Alright, alright! All you guys snickering in the back of the classroom knock it off! It’s not what you’re thinking. This article is about singing so you can go back to sleep and wait for the bell to ring. For the rest of you, pay attention and you will learn a few things about the mechanism that helps us make the noises between the notes that define the difference between vocal and instrumental music otherwise known as language. If you are interested in singing more effectively, writing better songs or producing better vocal tracks hang in there with me. This could get boring.

During my 30 plus years teaching voice I’ve had some interesting students with challenging goals. The inspiration for this article comes from an actor who recently asked me to help him speak English with a Viennese accent. During 2008 I produced Two bands from Austria, ConFused5 and Solidtube and since both bands performed in English I had some work to do in accent eradication with these artists. Coaching an American actor to adopt a convincing Austrian accent seemed at first just a matter of reverse engineering or getting him to do what I taught the Austrian singers not to do. During the process I realized that it’s really all about consonants and the difference between voiced and un-voiced consonants is a subject over which all too few singers have mastery.

For the purpose of this discussion, I will loosely define vowel sounds as music and consonants as noise. These noises can be a hiss, a short burst of air under various degrees of pressure and can be created in various areas of the mouth. For the untrained performer consonants can be the worst enemy in attempting to sing intelligibly and effectively but an understanding of how they are created can make them a singer’s best friend when it comes to executing difficult and sometimes poorly written passages. Many young songwriters compose what seems to be a pleasing melody and cobble together some verses which rhyme admirably but come up short when it comes to ease of singing. Great songs, those which great singers love to sing, are written by songwriters who understand, either by instinct or education, how to place sounds in areas of singer’s range with a minimum of booby traps.

Cross section of the mouth

Voiced and un-voiced consonants come in pairs or partners which are made by the same mechanical method. Whenever I work with a student in describing how consonants are made I ask, “What two pieces of meat are you slapping together to make that nose?” Let’s start with a hard ‘K’ sound. The ‘K’ is made by closing the back of the mouth. The back of the tongue rises slightly to meet the tip of the soft palette or uvula which you will recognize as the punching bag hanging in a cartoon character’s mouth when he screams. Air pressure is built up in the throat and released as the closure is opened suddenly resulting in a hard ‘K’ noise. There is no noticeable pitch. When the vocal cords are engaged as the closure is released the the resulting sound is a hard ‘G’ as in god or dog. The difference between the voiced and unvoiced versions of the same mechanical process allows us to tell the difference between a deity and a codfish and a canine or a physician.

Now let’s take a look at the ‘T’ sound. What pieces of meat or bone do you use and how do you use them to make a ‘T’ sound? The tip of the tongue comes into contact with the roof of the mouth just behind the upper teeth. Build up a little air pressure, release it by dropping the tongue and Voila (that’s French for Ta-dah). The release of are pressure results in a ‘T’ sound which is no more than the noise of escaping air under pressure. Engage the vocal cords simultaneously and you will create the ‘D’ sound or “Duh.” Once again to illustrate the importance of these sounds to clear language, substituting voiced for unvoiced sounds at either end of our previous example, our god can become got, cod or cot and our dog can become completely unintelligible.

Before I go into why this is so important and how it can save a singer from gagging let’s take a quick look at the other pairs of voiced and un-voiced sounds. The ‘P’ sound (you in the back, stop your giggling) is produced by releasing air pressure behind the lips. Add pitch and the ‘P’ becomes a ‘B’ sound. ‘F’ is made by air escaping from the slight opening between the lower teeth and upper lip. add pitch and the ‘F’ becomes ‘V’ as in love. Ever notice how a native German speaker pronounces “Love” as “Luff” and “we” as “vee?” The sibilant ‘S’ sound is made by air escaping through an opening formed by the tongue in the same general area as in the ‘T’ sound. Sustain the hiss and add pitch to produce the voiced ‘Z’ sound. Mastering the correct mechanics of the ‘S’ has actually helped me coach a lisp right out of a singer’s repertoire.

How then, do we use this knowledge to our best singing advantage? One might think that the un-voiced consonants present the most difficulty in singing a legato line but this is in error. It’s the voiced sounds that cause the most problems in sustaining pitch and also in singing intervalic leaps accurately. When singing a lyric like “My dog begs for his dinner” on one sustained pitch many singers will fall into the trap of singing only the vowels and dropping the level of support needed to sustain the line at the points where the consonants interrupt the flow of pitch. Looking just at the word “begs” for a moment we see that the initial ‘B’ sound is a voiced consonant so support must be maintained and the ‘B’ must be produced on the same pitch as the vowels surrounding it. Otherwise there will be a noticeable scoop in pitch. The voiced ‘G’ followed by the voiced version of S (sounded ‘Z’) at the end of the word “begs” must also be supported or the pitch will fall off and interrupt the line connecting “begs” with “for.” Careful examination reveals that these six words contain eight pitfalls for the inexperienced vocalist. Only the ‘F’ in “for” and the ‘H’ in “his” allow for an interruption in pitch.

Most American kids can sing “My Bonny lies over the ocean” so I’ll use the phrase to illustrate how knowledge of mouth mechanics can cure scoops or slides when approaching intervalic leaps. In the key of C the word “My” is sung on G and the first syllable of “Bonny” is sung on the E above at the interval of a Major 6th. Since the ‘B’ in the word “Bonny” is a voiced sound it must have pitch.If the singer falls into the habit of not sustaining support through the consonants the ‘B’ will resemble a spoken sound at some random pitch and the singer will have to scoop or slide up through the interval finally landing on the E. In order to sing the interval accurately, the ‘B’ sound must be approached as actually having the same pitch as the vowel which follows it. This is just one small example from a dumb little children’s song so you can imagine how many exist in songs you might be singing every day.

I have said in the past that singers should not allow themselves to be thought of as the least capable musicians on the stage or in the studio. One of the most effective things any vocalist can do to raise their level of musicianship is to study their material, recognize potential road hazards, make notations and address those areas that can be executed more musically. Singers who are also songwriters should be especially aware of composing potentially difficult passages that could, with a little effort, be written more effectively. Singing should be expressive, emotional and relevant. Knowledge shouldn’t take away from this but should enhance a singer’s ability to communicate with an audience. Sometimes a scoop here, a dip there and a slide up or down is just what a song needs. But just as a singer like Joni Mitchell uses the break between head and chest voice for intentional effects, so too should every vocalist develop their particular style according with intent and not because of limitations in technique and knowledge.

Okay, you guys in the back of the room can wake up and go home. Class is over.

Building an effective vocal track is essential to any recording whether it is a writing demo, a demo intended to showcase an artist, or a finished master. Re-reading the last sentence I realize I’ve stated the painfully obvious, but the truth is that the painfully obvious can become the painfully impossible to accomplish when putting theory into practice. One of the most useful tools in building a great vocal is the instrumental track itself and here are a few tips on how to use it effectively.

Singers can be the laziest of musicians. They have no buttons to push, no keys to depress, no strings to strum and no finger positions to learn. And, in the case of my protege Theo, pictured above, they sometimes learn their craft without the aid of opposing thumbs. They just open their mouths and “Thar she blows!” Singers can hit the ground running whereas instrumentalists have to master a modicum of physical tasks before they can make anything resembling music. Unfortunately, and as is usually the case, the easier it is to get started, the less one is likely to work out the details that result in masterful technique. A reasonably competent singer can hear a melody and recreate it immediately without ever having to learn the rudiments of musical notation. But it’s been my experience that any vocal performance can be improved upon by fine-tuning the grossly ignored apparatus protruding at opposite poles of the cranium known as the ears.

A vocal performance, unless performed a capella, must exist in relation to the instrumental track. In building an arrangement, we normally take great pains to build a track from the bottom up. We align the bass and kick drum parts rhythmically as well as sonically and all the subsequent instrumental parts have unique relationships with the bottom end. Consequently, it makes a lot of sense to make the bottom end the focal point when working on a vocal as well.

When I was in school studying voice, I spent days, hours and years learning all the usual technical exercises, sat through hours of students wrestling Italian songs to the ground and reading every book on the “science of singing” that I could get my hands on. Soon I was giving lessons on my own and one day I made a great discovery that had not been addressed in my formal education. I had just moved house and my piano was too horribly out of tune to give a lesson. During my time in Vienna, Nikolaus Harnoncourt had used a small cello to teach us vocal lines. Well, if it was good enough for him, who was I to quibble? The nearest thing at hand was my old Jazz bass so I started to vocalize my student, a competent soprano, using my bass as accompaniment.

I was surprised to find that she had trouble matching pitch with notes played two octaves lower than those to which she was accustomed! Up to that point, I had always played exercises in the same octave they were to be sung but this was really interesting to me. Student after student, I found that singing in relation to the bass was completely out of the comfort zone. Applying this discovery to pop songs, I found a parallel in the songs of Franz Schubert. Schubert often shifted between major and minor keys and sometimes omitted the third of the chord from the accompaniment. This left the singer completely responsible for the quality of the chord. If singers aren’t focused on the bottom end the intonation will suffer.

Many pop vocal tracks are recorded with the aide of guide tracks which lay out the melody. When the guide track is not used, the singer usually relates to piano, strings or perhaps guitar lines that lie in the range of the vocal line. Although reasonably effective on the surface, I don’t think that guide tracks or instrumental cues go far enough in giving the singer a focused image of where to lay the vocal. After all, if you really want to play guitar like Jimi or Eric, listen to them, but study and play close attention to the music and players that influenced them. Applying that same logic, rather than just listening to parts built upon and influenced by the bottom end, why not go to the source and build the vocal on the same foundation.

So, here are some helpful household hints. When I record basic tracks, I always like to have the singer lay a guide track for reference and to give the band some inspiration. And who knows? Sometimes you catch a break and get a performance that turns out to be a keeper. Then, when it’s time to start working on the vocal, I might warm up the singer at the piano just to make some sounds and get comfortable. I might move over to guitar and play either exercises or song fragments to get one foot out of the comfort zone and acclimate the vocalist to something a little different. And finally, without lecture or purpose, I’ll just casually pick up the bass and continue to work in a very relaxed way. Without having to think, the singer has become comfortable singing to a completely new set of references.

When I set up the vocal session, I will start by letting the singer decide what should be in the headphones. I try hard to remove any time constraints or pressure from the session as these always end up costing more time than they are worth. I’ll run the song, always recording, as many times as it takes to get the singer comfortable. And then, when it’s time to go for keepers, I’ll start to thin out the upper instruments. I’ll put the bass up a bit more than what a final mix might be and also get the kick drum in there big and fat.

Getting the bottom end dominant in the cue mix is not a matter of sheer volume. I want the singer to be influenced by the bottom end without having to think. I’ll play with equalizers so the kick is warm and comfortable and not loud and snappy as it might be in a live floor monitor. The idea is to replace the upper register comfort zone with something rhythmically solid yet warm and comfortable. If the upper parts are too prominent, the vocal can get lost in the mix. The usual tactic is to turn up the vocal, then crank up some keyboards for pitch reference, then try to fight through the frequencies and turn up the vocal some more. With the bottom end as the focal point of the cue mix, there is less for the singer to fight through. When the pulse is felt more than heard, the singer will tend to sing more in tune with the foundation of the track.

A welcome side effect is that the vocal will find a more comfortable relationship with the rhythm of the track. When a singer struggles to cop a feel, the result can be close but often uncomfortable. Over-thinking tends to be constrictive to feel. By creating an audio environment in which the vocalist can perform instinctively on a more primal wavelength you may find that the finished vocal performance will even inspire you to revisit some of the upper parts.

To summarize, singers should practice and become accustomed to listening to the bottom end. Singing teachers should address the ears of their students as well as the singing apparatus and spend some time accompanying exercises in lower octaves. And if you are working with a singer at any level of recording, try building the vocal from the bottom up. The results might surprise you.

It was the summer of 1968. My parents, having seen “The Sound of Music,” had saved for the better part of a year in order to alleviate their homesickness and make the journey back to Salzburg to visit my grandparents for the summer. It was a summer of milestones for all of us. My father had only flown in an aircraft once before and for my mother the 14 hour journey would be her first experience away from terra firma. The trip would ultimately prove to be the last time my father would see his parents alive. We had also hoped to visit with my great-grandmother, known to me as “Wolfgang Omi” and my god-father, Ludwig. Sadly, they had passed within days of our departure and our visit was limited to planting fuscias on their new graves.

For me, the summer was a time of discovery. I was 15 years old, about 6′5” and looked at least 20 so there was nothing off limits. After a cup of my grandmother’s coffee, my first discovery of the summer and the beginning of a life-long addiction to the sort of coffee that turns spoons into forks, I would head out into the city on foot. I was alone and could do as I liked, go where it pleased me to and linger over whatever caught my interest. I became particularly enamored of the Mirabell Garden. The idea that this formal baroque garden, with its fountains, statuary and manicured flower beds was once someone’s back yard impressed me. So regardless of where my fact-finding mission of the day took me, a portion of the afternoon was spent sitting on a bench fantasizing that this was mine and those enjoying the garden were there by the grace of my benevolent nature. My usual perch turned out to be just under the open windows of the Mozarteum and the sounds of practicing singers and musicians pouring out into the garden air became the “first hit” of the second addiction I acquired that summer.

Up to that time I had been sitting on the fence between being a basketball star and becoming a world-famous musician. I was fifteen and had that curious combination of confidence and inherent laziness that marks that age. Sitting in the garden I decided that music had to be an easier way to get girls than sweating in a gym and my fate was sealed. I decided to study at the Mozarteum. The last thing that occurred to me as I made up my mind was that I would have to actually learn something. Sitting in my personal garden I was convinced that the music world was waiting to strew my path with flower petals.

Flash forward and thirty years of reality have not dimmed my ambition of entering the Mozarteum. This spring I produced the “Out Of Confusion” album for the Salzburg band, ConFused5. Herbert Hopfgartner is a multi instrumentalist, composer and one of the two talented lead singers in the group. During the recording of the album we discovered that we had a lot in common and subsequently, Herbert’s wife Regina Hopfgartner, a teacher of vocal pedagogy at the Mozarteum, asked if I would have interest in teaching a workshop for singers at the school. I played hard to get for a nano-second and accepted the invitation on any terms and at all cost. We decided that it would be a workshop aimed at singing students with a classical background and training but who wanted to sing pop and rock material. As Herbert is more adept at interpreting these styles than the average school accompanist, he graciously offered to lend his fingers to the project.

The workshop was attended by a wide variety of students and a few faculty members as well. As I scanned the room I saw that the teachers were all in the back row and imagined they might have been thinking, “Okay hotshot, show us something we don’t already know!” I could not have been more wrong. After a short introduction, I brought the first victim to the front of the room.

My chief aim for the workshop was to prove the value of keeping an open mind, When I went to school, and what eventually drove me to leave the academic environment behind, was the close-minded attitude of my teachers and the manner in which they used their authority to foster the same prejudicial tastes in their students. I respect teachers for their learning and for the work that they do. But I have a great deal more respect for students because of the work they have yet to do. Teachers are already plying their trade, they have made their choices and are living their lives accordingly. But students are a blank page waiting for the words to be written. “What shall I do?” and “How shall I proceed?” are questions yet to be asked intelligently.

And so, given my rebellious nature, I had no qualms about instructing the students on more than one occasion to forget everything they have learned in school, if only for the next few hours. The reaction from the faculty members was not at all what I expected. The questions they asked and their welcoming attitude toward me demonstrated a willingness to learn something new and a genuine effort to give their students a different viewpoint and perhaps some tools they didn’t know were in the toolbox.

The most common impediment we encountered was fear. Most of these singers had excellent voices and good technique. What was missing in their performances was intent. The notes were correct, their diction and enunciation were, with a few adjustments, acceptable. But when attempting to sing anything contemporary they delivered data and not music. Years of learning technical exercises don’t yield an end product. They are meant to teach the body to respond in the most natural way to what is required. I have yet to see a poster advertising Gabriella Sans-Corazon in a program of vocal exercises. In working with these singers I attempted to take them out of their comfort zone. I asked them to describe what their song means and what they wished to convey to the audience other than “My, what a lovely vibrato, or, Doesn’t she stand with good posture?”

There were some corrections to make in the area of what I call Vocal Architecture. And there was the baritone who was trying to sing a song that had a high ‘G’ and I could see in his eyes that he knew it was coming and he also had a plan ‘B’ which he availed himself of every time. Apparently this singer had not heard of Leonard Warren, the great American baritone who sang the sort of high ‘B’-flat that made tenors look into their trousers to see if the twins were really all they were supposed to be. I asked the young man what his highest note was. He told me ‘E’ was about it. And I observed also that he was very sure about this and that it was based on many hours of training. Yep, ‘E’ was it and then he had to go into his head voice. So I took him to the piano and vocalized him a bit. I went up to ‘F’ sharp and he had no problem at all. But as soon as I told him that he had sung a, ‘F’ sharp he folded again. I explained to him the importance of not caring how the note is named. And if he could sing an ‘F’ sharp freely, then a ‘G’ was nothing to worry about. It’s like being a receiver in football. How many times do we see a tough pass go off of a wide receivers fingertips? But if you can touch the ball, you should also be able to catch the ball with just a fraction more effort. This baritone had told himself that a ‘G’ was too high, and as long as he believes himself, it will be out of his range. No amount of exercising will change that belief. He already has the note, he’s just afraid of disobeying his own instructions and just letting it out.

The two days were heaven for me. And I want to thank the students for their attention, the teachers for their warm welcome, Herbert for putting up with me and providing expert accompaniment and finally, Regina Hopfgartner for making a thirty-year-old dream come true for me…even if I did come through the back door.There isn’t anything I love more than seeing young musicians step out of themselves and be who they really are, not who they think their teachers want them to be. And to freely express themselves without regard for what they think is right and wrong. Because there really isn’t a right or wrong in the arts. There is only “I dig it” and “I dig it not.”