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Can Anyone Help With This? (Singing Teachers)
Guys can anyone help with this? A student of mine has been consistently breathy.. She never practises but.. She has had her tonsils out and a tounge tie. It was like her vocal chords wernt connecting.. I kind of thought she wanted this sound and just didn’t want to listen to me in regards to singing in her chest voice.. Although after going to the Estill voice training thing I thought I better send her to the ENT thing as I had done with a smoker singer in the past which turns out a good job I did. So here is the letter which explains about her left vocal chord being offline and causing a persistent “glottic chink” any help advice will be useful thanks I have removed her full name from the letter xxxx
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11 Replies
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I heard about this posterior glottal chink at a conference a few weeks ago. It basically means that part of the glottis is held open while singing/speaking so that the sound carries an aspirate quality with it. Think Ray Lamontagne, Norah Jones.
How old is she? I have heard that this glottal chink can be a common occurence in adolescent and teenage singers.
Lots of work on thick/thin folds, getting away from ‘stiff folds’ (which I’m not a fan of in terms of defining breathiness, there are several ways of being breathy!) and onto a fuller resonant sound should do her good. The adduction exercises that the ENT suggests are likely to be very simple and not quite suitable for the physical demands of singing – I’d give her your own that include range and connection with the breath.
Hope this helps!
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yes I have a few young teenage girls that I can’t work out weather they are choosing to sing that way or if its a breathiness they can’t help amazing thanks matt, what specific warm ups would you suggest, & where can I do further research into these types of things?
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I’d suggest some vocal fry and some coup de glotte style exercises (using an onset that’s somewhere between balanced and glottal), if you feel confident using these. That onset is really important as it might help get the interarytenoids going, (a weakness in interarytenoids is usually what causes posterior chink. Often what’s going on is that the lateral cricoarytenoids are doing their job but the IAs aren’t). As Matt suggests, some lower pitch, thick folds exercises will help too.
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Wow thanks Kat that’s so useful I need to do some more studying I think, I have tried doing lower pitch exercises she seems to really struggle with the lower notes so il have to go gently with those I think – what vocal courses resources could you both recommend? I attended the Estill voice training day recently I’m looking for some more?x
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I might be biased, but I’ve been a part of IVA (http://vocaladvancement.com) for a few years now, and I think it’s second to none in terms of preparing teachers with the knowledge they need to confidently address vocal issues. I’m not so up to date with the UK events these days, but I’m pretty sure there’s some masterclasses happening up there in June. Look it up 🙂
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Brilliant! Thanks Kat!
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IVA does look great, actually – we should organise a group field trip to an event 🙂
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We really really should 🙂
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Actually the next event is May 31st
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Fun fact from Christina Shewell’s book: Voice Work. “Söderstern (1994) found that 82% of the young women whom she examined, and 61% of the older women, had this posterior glottal chink.” (171)6
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thanks matt annie will appreciate that, I really would like to attend the masterclass, but I’ve not long got back from the estil training day so i’ll have a think! thanks for sharing!!