Dear Randy, Gina, Isabelle and Vocalisters:
Miller lists four ways in which the nasal port can be closed. Each of these ways is supported by research. The nasal port is not the whole of the soft palate. The position of the soft palate can be adjusted without closing the nasal port. For these reasons alone the position of the soft palate can be a possible concern for the singer and teacher of singing.
Isabelle has done a good job of defining the confusion between the terms "nasality" and" nasal tone". The sensations we feel when we sing well, however, are very individual and what feels like nasality to one singer may feel like singing in the back of the throat to another.
Although bringing the voice "forward" might work well for Gina it is often the opposite for other singers. Tone placement concepts are, at best, a most devious approach to teaching singing. I have found it much more effective to determine how the singer feels a tone when that tone is right and use that singers description of feeling as a code word for that singer alone. To apply ideas of "placement" from one singer to another is not usually successful and often more than frustrating.
So, I have sought for descriptions of vocal function that ARE more universal. I have found these through teaching an understanding of what actually happens within the vocal mechanism and developing exercises that utilize these understandings. And it works. Coffin used to tell his singers that they needed to be able to translate the confusing language that is prevalent in the singing field into an understanding of what is really happening.
When a conductor tells a singer to sing more forward the intelligent singer can understand that he means the tone is too dark and needs more high overtone emphasis. The singer can then make the necessary adjustments that are effective for his/her voice without a need to explain to the requestor what is being done. When the singer understand vocal function and knows how vocal function works and feels for his/her individual voice, that singer is capable of making any changes necessary for any performance demands.
The advantage to this approach is that it can explain what the various and often contradictory concepts of vocal production mean in terms of vocal function. A primarily subjective approach to singing technique (which includes such concepts as tone placement, imaging, etc.) may be very valuable for the individual singer but it seldom has any meaning for another singer. This is the reason that great singers seldom make good teachers of vocal technique. They may be great vocal coaches but the technique that they know is theirs alone. The Hines book is great proof of this.
Regards -- Lloyd W. Hanson, DMA Professor of Voice, Vocal Pedagogy School of Performing Arts Northern Arizona University Flagstaff, AZ 86011
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