Question about Diaphragmatic Vibrato

I have unknowingly developed a diaphragmatic vibrato. But now even when I know the difference between the false and true vibrato, I can't manage to prevent false vibrato from my voice. How can I do that?
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Thanks for writing. The condition you describe is a symptom of imbalance in your body. Even a good vibrato is just a symptom of the condition of your body, as a confirmation that things are balanced. So the remedy is not to fix the vibrato. It is just telling you that things in your body are off. You need to make sure the parts of your body involved in singing are behaving appropriately.

This gets into physical functioning that is beyond what can be communicated in writing. But what I can offer is make sure you are breathing in a complete and coordinated manner. Try to stay in an inhaled position when you start to sing. Don't allow yourself to exhale when you sing. Experiment with not moving and staying elastically stretched in your torso. Then the breath that is needed will come as a reflex.

The correct action is similar to laughing in the sense that the breath comes automatically and freely when you laugh. The difference is that when we sing it is a sustained gesture rather than a bouncing one as in laughter.

The other aspect to address is that your larynx is truly saying the vowel when you sing. It is very common for the larynx to be relaxed and inactive while singing. This will cause an imbalance in the relationship between the breath and the larynx.

These are just general points. Unfortunately I can't be very specific to you without actually hearing your condition myself. If you would like to send a recording I could give you more accurate feedback. Thank you.

Comment about how simple singing really is

I am just shocked and amazed at how complexity distorts reality. If we are not grounded in the fundamental truth, we can go bananas so easily! It's all so simple and it scares me how complicated and disconnected from the ground we can be!
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This comment was left anonymously on my post about the role of the teacher. It is such a true statement. I think anyone who has struggled with understanding their voice can relate to this comment.

I think this issue might be the biggest stumbling block we face in our journey of understanding our voice. It is so easy for us to complicate things. I think it is perhaps the most difficult thing in life to think about things in a simple manner and resist the temptation to make it more complicated. It can make us bananas. 

This is especially true when we start talking about singing. It gets to a point where we are convinced the act of singing is a completely foreign, unnatural act. Even though it often feels that way, it is helpful to remember that singing actually is a natural act. We may need to fine tune it for our purpose. But the underlying principle of singing is natural. It is hardwired in our instinct.

It can be helpful if we can imagine what it would be like to live as a human animal, like a caveman. In this life we would be much more in tune with our instinctive behavior. This is where we can explore our instinctive desire to sing. I like to think of singing as a physical response to an emotional feeling. It is in the same family of physical expressions as laughing and crying, cheering and celebrating. Things of this nature.

Now, artistic singing as we know it may not be what would come naturally from the circumstances I'm describing. But the basic physical response necessary, the basic gesture, would. This is what we need to base our singing on.

If we can discover this relationship in ourselves it makes the act of singing much more automatic. And that is the basis of simplicity. We complicate everything by thinking we need to consciously control it all. We don't. Much of what happens can be allowed to happen reflexively. The challenge is that, contrary to what we may believe, it does not happen by itself. We still need to stimulate it so the automatic response happens. This takes time to develop and is the real skill of singing.

Please respond below if you have comments or questions. Thanks.

Question about Losing Upper Range

Hi, I came across your website and thought you could help. I've been a high first soprano since my sophmore year of highschool (I'm a junior now). When I first entered highschool, I could not sing high notes at all, but then started my upper range started to develop [and a bit of my whistle register too]. I switched to a different voice teacher in the middle of my sophmore year and thought I was making progress with her. She focuses a lot of her training on strengthening the muscles of the face [by making her students make strange stretched out faces while singing] and uses lip trills and excercises that place the sound in the nose for warm ups [like "nay nay nay"'s and "ng" sounds]. I almost never actually sing when I warm up with her. It's generally just lip trills, "nay nay nay"s, and "ng". I seemed to be doing well with her lessons, and thought her training was helping. However, when I entered my junior year, it started to become difficult to sing higher notes. [I also continously had throat health issues; during my sophmore year, i started to get very bad sore throats, to the point where sometimes I would not be able to speak. these would linger for a few months]. I began to crack on notes that usually were not high for me [such as a G]. I'm near the end of my junior year and the problem has still not been solved. Now when I sing, my upper range just sounds weak and hoarse, when it use to sound full and strong. I use to be able to sing High Bb's, but now I can barely reach it without cracking. I don't know what's wrong  I went to my doctor numerous times and he said it was probably allergies that were causing my throat to be sore. However, I've taken the allergy medicine and it has not helped. I'm not sure what is wrong with my voice, I feel like I'm losing my upper range, please help! 
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Thanks for writing me with your question.  I'm sorry to hear that you are having such difficulties. I should start by saying that I can't be certain about what's going on with your voice without hearing an example. But a few possibilities come to mind.

The exercises you mention may be fine or not depending on how you are doing them. Based on the problems you are having I suspect that you have gotten in the habit of doing them in an unproductive way. Stretching is good, but if you stretch in a way the eliminates a good resonating form you will have trouble. (An example of this would be stretching the front of the mouth or just the face and not including a stretch of the back of the mouth.) This is because the throat space will close, which includes a raising of the position of the larynx. When this condition exists it often leads to sore throats because the tissue of the throat gets irritated. The inflamed tissue leads people to wrongly assume that allergies are to blame.

The closing of the resonance space and the higher larynx position would also make sense with the difficulty and cracking in the higher range. The extension of the range is dependent on the stability of the larynx so the vocal folds can stretch for the higher pitch. If the larynx is allowed to rise it will not allow the folds inside to stretch for pitch. The high range also depends on the stable larynx to keep the resonator of the pharynx open. The proper resonance reinforces the vibration and amplifies the tone so the vocal folds can vibrate smaller in order to vibrate faster for higher pitch. When this is lacking the voice gives out or strains in order to produce higher pitches.

Like I said, I can only give educated guesses based on your descriptions. If you want more accurate feedback you are welcome to send me a recording. It can be some exercises or a song. But if you can show me some examples of the difficulty I can give you a more accurate assessment.

Comment About Role of the Teacher

Hi
first of all, I want to thank you for your this blog and all the information in it...

I just read some previous post and comments...I noticed some people questioned about your capacity as voice instructor...well, I'd like to say that being a career singer and being a voice instructor are not the same job. You don't need to be a perfect model of the concepts you teach, a teacher doesn't have to be the most perfect singer in the world...if things were that way, then only a few singers in the whole world could teach how to sing...Even best singers had teachers who were not famous or perfect... Being a teacher, or a guide to some one else is about being capable of bringing the best out of the person who trusted you.
The instructor is the torch which guides in the darkness... not the map to get to a destination...each singer will walk a different way to get where they want...the instructor will light the way but won't be the eyes of the walker...The light will show the bridge to cross the river (which is the safest way to cross it)..but it is up to the walker if they want to use it or if they want to jump to the current and try to get to the other side...some super talented swimmers will succeed, while others will drown...

Yes, there are many ways to cross a river, but we must agree that using the bridge is the safest.

About this approach to singing...there are many people out there walking with their hands...this approach only says "notice you have feet, use them"... I am sure many will applaud the acrobatics of those walking with their hands, but only those waking with their feet can run, or jump, or reach the end of the road...

Thanks for the valuable help you are giving...
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I received this comment on the post with a testimonial from a client. I felt that what he says is very helpful and well-stated. The very first point he makes is golden. Being a singer and helping others learn how to use their voices are completely different skills. They are obviously related. And you would rarely become an instructor without having been a singer to some degree. But to be skillful at one does not equate to skill in the other.


I do consider myself a singer and I do perform on occasion. And I like to think I am pretty good. I know I am better than some and probably not as good as others and I am always working on improving. Obviously I don't perform at an international level or even at regional opera companies. I could try and search for reasons for this, some would make sense and some might sound like excuses. But the bottom line is my path has not led to being a professional performer. 


I have consistently been drawn towards figuring out the voice and understanding how it works. Along the way I have learned that I have an ability to take that understanding and communicate it to others so they can easily understand their own voice. This ability has made helping others on their journey much more rewarding than trying to be a performer myself.


The comments about the teacher being a guide is exactly how I see my role. He uses the illustration of being the torch, which is very accurate. I have often described the situation with my clients as being a guide to the blind. As a singer who is figuring out their voice, we are like a blind person. We can't see how our voice works. We can't see the path to coordination. We are forced to rely on our sense of touch and hearing to find our way. In order to become self-sufficient in the world the blind person needs to learn how to get around their home first, and then how to, for instance, get to the bus stop to go to work or the grocery store.


At first this would seem like an impossibility without the aid of sight. Knowing which way to go, crossing streets, taking the correct turns. Difficult and dangerous situations that a person with the ability to see takes for granted.


But with the work of a guide, someone who can see the way, the blind can learn how to negotiate the challenges of everyday life. Through repetition and correction, the need for the guide gradually decreases. Eventually the blind person can get around and accomplish all that they desire.


This is essentially the same process we go through as a singer. The guide can see the way, but we can't. This is because in this case the guide is also blind but they have learned to "see" with their sensations. They know the path the singer needs to experience in order to learn the way. At first, even as the singer is guided down the correct path, there is not much certainty about what has been experienced. It takes repetitions of the same path before the singer can feel their way along on their own.


Gradually the path becomes more and more familiar to the singer, and they are able to travel on their own more successfully. They begin to be able to "see" with their sensations as well. Sometimes when faced with new challenges it is like going down a path you haven't been down before. So the use of a guide is necessary again. But every new path tends to be learned faster because of the experience that has been gained.


This analogy seems to be helpful to illustrate the nature of learning the skill of using the voice naturally. Please leave comments below if you found this helpful or if you have a questions. Thanks.