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Did you know that most voice science research is conducted on college students and sometimes college faculty? Did you know that most of these people are classically trained, or are getting classical training? Did you also know that most of the work in the world for singers is NOT classical? Did you know that most vocalists out there in the world who are singing CCM styles did NOT get training for those styles? Some have no training of any kind.

Did you realize that some of the most respected voice scientists, those that consider themselves singers, are lousy singers and that the information they look at, look for and analyze passes through a mind that has a skewed experience of what it means to sing in the first place? Did you know that many of the published studies are conducted by graduate students, doctoral students and post-doctoral students who need to publish in order to graduate or get tenure? Did you know that much of the research on singing is NOT accompanied by an audio example of what the researchers were hearing? And did you know that if it was possible to hear the audio examples, many of the scientists wouldn’t know if the singing was good or bad.

Did you also know that the conclusions about “what singers do” is based on all the above? Did you know that you might be reading research about how we change registers, how we breathe, how we adjust acoustics, as if it were solid, concrete information, when in point of fact the researcher was young and inexperienced, the subjects were also young and inexperienced and the teacher supervising the study might have been great at statistical analysis, physics and acoustical science but not very good at all at what professional singers, out there in the world, sound like and how they get themselves to sing.

Did you realize that most of the money for voice research is devoted to studying sickness and injury? That the research is done at universities that have hospitals and that there is little money to study the behavior of world-class vocalists of any style. There has been no large, long term study of people who sing leads on Broadway, or who make millions of dollars in rock, pop, gospel, folk, country, or any other CCM style. There isn’t even a study such as this on classical singers. No one really knows what an elite vocalist does because hardly any of them have been looked at in any way. Did you know this?

Yet, if you go to a singing conference, you will hear about “what singers do” and about “voice science” as if it were absolute. Yes, many things are known now that were not known even 15 years ago. Yes, there are some things about which we can be pretty definite and clear. Yes, most of the general information is accurate and makes sense. And no, you cannot extrapolate anything from the data about a “professional” singer (who might be getting paid to sing at church) who has “training” (maybe a master’s degree in vocal performance) and who sounds pretty squeezed most of the time (sings with “focus”), that would actually apply to other styles or even to other people who are real, experienced vocal professionals in the world at large with careers that everyone would recognize as being “significant”.

If you did not know, now you do. Don’t forget.

Anyone who knows my work knows that I have great affection and respect for the old “song and dance man” kind of performer whose roots are in Vaudeville. I was gratified, then, to see this in today’s NY Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/theater/30nathan.html?ref=arts

Apparently, Charles Isherwood thinks the same things that I do on this topic. People like Nathan Lane, made in the old mode, are harder and harder to find. What a shame!

When I travel to colleges to do master classes (which I am doing now 8 or 10 times a year), what I see is singing heads. Over and over and over. Kids singing with their arms hanging limply at their sides, their bodies doing NOTHING. They have no clue that they have bodies, or what to do with them. They are TAUGHT to do this by their teachers and I say over and over “NO!!! Don’t do this. It’s WRONG!” and they tell me,”That’s what my teacher says I have to do.” Yes, well, I respond, “Then your teacher never set foot on a professional Broadway stage.”

If you don’t know about the Nathan Lane’s of this world, and the people who preceded them, you won’t know what Mr. Isherwood is talking about, or why I rail against this whenever I encounter it. Theater is a business about SHOWING. It is called SHOW Business, not Hint Business or Imply Business or Hope Business or Seriousness Business or Acting Business. SHOWING.

The Oxford Dictionary defines show this way: 1. be or make visible 2. offer for inspection or viewing 3. present an image of 4. lead or guide 5. behave in a particular way towards someone. 6 be evidence of, prove 7. make someone understand something by explaining it or doing it yourself and show up as: 1 a stage performance involving singing and dancing 2. an entertainment program on TV radio 3. an impressive or pleasing sight. 4. a display of quality or feeling.

Get the idea?

If you stand there limply, like a ragdoll, while your face and head are being “emotional” and the rest of your body looks like wet spaghetti, you will not get a job. NO.

There is a way to remain still but alive and responsive. It is called being present in your body……STAGE PRESENCE. It means being present in your physical and vocal self. You don’t have to dance around and make silly extraneous movements but you cannot behave like wet sheets hanging on a clothesline. PEOPLE!

It doesn’t help that most new Broadway music these days is sort of “sung through”. Jason Robert Brown and Ricky Ian Gordon and many others don’t write songs they write marathons. The tunes are NOT memorable, they do not have any beginning, middle or end, they just ramble. That’s why I love Janine Tresori. The woman understands THEATER. Classical composers have the same malady — heaven forbid they write a TUNE!

Please remember that SHOW BUSINESS is about entertainment. Stanislavsky not withstanding, entertainment pertains to all performing arts, INCLUDING opera, and people should never ever forget that what entertains us is always engaging, powerful, strong, impressive, touching, emotionally truthful or some combination of all of those. Al Jolson, Ethel Merman, Judy Garland, Jimmy Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, even Jessica Lange never studied acting (Method or otherwise). Think about that.

If you perform in music theater, be a PROUD entertainer. If you write music, or direct, or produce, or have any other connection with music theater, and MOST ESPECIALLY IF YOU TEACH, please remember that you must be successful at entertaining people or you and your product will be a big flat FLOP.

So, what, exactly, is a fully functional voice?

A fully functional voice covers approximately two octaves of range. (It can be more but it shouldn’t be much less). It is even throughout that range and can go from piano to forte through 3/4 of it without problem. The vowel sounds are undistorted and clear, with the exception of any modification, which is a conscious choice, for the sake of tonal color. Consonants are easily pronounced, with the exception of those in the high soprano range, where they can be softened (or eliminated occasionally) for the sake of tonal color. Vocal quality is clear, and vowel sounds can be changed or adjusted for expressive purposes. The sound has a steady vibrato, at approximately 1/4 tone above and below the sustained pitch (frequency) at a rate of about 5.5 to 6.5 Hz or cycles per second, except in phrases of great emotion when the pitch range can functuate by as much as 1/2 step and the rate can increase to 7 Hz. The voice should be sturdy enough to stand up to at least an hour of moderately loud singing and to some amount of stress from other factors such as a mild illness, mild physical fatigue, ambient noise, or psychological stress. It is housed in strong body with good posture that can inhale deeply without excess movment and is connected to strong but moveable abdominal muscles.

Variations on this depend upon professional need. For instance, a jazz vocalist does not necessarily need to sing a clear tone nor one with constant vibrato, nor does the rate need to be as mentioned above. A Broadway vocalist or someone doing gospel may not have an evenly developed two octaves, but could sing primarily in one register, making the voice considerably shorter and less even, but still very functional and healthy. Rock singers can live with a certain amount of “raspiness” or “roughness” provided it does not become debilitating physically or cause musical problems such as flatting. Barbershop vocalists do not sing with vibrato at all, but that doesn’t mean they are not healthy.

Functionality depends on only two things. One is health and the other is satisfaction. If the artist singing is happy with how they sing, how they sound, and what they can do with the voice, and the voice remains healthy except in times of illness such as a cold, then whatever function is there is sufficient to do the job, at every level from amateur to professional. If the person has never had any training but fits this description, they are technically skilled, even if they don’t really know what they are doing well enough to explain or describe it. If the person has had lots of training but does not have these capacities, no matter how much training they may have, they are BEGINNERS with POOR TECHNIQUE, and should not teach anyone anything ever. If there is a medical reason why the voice does not fit into the category of fully functional, and the artist knows and understands why he or she has limitations, there is no reason why that person shouldn’t sing and teach in whatever way strikes their fancy.

I hope this is helpful.

Yes, I know, life is and always has been unfair. I never liked that, I still don’t. It makes no difference. Life will always be unfair.

I have so many students who were truly talented, and who worked very hard to develop their talents by taking music, singing, acting or other kinds of lesson, often for years. They have worked to get professional experience and exposure, to get their materials together and to do all the necessary things like Facebook, MySpace, CD Baby, a website, a CD release, etc., and often, sadly, none of this does any good. They go unrecognized by the world at large and toil away at “job jobs” earning money to pour into their art until finally, they are burned out in every way, and just give up, taking a “career position” somewhere that allows them to make a decent living and make a “normal life”.

And then, I encounter the people who are barely trained, and can barely make music, or barely sing, or barely perform. People who have little to say, little to say it with and what manages to be expressed is either banal or boring. I run into those who assume their abilities are superior without bothering to actually inquire into that assumption and who go forth into the world with bold assertion that the world should do them a favor, and, low and behold, it does. People who fall into record contracts, public performances in significant places, press attention for their first or second performance, people who, through personal connections or money, can call in all manner of important or significant people to “help them” get the kind of recognition they do not at all deserve. But they get it.

This is certainly not news. It is certainly not going to go away. I am someone who has great respect and occasionally even awe for those who confront themselves at deep personal places. I honor those artists who are looking into heart and mind for the truth that they and only they can call forth into the world through their chosen art form. I am always sad when those same individuals cannot find a path for their creativity to reach an audience which would benefit from its existence. I am chagrined when they cannot generate enough money through their art to make a decent life (and this is SO common an experience). And I am daunted when I see or hear a singer or an artist with less than nothing to offer the world (other than perhaps a very large ego) and realize that he or she is pulling in more money in one performance than most people see in a lifetime.

Sometimes art is just a question of personal opinion. We will never agree what “art” is or isn’t, and that’s good. But there are times when an individual is so clearly “special” and “above the mark” that is seems impossible that this unique gift is not somehow immediately recognized by everyone everywhere. Of course, this is impossible. There are many examples of famous people who were told at the beginning of their careers by “knowledgeable experts” to give up, go home, and get a day job, only to be proven wrong. Goes on all the time on American Idol.

What does one do when listening to a student sing and the student is in a master’s degree program at a university and sounds absolutely dreadful? What does one do when listening to a student who has just gotten a DOCTORATE in vocal performance and has not one but many obvious technical faults? What does one do when listening to someone who is in charge of an entire voice department at a university and that person’s speaking voice resembles that of Kermit the Frog?

The answer is: NOTHING.

There is nothing to do with these individuals, and believe me, I have had occasion to hear people in each of the above situations over and over again for years. They either don’t know they have problems, think that their voice is just “different”, know that they have problems but hope others don’t notice, know that they have problems and don’t really care, know they have problems but think they are “minor” so ignore them, have tried to solve the problems and failed and are at an impass, or maybe, all of those in combination. It is impossible to know.

What is NOT impossible to know is that the situations described above SHOULD NEVER EVER HAPPEN. What kind of training program gives a degree, be it a bachelors, a master’s, or even a doctorate, in a program of singing (and we are talking here of CLASSICAL singing, folks) to people who CANNOT, I repeat CANNOT, sing in an acceptable manner? We are not talking about musical values, or language skills, or the ability to perform, or understanding harmonic structure, as they all may be just fine. We are not talking about minor issues that every singer has and are to be expected. We are not talking about liking the voice as an instrument, as with these kinds of technical faults, you don’t have any chance to know what their instrument actually is. We are talking about producing a professional level classical sound that is fully functional, serving the needs of the music and the heart of the artist. In the case of someone who has just completed a bachelor’s degree, we are perhaps talking about a pre-professional sound, but one without huge technical flaws.

Wobbly jaws, flapping tongues, no high notes, no middle range, no low notes, no control over volume, distorted vowels, swallowed production, huge wide uneven vibratos, squeezed throats, uncoordinated breathing patterns, lack of resonance……all of these and more in people who have COMPLETED at least a four year and sometimes an 8 year degree program in classical vocal repertoire.

Could it be that those involved in the teaching do not really even know what a fully functional voice does or should do? Could it be that they cannot distinguish what is functional from what is biological? Could it be that people do not have the vaguest notion that vocal patterns can be changed and improved? Could it be that people do not have any clue about how to get those changes to happen in a comfortable and appropriate manner? The answer to each of these questions is a resounding YES.

These people, who are they, the teachers of singing? What kind of credentials do they have and where did they come from? Who hired them to teach and what were the criteria? Yes, maybe once in a while a student just doesn’t “get it” no matter who the teacher is, but then, does that mean they get a degree just because they paid money to go to school? I suppose, but that’s not good, is it?

I have heard some people who teach singing (private voice lessons — not chorus, not coaching) at the college level, holding master’s and doctoral degrees, whose own singing was just plain scary. I have also heard many of our most well-known voice scientist folks (who teach) who themselves CANNOT SING WELL. Tenors with no high notes, baritones with woofy top tones, sopranos with screetchy upper ranges, mezzos who swallow their sounds into the back of their neck…….But there they are, telling OTHER people to do things they themselves cannot do because they UNDERSTAND voice science. (They do not seem to know, however, how the science applies to the singing in order to help it be easier, better or more beautiful and expressive). Great.

Maybe it’s me, but this strikes me as being very nutty.

If you want to sing and you don’t care how you sound or how it feels, fine. That’s your choice. Maybe you don’t mind making yourself look foolish. But how, if you care at all about ethics, can you proport to teach something to someone that you could not yourself learn and master? The voice science information or the piece of paper does not a singer or a teacher of singing make. Really.

There is no greater tragedy than listening to a 21 year old struggling to sing a simple, lovely art song through a vocal instrument that has been tied in knots. There is nothing sadder than watching a distorted face, a stretched neck, a pulled down jaw that locks into position, hearing a vibrato as slow and wide and the Cowardly Lion’s and observe a breathing mechanism that cannot help because the larynx isn’t able to accept a free and full exhale. Nothing that hurts more than asking how the student feels about the performance only to get as an answer “It was OK, I liked it”. I would almost rather hear “I know it was a struggle and I really didn’t feel good about what I did, but I don’t know how to fix it”. At least I would know the singer was in touch with reality. And the blow that is the true knife-in-the-heart is that a student such as this can GET RID OF 50% OF THE TECHNICAL ISSUES within a 15 minute master-class session. Does this tell you that the problems sourced from the student or from THE TEACHING?

Yes, it might rock the boat if someone on a voice faculty spoke up and said “I don’t believe this student should get a degree in classical vocal performance, singing in this manner”, and yes, I suppose if the student were studying with the department chair, the complaining teacher could get fired for speaking forthrightly, but if NOT ONE PERSON in all of the 4 years or 6 years or 8 years could stop the train from being a wreck, what does that say about the SYSTEM? Not one teacher, one department, one school, but ALL OF THOSE, as this is not a rare or unusual occurance.

Where are the INDUSTRY STANDARDS? Why has no one set down an objective description of what a functional voice should be able to do at the level of a bachelors, a master’s, and a doctorate? This is not unknown information. Where is NATS here?

We are ALL responsible for this state of affairs. Every single person who teaches singing on a college faculty is responsible if we continue to do nothing and let these situations continue.

The only kind of sound that is not “correct” is one that is very squeezed, tight, caught, swallowed, muffled, held, or constricted. Guess what? That is what you hear most of the time, not just in beginners with no training, but often in professional singers. Even on Broadway and at the Met you can hear all manner of squawking, woofing, barking, wobbling, bleating, wheezing and who knows what all else. The people who do the casting don’t care, don’t know, or don’t know that they don’t know and don’t care, or don’t care and don’t know that they could.

If it is possible to line up various criteria based upon musical and real-world expectations, then wouldn’t it also make sense to say that the training should line up the same way? Functional training assumes that you can train not only the vocal folds but the vocal tract and the breathing mechanism to do a wide range of things freely and strongly, even though the training is indirect. Functional training is not about “liking someone’s voice” or “liking their artistry” or “thinking the person is talented”. Functional training is about getting each and every muscle and element that has an impact upon the end product we hear as voice to do not only its basic task but to go well past normal response. It is about training each element to be highly developed and sensitive to commands from the brain. THAT, and that alone, makes a vocalist able to express his or her viewpoint while singing.

It is absolutely amazing to experience what a well-developed vocal instrument sounds like in person. A recording NEVER has the same energy, no matter how fancy it is in terms of how it was recorded or how one hears it on expensive electronic playback equipment. Think about it, folks. How many people have been in close proximity to a powerful, open, free, expressive voice that is singing with deep emotional connection? Even the people who belong to big churches or syngogues are listening to singers through microphones and speakers and maybe from pretty far away in a big building.

If you are in a voice studio……..a small or medium sized room …..listening to someone sing at about 95 decibels, while feeling deep powerful emotions, let me tell you, it is not something you forget or take lightly. I often get to do that several times A DAY! It cannot help but effect you for the better. It cannot help but to make you feel humbled by the greatness of the human spirit, pouring through two very small pieces of gristle in the throat. Smaller than the last joint of your pinky finger (by quite a bit), hiding inside a cartilage that is as soft as your nose, vibrating at whatever pitch you are singing (A440 maybe), a fully developed voice can go straight through your heart as maybe nothing else ever could. Listening to such singing is one of the most potent experiences human beings can encounter.

All kinds of sounds are correct but the ones that have the most impact are oh so much more!

When I was studying singing with my last (and my eighth) teacher, he told me “not to do anything” in my throat, just let go and sing. I thought this was the craziest thing I had ever heard. If I didn’t do anything, there wouldn’t be any sound. Sound is volitional, after all. How could I do nothing and do something at the same time?

In point of fact, I wasn’t trying to do anything deliberate with my throat or my sound, not once, not ever. I sang as freely as I knew to do. I tried my best to do whatever I was asked to do in a voice lesson, even though many times I had NO IDEA what I was being asked to do, as the instruction itself was wacky. (“Make the sound vibrate as if it were outside your cheekbones.”) I did not feel that my jaw was tight, although I had been told it was many times. (It is CROOKED, and that makes it look odd, but it isn’t and wasn’t tight. It was, however, not yet capable of opening to the maximum without strain when I was young. That took a bunch of years). I did not “hold on” to my tongue, either, although I had been told that it was DEFORMED by a very famous classical dramatic soprano.

My teacher instructed me to go buy “Zen in the Art of Archery”. I did not know what zen was. I had never even heard of zen. I had, however, done archery in high school and liked it a lot, so I bought the book. It was wonderful. It was after I read it that I understood, dimly, that you could let go and something would happen anyway……spontaneously.

The first time I really did “let go” (beyond anything that I had done in the past) I noticed that I was very anxious. It was a free-floating anxiety, not something specific, and it seemed to have something to do with the sound, although I certainly wasn’t afraid to sing. I had been singing all my life, in front of all kinds of audiences. When my throat muscles finally released, a rush of emotion came flooding out, and I couldn’t stop it, nor did I understand where it came from, as I hadn’t been upset. After that, my singing greatly improved. I could really feel the freedom in my singing and it was exhilarating.

Then, unfortunately, I followed my singing teacher into new territory, as he continued his quest to further free his own voice. He took up a new method and as he taught it to all of us who were his students, we began to sound different. I gradually found that it made my voice heavier, louder and more impressive (for a while) but then I began to have all sorts of weird problems that I had never had before. Eventually, these problems became very severe and I ended up pretty much unable to sing. So much for “letting go”. A passing fancy?

At that point, I had had so many teachers, so many coaches, so many approaches, that I was completely confused. I just gave up taking lessons (which I had been doing by then for 13 years). I just withdrew into myself, got depressed, and contemplated giving up singing. I let go of outside guidance. Slowly, I got better all on my own.

What’s the point of all this? The point is that 98% of singing training asks the student to “do something” and most of what the student is asked to do is manipulate (see previous post). You can’t manipulate and let go at the same time and you can’t express emotion deeply and freely at the same time you are driving your larynx around like a Hummer. You can’t develop all of the voice’s capacities without training but you have to be lucky to find someone to train your voice and allow it to remain true to itself and natural sounding during that process.

You can even try to hold on to letting go. Good luck.

You cannot do it all. You cannot be an excellent high belter, a fabulous classical soprano, a great Broadway singer, a star cabaret performer, a great metal rocker, a sultry jazz chanteuse, and gravely-voiced country singer and someone who specializes in early music. So, how is it that classical music (repertoire) will make you miraculously good at any and all of these?

If classical training were enough, then anyone who had had classical training would automatically be a great classical singer who could do lots of the styles above with no problem.

This silly situation is assumed to be normal, OK, correct, etc., by many teachers of singing. We will only be taken away from this nonsense as functional training takes a foothold in the hallowed halls of academia, and the good news is, folks, that day is just around the corner. The tide is really, finally, actually, definitely turning, and halleluia for that.

In another decade, when electronic music has finally infiltrated modern opera and opera houses like the Met, La Scala and Covent Garden (!!!), and when young people finally find good reason to go into opera houses (so that Euro-trash scenarios can please go away, not a moment too soon), then we will have rockera singers and classicommercial singers and everything in between. I can hardly wait. In the meantime, those who get functional training NOW will be way ahead of the game and they, in turn, will be the teachers of the next generation. Our Somatic Voicework™ teachers are getting this training now. I will be sad to miss most of this transition in the music world and in the voice studios everywhere, since I will be long dead, but I hope to be able to get the vibes, wherever I end up.

Free singing is the opposite of manipulation. Anyone who teaches you to move your larynx on purpose is teaching you to manipulate your throat. No honest emotions will come through a manipulated throat position. Manipulation teaches you to hold on to the very muscles that need to move. Anyone who tells you to put your larynx in a specific place, or to move your false folds, or contract your “aryepiglottic sphincter” is asking you to do things with your throat that your throat was never intended to do. Anyone who tells you that belting is “singing through your nose or singing with nasal resonance” is just plain wrong. Anyone who tells you that you have to make a bright smiley face in order to belt is also wrong (it can help at the beginning, but once you get the sound, the smiley face can go away). You cannot belt decently if you do not have a good solid chest register. Nasality has nothing to do with that.

You were not meant to “vibrate your vocal folds” or “keep your larynx down low in your throat” any more than you were meant to “beat your heart” or “make your food digest”. Yes, we can get the folds to vibrate but we do that by making sound. Yes, we can hold the larynx down in the throat, by pressing the back of the tongue down and holding the jaw down at the same time, but then the larynx will get stuck and the high notes will go away, not to mention that the sound will get heavy and legubrious. Yes, you can try to “contract your false folds” if you know what they are and where, but why would you do that? What kind of a sound would that give you anyway? Cheech. You can make your heart beat by running up and down a few flights of stairs quickly. You can assume your food will digest, but I don’t think anything can hurry it up.

You have to know what the body does on its own, what can interface with the body and affect its responses indirectly, and what you just cannot make happen on purpose through any deliberate means. The throat is a responsive mechanism. Any kind of teaching that wants you to “get in there and do stuff” is counter productive and, potentially, harmful. It is, at a minimum, a good way to inhibit honest emotional communcation which suffers from any kind of restriction anywhere, but most particularly from restriction in the throat. Telling you to move your larynx is as bad, albeit in a different manner, as telling you to vibrate your forehead or send the sound across the room. Useless information that just makes it harder, not easier, to sing.

So, the next time you are busy digesting your lunch, don’t contract those false folds or keep your larynx “down low” while you practice those vocal exercises, just try to find a comfortable place to sing that sounds good.

Every sound a human being makes has some kind of resonance or it would be inaudible. Classical singing REQUIRES that a singer learn to stay in the pocket of 2800 to 3200 Hz in order to be heard unamplified over an orchestra. Very high sopranos may not need to do that, however, as high range of the average pitches sung can be enough. It is also necessary to be able to generate about 110 decibels in climatic phrases, which is very loud. That usually take years of training even in a naturally strong voice and body. There is no requirement, however, that the voice be beautiful while sustaining these resonance frequencies, and in point of fact, some voices can make these resonances sounding really dreadful. Maria Callas could always be heard but as she got older her technical problems got worse and worse and she sounded worse and worse but you could certainly always hear her. If you think she was unique, go over to the Met some time and see for yourself.

Resonance is NOT a cause, it is a result. So much singing training confuses cause with effect. It asks for singers to do things deliberately that are not meant to be deliberate. What we do deliberately is make sound, that is, when we choose. We can also choose to be silent. We also can breathe in a deliberate manner and do other things such as open the mouth, smile, and frown. Most people, with normal voices, can also get louder and softer (without understanding any special kind of breathing), and go up and down in pitch (if that was not possible no one would be able to ask a question or make a statement). None of that has anything to do with resonance or beauty of tone, or being musical, or being an artist, or having motivation.

Singing training is meant to increase and enhance function of the areas of the body that effect sound-making. The source of the sound is the vocal folds in the larynx. The folds control both pitch and register quality. The amount of air in the lungs and the pressure on that air as it crosses the vocal folds determines volume (decibels or sound pressure level), and the shape made in the mouth and throat coupled together as a tube (the vocal tract) determine what we hear in the vowel as it is sustained. There are all kinds of ways to produce resonance in the human voice and the specific resonances that group together at the frequencies mentioned above (2800 – 3200 Hz) are called “The Singer’s Formant”. A formant can be thought of as a resonanting frequency of the vocal tract. There are five that are significant. The first two determine the vowel, the other three determine the resonance factors. The front part of the mouth and tongue determine which vowel we hear and the back of the mouth and throat, down to the level of the vocal folds, determines what we would call the “timbre” or “color” of the tone, and much of its resonant quality. When resonance lines up with harmonics there is a “boost” in the sound, giving it a “greater energy”. If you want to learn more, go read one of the many excellent books on voice science. Scott McCoy’s book is very good.

None of this has to do with beauty of tone, that is a separate issue. Nor does it include learning how to do this is in a sensible, reasonable manner in any kind of codified approach. AND in CCM, we have microphones for carrying power, so resonance is a very arbitrary capacity. I wonder how much resonance Peggy Lee or Mel Torme had? Wonder how much Willy Nelson has or Tom Waits? Does anyone care? Michael Jackson’s voice was so light that you might not have been able to hear him 20 feet away when he was singing. No one knows. Were any of these artists striving to be resonant while they sang? You would have to had asked them, but my guess is that they were not. They had other goals in mind.

This is one of the many reasons why classical training is often NOT a good idea for those who want to sing in CCM styles. Learning to sing “Caro Mio Ben” does NOT help you sing “Good Morning Baltimore” from Hairspray. Learning to sing “An Die Musik” by Schubert does not help you sing “Being Alive” by Stephen Sondheim. Classical training that teaches you some kind of useful breath support skills, helps make your voice stronger, have more pitch range, keeps it comfortable and helps you sound NICER can be useful, but you have to get a teacher who knows what to teach and how to adapt it to you and your particular voice and career needs. Learning to be more resonant can be helpful if you have a very weak voice but, if you are a budding Peggy Lee, maximized resonance ain’t what you want unless you also want to end up sounding more like Sarah Vaughn. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.