Powerful Singing

Pop, Rock and Broadway singers belt it out.

Opera singers fill huge halls without a microphone.

Directors yell, “Send it to the back wall!!!”

Where does all that projection come from?

One of the most difficult things for me to verbalize to my students is the need to sing with the strength and endurance of an athlete. How do we make a sustained musical line that has energy, excitement, beauty and projection power?

Of course, there must be a level of physicality that matches the intensity of the vocal demands of a powerful piece of music. Just watch live performance videos and you will see that even the most elegant musical compositions cause singers to sweat––a lot. At the end of a piece it is not uncommon to see singers panting as they take their applause while rivulets of sweat drip from their faces. I can report that the costumes practically march themselves to the laundry after a show. Whew!

Stabilizing and controlling the rate and force of the thoracic diaphragm as we sing is the goal of breath support and management. But, in particular, the muscles of inhale and those of exhale need to be strong, flexible and balanced against one another. They create a powerful antagonism. Signora Rita Patané, with whom I was privileged to study for a brief time, would say, “Sing in the posture to inhale and inhale in the posture to sing!” The more strength in this antagonism, the more robust the sung tone. Singers must be very self aware to sense how much force they can apply to that antagonism without locking either the abdominal muscles or the ribcage muscles.

Singers should never attempt to propel the breath/sound from the body on a gush of air. We actually generate more projection power by holding air back. My beloved Audrey Stottler always said, “Sing on the air IN your body.”

However, there is a common misconception that vocal power must be the result of great effort in the laryngeal muscles. Yes, screaming, incorrect belting and techniques that call for a ‘held larynx’ do provide more volume. But, that much muscle power from the tiny muscles in and around the larynx puts singers at risk of injury and shortened careers.

Great singers of any genre have learned to isolate the muscles that supply power to singing. They can exert steady, heavy antagonistic pressure between those muscles and allow the tongue, jaw, neck, arms, hand, shoulders and even the face to be completely free of any work that ties to strength/breath support.

Many of the technical exercises in any voice studio are designed to eliminate harmful muscle contractions that unconsciously try to assist the large muscles used for support. When I ask a student for more ‘operatic’ energy, I have to be very alert to evidence of ‘false support’ in muscles outside of the trunk of the body and the legs. Examples:  #1–A student is asked to use more breath support for an ascending melodic line. I note that the area of the neck around the laryngeal cartilage at the base of the tongue is narrowing. The neck looks as if it is being held rather than resting loosely on the spine. Aha! Busted for false support! That area should actually remain soft and pliable. It may even widen a tiny bit as if it is being inflated from inside. #2–A student is asked to increase breath support at the end of phrases. Mysteriously, the left arm stiffens and the fingers of the left hand take on a ‘claw’ like position. Busted! Breath support is hard work. It should NOT be hard work for your arms and hands. 

I was busted by my trainer at the gym just last week when he admonished me to isolate the power needed to lift the weight on a leg extension machine. “This exercise ISN’T for your FACE!!! Forget you have an upper body!” After every new exercise he makes me tell him exactly how it felt and how much effort it required. If I use the wrong muscles, he is quick to correct me. Same principle.

I can’t stop writing until the evil tongue has been addressed. It, more than any other muscle, wants to be recruited to help produce powerful singing. If tongue is working hard, it must surely add energy to the sound. Well, yes, it does. But that stiff tongue energy destroys the balance of breath pressure inside the larynx. Tongues can be doing awful things without letting our brains know! Tongue awareness is crucial to free vocal production. The singer’s tongue is most definitely NOT part of the antagonistic musculature of inhale and exhale.

So, as we continue to work together to improve breathing techniques this term, experiment with adding more power to your singing. Use your knowledge to find the bottom, top and back of your support technique. Isolate that ‘power plant’ in the trunk of your body over a shoulder-width stance. Do you feel that power in large muscle groups? Can you add more power without locking or shaking? Do you feel your tongue? Can it stay totally relaxed in your mouth while your trunk muscles are doing very athletic things? How about your neck, jaw, etc.???