What is it the voice sound? Does a voice sounds always the same and having always the same perception of physical work to start a sound?
Sound is a wave, starting from a vibrating source. A trained singer with his memory will have a complex reaction and he’ll have his body ready to make the note required and vocal folds vibrating, slightly before we put the energy and the mucosa wave that starts the sound heard outside (an experienced singer can prolonge this moment of singing without sound for quite a long time and it is something special to experience). Inside we have lots of other structures vibrating, we are not at the zero absolute point so everything in us ocillates, sometimes vibrating in accordance with something else outside transmitting the oscillation or determined by our specific inside or even a sum of both. A good point to start singing is to just give an internal movement to breath related structures so to have a clear sound coming from our instrument that is generally what is perceived as our voice. The interpreter will make you dream, and have all this incredible effects a voice can have, does not just listen to its vocal folds and big muscles vibrating the note but hears and chooses something more precise perceived inside or outside, and puts the wave starting from this other point of oscillation or its waves to reach it in a summable way so to sum it in his proper voice and so making heard what sometimes we call the invisible that become visible. Truest interpreter will sound on something they feel as something precious or significant or simply with an inexplicable charm vibrating somewhere and just making it being where the wave starts or arrives to give it a voice.
Tag: singing
Vocal tips. The excess of ego.
My artists know well how I can be tough and not movable in asking them to solve together something that I call an ego excess and it is not the natural exaltation of ego on scene. What I talk about is the not solved ego that wants to state its existence all the time, especially under stress (we always sing under stress that you can also call energy). I will say something engineers can understand well: if you want to make some waves and not only turbulences and crushes you have to manage every source of oscillation and manage the waves produced. We have inside many sources of oscillations and we also react to those outside so we biologically and physically have many sources of waves. Voice production is according all the sources to manage and sum or to manage the waves produced internally to become a sound. An ego not solved states its existence making a fight and crushing everything not born from him, so fighting every wave or source it has not given precedent permission so it and it is just useless and not adapt to have a control. An ego solved will collaborate to manage and create and accord this sum of waves produced by all can react in a human. (Not to talk the obvious successive reacting and according with others musicians also producing waves, and further exalting or dialoging with every thing has an effect on stage 😉 )
* I do not mind egos, just care about voice production. ❤
Vocal tips
When my artists send to me something to hear in which they push intentions and do not find it in the voice. Very often they still think doing something on the moment to produce the note, they still think singing is when heard. Singing is doing some things with your body and your imagination and emotions put into the body, the sound heard will be just in certain moments as a part made heard of this doing and not a pressing all together just in the moment you want to produce a sound. You produce a sound and a phrase and a movement inside and you just make it heard on the outside: sometimes entirely, often just fragments of that.
#cossuprogram second case Sister I., an organic damage solved
Sister I. entered my study program in june 2014. Sister I. had an important surgery to save her life, a thyroidectomy in october 2013. After she had problems with the voice, she could not easily speak, singing impossible. She used to sing in her convent, many times every day and also as a soloist. She had a beautiful clear and natural voice, not trained and had some stuttering when child. She had calcium levels very low and they remained low durign the program and after. Now she sings again and as soloist as if she had never had any voice problem.
Here the certificates with the diagnosis of hypomotility of the left vocal fold before logopedic treatment and still the same hypomotility after but but a good compensation gained, singing still impossible for her.
*01/28/2014 Tyrodectomy on october the 3rd 2013, since dysphonia, and slight dysphagia for liquids. Negate having other noteworthy patologies.
Fibrolaringoscopie: Normal cordal morfology. Hypomotility of left vocal fold. Inadequate compensation of the contralateral fold. Normal respiratory spaces. No smoking. Require a tenseabductive phoniatric treatment.
After logopedy * 06/06/2014 At current control it is confirmed the situation of hypomotility of the left vocal fold, good compensation of contralateral fold
It confirms the hypomotility of the left vocal folds but now a good compensation of the other side. She had very low calcium level from the operation till several months after the last certificate you found at the end.
After #cossuprogram. During she could get back singing every day and in some Those are her vocal folds in photo and stroboscopy after nine months since we stopped our work. No maintainance exercises, no further therapies. As nothing has never happened to the left fold. The certificate confirms that
* Fiber optic laryngoscopy: True vocal folds normal in morphology, slight hypomotility of the right vocal folds, slight hypertrophy in the posterior closure as for suspected reflux. Stroboscopy: regular vibration, simmetrical and of normal amplitude.
And since our work Sister I. sings every day and again as a soloist as before the surgery. In may 2017 Sister I. wrote me that she had been the soloist of the Litany of the Saints during a Solemn Profession in the Basilique of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Porziuncola (Assisi). As nothing never happened to her left vocal fold, joy.
We could make the left fold work again after three weeks and in the video is her voice the first meeting and after 5 weeks. Professionals will hear that there is a substantial difference, even if in a subtle way since it has to get some training back after one year and a half of hypomotility. You can hear the gain in the ring, a little glow on the sound, a more clear timbre that starts appearing. This to me is a truly important sign and telling me that the vocal folds start having a correct activity, I know it is the start of having after just to make the chord being trained. She could sing in a little celebration of Sandro Pertini Hospital one month after the end of the program.
Lucia Cossu vocal technique and breath expert 