time in exercises, in lessons, in practice, and over the long term.

We are not mechanical windup toys that have to go, go, go. We get enough of that outside of the studio. Let the studio be a safe, calm and comfortable place in which to do new and daring things!

Students of Brian Lee

Founders Hall, Unitarian Universalist Church of Rockville

November 13, 2011 at 3:00pm

Free Admission

Ten singers and one flutist will perform a great variety of music for friends and family. We will have classical art song, American musical theatre, R&B, blues, and rock & roll represented. There will be a reception after the performance. I hope you can join us in a celebration of music-making and learning.

We will be in the part of the church marked “Children’s Worship” on this map.

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After the change it is common for the voice to jump octaves, especially in descending patterns. An example of this is when the singer attempts G4, F4, E4, D4, C4 on a slurred vowel starting in a falsetto* production, and is only able to do G4, F4, E4, [jump an octave] D3, C3. The singer will need to rebuild the ability to bridge that gap without jumping down that extra octave. Being able to flip from falsetto to chest between contiguous scalar pitches is a prerequisite to building a full, mature head voice or strong mix.

The falsetto needs to continue to be exercised, forever and always, whether high notes are connected to the bottom voice or not. Getting the coordination for a seamless transition to head voice usually takes a long time, but there is groundwork that can be laid that includes keeping the falsetto going, at least up to B4, but many boys can go much higher. The chest voice can be exercised and expanded as soon as it arrives, and will help the student to become acclimated to new vocal conditions.

I had one student whose voice would actually jump a twelfth (octave and a fifth) like a clarinet, rather than an octave, especially on ascending. He had particular interfering tensions that probably accounted for this anomaly. Most woodwind instruments will squeak an octave above the desired pitch if the fingering or air pressure is wrong. Only clarinets commonly overblow a twelfth, due to unique characteristics of the instrument. Sometimes the jump will not be a recognizable interval, or the sound will break up into nonmusical noise. All of this is normal, for a while!

The falsetto needs to be taken down to at least F#3 (below middle C). I commonly find a direct correlation between the ability to take falsetto down way below the break, and the ability to begin to build a real upper range.

Not every voice change is the same, but some or all of these events may occur in approximately this order:

• New low notes emerge, the beginnings of adult chest voice
• A “hole” develops in the range, as the new chest voice doesn’t go very high and the falsetto may not be low enough and strong enough to meet the range of the new chest register.
• A large discrepancy in timbre and power between chest and falsetto emerges and grows for a time.
• Falsetto range may stay the same as before puberty, or it may shrink some, but with exercise can be expanded, especially downward.
• The attempt to sing a scale across the break (somewhere between C4 and F4) results in the voice suddenly jumping an octave from the intended pitch, especially on descending.
• The singer learns how to sing a wider range in chest, and stronger in falsetto, so that a unified pitch range with two different timbres is possible.
• The singer is then ready to work on the coordination of chest and falsetto into a more unified whole (pitch, volume, and timbre). This is the building of a “full head voice”, “voce piena in testa”, or “mix” that will be evident by a gradual timbral change from bottom to top, and expanding dynamic ranges on each pitch.

I hope this will calm concerns that something is wrong with a voice that may avoid an entire octave of pitches in the performance of a scalar passage.

* Please feel free to substitute “pure head”, “heady head”, “disconnected head”, or “light mechanism” for “falsetto” if you prefer.

I’m re-reading Creating Your Future by David Ellis. This time I’m taking more time than I did 9 years ago, and doing all the exercises in the book. His brand of self help is refreshing. He says that if a reader doesn’t like an exercise, they are welcome to re-write it to make it better. What a simple piece of advice that makes a lot of sense, rather than giving up on a whole book because it goes on a tangent that one can’t follow.

I’ve just gone through a section in which the reader is encouraged to examine how much of the time they spend thinking about the past, the present, and the future. He says that most people’s thoughts about the future consist of either predicting or worrying, rather than thinking about what they WANT to have happen in the future. We can predict or worry about specific things, by expecting that current trends will continue. Changing the future means “changing the trends”. I have been repeating “change the trends” to myself a lot lately. I can only speak for myself, but “changing the trends” often means experiencing discomfort. Changing one’s modus operandi means facing the possibility that one can make new mistakes, drive up blind alleys, and generally make messes. It is a brave artist/person who is willing to continue to evolve, even when it’s so much easier to stop.

I think that rather than only working on ways to decrease arousal, one has to learn to sing WITH it. Then you have more options, knowing that you can sing relaxed, excited, nervous, etc. There are mental and physical aspects to these emotional states. The way emotions affect us physically can be replicated without actually working yourself into those emotions, although if you are a drama queen you can practice actually making the interfering emotion happen as well. I had a teacher who suggested running through audition repertoire after running up and down several flights of stairs, for example. I use that one, or something similar that gets my heart beating and breath moving fast. I do not use his idea of setting the alarm for 5:00 and performing right out of bed!

You can probably come up with some other ways to replicate the bodily state of adrenaline so you can play with it. Then when you are about to go onstage and you feel like there is no air and you’re about to poop your drawers and your heart is fluttering, you can say to yourself “well, it’s not ideal, but I know how to work with this”.

This is a process of not denying the fear. Sure, we would rather never feel anxious at all, but if it comes you have to deal with it. Sometimes when it is approaching show time, or I have to sing for someone new, I feel calm and confident. Then all of a sudden, the anxiety shows up and I think “Well, it’s about time!”. It’s a rare time that I don’t feel it. And I’ll bet I’ve also said to myself 200 times “Why do I keep doing this.” That silly, hilarious-in-hindsight dread. And then I begin, and I usually feel better. I ALWAYS program something easy to start out a recital, coaching, or audition. Success builds confidence.

It is also essential that one be as prepared as possible. Anxiety based on lack of preparation can indeed lead to a horrible experience. And even if you have no stage fright at all, a lack of preparation can lead to a horrible experience for the audience!

I am going to stop saying that.

What is “real life”? We are human beings with needs of all kinds: material, emotional, recreational, physiological, social, and spiritual. If we are moved to be singers, then we need to sing. The singing part of our lives is real! It is important! What is more real than being reminded of our humanity, exercising our ability to make beautiful sounds, expressing things that we might otherwise never express? Like reading books, attending performances, traveling, or being close to loving people, making music takes us to human places that feed us.

Singing in your car, learning that new guitar lick, singing to/with a child, or joining others in a choir, are all “real life”. Performing errands and making money can seem real enough, but are they the most important things in your human experience?

Making yourself or others a little happier with a song is as real as real can be.