HOW TO DEVELOP THE VOICE

with
Robert L. Burgess

Fine Arts Building
Chicago
(312) 922.3263

Burgess@vocalmechanics.com

1 - ROT published on the Art of Singing and Vocal technique has been around for the better part of the twentieth Century, and the foundation of much of the vocal technical rot is based on a “posture” or on a singing stance, a posture adopted in vocal quarters as truth that cannot begin to serve the human voice. Even though we have live performance film of some of the greatest singers in recorded history, the authors chose to ignore these models of vocal perfection, and posit their beliefs on posture using their publications as soapboxes to push them. Consequently, their research produced a vocal technique as biased as it was false, and contributes heavily to careers ruined, dreams shattered, and voices left in shambles. But they wrote the book and we bought it. That the Alexander Technique, created by Frederick Matthias Alexander because he kept losing his voice, is offered at Julliard and other major schools of singing sadly confirms the statement. Applying the posture of the Alexander Technique to producing the voice and, in time, all hope of vocal fulfillment stagnates, withers, and eventually dies. I found Mr. Alexander’s “The Australian Story,” where he penned in detail how he discovered and developed his technique—and thirty years after the fact. 


2 - If Mr. Alexander didn’t document his discovery, if he didn’t enjoy the energy, the “buzz” in revealing his mental acumen and penetrating analysis, we would still have to deal with his nefarious and lamentable technique; but that he did, he put his neck in a noose. He reveals not just how his mistaken thinking took off, but more important, why it took hold of him the way it did. 

3 – Mr. Alexander (p. 139) was “a budding thespian and looked forward to Shakespearean reciting as a career.” But he began to have voice problems, which led to a complete vocal collapse. He called it “clergyman’s throat.” The conversation with his doctor, p. 140, in its tediousness, begins to reveal the personality responsible for his distorted thinking. Since the throat specialists (he consulted with a few) could not help him, he took it upon himself to figure out the problem. He knew his problem was in what he was doing (right) and, therefore, what (ever) he was doing was wrong (wrong). On p. 141 we read:  


4 - “Standing before a mirror I recited, and I soon noticed several things that I had not noticed when I was simply speaking. I saw that as soon as I started to recite, I tended ‘to pull back the head,’ depress the larynx and suck in breath through the mouth in such a way as to produce a grasping sound.” 

5 - And that had to be wrong because that’s what he was doing. And right there he is off on the wrong foot. He is now theory driven: how to correct it. The facts have been established. But about his facts: 

6 - Did he “pull back his head” consciously? No. Did he “depress the larynx” consciously when he took breath? No. And “suck in breath”? (A verbal used more to denigrate his speech patterns so as to promote his technique, I suspect. Keep in mind these words were penned thirty years after the fact.) No to all because these characteristics occurred on their own, sub-consciously (autonomic) and, therefore, maybe an instinct and instincts annot be summarily disregarded. It never occurred to him that in conversational speech one doesn’t have to elevate the head to be heard. But in the recitation of Shakespeare, or when calling a friend across the street, what is one to do other than lift one’s head?—put it down? If so, for what?—to relax the cords? It is an instinct to lift the head in the situation he witnessed in the mirror, but he didn’t see it that way. What he saw was wrong, and that’s all there was to it. He was excited, motivated; He was going to fix it. Whereas the energy for a research scientist is in the pursuit of a truth (fact driven), the truth for Mr. Alexander had all ready been established when he saw his head up in recitation. That had to be wrong, because he had all ready concluded whatever he did had to be wrong, because of his voice problems.

7 – In “The Australian Story,” he never questioned his speech patterns; never thought to observe the highly successful in his field. No. Righteous thinking requires righteous intentions. Mr. Alexander had an agenda. He was going to fix it all by himself, and that’s all there was to it. He is off and running. 

8 - A personality emerged in “The Australian Story” that was foreign to me. In telling his story he was expressing energy, but he was getting off more over putting his words on paper, than he was in what he was putting on paper. I followed him word for word and it didn’t make sense. The buzz was so strong, though, it allowed him to think that whatever he thought as true, was true, because it was he who thought it; that is, a crazed energy. I say this from hindsight, because at the time of reading “The Australian Story,” I wasn’t getting it. I didn’t know what to make of what I read, or of his unrelenting verbiage, or of where he was coming from . . . until I thought: Hitler.

9 - Out of the blue: Hitler. But in that moment, I knew. I’m reading, getting a sense of—and for the first time—a full-blown, flaming, megalomaniac. Hitler clued me in. (Mr. Alexander was not a wicked, evil, or sinister man; he was a megalomaniac who had a voice problem.) If there is a mistake in life, it is to live it based on a false premise. Well that may pertain to all of us to one degree or another, and it’s OK as long as my false premise doesn’t infringe on your false premise and vise versa. But when it does, then what? No matter how admirable the intentions of the Alexander Technique advocate/instructor, if the technique advocated is wrong, ruining career and voice—then what? 

10 - (I believe nothing I read as true until I know one way or the other and expect no one to accept my account of Mr. Alexander as true. Yet, I don’t expect anyone interested in developing the voice to even care (and why this is the Addendum), and I have no problem with that. This is where The Published Misinformation on The Art of Singing and Vocal Technique begins and “The Australian Story” is the noose. He reveals more than his twisted thinking; he reveals who he is—his motivation. As stated: if he didn’t write this we would still have to deal with his bogus technique, but that he did, the best way to expose the fraud is to introduce “The Australian Story” and the self-indulgent, self-deceptive fanatic that launched it. One can’t judge what another says as true or false about anything, unless the truth is known by the one who judges. But one doesn’t have to know anything about voice to pick up on the megalomania of Mr. F. M. Alexander revealed in “The Australian Story.”)

11 - If the world of singers were impervious to vocal fraud, and our art unaffected by spurious vocal principles, I wouldn’t care what the Alexander Technique taught. But when a vocal principle invades my world, my art, and vocally crippling as is the Alexander Technique, what is a singer who knows better to do? Turn the other cheek? Let this travesty continue to wreak vocal damage, as it has over the better part of the last Century? For what?—so as not to upset the institutions and the lives attached, if not devoted, to teaching a self-defeating vocal posture, a false principle, and to hell with the singers? I don’t think so. 

12 - I’m a singer. My arrow is for the technique of Mr. Alexander—that screwed-up posture. If I am successful and its aficionados, devotes, and institutions that support it are casualties, so be it. Alexander technicians leach a life off the most vulnerable of energies: young hearts with an unimpeachable desire to sing. They use this energy to feed their lives, and in return they feed the singers rot. I am here to expose the rot. 

13 - In the mid ‘80s I received an audio-tape program on Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP): a new science of behavior and personal achievement developed on the behavior-model of highly successful people. Of course, this “new science” was hardly new. It’s the one the pro baseball players used to identify the batting stance of the highly successful in their field. (See p. 3 of my web-site: Introduction to Volume II.) It has been around since the dawn of man’s imagination. If a cave man wanted to paint a horse, he studied a horse. (How brilliant does one have to be to figure that out?) NLP was exercised to a T in the development of the Old Italian School of Singing developed, as it was, through the observation, study, and analysis of the completely natural voice, a product of Italy (circa 1600). 

14 - Mr. Alexander had no use for such thinking. It didn’t support his theories, or his energy. In “The Australian Story” never once did he considered to observe one who recites successfully that at which he fails; or that his voice problems may have something to do with how he was shaping his words and that, of course, are the vowels of his words. For Mr. Alexander, vowel, the shaper of voice was a concept beyond his purpose, if not beyond his scope. What he came up with twisted, and we bought it. 

15 - There is paragraph after paragraph of his “stunning” revelations, only there was nothing stunning about them. His thoughts were all going down the wrong road. So instead of inspired vocal truth, we get inspired vocal hogwash. What do we buy? Neither. We buy the inspiration. We gravitate to the inspired, to their excitement, their sense of purpose, and often-times regardless of the product. Anyone who writes a book must know what he’s talking about. But who checked him out? Did he ever take his technique back to the stage, to performance? Does he know for sure? “The Australian Story” left no doubt Mr. Alexander had a creative genius and energy to match; it was just wrong-headed. Consequently, this is what we find in print, more often than not, regarding the singing stance. 

16 - William D. Leyerle, Vocal Development Through Organic Imagery (New York: Leyerle Publications, 1986) p. 4. 

“Imagine a string being attached to the back of the skull, and that the singer is suspended from that string as a puppet. The sensation is one of stretching the back side of the cervical vertebrae, or the neck portion of the spine. In other words, the singer will feel as if he has a longer neck and a straighter back.”

17 - On p. 2: “One way of checking if the back is sufficiently straight is to stand with back, head, buttocks, thighs, calves, and heels firmly against a wall. If the small of the back is pressed firmly against the wall so that one’s hand cannot be inserted between the small of the back and the wall, then the back is straight.”

18 - Mr. Leyerle has diagrams to show correct posture. I don’t think one has to be a master teacher or even a singer to know something is wrong here. What could possibly make the above instructions for posture more stupid? 

19 - Mr. Vennard chimes-in in 1967, p. 19: 

“The head, chest, and pelvis should be supported by the spine in such a way that they align themselves one under the other—head erect, chest high, pelvis tipped so that the ‘tail’ is tucked in. It helps to imagine that you are a marionette, hanging from strings, one attached to the top of your head and one attached to the top of your breast bone. This keeps the head erect and lifts the chest, allowing the pelvis just to “hang” in position. Imagine the strings pull you a little toward the audience, leaning perhaps a little forward. If your legs weary after considerable singing it is a good sign.” 

20 - I find this fatigue of leg, as a good sign, unbelievable. (If we are not centered, no matter what we are doing, our sense of gravity, our center, works against us.) And the drivel goes on to include “tense gluteus muscles when singing loud high notes.” Tell that to Gigli who took the top C in Rodolfo’s aria in La Boheme seated at the kitchen table. One well-known opera star tells us to stand on our toes for the high notes, while squeezing an imaginary dime tucked between our buttocks. Barbershopers call them “dime squeezers.” 

21 - In a master-class give my Richard Miller and sponsored by the Chicago Chapter of the National Association of Teacher’s of Singing (NATS), he told the audience: “When you sing, sing to the money people; sing to the first ten rows.” I sadly watched some of the singers desperately attempt to lean forward on the balls of their feet and sing and, at the same time, attempt to appear comfortable—disheartening. This was in late ’77 or early ‘78 at DePaul University School of Music. He was applauded and after afterward I could never bring myself to attend a NATS meeting. This is the Alexander Technique. 

22 - As stated in Caruso II, Video 1, I picked up The Structure of Singing to find out what muscle pulled down the thyroid cartilage when I sang the [u] vowel. On p. 252 we find the answer: 

“The sterno-thyroid muscle arises from the sternum and inserts along the oblique line of the thyroid cartilage and lowers the larynx by pulling the thyroid cartilage downward. The sterno-thyroid m tilts the thyroid cartilage down and forward, thereby enlarging the pharynx.” 

23 - Two sentences and no more on the one pair of muscles that must be fully developed if a singer is to experience the crowning glory of a well developed voice: effortless top notes. Two sentences, no more. Not a word on what makes it “tilt” down or why and its consequences; or that a vowel may have something to do with it, much less which one. Or what goes on with the elevators during this tilt, if anything. It enlarges the pharynx, because the thyroid notch is pulled down, and he mentions the obvious. He fails to mention the cords stretch and thin when the thyroid cartilage is pulled down, rooted, as they are just under the thyroid notch. Nor does he mention the glottis; the space between the cords and the value to vocal production when the slit between the cords is razor-thin. Or how difficult it is to muscle, or “dig” into the adducted vocal folds to manufacture sound, when the vibratory edges are drum-taut. Nor does he doesn’t mention that only cords stretched and thinned are capable of vibrating successfully on the top notes. That the two sentences appear in the appendix give it obligatory merit; it was a part of his job. I find nothing as to how the voice actually works. 

24 – What about the tongue? Does it come down with the thyroid cartilage when lowered by the sterno-thyroid m when the [u] vowel is engaged? He doesn’t mention it. We ask, because the diagram at the top of the page, found on p. 254 of The Structure of Sing, states the contrary:

Figure 4.5. “The positions of the vocal organs (based on data from X-ray photographs), and the spectra of the vowel sounds in the middle of the words heed, hid, head, had, hod, hawed, hood, who’d (From Peter Ladefoged, Elements of Acoustic Phonetics, 1962. Tenth impression, 1974. Chicago: University of Chicago Press).


25 - We know, as demonstrated in the Video II, clip 1 (video incomplete), the [o] vowel “structure” excavates the base of the throat as no other vowel structure, and I emphasize structure—voice box all the way down and back. The pharynx billowed out in back analogous to a parachute and the elevators resisting this downward pull in equal degree and stretch, narrow, and dome the pharyngeal pillars. The throat-pharynx is now fully orbed; no more space to be had for the [o] vowel. When the [u] vowel is engage through it, the laryngeal cover (thyroid cartilage) is pull/lowered further still, because hinged on the crico-thyroid (synovial) joint. We also know the tongue is rooted in the hyoid bone, and the hyoid bone is the top of voice box. Obviously, the tongue doesn’t sit high in the throat on the [u] vowel we demonstrate, because the larynx is in its lowest position. But in the X-ray photographs Mr. Miller uses to document correct vowel formation, the tongue sits as high in the throat for [u] as it sits for , and that’s not possible when [u] comes through an [o] vowel structure. 


26 - When I first viewed the eight diagrams depicting the larynx and tongue position for the above vowels, I was confused, stymied. Something was wrong here. This was my first foray into the physiology of voice. I didn’t know anything and who questions X-ray photographs? But I couldn’t make sense from these photo-diagrams—the tongue sitting as high for [u] as it sat for [i]—until it dawned on me. They’re speaking English. They’re taking X-rays of Americans or maybe of the English. What I see in these diagrams is how I talk—English. 
27 – I went to Wikipedia to learn of Mr. Peter Ladefoged: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Ladefoged. 

28 – Mr. Ladefoged was an “English-American linguist and phonetician and traveled the world over to document the distinct sounds of various languages, including African languages and some endangered languages, and pioneered ways to collect and study data; specifically on the cardinal vowels and their articulatory vs. auditory basis.” 

29 – It is obvious Mr. Ladefoged would use a Frenchman to document “the cardinal vowels and their articulatory vs. auditory basis” for French, an Italian for Italian, an Englishman for English, and an American for Anglo-American English. Whether Mr. Ladefoged’s subject was American or English for Elements of Acoustic Phonetics, I do not know, except to say the laryngeal/tongue position from hod on down to who’d in the photo-diagrams is going the wrong way. They are coming up. But when vowel formation is correct, they go down. 

30 – (I wondered if Mr. Ladefoged omitted the [e] vowel, as in hay, because in English [e] is not a pure, straight vowel; it’s diphthongized with the [i] vowel, as in hayee, payee, and so on. And the [o] vowel, as in hoed, is omitted and maybe for the same reason. In English, for the most part, [o] is diphthongized with the [u] vowel: hello[u], sew[u], and so on. I don’t know. It’s just that there is no possibility of diphthongizing the eight vowels (words) spoken above.)

31 – Mr. Miller apparently doesn’t know why the art of singing, the very school that gave it life, came from Italy. If he did, he would not have used X-ray photographs of English speaking people to document “correct” vowel formation based on these photographs. And then spend one-half dozen pages of mumbo-jumbo in support of X-ray photographs that (1) have no personal meaning for him, and (2) have no truth to the vowel formation responsible for beautiful singing. And why? Because he found them in a book, or to demonstrate that he has done his homework and read every NATS paper, every scientific journal, and every thing ever published on voice, including [i]Gray's Anatomy? That was my impression. 

32 – The laryngeal/tongue position for the vowels diagramed in Figure 4.5 is correct for English, but English did not produce the instruments that lured the likes of Monteverdi, Rossini, Verdi, et al. Those instruments were Italian and in existence or the composers, the music itself, would not come; just as Beethoven’s 5th would not be if not for the instruments, the orchestra thereof. If Mr. Miller would have gotten lucky and found X-ray photographs of a native speaking Italian, we would have had a different picture. Italians engage the depressors when they speak [o] and [u] and no other language does as readily. For a voice teacher to parade around as an authority on vocal technique, and not to know the connection between vocal technique and the Italian vowel, is not to know vocal technique. 

33 – He further reveals his ignorance of things vocal, when he borrows a phrase stemming from the days of the Old Italian School to support his spurious thinking and teachings (p.74):

“Cantare come se parla(to sing as one speaks) attests to a commitment to vowel formation in singing based on rapid adjustments of the vocal track.” 

(We assume he is referring to the vocal track adjustments depicted in the X-ray photo-diagrams for correct vowel formation.) 

34 – In other words, sing as you speak. If that were the case, the world of singers wouldn’t be in trouble. It’s the very adjustment of the vocal track in Figure 4.5 that is the problem. I bring it up because Mr. Miller misses the message. The message, “Cantare come si parla,” is in Italian, spoken by an Italian, to an Italian, is the language. The message is not true in English, French, German, or in any language other than Italian. The X-rays prove it doesn’t work in English, for that vowel formation/throat constriction is what kills American singers, and why we take voice lessons. And what is Mr. Miller telling us? 

35 – There is knowledge in knowing why Italy introduced the art of singing, but Mr. Miller has no clue. The five cardinal vowels are called Italian. When you and I speak them, they are no longer Italian, unless you are a native speaking Italian; they are English, or French if one is French. Only native speaking Italians apply the sounds that make them Italian and, according to figure 4.5, Mr. Miller doesn’t know that. (I cover these two vowels fully in the video I have yet to produce; nonetheless, the [o] and [u] vowel demonstrated in Volume I, parts 1 through 5, will service the depressors well.) 

36 – He attempts again on p. 153: “The oft-quoted statement of Pacchierotti, ‘Pronunciate chiaramente, ed il vostro canto sara perfetto.’ (‘Pronounce clearly and your singing will be perfect’) is a basic tenet of the historic Italian School.” Tell that to an American. Mr. Miller is out of touch. 

37 – When Mr. Miller attempts to sell us his thinking on the singing stance, he thoroughly cooks his own goose. He reveals how base his intentions and how stupid his attempt. 

38 – (P. 59) “The yawn, which produces pharyngeal enlargement and laryngeal depression, plays no part in those joyous moments of life; it has no role in active athletic movement, and it is not part of the imaginative, alert, creative moments of daily life. Why then assume a need for the yawn in singing when the open throat can be accomplished in singing by the same means as in other heightened situations of life? The yawn is an action that belongs to the tired, to the bored, an attitude of the weary spirit and body.”

39 – Mr. Miller fails to recognize the sophistry in his insipid syllogism: “a yawn belongs to the bored and tired and, therefore, does not serve voice.” We are not talking about a stimulus that opens the throat, one that admits to no voluntary control, reflexive and autonomic as it is. We are talking about the consequence thereof: an open throat. Who cares what triggers the throat open? Why give dominance to the stimulus over the result: an open throat. All we want to know is an open throat and the sensation that accompanies and identifies it. That’s all. If the stimulus to trigger the throat open were a gag response, I would apply it to opening the throat just as I apply the stimulus of a yawn-thought to open the throat: I fake it. I fake it, as Caruso suggests on p. 53: “as we would when showing our throat to a doctor.” And that’s how I take breath. 

40 – If Mr. Miller doesn’t have the intelligence to see through his fallacious logic, that’s dumb thing. But when he ramps up his vitriol on the yawn-thought breath as throat opener, we see why his thinking is so skewed. He, as with Mr. Alexander, has an agenda—an agenda that doesn’t include truth of purpose. He further denigrates the yawn/thought as throat opener by adding “the yawn quality in singing . . .” without any segue. Where did that come from? Throughout the work it’s open season on the “yawn,” and for what? To kill the yawn thought to open the throat? Yes, but the question is why? On p. 153 we read: 

41 – “Is it possible to remain free during singing while constantly depressing the tongue, spreading the pharyngeal wall, maintaining as extreme velar elevation, and lowering the larynx excessively—all concomitant with the yawn?” 

42 – What the hell is he talking about? The question above—“is it possible to remain free . . . ?” is not the question. How does one depress the larynx and sing at the same time as he suggests? 

43 – On p. 30, if you read between the lines, he tells us why he attempts to vilify this act of nature. 

44 – “Recline on a flat surface. Be certain the head is not tilted backward with elevated chin. Usually, depending on how the head sits naturally on the shoulders, it will be necessary to place a book under the head to avoid backward tilting. Maintaining this relationship of head, neck, and shoulders rise to a ‘noble’ standing position.” 


45 – “Noble” position? What’s the message here? Oh, yes, Mr. Miller, do let me be “noble.” If a fellow can’t think straight that’s stupid enough. But when he attempts to foist stupid on us (forget the voice ruining technique) by packaging it in “noble,” it smacks of a specious marketing ploy and for what? To weed the “wicked yawn” from vocal technique? To help establish the proper singing stance or vocal technique? Or to sell Mr. Miller? 

46 – The vocally damaging posture/technique he advocates is enough to move anyone to expose it for what it is. But my disgust for his motivation sweetens my effort. Mr. Miller, as with Mr. Alexander, doesn’t give a damn about the truth, the art, or the singer. 

47 – (Incidentally, in-breathing through the nose lying on the floor with head flat on the floor [chin is up] is an excellent exercise to instill natures’ in-breath. It can’t be done wrong. It’s impossible to raise the shoulders and chest lying flat on the floor and the breath has no place to go but straight to the base of the lungs. I will attend to breath in another video.) 

48 – Mr. Miller, Mr. Vennard, Mr. Leyerle, and others I haven’t referenced, all got posture wrong. And if posture is wrong it’s not possible to open the mouth correctly. Although they didn’t reference Mr. Alexander, what they advocate bears his influence: “attach an imaginary string to the back of the skull to stretch the back side of the cervical vertebrae lengthening the neck” (Mr. Leyerly). Or “stand with back, head, buttocks, thighs, calves, and heels firmly against a wall,” and “imagine the strings pulling you a little toward the audience (Mr. Vennard). Or “sing to the money people, first ten rows.” That is, sing with the head down or, as Mr. Miller advocates, in the “noble” position. (How absurd.) How this singing stance can be taught when we have singers, great singers for the viewing, such as Flagstad, Sutherland, Manuguerra, Gigli, and Caruso, to mention a few, singing with their heads up. This baffles me. If it’s all that important that one knows how to sit and rise centered from a chair, knock yourself out. But don’t tell me how to stand and sing when you can’t find one who stands and sings successfully the way you want me to posture myself to stand and sing. 

49 – In any book on singing, published in any year, check the chapter on “posture,” and I’m afraid you will find nothing contrary to what we have posted here. If singers came into the world with the desire and talent to play professional baseball equivalent to their desire and talent to sing, they would have played the game. Reverse it and no such luck. 

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Frederick Matthias Alexander, The Alexander Technique: The Essential Writings (Secaucus, N.J.: Carroll Publishing Group, 1990),selected and introduced by Edward Maizal.

 
Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini, Caruso and Tetrazzini on The Art of Singing(New York: Dover Publication, Inc, 1975). Unabridged and unaltered republication of the work originally published by The Metropolitan Company, Publishers, New York, in 1909.
 

Barbara M. Doscher, The Functional Unity of the Singing Voice, 2nd Edition (Lanham, Md., The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1994).
 

Frieda Hempel, My Golden Age of Singing (Portland, Oregon: Amedeus Press, 1998).


Edgar Herbert-Caesari, The Voice of the Mind (London: Robert Hale Limited, 1951).


E. Herbert-Caesari, The Science and Sensations of Vocal Tone (London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1938).


E. Herbert-Caesari, Tradition and Gigli (London: Robert Hale Limited, 1958).
 

E. Herbert-Caesari, The Alchemy of Voice (London: Robert Hale Limited, 1965).

 
E. Herbert-Caesari, The Vocal Truth (London: Robert Hale & Co., 1969).

 
Lilli Lehmann, How to Sing (Mineola, N. Y.: Dover Publications, Inc., 1993). (First published in German and in English in 1902.)

 
William D. Leyerle, Vocal Development Through Organic Imagery (New York: Leyerle Publications, 1986).

 
Richard Miller, The Structure of Singing (New York: Schirmer Books, 1986).

 
Lillian Nordica, Hints to Singers (Mineola, N. Y.: Dover Pulications, Inc., 1998). (First published in 1923.)

 
William Vennard, Singing, the Mechanism and the Technic (New York: Carl Fischer, Inc., 1967).