Contrary to what some “modern vocal coaches” will try to tell us, it is indeed possible to competently sing many styles using classical technique. However, many people seem to think that an open throat is what causes people to have the characteristic “opera sound” that doesn’t always work too well for styles such as rock, country, gospel, pop, etc. So if all singing requires an open throat, what is the important factor that determines what sort of sound will be produced? The rock sound, the country sound, the Broadway sound – is it all produced at the vocal cords, or is it determined by the shape of the throat?
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Great question. I think this starts to get to the heart of what causes many people problems. I agree with your basic premise. But the answer to your question depends on how we define these concepts of “classical technique” and “open throat”.
What the “modern vocal coaches” are referring to as “classical technique” is the common, artificial imitation of the sound we associate with classical singing. And a big part of that imitative sound is what people refer to as an “open throat”.
Whenever our technique is based on a sound it is imitative. And when our technique is based on imitating a sound (rather than the basic fundamentals of sound production with the body) then we will be limited to the style of music whose sound we are imitating.
This is because we are creating a sound quality rather than naturally expressing a word and emotion that results in a sound. And the sound that is being created is an imitation of a certain type of sound, let’s say an operatic sound.
So if the technique of the singer is to create an operatic sound, then it will be out of place in a pop song. And because that is the only way this singer knows how to make a sound they are limited. They then have to resort to learning a new “technique” for pop, and country, and musicals, and rock. This is not a good situation.
On the other hand, if we define “classical technique” as the traditional Italian manner of using the voice naturally as a musical instrument, then I agree with your statement that we can apply that to non-classical styles of music as well.
Now, I should point out that although we associate the technique of using the voice naturally with the Italian tradition, it is not bound in any way to Italy or Italian music. It just so happens that the observation of the voice’s natural behavior originated in Italy. But I’m sure many of the same concepts were noticed around the world. And they can be observed and used by anyone in any style now.
This brings up another example of why I avoid the term “technique” and choose to focus on function. The concept of function seems to me to be more universal. Less at risk of confusion. Technique is open to interpretation and opinion. Too many variables for us to be able to discuss things and understand each other.
If we are talking about “Classical Technique” and I mean using the voice spontaneously and naturally with no artificial mannerisms. And you mean the way to make yourself sound like an opera singer by imitation. Then we will be using the same term but talking about completely different things.
The same situation applies to the concept of an “open throat”. For the imitative technique an open throat resembles a “yawn”. This creates a condition in the throat that causes the resonance to be trapped in the enlarged pharynx. It darkens the tone and creates the imitation of a big, impressive sound.
The way I define an “open throat” is one that is not closed.
When we talk of the throat what we are really referring to is the airway. The airway can be in a condition of being constricted or not, which is then “open”. It can’t really be “opened” because the normal condition of it is to be open. It can be closed, or constricted, by a number of different factors.
So our job to achieve an “open throat” is to remove the influences that cause the airway to close. As such, an open condition is a result of repose, not the result of doing something. So the idea of “opening” the throat is a misunderstanding of the nature of the airway and how it acts as a resonator for the voice.
The human animal is capable of a wide range of imitative sounds. These imitations are accomplished through complex manipulations of the throat/larynx complex. In other words through constrictions of the airway. So the “operatic”, “rock”, “pop”, “musical theater”, etc. “sound” is created through this skill of imitation. The identifiable sound of a particular style is determined by the shape, or more accurate-constriction– of the throat.
The problem that comes from this approach, other than the limitation to one style per “technique”, is the negative impact this imitation has on the physical instrument. Any time we imitate a sound we are deviating from our natural voice. We are introducing unnatural, interfering tensions into our body. When we do that we are causing the instrument to work in a way that it is not designed to work. Over time this will cause distress in the physical mechanism. Eventually the singer will experience difficulty with their voice.
This is the true purpose of learning and training to use the voice. So it will work for life. Not so you can learn to sound “like” someone or some style. Or so you can sound good or have a bigger voice or whatever. We will sound better and stronger as a result of better function. And we will accomplish it with a healthier voice also. But if we try to accomplish those more superficial objectives we will risk the health of the instrument.
It just doesn’t make much sense to try to get a “sound” that, if successful, will cause the voice to break down. If the voice breaks down you can’t do your job. Then what is it worth?
What I encourage people to go for is a vocalism that is functionally natural. Where the body is behaving as a musical instrument. With no limitation to a single style of music. If the voice is behaving completely and naturally we can take advantage of certain “reflexive responses” from the body that make singing somewhat automatic. And when we can utilize this aspect of our “living instrument” it makes the act of singing much easier.
It is simply allowing the different parts of the body do the job they are responsible for. The larynx and vocal cords are the material that provides the source vibration. The respiratory system provides air pressure to keep the vocal cords vibrating. The airway acts as a resonator to amplify the sound waves coming from the vibration of the vocal cords. Same as most other musical instruments.
This natural response also has the benefit of instinctively expressing the style of music, without being premeditated and contrived. The audience feels the expression directly because the singer is not placing any artificiality between them. The experience is like “thinking out loud”. It is the rare experience of a natural singer. It can be learned, but not through imitation.
Hope this helps. Thanks.
I understand that, and I was about to follow my previous comment up with a related note where I differentiated between covering a song and innovating it. The first example would be to recreate the music in a fashion similar to the original (style, instruments, etc.) while innovating it might involve changing the key, instruments, rhythm, or even the stylistic nuances (example: compare “Beautiful Day” by U2 to the version by Bad Boy of Opera).
When I say that my voice is better-suited to some songs, I am talking about styles in general. I am too young and too early in my vocal development to determine what my final vocal fach will be in a classical context, but I can tell you that when it comes to popular music, I would definitely be better-suited to music that requires a thicker voice. Innovating an already-existing song to suit my needs is another story. Thanks for responding.
Hi Joseph. I’m not a teacher or anything, but what Michael is saying is very very important. When we start singing we usually try to “model” or “copy” our favorite singers by trying to immitate their sound. It obviously doesn’t work. It’s important to separate the kind of music you enjoy or intend to sing from the way your favorite singers perform it. You can very well sing a song origiannly recorded by a higher voice – change the key! If it’s something lighter, why not do it with more intensity? Or if it is a huge sound, why not tone it down? There is no rule forbidding you to change a song for it to better suit your voice! And don’t try to sound exactly like the singer, give your own personal interpretation of the song! I say that because, when I was a teenager, a couple of my friends had garage bands, and their idea of singind was literally attempting to immitate the sound of Bruce Dickinson, James Dio, Rob Halford, etc. Of course they failed miserably! After a few years of fooling themselves (and some ugly vocal injuries for one of them), they just gave up on the whole thing, and they never ended up discovering their own sound. So don’t try to guide yourself by the sound of this or that singer. The most important thing is to figure out YOUR own voice, to experiment and discover what works best for YOUR voice. Good luck!
I happen to know a fair amount of basic vocal pedagogy, but all the time my eyes are being opened to new concepts and explanations of ideas that I wouldn’t have thought of before. Reading websites such as yours and Mr. Jones’ has helped me better understand the voice and in some cases synthesize my own conclusions (which sometimes have stood up and other times have been changed by more professional opinions).
And Beatrice, thank you for your insightful comments, both here and elsewhere on this website. I am inclined to agree with your point that not all voices are “cut out” or “made” for all songs of all styles. As a maturing lower-voiced singer (possibly a bass-baritone, but it’s too early to tell), I can imagine myself singing some non-classical repertoire but not others. I naturally have a deep and resonant (although not “booming”) voice, so I could perhaps see myself singing various musical theater parts or a style of music that requires a thick voice (similar to Josh Groban). But even if I had a great grasp of natural function and could sing competently, I would probably sound funny trying to sing something like John Denver or Steve Perry.
Take Denver for instance – his voice seems considerably lighter than mine, and if I tried to sound exactly like him, I’d possibly be taking a high-larynxed approach and it simply wouldn’t work. As for Steve Perry, well, I could probably hit the high notes in head voice with training, but it simply wouldn’t sound quite right. It’s as you said in another topic: even if a singer can reach the same notes as another singer of a different Fach (for instance, a bass singing a tenor piece), it simply wouldn’t sound the same. It’s like a cello playing some notes that a violin would normally play – they are the same notes, but the quality is different, so it wouldn’t be such a great substitute.
Personally, I want to be able to sing whatever I have my mind set upon and eventually help other singers to achieve the same thing, but all of us must strive to find the music that our voice can “specialize” in and gain competence in that. There’s nothing wrong with experimenting with other styles on the side once good function has been established, but I think that part of making one’s singing as good as it can be is to specialize (even if that means breaking new ground in music). I probably will never be a great rocker, but perhaps I’ll someday be a decent Phantom, and maybe someday I’ll be remembered for being the first to step into a whole new style.
You’re welcome, Joseph. It is good to see you grasping the correct concepts at your age. It will serve you well. Regarding imitation, I would say again, we never want to imitate a sound. It IS good for us to MODEL the vocal behavior (function/coordination) of a good singer. In other words imitate what they do with their body, not the sound they make. It is the difference between imitating the cause vs. imitating the effect.
Thanks for your response, Michael. It is certainly very sensible and helpful. I agree with what you say about the main downfall of some “classical technique” today, where a maestro’s idea of proper singing involves trying to create a certain type of sound, imitating an “ideal”. As has been said by people such as Lindquest and Jones, every voice should have its own unique quality, like a vocal fingerprint, so trying to change one’s voice to match another is sure to unnaturally manipulate the larynx and/or throat space, which is bound to cause tension when done too much (unless the voice being imitated is very similar to that of the imitator already). If teachers these days would go back to teaching proper function and coordination, then perhaps more singers would pursue a legitimate way to unlock their own vocal quality instead of dismissing classical technique as being “limiting”.
I am replying with a new post. Thanks, Bea.
Michael; that was an excellent discussion on how to sing. TOO MANY singers strive for a certain sound, whether it is operatic or pop. And in striving to create a sound, they destroy the ability to actually communicate meaning.
The only addition I would make is some voices are simply not suited to all types of music, even when using balanced function. Rosa Ponselle, for example, never had a “child’s voice” but from her young age a voice that was quite adult. She never studied singing, but could do what she did naturally. It suited opera more than any other type of music (and her incredible trill on any volume and for any length of time was a miracle even to other opera singers). She did record other types of music, and they were beautifully sung. But no matter what she sang, she didn’t sound “modern.”
Another point of style is that of what is excepted by the industry (sadly, this is a fact). People expect a “raw” sound in popular music, rock, and to an extent in gospel. It is expected, not just a side affect, that growling and gravel sounds come out of the throat. Sadly, NONE of these affects are good for the voice, nor do they follow any balanced use of the voice.
Putting aside what I call this “artificial opera sound” that we are hearing today (mostly caused by very light voices altering their natural sound to produce a dark sound that would be natural to a large voice) and consider the “classical” sound of singers who are actually blessed (taught) a balanced approach, there is still a freedom, a way of producing the sound that is not “natural” to popular music. It is too refined.
It is this difference that I believe colors the questioner’s comment. When one considers the expectations (and they are ALL artificual imitations of some expectation) of classical or popular music, they really do fly in completely different directions. There are performers in both fields whose singing is inbelievably beautiful, natural, and simply grabs the listener. HOWEVER, there are more in both fields that do nothing at all. Yet, fame is still awarded both types of singers.
There are some crossover singers (Elaine Farrell) who really did do well in both their chosen styles of singing (but she didn’t sing the raw sound so often used in rock, for example). There are NO modern pop singers who crossover into classical, especially opera, who are even remotely passable. They may sing the notes, but they haven’t the sound, no matter what they do, for that sound still requires heft, body, volume, and ring, not mics.
Even with well balanced singing, not all voices really can do all styles. And even then, each generalized field (classical/operatic and modern) has many subsets of styles within them. And not all singers, even those with proper balance, can successfully manage all those various styles.
You often use Jussi Bjorling as an example of a singer who really did have a very balanced approach. Yet, in nothing he sang did he ever remotely approach singing what we would call “modern music.” His very operatic style, as the questioner may call it, was never altered in any way to accommodate the music he sang. He was fortunate in the fact that most popular music of his day was very operatic. Even folk music of his country could be and was sung often by great operatic singers without distorting the music in any way. Nor did it require them to sing in any way different than they did on stage.
Yet in all honesty, he could never have sung “Annie get your gun,” “Show boat,” or “Sound of Music” with his vocal production and been acceptable to an audience (and those productions were created before the day of the microphone). As for singing gospel, rock, blues, or any such thing, he would have been booed off the stage for sounding “too strange and foreign.”
His voice was what it was, and nothing more. I think that there is a problem today, not so much of everyone thinking they must learn to sing every style, as a misunderstanding that the voice, when singing with balance will gravitate to what is natural to it. Then one only need master the styles of music that suit the voice. That is not limiting it, as some would say, or even as you implied. It is using it as nature intended you use it.
My natural voice, before training, really was far too large for popular music. It didn’t work with mics, and when I did master the use of a mic for crooning, I had to allow a great deal of air to pass over the folds (which is totally unhealthy) to create that “intimate sound” required for that kind of music. An extremely soft, but well focused sound, though beautiful and correct, was simply not acceptable. Though it didn’t sound operatic at all, it was still seen as “wrong” for the music, which actually required a more “earthy” growl to sound right.
I was directed into opera, even though it was not my first love. Directors, producers, and what have you in theatre really didn’t feel my voice suited the music, or the production requirements.
Now days, we want no distinction between speaking and singing. In the theatre, they expect that there is no alteration between the performer’s speaking voice and their singing voice. This “shifting into singing” is not acceptable. Singing is nothing more than a form of sustained talking on various pitches.
And that sort of speech is based on the level of volume of conversational speaking.
In the past, even in early broadway, singers learned to “operatically speak.” That may sound a strange term, but they were taught to use the same principals for speaking as they used for singing. The same support was required, the same resonnance, the same ring, etc. They didn’t have mics for the spoken parts then, so the sound had to have the same carrying power when speaking as when singing.
That very theatrical way of speaking is now seen as stilted and old fashioned. It isn’t even used in theatre, which now strives for the same level of speech one hears in movies.
Although it is correct that the body produces sound in exactly the same way whether singing classical or popular, and if the sound is produced in a healthy way it will be good sound, the basic desires of the different types of singing are now based entirely on something completely different.
Even a lay person knows this, and that is why they usually hate operatic voices (even if they are balanced in their production, for they still have the ring, volume, and color of an operatic voice, or a voice trained to sound like more than simply talking), especially when singing popular music.
But conversely, even if a popular artist sings with very balanced singing, they are horrible to the extreme when singing opera, as the very fire the voice requires is not there.
That is why I am a firm believer that one cannot know which style of music they will excel in the best UNTIL AFTER they have learned to sing in a balanced fashion. Only then, when the voice is developed and has become what it is meant to be, can a singer really know what is best for them to sing. They may love opera, but be suited to singing in church or nothing more than a choir. They may love popular music, broadway, country, or what have you, but are blessed with a voice that without going out of balance can blow the roof off a theatre, have such ring that after the note is no longer being sung the sound is still ringing about the theater, a naturally operatic voice, and be suited for nothing other than opera.
I personally feel people are deceiving themselves when they feel they really need to be perfect at singing all kinds and styles of music. That sort of versatility will not win them a career. It will actually slow it down, for no one will know how to market them.
As far as the singing with an “open throat” and “the production of the yawn” I have never found those images successful at all. They cause more constriction than they are meant to cure, especially the yawn example (which part of the yawn, it has something like 15 different stages to it, and it is only the third stage, or something like that, that actually allows the throat to be “free”; all other stages close it off and actually shove the tongue down the throat). I belief fully in simply allowing the throat to remain open, or free of constriction. If nothing is constricting it, then it is open. As soon as muscles are used to constrict the airways, the movement of the larynx, and what have you, the throat is no longer open, no matter how wide the pharynx is opened (or the mouth, like some people teach).
I have given my twenty cents worth. Personally, as the sound expectations between the various styles continue to move further and further apart, I am of the opinion that no matter how balanced the approach in singing, the expected sound will be so wide of the mark of good singing one will never really reconcile the idea of anyone being able to learn to sing classical music well and with balanced technique, and sing popular music in the way it is required/desired to be sung and to sound.