Foundations in Singing: Notes from My 2015 MMTA Convention Presentation

Jeannine Robinett

Foundations of Singing--Session Notes

MMTA Convention June 15, 2015

Breathing, Resonance, and Vowels Basics

Breathing, resonance, and vowels form the foundation of good singing.  These are a few of the basics that we talk about early in voice lessons. This is not a comprehensive discussion of these topics and more information and exercises will be given in future lessons.  

Breathing

• Inhalation:  
• Low, deep, relaxed.  
• Shoulders stay down.  
• Expansion occurs in the front, sides, and back.  
• One of these imagery exercises might help you to feel that low breath and the openness we need in the soft palate and nose/cheekbones area.  Circle the imagination game that words best for you.  Please note: not all of these exercises work for every person.  In fact, although they may be helpful for one person, for another person, some of these images might create a higher, tighter breath.  If that happens, simply abandon the image.  
• Smell a flower (or your favorite perfume, or favorite food.  It just has to be something that smells good so you take a big whiff of it.)  
• Imagine your head is hollow.  Fill up the empty space in your head before letting the air descend down for a low breath.  
• Pretend you went to Dairy Queen for your favorite flavor of Blizzard.  They ran out of spoons, and now you have to drink your very thick Blizzard through a straw.  
• Yawn.  

• Using the air
• Classical
• Abs come in gently.  You will feel this more at the end of the phrase.  There is no reason to force them in.  Let it happen.  
• Sides of the rib cage stay as expanded as possible.  Some collapse will occur, but we want to delay it as long as possible.
• Back expands further.  
• Push against the wall to feel how your body naturally creates this.  Once you’ve found it, you can also simply push into your palm.  

Resonance

• Resonance in its simplest scientific definition is what happens when something is vibrating and causes something else to vibrate sympathetically.  
• Here’s a cool trick you can show your friends to illustrate resonance.  Play the piano without using your hands:  Using an acoustic piano, hold down the sustaining pedal (the pedal on the right) while you do a loud, energized, siren sound.  The sound waves you create, hit the strings of similar frequencies, causing them to vibrate.  
• Yes, it is possible for a singer to break glass by singing the right frequencies with enough intensity. Myth Busters even did a show about it.  
• In terms of singing, it is the process by which the very tiny sound produced at the vocal folds is changed into the sound we hear when you speak or singing.  
• Everyone already has some resonance because we can hear you.  
• When we speak of resonance for singing, we are really talking about optimal resonance that allows the volume and color of sound needed for the type of singing you are doing.  
• By changing the size, shape, and rigidity of the vocal tract (throat, mouth, nasal and sinus cavities) we can select the overtone frequencies that we want to amplify or dampen.  
• Resonance is very closely related to how we form our vowels (see below.)
• Classical
• Imagine or feel the resonance cheekbones and higher.  
• Use Harley-Davidson lip buzz (lip trills) or tongue roll to help feel this.  If you can’t do either, use an energized zzzz sound.  
• When you do 3 or more repetitions of the buzz or tongue roll, it actually tricks your body creating better resonance when you sing.  

Vowels

• The vowel is extremely important in singing because that is the part of the word that we elongate when we sing.  How we shape and place that vowel affects the kind of resonances we get.  
• Classical vowels are tall, high, open, grand, round, specific.  

Breathing, Resonance, and Vowels Part II

Breathing

Darth Vader inhalation

When you sing in performance, we do not want to hear you breathe.  However, an audible breath can be helpful in finding the feeling of a good singer breath.  

1. First do that obnoxious high breath that your teachers told you not to do.  Notice that it is tight and closed.  Notice that your shoulders probably lifted.  Notice the pitch of the sound you made.  
2. Now do a low pitched inhalation.  The lower the pitch, the lower the breath goes.  How do those two breaths feel different?  
3. Use a Darth Vader inhalation when you have a lot of time to breathe, for example, at the beginning of the song, or when you have a long interlude.  

Shush breathing

1. Place one hand over your belly button and hold one hand comfortably in front of you, palm up.  The hand on the belly button will monitor abdominal movement and the other hand will mimic that movement.  
2. As you hiss intensely (either s or sh will work), notice that the abs gently move in.  Allow the fingers of the other hand to close.
3. Release the abs and pop the hand open.  You do not need to try to inhale.  If the abs have tightened during the hiss, the release of those muscles with create and automatic inhalation.  
4. If you do not feel expansion of inhalation when you release the muscles, try step 2 again, and this time blow out all the air before you release. 
5. This is the kind of breath you want to use when you don’t have much time.  If a teacher asks for a catch breath, or lift breath, this is often what they are referring too.  

Resonance and Vowels

As we talked about before, resonance and vowels are very closely connected.  When you form the vowel correctly, you will get the resonance we are after.  When you have found the correct resonance space, the vowel color tends to correct itself. 

Classical

Yes, you do need to drop the jaw for high notes, but no matter how big the mouth opening gets, the space inside your mouth is bigger.

1. The megaphone is now inverted.  Imagine yawn space inside.  The roof of the mouth is domed.  
2. Crazy Lady is a great exercise for feeling the space inside.  

Tai Chi Breathing

This exercise is adapted from the Open Close movement common in Sun Style Tai Chi.  If is fabulous for focusing on breath, alignment, and freedom in the body.  It’s also great for building energy and dealing with performance anxiety. 

1. Hold your hands in front of your chest at about heart level.  Palms should be facing each other and fingers are up.  Sometimes it is easiest to find this position by putting the hands in prayer position.  Then you separate them to about the width of your head.  
2. As you breath in, allow the hands to follow the action of the rib cage and slowly open up, no further than shoulder width.  Bigger is not better in this exercise.  
3. As you exhale, the palms move together.  
4. Practice that inhalation and exhalation a few times.  
5. Now add the feeling of moving with resistance.  Opening the hands might feel like pulling on a giant rubber band.  Closing the hands might feel like pushing two magnets together.  
6. Continue the open close breathing for a few more breaths, focusing on this resistance.  
7. Add rising and falling through the knees with each breath.  Rise as you inhale.  Bend your knees as you exhale.  
8. After a few breaths, become aware of the crown of your head.  You should feel lifted through the crown of your head when you inhale and when you exhale.  You can think of Spocking (feeling lifted from the pointy part of your Vulcan ears) if that is easier to remember.  
9. Next, become aware of the low back, sacrum, and tail bone.  This area should remain relaxed, and when you bend, imagine your tail bone pointing to the ground.  
10. Take a few more breaths feeling the lengthening of the spine, lifting from the crown of the head and the tucking the tail bone.  
11. Check your feet. Are you staying balanced on the tripod of the foot? Is your weight equally balanced between both feet?  (See Body Mapping)
12. Now pay attention to your knees.  When you rise, see if you can find the place where the knee is straight, but not locked.  This is the position we want to find for singing. 
    

Trains and Train X 3

Vowels must be unique, distinct, and specific.  That is how we tell them apart and understand the words we are hearing.  

For good singing, vowels must also line up in a way that makes them sound similar, as if they are coming from the same place.  It is as if each vowel is a car of a train.  They can all be different like train cars can carry different cargo, but what makes it a train is that all the cars are hooked together traveling along the same tracks.  

In lessons, you heard me demonstrate the nee-nay-nah-noh-noo exercise lined up on the train tracks and with the train derailing.  

Practicing lining up your vowels.  If one feels or sounds very different from the others, play around with how lifted the vowels are and how much jaw drop you are using.  If you still can’t get them to line up, talk to me at lessons.  

The train X 3 exercise is a perfect exercise for reinforcing the basics of Breath, Resonance, and Vowels.  

1. Hiss (no pitch, just air) intensely, as if you are trying to blow out a candle on the far wall.  This reminds you how to use the breath well.  
2. Take a low, silent breath.  
3. Buzz (lip trill), tongue roll, or zzzz with the same energy.  This works both breath and resonance.  

Take a low, silent breath.  

      3.  Sing nee-nay-nah-noh-noo. (Other consonants can be substituted.  Voiced TH also works well.) Use the same     energy and intensity as on the previous two steps.  Think about keep the sound in the same place that you felt it when you buzzed.  Line up the vowels on the train tracks. 

Straws

Vocal exercises with straws can help both breath and resonance.  They also provide a therapeutic effect for tired voices.  

Part I

This video from Ingo Titze, a voice scientist explains a little about some basic exercises that you can do with the straws.  I use both coffee stirrer straws and standard drinking straws allowing students to choose whichever works best for them.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xYDvwvmBIM

1. Glides (I sometimes call these sirens).
2. Accents (or bumps).  
3. Sing a song through the straw.  (He uses “The Star-Spangled Banner”.  I often use “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.”  You can also do this with any song you are currently working.  

Part II

1. Review Part I.
2. Using a small section of your song or a favorite warm-up pattern, transition from the mostly occluded opening of the straw the the full opening of an ah vowel.  
1. Straw, mini-buzz, ee through oo lips, oo, ee, ah (big and open)
3. Straw with water bottle.  

Read these articles for more information about the science of how this works and for other ideas for using the straws.  

http://www.ncvs.org/e-learning/nats-pdfs/2002_05_06.PDF

www.patwilson.com.au/Straws.pdf

www.faqs.org/periodicals/201001/1942916311.html

http://www.ncvs.org/e-learning/nats-pdfs/2002_03_04.pdf

Cyclops, Unicorn, Dolphin, Paper Trick

These imagery exercises can help students to find better resonance. Make sure the student understands that they are just imagination games and do not necessarily correspond to what is actually happening physically.  Also, some students will need one image for medium range notes and another for high notes.  They might also benefit from a combination of these.  For example, some of my students are good narwhals.  

1. Cyclops, (the X-Men character) shoots laser beams out of his eyes.  Imagine your sound coming out of your eyes.  
2. You are a unicorn.  Imagine the sound coming up and out from the horn in the middle of your forehead.  
3. You are a dolphin.  Imagine the sound coming out of the blow hole in the top of your head.  
4. Sing over the top of the paper.  Paper can be moved up and down the face to find the best resonance spot. 

Spray Paint and Laser Beams

I use a lot of imagery in my teaching.  This one is great for keeping the tone energized and free, spinning the tone, and making sure that the phrase is going somewhere.  

1. Choose your favorite color for today.  
2. Imagine that there are a couple of cans of spray paint just in front of your face.  As the sound leaves your body, it is spray painted your favorite color.  
3. Now spin the sound to the wall.  See that colored sound moving in a circular motion towards the wall.  
1. Your spin can be spiral (like a drill) or
2. rolling forward, more like a gerbil wheel.  
3. One student even likes to think of it as a time vortex from Dr. Who.

I tend to use spray paint for classical and colored laser beams for belt.  The ideas of color and sending it to the wall still apply, but I take away the circular motion for belt.  

Circles, Bubbles, and Force Fields

Like spray paint and laser beams, circles and bubbles help students to imagine filling a larger space.  

1. Imagine yourself in the center of a circle.
2. Fill that circle with sound.  
3. Gradually increase the size of the circle, still filling the entire circle.  
4. Repeat steps 1-3 this time making the circle into a 3 dimensional bubble.  
5. To help diction, imagine that the bubble is a force field that sparks when the consonants hit it.  

The book I referenced on the aging voice can be found here.

Sing Into Your Sixties... And Beyond! A manual and anthology for group and individual voice instruction by Sangeetha Rayapati

Intermediate and Advanced: Other Collections

In this post, I will cover a few of many collections that are available for intermediate to advance high school singers.  If you don't see your favorite books, please comment and tell us about them.  When I've completed the regular posts of this series, I will also do a blog listing many of the other books in my Lending Library that I use with students.  

Standard Vocal Literature is a series that a really love.  Soprano, Mezzo-Soprano, Tenor, Baritone, and Bass volumes provide music specifically chosen for that voice type.  There is some overlap from book to book, with the same songs, just in different keys, but this happens less than in The Young Singer.   Standard Vocal Literature is not for every student, and there are several songs in each volume that high school students should not sing, but overall it is a great book for intermediate to advanced high school singers that really love classical music.  Dictions lessons and accompaniments on the CDs that come with the book are very helpful for students in the learning process.  Each book contains art songs in English (heavy on the Renaissance to Baroque side), French, German, Spanish, and Italian.  It also includes a few arias from operetta, opera, and oratorio.  Generally, I only use the arias with my most advanced high school singers, and even then, not all the arias are appropriate for high school singers.  I have not yet had students purchase the Baritone and Bass volumes, but there are several songs from these books that I have students sing from other collections.  "Vado ben spesso cangiando loco" is one of the songs in these books that you don't see often, but it is a good song for young singers.

The Young Singer is a borderline collection for me.  (Scroll to the bottom of the page of the link for the full song list.  The contents listing at the top is not correct for each edition). There are several songs in the collection that I love, but finding the student who loves them and whose voice is right for them is harder.  The books now come only as a book/CD package, but this year I had a student find an older copy of the book at half.com for a much lower price.  A few songs overlap from book to book, but the books for different voice types are not just different keys of the exact same songs.


The soprano book contains high key versions of "Nymphs and Shepherds" and "Who'll Buy My Lavender" which I've only seen in other books in lower keys.  "I've Been Roaming" and "When Love is Kind" are others that I use frequently with students.  "When Love is Kind" is available in many other books however, so if that is the song I want a student to do, I often check to see which book contains the most songs they like.  I don't use the tenor and baritone volumes of these as much as the women's volumes.  Most of the songs that I like in these books are available in other collections where the student will have more options that they like.  I mostly use them as other key options for songs like "Rolling Down to Rio", "Silent Noon", "Where'er You Walk", "Passing By", and "Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal".

Classical Contest Solos is another book that I do have students buy, but because there are only a few songs in the collection, I try to make sure that they are songs that the student likes and that fit the voice well.  The CD contains both demonstrations of the songs and accompaniments, so it is a helpful learning tool.  I see these books more as a resource for teachers who are not sure what kinds of songs to assign students for contest.  I tend to use the tenor and baritone/bass books the most in this series because the songs seems to fit many voices well, whereas, in the soprano and mezzo books, I don't see as many of the songs covering middle ground.  The songs tend toward either big voices or light, flexible voices.   "Adela" a simple, yet beautiful Spanish song is in both the Tenor and the Baritone/Bass books.



The following books are ones that I have in my lending library and use frequently, but don't often send students to buy for one reason or another.

• Pathways of Song 
• This series contains 4 volumes available in High and Low keys.  Now published by Alfred, new accompaniment CDs are also available.  
• The Best of Pathways of Song is also available in High and Low keys, with or without CD's.  
• Overall, I like much of the repertoire in this series.  I just don't like enough of it in one volume or students don't like enough songs in one volume (or the Best of Pathways book) to have them buy it.  
• The New Imperial Edition
• Unique collections for each voice type:  Soprano, Mezzo-soprano, Contralto, Tenor, Baritone, Bass.  Accompaniment CDs available.  
• There is wonderful repertoire in these books and a few songs that I love to give to high school students, but as a whole, I find the book contains repertoire that is too advanced for most high school students.  
• The Mezzo-Soprano volume is a truly for middle sopranos and much of the repertoire included here is seen in other soprano collections.  
• Resonance series Vocal Repertoire books 4-8 
• Generally the repertoire in books 4-6 of the 3rd edition is appropriate for high school students.  I've had a few students purchase them over the years.  However, finding enough songs that the student likes to justify the cost is more difficult in this book.  I've not yet purchased these volumes in the 4th edition, but will be adding them at some point in the future.  

Next we will cover Italian books for the high school singer.  

The student is the method and fact based pedagogy

I had a wonderful time at the NATS Conference in July and came away excited to apply the new things I learned and refine my approach to some of my ideas that were reinforced.

During the course of the conference, several references were made to Scott McCoy's term "fact based pedagogy". In a masterclass, Stephen King said something to the effect of "the student is the method" meaning that our pedagogy needs to be specific to the technical needs (and I will add learning styles) of the student we are working with at that moment; there is no "One size fits all". I also loved the bodymapping sessions with Kurt-Alexander Zeller and bought the book What Every Singer Needs To Know About the Body.

It is these 3 ideas that I want to explore together in this post: fact based pedagogy, the singer is the method, and bodymapping, specifically as it is approached in the book listed above.

First, let me start by saying that "the student is the method" has been my approach for a very long time. All though some of my teachers were "one size fits all" teachers, as an accompanist I had the opportunity to play in many studios and learned from that experience that there were multiple valid approaches (and some crazy ones) to working with any issue or student.


I've also learned that some of the worst instructions I ever received, that totally messed up my singing, can actually help some students in some situations. I'll explain more later as I discuss the "vocal myths" presented in the bodymapping book.

Although my students could get together and compare notes and find many similarities in the things we discuss, no 2 students are taught in exactly the same way. If fact, sometimes the instructions I give to one student are the exact opposite of those I give to another. For example, I have 2 students (brother and sister) that come to lessons together. It's not ideal since their voices are very different, but it is what the family can afford. I try to discuss the general principle (fact based pedagogy) and them give them each specific instructions on what they need to work on at this point in their development towards that goal. The boy has some definite talent, but likes a pushed belty (not healthy belt) sound, plus he has had vocal nodes in the past. We're working on lightening the tone, and as part of that, I asked him to sing his song quieter. His sister is also quite talented. She studied with me last year in a group setting and has already learned a lot. She is at the point where she needs to think about more energy and singing louder to really help her find that head voice resonance. Being cautious and careful and quiet just gets her into trouble. I don't usually like to give instructions regarding volume, but like her brother, she responds well to that, so I have asked her to sing louder, monitoring for tension and pain (which would be signs that she is too loud or creating the volume the wrong way).

My only critique of What Every Singer Needs to Know About the Body is that fact that some of the information is presented as "the one and only right way". I love this book. I think that understanding how the body functions can help us greatly in creating freer and more beautiful tone. I'm a science nerd and find learning about anatomy fascinating. But, some of my students will not respond well to what they perceive as overly technical information and might respond better to imagery, or other techniques. I think that if I know this information, I can use it to better help my students in whatever way they learn best.

I love MaryJean Allen's chapter "The Core of the Body and the Six Places of Balance". I do believe that understanding this will eliminate the need for some of what she calls "posture myths". But, I also understand where these come from. I think the danger is when they are taken to extremes. Here are her myths (in bold) and my responses (in italics):

• Stand up "straight" as if the spine were a straight, solid broomstick. I actually agree that this is a myth we need to get rid of and I have found no situation yet where this has been helpful.
• Lift the sternum high. Again, proper alignment and understanding of breathing will eliminate the need for this, but when the sterum seems to approach the belly button and move 6 inches into the body, sometimes the easiest thing to say is to lift the sternum. Yes, some students will take it too far and arch the back and tighten muscles. The problems she presents with this myth are, I believe, a case of a student taking a good thing too far.
• Roll the shoulders back and/or hold them down. If a student's shoulders are hunched forward, don't we need some feeling of moving back in order to bring them into alignmen?. Again, this is a good thing taken too far, and then taught as "the one and only right way" by teachers that don't understand the principle behind it.
• Tuck the pelvis under. Maybe I don't need to do comments on every myth, since most of the comments will be the same or very similar. I tend to lock my knees and end up in butt out position. Tucking the pelvis reminds me of alignment, but if taken too far, will actually pull me out of alignment in the other direction.

So here's my take on the last 3 items: I believe that bodymapping (and fact based pedagody) is the way to go and will give the best results in the long term. However, it takes awhile to explore and figure out your map. Teachers use these as quick fixes; some of them understand the alignment principles behind them and some don't. Students that don't understand the principle learn these "rules" and think that that is the way it should be and teach it, without checking for how these can cause other problems in addition to fixing the first problem.

I have great respect for school choral directors and would not want their jobs for all the money in the world. However, some of these choir directors and other voice teachers take a few years of lessons and believe they are qualified to teach vocal technique when really they are just repeating "rules" someone else told them without truly understanding the principles. It is these teachers that create voices with problems. It is these teachers that we need to be educating. At the conference, Scott McCoy spoke of the recent change in the NATS membership application process eliminating the requirement for letters of recommendation. One of the reasons for this change is that there are a lot of teachers in the world; we can exclude those that we don't think are good enough, or we can bring them into the fold and teach them to be better teachers.

The next errors/myths sections is in Melissa Malde's chapter "The Singer's Breath". Again, the information presented here is very clear. It helped me to more fully understand some aspects of breathing.

Breathing Errors

• Tanking up. Taking in more breath than you need for the phrase is very common in singers and leads to all sorts of unnecessary tension...Only take in the breath you need. Use all the breath you take in. My argument here is that since I work with mostly young beginning students, most of them really do not take in enough breath. Again, we need to have the students monitor for tension and we need to be watching them to see if they are overdoing it. I believe that the statement "Use all the breath you take in" can also be taken to extremes by students. I have students that sing through 3 or 4 rests (or countless punctuation marks) because they still have breath and don't need to breathe yet. I also have students that think you need to push out that extra air with a puff before you can breath again, creating a coughing noise at the end of each phrase. It's about balance.
• Keeping your ribs out during exhalation. Yes, I agree that we cannot keep the ribs completely out all the time, but I do think that trying to helps train the muscles that help us regulate the breath flow. (Again, check that you're not creating extra tension.). To put it really simply, I believe breath support is the "stay big" muscles saying no to the "collapse in immediately" muscles. Maybe this works better as imagery than as how the body works in fact.
• The diaphragm is perpendicular to the floor. Totally agree here. This is a factual error! I can't begin to tell you all the strange stories I hear about the diaphragm. I would bet that 90% or more of the new students I get know (from a former teacher, choir director, friend, etc.) that you need to use the diaphragm when you sing. I'm not sure I've ever had a student that knew what that meant though. OK, a few thought they knew, but they clearly had no idea where it was or what it does.
• The ribs are immovable. Again, I totally agree that this is an error. I'm glad this one was in the book for two reasons: first, I need to watch for students who believe this, and second, although I knew that the ribs do move, I learned that there is far more mobility available than I had believed.
• Pushing out with the abdominals will bring about inhalation. OK, yes, I am agreeing again and maybe I have fewer arguments with the authors than I thought. This is a big error. Looking like Santa Claus has nothing to do with how much breath you are taking in. (On a side note, some students actually shift their weight forward at the hips to look like the abdominal region is enlarging, thus doing improper breathing and messing with alignment.) I think this is a misconception that comes about in choir (sorry to pick on the choir directors again). In a private lesson, we can check other things to make sure that a good breath is occuring. In choir, you may have 90 or more 9th graders that you are trying to teach about breathing. There is no way that you can make sure that every single one of them has a correct understanding of the principle.

Breathing Imagery

I love this quote from Malde,"Images may work for some singers. Other singers will take them literally and get confused. Never assume that an image that works for you will work for others. Any image that goes against the laws of anatomy and physiology is especially prone to produce movement that defies nature and induces injury."

Once again, here is my positition: Use whatever works for that student at that moment (imagery, technical information, imitation, etc.), while at the same time, making sure that the students understands what is actually physically happening (Ask them what changes physically when they think of that image or imitate that sound?). They also need to understand that today's imagery works for where the voice is today and if taken to an extreme (focused on exclusively while ignoring other issues) can cause problems in the opposite direction.

I appreciate Malde explaining the common misconceptions that occur with some types of breathing imagery. It gives the teacher things to watch for. Buy the book and read it. However, I think the thing that bothered me was that she seemed to imply (and maybe it's just the way I read it) that these kinds of things will mess up all singers for these reasons. It's seems to be another "One size fits all" or in this case "One size fits none." I don't like absolutes. Black and white keeps us from exploring and finding what will help each individual at the point they are in their journey.

So here is her list:

• Belly breathing
• Drinking in the breath or sipping breath through a straw
• Column of air
• Breathing down to your toes
• Filling an inner tube around your waist
• Filling up from the bottom
• Suprise breath
• Breathe through your belly button
• Back breathing.

One of my favorite stories from my teaching was a student that had this response when asked what she knew about breathing: "You don't breathe into your lungs; you breathe into your stomach." I pointed out, as does Malde, that any air that gets into the stomach does not help us sing well; it only makes us burp. We then talked about anatomy and how she had misunderstood what she had learned about deep breathing. (I really hope she misunderstood and that noone in any kind of teaching position actually told her not to breathe into her lungs!)

Malde's chapter, "Resonating the voice" is awesome. As a 40 year old singer and voice teacher, I was ready for the details of this chapter. I'm not sure how my baby high school beginner singers would respond to the information. I think that for young voices, often imagery and paying attention to sensations that occur with correct resonance is the best approach in this area. I do love what she has to say about the buccinator and masseter muscles and have had students do some of the exercises to become aware of these and release the tension. She explores 6 resonance images and their pitfalls. Again, these things may work for some people and may cause misintepretations and tension issues for others. The 6 images she lists are:

• Lofting a parachute in the back of the throat
• Feeling as if you could swallow a grapefruit
• Holding an egg at the back of the your mouth
• Placement in the mask
• Imagine a golf ball held by your upper and lower molars
• Lifing the checkbones

Actually, several of these images were new to me, and I thought I was the queen of imagery! Two thoughts: First, I actually was told at one point to do the grapefruit thing. Nothing could be further from right for my voice. I hate that image and swore never to use it. Then I had a student that I had tried everything with and the kid still couldn't find the right resonance space. I think I said something like this, "I hate this, but let's try it and see if it works," and it did! In the 17 or so years that I have been teaching, I think that the grapefruit image has only worked for 1 or 2 students, but it was the only thing that worked for them. So as much as I hate it personally, and as bad as it is for most people, I still keep it in my bag of tricks.

Second thought: In Zeller's chapter on physical expression, he addresses lifting the cheeks and eyebrows as resonance helpers in more detail, basically telling you that you are wasting time and energy because none of those muscles in any way affect the resonance. But...(here I go again) those images help some students. I can't tell you the exact physical mechanism by which it works, but sometimes it does. My theory is that by thinking of lifting the cheeks and the eyebrows, other body parts go along for the ride. I sometimes have my students open a slinky vertically while singing. That hand doing the lifting is not directly connected to the soft palate, but that motion does help to keep the soft palate lifted. Our brains are powerful tools. Asking for lift from any part of the body is bound to influence others as well. On the positive side, I whole-heartedly agree with Zeller that engaging cheek and forehead muscles for technical purposes can make you look really funny. Perhaps these should be used as tools to help us find what the resonance feels like and then when we know what it is, we can let those muscles go back to their primary function which should be expressiveness.

One final thing from the book and then I'll bring this to a close. In the appendix is a fabulous section by Barbara Conable on Performance Anxiety. Only once did she slam a technique that I occassionally use, and to be honest, on a certain level I agree with her, but for my baby beginners, it is a first step that gets them to be brave enough to make sounds in their voice lessons. Overall, I love her ideas and she ends the section with a list of tips for eliminating performance anxiety. The thing that I love is that everything is so positive. We can do so much for our students by creating safe places for them to experiment and grow and by giving them feedback in a positive way. People respond better when we are building them up. Solo and Ensemble Contest always worries me. We try to get judges we know and that we know work well with kids, but sometimes we bring in people with great reputations, but that we don't know personally. This past year we had a judge that gave sound technical advice on the things the students needed to work on, but several students, including a few of our "stars", came back to the homeroom feeling like failures because the judge had not said one positive thing to them. They got great scores, but there were several hours of torment as we waited for those scores because the students had not had a positive experience in the room.

So to wrap it up, here is WHAT I BELIEVE:
1. There is no "one right way." We need to find what works for each student that comes into our studio. The method we teach them is based on what they want to do and what they need to change to get there.
2. Teachers need a HUGE bag of tricks. If we truly want to approach each student as an individual, we can't just teach them the way our teachers taught us, and her teacher taught her, and her teacher taught her, etc. My student's issues are not all the same issues I dealt with. My issues were not the same as those my teachers had to overcome. If a former "swallower" teaches a student who is already peeling paint to bring the sound more forward, we end up in a really scary place.
3. Our bag of tricks absolutely must include a clear knowledge of how the body and the brain actually work. We might not teach all those details to every student, but we need to know what should be happening in order choose the correct tools from our bag of tricks.
4. Teachers can never stop learning. The minute you know it all, when you stop your own explorations, you close the door on things that might be just what the next student to walk into your studio needs.
5. We need to reach out to other teachers, not to convert them to our ways, but to learn from them. If they are willing to talk and share, chances are that even though we don't agree on everything, they just might know something that will make you a better teacher. NATS is just one way to connect.
6. I build people. Singing is fun. Singing well is thrilling. Yes, our students are paying us to help them be better singers, but they will get there a lot faster if we don't spend all of every lesson tearing them down. I've taught lots of lessons where I have been frustrated by a student's lack of preparation, their apathy, their resistance, and sometimes even by the seemingly insurmountable challenges they will have to overcome in order to ever sing "well". But I don't think I've ever taught a lesson where there truly was nothing that I could compliment the student on. My students will tell you that I'm tough, but I always try to point out the progress they are making and make sure that they leave feeling empowered rather than broken. That is why I chose not to pursue teaching in a music major program. I don't want to tell people that they aren't good enough. I don't build voices; I reveal them. I do build people.