Rssponse to Comment re: Joyce DiDonato

What puzzles me is...how does she [DiDonato] has control on her voice if she, in your opinion, sings with looseness of air? I mean, her voice would collapse because of the lack of air, or sound strained, and it doesn't sound strained, nor she has any external sign to support the sound with the throat.
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Actually, many singers sing with loose air and don't sound strained. It might be more correct to say they sing with a lack of compression. Compression of the breath is not only a matter of using the breathing musculature. It is also a matter of the proper resistance of the larynx. When the larynx "leans" into the breath it creates stability and puts the breath into a compressed state. That is what's lacking. She sings very well, but in a completely different manner than I am trying to describe.
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Also, I do not understand when you say her voice is too fat. It sounds very well-aligned and I refer to her live perfomances not to her recordings. She's got a slender medium voice, solid high notes and good low notes for a lyric mezzo.
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When I say it is too fat I mean it is enlarged by breath rather than being completely tone. It doesn't have to be breathy in order for there to be breath in the tone. It is hard to notice if you haven't experienced it and learned to hear the difference.
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Maybe, I fail to notice things well, I don't know, because I can't say in what point her voice is not clear. I don't hear any breathiness or muffle area in her voice.

Don't you think is possible to sing with control of the pressure and, at the same time, use the flow to release tension without sounding breathy? Because it seems to me she does exactly that. One actually sings on the air (sul fiato), but also with the air. I believe it's one of those paradoxes of singing.
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No, I have to say I don't think that is possible. If there is balance there will be no tension. So there is no need to release a flow of breath to release the tension. Tension exists because of the release of breath. If the larynx is properly opposing the breath pressure in a coordinated way the body will have no need to create tension in the throat. Throat tension appears when the body is trying to compensate for a lack coordinated action. The biggest cause of this is uncoordinated breath that is escaping through the phonation. The body senses this and creates tension in the throat to compensate for the lack of stability.
The meaning of the concept to sing on the air means the larynx on the breath. Not the breath flowing out and the tone is on top of it somehow. That is fantasy of imagination not physical reality. If you sing with the air that means you are letting air out as air and not as only vibration. You can't do both, they are mutually exclusive. The air that does escape is what is naturally part of the vibration as rapid puffs. But not a constant flow of breath. 
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I pointed her because to me she seems to have a perfect emission, or at least, the less compromised one amongst contemporary singers. But I've never seen her live, so I can't say any further.
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I agree that she is less compromised than many other examples we could use. (i.e. Fleming) She has developed skill in the ability to hold the pharynx open to hide the breath in her tone. A singer functioning naturally doesn't have to hold the throat open, at least in the same way. The stable larynx and proper pronunciation pretty much take care of it and the throat stays open almost by itself. This is what I mean when I say the open throat is a result of complete function, not a cause of it.
This endeavor of illustrating the natural function is kind of difficult because we don't have examples of this type of singing that we can hear live on a regular basis. If we did it would be much easier to recognize it. But the big difference is in the immediacy of the tone because of its purity. I have talked to people who heard Jussi Bjorling live describe how they would hear his voice a little sooner than the other singers in an ensemble. It wasn't because he was ahead of the other singers musically, he was right on the beat. It was because of how his voice was functioning. It had no wasted breath in the tone. This kind of pure tone travels better acoustically. So it not only starts more spontaneously, but it reaches the listener faster as well.
These same people also pointed out that his voice was not really "big". But they could always hear him the best, even at the back of the theater. This is really what should be considered quality over quantity. Loud or big singing doesn't carry. Pure singing may seem loud and big in a sense because it is intense. But the singer can't try to sing loud or big or the results will be a disaster.
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Don't worry about some comments, for reasonable people know your analysis are not to belittle the artistry of these people.
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Thank you. And thanks for contributing.

Response to "Comparison of the Older Generation with Modern"

Sayão didn't have a great voice, no matter how she sang and if she passed over the orchestra. Her sound was always one of a lirico-leggiero and excelled in soubrette parts. As a full lyric she was not so sucessful, except in the French repertoire.
Also, her diction suffered from certain laziness. I'm brazilian and have some recordings of brazilian songs she did. They are awful. You cannot understand a word. She distorts the vowels voluntarily and it sounds like Polish. Granted, the recording technique was not so advanced then. I recognize she phrases well and makes good technical use of her little voice. But she is not one of my beloved singers. Maybe in the theater she was fantastic, I don't know, but I can't see a superstar quality in her voice.
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I appreciate your comments and opinions. From what you are saying it sounds like you don't think a light-lyric can be a great voice. I pointed out that she was a light-lyric soprano, and that was what she was best known for. I admit I am not very knowlegable about her. I am most familiar with her because she paired with Jussi Bjorling several times. Most notably in the 1947 "Romeo" from the Met, which is considered by many publications to be the greatest live opera recording available. All of the opinions I have heard have been very positive. As I said in the post, when I have heard her I tend to feel that the tone is a little too white for my taste. But in this particular recording it is much more balanced. It is interesting that you mention Polish since she studied with the Polish tenor Jean De Reszke.
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I think that singing with some breath moisture to the tone is not such a great sin. Garcia admitted the use of aspired "h" in Rossini coloratura. Not to mention the idea of Vennard of an imaginary "h", that inevitably leads to some air escaping (although imperceptibly) before the sound being uttered.
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The use of the breath in the tone is what I have been referring to recently as a belief. It is not based on the laws of nature. Imagine any other instrument functioning with an equal defect as breath in the tone and it becomes obvious that it is a big problem. A violin with a slipping bow ruins the vibration. A trumpet leaking breath results in no tone. A clarinet with a cracked reed doesn't work. The voice is the only instrument that can give a result, and a surprisingly good one in some cases, even when it is functioning at an incomplete degree.


I am not familiar with that opinion of Garcia. Everything I have ever read from him and other master teachers of that generation expressly stated that an aspirate should not be used for the coloratura. The reason being it actually slows down the response of the vibration. And Vennard's concept that you refer to was absolutely not meant to include breath. I admit that he did have a tendency to allow too much air in the tone of some of his students. But this particular concept was meant to help people feel the release of the throat while still allowing the vocal folds to vibrate in a closed position. Note that it is an imaginary "h", not an actual "h". By imagining an "h" it was intended to keep the air-way open so the vocal folds would close without closing the throat. Also by thinking an "h" without actually saying one helps to give action to the breath without causing it to go past the vibration. It is important to remember that just because we don't want breath in the tone or to leak out of the voice it doesn't mean we don't still use the breath in the act of singing. The breath is an integral part of the coordination. It must be compressed towards the larynx to feed the continuous vibration of the vocal folds. But if it goes past the folds it is wasted because the only purpose the breath has is to feed the vibration. It serves no purpose above the larynx. The challenge lies in coordinating the application of breath pressure and the resistance of the vocal folds.
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Imagine a student or established singer who has a tendency to squeeze the folds, who has a pressed voice. Isn't it what he is supposed to do? Use the airflow to his advantadge, to relieve tension? We know that ideally the edges of the folds must offer a slight resistence to the air and I don't mean singing opera as a crooner. A balanced attack is not a breathy onset but also cannot be a grunt and make the singer uncomfortable, as if pressing his folds. So, I think this is an individual issue.
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This is exactly what I'm talking about. The need to coordinate these opposing forces. And what you describe does seem to make sense on the surface. But if we go deeper into the situation we can find other alternatives that are more correct.


If a singer is squeezing the folds to create what is called "pressed phonation" it is caused by muscles extrinsic to the larynx and excessive to balanced function. These are muscles that cannot be active during breathing, so it can be helpful to momentarily allow some breath to pass while phonating to experience those muscles letting go. But it must not be a long term crutch. The closure of the glottis, without extraneous help, only resists the breath pressure to the degree that the edges are caused to vibrate. If the glottis is able to stop the breath and resist it to the degree that the vibration is distorted, like you describe, than that is the result of extra muscles. Not just the intrinsic laryngeal muscles. So the logical remedy is not to use airflow, but to remove the extra muscular involvement. Then we can start to experience the proper balance in the relationship between the larynx and the breath. If we start to use airflow as a crutch we have just created a new problem.


You mention a grunt. Yes, a grunt is too extreme for the purpose of singing. But it is in the same family of natural functions as the act of singing. Allan Lindquest and others have talked about thinking of a mini-grunt. I find exploring the feeling of a whimper to have the most potential for people. A whimper is like a grunt in that it includes the action of the body in compressing the breath. It also resembles crying. But the difference from grunting and crying is the whimper is much smaller in size and intensity than either of these other functions. It also has more of a relationship to the lighter register adjustment, where the grunt and crying (forceful crying) are more related to the thicker lower register. 


The upper register, for both women and men, is a very productive condition of the vocal folds. They can be close together but very flexible at the same time. The flexibility allows us to apply just about as much breath pressure as we want and the folds will work with that pressure productively, rather than work against the pressure and get stiff and dampen the vibration, or the opposite and release the breath.


The key point to recognize is that the function of the voice is based on the relationship between the pressure from the breath and the resistance to that pressure from the larynx. If either of these opposing forces overpowers the other we are no longer in balance. So in the condition you describe the force of resistance is overpowering the force of pressure. If you resort to air-flow you have just changed the condition to one of insufficient resistance, which by default results in the opposite condition of the breath over-powering the resistance. As I said earlier, a new problem.


This condition of the breath pressure over-balanced in relation to the resistance is my definition of falsetto. Many people use that term to describe any kind of upper register adjustment. I feel it is more accurate to define it as a "false vibration". A condition where the resistance of the vocal folds is lacking and the breath is not completely turned into vibration. This is what happens with unbalanced breath flow. (Again, I point out that the opposite of just stopping the breath is not what we are after either) So in reality we can have a falsetto condition in either register and in both males and females. Much of the so-called "legit" or "classical" singing being performed by high-school aged singers is actually falsetto. It contains an excess of breath in the phonation and a lack of balanced resistance. This would also be an accurate definition of "crooning". An unbalanced condition where the breath is freely flowing through the glottis lacking an appropriate level of resistance. Generally crooning is recognized to primarily exist in the lower register and falsetto generally in the upper register.


Getting back to the condition you describe. The logical remedy is not to encourage an increase in air-flow, but to reduce the excess resistance. The weight of resistance needs to balance the weight of breath pressure to allow a coordinated function. In the same way a violinist can press the bow into the string excessively, we can fall into the trap of having an excessive weight of resistance to the breath. (This is usually caused by the root of the tongue, not the folds themselves) The results are similar as well. The violinist that has too much pressure on the string from the bow interferes with the vibration of the string, causing it to be dampened. A similar thing happens in the voice where the muscles "crush" the vibration stimulating the body to push the breath pressure harder to get through the excess resistance. This results in a harsh, excessively intense vibration.


The characteristics of a balanced condition that we are looking to achieve include a steady weight of breath pressure that is almost automatic from the proper posture. And a relatively light weight of resistance from the larynx. An image to help with the weight of resistance is to think of the larynx as a feather, bubble, or some other kind of near-weightless object. The idea being if the breath is too forceful the balance of the larynx will be blown out. So we are looking for a delicate condition, not just a hard stoppage of the breath.
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There are some singers, like Cecilia Bartoli, who uses this all the time and even exaggerates, that sing with much more fire (even very difficult repertoire) than those with perfect techniques. And I prefer them, once they can be heard. Bartoli only sings in medium-size rooms. Fleming sings in large houses and, as a very critical acquaintance from Germany told me, she fills the room. She started her career very well, but now she abuses with scoopings and crooning a bit. No one knows really what happens. They are very demanded and the toll is heavy. Maybe she uses that as some kind of compensation. Also, I think she is weighing her voice a little bit to sound more dramatic. I have a Don Giovanni from the Met in DVD which is not that good. She is making her voice very dark and heavy artificially and by the end of the performance you feel she is tired.
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These observations contribute to my point. The lack of audibility in the hall is a common complaint with Bartoli. And over time allowing extra breath to escape causes the voice to deteriorate. Hence the scooping and crooning. It is gradual so the singer doesn't really notice until it is significant. And the artificial dark quality is the most common side-effect. If fact many singers want the tone so dark that they allow the breath in order to achieve that. 


The point I'm trying make with this comparison is not to say Bidu Sayao was the greatest soprano to ever live. Just the opposite. She was a very good artist with an average instrument and with good function she became world-famous. Renee Fleming and Anna Netrebko are world-famous because of great instruments and their artistry in spite of their functional limitations. The expectations of singers now are different than they were in past generations. Singers needed to compete with the greatest instrumentalists, and they did. Now the vocal function has no resemblance to that of great instrumental technique.

Question about the Resistance of the Larynx

"The larynx as a platform of resistance": I think I get that, rationally. But I can't really comment until I learn how it works and feel it working. You said so yourself, it's not a widespread concept - none of the other teachers I have contacted or studied with ever mentioned it.
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Regarding "The larynx as resistance." We have talked about the concept of closing the cords in our sessions together. The cords, and the larynx in general, is essentially a valve. We close the glottis and the valve behavior controls the emission of the air pressure. The unique quality of the vocal valve is that as the air pressure is released the edges of the valve opening (the vocal folds) are pliable and can be caused to vibrate from the air pressure. Most valves "hiss" when they release air pressure. (or water pressure for that matter) That is the basis of the hissing exercise that many people use. The body creates a steady pressure of air against the valve-like closure of the "s" consonant. Then you use that to feel the continuous, coordinated release of the pressure through the hissing without completely releasing the pressure by opening the "s". This is a similar experience to the coordinated release of pressure through the glottal valve.

So the closure of the glottis, which creates this valve condition, acts as a resistance to the air pressure that the breathing system creates through the coordinated use of the breathing muscles. The challenge that complicates things is, when functioning correctly, we don't really feel this resistance or the closure of the valve. It feels more like a compression of the breath at the larynx, but the larynx itself disappears. If we use too much muscular involvement from the larger muscles around the larynx, over-compensating, we can feel the resistance. But this tends to create discomfort and interference with the free and balanced vibration.

So how do we get this to work for us if we can't feel it? Well, this is where our imagination comes to the rescue. We can use certain tools to discover where this resistance should exist in our sensory awareness. We can touch our larynx with our fingers on the outside of our neck. We can do a very light cough to locate the vocal cords in our sensations. But it must be stressed that we DO NOT DO THIS WHEN WE SING. I have to always emphasize that very clearly because we all invariably make that mistake when we are trying to figure this out. The light cough is only for locating the glottis in our sensations, it is not what we do to start the vibration. I also use the glottal fry to identify the location of the point of resistance. But again, we don't want to actually do that when we sing.

Once we have identified the location of our glottis in our sensations we now need to figure out how to establish the closure of the glottis in the appropriate manner. The trick, as I pointed out before, is that when we do it correctly we no longer feel it. So we have to establish a clear mental sensation of the closure of the glottis by first feeling the closure of the larger muscles, which are adding extra pressure to the closure making it too much for healthy singing. Because of this we don't want to do this too much and definitely not regularly. But it gives us something to go by. Then, through repeated experimentation, we try to recreate the closure without the larger muscles that we can feel. I always think of it feeling like a "force-field" stopping the breath from flowing out instead of the muscles stopping the breath. If we do use the muscles to stop the breath it will crush the vibration to some degree and cause discomfort. But for many people not using the muscles causes the breath to rush out. So that is the reason it is such a challenging coordination to establish. I like to relate the throat muscles to our hands (as I have said in previous posts), and so the act of singing correctly is like doing something without using your hands to do it. If we don't do this something the breath will just rush out, and the throat muscles will have a strong temptation to get involved to stop the breath from getting away. So we need to stop the breath with the vocal folds, which we can't really feel. But we can feel if the breath is flowing out or if it feels like it is being resisted. This is why so many people feel like it is just the breath that does everything. Because the resistance of the voice is not something we really feel, like we can feel the muscular interference. 

So this all comes down to sensing rather than feeling. When done correctly, you can't feel the closure of the cords but you can sense it by the nature of the air pressure. You also sense it by the purity of the vibration. There is no sense of leaking breath but also no feeling of holding the breath with the throat. We close the cords with our thought rather than with our muscles. This is also because the voice does a lot of its work unconsciously. So we need to allow it to do that and not get in the way.

Questions and comments are always welcome. Thanks.

Question about Various Types of Attack

I was reading Richard Miller's Structure of Singing, and he's down on the phonation style Swedish-Italian uses.  Are you familiar with what he says on it?  I'm not trashing it, but curious. I was reading about types of onset, and there were three types, with the balanced onset being the one in the middle.  One was breathy/ aspirate, one used air build up to close the cords, and his description of balanced seemed to be in between the other two.  Maybe I am not understanding the usage of our suspension of air before phonation, or our thinking of what the larynx feels like just before a grunt.  I look forward to having you explain this to me. Basically pages 1 through 5 deal with what balanced onset is, indicating the hard attack to be only used in rare occasions, so I am wondering if the Swedish-Italian school takes a different route?

 

I also need clarification of page 5's discussion (at the bottom) of fully opened glottis with inhalation and then efficiently closed glottis.

 

Maybe this will help you see where my confusion lies.

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By your questions I'm starting to realize where your confusion lies. It sounds like you think we want a hard attack. Maybe you have missed all the times I've pointed out that we don't want the hard start to the tone that resembles the vocal cords clapping. I'm always repeating that we are looking for balance. It is a balance between the air pressure provided by the breathing and the resistance provided by the larynx. But that is a fine coordination. The spectrum of possible onsets that you are referring to is a description of the possible conditions that result from either of these two forces overpowering the other. This is the basis of the coordination that I am always talking about. The aspirate and the hard attack are both examples of a lack of coordination. There is also a difference between hard and firm. That might also be a point of confusion. Hard is lacking coordination. Firm is stable, not loose, and refers to the condition of the breath as much as the larynx.

A way of thinking of what we're after is to consider the difference between the intrinsic muscles of the larynx and the extrinsic muscles of the throat. I always get the image of the throat muscles being like hands. They want to hold onto the sound to feel in control. The intrinsic muscles of the larynx pull the vocal folds together and stretch them appropriately for the pitch. We need these muscle to be active, but they are very small and we don't really have sensation of them. They also depend on coordinating the breathing so we don't exhale through them and cause them to open, defeating their ability to tune a pure vibration. This is especially important because there is an instinctive reaction in the glottal muscles to open when we breath. This is what Miller is referring to in your last question. The glottis opens automatically when we breath. If we try to phonate while we are still breathing we will get an incomplete action which will impair the quality of the vibration. The glottis closes naturally at the point of the breath cycle that lies between inhalation and exhalation. That is the point we want to sing at by sustaining that portion of the cycle which usually only lasts a moment. 

Getting back to the throat muscles (hands), they are larger and we can feel them. Because we can feel them they tend to be used by many people to feel secure. We can use them to close the throat, in an attempt to close the glottis, as a way of compensating for the opening that happens when we breath. So the closed throat often gets mis-interpreted as a closed glottis because it is more obvious to feel. What we want is an open throat and a closed glottis, which only happens through subtle coordination and not muscular effort. For these people that have developed a dependence on the throat muscles, if they let go of them they have no control and the breath escapes wildly. The challenge is learning how to coordinate things so the vocal muscles can close naturally to tune and vibrate freely. To the singer this is like learning how to do something without using their hands. It feels completely out of control. The voice is at the mercy of our breathing. That is why the breath is so important, (for coordination) not because we need to use a lot of breath to sing. This coordination is critical, because a lack of coordination in the breathing will cause the breath to go through the larynx and dilute the purity of the vibration.

Now the way we establish this coordination is by suspending the breath. The breath suspension is talked about by Miller. It is the whole purpose of the "Noble" position of posture that he talks about. The breath suspension is how we avoid the hard attack. The hard attack is caused by uncoordinated loose breath being pushed out, trying to escape the glottis, and the throat muscles blocking it. This pressure is then released violently making a harsh attack.

As I said before, the key is recognizing what is the goal and what are the means of getting there. If someone has no experience of resisting the breath then trying to accomplish it "with no hands" usually doesn't work. We have to first use the help of the hands and then progress to doing it with no hands. (The hands being the throat muscles) 

I think a key element that may not have been emphasized by me enough is always keeping an open pharynx. If we do this correctly it removes the muscles of the throat from getting in the way. This is the part that can make or break the whole coordination. Allan Lindquest was quoted as saying that the open pharynx acts as a shock absorber for the vocal cords. And I find that to be absolutely true. A universal characteristic of voices that develop problems is an ineffective resonating space in the pharynx. So I need to emphasize more consistently the role that aspect plays as well.

Question about Larynx Moving with the Vibrato

I have a question about something I have just started experiencing. When there is vibrato in the voice, the larynx starts moving slightly up and down - it has never happened to me before, what is that?


The bobbing of your larynx is a sign of release. That can be good or not depending on other factors and how severe the movement is. I would say that you should never try to fix it. Think of it as a symptom and work on the overall coordination instead. Ideally the larynx should be stable and the tone steady. It is possible that what you are noticing as vibrato and the larynx moving is actually a slight instability. Observe if there are times when it doesn't move, but don't try to change it directly. That will cause interfering tensions and create new problems. It will change with improved coordination of the whole instrument.