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Bob, you may be fine tuning musculature to direct the sound in a better pathway to the resonators. Adjusting breath pressure, tongue position, phaynx shape, softpalate position........

Like blowing into a bottle to make sound. When you first try it you may get no sound at all. but after a while you may be able to pick up any bottle and make sounds by blowing into it. Even though the bottle size may change you can get a good quality sound without thinking about lip adjustment per size of bottle it seems to self adjust.

Also add that resonating chambers in the human body are made of growing and adapting tissue. It is still possible that our bodies can adapt over time to external stimulus.

MDEW's first part explains what I was saying perfectly.

And the second part, I'm not sure if that has to do with anything but there is that possibility.

Not with the hard palate though. As others have said that's not gonna budge without surgery lol. Some changes could take place at the soft palate but I don't know.

Here's an idea though...has anyone noticed that sometimes the shape of your hard palate seems different after singing for a while? Like more narrow and arched?

I always wondered if that was just my mind playing tricks on me. Perhaps the tissue layer of it changes somewhat, because as we know the bone isn't gonna budge.

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The tissue part is what we are dealing with. Part of what happens whe we yawn or lift the soft palate the other tissues in the mouth will stretch and become taut. In effect making a better suface for sound reflection. Soft tissue will absorb sound.

On a side note the hard palate does have a fissure cutting it in half. It is if only a little bit movable.

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It was not a cover. It was a singer auditioning for my old band (I was not a singer at the time). But that does not detract from the humor of the sounds this dude's voice produced.

Your post is more frightening because we know from you frequently mentioning your career path that all of that math and electroterminology is real. Yikes.

It can get worse. I use to analyze the 4 dimension tensor equation that mathematician Paul Dirac came up with to show that gravity is an effect that decreases with time.

And, I proved Einstein was wrong, at least to myself, mainly because he cannot understand the postulates of all descriptive geometry. I read his autiobiographical notes in the original German, for fun. And he found he was violating his own precepts set forth in his Special Theory of Relativity when he was analyzing sub-atomic collisions in the field of "statistical mechanics." Special Theory stated that large velocities were non-additive. Yet, the only way to describe the results of a collision, such as in a treatment Poincare's three-body problem, one has to use vector analysis, which is a result of analytical geometry. And the axes have to be orthgonal, which relies on the property of separate vectors in a description being additive. Got hoisted by his own petard, as it were.

But when it come to singing, I leave that stuff behind,

My job is full of mind-numbing detail and trying to explain to "layman" why their mosquito misting machine is tripping a perfectly good GFCI receptacle. Even over the phone, I can hear they eyes glazing over, even after I have translated it into English as best as I can.

So, for me, singing needs to be "not work" and not really technical. At worst, analagous to basic physics.

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To talk about this seriously it's necessary to consider the difference between A) increase or enlarging of contractile tissue, and B) neural improvements in strength. Note that toning doesn't really mean anything. Unless we mean the resting tension of a muscle, which isn't really relevant here.

A muscle can get stronger without getting larger, because of neural adaptations (eg rate coding and firing, motor unit synchronisation, etc). This is what strength athletes train for because they want to be as strong as possible yet not gain weight (yet they're still quite muscular). The opposite would be a bodybuilder who trains for maximum muscle size (yet is still strong, since the greater a muscle's cross-sectional area, the increased force it can produce).

An important question to ask then is, are the muscles of the soft palate for example (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_palate) capable of significant hypertrophy (growth)? I can't say for sure but I would say no. However, are neural adaptations possible? Do they occur to an extent that we could say these muscles have become significantly stronger, rather than it just being a much more simple situation of improved neural pathways aka "muscle memory"?

I dunno :D

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All: Sorry I have joined this thread a bit late. I'd like to go back to Bob's original post...

let's see if i can explain this decently.....

if a singer were to make a daily practise of simply directing the pressurized air into the various resonance cavities while simultaneously stretching the palates (hard and soft) and the pharyngeal walls, the nasal area behind the nose, all the areas where resonance is found using various larynx heights in various combinations so let's call it "working out the honk and the hoot resonance" stretching and trying to manipulate the resonance areas with the facial muscles and such......

would this/could this result in an enhanced tone? can one physically tone the resonating cavities?

Hi, Bob! Since we have spent some time talking over the years, I have an idea about what you are asking.

My answer: to the extent that the singer discovers the adjustments that result in the enhanced tone, then, yes.

However, it is not because the cavities are 'toned', its because the vocal tract has been 'tuned' by the singer: the singer has become better at selecting the exact resonance adjustment for each note/vowel combination.

In two words: its about vocal tract 'shape', caused by the 'position' of the articulators in the overall vocal tract. Well-directed practice of this type increases awareness of resonance, and improves the ability of the singer to select larynx, throat, tongue, soft palate, lip, jaw and cheek positions that accomplish this.

I hope this is helpful.

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as always, very much so steven......thank you..

those descending head voice slides helped me discover a lot of things about my voice...there's something to be said about intentional exploration of resonance.....you end up through self discovery realizing how much more enhanced a tone can get...how thick or how slender it can get too.

not sure if one will experience the beauty of this through just singing or even if can be taught........you have to kind of explore things.

some would say it's too manipulative, or contrived but i would disagree....

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Bob, I take it you are getting sounds that people obsessed with speech-vowel, highly intelligible, relaxed singing would hate, but people who enjoy the big resonant money notes would love?

More singery, resonant sounds. They are cool, but like you said, they are a manipulation, and some people's ears just don't like that. So many non-singers love the singers that sound like they are just speaking on pitch...but that is just their personal preference and not at all universal. But it is an ideal that is out there, just as present as the ideal of round, ringy tone. And sometimes you can't quite have both at the same time.

I'd say, as an artist, I lean slightly toward preferring the resonant, singery, well tuned sounds. I associate that more with "good tone".

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Bob, I take it you are getting sounds that people obsessed with speech-vowel, highly intelligible, relaxed singing would hate, but people who enjoy the big resonant money notes would love?

More singery, resonant sounds. They are cool, but like you said, they are a manipulation, and some people's ears just don't like that. So many non-singers love the singers that sound like they are just speaking on pitch...but that is just their personal preference and not at all universal. But it is an ideal that is out there, just as present as the ideal of round, ringy tone. And sometimes you can't quite have both at the same time.

I'd say, as an artist, I lean slightly toward preferring the resonant, singery, well tuned sounds. I associate that more with "good tone".

Excellent points, Owen. It is a matter of aesthetics. Even in the world of opera. The historic bel canto florid singing, which was more about resonant vowels and legato and the shift to the wagnerian era of lyric-heavy librettos, bigger stages, bigger orchestras. I have my own pet theory that the wagnerian era is what brought forth the baritone, as a voice type and that before, there were only bassos and tenores.

That, with the emphasis on words to tell a story, you needed a voice that was neither too high nor too low that could sing the libretto intelligibly at frequencies the audience could understand. Otherwise, it would sound like a bird singing or a train arriving.

But I could be wrong.

And I think you are right with even today's music. Some prefer a story-telling singer, some prefer a musical singer, valuing notes over lyric sensibility. And singers in between the two ends.

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Excellent points, Owen. It is a matter of aesthetics. Even in the world of opera. The historic bel canto florid singing, which was more about resonant vowels and legato and the shift to the wagnerian era of lyric-heavy librettos, bigger stages, bigger orchestras. I have my own pet theory that the wagnerian era is what brought forth the baritone, as a voice type and that before, there were only bassos and tenores.

That, with the emphasis on words to tell a story, you needed a voice that was neither too high nor too low that could sing the libretto intelligibly at frequencies the audience could understand. Otherwise, it would sound like a bird singing or a train arriving.

But I could be wrong.

And I think you are right with even today's music. Some prefer a story-telling singer, some prefer a musical singer, valuing notes over lyric sensibility. And singers in between the two ends.

Just for fun, a comparison between the one of the most resonant singers I know and one of the most speech-like singers I know. I love both. But I like the first one more, personally. The big difference between the two, technique wise, is the first singer is tuning formants and the second singer is using speech vowels.

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To me, they are both singing on the vowel. However, DCfC, he's got looser articulation but the vocal line is less legato than Panda Bear. Panda Bear has more decisive articulation while maintaining more legato. Neither one is wrong or right, just different intentions.

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To me, they are both singing on the vowel. However, DCfC, he's got looser articulation but the vocal line is less legato than Panda Bear. Panda Bear has more decisive articulation while maintaining more legato. Neither one is wrong or right, just different intentions.

Interesting interpretation.

Maybe the speech-like character I'm hearing is just from Ben (DCFC)'s articulation...

"Decisive" is interesting because it's always very hard to understand Noah (Panda Bear)'s lyrics, even in the studio versions. He really messes with the consonants, they are as non-speech-like as his vowels. So "decisive" could be misinterpreted. I would say better describe it as tight, or thin. He spends very little time on the consonants to the point where they virtually disappear. Since Ben doesn't change the articulation from speaking I almost never have to look up his lyrics. The two are certainly on polar opposites of that spectrum...the overall intelligibility of the text.

Ron, could you find an examples of a singer you hear as singing on speech vowels, and sounding good doing it? I know it exists. Maybe James Taylor or Paul McCartney? Paul McCartney a bit more on the resonant side I think.

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Bob, I take it you are getting sounds that people obsessed with speech-vowel, highly intelligible, relaxed singing would hate, but people who enjoy the big resonant money notes would love?

More singery, resonant sounds. They are cool, but like you said, they are a manipulation, and some people's ears just don't like that. So many non-singers love the singers that sound like they are just speaking on pitch...but that is just their personal preference and not at all universal. But it is an ideal that is out there, just as present as the ideal of round, ringy tone. And sometimes you can't quite have both at the same time.

I'd say, as an artist, I lean slightly toward preferring the resonant, singery, well tuned sounds. I associate that more with "good tone".

owen,

if are after the type of tone i also like, (is that what you're saying here?) a more intense, richer, sound take to the bank it is going to be a more supported, more physically demanding delivery. you will be doing more with the diaphragm.....there will more laryngeal stability needed as well.

but you can absolutely lighten it up and go to more towards the lighter, less supported sound

i'll post this again in case you missed it...

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owen,

if are after the type of tone i also like, (is that what you're saying here?) a more intense, richer, sound take to the bank it is going to be a more supported, more physically demanding delivery. you will be doing more with the diaphragm.....there will more laryngeal stability needed as well.

but you can absolutely lighten it up and go to more towards the lighter, less supported sound

i'll post this again in case you missed it...

Bob, I'm interested in various types of singing ranging in mass, the lighter stuff as well as the heavier stuff. But not the HEAVY full appoggio Tenelli stuff...I could not use that in the music I sing.

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Are you defining "speach vowel" as use of vowels similar to how they are used in speach, of any dialect, not just picking on one?

My points were more about the relationship of singing on the vowel versus what happens with the consonants.

You mentioned Paul McCartney, so let's work with that for a moment.

It depends on what he was doing with a song and what part of range it was in. "Band on the Run" when he was with Wings had some modified vowels.

"Norwegian Wood" when he was with the Beatles, not so much, to my ears.

But I am not a teacher or any kind of expert.

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Bob, I'm interested in various types of singing ranging in mass, the lighter stuff as well as the heavier stuff. But not the HEAVY full appoggio Tenelli stuff...I could not use that in the music I sing.

sure you can....take pieces of it.....singing well supported with laryngeal stability is not something to learn?

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