Thoughts - Lloyd W. Hanson

Achieving Tone Potential Using Balanced Onsets

Max: and Opera_L listers: Just some thoughts about learning the process of closing the vocal folds (cords) as taught by Dr. Bratt. It is a process that all classical or operatic (that is acoustic) singers must achieve. And it is easily misunderstood …

The Soprano Voice in Choral Music

The Soprano Voice in Choral Music The soprano voice can easily overcome any choral sound especially if it has a basically flute quality. Consider the orchestra; 2 or 3 flutes against 30 to 45 strings. That has become the accepted balance of sounds ye …

Extending the Range of the Female Voice

Extending the Range of the Female Voice I suggest work on balanced onsets until the student can do them easily and consistently . The onset exercises in Miller’s “The Structure of Singing” works for me but I more often now make up my own as seems to …

Female Vowels Above the Treble Staff

Females Voice Reduced Vowel Usage Above Treble Staff. About soprano high Cs. This would be designated as a C6 if middle C is designated as a C4. No voice can sing the vowel in “Tod” on a pitch that high. The only vowel available to any voice on that …

Breath Management and Posture

Most voice teachers will spend some time correcting or improving a students posture, not only for the positive effect good posture has on the appearance of the student when singing in public but, more importantly, to encourage the student to establis …

Voice Placement Sensations

Voice Placement Sensations In a recent exchange on Opera-L the following was written. It represents a commonly held understanding of vocal placement and prompted the following reply from me. Here is the quote from Opera-L. “Are you suggesting that C …

Enunciation and Consonants

A lot of pop singing displays poor enunciation, that is, the words are not clearly articulated and the poem or text is lost, It often takes many hearings to determine the words being sung. Obviously this is being done as a stylistic choice in many ca …

Vocal Vibrato Problems and Wobble

I can think of three slightly different “wobbles’ that occur in older voices. Two of them are problems with vibrato. The vibrato either become too slow or it becomes two wide. Slow in the sense of fewer variations in pitch in a given time. Wide i …

Vocal Timbre and Vocal Projection

Sound is transmitted as a wave through a medium such as air. The “cubic volume” of the air is not a critical matter. The distance from the stage to the back of the house is more critical because sound dissipates at an inverse ratio to distance from …

Male Vocal Fold Function, low to high

Vocal fold function is the source of the voice sound. It can occur only if the vocal folds are brought together so they may act as a kind of valve that resists the air pressure brought to them by the singer until that air pressure and the vocal fold …

Maintaining Epigastric Position While Singing

This discussion has listed the use of belts or links of chain around parts of the rib cage to insure an expansion of the small ribs at the bottom of the chest. This use assumes that if the lower ribs are expanded throughout the exhale during singing …

Placement versus Formant Tuning Using the Vowel-Mirror

Placement is often taught as a general idea such as put the voice backward or forward. It is also common to name a place such as put the voice into the nose, just behind the forehead, through the tope of the head, on the roof of the mouth etc, etc. …

Balanced Onsets

“Onset” is another word for attack. It is used by voice scientists because it has less violent meanings than does the word, attack. A glottal onset occurs when one can hear and feel the initial closing of the vocal folds after their initial opening/ …

Being Heard Up Close or Far Away

Being heard up close or far away. If the vocal tract is adjusted to emphasize the harmonic that best projects the voice, the voice is heard well in the hall but might be less well heard up close, especially from the side of the performer. Singers of …

What Causes Vocal Cracking?

It is my understanding that when the voice cracks the vibration of the vocal folds have become asymmetrical. That is, the left and right vocal folds are not opening and closing at the same time. One of the folds will move to close before the other …

Female verses Male Resonance Strategies

Male and female voices do not function in the same way for notes above their highest passaggio. The primary reason for this difference is the fact that the female voice is singing pitches in E5 to C6 range and male voices are singing pitches in the …

Passaggi, Registers, Vocal Folds and Standing Waves

The thickness of the vocal folds do not fit into two static categories such as thick or thin nor M1 and M2. The vocal folds change their length and their thickness in a continuous manner as the sung pitch is raised or lowered. In this they meet the …

Classical and Belting Resonance Stratgies

The resonance strategy used by classical female voices in their middle range is to have the second formant of the vocal tract resonate the second harmonic (F2/H2) of the sound spectrum produced by the vocal folds (phonated tone). The higher one sing …

Female and Male Primo Passaggio

Recently on “Vocalist” an important question was asked about the location of female and male first (primo) passaggio: I’m confused! Why does the primo passaggio point in female voices lie lower as the voice gets lighter (Eb4 in sopranos, E4/F4 in m …

Breath Management Two

Recently “The Vocalist” has posted a series of emails from its members about Breath Management during the singing exhale. Below is my response to these emails. This discussion has listed the use of belts or links of chain around parts of the rib cag …

Bio-feedback to improve vocal quality

One of the most valuable helps for a singer is some form of feedback. Whether it is from a teachers’s suggestions, an audio recording of the voice or any other form of feedback, it is the feedback that is the primary way a singer learns to know how t …

Breath Management

Some years ago one of the members on Vocalist asked for exercises to strengthen her “weak and lazy” diaphragm. The following is what I wrote to her and the members of Vocalist. It elicited a very strong response and has been included on a number of …

More on Formants

Mathew, as a new reader, has asked a lot of questions about the Singers Formant and Formants in general. This has opened a lot of doors that require some explanations. I will try to answer as directly and concisely as possible but this will be a bi …

Handkerchief Vowel Humming

Humming through a folded handkerchief is an excellent method of teaching the correct way to balance vocal tone with breath pressure and it is simple to do. Place a folded handkerchief, folded four times, over your forefinger. Place the forefinger pa …

More about Lip Trills

Some additional thoughts about Lip Trills I have never found the lip trill to be very productive for most students even those that have no difficulty getting their lips to “flubber”. And the reasons for this is that lip trills encourages excessive a …

Semi-occluded Exercises

Vowel exercises that use semi-occluded lip positions. Here are some exercises that I have used to help students develop a vocal tone this is rich yet easy to produce. They are all based on the concept that good vocal tone is a combination of efficie …

Articulation for Coloratura

Although aspirated fast notes are sometimes called for by the musical and dramatic demands of an aria, in general, aspirated singing has never been considered the proper way to achieve rapid note singing. The fast notes are meant to be connected with …

Vowels and Singer’s Formant

Is it necessary to be concerned about what vowels a singer must use to produce a Singer’s Formant? The Singer’s Formant has no relation to the effect of vowels on resonance. This is because the Singer’s Formant is produced in an area of the vocal me …

Male Voices and the Singer’s Formant

A larger voice will of course be heard as a larger voice if it has Singer’s Formant. If it doesn’t have Singer’s Formant it would not be easily heard over a full orchestra regardless of how large a voice it is. Intensity or volume of production has …

Squillo and the Singer’s Formant

Squillo, which is sometimes defined “as that piercing resonance” has nothing to do with the Singer’s Formant. Singer’s Formant does not give the voice its brightness. For example, Bjorling’s voice has seldom been classified as being as bright as Co …

Voice Size and the Ability to be Heard

Many like to equate the size of the voice with its ability to be heard over an orchestra. The assumption is that a large voice will be heard more easily than a smaller voice. Of course, that depends on what is meant by a “large” voice but, based on …

Soprano Formant Change

If the soprano wishes to maintain or increase vocal intensity on an /a/ vowel in the range from about E5 and up, all-the-while keeping a vocal quality that closely matches her quality below these notes, she must gradually open her mouth as she ascend …