I am really enthusiastic about vocal qualities, how they are physically created and factors that could inhibit them. I love to use a range of textures, tones and timbres within a single vocal performance to ‘bring a piece to life’, enhancing it’s emotional credibility and making a performance more interesting to an audience. Throughout the process of studying a song, I make pre-planned conscious decisions as to which vocal qualities would be most effective at certain points, and practice the physical placement and creation of each. I place a heavy emphasis on vocal qualities within my Singing lessons that I give to students, as without this they are not able to 'tell the story' of the song with any conviction. I hate to watch a really bland performance with no depth or detail. I think that it is extremely important for Singers to understand how the voice works in an anatomical sense and have an ability to create specific sounds through the manipulation of muscles and tissues.
I really admire the work of Jo Estill. Estill was revolutionary in voice studies by simply asking the question “how am I doing this?” She began to analyse the physical qualities of a specific sound a Singer would make, and investigated whether it was the case that if another person recreated the physical quality, they would produce the same specific sound. This eventually led her to develop an extensive and intricate teaching model of healthy Singing, breaking down the voice into each of its parts. Watching the endoscopic videos she created fascinates me. She inserted a camera down the vocal tract to ascertain what was physicality within the voice box when different sounds were made. I studied her techniques (which she calls figures) at Bird College, however would like to develop this knowledge further, inquiring how these vocal qualities can be ruined or jeopardized by outside factors such as diet, stress, smoking etc, as well as how the improper technique of creating vocal qualities can damage the voice. I am interested to investigate how this could affect the voice long-term and what impact it would have on a Singers career.
When I am teaching students, I often question whether the physical make-up of the voice box is identical between males and females and whether there are differences into how sounds and qualities are created.
Hi Alana,
ReplyDeleteI was very excited to find that your inquiry was on vocal qualities as I am also extremely interested in the anatomy side of phonation whether it's singing or just speach.
I actualy just got back from a singing lesson myself after having a break from tuition for a month or so, I found i had alot of root canal tension which was restricting my larynx, stopping my crycoid to easily tilt effecting the movement of my larynx(correct me if I've explained it wrong) and this is resulting in me struggling to find a clean thin fold quality this sadly effects the way my songs come across as it minimises the variation of depth,anyway relating directly back to your inquiry.
I am looking into music therapy as my inquiry which could possibly link to yours or extend it as many people use singing as a therapy also.
I enjoyed reading your blog as I also "aim to sustain a career using my voice" so look forward to reading what you learn!
Hi Jo, it is something I absolutely love! I too have root canal tension! Who coaches you? I have been thinking about this line of inquiry a lot and was wondering if singers from other countries use these techniques and ways of anatomically describing how the voice and singing in general works. I also thought about trying to analyse foreign singers and see which techniques they would naturally use. I would love to investigate this further, but can't quite get the thoughts straight in my head as to what I would specifically want to find out. Any thoughts you have on this idea, I would love to hear them.
ReplyDeleteIt would be really interesting to find out which health issues could be most treated with music therapy as well as the countries that most effectively implement it as an aid to health care. Keep me updated with how you're thoughts are developing and we can perhaps share some ideas.
My singing coach since graduating a lady called Lisa Thorner, she's currently working at GSA and is great if you're looking for someone.
ReplyDeleteThinking about your interest in analysing foreign singers, one idea could be going right back to their speaking accents, vowels sounds because they affect the anatomy of the voice in singing aswell hugely, i know that in certain book shops like French's you can get recordings of their accents, and singers in different countries. That could be a root to take.Let me know what you think..
I'm still researching the music therapy, I'll keep you posted.