Here are 2 great articles and 1 video about the voice and how it works. It was an eye opener for me.
First, a little about me:
I am 33 and have played piano since age 6 (studied classical), but I only started singing about 18 months ago… and I mean only 18 months ago. Yes, I sang every now and then, but never honestly or loud enough to be heard.
As many before me, I really struggle with simply opening the mouth, breathing in, then out and letting goooooooooo. This has caused me to clamp down on my larynx and neck (and to be honest, my whole body). As a result, my throat tired quickly. In addition, I would be hitting a moving target each time I tried to make a sound because it really depended upon how rested my throat was.
Imagine holding a light weight dumbbell out at arms length. As your muscles tire, you might find yourself compensating with different muscles or changing your posture in order to hold your arm upright. This is what my throat had to do…compensate for each and every sound (exhausting, mentally and physically). It’s a rough metaphor, but I think it makes sense. A better metaphor might be posture. If posture is correct, the body can move freely and effortlessly for a long time before fatigue sets in. If posture is incorrect, one might have to shift their hips or neck or shoulders, etc. in order to feel “comfortable.” But, fatigue will set in faster and create more and more problems. Blog posts about posture, surely to come. 🙂
Alas, I am beginning to overcome this and now that my throat isn’t constricting or moving unnecessarily and I can commit to muscle memory the various vowel shapes and sounds with much more ease.
Ok, ok…getting ahead of myself and to be honest, it’s hard to describe how I’ve applied what I’ve learned. The best thing that I could do was keep going, keep practicing, pour over the internet for some different perspectives and digest all of these lessons with our wonderful vocal coach, Andrew. I am an over-thinker, but It’s my process. Haha.
I will be posting at least once a week with something new.
Starting from the beginning…
I first wanted to learn how the voice works so that I would have a common language when sifting through any information that I encountered.
It’s a bit dry, but here is where I started my internet search.
http://tips.how2improvesinging.com/open-throat/
This article is a heavy read but it reinforced some of the ideas presented in the above article/video.
Singwise
Check out Karyn’s channel for more informative, practical content! ‘Opening the throat’ is defined as a technique whereby pharyngeal space is increased and/or the ventricular (false) vocal folds are retracted in order to maximize the resonating space in the vocal tract.
More posts to come…
Paul
