One of the most often heard adages in theater is "Don't do the audience's work for them!"
This phrase is used to discourage actors from doing one thing in particular: cry on stage. Crying, though occasionally called for in the stage directions or indicated in the actual text, is (more often than not) an unnecessary overlay by an actor attempting to raise the emotional stakes of a scene. Curiously, crying on stage is thought of by many aspiring actors as "proof" of their ability to act.
Well, crying on stage may reflect a certain level of ability; but its effectiveness with the audience should be debated. Crying by an actor when not specified in the text of a script does a disservice to the play and the playwright, and can insult an intelligent audience.
If you can't move the audience using only the text, if you must resort to tricks like crying on stage, then there is something wrong at the heart of the script, or with the direction, or with you, the actor.
Because here's what's true: in real life, people never really cry when other people are crying. It's rude. When we see people cry, we are moved to be strong for them, to offer them comfort and encouragement. It is when we see people not cry in the face of adversity that we are moved to tears.
Dozens of plays and movies come to my mind now, in which a character has just received the news of a death, or has been abandoned or betrayed, or has witnessed some cruel injustice, or has been dealt an unfair blow from life. What moved us to cry was not the character's weakening to tears, but his ability to remain dignified, to be strong for himself or others, to make his next choice from a core of inner strength. When a character on stage is being strong in the face of hardship, we in the audience are given implicit permission to cry on his behalf. Oedipus doesn't cry: he accepts his cruel fate and plucks out his eyes. We weep for him. When Lear realizes too late that Cordelia loves him, he does not cry; he is brutally honest about his shortsighted cruelty to his loving daughter. We weep for him. When the little boy who wanted so desperately to win the spelling bee places second but does not cry, we weep for him.
Because here's what's also true: when we weep for the character on stage or screen, we are really weeping for ourselves and our common human condition. That is the catharsis theater is meant to provide to an audience. Crying is the business of the audience, not the job of the actor. It is the actor's job to move us, not to make us watch him be moved.
I have given this piece of advice to actors and singers throughout my teaching career; but recently I was the lucky witness to one of my students discovering for herself the truth of this aspect of acting.
My student, Hannah Knapp, a lovely young actress who is working to put singing roles onto her resumé, began a few weeks ago to work on a great tune by Jason Robert Brown called "Stars and the Moon." This song is in three parts, each part telling a story about three men with whom the singer fell in love. The first man offered her romance, the second offered her freedom. They both offered her "the moon." But what she wanted was material comfort, financial security, a life that was "scripted and planned." Then she meets Man Number Three, who had "retired at age 30, set for life." And she marries him. And she gets everything she ever wanted, until she wakes one day and realizes, "My God! I'll never have the moon."
When Hannah first heard me sing this song to her, she was so moved by the lyric that she cried when I had finished. But she loved the song and wanted to learn it. So the next week we began to work on it. To our mutual dismay, the lyric again moved Hannah so deeply, that she couldn't finish the song. She could get to the spoken words "My God!" but could not then follow with the singing of "I'll never have the moon." The lump in her throat just would not give way to that lyric!
I told Hannah that, in my experience, when a lyric moves you so much that you can't help but cry, you just have to keep singing it and singing it, until you become inured to the emotional subtext. But I also told her to hang on to that feeling of vulnerability when she comes to those words, because that's the thing the audience wants to believe about her — that she really was hurt by the realization that she'd "never have the moon."
Weeks went by. Every time we tried to sing the song, we'd get right to the end and Hannah would choke. She'd reach for the kleenex and swallow a little water and we'd try again, to no avail.
Last week, Hannah and I gave it another shot. We got to the end of the piece, and I played the chord that holds under the spoken "My God!" Hannah said, "My God," and then stopped. A beat went by. Then another beat. And then I heard Hannah "powering through" her own emotional bottleneck. Out came "I'll never have the moon," in a voice that had nearly but not quite gone to tears. I got goosebumps. When we finally ended the song together, I was the one reaching for the kleenex. We had a good laugh/cry, and congratulated ourselves on being able finally to get through it.
Hannah had found that staying strong after the discovery of her loss was a powerful, moving moment for her audience.
And I had received unbidden, serendipitous, positive proof that an actor's not crying is what will move people to tears.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
Women's Vocal Cord Damage from Speaking
Recently I listened to a radio discussion by two men and a woman on the subject of the state of education in America. As interested as I was in the subject, about one minute into the broadcast, I began to listen to an entirely different aspect of the interview: the pitch of the woman's speaking voice.
Her speaking style provided a clear example of a modern woman attempting to sound "like a man." She was speaking at what voice professionals call the "fry," the very lowest pitches capable of phonation by the vocal cords.
Since the 1970s, the speaking pitch of women's voices in the West has been dropping, in every field of employment — from communication and education to politics and business. In those years when women first entered the workforce in large numbers, experiments in business psychology discovered that women who lowered their overall vocal pitch moved ahead in their jobs, held others' attention longer, and got better performance from their subordinates than did women who spoke at high pitches. I think one study referred to it as "Big Dog Bark," or something like that. I even remember women being professionally coached to lower the pitches of their speaking voices.
This culture-wide lowering of female vocal speaking pitch mirrored a rising awareness by women of their age-old attempts to achieve the opposite effect, namely, of maintaining a youthful, even childlike timbre to the voice. Women suddenly became eager to throw off anything that made them appear weak, incapable, or dependent — including the sound of their voices. Though there were plenty of 20th-Century women who spoke with naturally low voices (strong actors like Barbara Stanwyck, Ingrid Bergman, Rosalind Russell, right up to Meryl Streep), women in the 1970s and 1980s, in an effort to be perceived as "strong," began to move toward ever-lowered vocal pitch — lower (I and many other voice professionals feel) than was needed to achieve the effect they sought.
But a relaxed, natural, even tone of voice (as opposed to an ultra-feminine, high-pitched voice) is not the same as a voice being lowered to its fundamental tone, or fry. Nowadays, almost all female news anchors, weathercasters, and entertainment hosts speak at the vocal fry, as do many women of power in business and politics.
Though occasionally a teenaged girl will begin study at my vocal studio with a high-pitched, "girl-like" speaking voice, many more young women arrive with unnaturally lowered voices, pitched at the vocal fry. These girls are often the leaders and high achievers of their schools. The subtext in their voices is: Please take me seriously! These voices are often already damaged from the acceptance of a new cultural "norm." This speech "affect" is unnecessarily harming the cords, actually creating an inability to sing, and prematurely aging the vocal cords from daily misuse.
This lowering of pitch has become so accepted by the culture at large that we no longer hear the vocal fry in women as aesthetically displeasing. Aside from being displeasing, this kind of speaking is extremely damaging to any vocal mechanism, male or female. When a person speaks at the fry, he or she is using pitches that cause the cords actually to "chafe" against each other — a phenomenon you can easily recognize in a speaker's low, gravelly tone, or in the raspy drop in pitch, especially at the ends of phrases and sentences. Compared to the voices of men — who have no reason to pitch their voices lower than their natural registers — women's voices may often be the lowest-pitched in any random group.
I would recommend to all women — but to young women especially — that each of you allow your voice to find it's natural speaking register, rather than attempting to force it to stay in a dark, low, rumbling area. With good diction, diaphragmatic support, and moderate tempo in your speech, you will find that your naturally-pitched voice can still be quite effective in communication, perhaps even more so, because listeners naturally trust a natural sounding voice in both women and men.
Her speaking style provided a clear example of a modern woman attempting to sound "like a man." She was speaking at what voice professionals call the "fry," the very lowest pitches capable of phonation by the vocal cords.
Since the 1970s, the speaking pitch of women's voices in the West has been dropping, in every field of employment — from communication and education to politics and business. In those years when women first entered the workforce in large numbers, experiments in business psychology discovered that women who lowered their overall vocal pitch moved ahead in their jobs, held others' attention longer, and got better performance from their subordinates than did women who spoke at high pitches. I think one study referred to it as "Big Dog Bark," or something like that. I even remember women being professionally coached to lower the pitches of their speaking voices.
This culture-wide lowering of female vocal speaking pitch mirrored a rising awareness by women of their age-old attempts to achieve the opposite effect, namely, of maintaining a youthful, even childlike timbre to the voice. Women suddenly became eager to throw off anything that made them appear weak, incapable, or dependent — including the sound of their voices. Though there were plenty of 20th-Century women who spoke with naturally low voices (strong actors like Barbara Stanwyck, Ingrid Bergman, Rosalind Russell, right up to Meryl Streep), women in the 1970s and 1980s, in an effort to be perceived as "strong," began to move toward ever-lowered vocal pitch — lower (I and many other voice professionals feel) than was needed to achieve the effect they sought.
But a relaxed, natural, even tone of voice (as opposed to an ultra-feminine, high-pitched voice) is not the same as a voice being lowered to its fundamental tone, or fry. Nowadays, almost all female news anchors, weathercasters, and entertainment hosts speak at the vocal fry, as do many women of power in business and politics.
Though occasionally a teenaged girl will begin study at my vocal studio with a high-pitched, "girl-like" speaking voice, many more young women arrive with unnaturally lowered voices, pitched at the vocal fry. These girls are often the leaders and high achievers of their schools. The subtext in their voices is: Please take me seriously! These voices are often already damaged from the acceptance of a new cultural "norm." This speech "affect" is unnecessarily harming the cords, actually creating an inability to sing, and prematurely aging the vocal cords from daily misuse.
This lowering of pitch has become so accepted by the culture at large that we no longer hear the vocal fry in women as aesthetically displeasing. Aside from being displeasing, this kind of speaking is extremely damaging to any vocal mechanism, male or female. When a person speaks at the fry, he or she is using pitches that cause the cords actually to "chafe" against each other — a phenomenon you can easily recognize in a speaker's low, gravelly tone, or in the raspy drop in pitch, especially at the ends of phrases and sentences. Compared to the voices of men — who have no reason to pitch their voices lower than their natural registers — women's voices may often be the lowest-pitched in any random group.
I would recommend to all women — but to young women especially — that each of you allow your voice to find it's natural speaking register, rather than attempting to force it to stay in a dark, low, rumbling area. With good diction, diaphragmatic support, and moderate tempo in your speech, you will find that your naturally-pitched voice can still be quite effective in communication, perhaps even more so, because listeners naturally trust a natural sounding voice in both women and men.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Thinking of Yourself as a Singer
When you decide that:
1) you want to learn to sing, or
2) you'd like to sing in front of people, or,
3) finally, that, yes, you are a singer and the world needs to know this,
a strange and wonderful thing begins to happen.
You start to listen to and watch what other singers are doing.
You hear how singers breathe. You see how they stand.
You see the shapes their mouths make.
You hear their vowel sounds, their consonants, their phrase-ends.
You hear how they mispronounce words, glide off of consonants, elide consonants, cheat vowels.
You hear "h's" in front of vowels. You hear hard "r's." Or you hear no "r's" at all.
You see how singers blink, fidget, go "off message."
Welcome to the world of the singer. This is part of your never-ending learning process.
At the next lesson after he'd learned about diphthongs, my former student, David Gigler, exclaimed to me, "I'll never be able to enjoy watching anybody sing ever again!"
His anxiety was short-lived. He was simply made aware of what it is that he does when he sings, and was suddenly aware of it in every singer he heard.
I asked my former student, John Argue, if he'd sung at all in the week between his lessons. "No," he replied, "but I did a lot of practicing." What he meant was that he had listened to other singers and had interpreted what they did that he liked and didn't like.
When you decide to study voice, you start to think of yourself as a singer.
When you call yourself a "singer," you suddenly become aware of the myriad facets of singing. You see and hear with new eyes and ears.
Welcome to singing! Begin!
1) you want to learn to sing, or
2) you'd like to sing in front of people, or,
3) finally, that, yes, you are a singer and the world needs to know this,
a strange and wonderful thing begins to happen.
You start to listen to and watch what other singers are doing.
You hear how singers breathe. You see how they stand.
You see the shapes their mouths make.
You hear their vowel sounds, their consonants, their phrase-ends.
You hear how they mispronounce words, glide off of consonants, elide consonants, cheat vowels.
You hear "h's" in front of vowels. You hear hard "r's." Or you hear no "r's" at all.
You see how singers blink, fidget, go "off message."
Welcome to the world of the singer. This is part of your never-ending learning process.
At the next lesson after he'd learned about diphthongs, my former student, David Gigler, exclaimed to me, "I'll never be able to enjoy watching anybody sing ever again!"
His anxiety was short-lived. He was simply made aware of what it is that he does when he sings, and was suddenly aware of it in every singer he heard.
I asked my former student, John Argue, if he'd sung at all in the week between his lessons. "No," he replied, "but I did a lot of practicing." What he meant was that he had listened to other singers and had interpreted what they did that he liked and didn't like.
When you decide to study voice, you start to think of yourself as a singer.
When you call yourself a "singer," you suddenly become aware of the myriad facets of singing. You see and hear with new eyes and ears.
Welcome to singing! Begin!
Saturday, January 9, 2010
High School Musical Audition: "Day Before" Advice
I got a call from a student today, a high-school sophomore, asking for a last-minute lesson before his callback audition tomorrow for his school's production of Sweeney Todd. He desperately wants the title role. Unfortunately, I couldn't take him, since I awakened with a cold this morning and decided not to teach at all today. But I told him I would send him an email with some good advice. I'm putting it here for the many others who are sure to find themselves wanting some advice on this order. Here follows what I wrote to him.
How bad do you want it?
It was as rhetorical question. I know how bad you want it.
Before I begin, let me say a couple of Real Life Things.
1. You're a strange creature known as a Sophomore. This is a category of auditioner that doesn't exist in my world. People out in the real world don't have to deal with seniority in the business of theater. Talent is talent, and usually when there's seniority, it is because of talent, not because of age. You, on the other hand, have this to deal with. Your teacher has his own ideas of Who's Right for the Role and What's Right for the School. You will have to ascend on two fronts to get this part: 1) be good , and 2) be good enough to beat out an upper classman.
2. You have to be so well-prepared that if you don't make it, there will never be a question in your mind about why you weren't cast in the role you wanted. This is something that does exist in my world. When I'm overlooked for a part, it's not because I wasn't prepared and on my game for the audition; it was because I did not fit the picture of what the director wanted in that role. I can't emphasize this enough — that you must feel so right for a role that your not getting it is not your doing. Otherwise you can go crazy in your head with feelings of jealousy, entitlement, impropriety, inferiority, resentment, and several other Ugly-Headed Beasts that ruin one's life for a period of time. You must feel fabulous after your audition and let the chips fall where they may. Having this attitude in your head will truly give you a better audition and, usually, a better shot at the part you want. Someone with confidence, grace, humility, a sense of humor and in full support of the director's eventual choice is the kind of actor every director wants to work with. That's why a person may often be cast instead of someone with "seniority."
Okay. Here's the stuff you have to do:
Today:
Laugh. Don't obsess. Work your audition piece alone, in front of others, to a mirror. Do it aloud, do it silently. Run your words without making a sound, set the muscle memory in your face/mouth/tongue/body. Don't wear out your voice! Ask for feedback from family/friends, but don't take anything personally, and don't do anything that feels wrong. Well-meaning kibitzers are often Bad News. Follow your gut.
Tonight:
Sleep. Deep sleep. Untroubled, snoring, drooling sleep. Clear all the mental switchboards. Drain the capacitors. Reset the page.
Tomorrow:
Reboot. Rethink your character's intentions: Who are you talking to? Why are you telling him/her this? What do you want from him/her? From someone not in the scene? From yourself? From the audience (yes, this is a legitimate intention)? What's in the way of your getting what you want? Speak these things one last time, or better yet, write them down. Take yourself as close as you can to your character's given circumstances and live there in your head. Believe you are there. Do this a few times before the audition.
Warm up. An hour before you go to the audition, work your warmup tape. START SMALL. Do not be too zealous. Easy does it. Ask any Olympic athlete about overwarming before the event. Save a little something for the doing of the deed. Hold back on your fullest delivery. Feel yourself as a racehorse at the gate, ready to run.
At the audition, be kind to everyone. It scares them. It gives you a psychological edge. It's how Harvard treats Yale — as if everyone just knows Harvard is better than Yale. It's not mean-spirited. It's very generous and big-hearted. The Better Man can always afford to give away a little power.
Before you take the stage, have a swallow of water. Use some lip balm. Remind your lungs and torso how to breathe by taking a deep breath and sighing it out all at once. Now, put "You" away. Let "You" run your legs for walking, and your mouth for saying "Thank you," and your eyes for blinking. The only person in your mind now is your character. "You" are now Him. See London, see your painful past, see your enemies. Let us see you see London. Let us see you see your painful past. Let us see you see your enemies. "You" cannot see these things. Only your character can see them. Before you know it, you'll be back in 2010 Oakland California, and "You" will be running the show again, and everyone will be trying to inhale after you've knocked the wind out them by being transported to the places and circumstances you saw for us.
Then go have some pizza and forget about it. You did a good job, and everyone knows it, including you.
Break both legs. I've got all my fingers crossed.
How bad do you want it?
It was as rhetorical question. I know how bad you want it.
Before I begin, let me say a couple of Real Life Things.
1. You're a strange creature known as a Sophomore. This is a category of auditioner that doesn't exist in my world. People out in the real world don't have to deal with seniority in the business of theater. Talent is talent, and usually when there's seniority, it is because of talent, not because of age. You, on the other hand, have this to deal with. Your teacher has his own ideas of Who's Right for the Role and What's Right for the School. You will have to ascend on two fronts to get this part: 1) be good , and 2) be good enough to beat out an upper classman.
2. You have to be so well-prepared that if you don't make it, there will never be a question in your mind about why you weren't cast in the role you wanted. This is something that does exist in my world. When I'm overlooked for a part, it's not because I wasn't prepared and on my game for the audition; it was because I did not fit the picture of what the director wanted in that role. I can't emphasize this enough — that you must feel so right for a role that your not getting it is not your doing. Otherwise you can go crazy in your head with feelings of jealousy, entitlement, impropriety, inferiority, resentment, and several other Ugly-Headed Beasts that ruin one's life for a period of time. You must feel fabulous after your audition and let the chips fall where they may. Having this attitude in your head will truly give you a better audition and, usually, a better shot at the part you want. Someone with confidence, grace, humility, a sense of humor and in full support of the director's eventual choice is the kind of actor every director wants to work with. That's why a person may often be cast instead of someone with "seniority."
Okay. Here's the stuff you have to do:
Today:
Laugh. Don't obsess. Work your audition piece alone, in front of others, to a mirror. Do it aloud, do it silently. Run your words without making a sound, set the muscle memory in your face/mouth/tongue/body. Don't wear out your voice! Ask for feedback from family/friends, but don't take anything personally, and don't do anything that feels wrong. Well-meaning kibitzers are often Bad News. Follow your gut.
Tonight:
Sleep. Deep sleep. Untroubled, snoring, drooling sleep. Clear all the mental switchboards. Drain the capacitors. Reset the page.
Tomorrow:
Reboot. Rethink your character's intentions: Who are you talking to? Why are you telling him/her this? What do you want from him/her? From someone not in the scene? From yourself? From the audience (yes, this is a legitimate intention)? What's in the way of your getting what you want? Speak these things one last time, or better yet, write them down. Take yourself as close as you can to your character's given circumstances and live there in your head. Believe you are there. Do this a few times before the audition.
Warm up. An hour before you go to the audition, work your warmup tape. START SMALL. Do not be too zealous. Easy does it. Ask any Olympic athlete about overwarming before the event. Save a little something for the doing of the deed. Hold back on your fullest delivery. Feel yourself as a racehorse at the gate, ready to run.
At the audition, be kind to everyone. It scares them. It gives you a psychological edge. It's how Harvard treats Yale — as if everyone just knows Harvard is better than Yale. It's not mean-spirited. It's very generous and big-hearted. The Better Man can always afford to give away a little power.
Before you take the stage, have a swallow of water. Use some lip balm. Remind your lungs and torso how to breathe by taking a deep breath and sighing it out all at once. Now, put "You" away. Let "You" run your legs for walking, and your mouth for saying "Thank you," and your eyes for blinking. The only person in your mind now is your character. "You" are now Him. See London, see your painful past, see your enemies. Let us see you see London. Let us see you see your painful past. Let us see you see your enemies. "You" cannot see these things. Only your character can see them. Before you know it, you'll be back in 2010 Oakland California, and "You" will be running the show again, and everyone will be trying to inhale after you've knocked the wind out them by being transported to the places and circumstances you saw for us.
Then go have some pizza and forget about it. You did a good job, and everyone knows it, including you.
Break both legs. I've got all my fingers crossed.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
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!
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!
Friday, January 1, 2010
Tone Deafness, Part I
I'll spoil the ending of this post for you now, in case you're wondering. Yes, tone deafness exists, and no it's not "fixable" in all cases. But, yes, it is fixable in many cases and what it takes is rigorous determination, practice, and repetitive drill. It's not the drill and practice that are hard: it's the determination. Your mindset to "get" pitch will be your best companion in the journey toward singing on pitch.
My first "tone deaf" student was a woman in late middle age who studied with me for several years when I first opened my studio. She could hear a pitch and "get" to it eventually, but could not "go" to it by just listening and singing, and she had trouble staying on pitch once she got there.
This woman, "June," had the ability to sing on pitch. Her problem was not an innate inability; her problem was my doubt that she could ever do it. I had heard from so many respected voice teachers that tone deafness could not be fixed or "untaught." I let June get away with "near" pitches for the entire time she studied with me. I never asked her to work harder, or drill on pitches, or repeat small passages over and over until she had them. Like my well-meaning colleagues, I just thought there was nothing to be done. I humored June by being her accompanist week after week, insisting to myself that I was earning my living by providing her some enjoyment in singing. Did it really matter if she couldn't hit all the pitches?
My great regret is that I did not insist that June work harder, diligently, over and over, to get pitches right. Over the years I have come to know that working the pitches we sing over and over helps us "play them," much like a young child learns where to put his fingers down on the strings of the violin. At first the notes come out sharp, flat, scratchy, off; but eventually, they start to "hit," eventually they start sounding on pitch sooner, without the child having to hunt for and re-position his fingers. So it is with singers. We train our voices to hit pitch by continuing to sing the correct pitches. And if the pitches aren't correct at first, we must be guided by a patient teacher with a good ear to help us keep at it until the pitches are correct.
Recently I became the coach to a young man, "Mark," intently driven to be cast in his high school spring musical, a Sondheim show. His mother contacted me last July, telling me her son had been called "tone deaf" by several people and even by one voice teacher who refused to continue with him after a few lessons. I reluctantly took on the boy, and was surprised to find that he was even worse off than his mother had led me to think. He could only match pitch occasionally, and he only found pitches easily from about B3 up to about G3, so he had less than an octave of usable range. He would go "up" scales with me only so far and then would cave in and stop; not only that, after stopping he could not return to the pitches he had just moments before sung easily! It was maddening, discouraging, and embarrassing, to him and to me. He wanted a miracle from me; I didn't want to be the one to break his heart. I continued with him, knowing that the audition for the musical in January would perhaps tell him what I couldn't.
I tried to make a practice tape for him, but since he had so little range, many of my regular exercises just didn't work. We made a tape of specialized exercises: single notes drilled over and over and over. Then two notes, drilled over and over, then three notes. We kept on working through the summer, marking small improvements, as we stretched into four- and five-note drills, then up to the octave and beyond. He auditioned for the fall musical, an easy fluff piece, and was cast in the chorus (not really much of an achievement, as men are scarce as hen's teeth in high school musical choruses). His being cast in the chorus validated him somewhat and he became even more intent on his vocal training.
With new energy, Mark persisted, intent on being cast in the spring Sondheim show. He continued to work his erstwhile practice tape until one day he had enough range to put all 10 of my regular exercises on it. So I made him a new practice tape and he went away and worked and worked and worked. Each week, there was perceptible improvement. He went a little higher in his range. He stayed a little longer on notes that were a bit of a stretch. He was able to "find" where he was if he "fell off the horse," as I put it.
Recently, we didn't see each other for three weeks because of the holiday season. Mark returned for a lesson this week and absolutely blew me out of the water. This tone deaf darling who had first stepped into my studio a mere seven months ago, now had what you could only call a lovely, listenable baritone voice. And, most importantly, he was singing on pitch.
My willingness to insist that Mark drill single notes and notes in close proximity, and to keep going even if he thought he sounded awful, and Mark's courage to work, not give up, and keep his eyes on the prize are the two things that have brought us to this wonderful new discovery. From now on, when I get a tone deaf student who "can't sing," I'm going to say, "Yes, you can. It's going to be hard, it's going to be boring, and it's going to take a lot of work on your part. But, yes, you can sing."
My first "tone deaf" student was a woman in late middle age who studied with me for several years when I first opened my studio. She could hear a pitch and "get" to it eventually, but could not "go" to it by just listening and singing, and she had trouble staying on pitch once she got there.
This woman, "June," had the ability to sing on pitch. Her problem was not an innate inability; her problem was my doubt that she could ever do it. I had heard from so many respected voice teachers that tone deafness could not be fixed or "untaught." I let June get away with "near" pitches for the entire time she studied with me. I never asked her to work harder, or drill on pitches, or repeat small passages over and over until she had them. Like my well-meaning colleagues, I just thought there was nothing to be done. I humored June by being her accompanist week after week, insisting to myself that I was earning my living by providing her some enjoyment in singing. Did it really matter if she couldn't hit all the pitches?
My great regret is that I did not insist that June work harder, diligently, over and over, to get pitches right. Over the years I have come to know that working the pitches we sing over and over helps us "play them," much like a young child learns where to put his fingers down on the strings of the violin. At first the notes come out sharp, flat, scratchy, off; but eventually, they start to "hit," eventually they start sounding on pitch sooner, without the child having to hunt for and re-position his fingers. So it is with singers. We train our voices to hit pitch by continuing to sing the correct pitches. And if the pitches aren't correct at first, we must be guided by a patient teacher with a good ear to help us keep at it until the pitches are correct.
Recently I became the coach to a young man, "Mark," intently driven to be cast in his high school spring musical, a Sondheim show. His mother contacted me last July, telling me her son had been called "tone deaf" by several people and even by one voice teacher who refused to continue with him after a few lessons. I reluctantly took on the boy, and was surprised to find that he was even worse off than his mother had led me to think. He could only match pitch occasionally, and he only found pitches easily from about B3 up to about G3, so he had less than an octave of usable range. He would go "up" scales with me only so far and then would cave in and stop; not only that, after stopping he could not return to the pitches he had just moments before sung easily! It was maddening, discouraging, and embarrassing, to him and to me. He wanted a miracle from me; I didn't want to be the one to break his heart. I continued with him, knowing that the audition for the musical in January would perhaps tell him what I couldn't.
I tried to make a practice tape for him, but since he had so little range, many of my regular exercises just didn't work. We made a tape of specialized exercises: single notes drilled over and over and over. Then two notes, drilled over and over, then three notes. We kept on working through the summer, marking small improvements, as we stretched into four- and five-note drills, then up to the octave and beyond. He auditioned for the fall musical, an easy fluff piece, and was cast in the chorus (not really much of an achievement, as men are scarce as hen's teeth in high school musical choruses). His being cast in the chorus validated him somewhat and he became even more intent on his vocal training.
With new energy, Mark persisted, intent on being cast in the spring Sondheim show. He continued to work his erstwhile practice tape until one day he had enough range to put all 10 of my regular exercises on it. So I made him a new practice tape and he went away and worked and worked and worked. Each week, there was perceptible improvement. He went a little higher in his range. He stayed a little longer on notes that were a bit of a stretch. He was able to "find" where he was if he "fell off the horse," as I put it.
Recently, we didn't see each other for three weeks because of the holiday season. Mark returned for a lesson this week and absolutely blew me out of the water. This tone deaf darling who had first stepped into my studio a mere seven months ago, now had what you could only call a lovely, listenable baritone voice. And, most importantly, he was singing on pitch.
My willingness to insist that Mark drill single notes and notes in close proximity, and to keep going even if he thought he sounded awful, and Mark's courage to work, not give up, and keep his eyes on the prize are the two things that have brought us to this wonderful new discovery. From now on, when I get a tone deaf student who "can't sing," I'm going to say, "Yes, you can. It's going to be hard, it's going to be boring, and it's going to take a lot of work on your part. But, yes, you can sing."
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