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.
This is fascinating. I was going to move on to that next. Do you
have any particular advice for people who have to deal with children
in groups? Particularly if they don’t have the opportunity to assess
them individually? Well I suppose that’s one of the ways of doing
that is to get to assess them individually!
Well I think you have to. And all you need to do is two sentences
of conversation to assess them individually. You know, “Hi, how are
you this morning…” and then you get a sense of where their voices
are. You can hear if their voice sounds a bit scratchy, a bit rough,
and it’s important that you know that.
So you can say “OK your voice sounds a little bit rough this morning
– you need to take it easy today”. And then maybe you listen to them
singing a higher range and if it sounds uncomfortable, well then say
OK don’t sing anything above that particular note.
And also you can assess what’s happening to their voices over a
longer term. I think you do need to do individual assessments even
if it’s only two sentences – just a few seconds. It doesn’t need to
be… Actually it does need to be every day!
You’ve got a group of 40 children, and you’ve got to be able to
sniff them out I suppose! But quite a lot of group teaching in
schools goes on, and those groups tend not to be so large, so that
makes it a little bit easier to assess people individually. And also
to make sure that they are in groups of like voices, of similar
voices.
