I have personal experience with this one, as I have scoliosis from a childhood injury and have had to learn to work with it in my own singing. The path of support deviates from normal, as does the path of resonance. For instance, my core support is to the right of center, because that's the direction of curve in the lumbar spine region. I can access support better if I put a little more of my weight on my right foot, than my left. Similarly, my path to head resonance is to the right of center, also, because the cervical spine is also curved to the right, as is the atlanto-occipital joint between the top of the spine and the base of the skull. I can access more head vibration on the right side of my face/skull than the left.
I found initially that the core spinal muscles on the interior side of the curves, both lumbar and cervical, responded less quickly and strongly than the muscles on the exterior side of the curves, so I had to mentally encourage both sides to activate equally. This proved easier to do than I thought. Internal muscle systems are, of course, not managed directly, but by clear understanding and thought-commands. The results tell you if you are achieving anything. In my case, the results displayed in my singing tone as greater core support became available.
I have students in the studio with some similar challenges. One student is a pro-actor who had a severe injury to her neck in a car accident less than 5 years ago. There is major scar tissue along her cervical spine, limiting some of her movement. When she found a clear pathway to her head resonance, her head/spine relationship went to a different place than a "normal" singer's would have. I have another student, a community singer, and when she breathes in fully and deeply, her rib-cage opens to the left more easily than the right and her entire hip structure moves to the left by several inches. This is a movement she is not aware of. We experimented with her thinking her inhalation more down and to the right, looking particularly to a more even response between left- and right-side ribcage movement: she could do it, but the right side was quite slow to respond. It will take time...
In general, I have found that you have to work with what's there, curves, tweaks and all. And nobody has a "perfect" structure :).
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Teacher with dysphonia, named Mary.
My student who is a teacher with dysphonia has made some legitimate progress. Let's call her Mary. Mary's breathing coordination is much clearer, but she still has to think actively about it. She went ahead and had a mini-botox shot (half dose), so she could function at work; so now she has a breathy, but non-spasming vocal sound. This gives us a little room to work on other issues. We took a look at how she forms her words with her tongue and jaw. She's used to pressing her jaw forward and blowing extra air through her vocal folds to try and get sound out past the spasming and it's become a habit - a coordination that happens all the time.
We began to experiment with making sound, hums and oo's mostly, while keeping her jaw and tongue loose and relaxed. A loose tongue is generally soft and curved in the jaw. It's curved the highest for the "oo" and "ee" vowels, with the tip of the tongue resting against the back of the lower front teeth. Think like a softly rounded hill from back to front. She experimented successfully with the new tongue shape on her hum and "oo" vowel, but when we went to the "ee" vowel, the tongue flattened hard and the jaw thrust forward. It took a while for Mary to figure out an "ee" vowel with the same tongue shape as the "oo" vowel and, when she found it, she was surprised that it actually sounded like "ee" because it felt so different. We noted other things that changed as we remapped her tongue: it became easier to inhale because her throat became more relaxed, her jaw was looser and moved more easily, her sound had more resonance and carrying power without more effort.
There's often a moment in a lesson when the teacher (me) has a learning moment. I noticed Mary was more efficient with her air on the hum and less efficient when her mouth was open for a vowel. As mentioned before, she generally pushes a lot of air through in an attempt to overcome the dysphonia. Her air efficiency improved even more when I asked her to pay attention to the air movement at the edge of her nostrils during her humming. Then I asked her to open her mouth and say a sustained "ah" while paying attention to the air flow at her lips. Again, she became more efficient, with less air flowing out to sustain the sound and more resonance as a result. Here comes the surprise part: I asked her if she noticed a difference in the air/sound relationship. She said, yes, there was more air flowing when she paid attention to her lips. Objectively, there was much less air flowing when she paid attention to her lips, but I realized that she had no way to monitor her air flow and had no idea how much air she was pushing out normally. Paying attention to the air flow at her nostrils or lips gave her feedback that she otherwise did not have. We are going to pursue this idea for a while longer...
We began to experiment with making sound, hums and oo's mostly, while keeping her jaw and tongue loose and relaxed. A loose tongue is generally soft and curved in the jaw. It's curved the highest for the "oo" and "ee" vowels, with the tip of the tongue resting against the back of the lower front teeth. Think like a softly rounded hill from back to front. She experimented successfully with the new tongue shape on her hum and "oo" vowel, but when we went to the "ee" vowel, the tongue flattened hard and the jaw thrust forward. It took a while for Mary to figure out an "ee" vowel with the same tongue shape as the "oo" vowel and, when she found it, she was surprised that it actually sounded like "ee" because it felt so different. We noted other things that changed as we remapped her tongue: it became easier to inhale because her throat became more relaxed, her jaw was looser and moved more easily, her sound had more resonance and carrying power without more effort.
There's often a moment in a lesson when the teacher (me) has a learning moment. I noticed Mary was more efficient with her air on the hum and less efficient when her mouth was open for a vowel. As mentioned before, she generally pushes a lot of air through in an attempt to overcome the dysphonia. Her air efficiency improved even more when I asked her to pay attention to the air movement at the edge of her nostrils during her humming. Then I asked her to open her mouth and say a sustained "ah" while paying attention to the air flow at her lips. Again, she became more efficient, with less air flowing out to sustain the sound and more resonance as a result. Here comes the surprise part: I asked her if she noticed a difference in the air/sound relationship. She said, yes, there was more air flowing when she paid attention to her lips. Objectively, there was much less air flowing when she paid attention to her lips, but I realized that she had no way to monitor her air flow and had no idea how much air she was pushing out normally. Paying attention to the air flow at her nostrils or lips gave her feedback that she otherwise did not have. We are going to pursue this idea for a while longer...
Friday, November 4, 2011
Teaching children to sing...
Studio voice teachers see more children for singing lessons than ever before, myself included. I could simply say that I don't take students younger than 14 into the studio, but many of these young singers are already performing in children's theater, choirs etc. and sometimes already running into vocal trouble because of either putting too much effort into their singing or trying to produce a sound not compatible with their age, or both.
I always spend time talking to a parent who calls me about lessons for their child. Often, I will direct a young singer and their parents to the local, University-run children's choir or, for very young children, suggest a Kindermusik program (yes, I've had parents call in for children as young as 3). Usually, the parent has no idea of their options and they are not musical themselves, so they don't know which direction to go.
When I do interview a child singer and their parents for possible lessons, I look for several criterion. Is the singer wanting the lessons or is the parent wanting the lessons for them? Many children sing naturally and effortlessly, but are not ready for a structured learning program. Is the singer a good student in school? Good study habits mean they learn well and will practice between lessons. Can the singer match pitch well already and do they already have training on another instrument, such as piano or violin. If they aren't matching pitch well, then I am an expensive way to bring them up to speed and they would have much more fun learning the basics in a children's choir. Are they already performing? Are they self-assured? I have taken an occasional student who is a good candidate but is shy and needs one-on-one lessons to gain confidence.
The difference in teaching a child is not in the what, but in the how. The most important detail is the trust factor. A child has to feel utterly safe with you in order to sing freely and learn easily. A voice teacher working with children can never lose patience and must know how to gently put forward and enforce behavioral boundaries, just like any good parent. Information and concepts are given out in smaller bites, and the learning process is more activity or movement directed, using games and imagery. Indeed, with a child singer, your primary job is to nurture their love of singing, the technical aspects coming in second to that.
The last detail to take into account is how close they are to puberty. Even with females, the voice undergoes a process during puberty, where their voice first gets fuzzy in the top range, then the lower tones start to emerge, then the upper range clears. This is due, of course, to their bodies and larynx growing, as well as the changes in hormones. I usually bring the topic out in the open with both parent and singer, explaining how the process works and what they can expect. There is a period of about six months where the effects of puberty are the most evident, then there's the process of the singer getting to know their "new" voice.
I always spend time talking to a parent who calls me about lessons for their child. Often, I will direct a young singer and their parents to the local, University-run children's choir or, for very young children, suggest a Kindermusik program (yes, I've had parents call in for children as young as 3). Usually, the parent has no idea of their options and they are not musical themselves, so they don't know which direction to go.
When I do interview a child singer and their parents for possible lessons, I look for several criterion. Is the singer wanting the lessons or is the parent wanting the lessons for them? Many children sing naturally and effortlessly, but are not ready for a structured learning program. Is the singer a good student in school? Good study habits mean they learn well and will practice between lessons. Can the singer match pitch well already and do they already have training on another instrument, such as piano or violin. If they aren't matching pitch well, then I am an expensive way to bring them up to speed and they would have much more fun learning the basics in a children's choir. Are they already performing? Are they self-assured? I have taken an occasional student who is a good candidate but is shy and needs one-on-one lessons to gain confidence.
The difference in teaching a child is not in the what, but in the how. The most important detail is the trust factor. A child has to feel utterly safe with you in order to sing freely and learn easily. A voice teacher working with children can never lose patience and must know how to gently put forward and enforce behavioral boundaries, just like any good parent. Information and concepts are given out in smaller bites, and the learning process is more activity or movement directed, using games and imagery. Indeed, with a child singer, your primary job is to nurture their love of singing, the technical aspects coming in second to that.
The last detail to take into account is how close they are to puberty. Even with females, the voice undergoes a process during puberty, where their voice first gets fuzzy in the top range, then the lower tones start to emerge, then the upper range clears. This is due, of course, to their bodies and larynx growing, as well as the changes in hormones. I usually bring the topic out in the open with both parent and singer, explaining how the process works and what they can expect. There is a period of about six months where the effects of puberty are the most evident, then there's the process of the singer getting to know their "new" voice.
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