[Kat Hunter]

Hey Lily, just listened to the recordings!

On a side note, I ended up taking on my own hoarse/scratchy voiced student. She said she had bad acid reflux, which was probably the cause, but it was causing her enough problems that I decided to send her to an ENT before seeing her again. It might be nothing, but it’s always better to be safe than sorry with this kind of stuff.

But anyway, on to your student, it doesn’t sound like there are any serious problems to me. The scratchiness is only light, and could just be allergies or a minor irritation. But the air-escapage, that’s something different. And that’s definitely the thing you want to address.

So basically, the gist of it is that she is not connecting to her chest voice or “modal voice”. You can hear this from the breathy “heady” sound of her voice throughout the range, and also in her tendency to be slightly sharp (it sounds like she’s hovering down to the note from above at times). This is unsurprising for an operatically trained singer. In opera, female sopranos are often not taught about chest voice at all and are not even asked to sing below C4, which becomes functionally problematic in the long term (especially if they want to sing contemporary music, which is much more chest dominant).

If you’re wondering how to correct this, you could start with speaky sounds or twangy sounds from the bottom, on a /nae/ sound, for example. I remember Matt Pocock posted a blog about this some time ago, but really, register habilitation and balancing is the work of Bel Canto (IVA, SLS, etc.). If you’d ever like a quick lesson with me to talk about chest voice/head voice balancing, let me know :). If you’d like some reading material, one of my favourite pedagogues in this area is Cornelius Reid, and you’ll find some free articles on his website- http://www.corneliuslreid.com/ . I also LOVE a book called The Naked Voice by Stephen Smith, which features a beautiful way to introduce the registers using natural speaking sounds, and includes a cd for exercise examples, which is very helpful.

Hope that sets you on the right track!

[Kat Hunter]

Hmm it’s hard to recommend exercises without hearing it. Definitely try getting a recording :).
It’s not unusual for high notes to be breathy, but hissy/raspy sounds like something different all together. I’m not sure what though without hearing!
Lack of fold closure will cause breathiness in the tone, but not any kind of abrasiveness – that’s something else.

Although at the end of the day, fold closure is not reaaally helped that much with the straw exercise or with VVVs etc. As these are semi-occluded sounds they’re more rehabilitative rather than strengthening. If you want to strengthen and thin the folds out, the best way is probably using a bratty/witchy sound.

Just make sure there’s no uncomfortability/pain going on with her voice – you wouldn’t want it to be an injury. And at the end of the day, if you’re not sure, or there’s any doubt, don’t hesitate to send her off to an ENT, just so both of you can have peace of mind.

[Kat Hunter]

PS. Is there any glugginess as well? Does she often clear her throat or feel the need to?

[Kat Hunter]

Hey Lily, would love to hear a recording of this so I can get a feel for what’s going on.
Is it happening across the entirety of her range or is it worse on some specific notes?

[Kat Hunter]

Glad to be of help. Or “no wuckas” as we say down south:)