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Welcome to Vocal Process eZINE 29
In this edition we highlight our current events and follow up
on Your Questions Answered. "A week in the life of..." follows
Jeremy around the country, and Gillyanne contributes to a new book
on singing.
We include a superb soundfile demonstration of female falsetto from
Sara Harris, and introduce our own life coach, Peter King, with his
three-day course, Empowering Journey. In our feature
interview adolescent voice expert Jenevora Williams talks about
training young voices. |
 
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Current events
Singing and the Actor Training
The 2008 incarnation of
the Singing and the Actor Training is rapidly approaching (April 5-7
at Haberdashers' Aske's in New Cross). If you are ready to identify
and target your personal vocal challenges, or to brush up on the
latest vocal skills for your students, book your place without delay
- we still have a couple of places available at the full price.
And remember that the
Singing and the Actor Training carries a full one-year guarantee. We
believe in your ability to grow and in our ability to teach. So you
have a full year to try out the techniques you will learn on-course.
In short, if you do not improve, discover something new or gain
practical knowledge on the training, we will refund your entire fee,
and that's valid for a year. We're really excited to be able to
offer this, and we believe that this is the first time a
voice-training company in the UK has had such confidence in a live
training programme.
Click here now to book your place on Singing and the Actor Training
The Developing Voice
This eZINE contains an interview with Jenevora Williams, the
tutor on The Developing Voice (see below). The Developing Voice course will be held
at RADA on Saturday April 26 2008. If you are working with either
boys or girls under 18 in any capacity, this is a must-see course.
Not only will you have the benefit of Jenevora's expertise and her
many years of experience and research, you will also be able to
witness her work with a number of boys and girls live on course.
Find out how to assess young voices, and how to provide them with
repertoire that is suitable for their voice. Feel confident that the
techniques that you already use are safe for changing voices, and
discover new techniques for tackling known adolescent issues. If you would like to bring a young student with
you to work with Jenevora, please let us know by
emailing Allison.
The Developing Voice is included on our Teacher+Student scheme,
which means you can bring a student (adult or otherwise) with you
for a reduction on the full adult rate.
Click here to book your place on The Developing Voice.
With One Voice
With One Voice is the finale for Module One of our Integrated Voice™
programme. With
operas being written with dialogue, musicals being through-composed,
and more theatrical productions calling for actor/musicians and
singer/actors, the musical and theatrical genres are beginning to
blur. Gillyanne and guest tutor David Carey have long held the
belief that there should be similarities in the training and use of
the voice in both singing and speaking. This day course explores the
background and current training in both disciplines.
Gillyanne writes: “It’s a course dear to my heart as it embodies the
idea that singing and speaking come from the same mechanism. I teach
this course with RADA colleague David Carey and am always impressed
by his skill at introducing vocal
production and text work to singers. I in turn introduce key
elements of singing training and explain the goals
behind common singing exercises. We always finish the day with a
comparison exercise – what happens if you swap approaches – what can
be learned. The course is a good mix of practical and conceptual
elements and should be great for actors and voice teachers who need
to work with singing voice, and for singers and singing teachers
who need to work with spoken voice.”
With One Voice is also included on our Teacher+Student
scheme, (see above).
Click here to book your place on With One Voice.
Singing
in Musical Theatre
Gillyanne has contributed to a singing book published
recently by Joan Melton.
Joan is creator of the Voice/Movement programme at California State
University, Fullerton, and is a Master Teacher of the FitzMaurice
approach to theatre voice.
 Back in 2004
Joan set out to interview 16 of the most influential teachers of
musical theatre singing in the world and compile their different
approaches into one book called Singing in Musical Theatre: The
Training of Singers and Actors. Only three teachers were interviewed in the UK
- Gillyanne, Mary Hammond and Penni Harvey-Piper.
The
interviews were based on each teacher's thoughts about six major
elements of voice training that relate directly to theatre voice:
alignment, breathing, range, resonance, articulation and connection
or the acting dimension. The trainers were also asked to relate
their approach to voice science and to the movement-based work that
is a core element of the actor's training.
Click here to buy a copy of Joan's book Singing in Musical Theatre: The Training of Singers and Actors
from Amazon.co.uk in the UK (currently £5.53) or
Singing in Musical Theater: The Training of Singers and Actors
from Amazon.com in the United States (currently $13.57)
Your Questions Answered
A question arrived in our Your Questions Answered inbox recently
asking for clarification on an unusual topic:
HR has asked: "I have seen various references on websites and vocal
forums to "pharyngeal voice" but I'm not sure what it is. It seems
to be a kind of witch voice, usually discussed by male singers and
teachers, and in one forum was said NOT to be singers' formant. Is
it the same as twang? Is it relevant to women ? I'd love to know
what you at Vocal Process understand by this term."
Gillyanne writes: Thanks so much for this interesting
question.
In the world of singers and teaching of singing we are dealing
with perception –that is what we hear and see. How we interpret that
information varies with our training background, our knowledge base,
and our cultural aesthetic. In other words, just because we use an
anatomical name to describe sound we hear, does not necessarily mean
that the sound in question is made by in that place. ‘The pharynx’
for example could mean laryngopharynx, oropharynx or nasopharynx, so
any of these might be implied by the term ‘pharyngeal voice’. Your
question seems to have 3 parts, which I will answer in turn:
1. What do we mean by pharyngeal voice ? In researching
this question, the most common usage I have found for
‘pharyngeal voice’ or ‘pharyngealized sound’ refers to the
oropharynx, which is a primary resonator for the voice.
Resonance can be adjusted in this area either by the tongue
root, the tongue body or by the middle constrictor muscle.
Here are some direct and indirect references to this topic:
Vennard who has a useful thesaurus of ‘resonance imagery’
in his Mechanism and Technic (1967) interprets ‘pharyngeal
voice’ as dark and throaty.
Chapman (2006), who does not use the term ‘pharyngeal
voice’, emphasises the need for awareness of postural changes in
the head/neck relationship, as these can affect pharyngeal
resonances, and says that the pharyngeal constrictor muscles
need to be relaxed for classical singing.
Phoneticians and linguists tend to use the term
‘pharyngealized voice’ or ‘pharyngeal setting’, where ‘setting’
means a long-term average habitual patterning of structures in
the vocal tract. Laver (1980) explains that, while there
is a difference in location between pharyngealized
voice (meaning constriction at the middle constrictor) and laryngo-pharyngealized
voice (meaning constriction of the lower pharynx and upper
larynx and therefore implies tongue lowering and backing),
differentiation between them using only auditory perception is
not straightforward. He mentions that larynx lowering might be
involved in ‘pharyngealization’ as well as a tendency to pull
the soft palate downwards, resulting in some nasalization.
So – to summarise an answer to the first part of your question,
‘pharyngeal voice’ might mean any of the following:
Poor postural alignment, a dark, throaty tone, a backed and
lowered tongue, tongue root tension, nasalization, a narrowing
of the middle pharyngeal constrictor or of the lower pharyngeal
constrictor.
2. Pharyngeal voice and ‘singer’s formant’. If any of the
above interpretations of the term apply, then it is unlikely
that this type of resonance would contribute to the ‘singers’
formant’.
3. Is the term relevant to women? Here I am on surer ground.
The mechanism for both male and female voice is the same, so is
the physiology. Presumably then, ‘pharyngeal voice’ can be
produced by either gender.
Perhaps the most useful thing to remember when looking to make
physiological interpretations of sounds we hear is that the vocal
tract is a very flexible instrument. May different muscles are
involved and these can lead to a variety of different configurations
that might well result in the same acoustic outcome.
As for using the term ‘pharyngeal voice’, personally, I find
myself not wanting to go there!
References
Vennard, W. 1967. SINGING the Mechanism and Technic. Carl Fisher
Inc., Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles
Chapman, J.L. 2006. Singing and Teaching Singing. Plural
Publishing Inc., San Diego, Oxford, Brisbane
Laver, J. 1980. The phonetic description of voice quality.
Cambridge University Press. Cambridge, London, New York, New
Rochelle, Melbourne, Sydney
Falsetto in the female speaking voice
 During
the Vocal Anatomy for Voice Professionals course in January
there was a query about falsetto. It began a very interesting
discussion between the co-tutors (Tom and Sara Harris) and the Vocal
Process directors (Jeremy and Gillyanne). It ended with Sara giving
a live demonstration of falsetto, modal and breathy modal voice in
the female voice. We felt it was so good that we have asked Sara's
permission to include the recording on the Vocal Process website.
Here's the question that started it all off:
Question: “I’m under the impression that when you’re using
falsetto that the cords are not actually touching.”
Sara: They can be.
Tom: You talk to a countertenor who is definitely using
falsetto and they’re making enough noise to fill a cathedral!
Sara: Their folds are definitely touching.
Jeremy: Can I just step in here? What we tend to cover in the
Singing and the Actor Training is the primary colours. So our
primary colour for falsetto is a really hooty, breathy,
things-don’t-meet-they’re-just-waving-gently-in-the-breeze thing.
But these are on a continuum. In fact if I’ve understood this right,
they are on two continuums.
Sara: Absolutely, that’s what we’re saying
Jeremy: They’re on two different continuums. You have a
continuum which starts at thick folds [modal or chest voice], and
they are vibrating in a particular way. Those folds can get thinner
but still vibrate in that particular way. And then you have the
other continuum which is falsetto where the folds are vibrating in a
different way, and they can get thicker, even though they are
vibrating still in that particular way, and those two can overlap.
And in fact they can overlap in pitch as well, so you can do the
same note in different qualities.
Sara: Yes, absolutely
Jeremy: So you can have a falsetto-type movement with thicker
folds that touch
Sara: Yes. And of course it depends on the [vocal fold]
closure
Tom: And for me, it’s not how much they touch, but because of
thinness and thickness and pressure and all that stuff, what
actually changes for me is the phase relationship of the
oscillation.
Gillyanne: So it’s the way they vibrate.
Jeremy: And it is also why when we are dealing with students,
sometimes they get confused. I had this the day before
yesterday. I had a male client in and I said “that’s not falsetto”.
He was singing what we would call a light head voice, but not in
falsetto, and he was really confused about that because he said “But
that’s not strong…”
Gillyanne: “…therefore it must be falsetto…”
Jeremy: “…therefore it must be falsetto”. And I said “no,
it’s not a falsetto type sound.”
Sara: We get it in speaking too.
Jeremy: So you can overlap either way.
-------------
Sara then gives a really clear demonstration moving between
falsetto, thin folds, thicker folds at the same pitch, thicker folds
at a lower pitch, and a breathy version at the lower pitch, then a
very low-pitched falsetto. Sara has kindly given us permission to
put the sound file of her demonstration onto the Vocal
Process website, and as an eZINE reader you are the first to hear
it!
Click
here to listen to a soundfile of Sara Harris demonstrating falsetto in female
spoken voice.
Vocal Process has also produced video footage showing this
phenomenon.
You can download the individual Voicebox Videos film
here [Modal to Falsetto 2 – Breathy Speech]
or get the
DVD with all
six Voicebox Videos saved at a higher specification.
And on the
Singing and the Actor Training we teach both men and
women to move between falsetto and modal voice (see Current Events above for
details).
A week in the life of... a vocal
coach
Jeremy's work is highly varied, but the following week is
fairly typical of the type and schedule of work he undertakes:
 "This particular week in February sticks out in my mind as
bringing most of my working arenas together - performance and
audition coaching, concerts, masterclasses, computer work, writing
and TRAVELLING.
Monday: Coaching day today, with an extended session for one of
the Cirque du Soleil workers. The company is only in London for
about 6 weeks, so before they arrived, Holly arranged an intensive
programme of sessions with us from Australia. Both Gillyanne and I
have been working with her on technique, performance coaching,
audition repertoire and the singer's mindset. This is the last
session she'll be having so am looking forward to it.
I'm flying up to Glasgow tonight to meet Gillyanne who is already
there teaching at Motherwell College.
Tuesday: Flight ok last night. Starting a whirlwind schedule at
the RSAMD working with 21 students in 2 days. 40-minute private
coaching sessions mean I have to work both in-depth and fast! Am
spending some time with each of them clarifying different vocal techniques,
and how to apply them to different songs in different genres. It
seems to be "legit" day today so we're exploring what "legit" actually
means in terms of musical theatre - the sound qualities, the vocal style, the musical style,
sustaining sound and how you move between the notes to make
something more or less period-authentic. Exhausting day!
Wednesday: More of the same - the remaining students get
individual attention. I've got a heavier
schedule than Gillyanne (who is working in another part of the
building) because I couldn't quite make the timetable work tomorrow
between coaching and concert work. Work is just like buses - nothing
for days then three things come along at once.
Thursday: This is the tough day of the week. Masterclass in the
morning with all 21 students. We're working on isolating the vocal sets and applying
them to different songs. Having huge fun helping individual students
set up different voice qualities in speaking and singing
voice. Working with the men I demonstrate the
opening of Valjean's Prayer in three versions: using thin folds with
little airflow, falsetto, and a version that uses both cry and
falsetto. Earn extra brownie points by making the
transition between thin folds and falsetto on an octave slide
apparently totally seamless. Respect! Some of them are fascinated
(and a little disturbed) to learn that there isn't one "right"
version and that all of them can be (and are) used.
Leave at midday to fly down from Glasgow to Southampton, then two
trains to Andover
to join Hatstand Opera
for a performance that evening
at the Army base. Doing a Valentine's dinner where we entertain
between courses. Real mix of repertoire with opera, musical theatre
and song. It is our third time there, and the concert goes really well - great acoustic to sing
in and an attentive and lively audience. Staying over tonight.
Friday: Travelling back to London for a preparation day. Update the
website with various things, start writing this eZINE (yes,
it really does start a month before) and
collect my thoughts and equipment for tomorrow.
Saturday: Computer Voice Training day. Intensive day but huge fun
- there are a lot of laughs as we try various things out. Have
handed out free programmes and articles on CD and have plugged the
laptop into our new flatscreen tv - a much sharper image than the
data projector and worth every penny. We concentrate on clear vowels
and tone onsets, and I introduce the group to vowel-creep (starting
on one vowel and sliding into the target vowel. Quite a few opera
singers use this as a device (even if they think they don't) to
"warm" the sound, "opening" onto the vowel proper. It's an
interesting exercise to get musical theatre singers to do it
deliberately and is surprisingly effective. We also work on
maintaining vocal sets in the speaking voice using passages from
"Comma gets a cure". This is a piece of prose with all the sounds of
English in it, so makes a great piece for experimenting. It's
unusual to keep the same voice quality throughout a passage, and
usually the first thing that goes is the pitch-intonation, so am
fairly strict with the participants on using their normal pitch
inflections with each different vocal set.
Sunday: Day off, sit in a small heap.
Words to Feed the Soul
We would like to introduce life coach and NLP master Peter King
to you.
Peter coaches both of us and we have been working with him for
several years.
 Jeremy:
"I've been working with Words to Feed the Soul creator Peter King
since I turned 40, and have found my regular sessions with him vital for my
professional and emotional wellbeing.
Peter has helped me focus on what I want to get out of life, how to
manage a very busy and complex schedule, and how to stay creative
even in the midst of dealing with unpleasant people or situations.
 Peter
runs a number of excellent courses, and the first in the series,
Empowering Journey, is coming up in April.
I've been on Peter's 3-day course Empowering Journey both as a
participant and as an assistant. I can definitely say that as a
result of working with him I now
feel more in control of my life, my reactions and my creative
output.
I recommend his work wholeheartedly to people searching for
more meaning and organisation in their lives, or for people wanting
to understand more about how life actually works."
Empowering Journey, the three-day course, begins on 19 April
2008. Click on this link to read more about the course on
Peter's website
Words To Feed The Soul.
The
Developing Voice with Jenevora Williams
 Jenevora
Williams, tutor on The Developing Voice, has been in America for the
last few months but took time out to have a telephone interview with
Jeremy on teaching the adolescent voice. The following is an excerpt
from the
full interview, which you can now view on the Vocal Process
website.
Jeremy's questions and comments are marked in bold:
Jeremy: Now you’ve actually done a fair amount of studying of the
whole vocal development starting with babies?
Jenevora: Yes. The infant has very different needs from the child
and the adult. The infant doesn’t need to be able to speak, doesn’t
need to be able to make connected sentences with the variety of
vowel sounds that we find in all languages. All the infant needs to
be able to do is to make a lot of noise in short bursts, and that’s
something they can do very effectively!
You can see how the vocal mechanism that we’re born with is very,
very different from the adult model. And knowing what the baby the
infant model is helps us a great deal because we can then see how
that changes, how that develops through childhood to give something
that would enable us to speak rather than make sounds
So obviously once you know what the physical development and
therefore the physical ability is, you’re going to know what
an infant’s voice can do, what a young child’s voice can do, and
then how the whole mechanism changes during adolescence to what the
adult voice can do then.
So are there any inappropriate techniques?
There are but it’s a gradual process rather than anything
more in definite ages. So if you look at it as a gradual
developmental process from the age of about 5 or 6 to about the age
of 23…
23 is quite old!
 Yes,
but it’s still developing. The lungs don’t reach full maturity until
18 or 19 which is beyond the stages of skeletal maturity. So a girl
will stop growing at the age of 15 or 16 but her lungs are still
developing. And the larynx and the lamina propria of the vocal folds
will continue changing right up until the mid 20s. And the
cartilages of the larynx also are changing,. In fact they’re
changing throughout our life – they never stand still.
And I’ve heard that there can be a calcification of the
cartilages as well later in life.
Yes, well that starts by the age of 30.
Really?
So mid 20s – in fact as soon as you’ve stopped growing – then it
starts calcifying, so the rest of it’s downhill! Except not for the
singer because that calcification gives more resilience and strength
which is why the really big dramatic singers tend to be in their 40s
and early 50s because that’s when you can get the most strength and
power from the larynx.
Oh that’s really fascinating. I’ve always wondered why bigger
voices seem to take longer to develop.
It’s because they need that resistance of the slightly stiffer
cartilages in order to be able to work at their optimum.
Excellent. So going back to inappropriate technique?
I’ve gone to sports training literature because there’s a lot
more research into sports training and what is appropriate for
children and for growing bodies to do in terms of sport. From that
we can learn what is appropriate for their voices, as it’s the same
types of muscles that grow in the same way and are capable of
suffering the same kinds of problems whether they are big muscles or
little muscles. So again we can learn from sports research. And the
sports research says that technique is essential to prevent injury.
Are there things specifically to do with the adolescent period?
Boys going through the stages of change?
Well the adolescent period throws up more extreme issues for boys
because their range changes dramatically – it drops about an octave
and it reduces considerably during that drop. So the repertoire
available becomes very much smaller and the teacher has got to be
quite clever to find pieces that have a range of an octave or maybe
9 notes, and be able to accompany in any possible key – and it might
change from week to week. So to help the technique one always
chooses repertoire with the lowest comfortable range. So in
adolescent boys whose voices are dropping, I would strongly advise
avoiding extended singing in falsetto.
What that means is don’t let the boy carry on singing soprano
even though he can and is quite happy to do so and it doesn’t appear
to hurt. It’s not going to do him any good for his future
development if he sings soprano while his speaking range is dropping
into more of a baritone range.
Right. So do you take the stages of change and where he is more
from his speaking voice than from his singing voice?
Yes, absolutely. That’s the way to tell the size of the larynx,
basically. By listening to the pitch of the speaking voice you can
tell where the larynx is most comfortable. And it’s always at the
lower end of our range, nearly everybody speaks about a third higher
than their lowest comfortable singing note.
Which is really right at the bottom of our vocal range but it’s
where the larynx operates comfortably because the muscles aren’t
working very hard down there. So find where the larynx is
comfortable and work from there.
You can use falsetto singing occasionally and you can use it in
warming up and occasionally in repertoire and that’s fine. The
problem is when it’s extended use, when it’s the only singing
they’re doing and they’re doing it a lot. They’re going to be
developing habits that aren’t going to help them as adults.
Is it different for adolescent girls?
Yes, it’s not so extreme. Some girls can go through adolescent
voice change and nobody really notices. Other girls will have slight
issues – they might have issues of breathiness, they might have
reduced range. They’ll just notice that things are slightly
different for them – what they used to be able to do comfortably
isn’t so comfortable for them now, and things will change more
subtly. One of the main issue that can be dealt with technically is
that of breathiness.
And the breathiness in the developing voice is generally caused by
the growth of the larynx and the relative size of the cartilages.
And if you’ve got large arytenoid cartilages then you’re not going
to get such good closure at the back which often happens in the
growing voice. So at the back of the vocal folds you’re just going
to get a little what they call a chink, which is a little gap where
air comes through. And that’s what gives the breathy sound.
That is quite possible to teach out of the voice – you can do
exercises that will help – completely safe, good, sound technical
exercises that will help reduce that breathiness. Because otherwise
what happens is that breathiness persists as a habit when the
physical issue has moved on.
Oh that’s very interesting. So in fact the original cause of the
breathiness in girls particularly could be from a physical change
that is going on, but they then get used to making that physical
sound.
They then get stuck in the habit. It’s a very common issue that
you listen to 17 or 18 year old girls and you listen to them
speaking and interacting socially and they’re obviously mature young
ladies, and then you hear them sing and they sing like little girls.
And that’s just habit. It’s just that they’ve got stuck in a certain
way of singing and nobody has said “OK, now you could actually try
this” or “You might like this” and move on a little.
And of course everybody is an individual. When I’m trying to help
other people teach voices, it’s made things easier for me if I can
categorise and compartmentalise to an extent. However, it is
important to treat every individual as a completely unique package.
And listen to them and watch them and assess their needs. Unless
you’re conducting a choir, and that’s very different.
The subtitle for your Developing Voice course in April is “0-30
in six hours”. I know that you do an indepth overview of anatomy and
the anatomical changes that people go through from the age of zero
right the way through to adulthood. So we find out about the
physicality of singing and the developmental aspect?
Yes. I’ve looked at the development of the vocal mechanism in
embryos as well – the foetus.
And you’re going to show people how to find which stage of change
a boy is going through – specifically.
Yes. How to listen to the speaking voice, how to assess what
stage they’re at. And when you know exactly what stage they’re at
then it’s really quite simple to know what sort of repertoire might
suit them and what sort of singing might suit them.
You’re also using your own recordings?
Yes. I think if you hear it, if you hear the voices at different
stages, you can compare them directly. This is this voice six months
later, listen to what’s happened. I think that is a very useful
thing to be able to do.
You are listening to somebody’s development.
For example, I’ve got a recording of one pupil of mine who is now
31 and I’ve got recordings of her every two or three years from the
age of 8.
So on this day we cover boys and girls.
Oh yes! Boys and girls, and different styles of music.
And in fact we’re going to have live boys and girls on the day
for you to help them find different ways of dealing with their
singing voice.
OK, one last question. What’s your top tip for teachers working
with either the child or the adolescent voice?
Listen with fresh ears at the beginning of every lesson. Because
things may have changed. Things will be different.
That’s excellent. Thank you.
Read the full interview transcript on the Vocal Process website
by clicking here.
And finally
 Jeremy's blog
archive is still available for thoughts, comments and articles on
singing, performance, musical theatre and auditioning. Check it out
by clicking on the box.
http://www.singingcoach.blogspot.com
 
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