I once had a test-pupil. She came from jazz-singing and she even spoke breathy. She ment that it felt straining with the things I taught her, but that was because she did it with her breathy voice and not with her real voice, where her vocal cords met. And when she comes from that unconnected way of singing, of course it will feel straining in the beginning. It was a mezzo

@MisterOpera

Жыл бұрын

Her breathy voice is also her real voice 😀 It's true though, jazz singers tend to phonate with very little twang, and a breathy sound. It's what their genre calls for, and when they want to switch genres they have to learn how to squeeze.

A nice conceptualisation for those who succesfully avoided devoting time to math and physics, and even for those who are so deep into the math and physics that they lose the intuition. Thanks!

@MisterOpera

Жыл бұрын

Welcome back! It's just an intro (after the intro), I'll make further short videos. There are multiple types of nonlinear interaction, also just as intuitive once they become skills. I didn't have time to talk about cattle stampedes but that's a nonlinear system we are all familiar with, as is the way traffic backs up on the freeway.

It was about time someone came and spoke up about this confusing word salad of an explanation. I wish you good luck with your research, I know it will benefit our understanding of the vocal mechanism greatly.

@MisterOpera

Жыл бұрын

I'm actually not doing any research! Everything I'm talking about is someone else's research (and my experiences). You can find a link to Titze's paper on nonlinear interactions at newschoolsinger.com in the library of free books

I'm loving your recent content. A very practical explanation of an incredibly important but REALLY counterintuitive concept. I think most singers of a decent level have an experience of the effect in action, but don't have the vocabulary or knowledge to explain it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that when the formants being produced as a byproduct of the phonation/vocal tract posture strongly align with the harmonics of the sung pitch, each enhances the other in this feedback loop you're talking about. I find this explation useful in teaching anyway, because suddenly it's not about shoving air into a funnel, but an interplay of intense vibrations feeding off each other. This kind of thinking also enables a compression-based idea of the breath, rather than the potentially pernicious flow-based understanding which limits accoustic potential. This is a curious situation where some of the the semi--mystical sounding teaching of more than a century ago actually can hit closer to the mark of scientific reality than the Manuel Garcia jnr - 1960s voice science era. Unfortunately, many pedagogues today continue to teach with an approach that's rooted in those misconceptions of mid-20th century science. For example, the totally nonsensical way in which many teachers explain the Bernoulli Effect in its application to phonation. Anyway, I'm happy you're here explaining these concepts in clear, logical language.

@MisterOpera

Жыл бұрын

Your description isn't incorrect, but as I'll be pointing out in the next couple of videos, you're referring to "type II" nonlinear interactions. Those increase as the pitch goes up, and they can give a big boost to the sound. There is some air control from that as well. The less talked about but probably more important (at least at first) is "type I" nonlinear interaction and it's a lot more controversial because its existence means a whole lot of very confident classical singing pedagogues, even ones who wrote books about practical vocal acoustics, are in denial about it. In the 20th century, classical pedagogy made an unsupported logical leap from a FEELING of openness to a LITERAL insistence that the vocal tract has to be cleansed of any constrictions to make the sound loud and clear. The opposite was true all along: it's a lot harder to maintain a constricted laryngeal vestibule (where the larynx meets the epilarynx) than it is to maintain a wide open laryngeal vestibule, and also it's the SAFEST way to make loud and clear sounds. The science is absolutely unequivocal: an open throat is a feeling that depends on precisely constricting the throat while maintaing the ability to articulate with the rest of the vocal tract. This is why everyone is complaining about "modern singers" and also why "modern singers" feel like they are being gaslighted and blamed for the results when they are taking advice from experts like Ken Bozeman, and doing EXACTLY what he recommends. They tend to get the same results he did, which sounds a whole lot to me like damage from chronic overuse (from just everyday speech!). Experts like Bozeman want everything to depend on formant-harmonic couplings. It does give a boost and it's important for operatic tenors even if they have a good and dependable "type I" effect (aka twang). But type II interaction can never make the voice sound metallic (chesty) and it does not protect the voice nearly as much, and it is extremely weak in lower registers (so weak that it's basically irrelevant). Much of the pseudoscience out there such as the charts showing the different "passaggio" points for different "Fach" types are based on observations of how unstable the voice can become when one relies mostly on type 2 interaction to get that stability - as you increase pitch you have to tune the formant you've coupled to keep up. But you can't do that indefinitely, and when you hit the pitch that's high enough you'll lose your coupling, and the voice becomes unstable. Type 1 interaction doesn't have this problem, so people who rely on it don't have a "passaggio". Important to note - sopranos always have to rely on type 2 interaction, and so basically always will have passaggi. But I bet you it's reduced in sopranos who know how to twang.

@KaineHayward

Жыл бұрын

@@MisterOpera @Mister Opera looking forward to the next videos. So i guess an example of a type 1 interaction would be something like activity in the lips directly influencing the degree of aryepiglottic constriction, yes? I only know this because I can do it and teach it, but I haven't ever been able to find any literature as to why this tends to work.

@KaineHayward

Жыл бұрын

As an interesting side note re: sopranos relying on type 2, I find it extremely effective to train dramatic female voices by establishing the ability to carry a rather tenorial registration with very exact resonance through the middle voice to around A or Bb. This necessarily involves introducing a high degree of glottal compression/aryepiglottic constriction, then balancing from above with a more standard registration. This strategy tends to sort out a lot of problems, particularly in singers who have suffered abuse from the "physically open the vocal folds" school of teaching.

@MisterOpera

Жыл бұрын

Basically yeah, CVT calls it twang and you might see some relation to mouth position in some postures that are really reliable. It's for a later video, but it helps to remember that this region of the vocal tract is a displacement node for all resonances, including F1. So you have to close the mouth when you add twang, unless you accept that F1 will rise. Also you can raise it a lot by twanging and opening the mouth together. And then lower it by lengthening the vocal tract. But that's perturbation theory. I think the aryepiglottic folds have to be involved but also that means the tops of the arytenoid cartilages, so we have a gesture as sophisticated and as simple as making a fist. I'm not surprised it helps sopranos. I think there is new research coming soon that will help clarify some things 😜

@MisterOpera

Жыл бұрын

I was re-reading what I wrote and it's edited to fix the mistake for others, but I want to make sure you know the area in question is a displacement NODE, not an antinode. (However it IS a pressure antinode. ) It's important because constricting a displacement antinode would lower a corresponding formant.

How did you become a tenor? If I had to guess, you were likely born that way.

@MisterOpera

Жыл бұрын

I was actually born a baby.

@bradycall1889

Жыл бұрын

@@MisterOpera But after puberty you ended up a tenor, right?

@MisterOpera

Жыл бұрын

No, after puberty I ended up a teenager.

@izukikatzuki6890

Жыл бұрын

Nope! Well he could’ve been a tenor but when ur trained in singing a lot of people can be bass-bari-tenors U just gotta use the right techniques. For bass: using more support energy as you go lower + twanging = lower notes. You can also learn subharmonics You can also learn vibration bass (some people have been able to get a pretty realistic voice out of it) For baritone: idk I’m a baritone. G1(subharmonics)-b5 (no whistle) but in the mid range it might be harder for tenors and bass to get to my notes. For tenor: support more and twang while trying to go higher Learn mixed voice (studio west explains it) Learn falsetto mix (studio west also explains it) Learn flagolet (studio west explains once again) Learn whistle notes (not really explained proper online) In studio west’s live stream with a guy named Erickson he explains something called “Second falsetto” There’s also belting which automatically increases your “chest voice” range by an octave. Ironically I’d say it’s easier to become a tenor than it is to become a bass 😅

@izukikatzuki6890

Жыл бұрын

This doesn’t mean you’ll have the same timbre as most tenors tho. But it means you can hit their notes. You’re going to have your own special way of sounding as u hit these notes and you can tune your resonance (with these theories and cvt’s explanations of sound color) to make your high notes sound amazing. And if you don’t support enough the note is gonna sound really flat. I am learning support as well so I believe my range can increase even further which also means other peoples ranges have the potential to increase even further. (Potential) tho.