Question on Stage Fright

I'm a 58yr old spinto tenor, studied voice part time for 25 yrs I sang in weddings, funerals, and at senior living places, but I always had a problem singing in front of people or an audience, my voice is never up to par when I sing in public, but when I'm at home alone I'm at my best vocally, I was told when I was in my mid 30's and even today should be in the opera house singing opera, is what I studied for, but I guess stage fright is what I fear the most, is there something I could do to fix this? I feel I'm never at my best, is it possible I can send you a youtube video of me singing an aria?, so you can see if I'm doing something wrong. I will probably die on stage like Caruso, but of fright.

I can empathize with your situation. I feel the same but only in auditions. Performances I'm usually OK. I would be happy to review a recording or video. The main thing we can do to conquer stage fright is to be well prepared both musically and vocally. If we are confident in what we are to do we can convince ourselves to go through with what we fear. Being prepared musically consists of knowing your music with absolute certainty. For me this comes through repetition. The more the better. Being prepared vocally means knowing exactly what to do to make your instrument work. Many of us function well without thinking when we have no stress in our studio at home. We get used to this automatic approach and then when we go onstage the added emotional stress changes the condition of our body. This change of condition interferes with our automatic functioning that we enjoyed in the studio. To overcome this we have to learn and understand the principles that govern the function of our body when we sing. By knowing what the body should do when we sing naturally we can consciously make sure we do those functions in performance that might fall apart under the stress of the situation. This is essentially the basis of technique that singers talk about as being so important.

Question about going from exercises to songs

My frustration is that I can vocalize on vowels well, but not when I apply them to a song. I know my throat needs to stay open, however I can't seem to coordinate it. Do you have to be concious of raising the soft palate and stretching the throat by imagining an egg in the back of your mouth or yawning?

You don't want to try and lift the soft palate consciously. The only benefit to yawning is feeling the release of the larynx down. But yawning while singing is a bad idea. It pulls the tongue back so it clogs the pharynx. The challenge you are referring to (OK on exercises, difficulty on songs) is because when we pronounce the constantly changing words we move the throat and mouth too much which disturbs the poise of the voice. We need to be able to keep the larynx stable against the pressure of the breath while we pronounce changing words. This requires us to learn how to pronounce with moving the throat and mouth as little as possible so we can keep the instrument-like quality of the voice and not drop into a talking quality. Part of the situation is learning to keep the jaw out of the way, which requires more stretch than we are used to. To keep the larynx stable it is helpful to think of pronouncing the words from the bottom of the neck or the top of the chest. This encourages the larynx to lean into the breath instead of being over-burdened by the breath pressure. Hope this helps.

Question about "Laryngeal Tilt"

In the exercise for the laryngeal tilt, David Jones speaks of using a slightly deeper vowel on the second, higher note. What does he mean by “a slightly deeper vowel” – does one achieve a slightly deeper vowel by lowering the larynx slightly, by imagining the larynx lowers slightly, or by colouring (covering) the vowel slightly?

Thanks for your question. Actually you answer your own question. All three things you mention are involved. Generally the last one, adjusting the vowel, is the most common and easiest tool for influencing the laryngeal tilt. There is one other important aspect involved that tends to get overlooked. The tilt only really happens if the vocal cords are approximated effectively. This means that they are close together and slightly stretched while vibrating and not leaking unvocalized breath. The majority of the functioning of the voice involves muscles, and these muscles need to be freely active, not passive or relaxed. This is the only way to ensure complete functioning of the voice. So the tilt only happens as a part of the complete function, and is dependant on the proper lowering of the larynx. (which is really just the stabilizing of the larynx) These things don't happen because we try to make them happen because someone told us they should happen. They happen naturally as part of the complete action of the vocal mechanism. We have to set up the necessary conditions and then the coordination of the muscles happens as a reflex to what is needed to fulfill the desire of a pitch and vowel. The tilt is the way the body is designed to stretch the vocal folds thinner for higher pitch, so it should be an automatic reaction to the change of pitch. And this all starts and is stimulated by the perfect attack. Garcia popularized the concept but it was the norm of traditional singing that the attack controlled everything during the phrase. Lindquest talked about this a lot, that if the attack was right everything else tended to fall into place. So I guess my point is that if the attack is off then the attempt at laryngeal tilt will likely be fruitless.