Vocal Pedagogy Blog

  This week's anatomical concepts are a lot to wrap the mind around. We covered the soft palate ( velum ) and the concept of laryngeal and thyroid tilt. Let's just get some basic conceptual reminders: Velum -located at the back of the mouth and into the throat, you can palpate it with your tongue where the roof of the mouth transitions from hard and gum-like (the hard palate) to spongey and soft. It also includes the uvula.  -The position of the velum determines whether sound is coming through the mouth, nasal passages, or both ---Four positions: ------Low: soft palate down, feel by humming or phonating on "ng" ------Mid: air is coming through nose and mouth, true nasal sound comes from this position ------High: "raised" soft palate, can be typical for speech, nasal port is closed ------Super High: even higher velum that engages more space for the sound and higher harmonics come through The soft palate is a very common topic of discussion in choral singing. ...

  Summary - Directly above the true vocal folds live the false vocal folds or ventricle folds. These do not always come together for sound production, but can play an important role in stylistic techniques (aside from their natural anatomical functions)! The larynx can also exist in high, low, or neutral/mid positions that each alter the tone color of the voice. *see my previous blog post for a fun video of masterclass last semester. I sang a French art song immediately followed by a rock musical piece and we discussed the physical changes necessary for these huge stylistic shifts. Towards the end of the video I also noticed false fold engagement that I was not aware of at the time! I heard the sounds I produced but could not put an anatomical explanation behind it, and now it is exciting to look back and understand. That is my main contribution for this week, but I will continue to throw in some information below!* False Vocal Folds ---can be narrowed or released, creating a more ...

 After working through fold mass options, adduction, and our other noise-causing affectations in the past few weeks, I wanted to watch an old masterclass video of mine from last spring. In it, I worked on Faure's Prison and "The Long Grift" from Hedwig and the Angry Inch . The goal was to find a smooth vocal transition between the contrasting styles while still having a convincing dramatic and stylistic shift for the audience. You can watch the whole video for comments and work through "The Long Grift" or skip to approximately 9 minutes to hear the engagement of false vocal folds that I was not previously aware of! I remember the feeling and excitement distinctly, and understanding it anatomically now is quite rewarding. I will also attach the initial performances at the start of class. Enjoy! Masterclass work The Long Grift Faure

 Summary- The science of acoustics explains the sounding of pitch and overtones or harmonics. This applies to earlier posts (week 1 or 2?) about the formation of sound waves, frequency, and the physics of singing! These overtones are also responsible for the timbre of a sound. Physics basics: ---the fundamental  is the notated pitch being played/perceived/sung/heard ------>the fundamental is also the first harmonic   ------>adding the fundamental frequency to this harmonic gets the second harmonic  or first overtone. It is easier to refer to it as the first overtone because it is otherwise confusing to number the overtones including the fundamental, and unless it's being looked at in a strictly mathematical sense I like to keep it as simple as possible!  How? ---as the sound waves oscillate in space, they produce these additional harmonics whether or not they are perceived by the human ear!  ------>not only are some harmonics too high for us to per...

  Summary Semi-occluded vocal tract exercises, or SOVTs, are partially blocked vocal ease practices that are very popular for working with vocal fatigue and injury or perceived effort. Common examples are straw work, cup and straw, or voiced consonant phonation.  What ? --- SOVT techniques operate with higher air pressure on closed folds to create a smaller sound. What? This means that the folds adduct and oscillate and air passes as if about to sing or intone, but the mouth functions differently or does not open at all.  ------> This is a practice best explained through examples (in my teacher opinion) ----------these can all be applied to warmup exercises or melodic fragments of actual literature -------------->I like using octave slides or slides of a fifth over pesagio  in particular  Examples of SOVT exercises: -singing into a straw ---avoid tight lips like a brass or woodwind embouchure -lip trills/buzz or humming -voiced consonants ---v as in vampir...

 Summary This week we discussed the three options for starting and stopping sound, also known as onsets and offsets. These are glottal, aspirate, or simultaneous, and depend on the coordination of the breath and meeting of the folds. We also discussed the variety of fold mass options which adjust volume and sound quality perceived: the fold mass options are thick and thin, and stylistic choices can be made with br-ick and br-in combinations as well. The 3 houses of onset- 1) Glottal ---hardcore house ---demonstrated with "uh oh" ---vocal folds close, there is a buildup of subglottic pressure, then a release at the moment of sound ---folds close, air flows! 2) Aspirate ---the laid back house ---demonstrated with "Hey" ---air passes through open folds creating "fuzz" noise, then phonation follows with closing of the folds ---much lower subglottic pressure, hence the "laid-back" nickname, there's no pressure here, man! Easy, breezy! ---can be ab...