Questions and Answers on the Foundations of Singing

There are quite a few pedagogical reasons why Rachel and I have decided to combine both choirs. Below are just a few.

Stepping on stage with the York County Junior Honors Choir had become very familiar to me over the past two and a half years. I'd learned that you can never fall into a routine at a concert because each audience has a different personality. Sometimes you have to bring up the energy with choreography, sometimes you have stick to the slow songs with a religious meaning when performing for a church group on Sundays, and sometimes the order of the concert has to be completely changed. However, in my three seasons of performing, one thing that has always remained is singing the reprise of a song titled “Why We Sing”. The lyrics to this short piece are simple, but extremely powerful when sung by a group as passionate about music as the York County

Speaking in an incorrect pitch, volume, or with poor placement may be even more damaging to the larynx than singing because people speak more than they sing. In most cases, the problems include speaking in a pitch that is focused in the throat. While serious problems in this area are best resolved with the help of a licensed voice therapist, the singer can make some changes based on experience with their preferred placement when singing. Misconceptions include the idea that speaking very softly or whispering will help save voice. People who speak softly do so by blowing breath through the tone stopping the glottis from closing completely. Since the glottis' function is to close, it may compensate with a time of no closure by creating an edema or swelling to fill up the empty space (Greschner, 2017). Therefore, the singer who thinks they are protecting or reserving the voice may be creating a bigger problem threatening their vocal health. In addition, whispering is often focused in the throat. This may be particularly true when speaking on the phone or in situations they may not want to be overheard. In such cases it may be necessary to raise the volume of the speaking voice in order to raise the focus or

Client X is a college student referred to the clinic by a music professor due to concerns of possible vocal nodules. During vocal juries, X’s professor commented that her voice became very airy, especially when using her high register. Client has also described her voice as husky, breathy, tense, and hoarse.

Middle School students are included in the statistics of increasing vocal range, increasing pitch accuracy, and decreasing positive attitudes toward participating in school choir. Numerous studies of the development of singing in younger grades show that accuracy increases with age at least through grade six (Goetze, Cooper, & Brown, 1990; Rutkowski & Miller, 2003; Welch, 2008). Studies of middle school students have also focused on the relationship of singing accuracy to perceptual skills (Demorest & Clements, 2007), to type of vocal model (Yarbrough Morrison, Karrick, & Dunn, 1995), and the influence of instruction (Phillips & Aitchison, 1997). All of these

Black shirt, black pants, black hair, blackface. The most provocative scene in the 1927 film, The Jazz Singer, takes places in the dressing room of Jack Robin as he prepares to take the stage for a dress rehearsal of his Broadway show. Jack Robin, formerly Jakie Rabinowitz, is at the height of his struggle with his identity: a white Jew longing to be with his people during the holiest night in his religion but instead preparing to assume the mask a black performer to execute his role in the minstrel tradition. This internal struggle builds up throughout the movie and reaches the apex in the dressing room scene. Jack’s history of religious tradition and on-the-road performing is the underpinning of his dilemma. In the movie, Jack’s use of

The Jazz Singer was the very first ever film made with sound that was created in 1927 and which was directed by Alan Crosland and written by Samson Raphaelson. This film has the main character which is Jewish along with his father, to ultimately make the decision of following the family tradition and becoming a cantor or following his dreams and becoming a Jazz singing star. The film The Jazz Singer presents itself as a director towards Judaism but also as the discipline of it as well, which leads to the movie showing the Jewish experience and identity. It concentrates mainly on the roles and practices of Judaism, instead of advertising itself.

In the article, he argues a variety of points when it comes to singers and popular music. Normally, we would only care about the tone of ones’ voice when we hear them sing, but Frith’s point of view is totally different. He states specifically that a singer’s voice is categorized into four parts: voice as a musical instrument; voice as a body; voice as a person; and voice as a character (187). Personally, I found it very interesting of how he categorized the voice into these four parts because I had never thought about categorizing the singers’ voice into four different criteria. However, I’ll focus with the voice as a musical instrument. Frith argued that, “Voices can be used, like any other instrument, to make a noise of the right sort at the right time” (187). I agree with him because every one of us has a unique vocal range, which means that there are people that could sing on very high notes while others could only sing on low notes so you would have to figure out on what you are capable of and know how to control your singing style is also an important key. With that in mind, when a person sings, they need to sing the song with all their soul and heart and they must treat their voice like a musical instrument so the audiences could hear and feel a certain pitch coming from the singer’s

Statistics show that 81% of teachers versus 68% of non-teachers, were more likely to have developed another voice disorder after having had experienced one prior. This leads to the conclusion that teachers are more likely to keep developing voice problems over time (Roy et al., 2004b). Additional study discusses that teachers are not only more likely to have negative effects on work performance and attendance but are also more likely to change their career in the future due to voice problems. Teachers thought because their profession caused such harsh health implications they would be unable to fulfill their teaching position without an adequate voice. Thus meaning they would need to find another career. As cited in Roy et al. (2004a), the threat teaching places on voice problems increases the chance of further complications in regards to career choices and financial decisions. Overall, teachers credited more of their negative vocal symptoms on their profession than that of non-teachers. Teachers are more likely to resort to another future career due to the negative implications teaching places on their

Musician and singer is a tough career to have. You need to have an education, skills, responsibility and duties. Even if you go to school and have skills and everything sometimes you can't always get a job right away. Being a musician and singer takes a lot of time and hard work. Musicians and singers get there start by doing live performances at clubs and bars to get people interested in them. The most money a musician and singer can make is $26.94 hourly for live performance. This research paper has details about what a musician and singer do for a career.

I was worried about how the class heard my vocals and my delivery. I am not terrible, but it is something that I have always struggled with. However, I have realized that when I started doing the vocal warm ups more often my pitch got better. As my pitch developed I started to learn how to access my diaphragm. The vocal warm ups have been helping me work on my weaknesses. I have also learned that breathing is one of the most valuable things that I can do to help develop my voice to the place where I want it to be.

I agree with the quote from Jacques Copeau. From personal experience, people who don’t breathe well tend to make their voices becomes sad. Singing lessons forced me to learn to breathe, so later on it helped project my voice loudly and with emotion. Before singing lessons, my voice didn’t capture others attention easily since it sounded like a whisper and I never seemed excited for things. Learning to breathe better showed me how to be able to interpret my emotions easily. The relaxation exercises that we did to help with our breathing, definitely made everyone have a more enthusiastic voice. In the beginning of class, many people, when asked to speak, had a quiet and monotone voice. After doing the breathing exercises, even if the voices

For others, learning how to support the voice is a process that takes many years. Montserrat Caballe spent her “first year at the Conservatoire learning how to breathe.” She went on to call this her “respiratory gymnastics.” “Her breathing exercises were aimed at building a big solid wall around the diaphragm by using and controlling all those muscles under and behind the abdomen which support the diaphragm and the back. She wanted to strengthen them to the point where the diaphragm does need to work but only to support the breath. The actual work of pushing up the air is done by the abdominal muscles.” Dramatic Soprano and Professor of Voice at New England Conservatory, Jane Eaglen shares Caballe’s beliefs on the sheer physicality required to achieve sufficient breathe support for a large voice. She states “Making the voice seamlessly supported throughout its entire range takes a lot of physical strength. Not stamina, but sheer physical strength. The strength to use your muscles, and the diaphragm, and the rest of the body in the right way—never the throat. There must never be an inkling of tension in the throat. I very much use all of my body to sing. I use my legs, bottom, everything. So the whole body was ready by then: the cords were ready, the voice was ready and the muscles were ready. A voice should always be like that – seamless. But this just took time. It came through good teaching and my being

This range rises to 38% - 57.3% when examining individuals employed in teaching occupations (Faham et al., 2016; Bovo et al., 2007; Ziegler, Gillespie, & Abbott, 2010). Although varying definitions of voice disorders and inconsistent data collection impact the reliability of prevalence measures, it is generally accepted that rates for voice disorders are much higher among teachers and professional voice users when compared to the general population (Boone et al., 2014; Bovo, Galceran, Petruccelli, & Hatzopoulos, 2007; Hazlett, Duffy, & Moorhead, 2011). Voice disorders left untreated may compromise teachers’ abilities to maintain employment and to fulfill their roles effectively, thus increasing the need for comprehensive and efficient approaches to mitigate the impact of a compromised vocal mechanism. Based upon the literature, the current essay suggests that a combination approach of direct and indirect training will be more effective in remediating voice disorders in teachers and increasing awareness of vocal hygiene than training using indirect measures alone (Bolbol et al., 2017; Faham, Ahmadi, Drinnan, Saadatmand, Fatahi, & Jalalipour, 2016; Leppänen, Laukkanen, Ilomäki, & Vilkman, 2009; Pizolato, Rehder, De Castro Meneghim, Ambrosano, Mialhe, & Pereira, 2013).

All four teachers reported vocal fatigue after a few years of teaching. Teachers were excluded from this study if they were already in voice training and if they had any organic or acute vocal pathologies seen on an ear, nose and throat (ENT) evaluation or endoscopic exam.