Good Tone Production for Singing
A major goal of serious students of voice is to learn how to produce smooth, even, fully resonant, pleasant tone throughout the range.
Ideal tone is a complex product of breath control, vocal fold function, position of the larynx, tongue, nose, and soft palate, as well as use of resonance in the head and throat cavities, (amongst other functions of the vocal apparatus). Beyond these 'basics', there are many other nuances and intricacies of tone, such as colour, quality, registration, etc., that are best developed with some professional, expert guidance. Tone is far too complicated for me to treat in depth in this article, and far too complicated to learn by merely reading suggestions and advice from others on the internet.
I strongly recommend that you find a knowledgeable, experienced voice instructor who will teach you correct singing technique and improve your overall tone. Opt for a technique instructor who will focus a great deal on your tone development over a vocal coach who will likely spend more time on having you sing songs than on fully developing your technical skills. (Read my article Vocal Coaching or Vocal Technique Instruction? to learn more about the difference between these two styles of teaching.) Working with a vocal instructor who is highly knowledgeable about the science of singing will help you to gain a better understanding of how to use your body to produce a desirable, 'perfect' tone. Furthermore, with some help, you can become aware of and eliminate tone production errors, and thus improve breath control, stamina, vocal agility, volume, range and vocal health as a result.
The following subsections will address topics ranging from common technical errors that produce poor tone, why they occur and how to correct them to finding ideal vocal resonance to why our voices all sound different to the role of breathing in tone production to register blending to exercises that will help a beginning student learn to feel and hear correct tonal balance in the voice. (Again, I can't emphasize enough the inherent inadequacy of this article to help a singer create balanced tone. It is merely intended to provide some information to help guide a singer to a better understanding of his or her voice. A singer who is truly serious about achieving a great vocal tone should study vocal technique with a competent, knowledgeable instructor.)
This article is intended to go in tandem with the Singing With An Open Throat: Vocal Tract Shaping article soon to appear on this same site, which will address other aspects of tone creation, such as ideal positions of the tongue, jaw, lips, soft palate, larynx, etc. and the acoustical science of formants, which add warmth and vibrancy to the singing voice.
COMMON TONE PRODUCTION ERRORS
Although there are numerous undesirable colours and 'shades' of tone, (such as 'pinched', 'sharp-' or 'shrill-sounding', 'flat-sounding', 'shaky', 'thin', etc.), I tend to divide the most common tone production errors into three general categories: breathy, nasally and throaty. In this article, I have also included a fourth tone production error, pressed phonation, because it is also relatively common amongst untrained or incorrectly trained singers. Each of these errors in sound or tone production is a product of poor singing technique and results in a failure to create optimal resonance, which is an important part of good singing. These faulty tones all tend to hamper loudness ability and limit range, control, stamina and volume. Furthermore, since improper tone production is created through improper use of the vocal apparatus, it can also lead to vocal fatigue, strain or injury.
In some cases these tone production weaknesses may indicate the presence of a medical condition (e.g., vocal fold dysfunction or other glottal incompetence, etc.) that is preventing the vocal apparatus from functioning optimally. It is always in the singer's best interest to have a doctor examine his or her vocal tract in cases where the singer finds that he or she is unable to make improvements in singing tone after a reasonable length of time working with a qualified vocal instructor, or where persistent pain or discomfort is present during either singing or speech. A correct diagnosis and proper treatment of such medical concerns can save the voice from (further) injury, and save the singer from years of frustration and discouragement when he or she remains unable to produce desirable tone.
It is important to understand that many singers may demonstrate these tone production errors only at certain times, in certain places within their range, on certain vowels or at certain pitches. Also, the voices of some singers may be described in more than one way. For example, some singers are both nasally at points and throaty at other times during a song.
BREATHINESS: THE 'AIRY' VOICE
Breathiness is by far the most common tonal weakness that I encounter in my teaching, and most predominantly among my female students of all ages. There are numerous explanations for why breathiness occurs in a singing or speaking voice, and I will explain them in the paragraphs below. Many singers are not aware of the breathiness that is present in their voices, nor of its undesirability and inefficiency, until it is pointed out to them and until they become aware of what good tone and resonance should sound and feel like.
A 'breathy' quality or an 'airy' tone can be heard as an audible passing or 'leaking' of air through the mouth while singing, almost like the faint sound of air leaking out of a tire or balloon. It is often described as an 'unfocused sound or tone', and tends to create a diffuse and wispy sound, or a raspy, scratchy vocal quality (e.g., as in the case of ex-president Bill Clinton's speaking voice). This mode of phonation, when habitually used, is also termed hypofunctional.
During inhalation, the vocal folds come apart to allow air to enter the lungs. Directly after inhalation and immediately prior to phonation (or singing, for our purposes here), however, the vocal folds need to come together gently and firmly with the aid of the laryngeal muscles. This closure cuts off the escaping air. When the air pressure in the trachea rises as a result of this closure, the folds above it are blown apart, while the vocal processes of the arytenoid cartilages - a pair of small, pyramid-shaped (three-sided) cartilages that form part of the larynx, to which the vocal folds are attached - remain in apposition (side by side). This creates an oval shaped gap between the folds and some air escapes, lowering the pressure inside the trachea. Rhythmic repetition of this movement, a certain number of times a second, creates a pitched note. Ideally, the vocal folds should contact each other completely during each vibration, fully closing the gap between them.
In order to oscillate, or vibrate, the vocal folds need to be brought near enough together - this is known as vocal fold closure or approximation - so that air pressure builds up beneath the larynx . This increased subglottal - the area below the glottis, or larynx - pressure causes the folds to vibrate and make sound. The vibration of the vocal folds modulates (regulates) the flow of air being expelled from the lungs during phonation.
When the vocal folds fail to close completely before singing, however, breathiness results. In other words, a breathy style of singing is achieved by holding the vocal folds apart. In breathy phonation, there is insufficient resistance by the vocal folds to the air that sets them into vibration. As a result, airflow escapes the glottis during the quasi-closed phase, which generates noise and produces a strong fundamental.
Poor approximation (closure) of the vocal folds explains much of the breathiness that I encounter in my teaching, especially in my young female students. Students often need help developing a good onset of sound or attack at the start of a sung phrase.
Many untrained and self-conscious singers produce this tone in order to soften the edges of their voices so that they don't sound as loud. Oftentimes, new students who have never taken lessons before are extremely nervous when they first meet me - a trained, professional singer - assuming that I will critique them harshly or make fun of them for their less-than-perfect singing voices. They then produce a very quiet, conservative, airy sound while singing in front of me. In some cases, the issue of self-consciousness becomes most pronounced during puberty, a time during which young students must contend with an inconsistency in their changing and maturing voices and must come to accept and embrace a newly emerging adult voice that sounds different than what they have grown accustomed to hearing themselves produce. The voice is a significant part of who we are as individuals, and if we don't feel as though what we have to share is worthy of being heard by others, we may produce a non-projective, quiet singing or speaking voice. Sometimes improvements happen immediately, once the student becomes more comfortable singing in front of me, but most of the time, it takes some work to help them get past their psychological hang-ups so that we can clean up their tone.
Often there may be certain sections of a singer's range, or certain notes, that seem to come out particularly breathy or unclear. Sometimes this faulty tone emerges around pivotal registration points or only within certain registers. Most often, breathiness in untrained males occurs in head voice, as these students either are afraid of hurting themselves by singing above speech-inflection range and hold back on breath energy to reduce volume and strain or are simply unaccustomed to hearing themselves sing in higher pitches and substitute a breathy falsetto-type voice for legitimate full voice. In young untrained females, breathiness often emerges in the middle register because they tend to relax their breath support and reduce their breath energy in this range where they are more comfortable singing the notes or because of underdevelopment of this range. In untrained females who have passed puberty, breathiness often occurs in head voice because they fail to make appropriate vowel modifications and then produce a 'spread' vowel sound rather than experiencing the necessary 'narrowing' of the vowels that would otherwise enable them to maintain a clear, free tone in the upper register. In lighter- or higher-voiced females, I sometimes notice a lack of focus in the tone when they are singing at the bottom of their chest or natural voice ranges. (The bottom extreme of a singer's range is impaired by breathiness because the marked shortening of the vocal folds tends to set the folds apart and create a bulging mass within the vocal folds.) These women tend to produce a vocal fry-type mode of phonation, which can be damaging to the voice if used excessively. In all of these cases, improvement in vocal technique corrects the problem of breathiness in the voice.
Many singers struggle to maintain clarity in their tone only while singing certain vowels. More closed vowels - ones in which the tongue is positioned close to the roof of the mouth - such as the [e] and [i], tend to give many students problems because, while attempting to add openness to the vowel to prevent it from sounding tight or squeezed, singers often end up spreading the vowel. For others, more open vowels - ones in which the tongue is in a low position - such as [a], seem to invite breathiness. Front or back vowels, as well as vowels that are either rounded or unrounded, may also be more or less problematic for certain singers. Most singers seem to have difficulties with at least one vowel when they first walk into my studio, and the reasons for these problems are often easy to pinpoint but painstaking to correct. In most cases, articulation of vowels and vocal tract shaping are what need to be addressed and corrected, and old habits are often hard to break.
Insufficient breath energy accounts for the rest of the breathiness that I hear in my students' voices. Often new students assume an overly relaxed posture and fail to use good support of their breath. They need to learn how to manage their airflow by balancing the resistance provided by the expansion of the intercostals muscles and the controlled rise of the diaphragm (see Appoggio in Correct Breathing For Singing). When trying to eliminate a breathy tone, many singers will attempt to force the sound out in order to get more volume, pushing instead of supporting the voice, which only masks the problem and creates tension in the neck and shoulder muscles and an unsteady flow of air. Thinking in terms of 'allowing' or 'letting' more air out, rather than 'pushing' more air out sometimes makes a significant difference both psychologically and physically. The notion of letting more air out often helps a student to relax and control the breathing mechanism better. There is an optimal balance of muscular involvement that needs to be achieved for singing. A singer must remain neither too relaxed, nor too tense. Once support improves, breathiness generally lessens.
Some students produce breathy tones only when descending in pitch. They tend to relax their breath energy because the pitch demands are not as high going downward on a scale. The laryngeal muscles may also become lax.
Some singers find that physical fatigue from inadequate rest makes it impossible for them to find the energy needed to support their voices and coordinate their bodies well enough to produce a clear tone. Better sleeping habits tend to immediately improve this kind of breathy tone production.
Insufficient hydration (dryness) can also temporarily create a breathy tone in a singer's voice, as the vocal folds do not function optimally when they lack sufficient moisture for lubrication.
Some singers use a breathy tone in an effort to imitate the vocal stylings of their favourite singers. If the students' vocal role models are singers like Britney Spears and Mariah Carey, who employ breathy, raspy, scratchy sounds for artistic effect, they may, either consciously or unconsciously, adopt the same tonal quality as their own, viewing it as both desirable and marketable. Emulating or learning to sing in the same fashion as their idols encourages the development of poor technique, and is potentially detrimental to the vocal apparatus. It may take months or years to help students understand why this tone is undesirable and to unlearn these bad vocal habits.
Of course, there is a place within contemporary music where breathiness may be acceptable. This effect, when intentionally but sparingly used, can add some thoughtfulness, sweetness, drama, sexiness and intimacy to a song, and can be an intentional effect to increase artistry.
However, many of these famous singers are unable to produce a clean, focused tone due to poor singing technique. They sing each song on their CDs with the same unfocused tone. If this is the only way in which a singer is able to sing, then he or she lacks good technique and should not be considered an ideal vocal model. He or she may make a good living with this style of sound production, but success and popularity are not necessarily synonymous with vocal talent, correctness and healthiness, and students of voice should be cautioned to avoid imitating these tones. Just because a singer may have a pleasing, albeit breathy, tone, does not mean that he or she is singing well or correctly, and it doesn't mean that he or she isn't being limited by this tone production choice, if indeed it is a choice. Again, this should not be the only way in which a singer is able to sing.
Prepubescent girls and those who are in their early teens may not be able to fully eliminate breathiness from their voices, as there may be a physiological (medical) explanation for this tone - the mutational chink - that will require maturation to make disappear completely. Although I tread lightly with the voices of younger students, it is possible to safely and gently help to improve the singing tone of these maturing voices, in spite of the mutational chink phenomenon, since some of the breathiness is also attributable to improper singing technique, including inadequate breath support and energy and poor attacks or onsets of sound.
Using gentle glottal onsets, achieved by singing notes in staccato, twang and energized whining (like a baby) in the upper middle and upper range may be effective. Some teachers find that lip and tongue-tip trills help to even out breathy (as well as pressed) phonation. Also, forward consonants, like 'b' and 'v', may help to focus resonance or tone during onset/staccato exercises. Eventually, once tone clears up, these consonants can be removed from the exercises. Using front vowels, particularly the [i] and [e] is generally not recommended for young female voices because they force a firmer adduction (closure) of the vocal folds and thus a higher air pressure on the young instrument. However, in order to produce a balanced training of the voice, these vowels, which occur regularly in both speaking and singing, should not be altogether neglected, even by the young singing voice.
I have had success with removing much of the breathiness in the middle registers of some of my young female students by having them make excited statements like 'Whoo hoo!' and 'Oh no!' in a range of pitches that would fall within their upper middle register. From these exercises, I will often move onto having the young singer say a variety of English words, formed with different vowel sounds, at specific pitches. (They always seem surprised that this 'pitched talking' sounds a lot like singing, but doesn't feel as difficult!) Once these students begin to become aware of the mechanism that maintains clarity of tone during speech at these higher speech-inflection pitches - they can invariably produce a clear 'calling' voice, which suggests to me that the problem of breathiness is often more a matter of psychology than biology - they almost immediately find it easier to produce the same clear tone during the extended vowels of singing. Sometimes just seeing how the vowels that they train with during their lessons are applicable to the singing of songs (i.e., with consonants added to create meaningful words) helps them to make the body-mind connection.
Breathy tones in young singers may also be caused in part by their growing bodies. There tends to be a fair bit of inconsistency in their placement - where they focus their tone - because growth, including that of the vocal apparatus, may occur rapidly. One week, placement works, and the following week, it doesn't. A mere millimetre of growth in the larynx can significantly affect the voice. Often the simplest methods of achieving good tone and placing resonance in the mask or masque (the bony structure of the face), such as humming and the use of more resonant consonants, are the most successful ones with this age group. Once these pre-adolescents are beyond puberty, the problem with inconsistency generally disappears.
Additionally, young singers often lack coordination between their body alignment, the actuator (the lungs and breathing system), the vibrator (the vocal folds) and the resonator (the vocal tract). As they gain better awareness of their postural balance, their breathing becomes more efficient, which in turn helps them to phonate and resonate more efficiently.
Incorrect placement or focus of resonance also contributes to breathiness in students whose voices have already matured. (Some teachers dislike using the term 'placement' to describe where and how singers focus the resonance of their voices because it is both subjective and inaccurate in the sense that tone can't actually be consciously placed. However, I tend to find that it creates positive mental images for most of my students, and helps them to effectively balance their tone with each vowel at each pitch.) Even with a mild sensation of resonance in the resonating cavities of the head and throat, a singer's tone may still not be clear, balanced or efficient. Making some minor adjustments will enable the singer to notice a decrease in breathiness as well as an increase in resonance, and thus a natural increase in volume, airflow and stamina.
Many students have other vocal habits that create impediments to clear, efficient vocal tone. These practices in singing involve the closing of the throat, instability of the tongue, the lowering of the soft palate, and poor vowel formation (bad articulation that changes the natural timbre. I am currently writing an article dedicated entirely to the concept of the open throat and on the ideal positions and shaping of the vocal tract during singing, which will be posted soon.
Certain medical problems, such as vocal fold dysfunctions, can interfere with vocal fold closure. Polyps, cysts and nodes (nodules) are some of the most common medical hindrances to good, clear tone production.
Breathiness is not considered to be an ideal mode of phonation because it distorts vocal resonance, robbing the voice of its full overtones. The breathy voice generally lacks the beautiful 'ring' that is commonly heard in trained voices, and volume is lost because of the imbalanced resonance.
Moreover, because the air escapes rapidly through the gap between the vocal folds, the lungs empty quickly, and the sound is of short duration. In other words, breathy singers tends to have less endurance and are unable to sing long vocal phrases or sustain notes for several measures because they run out of breath too quickly. Because the supply of breath has to be renewed so frequently, the singer's respiration also tends to be short and unsteady.
Breathiness is not a poor tonal quality merely because certain voice instructors say that it is. It isn't merely a matter of acoustical preference or personal taste. Science proves that it is also an unhealthy and abusive one. Voice scientist and teacher Dr. Barbara Mathis did research with fiberoptic cameras that revealed that singing with a breathy tone causes the vocal folds to turn more and more red and the vocal lips to swell to almost twice their normal thickness. This extra swelling of the folds can lead to vocal fatigue, inability to get through vocal performances and other injury, such as vocal nodes. (Former president Bill Clinton is a perfect example of someone who has suffered vocal fatigue due to having a breathy tone.) Although it is scientifically proven that breathy singing is damaging to the voice, many ill-informed teachers continue to teach this technique as a way of 'lightening the voice'.
Holding the vocal folds apart creates muscle tension in the neck that can severely impair singing. Sometimes an improper head and neck alignment can make singing difficult, resulting in a breathy sound due to compensating muscle involvement. The head and neck must be in alignment and must remain relaxed during singing, regardless of intensity or tessitura.
When singers have been singing a certain way, with a certain tone, all their lives, they become very comfortable with the sound that they produce. It feels natural and sounds familiar. Not one of my students has been aware of the breathiness in his or her voice until it has been pointed out to him or her during early lessons. New or untrained singers don't know what to listen for, and they have become accustomed to hearing their voices inside their heads sounding a certain way.
It is the conscientious student of voice, however, who learns to listen analytically to the quality of the tone, judges the sensations produced in the body and understands where changes and improvements ought to be made. (Many of my students respond best to a mixture of scientific information and subjective analysis of physiological responses.) Once a singer becomes aware of both the internal sound and the physical sensations of effective resonance, significant progress in the areas of tone production, agility and breath control begins to be made.
As mentioned above, breathiness is characterized by the audible sound of air 'leaking' from the lungs. Ideally, the vocal folds will provide the correct amount of resistance so that only the amount of air needed to produce sound at the desired pitch and dynamic level escapes at any given moment.
If you are unable to determine simply by listening to yourself sing whether or not your tone is breathy, there are a couple really simple self-monitoring tricks that you can try. First, sing a single note on the vowel [a], (pronounced 'ah'), with your hand placed in front of your mouth and nose, about an inch away. If you feel a lot of breath hitting your palm, then you are likely producing a breathy tone, and using up your air too quickly. (Some air necessarily escapes from your mouth, but it should be minimal.) Try singing all five pure Italian vowels ([e]/'ay' without the 'y' at the end, [i]/'eeh', [a]/'ah', [o]/'oh', [u]/'ooh'), as some vowels may present more of a challenge for you to maintain good tone production while singing them.
A centuries old exercise for checking on airflow levels is the breath management candle test. Sing a vowel with a candle flame placed about five inches from the mouth. In breathy singers, the flame will flutter wildly, whereas in singers with more efficient tone (e.g., with good vocal fold closure and breath control), the candle flame will waver very little. Of course, there are inherent weaknesses to this test, as the room in which the candle is burning needs to be free of drafts and movement.
A more effective test for breathy phonation than either the palm-of-the-hand or the candle-flame methods of self-monitoring involves placing a hand mirror close to the mouth while singing. If there is a lot of breath condensation on the mirror, the tone production is breathy. A clean production, free of a high rate of air expulsion, will show reduced condensation. (Avoid the use of non-voiced consonants for this test because they register high levels of airflow.)
MUTATIONAL CHINK
The mutational chink is a medical term that describes a situation in which an oval opening is left between the vocal folds during the vibratory portion of the cycle; that is, when sound is being produced. (You may recall that I wrote earlier in this article that the folds, ideally, should open during inhalation but gently and fully close just prior to phonation. The closing of the vocal folds creates a degree of resistance to the air that is exiting the lungs, and they begin to buzz in response to the pressure building up beneath them. This buzzing is the basic sound of the voice, before it is shaped by the vocal tract into specific speech sounds.)
In pre- and early adolescent girls, especially between the ages of 11 and 14, the mutational chink creates a breathy tone. Typically, the interarytenoid muscles (the muscles between the arytenoid cartilage that are responsible for closing the gap, or 'mutational chink', that occurs between the arytenoids when the muscular portion of the glottis is closed) enable a singer to achieve a firm closure during the vibratory cycle. However, they develop more slowly than the arytenoid cartilages themselves, leaving a gap. (The arytenoid cartilages, to which the vocal folds are attached, control the folds.)
Girls within this age group tend to have a very well developed chest register that can be carried up quite high, leaving only a small range of pitches in the middle register. If you were to listen to girls within this age group singing in musical theatre, as in the movie Annie, you would notice that they tend to sing mostly in chest (or natural) voice. This extended chest register in young girls is common because the vocal fold muscle, the thyroarytenoid, becomes quite developed while its antagonist, the cricothyroid muscle, which elongates and thins the vocal folds for high pitches, remains somewhat under-developed. With maturation, a lengthening of the middle register occurs.
Breathiness in female adolescent singers can be managed and improved with appropriate exercises, such as staccato. (Read 'The Attack' section below for more exercises to improve the effectiveness of onsets and eliminate breathiness.) However, these muscles need to develop at their own pace, and should not be forced to work overly hard in young voices. During vocal training, onset exercises should be limited to a few minutes per lesson.
Typically, by the age of sixteen, the mutational chink is no longer a hindrance to clear, efficient tone in the female voice.
The term mutational chink also applies to the oval-shaped gap that is left between the vocal folds in order to produce a falsetto-type voice. In falsetto, the vocal folds blow apart, creating an oval orifice in the middle between the edges of the two folds through which a certain volume of air escapes continuously as long as the singer is singing in the same register.
Singers can produce falsetto in a variety of different ways, involving more or less of the vocal folds, and producing a tone with more or less breathiness in it. Some speakers and singers leave the cartilaginous portion of the glottis open (sometimes called mutational chink), and only the front two-thirds of the vocal ligaments enter the vibration. The resulting sound, which is typical of the sound produced by many adolescents, while pure and flutelike, is usually soft and anemic in quality. The mutational chink type of falsetto is considered inefficient and weak.
THE 'ATTACK' (OR ONSET OF SOUND)
The perfect attack describes a vocal situation or technique in which the vocal folds are allowed to gently and adequately come together after inhalation and just prior to phonation. This 'sealing' of the vocal folds helps to ensure a clearer tone and more efficient airflow, as only enough air passes between the vocal folds - in a steady stream - to set them vibrating and to create the desired tone, pitch and volume.
The firmer and more complete the approximation of the lips of the glottis - the combination of the vocal folds and the space in between the folds - the more resistance they will offer to the air that escapes from the lungs, and the less air it will take to set the vocal folds vibrating. The slower the expiration, the longer the sound will last. Therefore, good vocal fold closure enables a singer to sing longer vocal phrases without having to renew his or her breath as frequently because the folds do not 'leak' as much air. The quality of tone is able to ride on a minimal yet healthy stream of breath. The "compressed" sub-glottic breath allows the vocal folds to simply begin vibrating without forced breath pressure. (It should be noted that vocal fold closure serves only to strengthen the source of vibration. Tonal and breath control are strictly functions that are controlled by the body support system.)
Some teachers may refer to this rapid and energetic approximation of the lips of the glottis an instant before expiration as the coup de glotte. The coup de glotte is a natural movement of the vocal organs, and is something that happens during speech as well as during singing, assuming that the vocal folds are functioning optimally and correctly. Singers need only prepare the mouth and glottis for the production of a vowel.
To 'attack' a tone, the breath must be decisively directed to a focal point on the hard palate, which lies under the critical point for each different tone. (This is what many teachers refer to as 'placement'. Each vowel has a different focal point, as do varying pitches.) The breath strikes the top of the palate and sounds above the soft, elastic floor of the mouth (e.g., tongue, etc.). Pressure on this place should be minimalized, however, so that the overtones may be able to sound above and with the tone.
The 'perfect attack', so named by the late master teacher Alan Lindquest (1891-1984), may be difficult to teach and to acquire because it elicits the involvement of many support muscles that the student of voice is not accustomed to controlling intentionally. However, the elasticity of the vocal organs can indeed be developed through vocal training.
In speech, the closing of the vocal folds is an intermittent action, as the opening of the glottis is quickly followed by its closing, or contraction. A good onset during singing is more challenging, however, because of the length of the phonatory cycle, in which vowels are sustained for significantly longer than they are during speech. The singer must learn to keep the glottis contracted and together after its lips (the vocal folds) have been brought together. Once a note has been 'attacked', the singer then needs to maintain the same closed glottal position.
The singer must learn not to close his or her throat in order to close the vocal folds. This problematic technique is often referred to as a closed-throated technique or high-larynxed singing. The singer needs to learn to structure the voice without producing excess laryngeal pressure. The body (fuel tank) must learn to stay somewhat open without too much tension in order for the vocal folds to stay properly approximated.
A good attack or 'onset of sound' is desirable not only because it eliminates breathiness in the tone, but also because it creates an immediate access to healthy vocal tone and resonance. Balanced singing timbre is initiated and perpetuated throughout the entire phrase. When breath and resonation are coordinated actions, pitch targeting and exactitude of spectral balance immediately occur. In other words, mastery of the onset of sound enables a singer to begin a pitch at the perfect centre, and is essential to good sound production. Additionally, it allows the acoustical space in the throat to stay open, which enables the voice to begin vibrating in a healthy fashion. Problems with vibrato disappear quickly. Balance in registration can also begin to develop.
The perfect attack must not be confused with "glottic shock", which is a situation in which the vocal folds are held together with too much glottic pressure (an over-approximation of the folds) and then pushed or forced apart with an explosion of breath pressure. This is very injurious to the vocal instrument, potentially creating vocal fatigue, strain or damage, and encouraging the singer in an injurious technique of singing. A singer must always remember that the breath line is controlled with the body support system, not the glottis. If the breath is controlled correctly with the body, it is virtually impossible to use or produce glottic shock.
Simple exercises that enable the folds to approximate in a healthy manner can help students with vocal fold approximation problems learn to feel the closure mechanism at work. Speaking brief, energized expressions such as 'Every orange' or 'Ah ha!' with a hand placed gently on the larynx can accomplish this. It's also often helpful to speak single-consonant words at various pitches. I find that using staccato on simple three-note exercises or arpeggios elicits a clean and rapid voice onset, establishing a dominant mode of vibration. Staccato exercises train the adductor-abductor muscles simultaneously with the tensor muscles during pitch change. (I am careful to listen for signs of pressed phonation, or a squeezing of the sound, at the beginning of the vowels. Ideally, the folds should be closed with the ideal amount of pressure while the throat remains open in order to prevent this tight or squeezing sound from being produced.) I usually immediately follow up staccato exercises with the same exercise in legato so that my students can attempt to reproduce the same tone as they do on the staccato exercises.
'SINGING THROUGH THE NOSE': THE NASALLY VOICE
A nasally kind of voice production is marked by the presence of too much nasality in the tone, which is often more noticeable on high notes. The singer may sound whiny, or sing with a very strong twang.
Some singers with pronounced or evident nasally tones are Vanessa Hudgens, Sia, Gary Levox, lead singer of Rascal Flatts and Wesley Scantlin, lead singer of Puddle of Mudd. Nasally singing is stereotypical of country singers with a southern twang. This particular style of singing has also become increasingly popular amongst R&B and hip-hop singers, both male and female, as these singers tend to employ this type of tone production in order to sing the type of embellishments and improvisations that are characteristic of this genre. (Internally, it creates a feeling of greater control over the voice.)
Followers of the American Idol competition likely remember one airing of the show during its sixth season when contestant Chris Richardson declared, "Nasally is a form of singing! I don't know if you knew that." in response to a critique by judge Simon Cowell, who had described Chris' voice as nasally and tin-y. I would argue that Chris Richardson's retort was not only a demonstration of his arrogance and unwillingness to accept constructive criticism, but also a reflection of his lack of knowledge about good singing tone.
While hypernasality, also known as nasalance, may indeed be a tone with which some people intentionally sing, and although some listeners may even enjoy certain nasally voices, it is not generally considered to be a desirable tone, a pleasing sound or a valid nuance in singing. In fact, most people find it annoying and grating.
Nasally singers subconsciously create a tone that sounds good to them internally and that has a characteristic timbre of the sound that they believe that they should be achieving. However, the sound that they hear inside their heads does not translate to the audience. They misinterpret the biofeedback that they receive while singing because nasal sounds seem to produce more volume and more 'presence'. The listener, though, simply hears how restricted the vocal sound is. This false sound and imbalanced resonance is not rich and full, and it may take years to undo the tensions that are created by this vocal habit.
Beyond the subjective critique of nasally singing in which listeners find the vocal sound to be acoustically unappealing, there is nearly universal agreement among vocal teachers and vocal scientists about what makes for good, balanced, healthy speaking and singing tone. Apart from that which naturally occurs during intended, intermittent nasal phonemes - the smallest contrastive structural units in the sound system of a language that distinguish meaning, though they carry no semantic content themselves in language - a nasally tone is considered to be a less acceptable and technically incorrect vocal element in most genres of music. It encourages singers to sing with poor technique and does nothing to expand, enhance or develop the voice. In fact, it severely limits the voice. Perhaps most importantly, though, nasality is not a healthy approach to singing.
Nasality is a combination of several vocal issues working together to distort true vocal resonance. The voice's resonance needs to be balanced throughout the resonating cavities of the body during singing in order for the voice to produce a warm, fully resonant tone. Closing off the voice in the nose not only produces less resonance, and thus less volume and a thinner tone, but it also limits a singer's range, particularly as he or she moves upward in pitch. Focusing one's resonance in the nasal cavity produces nearly the same 'closed off' effect as a head cold or nasal allergies.
Most often, nasality is a result of a few factors, including a raised back of the tongue, a lowered soft palate (or velum, or muscular palate, which is the soft tissue constituting the back of the roof of the mouth) and a forward jaw position.
First, a nasal sound is produced by raising the back of the tongue toward the soft palate and lowering the soft palate toward the tongue. During speaking or singing, the velum is lowered only for the formation of nasal consonants. However, nasality will also occur in non-nasal vowels if closure of the velopharyngeal port (the entrance to the nasal chambers from the pharyngeal and oral cavities, lying between the velum and the walls of the pharynx) is lacking. This port can be closed by elevating and backing the velum, like a flap, until it approximates the posterior pharyngeal wall. Pharyngeal wall movement normally accompanies velopharyngeal closure to form a tighter seal at the port. The degree of constriction or closure of the velopharyngeal mechanism varies according to phonetic context from the low positions typical of nasal vowels and consonants to the intermediate positions typical of low vowels to the more closed positions typical of high vowels to the highest positions typical of oral consonants.
Helpful in demonstrating the movement of the soft palate for nasal and non-nasal sounds is the use of a hand mirror. (Wall mirrors are fine, too, if you can get close enough to see inside your mouth clearly.) If you were to say 'Ah' with your mouth opened enough to see the back of your mouth (e.g., the soft palate and posterior pharyngeal wall), you would see that the uvula lifts up and moves backward and the fauces also push back along with it. This action of the velum closes the port to the nasal cavity. Speaking a nasal vowel, as in the French 'in' or 'an', would involve little or no movement of the soft palate. In fact, the velum remains lowered in order to allow the velopharyngeal port to remain open and sound to enter the nasal cavity. (It may be difficult to witness the lowering of the soft palate on such nasal vowels because the middle of the tongue tends to move upward when forming them, obstructing the view of the back of the mouth.)
When nasal consonants are spoken or sung, the velopharyngeal port is open, permitting open resonation of the voiced air stream in the nasal cavity. At the same time, the oral cavity is closed off at some point, forcing the airflow through the nasal cavity. For example, for [m] production, the resonating cavity consists of the open nasal cavity and the oral cavity occluded (shut off) at the lips. For [n] production, it is closed by the tip of the tongue resting on the gums behind the upper front teeth and the body of the tongue against the upper teeth themselves. For [ng] production, the oral cavity is closed off by the back of the tongue and the raised soft palate. In order to pronounce the word 'hanger', which has a nasally sound, for instance, we need to lower the soft palate and raise the back of the tongue.
Apart from these three sounds that require more resonance in the nasal cavity, almost all speech sounds in the English language are oral sounds. Therefore, the entrance to the chamber of the nose must be closed off most of the time.
To understand a little better how the role of nasality in singing, try this demonstration. First, sing the vowel [a] at a comfortable pitch. While you are singing the note, gently pinch your nose, closing off the nostrils completely. Because the velopharyngeal port is closed during non-nasal sounds - that is, it should be closed if your tone is not nasally - the air from your lungs filters out through your mouth rather than your nose. Your tone should change little, if at all, when you pinch your nose while singing a non-nasal vowel. Now, try humming, and then pinch your nostrils again. You will notice that the voice ceases to make sound. When you hum, you are singing an extended [m] sound or consonant. During nasal consonants, such as [m], the air from your body is filtered out through the nose. Occluding (closing) the nose puts a stop to the stream of air, and thus to the tone.
You may also wish to try singing the phoneme [ng], as in the word 'sung', for a few seconds. Without pause, sing a vowel. Try singing [ng-a-ng-a-ng-a] on the same note. During the nasal, the velopharyngeal port is open, allowing for the nasal sound of the [ng] to be created. However, the velum rises and closes off that port for the elimination of nasality as soon as the vowel appears. In this exercise, you should be able to feel an immediate velar shifting from open to closed nasal port every time that you sing the vowel.
Focusing the resonance of the voice in the nasal cavity during the singing of non-nasals works against the laws of articulation and vocal acoustics. Raising the back of the tongue decreases the amount of space available, cuts off the breath (e.g., nasally singers tend to lock the airflow with the back or root of their tongues) and makes it impossible to form vowels properly. Vowel distortion can be a huge problem in nasal singing because the tongue is not placed in the proper position for the pure vowel sound to be produced. It is important to know how to form pure vowel sounds with an open throat.
Second, the pushing of too much breath pressure through the larynx (resulting in high-larynx singing or a closed throat) tends to contribute to a nasally sound. This produces a tremendous amount of tension at the root of the tongue, which is usually accompanied by a forward jaw position.
The forward jaw position does not allow for the full adduction (closing) of the vocal folds. The air is then expelled chiefly through the nose. This thrusting forward of the jaw encourages a backward pull of the tongue. Without enough opening of the back of the throat, the voice is driven toward the nasal port. The forward thrust of the jaw creates a brighter sound inside the singer's internal hearing, which is a major factor in why singers assume this kind of jaw function. Instead, for good tone production, the jaw should actually gently wrap back after every consonant. (I will be discussing jaw position in greater detail in my upcoming article on Singing With An Open Throat: Vocal Tract Shaping.)
Registration shifts can't occur in a healthy manner if the throat is closed and the vocal sound is driven toward the point of nasality.
In some cases, too much nasality in the tone is the result of severe and chronic nasal allergies or nasal congestion. Oftentimes, treating the symptoms of allergies and congestion is sufficient to improve tone, although sometimes singers with long-term allergy problems have developed compensatory vocal habits that need to be corrected. Usually, they have grown accustomed to hearing how their voices sound inside their heads when their nasal passages aren't clear, and it may take some time getting used to how their voices resonate when there is no longer excess mucous and congestion obstructing resonance. (See the section on dealing with nasal allergies in my article Caring For Your Voice.)
GOOD NASAL RESONANCE
It needs to be understood that the nasal cavity plays an important role in the production of a good vocal tone, and aids in the execution of certain specific vocal techniques. However, as I have already discussed, the nasal cavity can produce a less-than-pleasing overall tone when used inappropriately. There is, therefore, an important distinction to be made between the squeezed or compressed nasally sound that can be heard in singers like Chris Richardson and authentic, good nasal resonance, which is the true 'ring' in the voice that results from an open throat, or the three primary open pharyngeal chambers (naso-pharynx, oro-pharynx and laryngeo-pharynx) and good support in breathing.
In order for sound to be able to filter through the nasal cavity, the tongue and soft palate must be out of the way, rather than bunched up in the back of the throat, and the three pharyngeal chambers need to be open. The singer also needs to have a small stream of air escaping through the nasal port and a sense of a sustaining ring in the voice. When healthy nasal resonance is achieved, the root of the tongue is released, making healthy vocal fold adduction possible.
When true resonance is achieved (beyond nasality), the singer can produce a pure legato line, and have greater volume, more control, smoother registration and complete vocal freedom.
Learning to sing without sounding overly nasally can be difficult for many students who have long been in the habit of singing in this manner. They need to learn to 'place' their tone so that it settles in the three resonating cavities of the vocal tract in a balanced manner, and get used to both the sensations and the sound of singing with more openness in the throat and balance in the tone. This retraining entails lessons in vocal posture, which will include an examination of jaw and tongue positioning during singing. Some students may initially get the feeling that they have less control over their voices once their tone is freed from the nasal cavity because their nasality has always given them a sense of better management and containing of the voice. They have come to trust in the comfortable sensation and seemingly stronger internal sound of nasality, but once the tone begins to enter the other cavities more, they feel as though they have less control over it. However, because there is less space in the oropharynx when the velum hangs low, and more space when the velum rises to close off the velopharyngeal port, in time most singers do come to feel a greater sense of openness when the velopharyngeal port is properly closed. These singers also come to experience this new openness as vocal freedom, much like the comfortable phonation that they experience during speech.
A simple trick to check if you are 'singing through your nose' is to gently pinch your nostrils with your fingers, then sing non-nasal vowels and pitch consonants. Sustaining the same note, release the fingers. If the velopharyngeal port is properly closed during non-nasal vowels - that is, if your tone is not hypernasally - the tone should change very little, if at all, when the nostrils are allowed to open again because sound is not actually emitted through the nose on non-nasal vowels. However, if your tone is nasally, you will find that your voice becomes noticeably thinner when your nostrils are occluded.
One tool for ridding the voice of nasality suggested by master teacher David L. Jones is to shape the hand flat, then place it laterally in the mouth and breathe above it. This will stretch the soft palate and, ideally, lift it.
THE 'THROATY' TONE
The throaty voice is characterized by too much pharyngeal resonance and/or excessive pharyngeal tension. This technique can produce a hollow sound within the voice. I like to describe the sound produced by 'throaty singers', which seems to have become popular in recent years amongst certain pop, Gospel and R&B singers, as something that you might hear from Kermit the Frog, Pee Wee Herman or the cartoon martian that Bugs Bunny encounters in space. Of course, these are examples in which pharyngeal tone production is extreme. David Archuleta from American Idol's seventh season is a more practical example of a singer with a 'throaty' tone production that is present both in his singing and in his speaking voice. In the chorus of Fly, the lead singer of Sugar Ray, Mark McGrath, demonstrates a particularly pronounced pharyngeal tone on the words "I" and "fly".
Some singers employ this technique of tone production because they are under the impression that it makes their voices sound 'bigger' and deeper. They tend to use it whenever they want to 'belt' out a note or add a 'growl', falsely darkening the timbre of their vowels and tone.
Other singers produce a throaty tone in a misguided attempt to open the throat and increase resonating space. However, this extra space is often created through techniques such as mimicking the feeling or pharyngeal action of a yawn, which inevitably produces the hollow quality of tone with distorted resonance that is heard when one is attempting to talk while yawning.
In reality, though, their ability to produce volume is severely limited because they are not making full use of all of the resonating cavities in their bodies, which strips the voice of its overtones. Essentially, the resonance from sound production during throaty singing is being pushed back into the soft tissue of the upper throat (the soft palate). The fauces - the two pillars, (which include the soft palate, the base of the tongue, and the palatine arches), that constitute the passage from the back of the mouth to the pharynx - tend to rise, separate and push back. The tip of the tongue separates from its ideal position behind the lower teeth, which is often accompanied by an unnatural spreading of the sides of the mouth and tension in the cheek muscles. This technique can lead to tension in the deep tongue muscles, since the tongue is being pushed back unnaturally in order to close off the throat and restrict airflow when a gruff or growling sound is desired. Neck muscle tension, particularly in the submandibular (below the jaw) region, is also common among singers who employ this kind of technique. Furthermore, with the tongue being pushed back, tension is often placed on the larynx because the root of the tongue is closely connected to it.
Correcting this faulty technique entails not only educating a singer on the potentially damaging effects of the pushed back tongue position and excessive soft palate involvement, but also having the singer hear the hollow quality of tone that is produced when the tongue is pushed back and down when demonstrated by someone else (e.g., the vocal instructor). Oftentimes, a singer need only hear how unpleasant the throaty tone is, and he or she is willing to make changes to his or her approach to singing. Therefore, some exercises in correct tongue positioning (relaxed, with the tip of the tongue placed gently behind the lower teeth and the middle, not the back, of the tongue raising or lowering depending on the particular vowel being articulated) immediately improves tone and reduces tongue and neck tension.
I have taught a few students for whom the throaty quality of their voices has not been the result of intentional stylistic choice. These students struggle with excessive pharyngeal quality in their voices only as they approach their passaggi. Their voices seem to deepen - likely because of the lowering of the base of the tongue so that it depresses the larynx - and adopt a hollow, throaty character as a result of the pharyngeal spreading and the erroneous elongation of the resonator tube, but only for a few notes within their range. Usually, they have developed bad compensatory habits - resorting to altering the timbre of their voices - in an attempt to navigate register changes with more smoothness and muscular control. However, there is not an evenness of timbre throughout the range. Once they pass their lower passaggio, the pleasant, balanced quality of their voices returns.
For many singers, certain vowels, most typically the back vowels or open vowels, seem to make this throatiness more pronounced. The vowel sounds 'ah' and 'oh' seem to present the most problems with this kind of pharyngeal spreading, and it is made even more noticeable within certain vowel combinations (e.g., when going from a front to a back vowel). Timbre falsification or altering is almost always successfully eliminated when improper tongue behaviour is addressed and corrected.
PRESSED PHONATION: FORCING OR PUSHING
I would be remiss if I did not include in this discussion on tone the poor vocal technique that leads to what is typically called pressed phonation, which is a hyperfunctional mode of phonation. Pressed phonation occurs quite commonly in speech, in brief instances, but is difficult to consciously control or deliberately create during singing, which makes it somewhat challenging to correct.
Although pressed voices are easily identified by auditory impression, a clear definition or description based on acoustic features and the production mechanisms are unclear. (As a result, many voice instructors with less experience fail to diagnose this problem in their students.) Generally, though, the pressed voice usually has a tense voice quality and is sometimes accompanied by vocal fry or harsh sounds. Oftentimes, at the beginning of a sung vowel, the singer's voice will sound squeezed and tight, and then there is a sound of 'release' of this tightness once the vocal folds relax their resistance and begin vibrating more optimally. This is sometimes described as 'grabbing at the onset.
In pressed phonation, airflow is too energetically resisted by the adducted vocal folds. In other words, the vocal folds are brought together with excessive instrinsic muscular effort, which makes it harder to set them vibrating. The folds then have an elongated closed phase in response to this high airflow and elevated rates of subglottic pressure, and a great deal of air pressure is needed to blow them apart. The result is a forced, 'shouty' quality to the voice that is very tiring for the singer to maintain. Besides demanding a strong effort from the singer, pressed phonation is deleterious to the vocal organs.
In pressed phonation, the open phase of the vocal folds is also much shorter than the closed phase, representing irregularities in periodicity (vibratory rate). The completely closed intervals of the vocal folds are predominant to (or much longer than) the open intervals, which creates the tight or pressed sound. When vibrato is used, the closure gesture of each vibratory cycle also lasts longer than it should, creating an uneven vibrato rate. In pressed phonation, an asymmetry in the movements of the left and right folds can also be noted.
The peak amplitude of the flow pulses in pressed phonation is small - the spectrum of such a voice displays low amplitude of the fundamental frequency - which generates a relatively low level of sound pressure. Harmonic partials that lie beyond 2000 Hz become dominant and the first formant grows excessively prominent, accompanied by a loss of overtones in the region of 3000 Hz, where the Singer's Formant is generated. The pressed voice, then, lacks the overtones necessary to create a balanced, pleasant, rich tone.
Pressed phonation is typically associated with an elevated larynx position, (whereas the healthiest mode of phonation, free-flow phonation, is typically produced with a lower, relaxed larynx).
The popular technique of 'belting' relies heavily upon pressed phonation to give the belting voice its characteristically 'bigger' and brighter sound. A study on belting by singing voice researcher Jo Estill revealed that, just as in pressed phonation, belters have a longer closed quotient phase than in any other type of phonation. With the folds so tightly closed for so long during the vibratory cycle, breath pressure builds up beneath the larynx, supplying the extra 'push' that is needed in order to increase pitch and volume. This amount of breath compression is far greater than that which is necessary in order to produce the voice. This excessive breath pressure, along with the unnatural constrictions of the vocal tract that enable the belting voice to be produced, oftentimes causes damage to the vocal folds, and many belters find themselves unable to keep up with the demands of their performance schedules, canceling shows due to vocal strain, fatigue or injury. Belters also use thyroarytenoid dominant vocal fold activity (responsible for chest voice) higher in the scale than non-belters, maximum muscular involvement of the torso, as well as of the head and neck (in order to stabilize the larynx), a raised larynx, a narrower pharyngeal space, a lowered velum, as well as a flattened tongue and other incorrect vocal posturing. (I have written more about healthy postures of the entire vocal tract in Singing With An 'Open Throat': Vocal Tract Shaping.) Any kind of forcing can lead to vocal deterioration.
Pressed phonation is most commonly seen in male singers as they approach and reach their upper-middle and high range, although many women who fear singing higher notes and incorrectly navigate the upper parts of their range also have pressed tendencies. When singing pitches that lie above speech-inflection range, vocal fold closure is aggressive and subglottic pressure is increased. In attempting to sufficiently energize the body to meet the demands of long phrases and high-lying tessitura and intensity (volume) levels, some singers induce too much laryngeal resistance to airflow. In other words, singers will tend to resort to pressed phonation when they are singing in mid to upper range and are mistakenly substituting increased effort for increased energy. A singer needs to find the proper balance between vocal freedom and energization. I remind my students with pressed phonation problems to allow the tone of their voices to ride on a minimal, steady stream of breath - to use only enough breath energy and air to create a steady, balanced tone for the duration of the sung phrase. This often helps these singers to abandon their habits of 'over supporting' their tone, or feeling as though they need to use a lot of breath in order to sing in the upper registers.
Faulty breath coordination is a major cause of pressed phonation. Unfortunately, many vocal instructors offer misguided solutions when striving to eliminate pressed phonation in their students. Many teachers encourage their students to either insert an imaginary or real "h" at the beginning of phrases or to consciously introduce higher airflow levels (e.g., breathiness, sighing or yawning) as a means of alleviating or eliminating pressed phonation. However, these are not the best approaches to take when dealing with pressed phonation. These are merely compensatory solutions that may end up producing problematic side effects, as one bad technique (i.e., pressed phonation) is merely being replaced with another (i.e., breathy phonation). These techniques only offer temporary relief of the pressure at the vocal fold level without ultimately curing the problem.
Many contemporary singers already habitually insert "h's" before all vowels when they sing, either as an intentional stylistic choice or as an unconscious or instinctive response to incorrect technique (usually to alleviate the mounting vocal fold and muscular tension that they would otherwise feel as they are forcing their voices because of an overly firm glottal closure). The inserted aspirant "h" allows easier production at the climactic (higher) notes of a phrase, but it can easily become a crutch for singers. The letter "h" is an unvoiced consonant - an aspirated sound - meaning that the glottis remains open during its production and the folds don't vibrate or produce sound because the sound is produced by the exiting puff of breath alone, which in turn introduces more air into the tone. As a result, air is lost between the slightly parted vocal folds at the onset of the phrase, just when effective breath management is needed the most. Instead of substituting breathy phonation for the proper balance between airflow and laryngeal response, it would be preferable to learn how to achieve ideal vocal fold approximation through the discipline of the precise onset (the 'attack' and the release. In other words, instead of inserting an "h" or introducing breathiness into the tone, the proper cure for pressed phonation is to learn how to correlate breath emission and vocal tract filtering of the laryngeally generated sound.
Another technique to help alleviate forced phonation in males is to use falsetto exercises. In falsetto production, the vocal folds are not fully occluded (closed), and resistance to airflow is slackened a little. Nevertheless, in falsetto, the vocal fold elongation necessary for pitch elevation still takes place. Temporary and brief substitution of falsetto timbre that is followed immediately by legitimate full voice timbre may be a useful practice device because a lighter onset is produced. The closure mechanism therefore avoids over activation, and more appropriately matches the degree of vocal fold stretching. These exercises can be attempted on a single note, beginning in falsetto, then moving immediately to legitimate full (head) voice without pause. For example, singing a five-note descending scale, a male singer can begin in falsetto timbre at the top note and gradually shift into full voice by the last (bottom) note of the scale.
Yet another corrective technique for addressing pressed phonation is having the student speak short phrases with short syllables, such as 'Ah ha!' and 'Oh, yes!' then sing the same expressions in a corresponding range with comparable intensity. This will help the singer to become aware of the sound and the feel of free timbre as it occurs in the energized singing voice in contrast to the tension inherent in manufactured, pressed, sung phonation. (There should be no greater sensation in the larynx during singing than in clear, energized speech.) However, if the singer also tends to speak with an overly pressed voice, this exercise will not benefit him or her and will not help to correct the problem.
As mentioned in the first paragraph of this section, pressed phonation is quite common during speaking tasks. However it is not as recognizable (noticeable) because the open phase of the glottis is significantly shorter during speech than it is during singing. Every vowel must start out with the feeling of openness in the throat, and every singer must learn to encourage this openness at the beginning of each sung vowel. A particularly useful technique for ridding the voice of the tension and squeezed sound associated with pressed phonation is encouraging such openness in the throat before the tone is brought into focus. The singer can imagine and form the neutral 'uh' vowel in the throat before shaping the desired vowel with the articulators (jaw, tongue, lips, etc.). This will open the pharynx before the tone is created at the laryngeal level. Practicing singing only vowels - without consonants preceding them - is a good idea until pressed phonation tendencies are eliminated, as consonants will sometimes make the squeezed sound less obvious or mask the signs of pressed phonation.
WHAT IS GOOD TONE?
Ideal tone is balanced (between all the resonating cavities of the vocal tract), free flowing (free from tension and constrictions), resonant (with all the overtones present and a 'ring'), pure (the timbre is not made to be something that it isn't naturally), and supported (by good, steady breath pressure). It is characterized by clean vowel definition and a balancing of qualities often referred to as 'focus', 'ring', 'ping', 'placement', 'depth', 'roundness' and 'warmth' to produce a complete voice in which all appropriate resonance factors are present in the singing voice.
When freedom of breath application, unhampered laryngeal response, and resonator configurations are in accord with each other, desirable tonal balances exist. (This combination of ideal characteristics is what defines flow phonation.)
Although we do not hear our voices as others hear them, most singers are capable of differentiating among sounds and thus analyzing the quality of their own vocal tone. Sensation associated with the chiaroscuro tonal balance is identifiable, repeatable, and above all, freedom-inducing. Hearing and seeing the ideal tone becomes a reliable means of self-monitoring, and the student's goal should be to develop an awareness of his or her own body. The student of voice needs to consider how the voice sounds, how it feels and how it looks (e.g., vocal posture, such as position of the jaw and tongue, alignment of the head over the shoulders, etc. when seen in a mirror).
All singers are individuals. Therefore the sensations that one singer might experience during singing may not be felt in the same manner by another singer. Although I will often describe to my students what I feel as I'm singing, I always make sure that they understand that they may not feel the exact same sensations in the same areas of their bodies, nor describe them in the same manner as I do. Technical complications could arise within my students if they strive to achieve the sensations that I do.
Learning to recognize the new sensations experienced during well balanced singing ideally leads to a replacement of previous faulty perceptions. Sometimes, students need a little extra help in learning to recognize when they are singing with good, balanced tone. I will often have my students sing individual notes throughout the chromatic scale and have them attempt to alter their focus or placement - this usually involves making conscious and deliberate adjustments of the vocal tract, allowing the tone to become more nasally, then more breathy, then more centered - until I hear a resonant 'ring' in their voices. I will then draw the students' attention to their vocal quality at that point, and have them make a mental note of both the sensations and the sound experienced when their tone is good.
Generally, after students achieve and identify a tone with ideal resonance balance, I will ask them to describe the sensations, including the locations at which they occur. Describing these sensations in their own words helps them to memorize where and how sensations are felt. They then gain an effective self-monitoring checklist that will later help them to repeat the same methods for creating the same, ideal balanced tone. In time, the students learn to both recognize and reproduce this balanced tone immediately at the onset of sound, without having to make adjustments mid-way.
The results of correct, healthy tone production (and correct and effective use of the resonating cavities of the body) include a more pleasant sound or tone, an extended range, especially in the higher end, better control of breath and thus more vocal stamina (e.g., the ability to sustain notes for longer and sing longer phrases without the need for breath renewal), increased volume due to improved resonation, smoother vocal registration, improved vibrancy (often accompanied by a subtly shimmering naturally occurring vibrato), more physical comfort, and a healthier vocal apparatus due to less stress and strain.
FLOW PHONATION
The most desirable regime for singers involves singing with a flow phonation, (sometimes called free-flow phonation), which enables them to generate the maximum sound without risk of damaging the voice. Flow phonation refers to appropriate levels of airflow - breath is never consciously held back at the laryngeal level, the vocal folds offer sufficient resistance to the exiting breath, etc. - that match the requirements of the task at hand. For example, degrees of breath energy may alter continuously during singing as the demands and dynamics of a song may change from section to section, yet the goal of the singer is to maintain 'freedom' of the voice at all times.
Flow phonation describes the process that permits the chiaroscuro tone. In addition, it is characterized by a high level of upper partials in the voice source spectrum. These upper partials contribute to the voice's overall quality. Without them, the voice sounds almost one-dimensional and dull (or shrill, depending on the pitch).
In the case of flow phonation, for which a relatively low sub-glottal pressure is combined with a strong flow pulse and a high overall energy level, the maximum energy can be transferred to the voice. Flow phonation is characterized by a shorter closed quotient (a measure of the amount of times that the vocal folds are together as a proportion of the entire open/closing cycle) than pressed phonation, but it is longer than the closed quotient typical of breathy phonation. Flow phonation encourages a higher fundamental frequency amplitude in the voice source spectrum than pressed phonation.
TIMBRE
Vocal timbre refers to the quality or colour of tone being produced by a singer. Often qualities of timbre are described by analogy to colour or texture (e.g. bright, dark, rough, smooth, etc.). Describing a voice as 'warm' or 'shrill', for instance, would also be making a statement about that particular voice's timbre.
Vocal timbre can be effected or influenced by numerous factors. What the ear perceives as colour or quality is really a Gestalt impression of the voice that is reflective of the entire sound, and seldom as a function of its analytic or separate components (all the properties of tone). The physical characteristics of sound that affect and create the perception of timbre include spectrum (the richness of the sound or tone, sometimes described in terms of a sum of a number of distinct frequencies, or overtones and envelope (the overall amplitude structure of a sound, which includes attack time, decay, sustain, release, transients, etc.).
Vocal timbre is part of what makes some voices suitable for soloing or lead singing and other voices more suited to singing in groups or choirs, while still other voices are more suited to shower stalls.
Chiaroscuro timbre is a voice-pedagogy term that is used universally to refer to the balancing of the light or clear (chiaro) and dark (oscuro) aspects of timbre, or balancing tonal brilliance and depth of the resonance. In vocalism, it specifically refers to the equilibrium of acoustic strength manifested by an ideal distribution of lower and upper harmonic partials (overtones), clustered in formants. Specific balances among the formants are characteristic of the resonant voice of premier singers, regardless of vocal category. That is to say, the chiaroscuro timbre of the classic international school demands balance among the prominent areas of acoustic strength, the fundamental and the first, third, fourth, and fifth formants. (This balance has been confirmed by spectrographic analysis.)
Every vocal instrument has its own individual quality, but all timbres must adhere to the chiaroscuro principle. Good singers are able to avoid 'noise' elements that are non-integers of the fundamental frequency. Acceptable timbre will display predictable relationships between the first, second, third, fourth and fifth formants, without by-noises. (Please read the article on Vocal Tract Shaping for more information on how to adjust the formants of the voice in order to achieve better tone.)
The nature of the vocal instrument itself does not need to be altered to produce advantageous harmonic integration. False manipulation of a voice to either augment or diminish the balance between breath application, laryngeal response, and resonator configurations will not produce a commendable outcome. Instead, the quality of the tone will be diminished.
FORMANTS
The term formant refers to peaks in the harmonic spectrum of a complex sound, such as the human voice, that is produced by some sort of resonance. This area of acoustic strength results from the cumulative distribution of upper harmonic partials, which are also known as harmonics (integer or whole number multiples of the fundamental frequency of a tone - the lowest frequency of a complex sound, which corresponds to the unique pitch heard in such a complex tone) or overtones.
Partials that are not multiples of the fundamental frequency produce what is called noise in the singing voice.
Formant regions are not directly related to the pitch of the fundamental frequency and may remain more or less constant even as the fundamental changes. If the fundamental is well below or low in the formant range, the quality of the sound is rich. However, if the fundamental is above the formant regions the sound is thin and often shrill in quality and, in the case of vowels, may make them impossible to produce accurately. (This is part of the reason why singers often seem to have poor diction, or their vowels are indistinguishable, on very high notes.)
Formants are essential components in the intelligibility of speech (e.g., different sustained vowel sounds are distinguishable because of the differences in their first three formant frequencies). In other words, formants define, or help us to distinguish between, vowels. Producing different vowel sounds amounts to 'retuning' these formants (by shaping the vocal tract in specific ways) within a general range of frequencies. If, as the mouth opens naturally with rising pitch and amplitude, the integrity of the vowel is retained, the first formant will grow in strength and there will be no loss of upper harmonic partials ('ring'). Resonance balance will pertain throughout the scale.
Formant frequencies are determined largely by the shape of the vocal tract (the cavity where the sound that is produced at the sound source - the larynx - is filtered), which is able to produce a highly variable structure of overtones. For instance, opening the jaw, which constricts the vocal tract toward the glottal end and expands it toward the lip end, is the deciding factor for the first formant. This formant frequency rises as the jaw is opens wider. The second formant is most sensitive to the shape of the body of the tongue, and the third formant is most sensitive to the tip of the tongue. Therefore, as the tongue shape changes to produce a different vowel, the formant frequencies will also change.
Swedish physician and medical researcher in the area of human physiology, Johan Sundberg, identified an extra formant in the range of 2500 to 3000 Hz, or concentration of intense acoustic energy, between the third and fourth formants - which he called the Singer's Formant - that is present in the frequency spectrum of trained singers but absent in speech and in the spectra of untrained singers. Developed through vocal training and created by the special resonance of the vocal tract when the larynx is lowered, the Singer's Formant produces the 'ring of the voice' that enables a singer's voice to be heard and understood over an orchestra. The classically trained singer strives to develop a Singer's Formant that enhances the overall richness and ringing in his or her voice.
The Singer's Formant ideally consists of strong third, fourth and fifth formants. It is produced by the frequencies of the third, fourth and fifth formants of the singing voice moving so close to each other that the resulting cluster appears as a prominent, consolidated region in the frequency spectrum of the voice. The potential strength of the Singer's Formant depends on voice category, being somewhat weaker in basses than in tenors, and altogether questionable in sopranos. (The relative intensity of a soprano Singer's Formant is lower than those of other voice types. Additionally, it has a different shape, being higher and wider as compared to that of the alto, and is split into two peaks - one in the range of 2.5-3.5 kHz and another between 3.3 and 4.3 kHz. It is unclear as to whether each peak contains only a single formant, as in an untrained singer's voice, or whether one of the peaks contains two formants, which would indicate the presence of a Singer's Formant.)
The articulatory way to achieve the Singer's Formant lies through dilation of the pharyngeal opening so that it becomes wider than the tracheal opening. This happens if a dilated pharynx is combined with a low laryngeal position.
A lot of contemporary singers believe that they don't really need to know anything about formants. The science seems too complicated, and they are under the impression that the information will help them little in their singing. They would rather have their teachers use different, more seemingly practical methods (e.g., giving illusory descriptions of acoustic events) for explaining chiaroscuro balance in the singing voice. Although scientifically based, the concept of formants can be learned by anyone of average intelligence. It may not be necessary to memorize the frequencies of pitches (numerical values) and the specific harmonic content of each vowel, but it is beneficial to the student of voice to be equipped with a basic understanding of what formants are and how they affect overall tone. One especially important reason for studying formants is to gain a better understanding of, and thus be able to take advantage of, the relationship between articulation and vocal tract resonance. Information will enhance, not detract from, learning.
(I will explain the relationship of vowel formation to formants a little more in-depth in my upcoming article on Singing With An Open Throat: Vocal Tract Shaping. My article Anatomy of the Voice on this site has additional information about formants, as well.)
VOCAL RESONATION
Vocal resonation is the process by which the basic product of phonation - voiced sound, which is the buzzing sound produced by the vibrations of the vocal folds - is enhanced in timbre and/or intensity by the air-filled cavities through which it passes on its way to the outside air. Resonance, therefore, is voiced sound that is amplified and modified by the vocal tract resonators (the throat, mouth cavity, and nasal passages), and is the result of an acoustic alliance between vibrating bodies at an identical fundamental pitch.
The strength of tone must be gained not only by good, steady breath pressure (see The Role of Breathing in Tone Production below) but also by the focal point on the palate, by the complete utilization of the palatal resonance. In other words, tone quality is determined or enhanced by the way in which a singer uses his or her vocal resonance. The end result of resonation is, or should be, to make a better sound. Therefore, a key factor in achieving good, balanced tone is mastering use of resonance. Every singer needs to train the voice to distribute the sound into the three cavities in a balanced manner.
Singing involves the utilization of more of the supraglottic (above the glottis) spaces for resonance than does speaking, and the vowels are prolonged. Otherwise, speaking and singing are almost identical.
Resonance can be either sympathetic or forced. The sounds of singing are the result of sympathetic resonance. This sympathetic vibration is not to be confused with resonance, which is restricted to the vocal tract - the open chambers, not the bony structures - conjoined with the nasal cavities only for nasal phonemes.) For instance, the cartilaginous external nose, as well as the bony structures of the skull (sinuses, cheeks, foreheads, occipital bones, etc.), can be set into sympathetic vibration - bone is a remarkable conveyor of sympathetic vibration - but not into actual resonance because they are not resonators; they do not contribute to the complex tone that the listener hears and cannot contribute to the actual resonance of the voice. However, the resonator filtering of laryngeal tone includes only the areas that are open cavities.
For example, although a misnomer, chest voice is named such because many singers feel a sensation of resonance in the chest cavity. In this case, sympathetic vibration is conveyed by bony and cartilaginous parts of the sternum and rib cage. Of course, it is not resonance itself that is felt in the face or head. Rather, it is sympathetic vibrations that are felt, since the bones of the face conduct the vibrations of sound bouncing off the hard surfaces.
This does not preclude the fact that singers often feel sympathetic vibratory responses in one or more areas of the body. Indeed, the sensations that are produced by sympathetic vibrations are realistic to the singer, and they may become reliable indicators of resonance balance. However, the registering of sympathetic vibration, or the perception of resonance, is highly individual and can be experienced only personally. Sympathetic vibration during singing varies greatly from person to person. Therefore, to expect everyone to experience the same sensations while singing is both unrealistic and unwise.
Placement of the voice generally describes both how the vibration of the air column interacts with the resonating structures of the body to accentuate or diminish the size of the formant and where one feels the augmented vibration due to the change in the relationship of the formants to areas of the body. For most singers, placement is used to describe where they feel the sympathetic vibrations most. For example, head voice is so-named because most of the resonance is felt on the bony surfaces of the face or head. (Some techniques refer to this area as the 'mask', or 'masque'.)
Much of what singers may describe as placement is really sympathetic vibration. The sensations associated with sympathetic vibration help the performer monitor the sounds of singing. When the spectral balance is complete, a singer is aware of sensations in the bony structures of the head, throat or chest that are quite different than those of imbalanced phonation. Once an association with ideal sound has been established, these proprioceptive sensations become dependable indicators of tonal balance.
For some singers, the notion of placement suggests that they can direct the resonance of their voices. However tone, which originates in the larynx, can't actually be placed, so attempts at placing the voice or inducing sensations in specific parts of the body are generally considered to be futile.
One example of placement lingo is the concept of 'forwardness', which denotes the idea of keeping the tone placed in the front of the face, or 'singing through the mask', or imagining the voice as a line in front of the face. Some teachers avoid talking about placement or forwardness of tone because they are subjective terms that don't take into consideration the individual experiences and sensations associated with singing. These same instructors may also fear that their students will focus too much on producing the buzz of resonance and, in turn, induce tensions.
Furthermore, teaching the concept of forwardness may also be somewhat counterproductive, if not dangerous, because certain forms of sympathetic vibration felt in the mask are actually the product of undesirable timbres. Hypernasality, for example, may produce a great deal of sensation in the nasal cavity, but it is not representative of good, balanced tone. Being instructed to place tone may exacerbate existing technical problems, if not create new ones.
Rather than speaking of placement, it may be preferable to make certain that buccopharyngeal resonator shapes properly match laryngeal configurations. (I will be discussing how to balanced tone in more detail in the upcoming companion to this article entitled Singing with An Open Throat: Vocal Tract Shaping.) However, I find that talking about the notion of forward placement can be a useful imagery tool for some, more 'visual' students - as it was for me in my vocal training - so long as they are equipped with correct information about acoustical science.
After experiencing the presence of sympathetic vibration that results from efficient resonance balancing, students can develop their own imagery or subjective terminology that can then be utilized and reinforced by the teacher during their private lessons. The goal in studying voice, ultimately, is to learn to produce a good resonance balance, and each student may take a different path to finding his or her ideal tone.
(For more detail about resonance, read my article on the Anatomy of the Voice.)
'PROJECTION'
There are some voice instructors, musical theatre professors and choir directors who teach the concept of 'projection' as a means of increasing volume so that the voice may be heard better by an audience.
This philosophy that the voice needs to be 'projected' can lead to bad technique, however, as it tends to conjure up mental images (i.e., throwing the voice to the people in the back row, etc.) that are followed by vocal habits (e.g., opening up the mouth excessively, like a 'horn', etc.) that aren't usually very healthy, neither psychologically nor physically. Even if supported by diaphragmatic breathing, this technique can be injurious to the vocal instrument. While it is true that the buzzing sound created by the vocal folds needs to resonate effectively off the hard surfaces of the vocal tract, be shaped, and then escape through the mouth, the notion of having to project the voice tends to lead to vocal health problems including tension, strain and injury, as well as a diminished air supply (and thus less stamina), because an excessive amount of air is being forcibly pushed out of the lungs and past the vocal folds.
When singers are told to project, they often feel the need to shout in order to make their voices sound louder. However, shouting, or actively increasing volume beyond natural, comfortable levels, does not necessarily create more carrying power, as natural resonance is often lost. In fact, pushing merely distorts resonance. Instead, it is the correct shaping of the vocal tract in order to maximize resonating space and increase the strength of the vocal formants that makes the voice more audible in a theatre or concert hall. Articulation and diction (enunciation) play a key role in creating more effective resonation because they ensure that ideal acoustical configurations of the vocal tract are assumed. (I will be discussing vocal tract shaping in more depth in an upcoming follow-up to this article entitled Singing With An Open Throat: Vocal Tract Shaping.)
Instead of thinking in terms of getting more sound out, or making the voice louder by increasing volume, a singer should focus on achieving a balanced, fully resonant tone, which will carry itself without the need for pushing or shouting. When resonance is ideal, the voice will be heard, and it will be healthy.
It is my belief that it would be in the best interest of vocal students everywhere for teachers and directors to remove the term 'projection' altogether from their vocabulary.
WHY OUR VOICES ALL SOUND DIFFERENT
Everyone singer has a natural, unique sound, although some voices are more distinctive than others (e.g., Alanis Morrissette, Amy Whinehouse, Michael Jackson, etc.). Some singers have unmistakable qualities in their voices, such as 'richness', 'warmth', 'depth', 'relaxedness', 'maturity', 'bluesy-ness', 'thickness', 'sultriness', etc. that make them instantly recognizable to the listener and set them apart from the crowd, or the rest of the choir at the very least.
Although we can effect some change on our natural timbre, doing so comes with both the possibility of creating an imbalanced, worsened tone and the risk of potential harm to the vocal apparatus through the development of bad technique and unhealthy habits. Our voices seem to be better and more naturally suited for specific sounds and timbres. Some voices are ideal for opera, while others are able to produce a grungy, heavy rock sound, for instance. (You can read about voice types, vocal classifications and vocal weights in the Glossary article on this site. The definitions listed there provide further information about the different types and qualities of voices that are common amongst singers.)
Our speaking and singing voices are created from the same anatomical structures. The respiratory system (lungs, diaphragm and abdominal muscles), laryngeal mechanism (vocal folds, laryngeal cartilages, muscles and nerves) and the supraglottic tract (the spaces above the vocal folds, including the back of the throat, mouth, nasal passages and sinus cavities) all work to produce our vocal sounds. (Please read Anatomy of the Voice for an overview of these anatomical structures that help to produce our voices. I will be including more detail about the anatomy of the vocal tract in my upcoming article about the open throat.) In general, voice characteristics are determined by the interactions of breathing mechanisms, the vibrating vocal folds and resonances of the vocal tract.
As mentioned above in Vocal Resonation, the human voice utilizes three resonant cavities to aid in the production of desired frequencies: the larynx, the mouth, and the nasal cavity. The different sizes and shapes of these cavities produce distinctive tonal qualities. There are few reasons why every singing voice sounds different, which includes the size of the vocal tract (larynx, pharynx, mouth, etc.), as well as other parts of the body, articulation (manipulation of the vocal tract and formant tracking) and use of resonance.
One deciding factor in how different voices sound is the fact that our vocal tracts (the distance from the larynx to the lips) have varying lengths, although the average of which is about four inches. Before puberty, the average speaking pitch and size of the larynx are about the same for both males and females. The lengthening and corresponding mass increase of the larynx that is brought on by puberty reduces normal average speaking pitches - the fundamental frequency of the voice, strongly related to the perception of the pitch of the voice.
Men, generally speaking, have larger vocal tracts, which essentially gives the voice a lower tonal quality, independent of the vocal folds themselves. The female's larynx typically will appear to have a little more space between the arytenoids than the male's larynx does. This is thought to be primarily an anatomical difference and secondarily a cultural difference. This glottal shaping helps to give the female voice a typically softer quality due to the corresponding airflow through the larynx.
Men and women have different vocal folds sizes; adult male voices usually have longer folds with more mass. The difference in vocal folds size between men and women means that they have differently pitched voices. Laryngeal size and structure play a significant role in determining a singer's range. The greater the length and the vibrating mass of the vocal folds, the lower the fundamental frequency (the lowest frequency in a harmonic series) of pitch.
In addition to these gender differences, genetics creates variances amongst the same sexes - different singers will have different ranges and tessituras - which lead to voices being categorized into types. The singing voice is partly categorized by the range of fundamental frequencies that the person can sing in performance, as well as by the quality, agility, and how big a sound that particular voice can produce, referred to as vocal weight. The size and shape of a singer's vocal tract will affect not only the singer's range but also his or her registration change points.
The resonance frequencies of the vocal tract tend to emphasize a series of frequencies that relate to the vocal tract size and shape. The vocal tract is not a simple tube. Rather, it is a tube of varying sizes and shapes, and is highly adjustable. For this reason, it tends to emphasize some overtones of the phonated sound and de-emphasize others.
The sound of each individual's voice is entirely unique not only because of the actual shape and size of an individual's vocal folds and larynx, but also due to the size and shape of the rest of that person's body. Humans have vocal folds which can loosen, tighten, or change their thickness, and over which breath can be transferred at varying pressures. The shape of chest and neck, the position of the tongue, and the tightness of otherwise unrelated muscles can be altered. Any one of these actions results in a change in pitch, volume, timbre, or tone of the sound produced. Sound also resonates within different parts of the body, and an individual's size and bone structure can affect the sound produced by an individual.
Singers can also learn to project sound in certain ways so that it resonates better within their vocal tract. This is known as vocal resonation.
Another major influence on vocal sound and production is the function of the larynx, which people can manipulate in different ways to produce different sounds. These different kinds of laryngeal functions are described as different kinds of vocal registers and phonatory modes.
In addition to these natural deviations listed above (i.e., the size and shape of the individual's vocal tract and body), how singers pronounce their words has a lot to do with the uniqueness of their singing. How the vocal tract articulators (the tongue, soft palate, jaw and lips, all of which work together to produce recognizable words) modify the voiced sound that is created by the vocal folds is an important part of achieving balanced vocal timbre. The adjusting of the articulators affects the frequencies of the vocal tract resonances (formants), and thus how a listener hears vowels, as well as the overall tone of the voice. My upcoming article, Singing with An Open Throat: Vocal Tract Shaping will provide specific information on correct usage of the articulators in order to maximize resonance and balance tone.
BLENDING THE REGISTERS
In singing, blending may refer to two areas of study: blending the registers (eliminating 'breaks' in the voice that tend to occur between registers) and blending chest and head resonances (to produce a 'mixed' or blended tone that is characteristic of the middle register). I'll attempt to address both concepts here.
To begin a discussion about blending (also known as 'bridging') the registers, it is important to define the term register. A vocal register in the human voice is a particular series of tones, produced in the same vibratory pattern of the vocal folds, and possessing the same quality. Registers originate in laryngeal function - the larynx, where the vocal folds are housed. They occur because the vocal folds produce several different vibratory patterns. Each of these vibratory patterns appears within a particular range of pitches and produces certain characteristic sounds or qualities. The term register can be somewhat confusing, as it encompasses several aspects of the human voice, and can be used to refer to any of the following: a particular part of the vocal range, (such as the upper, middle, or lower registers), a resonance area (such as chest voice or head voice), a phonatory process or a certain vocal timbre.
In order to move smoothly up or down in pitch between the chest, middle and head voice registers (or between any two adjacent registers), the registers must blend. If they don't, noticeable voice breaks, or register breaks, will occur. When a register break occurs, the tone of the voice will often suddenly become weak, thin and lacking in intensity and volume, and pitch changes will sound abrupt. Sometimes the voice will crack, or there may even be a momentary cessation of sound. These problem spots in a singer's range are believed to be caused by mal-coordination of the laryngeal mechanism - or static laryngeal adjustment, in which the vocal folds fail to make necessary changes as the next set of pitches (or register) approaches. These changes to the folds and the laryngeal muscles need to happen gradually rather than suddenly, and need to be accompanied by an adjustment of breath energy.
When a singer is moving from one register to another, the goal is to have an evenness of tone so that there is no perceptible "break" or shifting between the registers. Ideally, the singer's voice shouldn't sound like an entirely different voice when a different register has been entered. Achieving smoothness and a consistency of tone throughout the scale demands a knowledgeable teacher who can instruct the student in how to effectively adjust the mechanism of registration. The good singer knows how to coordinate the registers in such a way that there is a smooth, imperceptible transition from one register to another.
To blend these registers, a singer needs to slightly close the two last notes of the lower register when ascending in pitch and slightly open them when descending in pitch. If too much power or volume is put into singing the highest notes of the lower register, it will become more difficult to develop the power, volume and warmth or fullness of tone in the lower notes in the next (higher) register. Essentially, singers must rein in their voices a little just before attempting to shift into the next register. If they don't have control, they will find a large difference in tone quality when they switch into their head voice, and this poorer quality usually sounds thin, weak, shaky and breathy.
Many vocal registration problems are really problems of resonance adjustment. The treatment of vowels has a strong effect on the transitions from register to register. (I delve more deeply into this issue in Part Two of this article entitled Singing with An 'Open Throat': Vocal Tract Shaping .) Vowel modification, in which the vowel is 'narrowed' or 'darkened' just prior to the point where the voice would naturally flip into the next register, is necessary, and is a part of the closing and opening processes that need to happen when ascending and descending in pitch, respectively. When transitioning up to the head voice register, if a 'rounding' of the vowels does not happen, the singer will be pulling up too much weight (thicker vocal cord mass) into the higher register. It should be noted that the darkening of the vowels should only be done by increasing the acoustical space, not by pulling down the soft palate or the back of the tongue, as these latter techniques lead to inconsistency and diminish the upper overtones.
Achieving mastery of the head register involves opening the closed vowels and closing the open ones. For example, as the [i] is carried higher and higher, it needs to taper toward a short 'i', as in the word 'it', and then continue to change subtly as the scale ascends. Some instructors make use of vowel modification charts to help their students understand how each vowel should change within the head register. However, I find that most singers can make the correct modifications once they understand that the changes need to occur, and that they can't maintain the same vowel sound in their head register as they do when singing at speech-level pitches. Letting go of their previous notions about how their voices should sound in head voice and hearing their instructor demonstrate the gradual modification process is usually enough to help them access head voice.
When a singer fails to modify the vowel, a register break is likely to occur, and clear, free tone in head voice becomes impossible. Whenever my students have difficulties transitioning into full head voice, it is most often a problem with failure to allow the vowel to modify. The students often attempt in vain to maintain the same distinctive vowel sound and feel in head register as they do in their speech-inflection range. The vowel then spreads and breathiness occurs, or the larynx begins to rise in an unhealthy manner and phonation becomes tight or squeezed in both sound and feel. Pitch inevitably begins to go flat, and the singer begins to feel tension at the laryngeal level. Allowing the vowel to 'narrow' and the jaw to lower slightly usually produces an almost instant correction of the registration problem, as the laryngeal muscles and the vocal folds are allowed to make their natural adjustments.
One approach to helping singers access the head voice range when attempts at modifying the vowel are not successful is the use of healthy nasality, usually the [NG] sound. (The addition of some subtle nasality also works for the very bottom of a singer's range when a vocal fry quality starts to enter the voice because it keeps the voice from slipping back into the throat and creating discomfort and strain. With the sound placed just slightly in the nose, a pleasant tone can be produced because it is less likely for the vowel to spread.) Once the singer can successfully and consistently bridge into the head register, the tone will even out and become balanced.
With my students, I emphasize the importance of anticipating these pivotal registration points so that they can begin making the necessary muscular, breath energy and vowel adjustments a couple notes before the voice would naturally shift into the next register. These registration activity points may differ slightly from singer to singer, depending on their ranges and voice types, and with different vowels for the same singers. Anticipating the register changes allows the necessary modifications to take place in advance of the break point, which in turn produces a blended or mixed voice that is, both functionally and tonally, a cross between the laryngeal mechanisms and tonal qualities of the two abutting registers. The end result of anticipating the register changes is seamless, healthy transitions between registers, created by an evenness of tone throughout the range. (It sometimes helps to think of the voice as one continuous or linear mechanism or tone rather than a series of separate registers that must be linked together.)
Accessing the head register poses particular problems for many untrained singers, and a great deal of those problems occur because of a failure to anticipate and allow adjustments to occur naturally and gradually. Head voice, (within the changed voice), occurs at a specific pitch within a scale as a result of the thickness and length of the vocal folds. Minor acoustical changes must be allowed to occur each half step within the head register to prevent the voice from sounding squeezed. Depending on the individual singer's folds, it can be a different acoustical changing point. Also, this point of change may be located at a slightly different spot depending on the singer's vocal fach or vocal type. For example, a tenor might need to switch into head voice by the C4 or B4, whereas a bass might need to make the switch around the A4. A soprano might make the change to head voice around the F#5, whereas an alto might make it around the E5.
Changing into head voice timbre a little earlier or lower in the scale, rather than waiting until the voice absolutely must switch, however, may free up the upper register, improving tone and ease of transition. I find that, even as a mezzo-soprano, I naturally start incorporating head voice timbre into my voice around the C#5 or D5 depending on the vowel and the day, even though my voice could probably hold onto the middle voice timbre and not need to modify the vowels for yet another couple steps. However, if I were to maintain the timbre of the lower register until my voice absolutely must switch, the transition to head voice would be abrupt and highly perceptible, and my voice would start to sound and feel a little pinched or squeezed. Beginning the transition into head voice early enough in the scale allows the singer to find freedom and release in the head register so that a perfect blending of the registers is created.
One of the most noticeable consequences of failing to glide smoothly upward into the next register is a flattening of pitch. When a student begins to sing flat on certain notes, it is a telltale sign that he or she has likely reached the end of a certain register and has not made the necessary adjustments to continue singing on pitch.
It is possible to extend the natural or chest voice upward by a few more notes past the first passaggio. (In a male singer, this extra range of the lower register would represent his zona di passaggio, and would end at his second passaggio. In a female singer, the chest voice would merely be carried up into the lower part of the middle register.) Doing so, however, invites registration problems, as well as the potential for strain or injury. The voice will inevitably 'break' when it reaches the point where it can no longer sustain the same muscular control or vibratory pattern. Over-extension of the chest register is a very common occurrence with young, pre-adolescent female singers because of the over development of this range. Untrained males will often switch into falsetto tone, rather than full, legitimate head voice, because the decreased involvement of the vocal folds creates a release of the tension that has been mounting since the first passaggio was reached. It is always ideal to learn to blend the registers rather than push the vocal instrument in such an unhealthy, unnatural manner.
In my studio, I have noticed that singers of different voice types and vocal weights experience difficulties with negotiating different register transition points. Typically, a heavier or more dramatic voice with a lower-lying tessitura has more difficulty smoothening out the transition between the natural (chest) and the middle registers (in females) or the natural and head registers (in males) because there is often a mismatch between the fullness or heaviness of the lower range and the lightness of the higher range, and because they have a tendency to want to carry the lower mechanism of the voice (the 'natural' quality of the voice that they are most comfortable singing with) up as high as it can go until it ultimately cracks and shifts into another vibratory pattern (register). Lighter, lyric voices and voices with higher-lying tessituras tend to glide through both the lower passaggio (registration change point) and the upper passaggio into head voice with greater ease because the tone in the lower range doesn't differ substantially from the fullness of the middle and higher registers. Lower-voiced men tend to have more difficulty moving smoothly into head voice than do women in general, although altos seem to frequently struggle with the register changes between their natural (chest) voice and middle register. Throaty or hollow sounding voices tend to have a great deal of difficulty smoothening out the registers.
Of course, all of the above challenges are remedied, though not often easily or quickly, with vocal study that focuses on the adjustment of breath control and vowel modification, (referred to as aggiustamento in the international or Italian school), that will retrain the singer to navigate register shifts correctly.
Proper execution of register shifts - ones that are smooth and comfortable - requires the simultaneity of correct muscular balance of the voice, efficient phonation, appropriate laryngeal depth and balanced tuning of the vocal tract (formant tracking). Many techniques are used to blend the registers. These techniques must address coordination of the muscles of the larynx to prevent voice breaks, and maintenance of the acoustic pressures in the airways to avoid undesirable quality changes.
One exercise that I find to be helpful with my students who are struggling with register breaks in the lower passaggio is a series of five-note chromatic scales beginning a few notes below the register break point, then moving up to a few notes above it. I have the students sing these scales in both ascending and descending patterns because the adjustments that need to be made in terms of breath energy and vowel modification are different when going up and when going down in pitch. Often, the students and I will slow down the exercise and insert a glide between notes so that they can feel the subtle adjustments being made at the level of the larynx with every note change. This exercise helps to retrain the muscles of the larynx over time.
While it may be appropriate at times during a lesson to isolate the different registers during certain exercises (e.g., to shorten the exercise so that others can also be fit into the lesson time or to work on a specific range of pitches or register that may be giving the singer some problems, etc.), it is preferable and wise to also include exercises that encourage the successful blending of registers, in which singers move from one register to the next, both ascending and descending in pitch. Smoothness of registration can be obtained in no other way than by practicing the skill.
Repairing a register break requires time and patience. Some students find it to be the most challenging and frustrating aspect of vocal technique study. Once it is repaired, though, the singer can refine it further and practice to maintain a seamless voice throughout his or her entire range.
For blending the registers and allowing the laryngeal muscles to learn to gradually make the necessary changes, slides or portamentos through the passaggios are sometimes helpful, as are five-note chromatic or diatonic scales that begin a couple notes below the passaggio and end a couple notes on the other side of it.
For further discussion on vocal registration and register breaks, read Understanding Vocal Range, Vocal Registers and Voice Type - A Glossary of Vocal Terms. For some practical tips and exercises for encouraging a more unified (blended) vocal scale, read Blending the Registers in Tips For Practicing Singing: A Practical Guide To Vocal Development.
MIDDLE REGISTER OR MIXED/BLENDED VOICE OR THE ZONA DI PASSAGGIO
Blending chest voice and head voice qualities and colours is a major source of confusion and frustration for many aspiring singers. It may take years to master. However, once they understand how the voice works, blending becomes easier and nearly automatic, and the singer is able to sing with more emotion and passion.
Although chiaroscuro timbre - characterized by a balance between the light (clear) and dark aspects of the voice's spectrum - is important throughout the voice's entire compass (range), it seems to become particularly important in the middle register where the voices mix. Some singers respond to a mathematical 'formula' for blending, in which the voice's tone is imagined to be comprised of fifty percent head resonance and fifty percent chest resonance - the actual proportions change with the pitch being sung, so that more head resonance and less chest resonance will be present as pitch ascends, and more chest resonance and less head resonance would be present in the balance on lower pitches. Other students respond to visualizations that involve the tone creating a smooth line in the front of the face or accepting the notion of a 'grey' area in which the voice is neither entirely head (white) nor entirely chest (black). Some students appreciate the concept of equalizing the voice between the lower and upper passaggios (the middle register in women and the zona di passaggio in men) so that there is a balance of 'bass' and 'treble'. Still others find it most successful and relaxing to simply focus on making the voice sound beautiful and free on every note rather than focusing too much attention on the complicated physical mechanism involved in blending.
Regardless of the imagery that singers adopts to make blending the different voice qualities make more sense to them, the goal should always be to achieve balanced tone with every note sung in the range.
CHEST VOICE
When singers refer to chest resonance, they are actually talking about vocal tone that is characterized by darker vowel qualities or mellowness, sometimes accompanied by a distinct sensation of vibration in the chest, especially in the sternum and breastbone area. This register mode occurs in the lower to middle range of speaking pitch. The term itself, however, is a misnomer since an effective resonating chamber is a hollow place surrounded by hard surfaces, (such as bone), and the chest is too full of organs to be suitable for amplifying the singing tone. Since resonance occurs where there is plenty of empty space for amplification of the lower vibrations created by the vocal folds, what singers may associate with chest resonance is actually sympathetic vibration; that is, vibrations being conducted through the bones of the chest cavity. Not all singers experience sympathetic vibrations in the chest when singing in this register. Some only feel it when their hands are placed on their chests.
I prefer to use the term natural voice when referring to this register in the singing voice because it denotes the natural disposition or mode of the vocal folds. Within speech level pitch range, the singing voice should sound almost identical to the speaking voice, and so using this term seems to be a better description of the type of 'natural' voice production that is desirable within this range. It removes from the description of the vocal register all subjectivity or mislabeling.
HEAD VOICE
Head resonance, when properly supported, has a brilliant ringing tone quality as compared to the chest resonance singing tone. This bright voice tone is developed in the bones and cavities above, behind and around the nose that is often called the 'mask', or 'masque'.
Since the head voice is seldom used during everyday speech - in women, the head register begins on the notes at the top of the staff - the muscles and the tone tend to be underdeveloped. Most classical technique instructors tend to spend more time developing the tone, intensity and volume of this high register because it needs more work than the chest (natural) and medium voices do, as they are more commonly used in speech and in contemporary styles of singing.
When singing in head voice, a singer must maintain a forward "placement" so that the vibratory sensations - the resonance of the voice - can be felt in the bones of the face. If the tone is allowed to slip back into the throat or spread, it will be impossible to produce a good tone with effective resonance and volume. In this register, the jaw must also relax and slightly lower to create more space and to promote equilibrium among the overtones, which will reduce shrillness in these high pitches. (I explain more about why this is the case in Formant Tuning In the Female High Range in my article on vocal tract shaping and in the section on vowel modification in Vowels, Vowel Formants and Vowel Modification.)
If head resonance is not supported, the singer usually produces a false falsetto tone because the singer must switch into a 'choir boy' tone in order to sing the high pitches.
Head voice occurs as a result of the laryngeal tilt (or cricothyroid adjustment, in which the larynx rocks forward and elevates slightly as pitch rises). Without this laryngeal adjustment, the singer will find singing in the higher register extremely difficult.
FALSETTO
The term falsetto designates a timbre in the male upper range that is imitative of the female timbre. Science shows that women are capable of producing a falsetto voice. However, this phonation mode or tone quality is not typically recognized in the singing world because an incomplete vocal fold closure in females merely produces a breathy tone that sounds very different than the falsetto tone that males produce. It will not sound as though the woman has switched to another register.
Many singers incorrectly think that falsetto and head voice are two names for the same technique. This, however, is not the case. Although head voice and falsetto may be produced at the same pitches in male voices - those pitches that lie above his primo passaggio - and may be described as 'running parallel' to each other in range, the techniques and resulting sounds between the two voice productions are different. In other words, falsetto is recognized in historic voice pedagogy as being distinct from full head voice. Unlike the sound of head voice, which is richer in overtones and has the potential to produce a substantial Singer's Formant - that is, it has a strong 'ring' - falsetto voice is weak in overtones, has a more 'flute-like' quality, and therefore produces no Singer's Formant.
The main differences between the sounds of falsetto and head voice production lie in the amount of laryngeal involvement. Falsetto is a voice production in which the vocalis muscles (the thryroarytenoids) are inactive and lengthened by the action of the cricothyroid muscles, which are nearly fully contracted. The sound of falsetto is produced by the air blowing over the very thin edges of the thyroarytenoids, which are easily blown open or apart by the breath because the thin, lengthened edges of the vocal folds display little tension in opposition to the stretching action of the thyroarytenoids, and little resistance to breath flow. The pitch is controlled mostly by a regulation of the breath flow.
In order to create head voice, increasing tension of the thyroarytenoids creates a tauter, more substantial edge to the vocal fold, which in turn creates more resistance to the flow of breath, and building subglottic pressure - pressure below the closed vocal folds - can be felt. Increasing the activity of the thyroarytenoids in resistance to the stretching action of the cricothyroids will increase the subglottic pressure and change from the tone quality of falsetto to the ringing sound of the head voice. (The male singer can easily sense this difference in breath pressure between falsetto and his true head voice.)
In voice training, sometimes falsetto tones are used to help male singers with pressed phonation reduce vocal-fold tension in the zona di passaggio and in the upper range.
The falsetto voice is produced by the vibration of the extreme membranous or ligamentous edges of the vocal cords either in whole or in part, while the main body of the fold is more or less relaxed. In other words, edges appear to be the only parts vibrating, while the mass corresponding to the innermost part of the thyro-aryntenoid muscle remains still and motionless. However, in more skilled singers, the mucous membrane of the vocal folds contact with each other completely during each vibration cycle. The arytenoid cartilages are held in firm apposition - they are touching - in this voice register. (This tends to produce a sound that mimics a clear female voice rather than a breathy falsetto-type tone.) Also the length or size of the oval orifice or separation between the folds can vary, but it is known to get bigger in size as the pressure of air pushed out is increased.
In others, often seen in more trained singers, the full length of the glottis opens and closes in each cycle. In still others, a phenomenon known as damping appears, with the amount of glottal opening becoming less and less as the pitch rises, until only a tiny slit appears on the highest pitches. To some extent, damping is natural and healthy. However, it can quickly deteriorate to 'pressed phonation'.
For more details on falsetto tone production, refer to the falsetto section in Understanding Vocal Range, Vocal Registers and Voice Type.
VOCAL FRY REGISTER
Singing teachers don't often refer to the vocal fry register because it is not regularly produced by singers - it is not easily accessible to them - and because it is not considered a legitimate performance mode of phonation.
The vocal fry register (also known as pulse register, laryngealisation, pulse phonation, creak, glottal fry, glottal rattle, glottal scrape or strohbass), is the lowest vocal register. It is produced through a loose glottal closure that permits air to bubble through slowly with a popping, rattling or crackling or 'static' sound of a very low frequency. The voice sounds as though it is 'frying'.
During the vocal fry mode of phonation, the arytenoid cartilages in the larynx come together in such a fashion that the vocal folds compress tightly and become relatively compact and slack. This process forms a large and irregularly vibrating mass within the vocal folds that produces the characteristic low popping or rattling sound when air passes through the glottal closure.
The vocal fry register is chiefly used in singing to help a singer reach low pitches that would not be available to the singer if he or she were singing in the modal (chest or natural) register. The physiological production of vocal fry can be potentially damaging to the vocal folds if used frequently, particulary if it is brought up into the chest register. It may also cause singers to lose some of the upper notes in the chest register. However, in some cases, the use of vocal fry may help students learn to produce lower notes if they have previously been unable to due to excessive tension of the laryngeal muscles and of the support mechanism that leads to too much breath pressure in this range of pitches.
I find that most of my female students tend to resort to a vocal fry production as they descend below F#3 or F3 in pitch (the F# or F below middle C). It is possible to teach students to produce a clearer tone that more closely matches that of the chest voice in this range of pitches by simply focusing the tone better through envisioning a narrowing of the tone and preventing the placement from slipping back into the throat. This action frees the voice of excess laryngeal slackness and enables the students to sing lower notes more comfortably and to sound a little more pleasant. The lower range is often extended by several notes when the tone becomes clearer.
THE ROLE OF BREATHING IN TONE PRODUCTION
Many aspiring singers are tempted to brush over breathing technique and to forego breathing exercises or 'homework' because breathing seems far too basic and tedious a skill to fit with their lofty aspirations. They want to jump right into the more challenging and fun aspects of vocal study, even before they have laid a solid foundation, and this is a detrimental temptation to fall into.
What all students of voice must come to understand and appreciate is the important role that breathing plays in tone production. Good management or regulation of airflow will encourage a clear, pure, free, natural, seemingly effortless tone. With good breath control, a singer can give volume, stability, strength and quality to a note, change imperceptibly from one register to another or increase or diminish the power of a tone within the same register, or alter the voice's volume in order to introduce softer effects. Perfect control of the voice can safely and easily produce volume without degradation of tone (e.g., a shrieking or shouting sound), and allow the kind of purity and freedom that are essential to good singing.
Singing requires more lung pressure than speaking does. The entire duration of a sung note or phrase must be 'supported' or secured by a gentle, uninterrupted stream of breath behind it. A singer should be able to take a full breath easily, quickly and silently, and then regulate the rate or pace at which that air is expired (appoggio) during phonation. A steady, controlled stream of air enables a singer to produce a steady, controlled tone. The equal and continuous pressure of the air against the vibrating vocal folds produces equal vibrations, and maintains equality of sound throughout its entire duration. The quality of tone should ride on a minimal yet healthy breath stream. This small stream of breath must travel at an even rate.
Without good breath control, on the other hand, a singer's tone will be shaky and thin, and possibly breathy, even before it escapes from the mouth. Sudden changes in sub-glottic breath pressure will not only distort tonal quality and lessen the singer's ability to sustain longer musical phrases (due to the loss of excess air from the breathiness of tone), but they may also cause problems with pitch.
Please take some time to read over my article Correct Breathing For Singing. In it, you will find information about the breathing mechanism and an explanation of why diaphragmatic breathing is the body's correct and natural way, as well as some basic exercises to start you on your way toward correcting and strengthening your breathing. With breathing technique mastered, you can then turn your attention toward achieving better clarity, smoothness and pleasantness in your tone.
Once good breath support is examined, it needs to be applied to singing. Breath should seem to turn into tone, without any perceptible or noticeable effort behind it.
EXERCISES
As with the exercises that I've included in my article on breathing, these tone development exercises are very basic, and are not intended to replace the expert guidance of a vocal instructor in a 'live' lesson situation who can give you direct feedback on your vocal tone and guide you to improvement. (Remember that you don't hear your voice inside your head as others hear it, and you may initially need someone to help you recognize when you are producing desirable tone.) A good teacher will check your breathing technique, helping you turn breath into tone, as well as how you adjust your vocal tract - your vocal posture - in order to help you achieve a balanced tone.
It is important to become aware of your tone and 'placement'. We have several resonators in our bodies, including our facial cavities such as the nose and mouth. (Read my article on the Anatomy of the Voice to get more detail.) The smaller, thinner bones and the more narrow cavity of the nose are meant to support the sympathetic vibrations of higher pitches, whereas the larger, more open spaces of the mouth and throat respond to the resonance of lower pitches. To experience this vocal phenomenon, try tapping with your finger on your chin and listen to the echo of the sound inside your head. Now try tapping on the spot between your nose and upper lip, just above your upper teeth. You should notice a rise in pitch from the first spot to the second. If you tap on the bony bridge of your nose, you will notice that the sound is higher yet in pitch. Finally, tap on your forehead.
Second, the higher the pitch that you are singing, the higher up on your body you will likely feel the sensations associated with resonance. (Again, these sensations are really the result of sympathetic vibration. The way in which we describe or label our registers - e.g., 'chest voice', 'head voice', etc. - generally indicates the location in which we feel the most resonance, rather than the location at which it is actually produced; that is, the larynx.) If you were to practice humming a musical scale, and if you were to hum correctly (i.e., with appropriate volume and focused tone, you should be able to feel the sympathetic vibrations from your voice move higher as the notes get higher and, conversely, lower as the notes get lower. (If you do not feel your face vibrating, you are likely not humming correctly and may need to make some adjustments.) These vibratory sensations should be felt especially in the bony structures of the head, even at lower pitches. This area is often referred to as 'the mask'. You will probably feel your teeth vibrating, which may tickle your lips, at times. (Even though all singers have different physiological experiences while singing, there should be some sensation somewhere in the head while you are singing.)
Try humming a single note that is comfortably within the middle of your range. When you feel a strong vibration in your face, open your mouth. The vibration should still be there, and in the same place. Try using all five pure Italian vowels ([e], [i], [a], [o], [u]) when you open your mouth. (Don't exaggerate how you form the vowels with your mouth, such as opening up more widely than you would in ordinary speech, because that will create distorted vowels and an imbalanced, unpleasant tone, as well as excess tension in the jaw, tongue and neck.) You may find that some vowels, such as open vowels, are easier to sing than others, such as closed or lateral vowels. Avoid the tendency to add a diphthong to the [e] vowel (e.g., singing 'ay', with the 'y' pronounced at the end). Instead, maintain the fist, more open part of the vowel.
Now try humming a few notes at a time, then scales, and pay close attention to where you can feel the resonance of your voice. When you are actually singing these scales and notes, this is where your voice should also be resonating. It shouldn't become closed off in your nose so that your tone is nasally nor drop back into your throat. Think of keeping the sound 'forward'. Also, it shouldn't sound breathy or airy. (You may recall that breathiness, or unfocused tone, is caused by incomplete vocal fold closure during phonation - sound production - and a lack of breath energy or good support.) If it does, or if the tone is shaky or weak, go back to practicing your breathing exercises and then apply better breath management skills to the more basic humming exercises, one note at a time, opening up to a single vowel. If the tone is still not clear after you have mastered breath support, work on improving the onset of your tone.
Sometimes it helps to place an 'm' or an 'n' before the vowels, at least initially, because these naturally resonant consonants can help to 'ground' the tone, allowing you to feel more resonance or 'buzz' and keeping the vowel from spreading. Many of the exercises that I have my students sing during lessons, particularly in the lower parts of their range, include 'm's' and 'n's' at the beginning of the vocal phrase (or series of notes) with the rest of the phrase being sung strictly on the vowel. When a student has mastered placement and consistently produces a clearer, more efficient tone, these consonants are usually removed from the exercises.
Some Bel Canto (meaning 'beautiful singing' in Italian, and referring to an Italian mode of singing or a classical singing technique developed in seventeenth century Italy) instructors believe that it makes little sense to train a singer on a consonant because Bel Canto singing is characterized by the ability to sustain a line from vowel to vowel without allowing consonants to get in the way of vowel production - in other words, it is the vowels that are sustained during singing, not the consonants, which serve the purpose only of forming different words - and because the resonance that is felt in these positions is nasal and false. However, I have seen success with my newer students who have never really felt the 'buzz' in their singing voices before. Although these nasal vowels may create a false sense of resonance because it is felt so strongly in the nasal cavity, tone tends to balance itself out once the velopharyngeal port is closed to produce the vowel, and the student is able to produce more clarity of tone due to better vocal fold approximation.
I would also argue that, since 'm's' and 'n's' are consonants that are indeed present in all vocal literature (songs), it is both safe and practical to include them in technique training, so long as they are not used to the exclusion of other consonants. If a student of voice never has an opportunity to use consonants during vocal training exercises, he or she may struggle to keep them from posing obstructions to good vowel tone when they are added later in his or her performance repertoire. In my studio, I find that some students allow back-formed consonants like 'g' to move the placement of the vowel back, and forward consonants like 'd' or fricatives - consonants that are formed by impeding the flow of air somewhere in the vocal apparatus so that a friction-sound is produced - are often sung too harshly. (Fricatives may be either voiced, as in the case of 'v' and 'z', in which the vocal folds vibrate during the articulation of the fricative, or voiceless, as in the case of 'h' and 'f', in which the vocal folds do not vibrate during the articulation of the fricative.) It is always a more balanced approach to vocal training to include all consonants in exercises at some point because they can easily affect the quality of the resonance produced, which will be noticeable on the following vowel. Bel Canto, after all, means 'beautiful singing', and a singer's voice can't be beautiful if any element is missing from his or her training.
Finally, experiment with focusing your vocal tone in various parts of the resonating chamber that consists of your throat, oral cavity and nasal cavity. Begin by directing the tone out through your nose and sinuses - intentionally producing a nasally tone - to see what that feels and sounds like. (This sound is usually accompanied by a bunched up tongue.) Next, try creating a 'throaty' sound, and take note of how this sounds and feels. Then, try centering the sound in the large, more forward resonating space and note the way that this sounds and feels. You'll find that the former methods create a tone that does little to complement your natural voice, while the latter creates a richer, fuller, more compelling sound. I sometimes have my new students sustain a single note on an 'ah' while they experiment with their tone placement - while they learn to tune their formants and achieve balance in their resonance. When they hear that fully resonant 'ring' inside their heads, they take note of it, and I usually give them the proverbial 'thumbs up' as an external listener when their tone sounds balanced or centered. This exercise can be very effective, as most students with relatively good breath support and vocal fold closure can hear and feel when their tone seems to be 'perfect' because it rings so strongly inside their heads.
Practice singing in the more centered tone mentioned in the previous step, being certain to keep the throat open and note the resonance that indicates correct use of all the resonating spaces together. Before trying for a more individualized tone, you need to master keeping your tone consistently centered.
Initially do not strive for a 'beautiful', rich or even 'big' voice. Don't attempt to make your voice into anything that it isn't naturally because you are under the impression that this is how singing should be approached and how it should sound. Rather, let your aim be simply to achieve complete freedom of the vocal mechanism, which will result in healthy, balanced resonance. In time, with good technique applied to singing, timbre will improve in all areas of the range (vocal compass), and your own personal style can be added.