GuitarPrinciples Recommended Books
JaJamie's Personal Review & Recommendation

I told you about a great book on singing that gives a thorough overview of what singing is about, The Voice Book. I want to tell you about another incredible resource that gives great insight into a number of more specialized, but vital aspects of the mechanics of singing.

We tend to think of singing as a completely "natural" talent some people have; you can sing or you can't! Some people just open their mouths, and a beautiful sound comes out. The rest of us sound like we are having an asthma attack and are asked to be considerate of others and go somewhere else and croak private!  However, as any Principled Player knows concerning guitar, anyone can improve what they are able to do if they engage in practice that is based on scientific principles of sound production, as appropriate to the instrument producing the sound.

While it is true that some people are blessed with a superior natural instrument, we all do have instruments when it comes to singing, and these instruments  produce sound based on known scientific laws. As with guitar, pitifully few singing teachers are willing to admit this fact, and teach according to it ( a fact the author of this book frequently bemoans). For myself, I have spent many years suspecting that I needed a much deeper insight into certain subjects I had heard briefly referenced by teachers or books here and there; mainly the subjects of vowel production, consonant production, and the effects of tension and wrong use of the articulators (tongue, lips, soft palette) on the production of sound with the voice.

I was overjoyed to find this book "Voice-Tradition and Technology, A State Of The Art Studio", which contains all I was looking for and more! Not only does it clearly and completely explain the anatomy of vowels and consonants (the building blocks of the sounds we make in the form of words), there is a computer program included with the book that enables you to SEE on your computer what these vowels "look like" when sung!

Every vowel (and we sing on the vowels) is the result of a different "shaping" of the resonating chamber, and this shaping is created by the tongue and lips. "E" requires a different shape than "AH", and actually contains a different mixture of overtones (vibrational frequencies composing all sounds). The computer program, called a "spectogram" actually displays a visual representation of these frequencies, and you can SEE the difference between the vowels you sing. More importantly, you can see the difference between the "pure and open" vowels, which have more resonance, and the nasty constricted vowels that most of us sing (often the result of our speaking habits and regional dialects).

Even knowing these things exist and are important was quite a mind blower when I first learned them years ago, but I never could find a good resource for gaining a deep understanding of them until discovering this book. The Spectogram program was a real plus, giving me a way of practicing and improving what I was doing.

Some other mind expanding and practice empowering concepts you will learn about in this book are:

consonant-vowel joins: (p.103) "In a CV join, many singers raise their mandible (jawbone) for the production of the consonant, and then leave the jaw parked in that position while moving on to the next phoneme (sound). When this occurs, it will almost surely compromise the quality of the next vowel".

Now, isn't that an excellent thing to know about singing technique! It reminds me of The Principles, as it IS an essential principle of singing technique that every singer should know and be mindful of while practicing and singing. Best of all, the Spectogram program shows you visually this compromised quality of a wrongly produced vowel.

correct jaw placement for various consonants: one of the biggest problems for singers is too much tension and too much closing of the jaw during the production of various sounds, especially consonants. This results in too small a resonating space in the vocal tract, severely damaging the sound. It is very similar to excess tension going into the wrist for guitar players. A bad habit like this can cripple a guitar player or singer for a lifetime, if the problem is not pointed out and corrected. The author provides a chart of recommended degrees of jaw opening for different sounds, and ways to re-train your muscles to improve in this area. And of course, the Spectrogram program provides visual feedback on your progress.

Below is an example of how the Spectogram works. This is an image of me singing the vowels "ah-ee-ah-ee-ah". Notice how the configuration of colored lines changes. The higher yellow lines that appear as the EE is sung are the result of higher harmonics being accented as the tongue rises in back to produce the EE vowel, changing the shape of the resonator, and the resulting mixture of harmonics. This is a visual representation of the "brighter" sound of the EE vowel.

                  AAAAHHHH-EEEEEEEE-AAAAHHHH-EEEEEEEE-AAAAHHHH

I strongly recommend "Voice Technology" for anyone wishing to do serious work to improve their singing technique. It is a rich source of vital knowledge about the "Principles" of correct singing, as well as a powerful training tool you can use to make significant progress with or without the aid of a teacher.