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Re: Breathing and "appaggio"

Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2006-11-20 15:58

Voice teachers use methods that were developed over 100 years ago, based on how it feels and what works, not anatomy. In particular, they teach "singing into the masque" and "sinus resonance." Singers also talk about getting "squillo" ("ring" or "blast" in Italian) into the sound. Both have to do with the characteristic resonance in trained operatic voices.

A popular singer's exercise is to sing "mmmi, mmmi, mmmi." The back of the tongue is held high on "mmm" and the lips are then opened to sing a high, bright "eee," with the maximum amount of nasality and a feel of ringing in the head. It's far too bright to actually perform on, but you need to work on getting the resonance first and then modulating it to sound beautiful.

Vocal resonance actually has nothing to do with the sinuses or anything inside the head, even though it often feels that way. It involves finding the proper shape of the soft palate and the pharynx above the vocal cords, so that naturally occurring resonanaces, called "formants," are emphasized. For more, see a fascinating article from the Scientific American at http://www.zainea.com/voices.htm.

Wind instrument players refer to this as getting a "centered" sound, or getting a "ping" in the sound. Since the reed is positioned at the lips rather than in the throat like the vocal cords, the method is both similar and different.

There are two very good threads on the Clarinet board about this, at http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=210494&t=210295 and http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=113837&t=113762.

It's of course different on the oboe, because you use a far smaller volume of air. However, making the overtones and formants more prominent definitely applies.

If "playing into the masque" helps, then by all means do it. This lets you think separately about the vibration of the reed and voicing the sound for the best resonance.

One way of letting the reed vibrate freely is to put less of your lips over your teeth -- only about half of the red part.

Above all, don't be afraid to make ugly sounds at first. The formants are what give your sound size and carrying power. Once you learn to emphasize them, it's easy to pull back or add "plush" to the sound.

Ken Shaw

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