“I am so frustrated with my voice right now. There are two specific aspects of my voice I would once and for all like to solidify: my high notes and my ability to sing both loud and soft. I more or less have the high notes but they are not consistent, and more importantly, they are not consistently beautiful. And I can sing loud, no doubt, but I would pay anything, give blood even, to learn how to decrescendo from an ‘fff’ to ‘ppp’ all in one phrase/breath. And when I [say] ‘ppp,’ I mean doing so in head voice alone, not with a mix of head and chest.
“I think a big part of this problem is that I don’t use my body correctly—I’m still figuring this out. I don’t have a reliable technique which I can explain and rely upon. Please help me if you can.” —John
John’s letter describes the frustration so many singers have experienced: wanting your voice to respond to your artistic impulses and not being able to figure out how to make it happen. John wants to be able to sing messa di voce, and he wants his high notes to be freer and more beautiful.
It is impossible to give a complete vocal diagnosis from a brief letter, but it is possible to point out a few likely causes of John’s difficulties.
John already instinctively understands that the source of his problems is that he isn’t using his body properly. Medical pathology aside, what creates problems for singers is not the voice itself, but the functioning of the mechanisms that create the environment in which the voice operates. Trying to manipulate sound directly without addressing the underlying anatomy is likely to cause more tension.
If we wanted to alter the sound of an instrument—such as a piano, a violin, or a clarinet—we would adjust the body of that instrument. As singers we can and should do the same with our own bodies. In my experience, an anatomically based approach to singing is the best way to provide the reliable, comprehensible, and reproducible technique John is looking for.
For many singers, vocal function is a big mystery—they often relate to their voices in terms of symbols, disembodied concepts, imagery, etc. If this approach works for you, terrific! A dear friend of mine, a world-famous mezzo with an amazing voice, once agreed to talk to me about her technique. I asked her to describe how her voice worked, and she said, “I think of my voice as a feather, and I sing out to the trees in the distance,” and that was the end of it—and yes, it works for her! But for many of us, such imagery either doesn’t work, doesn’t address certain issues specifically enough, or worst of all, gets us so wrapped up in fanciful images that we lose track of what our bodies are doing.
The problems with John’s high notes and his lack of ability to sing softly in head voice are coming from the same misuse of his body. It is clear that John is putting way too much pressure on his vocal mechanism. His difficulty singing in head voice is another big clue. The three main areas that are probably the biggest culprits in terms of interfering with John’s singing are tongue position, abdominal muscles, and use of air.
A glance at any decent anatomy book will show you that the portion of the tongue visible to us when we look in a mirror is only a small portion of that organ. My hunch is that John is depressing the back of his tongue in an effort to “make space” in his high notes and relieve his vocal tension. Unfortunately, he’s creating more tension by putting pressure on his larynx and causing the surrounding muscles in the front of his throat to engage. That muscular hold around the larynx makes it hard, if not impossible, to access the head voice, and without the head voice, no messa di voce! The head voice requires the use of a different set of muscles than the chest voice, such as the pharynx, the sternocleidomastoid, the inferior pharyngeal constrictors, etc.
The base or root of the tongue has only two places it can be: pressing down on the laryngeal mechanism, or released up into the back of the oral cavity up around the uvula. This upwardly released position feels weird at first, but once mastered, it gives incredible freedom of phonation.
To find that rather obscure part of your tongue, lift your head and try gargling gently while making a soft, slightly high-pitched sound. You will probably be surprised to sense how much tongue is back there. Allow that “gargly” part of your tongue to be like a big ball of dough filling up the back of your oral cavity. It should be soft and wide in the back. The front and middle parts of the tongue should be completely relaxed, with the tip resting just behind the bottom front teeth. Sing some vowels, such as “ee” and “ay,” in that position. Play around with this and see how it works for you.
The entire abdominal wall is neurologically connected to the throat muscles. To experience this, try completely relaxing your tummy, then start saying the alphabet. As you say the letters, slowly begin to tighten your abs, and see what happens to your throat. Compressing your abdominals is sure to tighten your throat and the base of your tongue, putting great pressure on your larynx, and preventing full access to your head voice.
Instead of tightening your abs before a high note, try releasing them, and your solar plexus, too. Just let them completely drop a moment before you go up for the note. Imagine your guts hanging out like Jabba the Hutt’s. See how that releases tension in your throat and makes it easier to sing the notes.
Finally, remember how small the vocal cords are, and how fast they have to vibrate. If John is singing an A above middle C, those things are undulating at 440 beats per second. How much air should be going through those two little pieces of flesh? Not very much.
The old idea of “drinking in” the breath is a good one. Once the vocal cords are vibrating, we are done with the air. Don’t send it, direct it, force it, grab on to it, or anything else. Don’t stop it, and don’t shove it. Just let the remaining air leave your body through your nasopharynx like a soft, warm fog. Remember the old “smell the roses” feeling? Use that to keep your nasopharynx open and the air gently moving.
John, I hope you find these ideas helpful. As I said, it is impossible to fully diagnose without hearing a person, and I’m sure attention to other areas, such as posture and jaw, would also be very helpful. But if you can put the focus on your body, rather than your tone, I’m sure you will see an improvement in your high notes, and in your ability to sing softly, as well.
