[Matt Pocock]

Ideally both – the yawn for the relaxation and the twang for the phonation! And very low-effort twang: a mosquito sound at most.

[Matt Pocock]

Hey guys, it’s the rasp that’s causing the hurt! Any quality, be it breathiness or rasp, that a student can’t turn off spells trouble, especially one like that. I always say to students that ‘We love the rasp, but we don’t want it on by default because it narrows our options.’ It’s caused, as Chris said, by the over pushing of air through the glottis, causing the vocal folds to whack together with too much force, causing oedema and inflammation. I’d advise using light ‘twang’ exercises to get him phonating without any breathiness, then make that healthy sound the default.

[Matt Pocock]

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

[Matt Pocock]

IVA does look great, actually – we should organise a group field trip to an event:)

[Matt Pocock]

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!