Understanding Chest and Head Resonance

[Felipe Carvalho]

Fixed, tnx man. More 32 years in this pace and Ill learn it :P

[Felipe Carvalho]

Daniel hehe next thing we will have ten spectrographs with 10 different kinds of whistle from forgetten cultures of the world, whistles that brake glasses and the supreme art of sub-sonic whistling.

Please dont over complicate it, its just whistles guys, you wont learn how to sing from them, its meant just as a more material example of what happens when you shift resonance, and why the names in the first place.

You dont have to learn how to whistle to sing, thank God .

[MDEW]

Daniel hehe next thing we will have ten spectrographs with 10 different kinds of whistle from forgetten cultures of the world, whistles that brake glasses and the supreme art of sub-sonic whistling.

Please dont over complicate it, its just whistles guys, you wont learn how to sing from them, its meant just as a more material example of what happens when you shift resonance, and why the names in the first place.

You dont have to learn how to whistle to sing, thank God .

Evedently you have to know the physics of a sound wave and physics of a resonance chamber. And the difference between 50,000 terms. Or JUST SING!!!!

[ronws]

@ronws I think I understand you, a few points here:

before having the trainning needed to actually apply it to the voice. And without this concept well understood, you can very well fall for marketing or any clever maneuver done in a video to demonstrate. It bugs me man, because this should be EASY to execute when trainned, the trainning itself is not easy of course. But I see so many videos of people saying "this is head voice" and alot of strain comes along, with a very poorly ajusted voice, no resonance at all, just a very poorly executed mimic of what they believe is a sound ideal...

Fortunately, for me, I don't watch those videos.

I've watched vids from Kevin Richards, which led me to this forum. I have watched vids of Robert Lunte, both here in the forum and in 4 Pillars material, I have watched vids from Daniel, and from you.

I should be okay, right? :)

[benny82]

That was also my initial assumption. I'm just still confused in regards to the "lift" in the back and how it is related to a higher whistle.

It is not only about lifting the palate but also about "lifting the palate more". There is some amount of lift that is sufficient for closing up the "gate" to the nasal cavity, but you can lift it even more, creating more resonant space in the pharynx.

Here is another excercise that should give you the same sensation of resonance:

- start out with holding a "V"-sound

- freeze your mouth posture in the position of the "V" (which is quite similar to whistle position of the mouth)

- then, while keeping this mouth posture, do a "oo" vowel (as in "loose")

- then, while keeping this mouth posture, do a "french u" vowel (as in "menu")

- then, while keeping this mouth posture, do an "ee" vowel (as in "see")

While doing this, keep the same pitch for the three vowels. You will notice that it is mainly your tongue that will create the vowel shapes and that the resonance space that is used for the vowels will move bottom up in the back. For the "oo" vowel the resonance will be mainly placed in the lower pharynx, for the "french u" it will be placed around the soft palate, and for the "ee" vowel it will move more towards the nasal cavity.

This "movement" through the resonant spaces is similar to the movement that happens when going from low chest to high head. The higher the note, the more it will resonate towards your nasal cavity.

The "french u"-vowel that Felipe presents in his video gives you basically a nicely "centered" position within that resonant space. It is a good thing to always keep a little bit of this vowel in your singing because it is very important that you always use the whole resonant space, only the "focus" of resonance changes. For example: If you ONLY resonate in the nose (too much "ee" in your sound), this will usually result in nasality, if you resonate too much in the lower pharynx (too much "oo" in your sound) you will sound dull without a ring.

If you whistle like Felipe does in the video you will get a similar sensation. High notes use more of the nasal cavity and lower notes use more of the lower pharynx as the resonant space. This is also what in classical terms is called "chest resonance" (lower pharynx, sometimes extending towards the chest) and "head resonance" (soft palate and nose).

[benny82]

benny,

There's some things I don't agree with in your post. Mainly what you say about resonance. First, you can't "place" the resonance anywhere. Second, where you feel the vibrations is subjective, what you feel may not be what I feel. But anyway, I still don't see the connection between a whistle and chest and head resonance that Felipe is trying to explain besides my first assumption:

I have heard this several times now. So maybe there are people that have a different sense for "head resonance" or "chest resonance", but I also know many people that have the same sensations and from the video I would believe that Felipes sensations are similar, too.

And no, I don't think that it is only about tongue position. It CAN be about tongue position, because as you say you can move the resonance if you move the tongue, but you can also move the resonance using support. It is more about a coordination thing of the whole vocal tract, including tongue, support, soft palate etc. This coordination induces a sensation of resonance, and you can use that sensation to have a more easy control of the coordination as a whole.

I did a lot of excercises using these types of "resonances" and actually I can quite freely "move" the resonance more towards the lower pharynx or more towards the nasal cavitiy. Of course there are limitations and some placements will sound better or worse than others, but you can learn to "move" the resonance.

[Felipe Carvalho]

Rach, its the posture of the whole vocal tract, the tongue ajustment needed to do what I did on the sample Ive sent now is minimal, and yet it produces an interval jump as you see. The point of the sample is to show that, since both are being produced at the same time, the mechanical ajustment is not the name on each of them and also the second is not based on the same tongue movement that ajusts the first kind up to that point.

And the interval jump will also show the reason why the ajustment of giving room is made, trying to smooth the transition between both these whistles requires a very large movement, bringing it down to where the first left.

I am using nearly the same posture of each whistle to produce the voiced samples on the video, just very small ajustments to retain a bit of vowel quality.

The point is to make clear that just using a certain vowel sound is not enough, the ajustment must be precise, and more specifically what covering accomplishes and why the vocal tract is ajusted to have more space IN RELATION to what would happen if you just covered and kept the same postures.

So when you tried to do it, what happens?

[benny82]

Benny,

What you are describing is the subjective sensations in regards to where you feel the vibrations. It's important to distinguish between what you feel and what actually happens. Ex. The sound will always resonate in the lower pharynx. You can't "move" it there. Even when you say you are "moving" it towards the nasal cavity it is still resonating in the lower pharynx. And you can't "move" the resonance with support either.

Yes, the whole head resonance/chest resonance thing is about subjective sensations. This is all about sensory impression, it has nothing to do with resonance in an "amplifying sound"-way of thinking or with sound production in a physical way. That's also why the scientific concepts of M0-M3 ARE NOT the same as the traditional picture words "head resonance" or "chest resonance". While there is some connection of course, these two DO NOT describe the same thing.

head resonance/chest resonance describe a "sensation of tonal focus". Of course it is possible that these sensations differ individually. But they have been of use to a whole lot of singers for centuries, so there are at least many singers that sense them in a similar way.

Of course the pharynx is always the resonator in a physical way, but the head/chest resonance things is all about feelings and sensation, not about physiology. Up to now science still fails at describing how these sensations are actually generated. They are definitely not generated by vibratory mechanism (M0-M3), because as Felipe says in the video resonance and vibratory mechanism can be modified quite independently, at least within tessitura.

Personally I think the physiological background lies within TA/CT-balance. So TA activity creates "chest resonance" and CT activity creates "head resonance". The "tonal focus" is determined depending on which muscle group is dominant. But this is only a guess and is still subject to research.

[benny82]

@benny well I will restate that playing around with the whistling in the way I proposed there allows a better understandment man, problems at G4 is what we all go through, F4/G4/A4, solve that and the rest is relatively speaking, easy. Still I insist that you should use more care ajusting emission first, support, making everything stable. Its nearly impossible to go at it and trying to make EVERYTHING work for you at the same time. And until everything is working at least to certain degree, these notes, the middle of your voice, will expose the problems.

Just out of curiosity: What is the lowest/highest note you can whistle without going breathy? For me the highest is something like E7 and the resonant placement it produces is basically the same as when I sing an E5, so it's basically shifted by 2 octaves. E5 also happens to be the note where I flip into whistle voice no matter what I do from a vibratory mechanism point of view.

For the lowest note it is different. The lowest note I can whistle without going breathy is around A5. But the resonant placement it produces is the same as the note D2 for me, which also happens to be the note where I switch to fry mode.

[MDEW]

Thanks Felipe. Any new ways to think about things is a help. Even if it does bring about other confusion it will help us to look at things from a different perspective.

One thing that I have noticed is that when I whistle the higher note I feel a pressure from my larynx to the soft palet. A column of air pressure that keeps my larynx down and my soft palet up.

This may not have anything to do with what you intended to show with your demonstration. But it is an effect that I had not noticed before. It may in the long run help me to keep my larynx from rising too much in the higher registers(bad word, but it is the best I can think of at the moment).

[ronws]

I feel the resonance in the toenail of my left big toe. So, if you see me singing and my left foot is tapping, well, there's a reason ....

Actually, I have come to understand these resonance feelings as sympathetic vibrations that happen to occur when the note is right.

But here's a weird thing, for me. It used to be that a high note tickled the top of my skull. Or rattled my eyeballs. But as I have learned to blend more, it feels like all notes are at the juncture of soft palate and hard palete.

Probably month from now, it will be behind my right ear. Another good reason for keeping my hair short.

:cool:

[Felipe Carvalho]

mdew it does creates a small pressure in that area.

You will probably experiment with it. This pressure has the potential to allow you to sing a bit higher and even register away from M1 with a certain quality.

And that, is a big problem, this is not enough, and your voice will either get a bit nasal and spread, or pointed and airy.

This is a kind of an ironic situation, because all the fundaments allow you to have an illusion of "expanding limits" alone. If you place your voice very forward, with tons of "twang", it will "connect" and project. If you support the hell out of it, you will "connect" and sound thick. If you cover, you will "connect" and sound like inside a tube. If use medial compression, you will "connect" and win a nice nodule. And so on.

Combine everything, and it becomes just easy to just sing and forget all this... Which also reminds me of the cicle of blind search: forward helps, so you go forward forward forward, then it stops working. So now you lack support: support, support, support. Stops working, now the problem is covering: cover, cover, cover... Dont work anymore. Maybe it lacks forward placement? forward, forward, forward.

And the only thing built is a bunch of tensions that you will have to relax before actually learning technique...

Anyways, on with the whistle games.

rowns, but thats the beauty of the whistles, they are tangible and real . You cant deny a senoid. It becomes a cosenoid.:o

[ronws]

rowns, but thats the beauty of the whistles, they are tangible and real . You cant deny a senoid. It becomes a cosenoid.

You had me at senoid ...."

:lol:

[benny82]

But here's a weird thing, for me. It used to be that a high note tickled the top of my skull. Or rattled my eyeballs. But as I have learned to blend more, it feels like all notes are at the juncture of soft palate and hard palete.

The focus at the junction of soft and hard palate is a really good and balanced starting point. Now add a little bit of larynx dampening (drop jaw, move tongue forward) and the focus moves a little more into the back of the head (between your ears actually fits kind of well). This is what Rob calls "placement deep in the head" and it gives you a really cool and boomy sound.

This is a kind of an ironic situation, because all the fundaments allow you to have an illusion of "expanding limits" alone. If you place your voice very forward, with tons of "twang", it will "connect" and project. If you support the hell out of it, you will "connect" and sound thick. If you cover, you will "connect" and sound like inside a tube. If use medial compression, you will "connect" and win a nice nodule. And so on.

Yes, this is really true and is something I'm struggling with all the time, when trying to "expand my full voice range". I can get a nice feeling of "everything right" on good days and with that feeling I can take my full voice up to about G#4. I can still keep that "everything right"-feeling up to the top of my range (which is A5 right now), but starting at A4 this will drive me into M2. The sound is still good, but it is not M1 anymore.

However, if I try to change anything, like "more twang", "more support" or "more whatever" this will take me out of the "everything right"-feeling and my voice totally crashes.

[MDEW]

FelipeCarvalho wrote:

This is a kind of an ironic situation, because all the fundaments allow you to have an illusion of "expanding limits" alone. If you place your voice very forward, with tons of "twang", it will "connect" and project. If you support the hell out of it, you will "connect" and sound thick. If you cover, you will "connect" and sound like inside a tube. If use medial compression, you will "connect" and win a nice nodule. And so on.

Any technique or sound ideal or emission will have its own balance to maintain but if we do not have these tools we will not stand a chance of finding proper balance. These things may not be a "Magic Pills" but they are training wheels.

[Felipe Carvalho]

No Owen, fairy round lips. I think I know what you are doing. The point where it happens to me is much lower than that, begin to whistle but dont let your jaw move or the lips get tight, you will reach a spot where it will become airy. In there, start working on giving room, lift, beginning of yawn, whatever you find better, on the direction of that dopey voice I demonstrated on the video.

If you try, could you let us know if its hard to let go of the previous posture? How your body reacts when you try to do it?

What you did before involves a resonance shift too, I tried and I can see that it "tries" to form somewhere bellow my nose, my tongue goes forward and my lips get more tight.

[TimR]

I hope it isn't rude to bump a ten year old thread.

I'm intrigued by the mention of resonance and whistling but the demonstration video comes up as "not available."  Is it still out there somewhere?

My reason for asking is partly because a trombone teacher has recently talked to me about the need for mouth resonance during brass playing.  Brass players have always talked about vowel shape but not so much about tuning the vocal tract to a pitch. Until recently I couldn't whistle but am starting to get closer.  

 

[Steven Fraser]

On 7/21/2023 at 2:35 PM, TimR said:

My reason for asking is partly because a trombone teacher has recently talked to me about the need for mouth resonance during brass playing.  Brass players have always talked about vowel shape but not so much about tuning the vocal tract to a pitch. Until recently I couldn't whistle but am starting to get closer.  

 

Hi, TimR.  Since you posted, and I had been involved in the original thread, I will suggest the following:

In general, the positioning of all of the articulators in the vocal tract have influence on the vowels.  The most influential of these is the tongue, particularly in the location and size of the 'hump', which divides the vocal tract into a 'back' part and a 'front' part.  As a first approximation, the volume of these two individual parts correlates well with the frequency locations of the two lowest vowel formants, which we call F1 (the lower) and F2, which is above it, almost all the time.  The frequency location of these two formants cause emphasis on particular harmonics of the voice... and that is what we perceive as as vowels.

Now, what you can do to experiment?  It does not have to be complicated, but it will seem strange at first.  Take one of your mouthpieces, and with it against your chop in a proper embouchure, pronounce the vowel sequence ee - ay - ah - oh - oo through your mouthpiece, while maintaining your embouchure.   This attempt will cause your vowels to be more-or-less entirely handled by the tongue position and changes.  BTW, those are often called the 'long' vowels. Another set you can try, which have different tongue positions, is the 'short' ones.... ih - eh -  ah (like cat) uh - uh (like in foot).  Do the short set through your mouthpiece in the same way, just saying the vowels through the mouthpiece with correct embouchure.

Do each vowel set a few times to gain familiarity, and then repeat the 2 vowel series while buzzing your chop on a sustained note...  This will likely feel very strange, but you should be able to hear some subtle differences in the buzz based on the particular vowel you are shaping your tongue for.   Key point:  When the harmonic content of the buzz aligns with either F1 or F2 of the vowel, it should have higher amplitude.  If you are able to hear anything resembling the vowels when you are doing it... you are hearing the result of the alignment.  Your ability to hear the semblance of the vowel in the mouthpiece buzz is because there is harmonic alignment.

The next step in the experiment, still with just the mouthpiece, is to do buzz sirens, varying the frequency of the buzz in a legato slide of it.  Range of perfect 5th is a good starting point, but you will learn more if you slide an octave.  For each of the 2 vowel series (long and short), buzz an octave slide up and down, listening for places where the buzz seems louder. You may also notice that it feels different to you, but those sensations can vary.  When you detect an area that sounds good, determine the pitch of the buzz, and make a note to where that is on the scale and what vowel you were using for that.

Now, the very fun part, in 2 different ways.  Way 1: Put your horn on the mouthpiece, and play the scale note that you determined sounded well in the buzz/siren.  Also, try the chromatic and diatonic neighbor group (up/down 1/2 and whole step) centered around the buzzed note that sounded well to you.  Explained a different way... the 5-semitone group, where the middle note of the group was the one you thought sound well with just the mouthpiece.

Way 2: Play sustained pitches on your instrument, while varying the tongue position for the vowels in the two series.  Each note, 2 times, 1 time per vowel series, i.e., one note on the long vowels, breathe, and same note on the short.  Judge for yourself which vowel sounded and felt the best for that note.  Jot that info down somewhere.  Repeat the pattern up a semitone, and note the results.  Transpose over a complete octave, or 12th if you prefer.

IMO, _the_ best use of this knowledge is in the improvement of insecure or difficult notes.  Pick one of those notes, and do the exercise (the two series) on it. Determine which vowel shape is best (sound and feel... perhaps more stable) and use it in a phrase. 

That will get you started.  I hope this is helpful.

Best Regards,

Steven Fraser

 

 

 

[TimR]

Thanks for the helpful reply.  I've started experimenting as you suggest.  Some of this is fairly subtle and needs practice. 

One thing that has confused me is the difference between mouth cavity pitch and formants, and that's where the whistling reference applies.

I read an article that said the whistle is produced by introducing white noise (air across presumably the palate, could be larynx I guess) into a tuned mouth cavity that approximates a Helmholtz resonator and amplifies a particular frequency.  

The trombone teacher I spoke of is one I go to occasionally especially if something is going awry.  He demonstrated mouth pitch not with a vowel, but with an air flow (something like white noise) at the pitch of the note being played.  He took a lip buzz (no mouthpiece) through two octaves without varying his embouchure setting or tension, just with the pitch change.  I found I could vary pitch considerably by changing just that mouth pitch, and good response happened when both mouth pitch and chop setting aligned.  Other teachers have talked about vowel shape (tee, tah, too) but not about the pitch of them, this was a new approach to me.  As always, it could be different terms for the same phenomenon - or not. 

Is the F1 formant basically the same as the pitch forward of the tongue hump?    FWIW, most of my trombone playing would fit between C3 and C5, only rarely above or below.  

[Steven Fraser]

14 hours ago, TimR said:

Is the F1 formant basically the same as the pitch forward of the tongue hump?    FWIW, most of my trombone playing would fit between C3 and C5, only rarely above or below.  

F2 (Formant 2) is ~the same frequency as the "pitch forward of the tongue hump).  Sorry if I confused you.  The whistle pitch, and the formant, are the result of the same acoustical set-up.

THx for the clue on your instrument.  YOu are right, the interaction between the instrument and the mouth space is subtle.  It might be more easily felt, than heard.

I hope this is helpful. Sounds like you are learning your way around this concept.

Best Regards,

Steven Fraser