Month: September 2020

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I’d like to buy a vowel

As I’ve often said, the vowels carry the beauty and meaning of every language, and if they are generalized all that is lost.  Singing is communication!  If your concept of vocal production does not make that clear, you might as well play the kazoo.

What do I want to hear in a voice?  I want the vowels to all be clearly defined, so that even if I don’t understand the language I could write down what is being sung. I also want a consistent quality and quantity of sound and resonance, whatever the vowel and whatever the range. That shouldn’t be too hard, should it?

Well, maybe, but how to do that? Let’s take the vowels apart a bit, and see how we can accomplish all this.

When you just open your mouth, an ‘ah’ falls out. Actually, more like ‘uh’ but it take the slightest attention to turn that into ‘ah’. So, instead of the root of all evil, ‘ah’ can be considered the root of all vowels.

I don’t mean that you need to perfect the ‘ah’ before going on, or that ‘ah’ will be your first and best vowel. I’m just thinking of this in terms of vowel formation, in the physiological sense.

From there we have three types of vowels: tongue vowels, lip vowels and those interesting French and English vowels that need both tongue and lips.

“oo” is the most forward of all the vowels, “ee” is the farthest back.  Let me show you.

Lip vowels first:

You can turn an ‘ah’ into an ‘oo’ with your hand. Try this: sing a good ah, then while you hold it, cover nearly all of your mouth with your hand and it becomes ‘oo’.

That might not work in performance. For most singing, you’ll need to purse your lips like blowing out a candle. Loose lips in a tiny circle, slightly protruding, with the inside of the mouth open and the tongue forward and relaxed. If the lips aren’t forming the ‘oo’ then the back of the tongue is closing your throat for it. That’s why you can often hear singers who have a big ‘ah’ disappear when they get to ‘oo’ – the tongue closes off the resonance.

If you have a hard time convincing the tongue to stay out of it, try this mind game: Sing a long ‘ah’. Just ‘ah’ the whole ‘ah’ and nothing but the ‘ah’. While you’re singing it, more your lips into and out of the position I described in the above paragraph, and you should get a good ‘oo’. It may sound different from your customary ‘oo’ if you’re used to the back of the tongue getting involved. I’m working on an ‘oo’ for the paying customers in the nosebleed seats!

‘Oh’ is half way to ‘oo’ and the other lip vowels (‘aw’ etc.) are just varying degrees of this formation.  To get the hang of it, which shouldn’t take long, practice singing these vowels on a single note, easy mid-range at first, then moving higher and lower. Work to get them consistent clear, and loose, starting on an easy note and then throughout the range.

No tongue! That’s for next time.

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An Open and Shut Case

Let’s talk about an open voice.

Now, I’m not talking about open and closed vowels, open and covered registration, or even open or closed mouth, but an open voice.  What is that?

We’ve all heard singers who seemed like there was a lot of sound, if someone could unzip the top of their heads.  Not open.

I sang with a mezzo once who had one vowel, and it was “L” – not open.

Then, there are the singers described by one of two phrases:  “Open mouth, close throat” and “When push comes to shove.”  Still not open!

There are two parts to this open – a clear sound and a resonant sound.  I’ll tackle clear first.

The old saw “if you listen to yourself sing, you’ll be the only one to enjoy it” works here.  Lower voices are more often guilty of this – singing to themselves through the Eustachian tubes instead of to the paying customers in the audience.  (The Eustachian tubes help balance the air pressure across the eardrum, and open in the back of the throat.)  Many singers sing to themselves in this way, sounding swallowed to the rest of the world.

The vowels carry the beauty and meaning of every language, and if they are generalized, all that is lost.  Good singing technique should give you clear vowels throughout the range.

Now I know higher women’s voices lose a bit of understandability at the top of the range, which is why composers who want the text to be understood will repeat high-flying text in the middle of the range.  That said, in Knoxville, Summer of 1915, the B flat to A at the end of “Now is the night one blue dew” can and should approximate real [u] vowels.  And how many tenors, at the end of “Recondita armonia” try to make the F as loud as the B flat by singing “Tosca, sai to” instead of “Tosca, sei tu”?

So, we need to sing with good, clear vowels, but how?  Next time, I’ll tackle vowel formation, or how we can sing clearly throughout the range.

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Repertoire thoughts

Having cast and led over forty productions, I’ve spent a lot of time on both sides of the audition table, and, as you can imagine, I have a few opinions.  Here are a couple of points I’d like to make about what people sing.

Point 1 – Having technique problems does not mean you’re a dramatic sized voice.

I’ve seen this countless times – someone sings too heavily, pushing the voice in a way that sounds big on the inside, but outside?  Not so much.  Because of this, they cannot sing works that are lyrical and demanding and appropriate for them, and so feel they are ready for the dramatic sized roles.  They are aided and abetted by teachers who only know voices in small rooms, who went to one school for undergrad, grad, and then joined the faculty at that same school.

If you can sing Puccini, but not Verdi, you may need to fix things.  Puccini fits very easily into the voice – his phrases tend to start high and descend.  That is why everyone starts with “Caro mio ben” – it is easy to sing those lines.  Verdi, on the other hand, starts in the middle and goes up, which takes some real chops.  You can’t get away with anything in Verdi, or Mozart, or a lot of French rep, and so they come highly recommended!

How to know?  All the big-voiced people I know and have worked with say they feel like they’re doing nothing, not working at all.  If you feel like you’re pushing your voice, if you get tired before three hours, if you can’t sustain the high-flying phrases, get some help.  Look in the mirror.  If everything in your neck is sticking out when you sing, if your tongue is up like a cobra, you need to fix it.  Find someone, a conductor, coach or teacher, who has experience with real world voices.   Bob Spillman said it at Eastman years ago, and it still holds true:  When you get to a new city, work with the coaches first.  They know who the good teachers are.  And contact me!

Point 2 – Who will hire you for what?

This will take some real soul-searching, but can help tremendously in repertoire choices.  When you look at a role, ask yourself what companies do this opera, and whom do they hire?  You could also ask yourself if you want to sing in big houses or small houses.  I think it’s better to do small roles in big houses than large roles in little ones.

Now, there are some arias that are good for Opera Pops events and the like, but are from operas that are seldom done.  I’m thinking pieces like that baritone aria from Die Tode Stadt.  First of all, the opera is never done.  Second of all, it has nothing to do with the rest of the baritone repertoire.  So, don’t bring it to an audition, unless they’re doing Korngold.  Same with “Zaza, piccola zingara” or “Nobles Seigneurs” etc.  Good arias for a party, but not for auditions.

In master classes I’ve given, auditions I’ve heard, and opera concerts I’ve conducted, I’ve had lots of mezzos want to do Dalila.  So, who does this opera?  Big houses with an orgiastic ballet.  There are only three roles in it, basically, so they’ll spend real money.  Also, the orchestra is big and thick, so even for opera love-ins it is difficult.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t experiment, explore new repertoire, find some new niche.  But, you should do your homework, and research the companies you’re auditioning for.  What operas to they do?  Who have they used in the past? Where would you fit in?

In the end, what to bring to auditions?  Some questions to ask yourself:

What do I do best?

What are they hiring for?

Who have they cast in the past?

For me, I’d rather tell someone, “Hey, you should try this” instead of “You shouldn’t have done that.”