Expanding the Singer’s ‘Box’ of Sounds
The singing voice can produce a remarkable variety of sounds. So why is it that the breadth of sounds made by many aspiring singers is so limited?
I have a theory.
And an analogy. (As some of my students can attest, I love a good analogy!)
The Speaker’s ‘Box’ of Language Sounds
Growing up, I was educated bilingually in English and French. As I moved through the high school then university levels, I also studied German, Spanish, and Hebrew. I earned an undergraduate degree in psychology and French (with a focus on literature and linguistics) from a bilingual university. I have always been fascinated by world languages, and learning them has always come easily to me.
When I was starting my family and planning to homeschool, I decided that I would raise my future children to be bilingual so that I could share the French language part of my culture with them and preserve it in me, (which proved to be easier said than done while living in an area where only English is spoken).
I did a lot of reading about multilingualism. Amongst the many fascinating things that I learned was that while all babies, no matter where in the world they’re born, start out perceiving and making the same sounds, by the age of six months, they begin to lose the ability to recognize and produce sounds that they don’t hear on a daily basis. This is a phenomenon called perceptual narrowing or perceptual reorganization. For practical reasons, the brain begins to filter out those “superfluous” language sounds that aren’t being used contrastively in their native language because they’re deemed unnecessary for the babies’ language development.
As a result, the sounds that infants and toddlers learn to make become ones that they can fit into a smaller “box” of potential language sounds that are available to them. Perceptual narrowing explains why it’s difficult, if not impossible, for some individuals to pronounce certain phonemes (speech sounds) not heard or used within their native tongue and why developing a perfect accent in a foreign language becomes increasingly less likely as they get older. If they don’t regularly hear those speech sounds around them from infancy, they don’t attempt to recreate them, so they eventually lose the ability to.
The Singer’s ‘Box’ of Vocal Sounds
Something similar happens in singing. We start out with vocal instruments that are capable of incredible variety in terms of dynamics, colours, textures, qualities, pitch, and range. They intuitively know how to coordinate to make an impressive array of healthy, vibrant sounds.
Then, somewhere along the way – whether as we’re forming our early speech habits or attempting to “train” our singing voices (into submission) – that broad collection of possible vocal sounds begins to shrink. Over time, we stop perceiving the sounds that we don’t hear regularly in the music that we listen to or have a regular use for in the music that we sing, as well as those that we deem “unacceptable” (either as a whole or within our preferred musical genre). We actively reject those sounds that we judge to be wrong, unpleasant, inferior, or impractical. Should we find ourselves accidentally making them again, they would sound alarmingly foreign to us.
As a result, we begin to play with a smaller set of sounds that can fit into a smaller “box” of technical and artistic options available to us – the “box” that holds the technically practical or stylistically “acceptable” sounds that we use on a regular basis in our singing.
By rejecting and eliminating certain sounds, however, we unwittingly limit ourselves as vocal technicians and artists.
It’s Time for a Bigger ‘Box’
For a time, we might convince ourselves that we’re satisfied with our limited collection of sounds. They serve their purpose, and we can “get by” with them.
Then one day, we might find ourselves yearning to produce a wider variety of colours, textures, dynamics, and pitches. Perhaps we desire to explore a different genre, or we realize that our diminished bevy of sounds is holding us back.
But we don’t remember how to vocally produce those sounds. After years of not making them, we forget how they should chime inside our heads and feel inside our bodies.
We might build up the courage to try to make some new or forgotten sounds but then immediately reject them. We might call them “wrong,” “terrible,” “embarrassing,” or “useless.” However, they may very well be the key to unlocking a whole new set of sounds and techniques that we can add to our collection – sounds that will enable us to sing with greater skill, emotion, and stylistic versatility.
Exploration is Key
One of my goals as a voice teacher is to help my students rediscover those sounds that they’ve stopped perceiving and making. I want them to begin making enough forgotten and neglected sounds that they’ll soon need a larger “box” to carry them all in.
As singers who want to create more vocal sounds, this is what we can do:
1. Listen actively to other singers who are making sounds that we appreciate and want to learn. When we’re wanting to learn to create new sounds, we need to actively listen for them and pick them out of the crowd of other sounds. Perception - awareness of the existence - of a given sound is the first step. It allows us to recognize and acknowledge the possibilities.
2. Mimic those sounds that we hear. Without overthinking it and without trying to consciously manipulate or micromanage the individual components of our instruments – (easier said than done, I realize) - we can listen to the other singer and immediately echo back what we hear. Just as babies and toddlers gain phonemic awareness and learn words by repeating after their speech models, singers can learn vocal sounds by repeating after our vocal models. We begin with a clear mental concept of the sound that we wish to produce, and that mental concept guides our physical instruments to adjust accordingly. The result of our early sound matching may (and likely will) be imperfect, especially if we consciously or unconsciously interfere with the instrument’s ability to coordinate effectively. However, we must be careful not to instantly reject the sound. Instead, we must listen for the potential within it. (Consider how, oftentimes, the words being spoken by a toddler can only be understood by the parents. Yet, with time and practice, the speech sounds become more differentiated, and articulation produces greater clarity.)
3. “Reverse engineer” the sound if we can. Sometimes, it isn’t enough to simply listen and attempt to recreate a given sound, quality, or technique; we would also benefit from some mindfulness and active learning. We may wish to try analyzing what the singer is doing functionally and technically. Which vocal register is the singer in (e.g., chest voice/M1 or head voice/M2)? Does the sound or quality have some “cackle,” “moan,” or “cry” in it? Is the vowel bright and “forward,” or is it dark and “back?” Is it speech-like or modified? “Does it sound “gritty” or “clean?” If it’s gritty, is it vocal fry that we’re hearing or some other distortion technique? Does the larynx sound low, neutral, or high? What are the elements of technique that are coming together to create that sound? Reverse engineering a vocal sound requires some understanding of technique and how the vocal instrument functions.
4. Make primal sounds. Primal sounds – crying, sobbing, sighing, moaning, groaning, growling - have the power to functionally unlock our voices and add an extra layer of emotion to our singing. They’re sounds that might be found deep in the bottom of our “boxes” because we don’t access them often for singing purposes, but they are nonetheless useful, (even though they may not sound pretty). Oftentimes, if we listen analytically to the sounds that our vocal models are creating, we can hear elements of primal sounds at their core.
5. Don’t judge our execution of the new sound prematurely. We probably won’t create those forgotten and neglected sounds perfectly the first – or the fiftieth - time. We first need to evaluate the underdeveloped sounds that we’re making from the perspective of function (coordination) and ask ourselves if we’re on the right track functionally. Then, we need to allow those sounds time to develop further. Just like learning a new language - or any new skill - we must experiment, make adjustments, and practice mindfully (i.e., with focus, intention, and body awareness). If we give up on them too soon, we may be depriving our voices of options that could prove useful and liberating.
6. See where we can practice using the sound in the context of vocal phrases and songs. Once we have developed some ability to make the sound, quality, or technique that we’re learning, we need to find opportunities to use it and develop it further. We can start with the song in which we initially heard it then find other places where it might make artistic sense to apply it. This is the stage in which we begin to think more like artists equipped with a new brush stroke technique, medium, or paint colour.
I find that one of the hardest things for many singers to do is give themselves permission to make unfamiliar sounds… and resist the urge to reject them immediately if they’re imperfect or unpleasant. They’re so uncomfortable with the idea of “sounding bad,” especially in front of others, that they refuse to allow themselves to take calculated risks as vocal technicians and artists. They cling tightly to their “boxes” because the contents are familiar and “safe,” even though they’re limiting.
If there is something deep inside us that’s begging for more variety and versatility in our singing so that we’ll be able to express ourselves more fully, we need to give ourselves permission to explore. Let’s make ugly, weird, and forgotten sounds without apology. In so doing, we’ll begin to rediscover the unrestrained voices that we were born with. And our “boxes” of available sounds will begin to overflow.