Lip bubbles, Tongue trills, & Bridging problems.

[Gneetapp]

Hi guys, I know the question title seems to hold the easiest answer, but bear with me, please. When I manage to find time to practice, I usually do both lip bubbles and tongue trills as part of my warm up, starting a bit lower in my range (chest voice) and going through my bridge to my head voice, always keeping the resonance in my head. What I noticed is I have a much harder time bridging when I'm doing tongue trills because my folds usually come apart many times, even after I'm warmed up, if I don't pay attention. So, I was wondering why this happens to me , and if it is common with other people too. Cheers

[VideoHere]

I cannot tongue trill if I tried.... I "Z" and "V" but can't get the tongue going ...lol!!!

[Gneetapp]

1 hour ago, VideoHere said:

I cannot tongue trill if I tried.... I "Z" and "V" but can't get the tongue going ...lol!!!

Can you fold your tongue! I read that most people who cannot fold their tongue have little to none success with tongue trills. Yeah, I can do it all, Vs, Zs, bubbles and Rs with tongue trills. But noticed that little difficulty through my bridge.

[muffinhead]

31 minutes ago, Gneetapp said:

Can you fold your tongue! I read that most people who cannot fold their tongue have little to none success with tongue trills. Yeah, I can do it all, Vs, Zs, bubbles and Rs with tongue trills. But noticed that little difficulty through my bridge.

I can't do lip bubbles very well, but I have never given them serious attention when training. I can trill pretty well, and have been able to for as long I can remember; I just don't use it for singing training .

[VideoHere]

1 hour ago, Gneetapp said:

Can you fold your tongue! I read that most people who cannot fold their tongue have little to none success with tongue trills. Yeah, I can do it all, Vs, Zs, bubbles and Rs with tongue trills. But noticed that little difficulty through my bridge.

I've got a small tongue...lol!!!!

[ronws]

I can tongue trill easier than I can lip bubble but I have not had the problem you encountered, Gneetapp, so, I don't know if I can help.

[Felipe Carvalho]

Normally the issue is tension on the root of the tongue

Practice the movement low first, until you can transfer all the sensation of pressure forward in your mouth.

Round the lips and use vowel uh or oh. Dont hold back on volume. Its much more difficult to free the coordination if you try to be too gentle. Relax and allow volume build up.

And let it brake as you ascend.

[Gneetapp]

9 hours ago, Felipe Carvalho said:

Normally the issue is tension on the root of the tongue

Practice the movement low first, until you can transfer all the sensation of pressure forward in your mouth.

Round the lips and use vowel uh or oh. Dont hold back on volume. Its much more difficult to free the coordination if you try to be too gentle. Relax and allow volume build up.

And let it brake as you ascend.

Yeah, I understand Felipe. I thought the sensation of the transition might be different because I don't break the trill, but my folds come apart and the sound becomes airy at my passaggio. After I'm better warmed up or got the sensations mapped down, I experience no problems. So, it means I got to learn how to relax more the tongue/swallowing muscles, right?! Thanks man

[Gneetapp]

7 hours ago, YouCanSingAnything said:

Unless you're singing in Spanish I don't personally see the connection between tongue rolls and good singing.  I think if the exercise is creating issues which didn't exist before.. I would simply stop doing the exercise.

The point of either the tongue roll, the lip bubble, or the straw is the semi-occluded vowel. They're just 3 different ways of creating it. When my opera teacher found that any particular student couldn't do one of these exercises she would just use another one instead.

So it is fairly common. Some people have a lot of trouble with lip bubbles too.

Hi Tristan, even though we speak Portuguese in Brazil, due to our proximity to many Spanish-speaking countries in S. America, you never know when you'll be asked to sing something in Spanish. LOL
I understand those exercises have the same goals, but I was intrigued as why I would have more difficulty performing one of them, and exactly during my passaggio. Although after a few times I can do it with no problem. As I mentioned above, I can do them all, the Vs, Zs, the straw, lip and tongue trills, and "the trumpet" (I don't know its name but it is like the straw without one). So, if it is related to tension, shouldn't I keep working on it in order to release the tension? Cheers

[Gneetapp]

9 hours ago, ronws said:

I can tongue trill easier than I can lip bubble but I have not had the problem you encountered, Gneetapp, so, I don't know if I can help.

Yeah, I've met people who had a hard time doing the lip bubbles too, but I never asked about the tongue trills. Interesting...

[Gneetapp]

1 hour ago, YouCanSingAnything said:

The issue could be anything from too little tongue tension (more resistance might be needed as airflow increases with pitch to maintain it's upright position,) tongue positioning, rate of airflow (related to volume of phonation,) or your vowel modification (the tongue has a major role in formant tuning.)

Yes, it could be any of those. But as it happens ONLY with this exercise and specifically at my bridge area, and it goes away after a while, I think it is a sign that something is not properly aligned or in place. And therefore it should be dealt with. Besides, who's to know that in 10 years I don't become a vocal coach and need to demonstrate to a student how to use tongue trills... lol

[MDEW]

If you are NOT having problems with lip bubbles..........Pay attention to HOW the root or back of your tongue feels/or the position of it.

Do the lip bubbles and see if you feel a difference. Then see if you can invoke the same Feeling/position of the back of the tongue during tongue trills as you did on Lip Bubbles.

[MDEW]

Another thought.  With Lip Bubbles I would default to Low larynx...Uh and with Tongue trills I would default to Falsetto.....High larynx....which leads to trouble with the passaggio.

[Felipe Carvalho]

Some important points:

- The exercise is not meant to teach how to do a "rolled R", the mais aspects that are interesting for warm up are improving the acoustic coupling (in special more AP narrowing/twang), and the vibrations that it causes on the vocal tract which are useful to relax and also "release" mucus build up ( including upper vocal tract).

However! A very good idea is to pick a spanish accent, or much better italian, and go the other way around: mimic it on a word like "Parlare", exagerating the R, and then use it as a guide to position the exercise better.


- In regards to air flow and loudness. The relationship is not so simple and increasing airflow when going loud can lead to tissue fatigue very fast (one of the few really dangerous things to do). Its the pressure that will increase, airflow should remain stable on the same or lower rate of release, the less air is wasted, the better.


- Other ideas that can also help release tension:

      Think of a hollow/spooky/ghost voice when adjusting vowel Uh or Oh;

      Purse your lips and try to make a whistle sound that reminds of that horror movies evil/ominous/cliche wind sound, try to keep this shape on the exercise;

      Mimic the sound of an animal that does something similar, a pidgeon or owl sound usually does the trick;

      Try doing it together with the lip bubble (this was shown to be even more efficient for warm ups btw).

[Gneetapp]

2 hours ago, Felipe Carvalho said:

Try doing it together with the lip bubble (this was shown to be even more efficient for warm ups btw).

Yeah, I do it this way sometimes. Thanks Felipe

[Felipe Carvalho]

Not necessarily. The straw limits possible flow to a great deal, one of the reasons why AP narrowing is stimulated (forced to support).

Even with lips or tongue trills you would have to try quite a bit to achieve this (and that's why I am pointing to not try)

If you just go louder its fine. Deliberately trying to use more air is the issue.

Also notice that you can't really feel this with the hand. You will feel pressure applied against your skin, this will indeed raise (energy level is much higher).

Bernoulli (energy conservation) inversely relate pressure and flow for a constant energy and does not really apply here. Although the issue can be seen as HOW you transform air pressure into sound.

[Felipe Carvalho]

2 hours ago, YouCanSingAnything said:

Keeping this rate constant... I've never heard that that should necessarily be the ideal for singers

Constant, or lower.

And, good idea!

[Felipe Carvalho]

1 hour ago, YouCanSingAnything said:

Also airflow is a predictor of vocal damage? I didn't know that

 

On 31/08/2016 at 1:56 PM, Felipe Carvalho said:

- In regards to air flow and loudness. The relationship is not so simple and increasing airflow when going loud can lead to tissue fatigue very fast.

 

1 hour ago, YouCanSingAnything said:

Or that louder notes actually require less air

 

On 31/08/2016 at 1:56 PM, Felipe Carvalho said:

Its the pressure that will increase, airflow should remain stable on the same or lower rate of release, the less air is wasted, the better.

 

1 hour ago, YouCanSingAnything said:

so you can sustain the louder one for longer than the quiet one?

Sustain time vary too much depending on the support strategy used and skill. Using appoggio the maximum time should and will be a bit longer on higher intensity. Its easier to control too.

[Felipe Carvalho]

A lot of things. Peak airflow in this particular paper references instantaneous value of flow. An analysis made on AC realm.

Empirical models describe features of the glottal flow waveform (peak flow, peak flow derivative, open quotient, and speed quotient)

the peak flow is the absolute maximum rate of airflow that happens on instant within the glottal cycle. This varies from peak to zero each time the folds open and close.

The resulting airflow used to produce voice will depend on open quotient and amount of leaking that may be happening. Skewing, which is a result of AP narrowing, reduces the open quotient considerably.

Also, the study clearly states that its relating intensity to lung pressure and pitch. On any phonation or sound, intensity is given by the peak values. Thats all that was said there, tenors produce more intensity with the same pressure.

dynamic systems analysis is mandatory to make sense of most of what exists on voice research. That's the missing part.

[Felipe Carvalho]

There is no information about it on the abstract.

This one has:

http://scitation.aip.org/content/asa/journal/jasa/105/3/10.1121/1.426731

Quote

 All parameters except the glottal dc flow showed a systematic variation with subglottal pressure or the fractional excess pressure over threshold.

DC flow is the air "fueling" the instrument, continuous flow from the lungs to the outside air, if you increase amount of air, this is what will change. AC flow is the sound.

Also:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0892199701000091

Quote

The condition of greater projection resulted in a significant increase in the acoustic power in the frequency band 2–4 kHz, relative to the power in the 0–2 kHz band, and a decrease in the mean expiratory flow

Now on a study conducted on the frequency domain, the projection here and the acoustic power in the presence range denotes use of AP narrowing, and the decrease on the mean expiratory flow is consistent with a decrease on the open phase, particular of AP narrwing too and in accordance to what I said.

[Felipe Carvalho]

On 8/31/2016 at 1:56 PM, Felipe Carvalho said:

- The exercise is not meant to teach how to do a "rolled R", the mais aspects that are interesting for warm up are improving the acoustic coupling (in special more AP narrowing/twang), and the vibrations that it causes on the vocal tract which are useful to relax and also "release" mucus build up ( including upper vocal tract).

And in that regard, as the studies I've linked show, airflow will be constant or lower.

Vocal Efficiency is a physical property, a power conversion ratio. To aim for it, the best path would be increasing laryngeal resistance and distributing the aerodynamic power more evenly between pressure and flow, to increase the energy applied on the larynx. This works, you will get more acoustic energy for less aerodynamic effort, but the consequences are what I've mentioned.

That's kinda useless since the aerodynamic effort is more or less free, we are far from being at our physical limits on singing. Instead the measures are taken to improve HOW the larynx converts aerodynamic power into sound. You can waste energy as long as this energy does is not converted into damage.

To cut the chase, what matters is the collision force on each glottal cycle.

People talk of Vocal Effectiveness instead of efficiency, although personally I have no problem on using "efficiency" as long as everyone knows that there is more into play than just energy transformation at the source level. In this case, since you used as the later, no, effiency is not useful.

 

 

In regards to live use its just a matter of  properly training. Teacher.

[ronws]

The phrase acoustic coupling gives me a totally different image. Sorry, just had to get that out of the way.

I am all about learning to manage the breath. And I am also agreeing with Tristan, air flow rate can change depending on what you are doing. And it can change as a matter of course in a bout of good singing. Which does not discount the need for training or practice. Singing is playing instrument, though you cannot put your hands and fingers on it, it is like playing any instrument. Anyone can sit with any instrument and make some noise, even get a few notes together in the right fashion. But it will take a while of stumbling around while learning other concepts before some competence developes.

So, at first, a singer has to really concentrate on things. As they become habit or more coordinated, it becomes a trained skill.

But remember, the main difference between speaking and singing is breath management and resonance. the muscular actions are not very different. And that is another reason that you already have a great voice in you. You just have to quit tripping on your own feet and get out of  your own way and unleash this voice and you do it by managing air flow and resonance.

period, paragraph, end of book, forever, amen.

 

[Felipe Carvalho]

Of course, flow rate can change depending on what you do, that's why I am giving specific instructions on what to do.

If it was constant no matter what you did, I would not mention it. You can do lip bubbles in any way you see fit, I won't force anyone, but then don't complain about how it doesn't help!

More on the subject of tissue collision:

http://jslhr.pubs.asha.org/article.aspx?articleid=1767619

Quote

Impedance matching by vocal fold adduction and epilarynx tube narrowing can then make the voice more efficient and more economic (in terms of tissue collision).

 

In the case of acoustic coupling (impedance matching), this is what I mean about the importance of dynamical systems to making use of this information. When looking at the glottal parameters, the analysis is done on short-term basis, they look at what happen each time the folds open and close.

In this case they moved from short-term (time domain) to frequency domain. Impedance is another way to represent the behaviour of the different parts of the system when transfering energy. You look at the resistance of each part of the system to the AC flow, and since the idea is power transfer, matching it makes voice production more effective (to not confuse with the efficiency mentioned before).

Having two forms to look at the exact same outcome, and the fact that both ways of looking at it renders leads to the same conclusion is a very strong indication that the notion that ap narrowing and the use of vocal exercises that produces it is desirable. And that's why its a common aspect through all the major methods of training (twang, forward placement, etc,etc).

[Felipe Carvalho]

What instruction that he gave you that you believe to be wrong Tristan? And how cool that you studied with him! When did that happen?

[Felipe Carvalho]

7 hours ago, YouCanSingAnything said:

He just never mentioned this idea of constant flow when we were using straws.

Well then he cant be wrong about something he did not say, I am not following your logic.

7 hours ago, YouCanSingAnything said:

Titze was at a voice research conference in my area recently.

Can you please clarify when was that, because in the past you were in contradiction in regards to your own education already, and in this specific subject you made several postings recently that implies the opposite (in fact at that time saying that Titze opinion was not very important, now it seems to be).

However! I do agree his opinion is very reliable, on a recent webinar that he participated and that I attented (Dan too!) he described the exercise and said basicly the exact same thing I am saying here, of course, regarding the straw which is his preference. Including the point of occlusion helping limit the airflow and create the back-pressure.

He also is clear on his youtube video on the importance on not allowing leaks through the nose or the lips. The reason is similar.

 

So in the end I agree with your conclusion:

7 hours ago, YouCanSingAnything said:

In terms of the OPs question you're probably right

Yes, its very likely that I am correct indeed.

 

Finally about this:

7 hours ago, YouCanSingAnything said:

I just don't personally use semi-occluded this way because I do not wish to sing this way.

Which way do you mean and what way do you want to sing? That doesnt make much sense unless you are saying that you want to sing through a straw on a stage, a rather strange goal.

 

But the subject of applying semi-occluded phonations on singing directly, to me, is not very interesting so I am ending my participation here. Your idea was good though, I will make material on support and how to achieve AP narrowing on singing.