Isabelle,
Like you, I think I've tried every support concept on the market over the
years. I also think that I exhibit tendencies similar to those of your
student - left to my own devices, I will do all of the work in the throat,
what's more I sing using a method in which this is a danger.
The solution I found lay in the use of the breath. It goes without saying
that my teacher spent ages badgering me about this before I discovered it!
For me, breath and support come to much the same thing.
Earlier, this is a aspect of singing that puzzled me. The method I was
studying taught that in good singing the voice sits on the breath, but what
does that mean? I sought more detailed explanations, and the sensation of
the voice sitting on the breath (sul fiato) was contrasted with other
sensations, in which the voice ran or was mixed with the breath (col
fiato). The 'col fiato' sensation was sometimes descibed as more usual in
speech, and could be used for special effect in singing (unless the method
was based on it, rather that the 'sul fiato' sensation, as many were), but
'col fiato' was a better foundation for singing.
So how does one develop the sensation of the voice sitting not in the throat
but on the breath? I was told that one should take a long breath, 'long'
here referring not to duration of expiration but to sensation in the body.
After much experimentation I discovered that I could best take a long breath
by breathing along the spine, and allowing that breath to lengthen and
vitalise the spine. I also found that the less volition was in that breath
the better off I was - more of that later. So now I have a sensation of a
column of breath moving through my skeleton. Where on that column should the
voice sit? Questions of this sort were normally met with a gesture of the
hand pushing/leaning out in front of the navel, and told that I should lean
my voice against the breath there.
Now hitherto I had thought of my 'leaning point' at the top of my windpipe,
and so was a little confused. It was explained that indeed, there was, and
should be a sensation there, but that it wasn't the switch that worked the
voice - the breath was - and that I should let go of the tension at the
throat and allow my voice to float down onto my breath. Many singers I spoke
to described an elastic connection between the larynx and the stomach area.
But the motive force is that of the breath.
Out of all this I developed two contrasted concepts. In the first the voice
is conceved of as a reed: it vibrates when air is pumped through, and the
sensation of vibration is very much localised in the reed. In the second it
is more like the string of a a stringed instrument. A fine string player has
the sesation that the string, while vital, of course, participates less in
the production of the sound than the rest of the instrument - fingers,
sounding board, bow. A friend of mine - a Double Bass player - spoke with
admiration of Casals, saying that at an advanced and infirm age his bow
'still sat on the string'. I was a violinist in civilian life, and knew what
he meant. The bow floating on the on the string creates the sound, even
though the elastic bits and pieces that more it are elsewhere. The voice
sitting on the breath creates the sound, even though the elastic bits and
pieces that move it are elsewhere. And a bow can move float quicker or
slower, lighter or deeper. With this concept, so too can the breath.
So now I have to develop a sensation of singing out of my stomach, a
seemingly impossible task. The first thing I had to do is to get all the
tension out of my larynx, so that my voice to float down to allow the breath
to work it. I tried all kinds of things here - singing while shaking my head
quite vigourously, sensations of opening and 'dropping the bottom out of my
voice', attacking the sound in the pit of the stomach. And some singers
provided excellent models - Siepi especially, but also Corelli, Freni,
Bastianini, in no particular order. The things which made a big difference
were
1) Trying to sing (and speak) without any sensation of buzz in the
throat
2) If normal singing is talking on pitch, I would whisper on pitch -
but still full voice
3) As 2) above, but sighing gently. There are many kinds of sigh. The
one I found useful was one that passes down the front of the body, stimlated
by relief, or the afterglow of good sex.
4) Tipping the head right back while singing or speaking. This is a
good one for developing the sensation of a pipe of vibrations below the
throat leading to a pool of vibrations in the stomach. I pinched it from a
book of voice exercises for actors. Dropping the sholders while lifting the
elbows is also good.
5) Singing/singing/making noises while lying flat on the floor,
preserving the sensation when upright.
6) Building vowel shapes from neutral ur/schwa type vowels. Build the
vowels in the chest and stomach (this is easy to do if you're flat on your
back).
7) No manipulation of the throat when singing.
8) I found that consciously breathing in to sing tightened my throat.
So I started to work with concepts not doing 'singer's breathing' to sing.
For example I would start a piece without consciously taking a breath,
and allow the breath to replace along the spine (not through the throat)
between phrases, as one one does in conversation, or indeed, stage
declamation. This lead to some very interesting discoveries. I'd started by
breathing through the nose, as this disturbed the throat and the position
less, but I could seldom take enough breath this way to sustain a
phrase in Verdi. So started with the other end of the column, breathing down
the spine. I found that, this way the breath replaced more efficiently,
and was better matched to the length and character of the phrase. I can
still breath vigourously and take in a great deal of breath when necessary,
but I don't have to disturbed the singing position of tighten the throat to
do so.
The less careful you are when doing all of this the better. The more animal
and sub-intellectual you can let it be the better. And don't listen to your
sound. Listen to the sensation. All of the above are beautiful sensations -
they make you feel as though all the top part of your body is opening -
flowering - outwards, while all the conscious work of singing is gathering
to a single point in front of your lower stomach. Tap that point and you
ring the whole bell.
And lo and behold, as I did all of the above, I could feel the sensation of
vibration leaving my throat and settling on my stomach. I have no scientific
explanation for this, but the sensations are very positive, and I understand
that adepts of the Alexander technique report similar phenomena. Once they
were reasonably well established I could stop doing all the things I
described above and play with the sensations of the voice leaning on the
breath with no involvement of the upper body. I still feel vibrations
throughout my chest, neck and head and a looze buzz at my larynx, but those
vibrations are akin to the vibrations in the sounding box of a 'cello - they
are effects, not causes. What makes it all work is that little buzz in front
of my stomach which draws its vitality from air passing along my spine.
Some of these ideas might be of some use to your pupil. I am well aware of
their absurdity - people's descriptions of their sensations usually are. For
myself, I think that absurdity is useful. There were a number of comments on
this list a few months ago about what a ridiculous book 'Great Singers on
Great Singing' was. It was held to be ridiculous because, in the opinion of
many listers, the singers either didn't know what they did when they sang or
couldn't describe it. I disagree with this, and I think this is an extremely
valuable resource. I think most singers do do know what they do when they
sing, but the things they do are the sort of things I have described -
useful absurdities. The statement ''x' doesn't know how he sings, or can't
describe it' really means 'I don't understand what 'x' says when he
describes what he does to sing'. If we try to think ourselves into the
language another person uses to describe their sensations, we might actually
learn something. The further singers 'x's description is from ours, the more
we might learn, because the very unfamiliarity of the description takes us
away from our own comfortable world of familiar sensations with familiar
gestures, and throws up a challenge. A challenge can be ignored, dismissed
or confronted. Only confrontation will lead to development. It is comforting
to read a description of singing that exactly matches one's own, but such a
description can only reinforce what one does already: it will seldom lead to
new discoveries. There are still many things in 'Great Singers on Great
Singing' I don't understand, but I intend having a wild time trying to
understand them. Many of the singers in that book sing a lot better than I
do: it's got to be worth the effort to try to figure out what makes them
tick, even if I reject it, or am incapable of understanding it. And the
Hines book does allow us to match intentions to results, and then to compare
and contrast.
I know perfectly well that, objectively speaking, I don't breathe along my
spine. Nobody does. Many would ridicule this idea as unscientific, and they
would be right. I came across the idea in the same book of exercises for
actors and thought it ludicrous but thought I'd give it a go. Within days it
was making a dramatic difference to my singing. And anyway: more ludicrous
than what? Producing the singers formant? I can't do that consciously.
Placing the voice so firmly in the mask so that it feels the front of my
face will come off? Last time I saw a photo of Paul Plishka his face was
still there. The truth is, the terms we use in singing are determined by
their utility, not their accuracy.
I offer the above list of absurdities in the hope that a few of them might
prove creative.
(The whole
>"Italian appoggio" academic school is an Americanized
>concept at best
It is nice to find someone else who is underwhelmed by Miller! The 'apoggio
concept', as described by Miller, seems almost entirely absent from Italian
literature before his own publications (unless you equate it, as some do,
with Lamperti's 'lutte vocale', which I think is tenuous). Franklyn Kelsey
describes something similar, and he learnt from Bouhy (I think) in Paris -
not a bad pedigree. But as we're talking about the Hines book, compare and
contrast Miller's apoggio with the descriptions given by, say, Corelli and
Pavarotti. Are they describing the same thing?
My objection to Miller's concept is that I many people it induces a certain
rigidity and self-consciousness into the body. Works for some (look at Jussi
Bjoerling on the Fireside videos), but not ideal, I would suggest for most.
>-- from my experience and from what
>other teachers have said, native Italian singers use
>the term "appoggio" to describe everything from
>bearing down as if to have a bowel movement to
>balancing the ribs outward to pushing against a belt
>with the tummy).
Yup. Italians in my experience normally use appoggio to describe sensations
that a thesaurus might categorise under down and out. Some link it to the
breath, as I did above, others don't. To my ears, voices trained according
to Millers principles, while efficient, often lack body and character. For
this reason I think it a pity that his views have become so widespread,
although I can see the advantages of his method.
I hope you find some of this useful. Good luck.
> Laurie Kubiak
> Regulatory Project Manager
> British Telecommunications PLC, Group Regulatory Finance
> BT Centre, 81 Newgate Street
> London EC1A 7AJ
>
> Telephone: 020 7356 4430; Mobile: 07740 817 257
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>
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