Getting out of the way... with a loose throat

One of the most difficult things to learn in singing is how to get out of the way.

There are, of course, a few things that need to be "done" in order to sing well. You have to know how to stand up (you can't sing your best while you slouch), you have to know how to open your mouth (if your jaw is tight, this is difficult), you have to know how to breathe (not too high, not too low), you have to know how to support (largely a matter of body response while singing), you have to remember to use your energy (a lot more than many realize), and how to move the breath (especially important in piano, where people often forget to keep the breath moving). Oh, and as I posted earlier, you have to know how to open for the upper register. Most important of all, you have to sing like you speak (assuming you speak well, without undue pressure on the vocal cords) and you have to have a spacious, relaxed throat.

A lot of our work as singers centers around loosening the throat. The key to it is that it is imaginative work, not physical work. If you "see" the palate high, you will lift the palate. If you leave out the imaginative step, and try to physically lift the palate you will most likely end up terribly stuck. Of course, the palate should be lifted in good singing, and the higher you sing, the more the it lifts: but if you try to achieve it in an overtly physical way, you are in for trouble.

Most of the really stuck singers that come to me are trying to do too much. If you look at a great singer in the act of singing, you will probably see a grooved, flat tongue, a low larynx and a lift to the cheeks. That does not mean you should flatten your tongue, lower your larynx, or lift your cheeks in order to sing! These things are an effect of relaxing, or loosening the throat. If you imagine the space of the throat, with a high palate, a low larynx, a flat tongue and a loose jaw, it is immediately there. Go ahead, try it! It is the one time in your life when just "thinking" it will make it happen.

Simply put, in singing, much of the work is "thought" not "done". Learn how to get out of your own way.

Trust your instincts

I am sure that any of you who have had cause to work with the New Mozart Edition of the Marriage of Figaro have noticed a curious anomaly in the part of the Countess. At certain moments in the "new" edition, she exchanges parts with Susanna. In the famous trio with Almaviva, she is given the high lines that go up to high "C", while Susanna has the lower part!

This has never made sense to me, and whenever I directed this excerpt, we always went with the Schirmer edition distribution of parts, which seemed to respect the Countess' vocal comfort in a consistent way all through the opera. No Countess that I know has ever appreciated the schizophrenic nature of the vocal writing in the new edition, where the arias have one tessitura for the Countess (lower), and the ensembles another (higher).

It turns out there is a good reason to trust Mr. Schirmer. Alan Tyson, the English musicologist, in his first volume of Mozart Studies, has a very illuminating article on this subject. The New Mozart Edition was drawn on the original manuscript, or "handschrift" whenever possible. In the Mozart manuscripts, however, there are major discrepancies between the "handschriften" and the "abschriften" which were contemporary copies made directly from the manuscript. It seems that in one at least of the "abschriften" Mozart himself altered the Countess' part to the lower line.

Apparently, Mozart himself made some of these changes to the autograph ("handschrift") for the first part of the first act, and then stopped. The end of the opera, in the autograph, is consistent with the Countess having the lower tessitura, and was probably written out after the decision had been made in rehearsal to give the lower lines to the Countess. It certainly looks like Mozart just didn't get around to changing all the parts for the Countess in the original manuscript.

The first edition, which follows the distribution of parts taken up by the later Schirmer edition, has the same consistency in the way the Countess is written. If you think about it, it makes total sense that Mozart may have adjusted the parts in rehearsal, and then written them himself into the abschrift (which functioned as the conductor's score), while the original manuscript stayed at home, uncorrected. Both Entführung and Finta follow the convention of giving the highest parts in the ensembles to the prima donna. The Countess, however, may have been a different type of voice than Constanze or Sandrina, and the high tessitura of the ensembles in Figaro as originally planned, may not have been suitable for her voice.

Sometimes, if it doesn't make sense, it is just plain wrong. In musical editions,"urtext" isn't always better.

Support: the missing link

It has been my experience that most young singers don't have a clue what support is. Why should they? For them, it functions unconsciously, or not all. As you get older, if you want to keep singing, it becomes crucially important to figure out what this support thing is all about.

Most of us, as students, have received critiques from teachers that say "not enough support for the upper register". This is all well and good; but what, exactly, are we supposed to do? Clench our derrière, as one beloved Canadian coach famously advised? Try harder? Push down and out like giving birth (ouch)?

I can tell you from experience, that without support, your high notes still won't work, even if you know how to open in the upper register. My favorite equivalent term for support is "body response". I like this because it implies that support is more something that has to happen, rather than something you muscularly inflict on yourself. Fine, but what exactly is it?

The upper register requires more compression from the abdominal system than the rest of the voice. This compression aids vocal fold closure. Remember that high notes require a high degree of tension in the vocal folds and high sub-glottal pressure. By using the abdominal system to generate sub-glottal pressure, we don't have to use pressure at the vocal fold level. The easiest way to feel this resistance in the body is to blow up a balloon (thanks to Ingo Titze) or sustain an "f" sound (fricative) with plenty of energy, This leaves your hands free to explore. They will show you exactly how the compressive function of the abdominals is expressed in the body.

Once you have a clear feeling for what is supposed to happen in the muscles below the nipple line, check in with the abdominal area while you sing the high note. If you are doing the rest correctly (lightness, placement, opening, vowel modification if necessary), it will give that last bit of "oomph" you need to sustain the tone. Oh, and don't forget, keep the ribs out in the onset. It will get the tone started the right way.

Why are we moved?

I had a moment on the subway the other day. I was listening to the Beethoven String Quintet in C Major, Op. 29 - II. Adagio molto espressivo played by the Budapest Quartet, recorded in the 1940's. I guess there was something about the painful sweetness and intimacy of the performance that got to me. They begin in parallel motion, with such a gorgeous sonority. To me, it was like four voices all expressing independently and simultaneously the pain and beauty of life.

It also moves me that I imagine I can hear where Schubert was coming from. Certain works of Beethoven were a great influence on Schubert, and some of the painful sweetness of the Schubert quartets (or the great C major quintet) is here in the Beethoven. It is surely no accident that Schubert's own string quintet was written in the same key of C major.

The Budapest Quartet had a profoundly vocal style in their playing. Each instrument had a quality of tone and vibrato reminiscent of the great singers. We seem to hear one magnificent instrument, richly sonorous, that intimates the possibility of a social harmony, where our inmost feelings are shared and even developed with others.

Once in great while in my life, I have felt that possibility of an intimate union of mind with others. It may only be an illusion, that we can see other than "through a glass darkly" on this earth, and truly know one another face to face; but it is magnificent to hope for it, and works like this give us the intimation of possibility.

Scwarzkopf and that "lip thing"

I was watching a terrific video of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf last night, on the Medici Arts label. The recordings were taken from BBC broadcasts of 1961 and 1970, along with some footage of an ORTF concert from Paris in 1967. Schwarzkopf's artistry was stunning, of course; but I was much struck by a change in her vocal approach between 1961 and 1967.

The '61 recordings are vocally impeccable. There was a beautiful balance and clarity to the sound. Her face looked natural when she sang, all the vowels were clear and balanced, and the breath technique was good, not obtrusive in anyway, just grounded in the middle of the body. By 1967, however, this great artist was noticeably pulling down her upper lip on all the vowels, and her breath was shallow, with obvious forcing from the supporting muscles of the neck, especially on the left side.

I had long ago noticed some strange vowels in some of my favourite Schwarzkopf recordings (the Mozart and Strauss with Szell, for instance). Here was the explanation: her "ah" vowel, for instance, became excessively dark after she began to sing by pulling down the upper lip.

Don't get me wrong: that "lip thing" has been used by many great singers, including Sutherland and the great German lyric, Gundula Janowitz. I saw Janowitz sing Arabella from the side of the stage in Berlin in 1982, and I could see the lip thing at work. By that time, all of her high notes were flat, and she retired from the stage shortly after. When used with great discretion, covering the upper teeth with the lip can settle the vocal position by lowering the larynx; but if you overdo it, it leads to vocal trouble.

Best of all, is the goal of singing with no gimmicks; just good breathing, good support, a released jaw and larynx, and a healthy frontal feeling of placement. Beware the quick fix!

Opening for the upper register

They say that if you don't use it, you lose it. For singers, if you never sing roles with high notes, you will never really have high notes, no matter how high you vocalize. Generally speaking, if you don't challenge yourself to do what is possible, but difficult, you may never fully solve your vocal problems. It is always easier for a soprano with problems to hide out as a mezzo: in my case, it is easier for me to hide out as a low bass, than to really fix my upper register.

Recently, I accepted an Opera by Request gig, to sing the part of Phanuel in Hérodiade, which is quite high for a bass. This part is written with a lot of exposed, dramatic D's E's and F's. I just can't sing it unless I do it right. Keys for concert work can be adjusted, but for opera you really have to step up to the plate.

What I realized today, is that you have to open for the notes over the primo passagio (for me an A) in a very high, frontal place. When it feels right, it is almost like opening up and behind the nose. This is the lift of the palate so crucial for the upper register. In my case, until I started to use a neti pot, I was chronically unable to breathe through my right nostril. The feeling of 'deadness' in that area meant that I was not able to open fully for the upper register.

You can hurt yourself singing high notes too 'open'; that is, with an uncovered approach to the vowel and the larynx high. Just modifying the vowel, however will still not give you the secret to singing those notes. You have to have the courage to open in the right way. "Covering" the vowels with a tight throat just gets you the unpleasant pharyngeal sound and an uncomfortable feeling of pressure in the throat. The support, or body response to the pitch also must play its part (more on that another time).

Open up and be safe! (When I get a chance, I will post an MP3 of me singing some of Phanuel, and hopefully, it will be the "right" way.)

Recording and listening

I have long been a believer in students recording lessons so that they can monitor their progress. For some, it is tangible confirmation that they are getting better, and that a more authentic voice is emerging. The new co-ordination often feels like doing so much less! If your habit is forcing, then singing correctly feels "almost" like nothing.

It has been surprisingly difficult for me to take my own advice; I myself have never consistently recorded and analyzed a group of coachings while working on a recording project. I suppose I thought that recording myself was just too much of a nuisance, what with setting up the recorder, checking the levels, transferring the material to my computer, and listening to the results. Then there is the experience of listening to yourself: it is so hard to be objective without being unduly optimistic or unduly critical.

My usual habit with recording sessions has been to wait until the big day, and then have a monster all-or-nothing three hour session. The result: a shelf of recordings at home that I have never used. I never felt they represented me at my best.

This time, I approached the recording project differently. I began in May with my Edirol recorder, making digital recordings of each coaching, and evaluating them carefully, so that I could come back to the next coaching with corrections in vocal approach, languages, and interpretation. To my amazement, I found that I could produce my own web-quality recordings from the coaching sessions.

You can hear the results here.