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From:  "Caio Rossi" <caioross@z...>
Date:  Sun Sep 24, 2000  9:48 pm
Subject:  Re: [vocalist-temporary] low palate: was vibrato


Mike wrote:

> i have yet to check out alan greene's book but, i plan to. what is
> his background? and why does he say lowering the palate is good?

He uses biofeedback principles to 'retrain' or rather establish, your
control over the muscles involved in singing, like the diaphragm and
abodminal muscles, the larynx ( to pull it down ), the tongue ( to make it
concave and soft ) and the soft palate ( to make it hang low ). I like the
book very much and I can hear even my speaking voice has changed since I
started practicing the exercises.

Concerning the soft palate itself, he states:

"The structure for the maximum use of the upper horn is a low-hanging uvula,
which automaticaly produces a low soft palate and helps enormously to billow
out the pillars of the fauces."..."...the tone...will feel and sound quite
nasal. It is not nasal at all. The sound is resonant. A breathy,
non-resonant sound is the result of a high uvula, a tense soft palate and
collapsed pillars of the fauces."

I thought a breathy, aspirated sound, was the result of on-set problems! Am
I wrong?

"If the tongue is high, the sound becomes nasal and twangy."
"If the uvula is high and the tongue, too, is high, the sound is both
breathy and nasal. But as long as the tongue is low and"( he uses an icon
plus the word shaped to mean the tongue is concave ) "and the uvula is low
and relaxed, the sound- although it may feel nasal because it is a new
experience- is resonant.."

Bye,

Caio Rossi





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