Singing Voice Training with David Delaney

By David Delaney, MA, CAR

david@singingvoicetraining.com

Shana comes to me through a recommendation of a fellow singer. She is having vocal difficulties and does not know why it is happening. I can hear over the phone the first time we talk that she has a mild ‘glottal fry’ and she is gasping for breath constantly. This is someone who speaks with a degree of tension in her throat and it produces a low popping or rattling sound when air passes through the throat. If you try to sing with this going on, you are likely to have at minimum a sore throat and at maximum more serious vocal difficulties. Shana is unaware of it’s existence though.

The vibratory ability of cartilage and soft tissue in your throat cannot compare to the vibratory properties of your teeth and bones of the cranial cavity and sinuses. To attempt to use your throat, even partially, for producing a resonant voice is like using a butter knife to shave. It is neither sharp nor effective. Nature has designed speech to be produced by the mouth and teeth (the most vibratory bones in the body) and setting off a vibratory circuit in the cranium that has unimaginable acoustical properties.  These acoustical properties happenis via sound waves which interact with your immediate environment, both people, things, and the air around you. Let us look at Dr. P. Mario Marifiotti’s first voice principle to ground this in a scientific understanding:

Voice is speech, and is produced by the mouth, not by the vocal cords.The vocal cords produce only sounds (primitive vibrations) that are transformed into vowels and consonants by a phonetic process taking place in the mouth, and giving origin to the voice.

Caruso’s Method of Voice Production: The Scientific Culture of the Voice, by Dr. P. Mario Marafiotti, Dover Books

This is why the singer’s understanding of the basic anatomy of the vocal instrument and how to use it effectively is necessary for anyone who plans to sing in public. Shana is the lead singer for a local band and she rehearses a number of hours every week with them, and often has a number of gigs for a few hours each, as well as coaches singers privately, and sings in her choir. She is ‘roughing up’ her vocal chords, as my teacher would say, and no matter what she does, she cannot stop it from happening. Some days are better than others are for her, but there is still a soreness most of the time, especially after an hour or so of rehearsing or performing.

Many singers have this same problem. Actor Julie Andrews had to eventually have a vocal operation and now she cannot sing at all. Tina Turner has been having vocal problems that are ongoing. The immense pressure of having to get up night after night and deliver ‘the goods’ demands that we insure that we have a scientific technique that we can fall back on if this begins to happen. Instinct is most important, but when it fails us, we need technique until we get instinct back on course. If we do not, we are at the mercy of fate, which can be a cruel master.

A singer who is a ‘natural’ can still have problems over time, with the psychological pressure that is put on the performer. We must have a working knowledge of what the vocal apparatus is (this does not mean being an anatomist), how it functions efficiently, and then what our own tendencies are that cause us to sing with force rather than relaxation.

After a month of working together, Shana is beginning to recognize when her throat is tense and learning how to compensate with body control to overcome her unconscious habit. She has learned that it is body flexibility which controls the flow of relaxed air, not compression as she had been doing previously. She is learning how to increase rib cage flexibility for increased adaptability, a key to singing for long periods without causing vocal problems. She is also receiving manual therapy sessions from me to free areas of her body that have been locked.