Cinema - You asked me to elaborate on the techniques that Chris Miyai describes in his singing video. I’ll go through his own comments in the order in which he gives them, and try to explain them in my own words. What he describes as “pushing his voice forward” on low notes (1:00) might be his way of explaining that he keeps the larynx from dropping and the tone from over darkening on low notes (When the larynx lowers, the vocal tract lengthens, which in turn lowers all formants, causing the upper partials/overtones to be lost.) He states that he makes his voice “more penetrating” using a classical technique – “concentrating the harmonics of the voice”. What he is describing is formant (or resonance) tuning, in which the singer makes subtle adjustments to the vocal tract to allow the resonance frequencies of the vocal tract to ‘line up with’ one (or more) of the harmonics (overtones) of the vocal folds so that the harmonic is amplified. In some classical techniques, the singer learns to thin and brighten the tone on lower notes by lowering the soft palate slightly, preventing the larynx from lowering more and thinking ‘forward’. This technique will create the sensation of the resonance being more ‘forward and up’. Most singers attempt to ‘reach down’ on low notes, which makes their tone overly dark and dull because the resonance then lacks ‘ring’ from the lost upper partials/overtones. I teach ‘getting the feeling of resonance up and out of the lower throat’ on lower notes. Without actually using the term, he essentially describes modification of his /i/ vowel using “an operatic technique” that creates a different resonance balance (1:05). He also uses the slightly rounded /o/ mouth shape. He says this is to “point the sound forward”, but it actually serves to alter the formants – lip rounding lowers the frequency value of the second formant (as well as that of the third formant). He is modifying the vowel by creating more of a ‘north-to-south’ buccal opening (as opposed to a spread ‘east-to-west’), which brings in some of the darker qualities of the voice, as jaw lowering retains the strength of the first formant and helps the singer avoid an overly bright tone. (In classical technique, we brighten the lower notes, but deepen/darken the higher notes in order to achieve evenness of timbre across the entire scale.) What I hear in this part of the song is a technique/concept that I teach my students: in the back of the throat on all higher register notes, there is a neutral [ʊ] vowel (as in the words ‘good’ and ‘put’) that forms as the pitch gets higher. The vowels themselves are still articulated as they should be with the appropriate tongue posture – as Richard Miller wrote, “the tongue always speaks the integrity of the desired vowel” - and to some extent the mouth, too, but the shape in the back of the throat becomes more uniformly neutral on all vowel sounds. He is essentially relaxing the vowels, and especially the /i/, making it less tense (in the phonological sense). Some classical teachers and singers approach this darkening by way of pursing their lips on all vowel sounds, which lengthens the vocal tract further, but also tends to over darken the sound and distort all the vowels. Around 1:40, Miyai slides up using a lower larynx. The larynx actually lowers further as he changes into his higher register - a common technique also seen in elite opera singers. This greater degree of laryngeal lowering gives the effect of vowel darkening (by lengthening the resonator tube/vocal tract). It also increases the resonating spaces, as the lower larynx means that the singer can access the resonance created by the wider base of the pharynx. What he describes as raising his (soft) palate, directing the sound - ”pointing the voice”- to the top of his head, and forcing the sound to resonate between the mouth and nose (1:44) sounds like twang to me. Essentially, he is getting more nasopharyngeal resonance and keeping the sensation of the resonance forward. That’s the brightness of twang. (Twang is not always nasalized, as many people assume. It tends to have a very ‘forward’ sound and feel, and is inherently bright due mainly to a shortening of the vocal tract caused by a slightly raised larynx, and the narrowing of the aryepiglottis.) I teach twang to help access the upper range in contemporary genres. I love it especially for musical theatre. He claims to be using a ‘mixed voice’ (2:07), but I think it’s actually head voice configuration reinforced with twang or vowel brightness. Twang can create the auditory illusion that the singer is still in full chest voice or mixed voice even though he has actually moved into his upper register. Twang creates a more ‘piercing’ sound – maximum output is created with minimal effort – because of how the resonance is tuned (e.g., it creates/accesses the singer’s formant, so the voice carries without having to be pushed). It also ensures a healthier phonation in the upper range (as compared to pushing chest too high or forcing) and assists more speech-like vowels (rather than very modified, classical sounding versions). The brightness (tuning) and vowel quality both work together to create this auditory illusion. I would agree that he is using falsetto on the word ‘hold’ (2:45). It has a more ‘flute-like’ tone and lacks some of the overtones. At 3:04, he compresses the sound to hold back the air pressure a bit. Well, Cinema (and world), thats my two cents!
Posted on: Sat, 04 Oct 2014 21:23:54 +0000
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