Voice Placement Sensations In a recent exchange on Opera-L the following was written. It represents a commonly held understanding of vocal placement and prompted the following reply from me. Here is the quote from Opera-L. “Are you suggesting that Corelli sang from his nose? Have you heard of placing the voice in the mask As much as I like Del Monaco his chest placement restricted his range to a comfortable B (B-Flat later on).” ...
Placement is often taught as a general idea such as put the voice backward or forward. It is also common to name a place such as put the voice into the nose, just behind the forehead, through the tope of the head, on the roof of the mouth etc, etc. While I was studying with Burton Coffin at the University of Colorado, Boulder, I constructed a vowel mirror similar to the one he used in his studio. His tone came from a small 4 octave electric organ usually using a flute stop. My tone came from an early Korg tuner that produced a square wave. That limited me to just the odd integer harmonics but it still worked adequately. It would have been better if it produced a saw-tooth wave that would contain all harmonics. ...
Being heard up close or far away. If the vocal tract is adjusted to emphasize the harmonic that best projects the voice, the voice is heard well in the hall but might be less well heard up close, especially from the side of the performer. Singers often refer to this as singing “over” or “above” the orchestra or as “floating the tone” out into the hall. A tone, “floated” this way can have great intensity or simply be easily heard or even be a mezzo forte, depending on the demands of the music and orchestra as well as the dramatic intent of that part of the opera. ...
Male and female voices do not function in the same way for notes above their highest passaggio. The primary reason for this difference is the fact that the female voice is singing pitches in E5 to C6 range and male voices are singing pitches in the E4 to C5 range. The male voice is an octave lower than the female voice. That is so obvious it would seem redundant to mention it. However it is easy to forget that the harmonics are a numerical expressions of the lowest harmonic (which is also called the fundamental). Thus A4 has a fundamental of 440, its 2nd harmonic is 880, its 3rd harmonic is 1320, etc. A4 is a high note for a male voice but it is within the middle range of a female voice. A5 (880) is a high note for a female voice. Its 2nd harmonic would be 1760. Its 3rd harmonic would be 2460, etc. ...
The thickness of the vocal folds do not fit into two static categories such as thick or thin nor M1 and M2. The vocal folds change their length and their thickness in a continuous manner as the sung pitch is raised or lowered. In this they meet the myoelastic theory of vocal fold function as well as the aerodynamic theory that emphasis the Bernoulli Principal to assist with vocal fold closure. ...
The resonance strategy used by classical female voices in their middle range is to have the second formant of the vocal tract resonate the second harmonic (F2/H2) of the sound spectrum produced by the vocal folds (phonated tone). The higher one sings the higher the fundamental rises and so do all of the harmonics of that pitch. Eventually the second harmonic is too high and cannot be resonated by the second formant. Keep in mind that formants, which are the resonating potentials of the vocal tract, do not change their pitch. The pitches of formants can only be altered by changing the vowel being sung. All vowels have their own individual formant frequencies. ...
Mathew, as a new reader, has asked a lot of questions about the Singers Formant and Formants in general. This has opened a lot of doors that require some explanations. I will try to answer as directly and concisely as possible but this will be a bit long. Since this is a response to his questions you might want to look at his Comments in the Comments section of this blog. ...
Is it necessary to be concerned about what vowels a singer must use to produce a Singer’s Formant? The Singer’s Formant has no relation to the effect of vowels on resonance. This is because the Singer’s Formant is produced in an area of the vocal mechanism that is removed from the critical vowel resonance area. Singer’s Formant is produced in the aryepiglottic area which is directly above the vocal folds and directly below the pharyngeal and buccal areas which produce the vowels. ...
A larger voice will of course be heard as a larger voice if it has Singer’s Formant. If it doesn’t have Singer’s Formant it would not be easily heard over a full orchestra regardless of how large a voice it is. Intensity or volume of production has little to do with the ability to be heard over an orchestras. All male singers produce fundamentals that are mostly within the loudest sounds of the orchestra which extends up to about the 500 KZ range. So, by definition their fundamentals are covered over by the orchestra, They are heard only because, and if, they are able to produce some sonic emphasis in the regions in which the orchestra is weaker and that is in the range of the Singer’ Formant. As listeners we are not aware of all of this but our ears send messages to our brain that correlates the Singer’s Formant to a fundamental and it translates that message such that we hear a loud fundamental as well as lower overtones and recognize not only the pitch but even the vocal quality. It is a wonder of how our minds make reality for us. ...
Squillo, which is sometimes defined “as that piercing resonance” has nothing to do with the Singer’s Formant. Singer’s Formant does not give the voice its brightness. For example, Bjorling’s voice has seldom been classified as being as bright as Corelli’s yet his voice has more Singer’s Formant than does Corelli, and Corelli’s is substantial. The Singer’s Formant is created in the aryepiglottic space immediately above the vocal folds before the phonated sound enters the primary resonance spaces of the pharynx and mouth. As such it is not affected by vowel changes. All vowels are created by resonance changes in the pharynx and mouth and the primary control of vowel identity is the position of the tongue within these spaces. ...