How to Fix the CRACK/BREAK In Your Voice (Lesson 1): Glottal Compression and 3 EXERCISES
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 ต.ค. 2024
- This is the first video in what will be a series of several videos on the topic of vocal registration. In today's video, I talk about whether or not we should bridge early or bridge late, explain glottal compression and closed quotient, and offer 3 exercises for finding better balance as you transition between the registers.
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Simply the best vocal teacher on youtube
Amazing explanations. I love that you don't "dumb down" the information, as I think it is important us viewers understand the true physiology and not just imprecise visualizations of the voice. It still amazes me that there are singers who are innately able to do all these navigations without much thought or practice. Especially in the passagio it seems that some people are naturally able to blend the from a dominantly TA muscle closure to cartligenous and adductor closure! Boggles my mind.
Thank you so much for the encouraging feedback! It boggles my mind, too. But I think it's very similar to those who are 'gifted' in other areas that require fine (or even gross) motor skills - musicians, dancers, etc.. They just seem to get it so much faster and more readily than the rest of us do. (That's actually how I was with gymnastics. I was an elite gymnast, and everything came super easily and quickly for me. But singing? Not so easy for me.)
Hahah thats amazing! Gymnastics is definitely not an easy thing to get really good at. Well back to the sliding hoots for me then. Would you say that agility will develop naturally as you strengthen the muscles?
Agility is a skill that generally needs to be trained/developed over time and should be part of the our training right from the start. You have to avoid weighing down the voice too much and then practice agility passages/exercises that become increasingly difficult and that gradually speed up. But as with any vocal skill, some voices are going to be naturally more agile than others.
I simply can not understand why you have such a little amount of subscribers??? You are really structured, on point, motivational, helpful and you are so much focussed on SOLUTIONS.
Simply...
...a really good Job!!!
Many greetings from Germany.
Thank you for your sweet and encouraging comment! You just made my day.❤
A couple years ago I was struggling to learn anything about proper technique when singing. There are so many people out there giving bad advice and teaching the same tired quick fixes that do not work and sometimes even promote dangerous habits. Your website was the first thing I read or heard that started making sense and seemed to actually provide good explanations of what is going on when singing. Thank you so much. Your articles and videos are amazing. You have no clue how happy I was to find your site and then see that you had videos as well.
Awww. Thank you so much for your lovely and encouraging comment! I'm so glad my articles and videos have been helpful for you. Please let me know if you ever have any questions.
A couple of things I would like to mention is, that this video of yours is very very informative, not for everybody though, since while it is not complicated and greatly explained, readers need to have some previous background on vocal phsiology. I've been struggling with my break for such a long time, done sirens, tried different support techniques, etc etc etc. And finally, not so long ago, while trying to listen to myself and feel my body, I discovered just what you mentioned. The importance for the sound to stay in that same spot of internal vibration regardless of the pitch, and also maintaining that inner smile all the time. Now I begun to work on this and did very little progress as break concerned, but now, and most important, I can think better about what break is!. I have a new vision of this.
So happy to have found your channel!! I'm a fellow teacher and was looking for some solid, science based videos for students. Thanks for all you do! :)
Thank you for your lovely comment!
Wow... I'm only three minutes in and you've already answered some long-held questions. Thank you for your generosity in sharing this.
I'm so glad this video has been helpful! Let me know if you need further clarification.
you are truly amazing teacher ! i am a tenor from egypt yet still young and learning haha so far you've contributed so much in my improvement , i can't thank you enough ! you a true inspiration and makes me eager to learn more , and you sure demonstrate effectively to me hahaha , thank you so much !
Wow this was amazingly helpful. You said, "We want the sense that all of the notes are emanating from exactly the same place... that they're all being produced on the same plane"... and then you had us visualize a forward focused acoustic energy. And that helped to relaxed my throat, and allow me to go up in range, etc (which I'm usually not able to do, normally my voice cracks and nothing comes out).... but quick question. Can I use the forward focused acoustic energy all the time when singing (and speaking)? Because so far that's the only thing that's worked for me to hit high notes and not crack.
Thank you Karen!
I've been often coming back to this video because I find it very helpful. I can manage to do the hum when I'm in chest register but as I go higher I find it very hard to maintain the resonance in a more forward placement whenever I get into falsetto. You mention that we should work out on our closed throat / constriction when doing the first exercises if we feel as though that we are muscling our way through the scale but I don't really know which part of my throat to work out whether it be the larynx or the soft palate etc. This goes hand to hand with the twang as I am able to have a more twangy sound in my chest voice but not maintain it as I go higher in the scale.
I apologize for the delay in responding. I missed your question. I wonder if perhaps you have song tongue root engagement/tension as you go higher in pitch. That will cause you to lose your 'ring' in the tone and will create a very 'back' sounding tone and sensation.
Waiting. .when God will shower blessing. .
I looove this exercise, the throat feels so open :)
You deserve a lot more attention / views mam🙏 very helpful thanks alottt🤩
That's very kind of you to say so.
I love how you explain :)
Thank you! And thanks for watching and commenting.
You are awesome!
Hi first I wanna say thank you so much for all you have done. You're incredible and inspiring. I was hoping, if you had time, to do a vocal analysis of edward johnson's voice. I know there are clips of him singing on TH-cam.
I'd have to look into that when I have a bit more time.
Great video. Super useful. Thank you soooo much!
You're most welcome!
Good lesson
Thanks a lot.
I've been singing for 6 years and for my entire life I've never had voice cracks (speaking or singing) but for that last 2.5 years my singing and speaking voice have had breaks in them for reasons unknown. Does anyone know why this is? I'm almost 26 and far past puberty so I'm just curious as to why this happened out of nowhere for no reason.
yep, my biggest problem currently. I have done about a million "sirens" and lip trills and other exercises and can now navigate thru the first and second passagios without much trouble and can take all the different vowels up to like f#5. BUT, doing it WHILE SINGING WORDS AND PHRASES is something altogether different. I'll be singing with a nice rock tone and as I go to sing higher...oops, I get "stuck". I like that Pavarotti quote mentioning 6 years. I dont feel so bad now since Ive only been at it for less than 2 years. Practice makes perfect and ive practiced many exercises but now need to really focus on singing actual phrases up thru the passagios etc
A couple weeks ago, I posted that quote on the SingWise Facebook page... and it went viral (well, viral for that page). The response was overwhelmingly the same: Everyone now feels so much better knowing that it takes masterful vocalists like Pavarotti years to create that consistency and evenness of scale. It really does take time and patience... and the RIGHT kind of practicing (e.g., you want to be building new, balanced coordination, not reinforcing bad technical habits). I do hope to delve really deeply into this topic over the next several videos because I know that it's one that so many singer's struggle with.
thats where "casual singing" works against us. Though its fun and stress relieving to lightly sing to ourselves all day in a BeeGees type voice etc, it DOES reinforce a weak coordination. Then we go to record something and all of a sudden that weak sound we've ingrained is working against us
True!
Really good video. This is one I would like improve on. Will be contacting you.
I look forward to it!
Interesting explanation. I've been checking out videos around this problem, and I always thought that poor execution through that passagio has got to do with the fact that I don't know where to or how to place my resonance in this section, so I can lean on it without relying on muscles. Man this is tricky!
It really is, I'm not gonna lie! You've kind of hit the nail on the head, though, when you said, "place my resonance." Although we can't actually place our voices, we can certainly tune our resonance (by making adjustments to the resonator tract) in ways that create the sensation of placement (sympathetic resonance and/or pressure maxima). As we're going through the passaggio, and the harmonics are rising along with the sung pitch, we need to make gradual and subtle adjustments to the shape of the resonator tract in order to ensure that it provides an ideal 'space' for the harmonics to be resonated. (Essentially we need to make sure that the vowel - formants - is compatible with the pitch - harmonics.) Getting our resonance correctly 'tuned' will create an acoustic energy feedback loop (inertive reactance) within the vocal tract that actually helps the vocal folds to operate more efficiently. Some of those cracks and breaks and wobbles that we hear are actually due to 'skipping' of the vocal folds in which they aren't vibrating perfectly periodically (consistent vibration). Proper resonance tuning fixes that. Keeping this 'frontal buzz' is key because it really does take the feeling of 'work' away from the throat muscles. In any case, I'm hoping to record two or three videos on this topic this coming week... if my voice will cooperate. I'm still in recovery.
I was just commenting about this same exact thing to someone. The forward hum is exactly what I feel when my coordination is efficient. I find that when the hum is not present in my voice, my tone sounds a little airy, unfocused and I’m not able so sing without strain through the passagio.
Wonderful! I find that when singers lose their balance in the passaggio area, it's because they've allowed that sensation/'placement'/vowel to shift around. When they start learning to maintain that forward hum sensation, the instrument seems to, for the most part, coordinate much more effectively through that part of the range. I find the same for higher notes, too. When my high and/or belted notes fall out of balance because I'm trying to force, the vowel falls back and spreads. That's when I return to the forward hum sensation/'placement'/vowel, and the note emerges like something more musical.
Thanks for this video! Awesome!
You're welcome. Thanks for watching and commenting.
Does Pavarotti (or any male opera singer for that matter) actually ever go into M2 though? Not a troll question, I just don't hear it and it would seem like that wouldn't carry particularly well.
I know that this question isn't related to crack or break, but it relates to breath control. Is vibrato a viable way to help hold a note out longer than you can by just singing it as one continuous note?
The presence or absence of vibrato on a given sustained tone won't directly impact your ability to hold that note for longer. Vibrato is mostly the product of periodic nerve impulses that cause the laryngeal muscles to alternate between periods of work and rest in order to prevent rigidity and fatigue. (There are some other ways of creating - manufacturing - a vibratory sound, including pulsating with the breath/diaphragm that can indirectly impact the steadiness of the breath and our ability to control and pace the exiting air.) When the folds are working more, they offer greater resistance to the air pressure (and pitch and intensity increase). When they are 'resting' more, they are offering less resistance to the air pressure (and pitch and intensity decrease). This might impact close quotient. In any case, vocal fold approximation and closed quotient are more likely to impact the duration of the sustained tone than vibrato. The longer the closed quotient (the amount of time during each vibratory cycle of the vocal folds that the vocal folds are making contact with each other), the less air imoving out of the lungs and through the glottis and the more air conserved. In breathy phonation, for example, the glottal resistance efforts are low and the closed quotient is short, so more air moves through the glottis and the lungs will 'empty' more quickly. The other factors that will affect the duration of a sustained tone are lung volume (how much air is in the lungs to begin with) and how you manage the outgoing breath. If you pace (and economize) the outgoing breath, you'll allow it to 'escape' more gradually, and that - combined with balanced glottal resistance efforts - can help you sustain your tone for longer.
The moment I approach C4, my voice stops and says "No, you won't!" and abruptly breaks into falsetto. The only way to pass the bridge is to do a soft low larynx sound. But then i feel like I'm skipping the break, falling into falsetto, without working out the passage problem.
Hi. Is there anyway you can release a piano scale with these exercises so I can practice without having to revert back to this video? Thank you.
I'm hoping to do this for many exercises at some point. I'm in the process of writing a book that will contain many of the exercises that I share in these videos, and I plan to record the exercises in male and female ranges as a companion to the book (downloadable from the book's website). But that will not be for several more months. It's just another project that would take time. I'll see what I can do.
Okay! I can't wait for the book! Thank you again.
Great topic and info. I've been dealing with a break or sudden shift when I transition from head down to chest. Will your next videos address that issue?
Yes! (That's really common. Do you also break on the way up?)
singwisevocals I used to. I guess I've always had issues with breaks 😕
This is such a common challenge for singers, and I've had several requests to teach on the topic, so I really want to explore it fully in the upcoming videos. There should be something in these videos that will help make things 'click' for you. :)
Something that's really confusing me about your explanations here is the use of the term glottal resistance. Could you maybe elaborate on that a bit? Like, how does one feel that glottal resistance and how does one separate it from "muscling" through higher notes (as you put it)?
I'm planning to record a separate video on this topic of glottal compression (resistance efforts to the exiting airflow) because I know it can be confusing and because I don't want anyone thinking that they need to squeeze and over compress (press) in order to achieve and maintain adequate glottal closure as they move higher in the scale. To me, there's a sense of 'work' happening at the glottal level as I pass through and above the break area in order to maintain the 'connected-ness' and fullness of the sound, but it's never a sense of discomfort, force, or squeeze. It just doesn't feel 'lazy,' if that makes sense. Balanced vocal effort - a balanced and healthy response of the glottal adductor (closure) mechanism to the subglottal pressures - is the goal. (There's an interplay between them that I plan to also discuss in a separate video.) When we 'muscle' our way up the scale, we're basically using increasing amounts of muscular effort in order to stay locked in the chest voice coordination. That represents an imbalance and an inflexibility of the instrument that tends to lead to dramatic register breaks higher up. But if those efforts - both of the breath management system and the glottal closure mechanism - remain balanced on every note of the scale, then breaks don't happen. I hope this clears things up. If not, let me know, and I'll try to explain it a different way.
Thanks! That, along with your reply to another question where you bring up "resonance tuning" helps clear things up a bit, if not all the way. I may have to listen to this video a couple more times, too. Intellectually, I know I need to maintain that closure without squeezing the throat, but with matters of physicality it's hard to really "understand" without the feeling... without the experience to map the feeling. On a good day, with my coach guiding me, he can help carry me up to a Bb4 and there are times when I can really feel some of the truths that you and him and other articles and presenters talk about, but I always fall out of it and it's never quite "real" (ie there's always a feeling of squeezing and pressure in the throat regardless). I always fall out of it though when I'm not with him and thus it becomes difficult to get back to that point so I can then map the feelings correctly.
It's a whole complicated process, I'm aware. But I think a combination of practice and more pedagogical study can help get me there. Looking forward to your further videos on the topic!
You're absolutely right. You can follow the guidance of others, and that may help, but ultimately you're the one who much find that coordination and do the body mapping on your own. It took me decades of singing before I realized that I could use more vocal effort in my sound in order to get the kind of sound that I like in other singers but never believed that my own voice was capable of. And the day that I discovered it was so encouraging. It came and went for a while (and still does sometimes), but it did become a coordination that I could more consistently call upon.
That's pretty encouraging so thanks. Above all I guess patience is key, haha
Yes. :)
Will these exercises work for speaking? My voice has been cracking for a few months during speech after a bad case of laryngitis.
I have been experiencing some challenges in my voice lately. I hear a crack in some parts of my upper registers when humming or lip trilling. I don't feel confident to open my mouth to sing for now cos of the crack , husky and breathy voice scares me that I might be IN trouble vocally. I have been afraid to make it even worse hence my reluctance to really song or warm up
get well soon angel:)
Thank you!
Thank you so much
You're most welcome!
I can't get IH or EE to connect. To save my life! 😅
subbed!
Thank you. And welcome!
U are an amazing
Thank you. That's very kind of you.
I shouldn't be texting while I'm driving LOL but I meant to say you are an amazing vocal teacher I'm in my car just trying to get tips on singing Because I now trying to take my singing level up to a professional level I watch many vocal teachers on TH-cam maybe 20 to 30 you were the best one with the breakdown in the length of your videos give the students enough time to get focused into the actual class that you're teaching I love it and I THANK U
🙂 But yes, please don't text and drive!
Thank you!!!!!!
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If it took Pavarotti six years, that does not bode well for the rest of us.
Don't think that way! It's different for everyone. Everyone is starting from a different place and has different challenges related to registration. I've seen students master the passaggio in less time than that. And we also can't compare the definition of 'mastery' between singers of classical styles and singers of commercial styles. The standards, tessitura, and repertoire needs are different. (Not superior/inferior; just different.) How a classical tenor defines 'mastery' is based on the type of singing that he does, the repertoire that he sings, the artistic requirements of opera, etc.. And his training needs are different from that of the CCM tenor. Just keep working at it. And be intelligent about it. The more you understand about the tripartite voice system ('motor' - 'vibrator' - 'resonator') - how these three parts interact with each other and how they can be manipulated and tuned - the more readily you will master this part of your range.
@@singwisevocals Great point, thanks for the encouragement!
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