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From:  Rocío Guitard <rocioguitard@h...>
Rocío Guitard <rocioguitard@h...>
Date:  Tue Jul 31, 2001  4:50 pm
Subject:  Re: tenor trouble at Ab and A natural


Hi Bob,

you wrote:
>One thing that I'm not sure how to do is to allow the head resonance
to come in when I feel the Adam's apple rise. You mention that I
should do it through the mix. I have imagery that I use to let the
head tones ring through from A natural and up, but I don't have a
vision the works to let the head resonance start at an Eb or E
natural. Can you kindly shed more light on that?

Well, I don't really like to use imagery for this kind of thing but rather use
actual tricks to get you there. I'd suggest you really use a lot of "woof" or
"hooty" or "yawn" along with the "wee wee" scale. This should keep your larynx
from rising and automatically allow every note to go where it belongs. In other
words, when you're doing the scale look for the most comfortable way to hit
each pitch, not for the best sounding one. If you feel you have to increase
volume or "push" to get to a high note then that's your best sign that it
doesn't belong in chest. You might land in falsetto to start with, maybe even
with a flip or break, but that's ok, the mix takes a bit of time. Your priority
again is to get your larynx to relax. You should feel the resonance shift
towards head around E natural (since your larynx begins to rise around the F).
Once you can go back and forth between chest and head with your larynx
relatively relaxed (regardless of sound!!) we'll add exercises which will help
you keep your cords closed through the bridges so you don't land in falsetto
but mix. One thing at a time :o) First we get things to work properly, then the
sound follows all by itself. If you worry too much about the sound at this
point you'll be trying to adjust resonance spaces above the vocal cords, but
what you need to do instead is to get the voice to work right at its origin
(the larynx), not where it resonates.

Best!
Rocio






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