Scoring my chamber singers and S1 chorus video assessments this morning and felt compelled to write a brief blog this morning. My “why” to my choral program is to develop individual musicians. The foundational piece is the development of the individual student’s technique as a singer. The music they sing in class is a vehicle through which they can apply and refine their technique but no music can “teach” technique. This is why adopting a mindset of group voice lessons is essential: without it, it’s just, “singin’ together”. Which is not an academic objective for individual students. Some strategies for my YHS Indicators:

TONE; LOFT – I preach “ring” (the resonance) and “loft” (the space). I refer to the latter as an inverted lightbulb space. Since most speaking voices tend to have more ring than loft, my starting point is to develop the loft. When you’re doing group lessons, it really is about throwing the spaghetti at the refrigerator, because one descriptor is going to work for some but not for others. Some of my students immediately broke through when we take class time to explore with the tip of our tongue the space where the teeth and gums meet, then further back to the hard palate, and then further back to the soft palate (eureka!!) – and finally what it feels like to raise that in a yawn sensation. For others it’s the “marshmallow” feeling inside the mouth. For others it’s “novocaine jaw”. Come up with a variety of ways to explore the loft as a class and see what happens. It’s then essential to practice singing without it (remember that sensation and sound) the practice with ONLY loft (it will sound odd and feel weird) and then try singing with a speaking voice but WITH loft attached (should sound more mature, full, open, free, etc… ask the kids what they hear). Once established, it has to be the non-negotiable *every* time they sing. If you’re doing a warmup that works against good loft, be careful with it: do you really want to go there and undo their good work to that point?

TONE; RING – There are so many approaches to developing resonance out there, I hardly need to even mention this. But I will say the most successful pieces of spaghetti I’ve tossed is the “singing through the top front teeth”. I’ve already talked with my students about the resonators, nasal cavity, etc, so they know it isn’t the front teeth that cause resonance. However, that has been an effective way for many of my students to find it. For others it’s identifying the tone of their speaking voice. For some it’s singing from between the eyes. Some of these don’t work for me personally, but that’s no reason not to use them. If an approach works for even one of my students, it’s essential to explore that approach as a group. One more thing: earlier in my career I preached a 50/50 split of ring and loft to convey that the singing voice must have both. A breakthrough for one of my kids a number of years ago was when we thought of it as 100/100 split. Then they disconnected from each other and were reinforced as independent entities. I swear by that mental approach now.

BREATH – I have multiple approaches to breathing (depending on whether I’m teaching a CP class or an honors class is a big variable… the first is learning it and taking baby steps over the course of the semester, the latter is all about application in warmups every day). My basic approach is to teach the coffee can: singing with a coffee can on your belly and the can moves outward when you breathe. We do this in class with fists, slow breaths, quick “surprised” breaths, technical lying down on the floor with something on your belly breaths (literally!!! I never require a class to do this, but I invite anyone who would like to and the others observe… it’s never failed in its effectiveness for those doing the lying down *or* those observing). We do a 3 second inhale using a shoulder breath and then see how long you can go “shhh” before having to sit down because you ran out of breath (I count out loud the seconds while they are doing it) and then standing up, doing the same with an open mouth and fist on the belly breath and discussing how much longer they were able to go “shhh” for the second time and why. Then that also becomes a non-negotiable in class from then on. Do I know for sure they’re all doing a good diaphragm breath? Absolutely not. But I can be a jerk about reinforcing it, and continually calling it out. Most if not all the kids, due to already discovering first hand how much better they breathe when they do so, have bought in to the benefit. By making this a foundational expectation, it’s no surprise that the students do begin to identify the fact that, “your singing breath is not the same as your speaking breath”. A belt of noses, singing from the belt buckle are a couple of other isolated things we will do in class. I also insist on an open mouth for their breathing, and THAT I do know for sure if they are all doing. As a matter of fact, I will randomly give an assessment on “jaw” without telling them in class from time to time (it can be a low, open jaw while they are actually singing AND/OR while they are breathing… over the span of a class by scanning, it is quite easy to give an accurate score for each individual student). For honors classes, I will require them to do the laying on the ground with something on their belly from time to time. I also am constantly calling them out on their application of their good breath: extending phrases, getting louder without noticing any other physical difference, and removing anything that inhibits good breathing technique… such as tension.

TENSION; SHOULDERS – We talk in class a lot about how there are literally no muscles that connect the shoulders to the breathing mechanism, and that we have to manually MAKE the shoulders move to get them to go up during breathing. The proof? The laying down exercise that established the breath: not a single person falls asleep moving their shoulders 😉 Technicians of vocal pedagogy would have a lot to say on this but, dude, I’m working with 15 year olds who aren’t going into a singing or music career. Whatever get’s them to apply the concepts, game on. In any group setting it is a piece of cake to hold your singers accountable for shoulder movement. When I see it, I don’t call out individuals (that’s a no-no in any group setting or voice lesson). But I do stop the whole group and call attention to it. Invariably the culprits make the adjustment due to stopping and calling it out. This also begs by the way that torsos be high enough to begin with (posture) so that the shoulders don’t have to go up due to poor body position.

TENSION; NECK – This is another easy one to see, a tough one to fix. But I address fixing this to a) the breathing mechanism, b) the “ring” placement and c) the novocaine jaw. Neck tension may be the #1 inhibitor of good singing technique that I’ve experienced in my singers over the years, particularly tenors and sopranos, and addressing it – continually – in a group setting has to be a priority for any choral program wishing to develop good vocal technique. The other thing I will will do is talk about the correlation between head direction and height of pitch. When singing higher notes, the air passage in the neck has be very open and we discuss how raising the head actually constricts. In a perfect world, the head never moves to accommodate pitch. But I preach that, if you are going to move it, move the head the *opposite* direction of the note. In actuality I don’t care about someone moving the head up as they sing lower notes: they tend to never do that. But if they are moving their head down ever so slightly as they sing progressively higher notes, it’s amazing how much neck tension gets removed. The moment I see neck tension in rehearsal – warmups or especially in the literature – I stop what we’re doing and address it.

TENSION: JAW – This discussion can tie in with the concept of loft, and I often do tie them in together. We do flutters (“pppppp” with the lips on pitch, followed by “aw” of the same pitch or pitches to see if that frees up the jaw), and I also try to identify early on if there are any students with legit medical issues around their jaw. I make VERY sure to tell the students not to over extend their jaw when it goes down low, but to keep the jaw free whole also open and a lot of imagery around that.

A few follow-up points…

• I invariably have the students help me come up with imagery tips that work for them when something finally clicks. The entire ensemble benefits from hearing multiple ways of approaching or solving a pedagogy issue.

• Every, and I mean EVERY single student gets feedback from me on their own voice every 2 to 3 weeks, invariably through video assessments which usually require a video component. I will assess them on tone and/or jaw (2 separate indicators) but connect these two in my personal feedback (my video assessments in detail here). When they get my voice recording giving them feedback, I will always mention their tone and their jaw placement. If I see tension ANYWHERE, it’s addressed with possible approaches how to work on it in class the following two weeks.

• All of this takes time away from our literature, but 100% of it makes our literature performances supremely more musical. If our literature is there to apply individual vocal technique, the students will be the beneficiaries, but so will the literature. If I want my concerts to sound better? Focus less on the songs, more on the students.

• All this requires patience on the part of me the teacher as well as my students. Sometimes the changes are incredibly gradual. That doesn’t mean they’re not happening. If you establish that your choral classroom is a group lesson, the students will buy into this. Trust me.

• One of my classes is something called Vocal Workshop which meets during the students lunches, but is for academic credit. This IS the opportunity to do 1 on 1 instruction, usually with other students present and contributing to the lesson/providing feedback and tips themselves. While this is not a group lesson per se, I draw the parallel to a science lab which extends, enhances and compliments their learning in class. I can’t recommend it enough.

I have often reminded my students of all levels that the voice is the only instrument ever created that they will never ever be able to see nor touch. Consequently, while everyone can sing, it is extraordinarily difficult to sing “well”, and usually has nothing to do with talent. Developing the building blocks to good vocal pedagogy is perhaps *the* most important gift we can give to our ensembles.