Module 2 Lesson 4: Amplify Your Voice: Understanding the Power of Resonation
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If you'd like to see the resonators in action, check out this amazing video: Singing in The MRI w/Tyley Ross
Transcription
The Vocal Resonators
You're tummy expands, pulls the diaphragm down, and the air is sucked in. You start to sing, and you lift the abdominal bulk up against the diaphragm, where it contacts the origin of the phrenic nerve. The nerve is turned on, sends a message to the muscles that work to close and open the vocal folds, and they start to vibrate. Tiny little puffs of air go through them and up into these four resonating chambers.
[The Resonators Illustration]
What you're looking at here is a sagittal section of the head — it's cut down the middle, and you're seeing it from the left side.
This is the trachea, where the air from the lungs travels up into the mouth. This flap is the epiglottis. It covers the opening to the trachea, so when you swallow food or liquids, you don't get them in your lungs, and they're routed to the stomach via your esophagus.
The space from the vocal folds up to the base of the tongue is called the laryngopharynx. The area from the base of the tongue up to the soft palate (or uvula) is called the oropharynx. From the uvula up behind the nose is the nasopharynx. All three — the laryngopharynx, oropharynx, and nasopharynx — make up the pharyngeal cavity.
If there were little lines all the way up the back of the pharyngeal cavity, each line would correspond with a pitch, with middle C# occurring right behind the soft palate. In other words, each pitch has a place in the pharyngeal cavity where it resonates.
The biggest resonator is the mouth. When we talk, most of the resonation happens there. The percentage of mouth to pharyngeal cavity resonation depends somewhat on the language or dialect that you speak.
I speak AmERican — which is a pretty mouthy dialect — ninety percent mouth, and only about ten percent pharyngeal cavity.
When you sing, the proportion of resonation in these four resonating chambers depends on what style you're singing in. For instance, when I sing country, you hear mostly mouth and nasopharynx.
EXAMPLE Song: Pregnant Again
When I sing more of a straight-ahead pop sound, with more oropharynx in the mix, it sounds like this:
EXAMPLE SONG: At Last
When I sing a classical sound, you'll hear the addition of the laryngopharynx. The result is about 80% pharyngeal cavity and about 20% mouth.
EXAMPLE SONG: Sweet Little Jesus Boy
So, what guides the air molecules into these different resonators to create different qualities or colors of sound?
The easy answer? Your auditory imagination. You call for the sound in your mind, and then you sing that sound. You've learned these sounds through listening and then mimicking. There's a whole library of sounds in your auditory imagination to call from.
But what's going on inside the body when that happens?
Mouth As A House
I think of the inside of the mouth as a house. It's got four different rooms in it, and the largest room has this big, movable, shapeshifting piece of furniture called your tongue. The walls of each room shapeshift a little too. You can make the surface harder or softer — more resonant or more sound-absorbent — by how tightly you stretch them. The more stretch, the harder the surface. The more relaxed, the more absorbent the walls become.
Remember that video you watched in the first lesson on The Science of Sound when they talked about the acoustic properties of a room? That's what this analogy is all about.
So let's take a closer look at how the tongue works.
The Tongue
The tongue, or genioglossus muscle, is basically made up of six muscles. Four of them are your swallowing muscles.
As you now know, you swallow about 2,000 times per day. Because this muscle gets quite the workout, that down and back action is really developed.
Great for swallowing, but not so great if you want more resonation when you sing.
Tongue Positions
Here's what it looks like when you have an open throat. Lots of space for resonation.
Here's the tongue in its relaxed position. See how it falls back and down a little, leaving hardly any room in the pharyngeal cavity for resonation? That space gets even smaller when you sing in a closed throat position.
Here's what it sounds like when I sing an Eee vowel and go back and forth from an open to a closed position.
EXAMPLE SOUND: E vowel.
More space - and you get a more resonant sound. It also has a different quality, or color to it — more of a ring.
Vowels and Vowel Color
Every vowel has a different tongue position. For instance, if you say YO, YA, and YAY, notice how the tongue comes up and forward with the Y prefix, and then settles into its proper position for the vowel to follow. Say it after me:
YO, YA, YAY
Feel that? Hear that? The OH vowel is a little darker, the AH vowel is a little brighter, and the AY vowel is brighter still.
When we sing, it's essential to have consistent vowel color. Sometimes that's not an easy thing to achieve because the vowels have their own natural tendency when it comes to color because of the tongue's position. Some vowels are naturally brighter, and some are naturally darker.
When you sing a song without an even color line, it sounds like this.
Example Song: Sweet Little Jesus Boy
Hear how the ee vowels are super bright, and the uh and oh vowels are darker? I've exaggerated the natural tendency of the vowel a bit. Still, you can hear that the color line isn't even — it's all over the place.
If I sing it again with an even color line, it sounds like this:
Example Song: Sweet Little Jesus Boy
Much more consistent!
There's no right or wrong here artistically. Any sound you're making on purpose, for artistic reasons, is legit. But, if you're having trouble singing the sounds you want to sing, take a look at whether the vowel is too bright or too dark and go for an even color line.
Whether you're going for a folk/pop sound:
Example Song: Sweet Little Jesus Boy
Or a more classical sound:
Example Song: Sweet Little Jesus Boy
You want to have that even, consistent, color line.
COLOR AND THE RESONATORS
The resonators also influence vowel color.
Remember this illustration? Each part of the pharyngeal cavity has a different role to play in the frequencies that resonate there. The laryngopharynx is where the low frequencies are. The oropharynx is the mid-range. And the nasopharynx is where you'll find the upper frequencies.
Have you ever sung a high note and had it sound too harsh and shrill? Or how about a low note that sounds too dark and muddy? For that high, shrill note, there probably wasn't enough resonation in the oropharynx and laryngopharynx. If what you're singing sounds too dark or muddy, you need to add some nasopharynx. That's where the upper frequencies are that give the voice presence and "ring."
Back Pressure
The other thing about the natural tendencies of vowels that's helpful to know is how they influence backpressure. So, let's say you're singing from a low note to a high note in an exercise like this:
EXAMPLE Ex. #9 w/even color
Even color line, right? What else is working well? What was the texture of the sound? There was clarity. Clarity tells you that the vocal folds are closing tightly against the air coming up underneath them. There aren't any air leaks. How am I achieving this? I'm helping the muscles that are working to keep those vocal cords closed by modifying the vowel towards a darker sound as I go up the scale. That darker sound creates more back pressure so that your vocal cords can stay closed from the top to the bottom note.
Remember, when you sing low notes, the vocal folds are shorter. When you sing high notes, they stretch. The air pressure that it takes to sing high notes — especially when you are singing high and loud is pretty intense! Have you ever gone for a high note and had it crack? That sound happens when the muscles that are working to keep the vocal cords closed let go because they aren't strong enough to hold against that kind of air pressure. They're blown open.
When you modify towards a darker vowel as you go up the scale, the darker vowel creates backpressure. So you've got air pressure coming up from underneath, and a darker sound in the resonator from above. When the balance between those two sets of air pressures is right, it creates somewhat of a still point where the vocal folds are so they can hold together more efficiently.
If you're having trouble with the lower part of your voice being too dark and muddy, try brightening up the vowel. When the vowel is too dark, that creates too much back pressure, and the vocal folds have a tough time getting tight enough to create the edge that makes those low notes audible.
So let me sing that exercise again. This time, I'll start on an Oh vowel at the bottom that's too dark. Instead of modifying the vowel towards a darker sound on the way up, I'll go with the natural tendency of the vowel and let it go brighter.
EXAMPLE Ex. #9 w/uneven color
And that's only going to sound worse the higher I go.
To remedy that, I need to modify the color of the vowel a little bit at a time as I go up the scale, and then unmodify when I come back down. I'll start with a brighter Oh vowel, and modify towards a darker Oo vowel as I go up. Listen again:
EXAMPLE Ex. #9 w/even color
This is easier to do in a vocal exercise than it is when you're singing a song. But it IS possible. Listen to the singers you love who you can tell have proper technique. How do they make it from one side of the voice to the other? If they're doing it well — copy them!
Remember that classical piece I sang a snippet of when we were in the section about breathing? Listen to it again. This time, instead of focusing on my breathing, listen for the vowel modification.
Use the example of Gia Il Sole here.
When we first learn something, it helps to exaggerate. In the beginning, especially when I was singing with nodules, I had to exaggerate a darker vowel sound to keep those vocal cords closed in the upper register of my voice. I also had to coax them into becoming flexible again by singing lots of ooo sounds in pure upper register.
When you're first experimenting with vowel color, you might have to exaggerate in the beginning. After you've played around with the primary colors, you can start to expand your color wheel to include finer and finer gradations of color. It's fun when you have more colors to paint with when you're singing!
