Vocal Space: Resonance Part 1

Once we are able to take good, consistent breaths and are getting good supported sound we can focus on improving the tone. The best place to start with is what I call space. When I refer to space I am talking about the openness of the cavities in the skull that allow the sound to resonate – the sinuses, mouth, and throat. The amount of space in these cavities will greatly affect the vocal tone, making it one of the easiest ways to adjust the sound for different styles of singing. I teach all my students a sort of “home base” technique that is grounded in classical methods, where there is a large amount of open space, the idea being that it is easier to narrow the space from this point than it is to do the reverse. Having more space allows the sound to resonate more, which generally gives a better tone.  The easiest way to influence the tone in this way is to manipulate the space in the mouth and the back of the throat. The mechanism to manipulate the former is the jaw, as it directly influences the amount of space in the mouth. For the back of the mouth and into the throat we must talk about the soft palate.

Feel the roof of the mouth with the tongue or even with the thumb, near the teeth. This hard and unyielding part of the mouth is the hard palate. As we move toward the throat there comes a point where it becomes soft and squishy. This is the soft palate. The soft palate shifts up and down to allow air into the nasal passages. When humming the palate is down, allowing the sound to come out of the nose. When singing open vowels the palate should be raised, completely shutting off the passageway to the nose. If the soft palate is lowered while singing these open vowels it creates a nasal sound. Depending on the singer and the level of the palate this can range from barely noticeable to mostly nasal tone, what some might describe as “honkey.” Raising the palate keeps the tone pure and allows the sound to resonate more in the vocal cavity and less in the nose, which generally creates a more pleasing sound. I have found that many students resist this change of space in the beginning because the open space sound seems quieter to them than a more closed and nasal tone. The sound is not actually quieter, it just has more room to resonate inside the skull, which makes it seem that way to the singer. I am unsure about all of the science at work here but believe it is some interaction between the overtones in the notes and the influence of the skull on our own hearing. If we simply think about the difference we hear in a recording of our own voice it helps this makes sense.

When I begin working space I use a descending fifths exercise on a hum. I will focus on keeping the space of a good hum; teeth separated, jaw dropped, or what I have heard described as an ah with closed lips. Of course for that to work we have to attain the good space of an ah, but that’s what we’re working here. I find it helpful to tell the student to think of the sound coming out of the forehead or even the top of the skull. Starting with the hum allows the student to experiment with the space in the vocal cavity without worrying too much about remembering any sort of nasality from the tone. In addition to having them focus on the open, “home base” feeling I go for I will have them close down the jaw, putting the teeth together, for a few repetitions to experience the change that makes in the sound and feel. Playing with the opposite ends of the spectrum often makes the proper way easier. Doing the wrong thing on purpose is often a very effective teaching technique, and not just in this one instance.

Once the student has achieved a nice, spacious hum I begin opening to an “ah,” the most open of all the vowels. The space in the back of the throat must be focused on, because when the shift is made from hum to vowel, the soft palate must raise itself in order to keep the tone from being too nasal. Good tricks for this can be found in multitudes of books. Some of my favorites are to think of the feeling of hot food in the mouth and the breaths taken to cool it off, a dome in the back of the mouth, or feeling a golf ball in the throat. Many people talk about the openness of a yawn, but I find it messes with placement, a concept we’ll cover in the next post. These images can all work well, but sometimes the best reminder is the physical one of running the tongue along the roof of the mouth to lift the palate, which works really well once the student has familiarized themselves with what the palate should feel like. At this point I again have the student do the “wrong” thing with intention. In this case I will have them sing a couple of exercises, telling them to make the sound as nasal as they can, and to feel the difference this makes in their tone. This is also good because depending on the situation they find themselves in it might be useful to put some degree of nasality into the tone. Playing with the space like this will allow them to do that easily.

I will stick with an ah vowel for a while with each student. It is the most open vowel, and the one that is often hardest to sing well initially. I had a teacher who used to say “sing everything through an ah”[1]. I didn’t really understand what she meant until I started teaching myself. The space in the back of the throat should be the same for every vowel that it is for ah. The other vowels are formed by different degrees of movement of the jaw, tongue, and lips. These articulators should all move as necessary to form whatever vowels are necessary, but the space in the back of the mouth and throat should remain the same. Ah can be thought of as the master vowel in this sense, so the singer must get it right before moving on to other vowels. If the space isn’t right for an ah, no other vowel will be right.

It can be difficult to work space in isolation from the other aspects of vocal resonance, but I find it is important to spend at least one lesson doing so. After that lesson the related concepts can be intertwined and that is exactly what the next post in this series will cover.

[1] Rebecca Copley I believe.