Formants... What...

[Guest]

Hey everyone, I think we should make a point of applicable singing techniques. Out of a book of 5000 pages the singer may only find 5 of those pages useful... applicable.

This talk on formants confuses me, I am somewhere between baritone and tenor and also can get away with falsetto range. I do not know too much about the terminology but I do know that the throat is a resonator and the mouth is a resonator also there is the singers formant which one may relate to nasal resonance.

Now if someone actually has EXPERIENCE with this please respond to the thread. The older successful singers used to "tune" their formants but I do know that different tenors do it different ways.

Let's keep in mind that regardless of if you are a bass, baritone, or tenor you CAN sing those "money notes" although it will sound different. We're talking about what happens in some voices during the passaggio.

The PRIMITIVE reflex is to use the throat (think chesty) resonator all the way up the scale.... which is not helpful at all. I realized recently that SHIFTING the muscular control to the mouth resonator up the passaggio "cushions" my voice for the head voice. Meaning before I would never open my mouth as much as I could out of fear that I would sing "too open" and crush the notes.

HOWEVER.... during this whole time where the mouth resonator seemingly takes control over the passaggio area... it's like the singers formant (think of a pure bright head voice) slowly sneaks in and there is an actual feeling of release into head voice.

Can someone explain this to me and WHY tuning the voice towards the mouth resonator is more effective than using the throat (chesty boomyness). I believe it's called Eco Sonora in Bel Canto...

If I keep things focussed in the throat and enough "throat space" it sort of cushions the voice for the passaggio and singers formant starts seeping in.

Hopefully someone can explain the different ways of using formants for success.. particularly in the passaggio for males! Very cool stuff. The singers of the past didn't think F1, F2 they just did it intuitively lol!

[Jens]

Man...

Do this every day and you will never have to worry about formants.

: support exercise 10 minutes, warmup 20 minutes 4 good exercises, sing 5 easy song sing 2 harder songs warmdown. Total : 2 hours

Get a gymcard gym 4 days a week, run 3 days a week. Build your body and confidence.

[VideoHere]

nice jens....

jaymc, this my street explanation..not a technical one...

as you continue to gain strength and stamina, you will develop the ability to truly sing from down below, leaving the upper area free and unencumbered by bad tension. once this starts to happen, you will feel an ability (for yourself and your particular voice) to direct the voice into specific areas (i guess you call them formants) and tweak your throat shapes (vowels) in a much more tonally consistant and less effortful way..

basically a tuning ability starts to emerge. an accuracy, a deliberateness develops.

does this help, or did i just confuse you?

[ronws]

I liked Jens' advice.

Jay, I'm going to burst your bubble. You are not a baritone. And I don't care if I am a non-teacher making that judgement call and yada, yada, yada. Let the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune fly.

You are not a baritone. Get over it. Have a good cry, and say goodbye to your baritone wishes.

It would be easier to imagine that you were a baritone if you could actually sing something with some baritone weight and tonality and your samples, so far, lack that.

Let the great wailing and gnashing of teeth begin ...

[Owen Korzec]

It would be easier to imagine that you were a baritone if you could actually sing something with some baritone weight [?] and tonality and your samples, so far, lack that.

Let the great wailing and gnashing of teeth begin ...

Why does everybody correlate being a baritone with having a heavier voice? Seriously, where the hell did that come from?

Weight determines lyric vs. dramatic. Range determines baritone vs. tenor.

Jay has a baritone range. He sang down to a nice F#2. And we have not heard him do any high chesty notes. From that criteria I'd say he's a baritone. Not a basso, not even a bass baritone, but certainly some kind of baritone. Probably a lyric baritone since everything we've heard from him so far is rather light.

Look, not all baritones sound as thick as Johnny Cash in their lower register. Some just have the notes, and they're nothing special. Doesn't mean they are a tenor just because their low range sucks.

Keep in mind Jay said he never trained his low range.

[Owen Korzec]

Formant tuning has been super helpful for me personally. You can access it in a number of ways, by vowel modification, placement, etc. But I like knowing the exact science behind it because then I know the exact tone I'm looking for and I can be precise about it.

Though I have not personally seen it, many people have spoken highly about this. I have a technical mind so I was able to gain knowledge of formants from other sources, but I've heard that this is the least confusing explanation of it. https://www.thevocaliststudiostore.com/Formant-Harmonics-in-Singing-Presentation_p_69.html

It would be a great start. Otherwise, Steven Fraser did some articles about it on the modern vocalist journal. Search Male Passagio 101 and 102. Some other similar ones too.

Or just google it and hope for the best...

I think it would be best to first learn about harmonics. Like, a lot. And put it into practice too...get your hands on a string instrument and create harmonics on it...you can isolate them. Or get your hands on a piano or keyboard, and learn the harmonics by studying their intervals.

Then, once you get harmonics, learn about formants and it will make a lot more sense. IMO it would be too confusing to approach it the other way around.

Formants are what make you able to get more volume with less effort. They also help assist bridging.

As ironic as it sounds, I think beginners can benefit the most by learning about formants. Because strength in the physiology of singing takes a while to develop, but you can learn to tune formants very quickly because it is only about coordination. So, meanwhile while you are struggling with the strength of your vocal musculature, you can at least apply resonance to get you a little more vocal intensity that way.

[ronws]

You're right, Owen, and I am wrong. If Jay wants to be baritone, more power to him. I did not hear an F#2 in his samples. And his low notes were devoid of usable acoustic volume. But, again, you're right, one could possibly be baritone with out the full ring I have associated with baritone, such as what Keith has. Or even Robert Lunte on some of his stuff. Listen to their voices and you will hear what it is that I think of as baritone.

And yes, I am wrong to tell Jay that he cannot be baritone, and it has nothing to do with me not being a teacher or an expert.

In the video moments thread, I linked Dio's "Time To Burn."

"Someone told me I could never be free. That where you are is where you'll always be. But they're all wrong ...."

So, Jay, ignore my bubble-bursting moment. Go ahead and go for the baritone.

It would be cool to hear you do "Silent Lucidity" or Lunte's "Souls of Silence." Both songs scare me in trying to cover them because I cannot get the ring down low that both Lunte and Tate have. Which doesn't stop me from admiring it. Just can't do it, "Time to Burn" or not.

[ronws]

And yes, Steven Fraser writes some great articles and posts. Once in a while, people listen to him and give credence to what he says. Even myself.

:D

[Owen Korzec]

Ron, you can do Souls of Silence. The lowest note is C#3 which is already in your range. And as someone who has spent a little bit of time training my low notes, I can tell you first hand, the power is the easy part, you can absolutely get more ring through training. I trained my low notes for like a day with one of Steve Fraser's exercises (which I will share below, pasted from an old thread) and immediately gained acces to more volume and ring. Adding more notes to your low range is the part that is much more difficult.

And the "ring" shouldn't really be the hard part for tenors on low notes. All you really have to do is create more subglottal pressure (more exhalation force against more vocal fold compression) and there it is. I'd think tenors would have more trouble with obtaining the "oomph"...that mysterious extra boominess that just comes from having a larger vocal tract.

The exercise explained by steve:

"The exercises are very direct, beginning on the B just a bit more than an octave below middle C. For Female voices, 1 octave above that.

Onset an /A/ (as in the English word 'hat'), in a bright, almost blatty pronunciation (without attempt at beauty, only clarity), sustain a few seconds, and then convert the vowel to /a/ (ah). The first goal is to make the vowel adjustment without losing the intensity.

Then, transpose the exercise downward by semitones, and repeat a few times on each note, attempting to make the vowel tone clear and bright, even if it is not very loud. If you are a tenor, the lowest note will be about E. Your results may vary

Then, go back to the B, and sing /I/ (ih). Transpose as before.

For this exercise, resist the temptation to sing 'top down'. While you will color actual singing in this range normally, for this exercise we are accentuating the thick-fold configuration"

[Guest]

Owen I don't want to ignite a huge fach argument but my problem is that my chest voice is too high and light... so I have to make the call whether to strengthen the hybrid register or just "yell"

Believe me when I say a tenor can "yell" beautifully.... most people cant distinguish between my high chesty tones and low heady tones. Some girls think that my high chest notes are actually in falsetto.

I do believe this problem is not related to fach but it is truly more present among tenors... how does one maintain the masuculine quality and smoothness of the voice while ascending to the upper register.

Look at it this way, in terms of formants the way I look at it... the tenor voice naturally (rings) in a certain range... HOWEVER because of the underdeveloped head voice the natural tendency is to get brighter however this will not help bridging too much.

The color must slightly "darken" meaning either lower the larynx slightly or OPEN the mouth more (not the cords). Experimenting with this... is absolutely cool lol!

Now this is not in the "pursuit of power" this is in the pursuit of skill and co-ordination. Why is it easier to bridge when the voice is slightly darkened?

I'lll give you an example take the "Eh" vowel as in RED as high as you can confortable go in "chest voice" keep the twangyness then right when you feel the transition LOWER the jaw then right after the passaggio switch to "Ey" as in HEY (also dampening larynx works too).

It's like the voice does all this crazy formant shifting on its own. Here is me demonstrating, it's a little clunky and some distortion comes out of nowhere but here is me being "boomy" lmao! My larynx is lowered slightly even before i start the "eh" and gradually the larynx ascends and I let the "head voice" creep in at the top! So it's from medium chest voice to low head voice.

Imo this feels like bridging early with a "lower larynx" to me.... idk what that means in formant talk but instead of getting too ringy i held back on it a little and tried out dampening the Eh. It just feels more tonally consistent since I have TONS of strength to develop in this area and I'm not belting at all just trying not to fall apart. If my larynx wasn't dampened I'd sound even girlier LMAO.

Light to medium-mass with dampened larynx, no intention of yelling "yet." You might have to turn the volume up or down since I was close and then far way from my phone lol!!

[Owen Korzec]

Jay, lowering the jaw actually brightens the sound, not darkens it

Also, if you stay in chest voice you will be yelling on the highest range of it. Otherwise you're probably not in chest, you're in mix or head. If you're not hitting a range limit at the top, you're not staying in pure chest.

So when you say your chest voice is light that may not be your chest voice if you can also yell it. Just out of curiosity I'd like to hear a file of you yelling/pulling chest...just to see what kind of power and range you get with that approach...if you want us to help us reach more of an agreement on your fach that would be necessary.

If you are really yelling but it sounds light, then you probably do have a naturally lighter voice. Otherwise it may be a choice you're taking, which, if you ever want to sing heavier sometimes, could be distorted into a destructive mental self-limitation.

The reason darkening helps bridging is because of the way it shifts the formants. Don't ask me why darker=better placement for head voice. I don't know exactly, but I think that's how it is.

[ronws]

Ron, you can do Souls of Silence. The lowest note is C#3 which is already in your range.

I got tired of talking smack. See my cover of "Hurt" in the review section.

[Nalyd]

Just to bring in a cvt perspective:

(Chest/head voice from that point of view is in no way related to any particular type of sound, but refers merely to the resonance you can feel in your chest or head at certain pitches.)

That out of the way:

In your clips Ray, you are in the mode cvt calls neutral. This mode allows low volume only on low/middle pitches, but can be loud on high pitches if you use tons of twang.

You do however get closer to the metallic modes on the descends which is why the creaking appears as your voice goes into a grey zone between modes)

The volumes you are producing on the clips are between 1-3 on a scale of 1-10, ten being the loudest your voice can be. If you want a more masculine sound in that mode, a darker color could be an option, but the mode neutral is generally not very "masculine", and "boomy" is not a word I would think of in this context just to be absolutely realistic here.

To raise the volume of the formants, to sound more powerful, chose one of the metallic modes instead.

Best wishes