Fundamental Vocal Structure 1: Why We Singers Remain Common

It's taken a long time to come up with this reductive picture of what we deal with as
singers. How many pieces are there to balance? How do we "control" these pieces? Is
there any brain power left for music making and acting and interpretation?
In the final analysis, what it takes is a clear mental/physical picture of what it feels
like to sing! Knowing the pieces does not mean we have solved the puzzle.
Knowing what each component feels like when it is functioning appropriately is the
first part. The second part often evades singers. We often think that we must
reduce one function to achieve the rest. Just as we do not cut off our triceps to
allow the biceps to function, we do not take away one vocal function in order for its
opposite to function. Opposing musculature in the body are meant to work as
balancing structural pairs. One can function while the other remains active. A
sense of appropriate balance is achieved when both sides feel satisfying. One of
my teachers, Ada Finelli, memorably said:

Chiaro e scuro non chiaro o scuro!

Bright and dark not bright or dark!

This principle perhaps more than any other thought has guided me in my own
pedagogy over the years. If you must sacrifice one side to accomplish the other,
neither is yet strong enough in its function. Elasticity, which I relate to crico-thyroid

function, means that one can change pitch without difficulty. From the lowest note to
the highest, there is a feeling of ease. However, the ability of the crico-thyroid muscle
to stretch the vocal folds easily must not take away the thyro-arytenoid function, which
brings the folds to the best possible vertical thickness for the given note. Best
possible vertical thickness refers to the appropriate contact area that is most
conducive to the length of the vibration cycle for the given note. Too thin (vertical
contact area), would make the work of the crico-thyroid easier because there would be
less opposition to the stretch. However, this would have the folds set up for a higher
pitch, which would then require the singer to compensate by slowing down the
vibration cycle. The only way to do that is pressing (keeping the folds closed longer
than in appropriate closure quotient). Therefore true elasticity requires the cricothyroid group to be strong enough to stretch the vocal folds easily without
necessitating a reduction in appropriate thyro-arytenoid function. Therefore balance
phonation function depends on the tension between opposing muscles that thicken
and lengthen the folds. What we call longitudinal tension.
Appropriate longitudinal tension can only be maintained for a given note if fold
oscillation and breath compression are also appropriately coordinated, such that subglottal pressure does not rise inappropriately. Greater compression becomes greater
flow when fold oscillation is balanced for the given pitch--that it, there is no forced
closure that would restrict the needed trans-glottal flow. The folds must closed fully
during the close phase of vibration but not so tightly as to produce unnecessary
pressure beneath the closed folds (controlled together by lateral crico-arytenoids,
inter-arytenoids and possibly a secondary function of the thyro-muscularis). All of this
happens at incredible speed. Faster than the wings of a hummingbird even in the lower
voice of a male singer. This balance is called flow phonation.
Flow phonation requires appropriate opening of the ribcage at the time that breath is
being compressed. Should the ribcage collapse, there will be increased breath
compression beyond the activity of the muscles of exhalation (i.e. rise of the
diaphragm, contraction of pelvic-abdominal musculature, etc). A balanced
compression requires the exterior intercostals to maintain activity (maintaining the
ribcage suspended/opened) while the interior intercostals and pelvic-abdominal
muscles compress the air in the lungs by reducing the space around it. Yet another
muscular antagonism, this process of "breath support" is often called pan-costal
breathing.
If these three related complex functions occur appropriately, there would be little
external influence on the stability of the laryngeal position, as long as the laryngeal
stabilizers are balanced in their function and the migration of the tongue to articulate

vowels is not impeded by the hyo-glossus muscle which is the muscle that connects
the larynx, via the hyoid bone to the root of the tongue. Flexibity in that muscle and
appropriate balance between laryngeal stabilizers would permit the tongue to rise and
lower as necessary for vowels changes. Again, this presupposes that pan-costal
breathing, flow phonation and longitudinal tension are appropriately maintained.
Beyond these four complex interrelated functions, we require a sense of resonating
space that require only minor variations in tongue migration, laryngeal depth and
buccal cavity (jaw release) for adjustments relating to vowel and pitch. From the best
jaw release and laryngeal depth, the tongue lips, velar area and sometimes jaw (for
consonants that require it) will articulate to form vowels and consonants in ways that
cause the least change in the volume of the resonance space, which has a direct
influence on the production of the Singer's Formant (or ring in the voice). This we can
refer to as efficient articulation.
All of this is done with a muscular-skeletal system that is ideally aligned for these
various functions to occur efficiently and simultaneously, providing that the general
musculature fitness of the body is such that would support optimal alignment.
In this article I have touched upon the basic structural system of the voice. In
subsequent posts, I will deal with background and training as well as mental image and
aural/physical expectations, as well as external influences such as the score, the
character, the text and most significantly, emotions.
After we have discussed all of these things, it will become clear how it is appropriate to
call ourselves athletes (besides artists). In truth it will become clear why the field of
singing (regardless of genre) has not improved in terms of the vocal product, and
perhaps in a sense not so much artistically as we would like to think. A figure skater or
a ballet dancer (close to us in many ways) or even a pianist, cannot separate their
physical fitness/technical proficiencies from their artistry (at least not so significantly).
It takes many hours of scales to develop speed and coordination to play the notes on
the piano, before one even begins to address the musical form.
The fact that we singers have text is at once a great advantage and disadvantage in
music. Those that relate the text to the music and the music to technical competence
are organic artists of which we have too few. When we looked at Callas at her best, the
delivery of the text depended on a profound understanding of phrasal architecture
(melody, harmony, rhythm, form, global architecture), which in turn instructed the
technical competence one should have in order for the voice to respond immediately
to the expressive needs. Today, we separate the artists who understand the text from

those who work with the music from those who have vocal fortitude. At every level we
are left partially dissatisfied and for different reasons in every case.
All professional tennis players must develop the same skills. Their individuality

has more to do with individual strengths in certain areas without major weakness
in others. A player who has a great serve but no ground strokes will not advance
beyond local tournaments. Yet in singing, we are happy enough with a singer
who has only high notes and a pretty face for posters, or an ability to analyze

poetry without deference to the written score (and a pretty face) or a voice that
sounds pretty on records (and a pretty face) but inaudible in a large hall. Why?
Because it is commercially expedient. For expediency's sake we give up the
values that make our art great.

Gesamtkunstwerk! Richard Wagner understood this! Our inability to appreciate the

colossal scope of what it is to sing opera leaves our art form in shambles. While
athletes in every sport can quantify advances in their field, we cannot. The football
player, Christian Rinaldo is at such a level of physical conditioning and skill in ballhandling and precision in shooting that his legendary predecessor, the great Pl, who
is still very much alive, were he at his youthful best, would not be able to compete
today. The great Gigli could out-sing every tenor singing today and might lose only if
the judgment criteria were a pretty face and a six-pack! While every other field aspires
to do better than their predecessors, we singers and perhaps by extension, all classical
musicians, look back in nostalgia to a time of godlike singers! Godlike because like
athletes of all times, they aspired to go beyond their limits, achieving apotheosis, a
state that transforms the mere man to a godlike status--so achieved, like an olympic
athlete, by developing the body and mind to levels never before imagined.
If we are to excite audiences today, we will need to go back to values that require
us to go beyond our limits. We must achieve Apotheosis!

01/05/2016