Ian Sidden

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Macro vs Micro

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Last week, I saw former NMSU alumna Kirstin Chávez give some lessons here as part of her Artist in Residence position. You know? She’s a pretty darned good teacher, and one thing really stood out to me:

She knows how to see the big picture.

One of my favorite distinctions in any field is macro/micro. It’s the difference between the overall big picture and the smaller details. You see this in a number of fields including evolution, economics, and … Star Craft (truly, search for micro and macro on Google and you’ll see the first result).

In singing we also have macro and micro. Let’s check out what I see as the macro side of things:

  • Breath
  • Life philosophy
  • Overall health
  • Body connection and coordination
  • Musical taste
  • Musical skills
  • Language comprehension

On the micro side we have:

  • Diction
  • Individual muscle tensions
  • Vibrato
  • Tuning
  • Vowel modification
  • Timbre
  • Loudness
  • Onset

The list could go on.

Any of the micro things could in fact be the most pressing issue for a singer. For example, if I’ve got everything else going great, but I insist on singing pure “Ah” vowels really high in my voice, then that is my most important problem.

But often it’s easy to miss the forest for the trees (or shift the deck chairs on the Titanic, etc.), and I’m as guilty as anyone. It’s so easy to get totally wrapped up in one micro issue and miss the macro issue that’s causing several smaller issues. It’s easy to notice the lack of vibrato and not notice that the singers isn’t taking in enough air to begin with. It’s easy to see one tension but miss the lack of air that’s causing it.

But we need to see ourselves and any singers we work with as total beings rather than just a collection of parts. And often, micro problems will vanish after working with the big picture. And when they don’t, then dig in for some micromanagement.

Strength vs. Technique

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Painting of man lifting barbell with one arm
What is more important: strength or technique?

More and more, I am appreciating the value of strength when it comes to singing. When I turned into a tenor, I could technically sing the high notes [mostly :)] . I knew what to do because I’d been secretly practicing them for years…

But they weren’t strong, and recently they’ve only gotten stronger because I’ve gotten stronger. I’ve been practicing the phrase from Rodolfo’s aria “Che gelida manina”, “Talor dal mio forziere”, which ascends to an Ab and then returns in that beautiful Puccini legato way. When I first tried this, I was miserable at it. But since I just obsessed over it, it’s gotten much easier.

Sure, my technique has gotten better, but I just feel stronger.

My teacher is experiencing a certain Renaissance in his voice due to simply [mainly] practicing a lot more. He thought that he had lost his high C. Nah. He had just lost the strength to do it.

But again, with his increased practicing, certain technical truths are becoming evident to him.

So my questions to you are:

  • What is more important? Strength or technique?
  • Are they equal?
  • Can one become so dominant that it fills in any weaknesses in the other? For example, perhaps one’s technique CAN become so good that strength is less of an issue…or vice versa.

Please leave a comment below.

Give it a Name: Reproduce what you’ve learned in studio

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Treat your ideas like babies! Name them.

Treat your ideas like babies! Name them.

As singers, we have all probably experienced the thought, “I could do it in my teacher’s studio, but I cannot do it anywhere else.” Being unable to reproduce results outside the studio is very frustrating and leads to insecurity when working away with the teacher. When I work with my students, I will often ask them to describe for themselves what they are experiencing. When I learn a new concept, I must boil it down into more manageable bits, or name it, before I can easily apply it. I believe this practice to be fundamental when learning how to sing.

To name and describe for yourself what you experienced in the studio offers a pathway to successfully mastering what has been learned. It offers a small but necessary first step to navigate through new techniques. Without this, a student may fall into the trap of trying to reproduce results without working through the method of achieving them. This can lead to fatigue and frustration and, ultimately, less desire to sing.

Where can this be applied?

Most obviously, this can be applied whenever you learn a new technique. Less obviously, it can be applied when you have to switch styles. Often, I am asked to sing in a musical theater setting where a total operatic production is inappropriate. Being able to name exactly what must change is a safe way of switching in and out of stlyes. There is less chance then that habits will leak from one style to the next.

Process

There is a process to naming. Namely, it is:

  1. Why: Why must you do this?
  2. What: What, as clearly as possible, must you do?
  3. Name: This must be simple.

These steps cannot be taken out of order, or else the names have no clear meaning to the student (and perhaps for the teacher as well).

Example

Recently, I received a coaching that was very useful. What I primarily learned was:

  • It is important to open my throat throughout my range to feel and communicate ease and beauty in my singing.

Of course, that “why” does very little for me process-wise, and so the coach and I had to boil it down into “what to do” ideas that are more concrete:

  • My voce naturale is in my chest voice.
  • Remember that voce naturale relaxation throughout my voice.
  • In chest voice, feel the vowel in my mouth. I can trust the sound of vowels here.
  • In the passaggio, leave an open [a] feeling in the throat and pronounce pure vowels with the front of my mouth. I cannot trust the sound of the vowel here to my own ears.
  • In the passaggio, protect my voice with closed vowel shapes in the front of my mouth.
  • Pick repertoire, for now, that reminds my throat what my voce naturale feels like.

And from there, with these understandings, I can break these ideas down further and name them.

  • voce naturale.
  • Open throat.
  • Mouth vowel.
  • Pear shaped vowel.
  • Cover or cuperto.
  • Be smart.

You’ll notice that the names I ended up with are common names that we classical singers use regularly. The problem arises when the name is used first without clear description of how to achieve it. When a problem arises with a name that has been carefully crafted, you may go back to step two and adjust the meaning. If the name no longer works, it may be abandoned.

“Right” Names?

Those descriptions and names work for me. They may not work for you. You may need something more, or less, esoteric. More and more, I am coming to the conclusion that a lot of what we do in lessons is try to find descriptions and names that really speak to us. And that is very important. If a description does not work for you, or for your students, drop it and try something else. We all have different tastes in literature, movies, music and so on, and why should it be different in singing? Just look at the varying descriptions of registers. All of those descriptions worked for somebody at some point and therefore should not be totally discounted. Vocal science, singing, and our imaginations interact in weird ways, and if the goal is good singing, being “right” in our descriptions of it may not be the most important priority.

As always, I would love to hear from you.

Thoughts on “Lift”

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In my last post, I was very excited about lift. Still am. But I have found some dangers.

It is important to note, for example, that a new technique does not render invalid all old techniques. It’s not necessary to sing with the most ring all of the time. In fact, in some settings, singing with too much ring in the voice is the worst thing to do (in choral settings with tight harmonies, for example). Be flexible.

Bad habits will tend to become problematic while learning a new technique. You may think that you have mastered them, but then they come right back up when you add a new technique. For me, it’s my tongue and jaw. For my students, their breath collapses or their neck becomes a tight wad of veins and tension. It may be different for you. Be careful.

For some reason, when people find a way to be louder, they concentrate on the loudness rather than the pathway to doing it. Be careful while practicing “lift” that you don’t get decibel happy and push with all your might from your abdominals. Remember, the point with this technique to to not have to use excessive amounts of breath pressure. Ride the brightness, not the loudness. If you feel any discomfort, take a break and evaluate what you are doing or ask your teacher or a trusted friend for help.

I am still very excited about using lift to help create a better resonance space, but I must temper this with my brain that remembers taking techniques too far and tiring myself out.

I would love to hear your thoughts. Have you tried something like this? Do you have other images? Do you think this is all crazy?

Story: Rockwell Blake and “Lift”

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Thanks, Rockwell Blake!

One day, I walked into my teacher’s office, and he, excitedly, showed me this video:

Despite his having seen it before, we both sat there exclaming and cursing and brain storming aloud what could have allowed Rockwell Blake to have such breath control (Since then, I must have watched it thirty times and have still been impressed every time). We came up with a few ideas:

  1. He bares his teeth.
  2. He never allows his rib cage to drop.
  3. He wrinkles his nose.
  4. He rides the “thin string” of the voice. He never allows his voice to get heavy sounding.
  5. He points.

In the interest of brevity, I will focus only on part of his technique.

The Introduction to Lift

A couple of weeks later, I performed “Von ewiger Liebe”, and in listening to the recording, I became frustrated. I thought my voice sounded inconsequential next to the piano. I lamented to my teacher, who took me outside and instructed me to find “lift” in my voice. I’d had some experience with this before, but this time he was insistent. So I lifted and lifted, and he became more and more pleased.  Other students of his remarked positively.

So I proceeded to practice on my own and ruin my voice for a few days by taking it too far and not warming up enough.

In doing so, I doubted myself and gave up on the lift idea. Weeks passed, and my recital came and went (It was a smashing success even without too much lift. I was really overwhelmed by the positive response). Everything was positive except on one point: I did not have enough ring in the sound because I was pulling my top lip down to sound darker.

In the three days since the recital I have gotten some impromptu lessons from Andrew, and all of them have focused on one idea: Lift. Lift. Lift. Lift. Lift. (The term itself is misleading. It feels like a general heightening, which implies a raising of the soft palette, but one can achieve a sense of lift while also dropping the soft palette.)

He explains lift as being multi-faceted: It lowers the larynx, while also widening the pharynx, which causes the vocal folds to come together more quickly, which in turn increases the amplitude of higher partials. The voice is louder and more ringing all around. Most importantly, it is louder without added breath pressure, thus it is safe. The singer experiences a brighter sound, which is confusing at first but actually helps the singer more easily track the voice. If the sound contains too much extra noise beyond brightness (to the singer), then it is probably too heavy. It also preserves the singers breath by more effective causing the cords to fully close.

There are several ways to achieve lift that I have been focusing on:

  1. Inhale through a wrinkled nose. Really wrinkle it up and then sing with it still wrinkled.
  2. Bare the top and bottom teeth.
  3. Imagine you are inhaling through slits above your cheekbones.
  4. Imagine an “inner smile”.
  5. Inhale as if you are smelling some wonderful smell, or “smell the rose”.
  6. Then, once found, ride the ensuing brightness and do not deviate.

So from the initial excitement over Rockwell Blake, I believe I have found, with my teachers’ help, a way to move toward a more “operatic” sound without over darkening or thickening the voice. Initial results from myself and my students (and Andrew’s students) have all been positive. Breathiness vanishes. Loudness increases. Phrase length increases. All without tiring the voice.