Dear Reg and Vocalisters:
I can only share with you what I have found to be an effective way of
teaching voice. It is based on study of the vocal mechanism without an
attempt to support or prove any particular point of view but rather to
discover what happens when we sing well. The study is ongoing and very
incomplete.
One must begin with a correct and efficient phonation and understand the
effects of incorrect phonation on the vocal tone. Pressed or breathy vocal
qualities, for example, are the results of phonation adjustments and cannot
be corrected by changes in the resonance characteristics of the
vocal tract.
As phonational concerns are addressed the studen can also began the process
of understanding vocal resonance. Singers usually are able to pronounce
all of the spoken vowels in their native language without difficulty. If
singers are made aware of the tongue and mouth/lip positions used to form
these vowels, they are well on their way toward producing a quality singing
tone provided there is no other attempt to "fix" these pronunciations.
If the tone is too bright or thin or if the tone is too dark or thick,
slight adjustments of the tongue, mouth/lips, and pharyngeal space can be
added or subtracted within the speech vowel function to achieve the desired
corrections. Such tonal adjustments are more natural than contrived if
they can be achieved without attempting to isolate one portion of the vocal
tract to the exclusion of the others.
We all make such natural adjustments when we use the voice in a manner that
is different from normal speech. We all tend to open the vocal tract when
we yell to someone and the louder we yell the more adjustment we make. But
we make these adjustments based on our speech, not on some image of raising
the palate, lowering the larynx, opening the pharynx, or singing through
the top of the head, floating the tone, keeping on the breath, etc. We
simply choose to be heard regardless of the quality of the sound.
We might try yelling into an echoing canyon. There are lots of those in
Arizona. And we might try adjusting our echoed sound to improve or degrade
its quality. All of these changes are made with no concern for the
mechanistic alterations that singers are so carefully taught.
Learning to understand how vowels are produced, that is, what vocal tract
formations we use to produce the differences in vowels, gives the singer a
more accurate understanding of how his instrument functions. It points the
singer toward his habitual and more easily produced tonal qualities without
requiring his altering what he has not yet understood.
Only after he has gained a knowledge of his own vowel production will be
ready to make any adjustments in that production. Such adjustments will,
in effect, be slight changes to his already habitual use of the vocal
tract. And such changes can be more easily made because the singer now
knows the vocal tract formations necessary for each vowel and, therefore,
how slight changes in these formations will affect the tone.
Sometimes singers come to teachers with such distorted concepts of how to
produce tone that the teacher must, in effect, teach the singer how to
speak. But even in these extreme cases the bad singing habits are not
often presented in the students speech habits. It then becomes logical to
point the student towards his speech vowel production and build a singing
vowel production from that foundation.
Singing is different from speech. But the resonance function of the vocal
tract is more alike between singing and speech than it is different. That
resonance function similarity is most present in vowel production. It has
been my experience that a singer makes the fastest and smoothest
improvement when he/she is becomes more aware of the function of the
elements of the vocal tract in producing each spoken vowel, and the
formation of the vocal tract for the singing form of a vowel is built on
the formation of the vocal tract for the speech form of the vowel.
With such knowledge it is not as necessary to involve the student in
isolated adjustments of the vocal tract nor is it required that one build a
library of images that, at best, can be carried from one individual to
another only with great difficulty.
Regards
--
Lloyd W. Hanson, DMA
Professor of Voice, Vocal Pedagogy
School of Performing Arts
Northern Arizona University
Flagstaff, AZ 86011
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