The kind of muscular strength needed is an articulatory kind of strength, the same kind of strength one might need for a skillful task such as handwriting.

One has to practice handwriting while using a technique. One is taught how to hold the pen, and what angle and position to use for maximum efficiency and the least amount of unnecessary tension (to prevent writer’s cramp). When learning to write, the student must practice the letters becoming smoother and smoother at hooking them together until eventually a flow is achieved. It takes many hours. The technique is used to build the strength. The technique is the method of acquiring the strength. The coordination becomes more possible as the strength develops. It all works together. If the pen is at the wrong angle, a slightly different aspect of the muscle will strengthen.

If anyone doesn’t think it takes strength to hand-write well, they should try to write again after a broken hand has mended and after it has become de-conditioned while it was in the cast. The person will find that besides the muscles of the hand that have become weak, there are also supporting muscles in the forearm, and there are even muscles in the back and shoulders, and the muscles needed to sit at the desk for long periods of time which need to be strong.

Besides needing strength merely to write a sentence, it takes another kind of strength sit at a desk and write an entire novel by hand. A strength of endurance.

I used to kind of think that the kind of strength needed for singing was a much more brute kind of strength, but I now know that the kind of strength needed is more like the kind of strength needed for handwriting. It is the kind of strength needed for precision, accuracy, smoothness, control of flow. There are some things the singer won’t be able to do until they are strong enough, yet the way to become strong enough to do it is to use the technique to get there. The wrong technique makes the singer strong in the wrong ways.

“Sure, Tara isn’t going to become an NFL lineman, and I’m not going to give birth, but we can all become strong singers, graceful and wise.”

I love it.

Seriously, though, having been a singer who relied a lot on strength to make up for what I was (unknowingly) lacking in technique…and, then, losing that strength in sickness…I can say that BOTH are very important. I believe it is about balance. I do believe that strength is not necessarily taught enough and, perhaps, it is because teachers do not want to lead anyone who is pushing their voice to lean more on the strength aspect. However, I think it is important that both are taught so that the student will know methods for developing both, when the time comes to incorporate something back in that was being too heavily relied on, before. Andrew, do you have any suggestions for building strength, aside from getting general exercise and doing regular vocal warm-up and practice?

If we think about some support models, there is indeed an element of eccentric contraction and also isometric contraction.

For example, “La lotta vocale” is the “contest” between inhalation actions and exhalation actions. We displace this effort to the breathing musculature so that our poor vocal folds are not the only structures slowing down the breath from escaping.

As we begin the phrase, if we do balance inhalation and exhalation, there will be a concentric contraction in our abdominals but an isometric contraction in our inhalation muscles, like the intercostals, to slow down the abs and to prevent collapse. As we run out of air, this force becomes too great for the inhalation muscles, so the contraction becomes an eccentric contraction because they are contracting even while they are lengthening. This is all done to control the airflow rate.

These contractions take real strength, and they can tire you out quickly if you are not accustomed to them. From Wikipedia:

Muscles undergoing heavy eccentric loading suffer greater damage when overloaded (such as during muscle building or strength training exercise) as compared to concentric loading…While unaccustomed heavy eccentric contractions can easily lead to overtraining, moderate training may confer protection against injury.

There is probably something similar happening between the various muscles of the larynx.

I’m currently a 40 year old male rock singer. Despite his battles with cancer, he is a very strong singer. His support seems strong but slightly squeezed down, despite instruction to expand up and out. It’s causing me to wonder about the different qualities of strength. This question comes largely from my lack of knowledge about anatomy, but is it useful to think of muscular support in terms of eccentric contraction (muscle fibers lengthen) rather than concentric contraction (muscle fibers shorten)?

Andrew, your comment brings up a good point. “Strength” can mean a variety of things in different contexts. In Tara’s response, the strength she was probably referring to the strength that can push and push look powerful. But you, Andrew, referred to “adapt”-able strength, which is the response by the body to new stresses placed upon it. It learns to deal with them.

Part of the reason to adapt like that is to avoid injury. This would imply that a major way to avoid injury while singing — beyond singing with efficient technique — is to maintain sufficient strength so that the muscle, bone and connective tissue can withstand the pressures of singing.

Thanks for the feedback!

My old master teachers were all excellent singers. They poured a flood of technical information into me, but they were also strong people who often emphasized the development of strength. One can think of strength training as just another form of learning: the muscles, bones, connective tissues, neurological pathways learning to adapt to a challenge by adding to their resources.

That is good news. Learning is very egalitarian and that a thing can be learned means we are not simply assigned to and trapped in categories of strong and weak, smart and stupid, sensitive and insensitive, clumsy and graceful. If we have the drive, curiosity, and willingness to change we have considerable freedom. Sure, Tara isn’t going to become an NFL lineman, and I’m not going to give birth, but we can all become strong singers, graceful and wise.

Part of my reason for asking the question is that I worry that we teachers don’t spend enough time on “strength training”. Back to my experience with the guitar for a moment; a player may understand how to play a barre chord, but without sufficient strength and dexterity, that player will never be able to play it.

I am certain that the same applies to singing. But I am not sure what part of singing falls into that category. High notes? Legato? Maybe.

Franco Corelli had an interesting idea about breathing (alas, I do not have the book Great Singers on Great Singing here, or else I would just quote him). He thought that we singers spend to much time analyzing the technical aspect of breathing, and that simply by getting strong enough in the throat breath would become a non-issue.

That might be an example where strength trumps technique in an exceptional singer. Of course, who knows exactly what he was doing with his breath? Perhaps he had stellar breath technique but poor articulation of it.