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Getting full voice in my higher range.

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Robert Lunte

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I would be very interested in any tips you have on training the soft palate. i don't really get it. when i try to lift mine, i feel this weird cramping feeling in my throat - which i'm pretty sure is incorrect.

Miss pk -

Very briefly, the exercises I use for this are designed to work indirectly - to stimulate the reflex which raises the soft palate to close off the air passageway into the space above the soft and hard palate. Just FYI, that passageway is called the Velopharyngeal Port, or VP for short. In my experience, 'trying' to raise the palate just introduces tensions you do not really want.

The approach I like is to use these reflexes to get the soft palate up, and then to learn what that feels like during singing by adding exercises that use phonation at the same time.

There are many actions and spoken sounds that cannot be made at all with the VP open. Many are unvoiced (no phonation) and many others are voiced.

Unvoiced:

- Blowing air out the mouth with pursed lips, as one might when trying to blow out a candle at a distance of a couple feet or more

- Inflating a balloon :-)

- Blowing air through a narrow soda straw

- Sustained pronunciation of the consonants P, S and F

- Tongue and lip flutters, Unvoiced tongue trills

- The lip buzz used by brass players

Voiced:

- Pronunciation of the plosive consonants B & D

- Sustained pronunciation of the consonants V, Z, Th (as in the English word 'the'), Dz (as in the French word 'Je')

- Voiced tongue trills, lip trills, lip buzzes & sustained rolled R.

- Phonating with the mouth almost entirely closed, with cheeks puffed out

- light phonation through a narrow soda straw

While I will be providing specific sequences for you, generally the order starts with unvoiced sounds (i.e., P, sustained F and S,) and proceeds to voiced versions (B, sustained V and Z), and then from those voiced sounds to light phonation through a narrow soda straw, lip buzzes, and then finally to slow conversions of the V, Z and lip buzz sound to open vowels. As I said, for none of the sounds in this sequence will you have to 'try' to consciously raise your palate.

Once all that is in place (and it should go pretty quickly,) then the task becomes carrying over the new sensations to all the vowels. This will involve a bit of familiarization with what the vowels feel like to produce non-nasally. That familiarization will take some time for you to be consistent in the new sounds, but is simply a matter of repetition and time.

Thats how I do it. Details on specific sequences of exercises to follow.

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Hey guys, isnt it great to have Steve Fraser here...? I could pontificate for ever here but I feel I have discovered one of the most important things in my pedagogy in years that directly solves this problem. Its teaching my students to "twang" in the head voice so that the 2000-4000 Khz frequency is amplified.

Martin, BeyondTenor... can you guys chime in on your understandings of twang... they do a good job with this.

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Wow Steven!!! you hit it right on the nose! Dude you're awesome. You seem to have more answers than I have questions so let me ask you one that I hope you can answer.

I went for a vigorous 2 mile run today. When I got done, I felt a great deal of mucus in the back of my mouth and spit it out a few times. This only happens when I run outside and breath very heavy. I went inside took a shower after drinking some water, and began doing a vocalization checking my range. (I have perfect pitch so this isn't hard :) ) I hit a F6 banshee scream, and whistle voiced the highest c on the piano. 3-4 notes higher than my previous records... Astounded, I put in Yngwie Malmsteens "Alchemy" and was singing along with Mark Boals like I was talking. Nothing to it. 30 minutes later I was in the car on the way to the gym, and I began to feel the mucus slowly building in the back of the throat and running down again... By the time I got to the gym I had only my usual c above tenor c and whistled only the highest g# on the piano. I've gotta get this drainage thing under control if I'm gonna reach my total potential. I don't eat dairy, don't have allergy reactions (watery eyes, itch, only drainage), I use a nedi pot... Several ENT's have not been able to help. Please someone give me some more things to try! I gotta get this solved. What can I do?!

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Tubagod- You will find it is the same usually at the on set of a cold or head cold. Strangely every thing opens up and aligns making singing quite easy, if you can just keep above the mucous that tends to build up at the back of the throat. so singing during a cold, flu can be easy(even when you can't speak) it is usually the days after that will be a challange when the mucous solidifies. The sinus become closed off, It may stick to the back of the pallet and or dry around the cords causing discomfort and making it difficult to sing. If you sing through the cold it will tend to leave mucous just below the level you most sing at, however it tends to re-align more quickly if you are able to continue singing.

You should also seek medical attention if your not sure it's a cold. In case it is an infection singing will then tend to spead it throughout your entire ears, sinus and throat as they are all connected.

Tubagod- I would recommend you just use a warm wet wash cloth over your face before you sing. That should warm things up and also loosen the mucous in the frontal sinus. Hum into the wash cloth and inhale the warm vapor.

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Full voiced Sirens like I was taught by singer Jim Gillette was the only way I finally got above my break in full voice. I did TONS of them everyday and now I can slide up smoothly with a loud resonant voice with no strain in to the Soprano range;) They are explained in detail in the book Raise Your Voice 2nd Edition.

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Full voiced Sirens like I was taught by singer Jim Gillette was the only way I finally got above my break in full voice. I did TONS of them everyday and now I can slide up smoothly with a loud resonant voice with no strain in to the Soprano range;) They are explained in detail in the book Raise Your Voice 2nd Edition.

JaimeVendera: This is an excellent exercise, I agree.

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I went for a vigorous 2 mile run today. When I got done, I felt a great deal of mucus in the back of my mouth and spit it out a few times. This only happens when I run outside and breath very heavy. I went inside took a shower after drinking some water, and began doing a vocalization checking my range. (I have perfect pitch so this isn't hard :) ) I hit a F6 banshee scream, and whistle voiced the highest c on the piano. 3-4 notes higher than my previous records... Astounded, I put in Yngwie Malmsteens "Alchemy" and was singing along with Mark Boals like I was talking. Nothing to it. 30 minutes later I was in the car on the way to the gym, and I began to feel the mucus slowly building in the back of the throat and running down again... By the time I got to the gym I had only my usual c above tenor c and whistled only the highest g# on the piano. I've gotta get this drainage thing under control if I'm gonna reach my total potential. I don't eat dairy, don't have allergy reactions (watery eyes, itch, only drainage), I use a nedi pot... Several ENT's have not been able to help. Please someone give me some more things to try! I gotta get this solved. What can I do?!

tubagod: I don't think the change in the range is due to the goo in you :-) Based on your description, there are some things about the singing post-run in the shower that is more spontaneous, or more energetic, than when you've had a drive to the gym and have been thinking about traffic.

So, I suggest an experiment as a starting point.

1) Go for your run again, start your shower noticing the time, and just stay there singing in the moist steam as you did, until such time as you begin to feel or hear changes beginning to happen. If you begin to experience drainage, note the time, and any effect in the range or tone quality.

I'll post some other ideas over the next few days.

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Tubagod....high frequencies charge the cerebral cortex and vagus nerve. I thik it is highly likely that as Steve says the energy you used first created movement in your physiology and the frequency resonance was conducted through the bone including the sinus cavities, into the major organs allowing a movement of mucous build up to be disharged through the body. High mucous levels can be due to acidity too. See if you can get a urine ph and blood ph reading done and check you're in the normal range. However I don't think from what you're saying you've too much of a problem! This was the power of high frequency sound in your body! love H :rolleyes: keep on screamin!

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