From: mgresham@dscatl.UUCP (Mark Gresham)
Newsgroups: rec.music.makers,rec.music.classical
Subject: Re: voice training and sinus conditions
Date: 13 Sep 92 04:29:42 GMT
Reply-To: mgresham@dscatl.UUCP (Mark Gresham)
Organization: Digital Systems Co,  Atlanta, Ga

In article <1992Sep11.121023.42903@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> brnt@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes:
>In article <1992Sep8.200108.24418@cs.ucla.edu>, gds@oahu.cs.ucla.edu (Greg Skinner) writes:
>> I've been working with a voice teacher for the last few months, mostly
>> on eliminating my voice break.  She thinks one problem I am having
>> with my progress is that I may have a deviated septum, or some other
>> sinus condition that has affected my ability to get a lot of resonance
>> in my head voice.  She recommended that I see an ENT (ear, nose, and
>> throat) specialist about it.  (In general, she recommends annual ENT
>> exams for all of her students.)
>
>There's a very good reason why you are having trouble "eliminating your voice
>break" (it's a horrible description for mixing registers),

Yes, if there is one thing that needs 'eliminating' it's the term
'break' from the vocal teaching/coaching vocabulary.

>it takes a very
>looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time, and a lot of very hard, boring
>work (did I mention how long it takes?)  I've been working on the technique for
>well over two and a half years, and I am just now doing it consistently.  Be
>patient, it's a lot like learning to walk; you have to retrain hundreds of
>muscles and learn dozens of new techniques to make it work.  Men have an
>especially hard time with learning it.  Female teachers (inexperienced ones)
>may not quite understand this since they have gone through their entire lives
>with just one voice.

Well, not really.  But they have not had the kind of traumatic
level of change that occurs with the male voice.
(The trauma for young males mostly being psychological, and the
long-term problems often due to inept school music teachers who
avoid dealing with it.)

>  You and I get the priveledge of getting a brand spanking
>new one around twelve or thirteen.

And rarely is it explained to a male student what to expect, and
rarely are they guided through and understanding of the changes
and recovering their upper register when the voice is physically
ready again.

>	The biggest problem I encountered was that when you sing in the upper
>registers correctly (at least while you are first learning the technique) it
>sounds HORRIBLE!  I have a very large, full voice and when I began to use more
>head voice I thought I sounded like a tenorino.  I had to be assured that it
>sounded good, usually about twice a day.  The important things to remember are
>1.) you cannot hear yourself.  It's crushing, but true.  The sound you are
>actually hearing bears no resemblance to what everyone else hears. 2.) you have
>to learn the technique first (bringing in the head voice) before you can start
>to make really good sound.

I concur 100% with the above paragraph.
One of the most common "head trips" is trying to make your voice
"sound good" to yourself, which almost invariably sounds worse to
others, increases tension in the mechanism, and can ultimately damage
the voice.  This is as true for female singers as it is for males.

(Brent must have had some contact with Christopher Moore at some
time in the past!)


Cheers,

--Mark Gresham

dscatl!mgresham@gatech.edu

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Newsgroups: rec.music.makers