Poor approximation (closure) of the vocal folds explains much of the breathiness that I encounter in my teaching, especially in my young female students. Students often need help developing a good onset of sound or attack at the start of a sung phrase.
Many untrained and self-conscious singers produce this tone in order to soften the edges of their voices so that they don’t sound as loud. Oftentimes, new students who have never taken lessons before are extremely nervous when they first meet me – a trained, professional singer - assuming that I will critique them harshly or make fun of them for their less-than-perfect singing voices. They then produce a very quiet, conservative, airy sound while singing in front of me. In some cases, the issue of self-consciousness becomes most pronounced during puberty, a time during which young students must contend with an inconsistency in their changing and maturing voices and must come to accept and embrace a newly emerging adult voice that sounds different than what they have grown accustomed to hearing themselves produce. The voice is a significant part of who we are as individuals, and if we don’t feel as though what we have to share is worthy of being heard by others, we may produce a non-projective, quiet singing or speaking voice. Sometimes improvements happen immediately, once the student becomes more comfortable singing in front of me, but most of the time, it takes some work to help them get past their psychological hang-ups so that we can clean up their tone.
Often there may be certain sections of a singer’s range, or certain notes, that seem to come out particularly breathy or unclear. Sometimes this faulty tone emerges around pivotal registration points or only within certain registers. Most often, breathiness in untrained males occurs in head voice, as these students either are afraid of hurting themselves by singing above speech-inflection range and hold back on breath energy to reduce volume and strain or are simply unaccustomed to hearing themselves sing in higher pitches and substitute a breathy falsetto-type voice for legitimate full voice. In young untrained females, breathiness often emerges in the middle register because they tend to relax their breath support and reduce their breath energy in this range where they are more comfortable singing the notes or because of underdevelopment of this range. In untrained females who have passed puberty, breathiness often occurs in head voice because they fail to make appropriate vowel modifications and then produce a “spread” vowel sound rather than experiencing the necessary “narrowing” of the vowels that would otherwise enable them to maintain a clear, free tone in the upper register. In lighter- or higher-voiced females, I sometimes notice a lack of focus in the tone when they are singing at the bottom of their chest or natural voice ranges. (The bottom extreme of a singer’s range is impaired by breathiness because the marked shortening of the vocal folds tends to set the folds apart and create a bulging mass within the vocal folds.) These women tend to produce a vocal fry-type mode of phonation, which can be damaging to the voice if used excessively. In all of these cases, improvement in vocal technique corrects the problem of breathiness in the voice.
Many singers struggle to maintain clarity in their tone only while singing certain vowels. More closed vowels – ones in which the tongue is positioned close to the roof of the mouth - such as the [e] and [i], tend to give many students problems because, while attempting to add openness to the vowel to prevent it from sounding tight or squeezed, singers often end up spreading the vowel. For others, more open vowels – ones in which the tongue is in a low position - such as [a], seem to invite breathiness. Front orback vowels, as well as vowels that are either rounded or unrounded, may also be more or less problematic for certain singers. Most singers seem to have difficulties with at least one vowel when they first walk into my studio, and the reasons for these problems are often easy to pinpoint but painstaking to correct. In most cases,articulation of vowels and vocal tract shaping are what need to be addressed and corrected, and old habits are often hard to break.
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