Raise the What?

Because of the attack by our otherwise peaceful porch swing last month, I've been going through physical therapy. This is not my first time in physical therapy, and it probably won't be my last, but this time has been different. I mentioned in an earlier blog that I was having trouble singing, and placed most of that blame on tension in my neck. While that was part of the problem, another part was that I had damaged the digastric muscles. These are small, seemingly insignificant muscles. But, they are hugely important in singing. The therapist was impressed at how much knowledge I had of how my body works, and the muscles involved in movement, even if I didn't know their names. As a singer, we utilize a lot of the muscles in our bodies in ways that most people would not even think of. 

If you look at the left side of this diagram, you'll find the digastric muscles on the same level as this sentence. They are very small muscles, that connect to the hyoid bone. When we just barely tilt the chin down, it is these muscles that are working. Not the sternocleidomastoid ( Shown cut on the left side to allow us to see everything else.) That is the big muscle that is standing out in Diana Ross' neck in the picture that I used for the blogs on Relaxation of the Vocal Mechanism and Proper Focus. Would you like to see it again? Oh. All right. Here it is:

Compare her sternocleidomastoid muscles to the ones in the upper diagram. Now you can really see how they are standing out. Ouch. Just looking at her hurts my throat.

I'm going to reuse another diagram from my blog on Proper Focus. We want the voice to feel like its resonating in the nasal cavity. Sound originates in the larynx (Voice box). Air passing through the vocal cords creates the sound that is carried with the air past the epiglottis into the pharynx. (Pharynx is from Ancient Greek φάρυγξ and basically means throat. Fancy, huh?) The pharynx is where we want to create more space. This is where those pesky little digastric muscles, and the chin tilt come into play. That is part of how we create space back there. The other part of the equation is provided when we raise the soft palate. In this diagram, you can see the palate bone. Where it is thickest, just behind the teeth, we have what we call the "hard palate". You can see the bone gets thinner, until finally, the tissue falls back into the uvula, the dangly thing at the back of your throat. Just before the uvula is the "soft palate". We want to raise this to create even more space for the voice to resonate. 


When we yawn, the soft palate automatically rises. Give it a try now. Yawn. That felt nice. Could you feel the soft palate raise up? Try it again, if you need to. I've got time. Good. Now all you have to do is to learn how to do that without yawning. Maybe you have already perfected the art of yawning with your mouth closed. I learned that one for class where the teacher got angry if he saw too many yawns, and would give pop quizzes. It's amazing how many of us very quickly learned to yawn with our mouths closed. (He really was very boring.) So try that. Work on yawning with your mouth closed. It's really only a short step then, to learn to raise the soft palate without yawning. It just take some practice. Don't worry, no one will be able to notice you doing anything odd. You can practice anytime you'd like. 


By raising the soft palate, we create the feeling that the voice has entered the nasal cavity, where it resonates. This is a very good thing, and gives the voice brilliancy, and the ringing tone that we love. It also helps with intonation, keeping the tone "up", preventing flatness. 


At the same time, the jaw needs to follow the chin tilt, and drop down and slightly back. We never, never want a gooseneck, where the jaw juts out and up. You'd think that would help create space, but it just closes everything off at the back of the throat.


The higher the note, the higher the soft palate needs to raise, even to feeling that it is hooking up and forward. And the deeper and stronger the support underneath needs to be. (That was last week's blog and an earlier one. Support, and More Support.) There really is a lot that has to be going on all the time we are singing. And it all has to become automatic so that we have time then to think about the music itself, and not the mechanics of singing. 


I thought this video was amazing. It shows the vocal cords or 4 singers. The soprano is on the far left, followed by the alto, bass, and then the tenor. They are singing in Latin, so don't worry if you can't understand the words. From the looks of the video, the tiny cameras were sent through their noses, down their throats so that they could sing with them there. Makes my nose hurt just to think about it. But watch. It really is fascinating!(The flap that kind of looks like a tongue at the base of the vocal cords is actually the epiglottis. The thingy that keeps our food from falling into our lungs while we eat.)

See you next week!