Voicewize Blog

You Can’t Breathe Into Your Diaphragm

Posted on May 17, 2011 by voicew1 | Leave a comment | Sciency Stuff

Please tell me that my headline is not still controversial. Unfortunately

Fox Broadcasting Co.

, in some circles it still is. If you are a singer, you may find yourself confused as you have been told your whole life that you have to breath into the diaphragm, from the diaphragm, or even better into the abdomen.

{Insert dose of physiologic reality here} – there is only one part of the body that fills with air when we breathe. That is our pair of lungs. Physiologically speaking, there ain’t no way no how that any air is going into your diaphragm, adbomen, hips, knees or Lord help us all, the floor.

So what is all the bruhaha? Well, initially it was all based upon physical sensations in the body in the presence of ignorance about physiology. We can’t help that. Now we know better though and it serves all of our students better to give them an accurate anatomical understanding of their mechanism – especially in light of current research suggesting the use of visual imagery interferes with efficient learning for vocal tasks.

So, what’s the truth?

nlm.nih.gov

The diaphragm is the main muscle of breathing. It is the upside down bowl-shaped muscle that the lungs and the heart rest on top of. The diaphragm is comprised of a central tendon in the middle (that holds it together) and muscle fibers around the edges.

When it’s time to breathe in, the brainstem sends a signal that says – BREATHE! Then the muscle fibers contract and the bowl shape flattens out. When it does that, the space where the lungs sit become bigger, the lungs stretch and pull air in. When it is time to breathe out, the diaphragm and the muscles in the rib cage relax and the air leaks out like a deflating balloon.

One thing that stumps a lot of people is in learning that the muscle of diaphragm is largely involuntarily controlled. What does this mean? It means that the body controls the diaphragm independently of what you want to make it do. So, we cannot “control” the diaphragm in the way many singers and some teachers think we can.

Still with me? Okay. What’s the deal with the abdomen?

People wonder, if the diaphragm and the abdomen don’t fill with air, why does our abdomen inflate/get bigger when we breathe in?

Good question!

The abdomen gets bigger because all of our organs and intestines sit right beneath the diaphragm. Therefore, as the diaphragm flattens out when you breathe in, all of the guts have to move out of the way. The only place for them to go is to squish outward. Then they spring back in when you exhale.

Why does this matter?

The application of this to singing is understanding that if you feel restriction in your breathing you cannot solve your problem by forcing the muscles of your abdomen in an outward direction. Nor can you heave your diaphragm lower. In most cases, proper breathing for singing requires us to simply get out of the way of how the lungs and the muscles and the guts need to move in order to keep your airstream going.

Or, in the fine acronym of Janice Chapman from her book, Singing and Teaching: A Holistic Approach to Classical Voice: “SPLAT!” (Singers Please Loosen Abdominal Tension!).

I guess that about says it all…

Little Boys’ Singing Range

Posted on May 12, 2011 by voicew1 | 2 Comments | Musings, Sciency Stuff, Technique, Understanding Singing, Young Children & Singing

Image from: http://goo.gl/38xpS

I saw a local production of Guys and Dolls, Jr. last week that was performed by children who all appeared to be between the ages of perhaps 8 and 12. It was cute! The costumes were oversized and they swayed back and forth sometimes as they recited their lines. Near the end of the show, I was quite impressed when one of the actors failed to appear on stage and the other kids started “winging it” to keep the show going – wow! That’s good stuff.

One thing I felt badly about though was the singing ranges for the boys. You see, even though Guys and Dolls, Jr. is just that – Junior (After all, we don’t want the 10-year old singing “Take Back Your Mink”…eeeek!) the singing voice parts still assume that the boys’ voices have changed. Unfortunately this was not the case for the boys performing last week.

Because they were trying to sing notes that were far outside of their physiological capacity, I noted that the boys were straining their voices for most of the show. As they struggled to adjust to become more comfortable and have more easy resonance in their voices, they would go off pitch – because they simply didn’t have those notes.

I felt badly for them because I’m certain they experienced some level of frustration with the situation. After all, we all can tell if we’re not feeling quite right in the throat and most would have been able to tell that they were no longer on pitch.

What’s important to take away from this is that prior to the pubertal voice change, boys’ and girls’ singing ranges are about the same. So, while the girl playing the “trousers” role was able to sing in the correct octave for her, the boys should have been allowed to do the same.

If they had been allowed to sing their material one octave up, their voices would have been more resonant, they would have projected better and they would have gone a step in building a sense memory for singing being something that’s easy and fun. Instead, I’m certain many of them took away the thought that “singing is hard”.

Given that sense memory, many of them will develop the notion that they can’t sing. So, I think that’s sad. Others will persist in that way and show up one day in my lesson studio pressing the you-know-what out of their voices and it will take months if not years to adjust.

Moral of the story: Boys and girls singing ranges are pretty much the same through puberty. Singing an octave up, where the girls sing, will often solve problems of strain and frustration for boys who have not yet begun their voice change.

Perception is a Funny Thing

Posted on April 29, 2011 by voicew1 | 2 Comments | Sciency Stuff

Really. Who here has ever listened to an audio recording of themselves and said “Oh man! I sound terrible”. In fact, any time I bring out a recorder of some type in a lesson or therapy session, invariably the person says “I hate what I sound like in recordings!”

Guess what?

That’s you bay-bee!

Most people seem to initially attribute the different between what they hear in their head and what they hear in the recording to an artifact of the recording. But no. It is in truth an artifact of perception! We don’t perceive ourselves in the same way that others perceive us. So, when we are limited to hearing only what others hear, we kind of freak out.

So what’s really happening here?

When we listen to another person, we are hearing the sound waves as they are coming out of their mouth and through the air (unless you know someone who can speak under water…). That is all we hear. There is no extra input of any kind. They speak, we hear their sound through the air. That’s it.

Something very different happens when we listen to ourselves, however. Sure. We hear the sound waves as they come through the air. It comes out of our mouth and turns the corner to our ears. Buuuuuuuut…we also hear our own voices through our skull. This is called “bone conduction”.

In bone conduction, the sound that is generated by our vocal folds starts vibrating not only the air, but the bones in our head and face. It’s sort of like feeling the vibrations on the side of a speaker. The sound is coming out the front, but you can feel the vibrations on the sides as well. Now, our ears – the real hearing part of our ears – is located inside the bone at the sides the skull. So, when the skull vibrates, it sends the vibrations into the hearing part of our ears.

Since bone is very heavy and actually somewhat difficult to vibrate, it vibrates at a low frequency. Low frequencies = low pitches. {insert a lot of science/physics here}. The low sounds sent to our ears by the bones and the regular sound sent to our ears through the air mixes together and that is what we hear in our own heads as we speak.

Since anyone listening to us only gets the sound from the air, the sound seems thinner and not as robust. It can sound higher and tinnier as well. So, when we hear ourselves in our heads we think we have this full, round tone that is rich in overtones. Then we hear our sound without the bone conduction and we’re like “????”

Trust me. It’s all fine. And actually, once you get past the self-consciousness of even just listening to yourself in the first place, you realize that it doesn’t sound “weird”. It just sounds like everybody else. Just not what you perceived that you sounded like in your own head.

Yes, Virginia. Children can sing.

Posted on April 18, 2011 by voicew1 | Leave a comment | Understanding Singing, Young Children & Singing

from: mainehumanities.org

Okay. Time to get controversial.

There is a time-honored old wives tale that continues to circulate telling people that it is not safe for children to take singing lessons.

Hogwash.

Like any other physical endeavor, it should go without saying that children are different than adults. Therefore their training will be different; tailored to their physical needs and level of cognitive development. Saying that lessons for young children looks very different than lessons for adolescents and adults is a very different thing, however, than saying children shouldn’t take lessons at all.

For many teachers, I believe it comes down to two things:
1) They don’t know what the differences are or how to adapt
2) They’re not really interested in working with the types of sounds and music that is appropriate for young children

That’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with saying “I don’t want to teach children to sing.” After all, I don’t want to teach opera. So, I don’t. I reiterate, however, that it is a very different idea from saying that children shouldn’t sing.

One of the more ironic parts of the position people take against childhood singing lessons is that it is specifically lessons that they are against. They are not against children singing per se. They are only against providing children with guidance in terms of their singing…

Not kidding.

When parents ask a children-shouldn’t-take-singing-lessons teacher what they can do to encourage their child in their interest in music, usually one of two brilliant solutions is offered:
1) Have them take piano lessons
2) Have them sing with other children in a choir

Hasn’t anyone ever told them that children’s joints are not fully formed until puberty and therefore learning such a taxing task as piano may be injurious for young hands? After all, this is true, but I use the example tongue-in-cheek. After all, no piano teacher in their right mind would be steering their 7-year olds in the direction of Chopin. Having a child study and instrument that they are not interested in as a substitute for something they are interested in is like telling a cardiologist that they have to work in urology for a few years before moving on to their chosen field. It just makes no good sense. How many children are turned away from the pursuit of music all together simply because of hours of drudgery forced on them for something they didn’t want to do?

The choir suggestion is well-meaning. After all, at least it keeps the voice involved. But I have seen too many voice-disordered children come in my door for the lack of individualized attention that a choir environment provides. In addition, how do we truly expect young children to cope with things such as the Lombard effect without personal guidance? This suggestion also does not acknowledge the fact that singing as a soloist and as a chorus participants require two different sets of musical chops. Choir singing is great for kids who are in it for the socialization, but kids who are truly driven to sing will often find themselves feeling flat from their experience.

Just go ahead and actually teach them to sing.

I’ll be addressing this issue over time from the perspective of different technical and teaching elements. I hope you’ll stay tuned!

————————-

American Academy of Teachers of Singing position paper on teaching children to sing.

Do the Meerkat!

Posted on April 16, 2011 by voicew1 | Leave a comment | Musings, Technique

So, I was playing around with one of my students in lessons the other day, trying to help her find that best positioning for getting some challenging notes. Let’s face it, posture is a challenge in a society that is graced with so much couch time. But physical play can be the best way to accidentally make some great discoveries.

We started imitating animal postures and we found one that was so alert and tall and ready for action, but we couldn’t quite remember what it was. Thinking, thinking – ah ha! It was the meerkat!

Our journey continued to Wikipedia, where we discovered this picture:

Look at him…her…it. This is an animal that is ready to sing. You can see the strong spine, the erect carriage of the neck, the regal position of the sternum. The eyes are facing forward and alert, ready for action (or to run from an eagle, but I digress). Ignoring the fact that apparently meerkat shoulders are positioned on the anterior of the body, rather than laterally like ours, the shoulders are in a relaxed position.

I now have this picture printed out and hung in my studio as an example for all who enter. So, if you’re feeling kind of low energy and you can’t find that right position for singing – do the meerkat!

For more on meerkats, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meerkat

What Are Singing Registers?

Posted on March 10, 2011 by voicew1 | Leave a comment | Understanding Singing

The simplest answer to this question is, I dunno…There have been numerous theories over the years, with a whole bunch of different names that have been assigned to them. None of these seem to encompass all of the changes that people feel and hear as they pass through various pitches in their range and change voice qualities to suit various types of music. I’ll talk about a couple of elements that we do understand:

The vocal folds stretch and thin as you increase pitch:

When you go up in pitch, the vocal folds actually get longer and stretch out, due to the activity of the cricothyroid muscle, which sits at the front/bottom of the larynx. Just like anything that gets stretched out, it also gets thinner when it does so. Because the mass of the vocal fold is thinned out, it vibrates faster, which we hear as a rise of pitch.

Logically though, if the vocal folds are thinner and stretched out more, they are going to be impacted by the air that hits them in a different way than they are when they are short and thick. So, airflow increases with the stretching of the vocal folds and the closure at the center of the vocal folds is decreased (closed quotient).

The sound wave is shaped by the shape of the throat:

The vocal folds themselves just make a buzzing sound. There’s no character or flair in it. Soooo…how am I able to tell who someone is by their voice when I can’t see them? Besides the fact that people use their own patterns of inflection (speed, pitch, volume, etc), the sound wave itself is shaped by nooks and crannies in the throat.

As the sound wave comes off the vibration of the vocal folds, it bounces around inside the upper part of the larynx (voice box), the pharynx (throat) and mouth. Depending on the sound, there may be some impact of the nasal passages (i.e., “m”, “n” and “ng” in English). On its journey from the vocal folds to the open air, the passageway increases certain frequencies of the sound and decreases others, providing a unique contour to the voice.

How might this impact vocal registers, you ask? Well, the nooks and crannies of our throat are capable of changing in size and shape (to a degree). If the size and shape of the nooks and crannies of the throat don’t provide a good “fit” for the sound waves being produced at any given time – if too much of the sound is being decreased instead of increased – then we end up feeling increased effort or strain and the sound begins to sound pinched. Therefore, we end up subtly changing the shape of our throat to better “fit” the sound waves. That’s another part of registration.

This is the basics of registration as we understand it now. While there remains a certain convenience to having actual labels for the various registers, it is often more helpful from a practical standpoint to recognize that vocal function exists along a continuum and the categories exist more to help us conceptualize them than as a physical reality.

I Think I Can Sing; Therefore…

Posted on February 20, 2011 by voicew1 | Leave a comment | Musings

Today, I went to Plaster Fun Time with my family and a couple of my daughter’s friends. It was my first time. It sounded like fun. A funny thing happened though, while I was browsing the shelves for my ideal prefabricated white plaster cast. I got nervous.

I should explain, that I’ve never been much of a visual artist. The pinnacle of my drawing career occurred when I was in 6th grade and I drew a picture of a room. I was particularly proud of the way in which I included the details of the grain of the wood and the nails holding the boards together. After that, my guilded pencil just seemed to fade.

So, here I was in plaster fun time, eying a lovely little jewelry box with flowers on it and wondering if I had the talent to actually accomplish a passable design. The dozens of children happily splashing away with their half-watery mixed colors didn’t seem to have such qualms.

It made me think about how important self-efficacy is in determining what challenges we choose to attempt in our lives. Self-efficacy is the belief or lack of belief a person has in their ability to do something. It does depend on the nature of the task. I can have great self-efficacy for eating (love to eat) and terrible self-efficacy for cooking (I’ll burn everything).

Self-efficacy is incredibly important in singing. There are an extraordinary number of people who walk into both singing lessons and voice therapy convinced that they absolutely can’t get better. When I am working with people, they can be in the process of performing a task and at the same time say – “I can’t do it!” Hmmmm…

In the end, I overcame my fears. I stepped up to the plate and painted the box and it actually came out looking okay. Now, I’m even eying the foot-long dragon. Keep that in mind next time you think “I can’t sing.” If you think you can’t, you can’t; if you think you can, you will. Maybe with some practice and some work, but you will!

Speech Therapy & Parkinson’s Disease

Posted on February 17, 2011 by voicew1 | Leave a comment | Voice Disorders

There are few things more frightening than a diagnosis of a degenerative neurological disease. Symptoms begin subtly and there is no one body part you can point to as the source of the problem. Neurological illness impacts the entire body.

Parkinson’s Disease is a disorder speech-language pathologists treat regularly. At least 85% of people with Parkinson’s Disease will experience speech and/or swallowing disorders in the course of their illness.

At it’s heart, Parkinson’s Disease is a movement disorder. Most are aware of the characteristic tremors and stooped posture of those who have Parkinson’s Disease. Fewer know about muscle rigidity, difficulty starting movement and the smallness of movement. In addition, the flat affect (decreased facial expression) that may develop can result in social/emotional difficulty.

Parkinson’s Disease begins when a deep part of the brain, the substantia nigra, does not produce enough (or any) dopamine, a brain chemical needed to regulate movement. While medication and surgery can minimize symptoms, there is no cure.

Unfortunately, the common medications for Parkinson’s Disease, e.g., Levadopa, are not effective for eliminating speech symptoms. Good management of symptoms in the arms and legs usually does not include improvement in the decreased loudness, increased speed and slurred aspects of speech.

Fortunately, speech therapy is effective for treating the speech disorders of Parkinson’s Disease. One particular program that has been well-researched in this group is Lee Silverman Voice Treatment (LVST). This therapy focuses on the development of vocal loudness to allow the patient to make larger changes in speech clarity and intelligibility.

A strong emphasis is placed on “calibration” of the patient to an appropriate level of loudness. This is needed because in PD, patient perception is skewed, which leads to decreased vocal volume without awareness of it. Increased effort on the part of the patient carries over to other aspects of speech without imposing a large cognitive load (need to think) on the patient. All they need to do is “Think Loud”.

I’ve used this treatment and seen it work wonders with many people who have Parkinson’s Disease. It appears most effective with those who are able to pay attention to direction. I have not seen as much improvement in those who have rapid speech as their main symptom. Nonetheless, LSVT remains at the core of my approach to working with people who have speech disorders due to Parkinson’s Disease.

If you want to learn more about LSVT, their organization can be found at www.lsvt.org.

Reflux Medications – Don’t Forget to Step Down

Posted on February 7, 2011 by voicew1 | Leave a comment | Reflux, Voice Disorders

One of the common conditions I see that can either cause or worsen a voice disorder is reflux. It’s not the GERD (gastro-esophageal reflux disease) As Seen On TV that causes havoc in the voice, but LPR (laryngo-pharyngeal reflux).

Huh???

Laryngo – the larynx (lae-rinks)/voice box
Pharyngeal – the throat
Reflux – stuff that comes up from the stomach

Laryngopharyngeal reflux is when stuff (food, acid, bile, etc) comes up from the stomach and makes it all the way to the throat and larynx. This is very irritating to the lining of the throat and larynx. There are a number of things you can do to decrease reflux, but a part of the treatment for LPR is often medications, the most common of which are the Proton Pump Inhibitors (Prilosec, Prevacid, Nexium, etc)

These medications are great for reducing the amount of acid in refluxed materials. The irony is that sometimes they can cause stomach upset…

Given the high dosage amounts usually required to eliminate LPR (often 40 mg, twice a day), it is important to think carefully about suddenly stopping the medication.

I was reminded of this today, when I read my Provider newsletter from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts. They have initiated a program to work with doctors and patients to educate them about the need to “step down” medication treatment for reflux instead of stopping suddenly.

Stepping down medication treatment is when you take smaller and smaller doses of the medication to get your body used to not having it any more. If you skip this part with reflux medications, you can sometimes end up with “rebound reflux”, where the reflux comes back with a vengeance, worse than before.

So, once your reflux is under control and you’re ready to stop the medication, don’t forget to “step down” and keep that tummy comfy.

So…what’s Voice Therapy?

Posted on February 5, 2011 by voicew1 | Leave a comment | Voice Disorders

The first question many people as when they first talk to me about voice therapy is – “What is it?” The story goes like this: the patient has a problem with their voice, they ignore it until it impairs their ability to function in their life, they go to an ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat doctor), the ENT evaluates them and says “You need voice therapy. Go see the voice therapist.” The patient leaves the doctor’s office saying “????” and calls us.

The easiest way to explain what voice therapy is:
“Voice therapy is physical therapy for the muscles of your throat and voice mechanism”

People seem to inherently understand what physical therapy is. When they hear they are being sent to a speech-language pathologist (aka speech therapist), suddenly they think…”I don’t stutter”…”I can talk”…”I don’t get it.”

The other complication is that the term “voice therapy” is frequently mistaken for “voice lessons”, which it is not. This distinction proves tricky for patients who want to make sure their treatment is covered by their insurance. So, it is important to recognize that “voice therapy” is really speech therapy that falls under your rehabilitation benefits; “voice lessons” are a form of personal development…and your personal development is none of your health insurance company’s business.

On the surface, there are some exercises (not all) that appear similar between voice lessons and voice therapy. What is different is that in voice therapy there is a very specific physiologic goal. If your voice therapist is good, then all of the exercises will be oriented toward making sure that you will be able to maintain your gains by having the new way of speaking become somewhat automatic.

In voice therapy, we are driven by a “plan” and that plan of care directs what we are able to do and how. In voice lessons, we can change goals and focus whenever we want.

Some people choose to pay for voice therapy privately rather than through their insurance. Perhaps their policy does not cover speech therapy for voice disorders. Perhaps, it is because there is no specialist in voice in the network (not all speech-language pathologists are proficient in the latest methods of voice therapy). Often, it is because they prefer the flexibility offered by paying for the service themselves. Perhaps they want to include some general speech improvement or presentation training in their program – “As long as I’m coming in any way.”

Regardless of how it is that you organize attending voice therapy, it’s important to understand that it is the gold standard of treatment for many voice disorders. There are no pills or throat sprays that “dissolve nodules” and surgical intervention is typically reserved for severe vocal fold lesions or for people who have not been able to improve enough with therapy alone – despite their full participation in the process. And when people ask you what you’re going to speech therapy, just tell them: “Oh, I’m getting physical therapy for my throat.”

Scientific & Philosophical Musings on Voice, Speech & Singing