Dear Chris and Vocalisters:
Marilyn Horne does strive "to keep the tongue down forming a furrow in it
from tip to back" as she suggests in her book. She was taught this by her
teacher, William Vennard.
Vennard later repudiated this teaching idea.
Some singers have tongues which naturally grove front to back. Horne is,
perhaps, one of these singers. But many singers do not have tongue muscle
structures that allow this formation and they are wasting their time to
attempt to achieve it.
Singing high notes requires only that the vocal folds efficiently phonate
the selected pitch and that the vocal tract be adjusted such that it tends
to resonate the phonated pitch. To achieve this latter portion of the
equation, the singer must open the jaw and mouth to raise the natural
resonance of the vocal tract to match the phonated pitch.
The tongue can be placed in any position as long as it does not induce
tension, but its most normal position is similar to that found in the vowel
"uh" or in IPA as [upsidedown v]. This position gives the largest space in
the vocal tract and it might be more space than is necessary. For this
reason, some singers find that they instinctively raise the back of the
tongue slightly for each ascending high tone which reduces the vocal tract
space somewhat and raises the vocal tract resonance pitch.
You will notice that I am mentioning only forms of the [a] or "Ah" vowel in
these suggestions. Other vowels can be attempted and will require other
tongue positions but all must be done with more opening of the jaw and
mouth than is normal for these other vowels and, consequently, such changes
in jaw and mouth shape will tend to "drift" all vowels toward the [a]
vowel.
All of the above is often called resonance tuning or tuning the formant.
Trial and error is the common method of achieving this tuning. The singer
can experiment quite easily if such experimenting does not induce added
tension to the singing.
Regards
--
Lloyd W. Hanson, DMA
Professor of Voice, Vocal Pedagogy
School of Performing Arts
Northern Arizona University
Flagstaff, AZ 86011
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