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The tongue consists of 35 muscles, two matched sets and one in the middle. The larynx is suspended from the muscles in the front, under the chin, and attached to the side walls of the throat in the back (the upper constrictors). The “at rest” position of the tongue determines the acoustic possibilities of the shape of the vocal tract as it adjusts into various vowel shapes. While the front of the tongue determines which vowel we hear, the back determines how much the larynx can move and how much the muscles of the soft palate can stretch and lift. This has an effect on overall mobility of the larynx, and of the responsiveness of the laryngeal musculature to the crico-thryoid to stretch and thin the folds to raise pitch.

BUT

Muscles are muscles and they can, over time, stretch and adjust quite a bit. A trained dancer learns, over many years, to get the entire body to do things it doesn’t normally need to do. A ballet dancer, in particular, is doing a great number of things that bodies were never meant to do, but with enough time and attention, do quite well and without constant pain. The stretches that dancers and gymnasts do help give the muscles flexibility. The resistance training gives them strength.

Why should this not be true of the muscles in the throat and mouth that effect the sound? The muscles of the tongue can learn to lift more, stretch more, contract more and move more than they ever need to in normal speech, or even in theatrical speech. The muscles of the face, mouth/lips, and jaw can do the same. Even the vocal folds can learn, over time, to stretch to higher pitches, contract into lower pitches, and close more powerfully providing the sound with more “body” or “fullness” (all of this, of course, taking place indirectly). The muscles of the ribs (intercostals) and the abdominal muscles and, yes, even the diaphragm inside, can get more flexible, stretching further and stronger.

I cannot prove this theory, but I believe, based upon my own singing, that the “at rest” or “default” position of the back of the tongue is paramount in the way the vocal folds can react to the stimulus to make sound. Once these muscles are free to move, independently of the swallowing muscles and of the muscles in the back of the mouth, which takes time, the tongue can rest in the back of the mouth/top of the throat in a number of places and can also make a number of shapes and configurations, also in the back, that change both the feeling of freedom of phonation as well as the stability. There is also a corresponding release of the muscles directly under the jawbone in the front (the genio-glossus and genio-hyoid are included also), that allows the larynx to descend by “hanging” in the throat (which is not the same as having it be parked deliberately in a low position from which it cannot move). Further, the inner muscles of the tongue can contract, giving the back of the tongue a role in shaping the vowel. This shaping can be deleterious or advantageous, depending on the degree of contraction, the kind of sound being made and many other mitigating factors.

All of these changes can be accessed through registration and vowel sound correction but it speeds things up if the person singing can feel the interior changes. In the beginning, this is patently impossible, even in talented singers. But, over time, (over many years, actually) one can develop the capacity to feel things that are not normally felt and the capacity to feel them can be very precise, vivid and deliberate. (You can’t teach someone, however, to do that. It happens on its own over time if you pay attention to what you feel and where you feel it). You can actually learn to “let go” in a way that doesn’t happen at first. This is a kind of bio-feedback between the mind and the body.

Of course, some people who sing develop these capacities on their own and then try to teach them with the idea that they are teaching something that you “just do” and this ties the student up in knots. Teaching a sensation you have as if your students should also have that sensation is pointless. Understanding where you feel something, however, is extremely valuable as long as you understand that your student won’t feel the same thing, even if their vocal behavior exactly replicates yours, for a very long time.

If I can organize the back of my throat, the back of my mouth, the shape and position of my tongue and my soft palate, as well as my jaw opening and mouth/lip position and COUPLE THAT WITH REGISTER BALANCE, I can literally choose almost any sound I want to make and be 98% sure it will come out, before I sing it. Nothing, however, will substitute for register work, as this is how to get to the vocal folds themselves, and you must do that if you are to truly change the output of the mechanism.

Perhaps someday there will be a way to see or measure the individual muscles in the tongue and how they effect the laryngeal and pharyngeal behavior of a singer. Right now the only measures available are invasive or possibly harmful (EKGs and X-rays). Until more is known, this is only my anecdotal experience, but it is not random, I do not believe I am making up delusional theories and I do not believe the effects upon the sound are purely subjective or imaginary. If you relate to any of this, let me know, as I do believe I’m not alone in my perceptions and I would like to hear from others who have similar experiences.

The philosopher Alan Watts wrote a book with this title. In it, he says that we should all always be insecure because, of course, there is never any security in life at any time except in whatever immediate moment you are experiencing, one second at a time. That is obvious but it is also something we resist and refuse to address. It is absolutely true that you can plan to do something in a minute or five minutes or a week, but that life could interfere and make carrying out those plans impossible.

On the other hand, given the nature of our minds, it isn’t really sane not to plan and plan well. It seems reasonable to look into the future and mentally sketch out what you would like to do or where you would like to be. Many courses and books exist on this very topic. Business runs on sales projections and Wall Street futures traders do, too. Nevertheless, being able to make adjustments to whatever plans one makes is a good personal asset.

The delicate balance of staying present in the moment and looking to the horizon with your map of your destination clearly in front of you is a big part of succeeding in life. You cannot stop the flow of life, even if you were to use all your will and effort, time will go on, your body will continue to do what bodies do, and consequences will inevitably show up. If you believe in the hereafter, you could think that life even goes on after life is over…………that time really does not end.

While we can work on vocal technique, we can cultivate our capacities to use the voice with greater skill, great expressiveness, more subtly, more refinement or power, and we can work on making singing significant in our lives in all kinds of ways, we can never be absolutely certain that the singing will always be there, or be there as it is now or was before. There is no ‘always’ in singing, and part of the mystery/fear is that it only exists while we do it. When we are done, it goes into hiding, and if we do not take it out of this hiding place, after a while, we could forget where it went and never really find it again. Worse, it can get lost or taken away and we can search for it but never really find it. We could go on with our lives in every other way, since singing is not a life or death activity, and no one would be the wiser about the loss if we did not discuss it.

Don’t settle into a false sense of security about your singing voice. Remember every day that it will always be an unknown before and after it is happening. We can never know the voice completely and constantly. There is wisdom in being with the insecurity.

Vocal mechanics are required in mid-range. No really good vocalist can do without some kind of knowledge of what happens in the mid-range pitches where the voice must change gears, with two exceptions: a counter tenor and a true low bass. Even a lyric coloratura soprano has to descend into lower pitches these days. It really isn’t possible any longer to have a major classical career singing only in head voice as a female.

Those who do not understand or deal with registration will always be at a loss in explaining or teaching vocal technique in mid-range, relying primarily on “resonance strategies” which are ineffective as a substitute for register balance across the “primo” or first passaggio at approximately E or F above middle C. This break, which is at more or less the same place for every voice category, male and female, young and old, can be avoided. It can also be pushed out of the way (but at a cost) and it can be uncultivated or invisible in a weak, small voice. What it cannot be is eliminated.

If you assume that most people speak in “modal” or chest register, not in “head” or loft, then in most people the weak register is head. The crico-thyroid muscle, which stretches, thins and tightens the vocal folds to raise pitch, produces a “lighter sound” as it activates the folds to vibrate only on their upper edges. It takes a good deal of strength in the edges to resist air pressure coming hard on from below, so head register is typically breathy in untrained voices, but the capacity to develop that strength is an absolute requisite if the voice is to function optimally. That is one of the main points of functional training.

I teach all my students to balance their voice across the break in order to maximize vocal freedom and have the most amount of artistic choice about where to go and how to get there. This approach has kept my own voice, now at 61, able to vocalize through four octaves (F below middle C to F above high C) and to sing a belt sound to D, a mix to high C, and head above that. The choice, when I am practicing regularly, is up to me, insofar as how I sound when I sing and I do not mix my sounds unknowingly. Pop music does not accidently sound like jazz, and Broadway belt songs don’t sound like Mozart, particularly in my mid-range pitches. They are the hardest to deal with and keeping them in balance, so that the middle “pivots” as needed is very hard, continuous work, but it is not so hard as to be unavailable or unlearnable. If you study with me long enough, you will do it, too.

In order to have strength in the middle voice, you must develop head register first, crossing it down past the break until it “settles” and develops the ability to withstand breath pressure. Then you can work on strengthening chest register, without pressuring the tongue in the back, and carrying that up to about E/F/G above middle C. If you do this enough, mix emerges and you don’t have to work on it. It shows up because the instrument has to make an adjustment in order for the larynx to remain freely moveable. Of course, most people need assistance to get this to happen because there are myriad ways for it to go off on a not-too-wonderful tangent that causes, rather than eliminates, vocal problems. Breathing here is an ingredient, but THIS CANNOT BE DONE THROUGH BREATH SUPPORT. No. Nor can it be accomplished through manipulation of “the resonators” since the only factors involved are the tongue itself (it’s position and shape), the soft palate, the lips and the jaw. You cannot vibrate your sinus cavities. They do not add anything to the sound (FACT — go read Johan Sundberg’s book if you do not know this). After that, if you want to learn to belt, you can, but you have to gradually take “chest” up without pressure or weight and without changing the vowel sounds too much. There is more than one way to belt, of course, just like there is more than one way to sing classical or Broadway music, but you only have the vocalis and the crico-thyroid to adjust the source (the vocal folds) so you are in chest if you aren’t in head (as the primary default) or vice versa. The people who say that belting isn’t chest register do not understand register function…..and usually do not themselves, belt. Read the science, not the pedagogy.

One way to learn something is to be completely immersed in it.

Many years ago I took some jazz lessons with a pianist. Having no idea at all about what I was doing, I just sang. I tried to feel “jazzy”. Every now and then he would say, “No, you can’t do that. It’s not in the groove. It’s not jazz.” I found this confusing, because he couldn’t tell me why it wasn’t or what to do about making it better. We would just try again. Sometimes he would sing it for me and I would just copy him. I don’t think I did too well even then.

He grew up with jazz, his life was jazz, he could eat, drink and sleep jazz, and all that jazz is. It was his world and his life. He likely just taught himself (don’t know) but there were many things about singing jazz that were very clear to him and completely opaque to me. Of course, I could have gone back to school to actually study jazz. It’s not like it isn’t available. But at that time, I didn’t really have a clear path to do that and I just tried to listen to more jazz vocalists. Eventually, that helped a lot. At least it gave me a better context for the art.

Many things in life are like that. Language is one, culture is another — but, you have to want to learn. You can be in the midst of something and shut it out (although I think that takes a lot of willpower). Most of us “pick things up” if we hang out with whatever it is for a long time and we associate with others who hang out with it, too. Immersion will allow you to pick up things by osmosis, if you are open to that. Somehow or other we just “get it” and find that we are aware of something that we didn’t notice before.

It’s very hard to teach someone to sing without a context. If the person who wants to sing hasn’t really listened to singing, you can’t substitute for that in the lessons. You have to ask her to go out and listen on her own. If she wants to sing jazz, it’s better to have her listen to jazz vocalists (and instrumentalists, too) but not necessarily to listen to opera, and vice versa. While listening to all kinds of voices in all kinds of music and from all eras would give a person a very good general awareness of what a human being does while singing, it takes concentrated listening to inform the mind of the context of the style. You have to really be in it, surrounded by it and let it drench you in all directions if you intend to make it fully your own. There is also no really good substitute for live listening. Recordings are fine but these days they are so much manipulated and tinkered with, you don’t really know whether or not what you are hearing has anything to do with a real person who is really singing.

I am someone who can pick something up by just being around it for a long enough time. I notice what goes on in my surroundings, with other people (in terms of social clues) and what is part of the environment. I gather information not only from what is but from what is not, but I don’t do that all the time with everything. No one does. We all notice different things in different ways. If you are going to sing, however, you have to notice singing and singers, and you have to broaden what you notice to include as many ingredients as possible. The more you immerse yourself, the more you will “osmose” the world you are taking in.

Remind your students to listen and listen a lot.

In order to develop as an artist, you must be able to direct your concentration to a single point of focus. You must learn to get your mind to stay on that focus without wandering for quite a while. You must learn to probe deeply into your concentration so that it steadies and becomes alive in each moment, rather than have it put you to sleep.

Many people do not understand the purpose of practice. They mistakenly think that “running through things” is practicing. They think “warming up the voice” is all there is to do. Most people want to just “get to the songs” as quickly as possible. Vocal exercises are boring and to be endured and the ones used don’t really matter. One is just as good as another, more or less. Go higher, go lower, get softer, get louder, speed up, slow down, open your mouth, close your mouth, breath low. Some version of this is what most people usually have. Who wouldn’t be bored with that?

If you do not know how to probe deeply into vocal practice, by directing your attention to the small details of what is happening musically, physically and mentally, you are not really practicing, you are, mostly, wasting time while making voiced sounds. If you cannot harness your mind to the tasks at hand in the present moment, you have to learn, because if you do not, you will never be able to direct your attention to something helpful.

Concentration is an act of will. It doesn’t happen to you from outside. It might be that something external catches your attention briefly, but if you really are going to sustain your one-pointed focus, you cannot depend on flashy experiences to be always available to substitute for your own determination to keep your mind on the goal at hand.

Many young people do not understand how to concentrate at all. The images on TV go by very quickly. They multi-task, they are continuously distracted. Remind your students that they must learn to concentrate before they can expect to improve their abilities. It seems like this would be obvious but many people do not know how to concentrate on anything for longer than 5 minutes. That’s not long enough to do any good.

It’s frequently true that young people do not understand what the word “professional” means. One of my many jobs as a teacher is to tell them.

If you are a singer, being a professional is something to take seriously. Each of the styles has its own criteria, but those who are successful in that style learn what the expectations are. Jazz vocalists who are high level successful singers with careers will tell you what they think they have to know in order to be successful. Broadway vocalists will give you a different set of criteria, as will gospel singers. There are some things, though, that run through all of the vocal arts.

One is a being good at what you do without having to fuss over it. You sing on pitch, you have control over what you are singing in terms of volume and phrasing, diction and expression. You can sing when you are less than 100% well, and know how to “manage” when you are not up to par but not seriously ill. You can speak the language of music with others using the same terms and words they use knowledgeably. You can communicate with an audience in a live situation no matter what kind of a venue it is. You know how to practice and rehearse to prepare for performances or gigs. You can adapt what you are doing when necessary, and are not so rigid as to have only one way to do something, no matter how much you like it or how it works.

You know how to work with other colleagues in a respectful and efficient way. You arrive on time, prepared for your job with proper equipment, music and clothing. You do not waste other’s time by doing things that are distracting in a rehearsal. You thank the people you work with when you are done.

If you do not do these things, you might still have a career, but you would have to be either very lucky or so talented that you can outsing the rest of the universe. Otherwise, the people who are also in your area are going to find out very quickly that you are not a pro, you don’t behave professionally and you are not the kind of person they would want to work with. In other words, you won’t last.

Best to learn these things while you are young and aspiring, as the hard knocks school of life will give you a failing grade if you don’t.

A lot has been written about talent. Everyone’s take on talent is unique. Talent is this or that or the other, but no one can say for sure, exactly, what talent is.

To me, talent is something that a person does very well without much training or effort. The capacity exhibited garners recognition from the outside world without it being sought by the talented person. Talent is “being good at” anything, sometimes profoundly good.

But the saying goes, talent is overrated. Success is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. And here in New York, where talented people are like bunches of grapes, collected at every market in all flavors and colors, talent and $2.00 will get you a ride on the subway or bus.

If you have talent in the arts, rather than, for instance, a talent for fixing cars or building boats, you may or may not be lucky enough for that talent to lift up your life and transform it. Luciano Pavarotti said in his first biography that he knew someone in his home town who was a much better singer than he (hard to believe), but that the man didn’t have the interest, drive or ambition to do anything with his singing other than sing at home.

The combination of things that has to come together in order for the talented person to have the talent become the driving force in his life is formidable. So many people have some of the things that are needed but not all of them. I have found it almost heartbreaking to see how close someone can come to having everything work only to miss the mark by a molecule.

If you have a room full of people who have beautiful voices, who are musical, who are expressive, who have studied to develop their capacities to sing (in any style) and who have the interest, desire, drive and capability to organize their lives so that singing becomes the goal, you will have some people who never become professional singers, some who do, and some who make a patchwork quilt of singing and other things that allows them to live somewhere in the middle. You will have some who succeed at the highest level, maybe even world fame, some who succeed and are known only to their peers, some who succeed locally and some who barely make it.

Would that it were so that only those who deserve success got to be successful! If only the world could hear all the amazing voices that exist, and all the people whose hearts are filled with song and with feeling, what a different universe this would be. Until that day, however, those who are talented and who may have ended up behind a desk, or in a restaurant, or on an airplane should remember that man who knew Pavarotti. He sang at home and was content to do so. Let that be a solace to us all.

I have long been fascinated with the way our minds work.

How we think, how we perceive through the balance of mental and physical interaction, how we remember and store our experiences, how we organize things in logical and personal ways — all of this and more is interesting to me and it is a vital part of singing and learning to sing.

One of the most enjoyable things about being an artist is to explore diversity for its own sake. How many ways can I sing this phrase? How many things in this phrase can I do without losing it or its most important ingredients? How far can I go away from what was written without going too far? What is too far anyway? Delving into these questions is delving into the mind, the senses, and the body over and over again, each time discovering something new.

It is with verbal communication, however, that we falter. What do I mean when I say I “sound sad”? How does sad sound? Is there just one way or several ways? How do you know I sound sad? Do you also feel sad when you hear me? Maybe that’s just your reaction, and maybe the person sitting next to you doesn’t feel that way at all.

This is where clear use of language, clear intention in both thought and spoken word, and clear communication are vital to teaching any of the arts. I can certainly ask you to open your mouth, open it more, or open it while shaping your lips in a particular manner. I can ask you to make a sound while you do that, or just do it quietly. I can ask you to look at yourself while you do it or just feel it from inside. I can ask you what it feels like to do it. There are whole bunches of things that I can ask for clearly and communicate to you in a manner that is not confusing, but at some point I can’t know what you are experiencing, and that is what matters. I might think you understood me, and you might think you understood me, and we could both still be wrong if don’t both agree that what I asked for and what you gave me were in agreement.

What do you mean? How do you mean it? What other implications does that meaning have? How have you categorized this experience? In some ways, it’s amazing how well we all do when there are so many variables.

The KISS system (Keep It Simple Stupid) is the best. If it can’t be said simply, something is wrong. The simpler the communication, the less likely it will go askew. That’s why I don’t like “spin the tone through the forehead” and why I do like “sing that a little softer and allow your jaw and tongue to relax”.

We need to clarify the difference between terms that are used in various parts of the professions that deal with voice.

These are my “takes” on things. Check into these and draw your own conclusions.

Vocal folds are the medical name of the ligaments that vibrate in the larynx to make sound. Vocal cords is the term still used (but fading) in the teaching (pedagogic) community.

The larynx is a cartilage and a joint. This is a medical term used in the other professions. In lay terms the larynx is sometimes called the “voice box”.

The term “falsetto” is a pedagogic term to describe a particular kind of sound. The behavior of the vocal folds in this sound is generally referred to as “loft” in voice science and is caused by the vocal folds touching loosely. If you define falsetto as a production that has little vocal fold contact at the bottom of the folds and acoustically has most of its energy in the fundamental (Fo), then everybody can produce it.

The term head register, as well as the terms head resonance, head tone, head mechanism, light mechanism and upper register are all pedagogic terms. They refer to a sound produced by the Crico Thryoid action upon the vocal folds that stretches and thins them to raise pitch by increasing length and tension, thereby causing only the upper edges of the folds to meet. This could be called CT behavior.

The term chest register, as well as the terms chest resonance, chest tone, chest mechanism, heavy mechanism, and lower register, are all pedagogic terms. They refer to the sound produced by the main body of the vocal fold (the vocalis) that brings the full depth of the fold into closure for vibration. This could be called TA behavior.

The terms breath support and breath management are pedagogic terms. The voice science term is sub-glottic pressure but also references trans-glottal airflow. Medicine uses both.

The term for changes in volume in music is dynamics, in pedagogy is intensity and in science is decibel level or sound pressure level.

In physics, resonance is the tendency of a system (usually a linear system) to oscillate with larger amplitude at some frequencies than at others. In pedagogy, it means different things to different people.

People “discover” things as they sing. They teach what they “discover” to others who are supposed to “understand” what the teacher means. If the teacher has not run these discoveries by any scientist or doctor, the teacher doesn’t really know if his or her conclusions are meaningful or valid. That does not, however, stop most of them from dealing with the information as they understand it as if it were “true”.

Singing teachers like to make up terms (truthfully, everyone does it, in all the professions). This is not helpful to anyone. If everyone would make an attempt to stick to the terms that are already out there (by first finding out what they are), and trying to use them or comment upon why the usage should change, instead of coming up with a new word for “wheel”, everyone would benefit.

If you are teaching and you make up something and then give what you have made up names or create a term for it, PLEASE STOP!!!!!!! Find out what the words are that already exist, and why they exist, that are standard lexicon in whatever profession you are in and/or the other related professions and use those words.

It’s possible to fix a broken voice. It’s possible to fix one that is pretty skewed. It’s possible to fix one that’s just a little bit off base.

It’s possible to wreck a perfectly fine voice. It’s possible to take one that is slightly skewed and skew it more. It’s possible to take a voice that is slightly off and make it slightly off but in a completely different way.

It is possible to take someone who can sing very well, almost leave them alone, give them absolutely minimal instruction, and see continuous improvement, not based upon the teaching but on the ability of the singer.

It is possible to take someone who can barely sing and, through the skill, care, patience, determination, kindness and persistence of the teacher, help that person learn to sing decently and be very happily satisfied.

It is possible to take someone who can sing decently and help that person become a very excellent singer with a wide range of control and skill, through a combination of determination on the part of the singer, on the part of the teacher and of natural ability of both.

It is possible to take someone who sings really well naturally, and through terrible teaching, demoralization and negative evaluation, take away all of their natural ability and kill the joy of singing such that they never ever sing again, let alone study.

It is possible to take someone who can barely sing and kill any chance the person might have of learning to sing by simply saying to the person, “You have no talent, you will never sing, so don’t even bother to try”.

It is possible to mistake a vocal health problem for a technical problem, thereby compounding things on both sides.

It is possible to mistake a technical problem for a health problem by simply not knowing when to refer a student to a qualified otolaryngologist.

It is possible to assign problems with singing to a technical issue when it is something being aggravated by speech and the speech issues are ignored or, worse, not noticed as issues at all by the singing teacher.

It is possible to sing effectively and have a good career with no training in singing of any kind, but only if you do not sing classical repertoire.

It is possible to sing effectively and have a good career with a flawed voice, as long as the type of music you perform doesn’t require you to expose the flaws.

It is possible to have a very beautiful voice and be absolutely unable to express any kind of genuine emotion in it while singing, which will make you boring and unlikely to have a career.

It is possible to have a very unattractive voice and be so emotionally powerful when you use it that no one really cares how you sound (unless you are a classical singer, in which case, you have to at least stay in that ballpark).

It is possible to sing in a way that shouldn’t be possible because there is so much wrong with how it happens and what it sounds like, but somehow or other it works anyway.

As you can see, the possibilities are endless.