KIZUChoralator

F.    Self-Critical Awareness

Because music is a temporal art and any given example of it begins and ends at specific points in time, good performance dictates a continual self evaluation both at the time of presentation and in preparation. This is especially true concerning issues of intonation. Correct and consistent intonation requires a continual monitoring on the part of the singer or instrumentalist. While this may seem obvious, it may be easily forgotten or overlooked in all the detail work involved in preparing a song for performance.

Although great emphasis has been placed on the singer focusing on feeling and its role in good music production, no musician can afford to take listening for granted. Good intonation requires effective, consistent and continual aural monitoring of the produced sound not only in terms of the relationship among the tones produced but also in its relationship to other musicians and to accompaniment.

This kind of self-awareness cannot be taken for granted. It must become an integral part of the process of both musical preparation and presentation. As such, it represents a kind of habit that invades the entire process and one that is eminently vital since so many factors can affect musical intonation. Unless the singer has this cognitive positioning built into the process, there will always be a danger of taking intonation for granted. When that happens, invariably problems crop up.

E.    Kinaesthetics of Tone Production

Proper intonation is a joy to the ear. It does not matter whether the singer is performing an operatic aria or a nursery rhyme. If it is sung well in tune, it is a pleasure to hear. If not the singer’s efforts rag on the ear like finger nails on a chalkboard. As discussed above, critical listening is essential. One must listen, not just hear, to the accompaniment, to the intonation of one’s voice and to the blending of the two to make certain that all is well.

Yet there is more. Each of us has, within us, a sixth sense that is closely allied to the feeling of touch. It is the sense that detects changes and alterations within our physical bodies. It is manifest clearly in our sense of balance when riding a bicycle but also in the various changes we sense internally as our bodies adjust to the myriad events that assail us throughout our lives. This sense is generally known as kinesthetic awareness.

This sixth sense is an essential feature of our ability to sing in tune. Each note produced by the singer is caused by un unique set of muscular and tendonal events inside our bodies that we can feel. Each note produces tiny variations in areas of resonance throughout the head and chest cavities. In other words, each and every note that we produce causes physical changes in our bodies that we feel.

The singer has to not only feel these events, but must also interpret their meaning as they relate to the pitch and the qualities of tone production required by the music. To the degree that the singer is capable of interpreting these kinesthetic sensations, will he or she be able to make the continuous miniscule adjustments of pitch and timbre essential to a musical performance.

Such a skill is not acquired overnight. It takes guidance by a sensitive and knowledgeable singing teacher as well as focussed and dedicated practice by students. Practice and lesson times, especially when working on technique, are particularly good occasions to focus on kinesthetic awareness. Try to focus on what feels right rather than what sounds good to your ears. This is not to negate the importance of listening. However, it is equally important to focus on the feelings attendant on proper performance for these feelings can be memorized and thus, repeated.

It is important to remember that what one hears of one’s own voice is coloured by numerous factors, two of the most important of which are room acoustics and skull vibration. Room acoustics change as one goes from room to room. Consequently, what we hear also changes. For this reason it is difficult, if not impossible, to base a singing technique on what we hear from our surroundings. Furthermore, much of what we hear of our own voice is transmitted directly to our ears via bone and skull conduction. This vibration colours the sound that we hear. An audience is not privy to our bone conduction. Therefore, what they hear and what we hear are two different things. A teacher or coach is giving feedback to the singer as to what the audience hears. It is essential that when the coach provides supportive feedback that the singer translate this into an awareness of body sensations that can be repeated. In this way correct performance is based on “Does it feel right?” rather than on “Does it sound right”. If it feels right it usually sounds right.

D.  The Need for Effective Warm-up

It would be unthinkable for an athlete so simply show up for a soccer game or a marathon run without adequate warm-up and stretching of large muscles. To do so would be to invite injury to the muscles involved in the activity. Yet that is precisely what singers do every day when they show up to choir practise or a performance without adequate warm-up to their voices. The muscles of the throat that control the voice are tiny and vulnerable to injury no less than the large muscles of the legs and arms and therefore, require a gentle and comprehensive warm-up before any prolonged workout.

Many choristers depend on the warm-up provided by choral directors at the beginning of a practise. However, so much work needs to be accomplished in the relatively short time available during the practise, that choir directors are loathe to spend more than a few moments on a process that, done correctly, should require about 15 to 20 minutes.

Furthermore, choir directors have other fish to fry during the so-called warm-ups. This is often the time when the choir director tries to develop issues such as choral blend, uniformity of tone and other issues relating to the general fine sound of the choir, but which, in fact does nothing to properly warm-up the singers’ voices.

The warm-up process should be gradual, comprehensive and gentle. It needs to begin with a soft vowel sound focussing on the proper placement of the sound in the mask of the face. As the warm-up progresses, and the vocalizing gains in strength, this placement must be maintained and the voice not allowed to slip into the throat.

At the same time, the vocalizing process must be comprehensive in that each note that the singer is capable of producing must be practised evenly and consistently. For this to happen, the exersise program must start with a relatively small vocal range and gradually increase that range until the whole voice has been warmed. It is imperative that the exercises employed in the warm-up be properly worked out to accomplish this.

The process that the singer employs to warm-up the voice must in no way cause stress to the voice. To this end the exercises employed must begin with a high placement of the sound and a very soft tone. As the process continues, more and more tone is employed until the later exercises are performed in full voice. At this time the singer is ready to perform. It must be stressed, however, that this process cannot be rushed and to do so is inviting difficlty and weariness in singing, poor vocal production and possible damage to the vocal chords themselves.

A good warm-up is the best gift one can give onesself and a good way to ensure that one’s voice will be productive throughout life.

C. The Art of Listening

Singing in tune is largely a matter of effective coordination executed among the ear, the brain and the voice. Therefore, in order to sing in tune it is necessary to develop effective listening skills. We are a society that has grown up on radio, television etc. so much good ear training is already accomplished by the time an individual goes to kindergarten. It is not unusual for young children to be able to distinguish pitch differences as small as three cents (3/100 of a semitone) between two simultaneously played notes. It is to be expected, then that these people, if exposed to out of tune music making will react with horror. They likely will not even be able to articulate why the music sounds bad to them. They just know that it sounds bad.

Two musical tones sounded together should produce a single unwavering sound even accounting for timbral differences. As the pitch of one of the sound begins to depart from a perfect unison, “beats” will be heard. These “beats” sound like a wavering in the loudness of the pitch as the diverging pitches both cancel and reinforce each other. These “beats” will become faster as the pitches of the two notes diverge farther apart. Conversely, as the notes become closer to being in pitch, the beats will gradually slow and disappear as the notes become in tune.

As musicians striving to improve our listening skills, there are a number of things we can do.

1.      Listen to as much music as we can. As musicians, this should be a pleasure. However, it is important to really listen and to focus on the intonation of the music you are listening to.

2.      Whether you are a vocalist or an instrumentalist, go to a keyboard and play random notes in your vocal range. Sing the note that you hear, trying to place your note into the center of the pitch. Listen carefully.

3.      As an instrumentalist, find another player and quietly both play a single pitch. Listen for beats. Keep playing until the beats disappear. If the beats are slowing down, you’re both going in the right direction. If they are getting faster, at least one of you needs to adjust pitch. If both of you are adjusting you might never get in tune so determine who will adjust pitch before you start.

4.      As singers in a choir, constantly focus on how your voice blends with others in your section. If you can hear your own voice above everyone else in the section you are too loud and more likely to sing out of tune.

5.      Periodically, it really helps to “put on the earphones”. One of the greatest difficulties we have as singers is to hear ourselves as others hear us. This is because much of our hearing of our own voices comes as a result of the vibration of our skulls. This is why our voices sound different to us when we hear a recording of ourselves. We get a better sense of the outside sound of our voices when we cup our hands around our ears while we sing. Try it. You’ll find that you can hear not only your own voice louder, clearer and more distinctly, but also the accompaniment, and other ambient noises in the room. This is a great aid to determining how well in tune we are singing.

B.    Projection

Although singing is, to be sure, a function of proper use of physical attributes, much of it has to do with activity in our brains. A case in point is the issue of projection. Projection is the movement of sound energy from the position of the singer to that of the listener. The movement of this energy is a function of the same part of the brain that controls other kinds of co-ordinative activities such as driving a car, catching a ball etc. This part of the brain is non-rational. That is to say, it is incapable of independent conscious thought.

 However, it does respond to imaging. A familiar example will illuminate this. Have you ever gotten into your car on a dark and stormy night and had the feeling that there was someone hiding in the back?  If you have, you will be all too familiar with the physical manifestations of fear such as increased heart and breath rate. Even though there is no actual reason for fear, a part of the brain responds to the image and prepares the body for “fight or flight”. In the same way, if the conscious mind sends an image of sound and air travelling to a solid object, that sound will be projected without any great effort on the part of the singer. All the singer must do to adequately project sound is to find an object some distance away and visualise the sound travelling to and touching that object.

The steady movement of energy in this way ensures that sound will progress out to the audience. To be sure, projection alone does not ensure any qualitative attributes to the singing, but without it good intonation is virtually impossible. Indeed, tuning suffers as a result of inconsistency in projection. It is vital that sound is projected in a steady stream during the singing. If the singer pushes the tone, it can sharpen (rise slightly in pitch). If the singer pulls back on steady projection the tone can flatten. Both of these conditions make the resulting singing most unpleasant to listen to.

A useful image to visualise is that of riding a bicycle along an absolutely flat road. The trick is to keep the bicycle going at a steady pace always toward the goal. In this case the goal is the object selected.

A. Introduction

The importance of accurate intonation for the singer or instrumentalist cannot be overemphasized. Almost all of us living today have grown up in a society dominated by radio, recordings and television. The consequence of this is a large portion of our civilization has extremely keen awareness of music played with accurate intonation. The human ear is capable of distinguishing very small variations in pitch and although most people cannot tell technically what is wrong with out of tune music, they definitely know something is seriously not pleasant.

It is not inconceivable that singers, who otherwise have superb voices and technical equipment, inspire absolute horror in their audiences as a result of bad intonation. On the other hand, singers whose instruments may be lacking in natural beauty and whose technique may be somewhat lacking in sophistication are able to elicit an enthusiastic response from their audience.

Therefore, what is necessary to singers from the very beginning of their training is a constant reminder of the necessity for accurate intonation. Anything less than 100% accuracy must be considered out of tune. One of the best images I have heard to describe the problem is to imagine a small bull’s-eye. Our job as singers is to hit the centre of the bull’s-eye each and every time we produce a note. Anything less than centering the pitch of each and every note will produce audible and objectionable out of tuneness.

Not only does poor intonation offend the ear of an audience, it often causes emotional distress as well. Many of us can remember concerts we have attended where performers, for whatever reasons, were singing out of tune. The result for many people is an inward cringing that often becomes associated with the music itself so that for long periods of time even a good performance of the music produces feelings of acute discomfort.

The following series of articles will attempt to address a number of issues that I consider to be central for improving intonation in singers. These are all issues that I address with singing students and they are ones that I find myself repeating over and over. Intonation can never be taken for granted. For as long as we sing, we must constantly monitor what comes out of our mouths. As long as we critically monitor  our own singing, nobody else has to.

B.    Projection

C.    The Art of Listening

D.    The Need for Effective Warm-up

E.     Kinaesthetics of Tone Production

F.     Self-Critical Awareness

G.    Importance of a Musical Introduction

H.    Breath Support

I.     The Importance of Space

J.     The Importance of Energy

K.    Additional Issues

by Bill Crane - KIZUMUSIC  - watch for upcoming articles on the above topics