That Annoying Nasal Tone!

I got a phone text the other day from a local music producer who'd been gritting his teeth during a long session with a singer who had a distracting and annoying nasal tone.

He asked if there were any quick fixes. Here's what I texted back:

Have him aim his sound toward his lower teeth. That'll help him relax his tongue, prevent directing the sound up into the head. Also, close off your own nostrils with your thumbs (one thumb on each nostril) and sing the line the way he does, and then sing it the way you want him to. If you're doing it right, it won't sound nasal except on m's, n's and ng's That's a good way to quickly demonstrate how nasality can be fixed. Good luck!

It was the best I could do on the fly; but here's a more detailed explanation of what I wrote in the text to the woebegone music producer.

First of all, let's talk about "aiming" the sound. That may seem like a strange concept at first; you may be wondering, "Isn't the sound of my voice already aimed, more or less, out of my mouth?" Yes, essentially. But on it's way out of your mouth, each sound travels through a uniquely-shaped passage that gives it the characteristic it needs to be part of our language. Let me ask you to do something here, and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Right now, while you're reading this, try saying the syllable "ah" with your mouth positioned in several ways. Say it with your lips rounded, with your teeth clenched, with a slack jaw. Say it as if you were Japanese, or British. Say it like you're Dudley Dooright. Aha! Hear the differences? This is because your mouth has changed shapes every time you've pronounced the syllable. When your mouth changes shape, the space in which the vowel is formed in your mouth changes, too, and what comes out of your mouth has a distinct and unique sound, all recognizable as "ah."

In each of these "ahs," your teeth, lips, inside cheeks, soft palette, hard palette, and tongue combined to make a new kind of "ah." Perhaps you noticed when you did Dudley Dooright that your tongue was pulled up very high in the back of your mouth, toward your soft palette. The sound you got would have been very nasal.

Most likely, though, you didn't notice your tongue at all. It's often difficult for a voice teacher to get a new student to raise or lower the tongue. Subtle placement of our tongues in our mouths is not something we can do easily at first. It takes some training, and the best training is to start making different sounds by changing the lips, jaw, and mouth opening, and perhaps creating a "persona" (impersonating someone foreign or famous), until you can feel what the tongue is doing in all these positions. Rather than doing something specifically with your tongue, you simply "aim" the sound through a space that you intuitively sense will give you the sound you want.

That's why I told my producer friend to have his singer "aim" his sound toward his lower teeth. It's much easier for a beginner, who has no concept of how to raise or lower his tongue, to aim his sound to a place in his mouth. Aiming your sound toward your lower teeth will automatically cause you to lower your tongue in your mouth, allowing the sound to travel forward through the mouth and out of the mouth opening, rather than being diverted by a tongue high in the back of the mouth toward the nasal cavities.

Now, let's move on to that part in my text about covering the nostrils with the thumbs. This important and simple diagnostic exercise helps isolate a singer's tendency to sing nasally on sounds that should not be sung through the nose.

You must first understand, however, that several consonants in our language are supposed to create nasality, because they literally stop the flow of air through the mouth as they are being articulated. The three major nasal consonants are "m," "n," and "ng." [You may also hear a smidgen of nasality in "nk" or "nc," and very faintly in the consonant "b."]

Try this. Say a long sustained "m." Then, while you are still sustaining the sound, cover both of your nostrils lightly with your thumbs. Ha! What happens? The sound stops, doesn't it! That's because the air from your lungs going through your vocal cords to create the sound in the consonant "m" cannot escape through your closed mouth. The sound naturally must go out your nose — it's the only pathway available for the exhaled air. The same is true for the consonant "n," which is blocked by the front of your tongue at the hard palette (try it!) and "ng," which is blocked by the back of the tongue at the soft palette (try it, too!).

With your thumbs lightly covering both your nostrils, you should always feel a little pressure on your thumbs when you sing a passage containing m's, n's, and ng's. But you should never feel pressure on your thumbs on any vowel, nor any other consonant. This is where a singer's nasality becomes annoying to the listener.

Let's try singing just a simple melody with several nasal consonants in it, and find out if you are forcing your sound out of your nose in places you shouldn't! Sing, slowly, the following famous musical phrase:

"I'm dreaming of a White Christmas, just like the ones I used to know."

Now, gently place the pad of each of your thumbs under each of your nostrils. Sing the passage again. You should feel pressure on both the m's, both the n's, and the ng of "dreaming."

You should NOT feel pressure on any of the following consonant sounds:
the "d" in "dreaming"
the "w" in "white" or the implied "w" in the opening sound of "ones"
the "j" in "just"
the "l" in "like"

If you felt any thumb pressure on any of those consonants, sing the passage again and see if you can sing through these "voiced" consonants more quickly and go onto the following vowel, so that the consonant doesn't stop the flow of sound, which forces a nasal tone.

Now, let's do this again, only this time listen for nasality in your vowels. Here is where I generally find most people have their trouble with nasality.

You should NOT feel pressure on any of the following vowel sounds:

the "ee" in both syllables of "dreaming"
the "ee" in the end of the diphthong in "I'm" "White," and "like"
the "ih" in "Christmas"
the "oo" in "used"
the "oo" at the end of the diphthong in "know"

If you do feel thumb pressure on these vowels, you need to work diligently to re-aim your vowels out of your mouth and cease sending them to your nose. Singing with your thumbs under your nostrils will immediately tell you if you are doing this correctly.

Why do vowels become nasal? My theory is that people are fearful of opening their mouths. Or that they're just fearful, period. Tight, fearful mouths don't want to let vowels out, hence the nasal sound. You must will yourself to sing with that easy open sound, and nasality should soon be a thing of the past for you.

You need to gain confidence, and that comes with hearing a lovely tone.

Hearing a lovely tone, comes from singing with a relaxed and open mouth.

Having a relaxed and open mouth comes from singing with confidence.

You see where I'm going with this? It takes courage to open one's mouth to sing! And courage takes courage!