VOCAL REGISTERS: a term that sends many voice teachers scrambling, usually in fear, as to what is meant by “Registration”. Almost every teacher I know has their own way of teaching, probably because there are more voice teachers out there that one can shake a stick at. Some are “snake oil” peddlers, and some are quite legitimate. I myself have been to a few voice teachers and have been dumbfounded at the lack of knowledge these so-called “voice teachers” have. Some teachers teach their techniques right out of science fiction. Whether you as a teacher use the register technique or not, what matters in the end is that the student sings well, no nodules or harm is done and the student knows that he is progressing.
Some of these techniques are funny if they weren’t so sad. I knew a teacher who had me do his technique which he developed himself. Its called the “Lotus Position” which has the student standing or sometimes sit in a “lotus flower position” and with your hands as if you were praying to a Hindu God. After you’ve breathed in deeply and correctly, you were prepared to sing. If you didn’t sing well, the” Lotus Position” was misaligned! I went through this and it was frustrating as Hell. What does sitting in a strange position have to do with the vocal mechanism?
Some teachers have their singers “draw” the tone out of their mouths with their hands forming an “oo” vowel. You were supposed to do this for an indefinite period of time. I knew one teacher in her forties who had been doing this for at least 20 years, and her voice was still small and crummy. What’s funny is that the students believe this malarkey. Singers are so trusting sometimes and believe a person in authority. What’s sad is that these students are quite intelligent! It boggles the mind. These singers could only sing Purcell and Arne. Their voices never got big enough to handle other types of music.
Then there are those pushers from the diaphragm --push out and tighten the butt cheeks. Whoa! What you heard was a constipated sound. I won’t go there…. If that wasn’t enough, some teachers who try to find the head register by having their students tap their heads and sing “who, who, who” to "feel” the head register. Tapping their head?? I always assumed that the voice came from the voice box.
Other teachers tell their students to bend over and try to find the head register. Sometimes, when all else fails, I sometimes do this but as a last resource. Sometimes it works, what can I tell you. That’s the name of the game. In this business, we, as teachers have to try many weird things to get to the end result. But, come on, weird is weird and no basis in fact.
Oh! The diaphragmatic singers, or the the belly pushers as I call them, have often ruptured diaphragms by pushing too much on that nebulous area, which, incidentally, is an organ for breathing not singing. The diaphragm is a dome shaped muscle right below the rib cage, and it goes UP AND DOWN! Its part of our autonomic system helping one to breathe---not sing! I do believe in support, but support by tightening the abdominals to keep that feeling of connection, or grounded to the voice.
Its funny how this works, but it does. I think support is necessary, but not with the diaphragm. But some proponents of support make singing all about support. It is not. Singers have been told by their teachers that they were not supporting correctly because tones were not produced well. If the student had supported “well”, then he could have been the greatest singer in the world. Funny, those teachers who championed diaphragmatic breathing were lousy singers themselves. I made the connection right away. Unfortunately most didn’t. I wonder how all this nonsense got started, but, needless to say, all the pushing and pulling and tightening does not matter a hill of beans if the registration is not well coordinated and the voice built with ample amounts of chest and head register ln a coordinated manner.
The lateral breathers and the back breathers, called “Intercostal Breathing” have to “open” their backs to get more tonal support. This is too much work and the tone is not of good quality. One looks hunched over and the working of the those muscles just to sing is ludicrous. Again, the voice is produced in the voice box. Not your back, not your diaphragm, not your belly, not in the "mask".
To top it all of, there are those teachers who tell their male singers to take their shirts off so they can see their abs! Oh, NO NO! This is another chapter altogether, about ethics and the code of conduct. The stories go on and on, and I’m more amazed at the lack of knowledge these teachers have.
The worst is that these teachers ruin voices or voices with great potential. It’s a crying shame. Like any business, there are so many charlatans so "caveat emptor". Sure, no one has the right answer, and this business is not an exact science in terms of usage. Scientifically, it has been proven that there are only two registers—the “Chest Register” and the “Falsetto Register”.
The chest register, inapropriately named because the voice is not produced in the chest, but the vibrations experienced in the chest or thoracic cavity are the result of bone conduction. They are neither produced nor resonated within the chest cavity. The tones originate and are resonated within the laryngeal pharynx. Cornelius Reid in his "Dictionary Of Vocal Terminology" defines this “Chest Voice” sound as “to those tones qualities which respond to high levels of intensity in the lower pitch ranges. Functionally, these qualities result from the parallel positioning of the vocal folds by cricothyroid and arytenoids muscles in a “thick” adjustment."
In laymen terms, I like to make teaching simple since I have students who know nothing about the mechanics of voice that simplicity is the best avenue. What I do is to isolate the chest register from the “falsetto” by asking the student to place his/her hand on their chest and with the resulting “resonance” they understand where and how the chest register feels. Then I ask them to put their hand on their head and feel the chest and ask if they feel the “resonance”. I then ask them to produce a heady “hooty” tone and see if the feel the resonance and the immediate response is yes. For me, this is the beginning in understanding registers for the beginning student, how it sounds and how it feels. If you have too much coordination with the head register, the resulting vibrations aren’t going to be felt much.
To say that the arytenoids (chest register) are the basic muscles groups comprising of the transverse arytenoids, the oblique arytenoids, and the cricoartyenoids is quite confusing for the beginning student, much less the advanced student. I try to keep it simple most of the time. But, sometimes, there's a student who really wants to know, then I take out the big words and confuse the heck out of him. When tensed, these muscles are responsible for yielding tone qualities recognized as “chest voice” This last statement is meaningless unless you have studied the vocal musculature, and since you can’t see these muscles working to produce a sound you have to rely on an expert ear to help you out. This is why the teacher has to know how to coordinate certain sounds to effect a vocal change. Its these times that make it fun and exciting, but eventually we go back to simple explanations and as time goes by, increase his knowledge and understanding more and more about how the voice really works. Nothing is more satisfying for a voice teacher to know that one more student has learned the complicated craft of singing.
There ere are only 2 registers, the so called “chest register” or muscular arytenoids action and “head” or “Falsetto”, caused by the action of the cricoid muscles. In effect, by using the “chest register, the chord thickens and elongates, while the falsetto shortens and thins caused by the cricoid muscle.
"FALSETTO" and “Head Register” are terms used interchangably to denote a falsetto-dominated tone. The term "head voice" means that the falsetto-derived or mixed with chest is a coordinated tone while the "falsetto" is purely that--no mix.
Falsetto, Italian for “false”, describes a quality or where the throat appears to be the chief organ connected with the production of sound called a throat voice, termed in Italian, “falsetto.” The fact that the two register mechanisms can either be separated or combined in a variety of ways has led to difficulties with respect to nomenclature. What do you call it? Falsetto, mixed voice, the middle register, head voice, mixed register? Suffice it to say, for clarity’s sake, there are only 2 registers, chest register and head register (or falsetto).
In producing the falsetto, one has to understand that there is no arytenoid (chest voice or register) connection, and the tone quality sounds “false”. The reference is made to a pure, isolated falsetto or one in which the cricothyroids are tensed without engaging a counterpull on the part of the arytenoids. The falsetto sound has an extremely “breathy” and “hooty” tone quality, in its pure form. The falsetto is literally a false tone. When tones become clear and the range extensive, the tones can be swelled and diminished and the falsetto can no longer be said to be pure. That is, with the addition of the arytenoids in any form, the voice is said to be mixed or coordinated and no longer falsetto.
As every singer knows, we come upon a strange phenomenon as our voices begin to grow. There is a place in our voices that something "funny" happens. That's the dreaded PASSAGGIO!!! or in English, “passageway:” an early frame of reference used to indicate that portion of the tonal range, or “break”. The break is, in all voices, whether male or female, in the same place, between E and G,(above middle C for females and above 3rd space C for male singers.
The problem is that if the head register is not smooth enough or strong enough, and singing high notes with great ease is impossible or they are thin and reedy. It is necessary to “cross” from the chest voice to the head voice smoothly and evenly. Exercises to smooth that area of the voice abound, and should be practiced daily. Some singers feel that the break is on E, others, depending on the weight of the tone, feel its at F or F#. In any case, it must be understood that the passaggio is a weak part of the voice and crossing that area one must take special attention in your daily practice regimen to smooth it out. Practicing falsetto triads through this area is very helpful.
Every singer "covers" to a degree or other. COVERING is necessary but covering in the passaggio area for all men is at times too much cover and is primarily used to make
Covering plays an important role in the development of vocal skills, since it confronts problems related to either the strengthening or the vigorous use of the chest register (a process which unavoidably energizes that mechanism, causing a widening of the gap between it and the head voice), and the need to bridge the passaggio with reasonable facility. Since a proper bridging is the final and most difficult stage of technical development, coordination of the two mechanisms must be approximate rather than precise for the considerable period of time. For this reason, covering, which effectively addresses itself to the problem of register transition before the basic mechanisms are capable of fine tuning possesses a function of great importance which should not be ignored.
To sum up: when approaching the passaggio, raise the soft palate and the tongue, lower the larynx and apply more head register to the tone, being careful that the tone is “heady” but with a smooth transition to the upper register.
When one speaks of the “OPEN THROAT”, it is meant that the larynx is lowered or in a state of low repose. This is most desireable since it creates more resonance in the tone, thus making the sound louder and richer, meaning there is more resonance.
In a nutshell, teaching voice is not easy, and knowledge is gained by experience, trial and error for the most part with lots of luck, lots of gnashing teeth, lots of lack of sleep. Some students are easy to teach, others, with registrations so tight that it takes time to undo some of these muscular sets.
Learning to sing is not easy, but it makes the voice teacher's life that much easier to know that the student and the teacher are partners in this journey. A commitment has to be made by the singer FOR the singer not to miss lessons, come prepared, take what he's learned and start applying it immediately. Taking voice lessons is part and parcel of being a singer, and each lesson is precious so don't throw it away. Canceling lessons because friends came into town, or you have to go shopping for Christmas presents or birthdays, or have to go to a party.......no! What a shame it would be if you missed the one day that a breakthrough was going to happen!
An EXERCISE VOICE LESSON CD is available for your voice type. The cost is $15.00. Send me a note to: manjan44@yahoo.com
No comments:
Post a Comment